Meteors

[Ryal]

In a secluded, desolate, and undeveloped region like the northern Canadian wilderness in which The Long Dark takes place, there is very little light pollution- especially since some kind of global geomagnetic disaster seems to have knocked out all of the electricity.

Therefore, it's not far-fetched to assume that we would see a great number of shooting stars in the sky during the night, which I think would add a nice subtle touch of realism and beauty to the game.

Perhaps just two or three random meteors of varying brightness and duration per in-game hour between 2100 and 0400 would be sufficient.

[Orwell 1984]

http://cdn.meme.am/instances/55173999.jpg

[toebar]

fun idea--not that I have spent much time outside at night so far....

[Seshins]

would love this.

[JErosion]

Or if the map is a large one you could be woken up in the middle of the night by a sudden rumble... was it an earthquake or aftershock? was it a meteor... or a satellite falling to earth... maybe a quick and dirty source of scrap metal

[conjohn9]

Or if the map is a large one you could be woken up in the middle of the night by a sudden rumble... was it an earthquake or aftershock? was it a meteor... or a satellite falling to earth... maybe a quick and dirty source of scrap metal

Suddenly...ALIENS! But fear not as the meteor also brought with it the venom symbiote, giving you new powers with which to fight the aliens.

But in all seriousness, that's a neat ambient idea. A shooting star or two every now and then wouldn't be amiss. Maybe the story mode will reveal some sort of meteoric involvement with the geomagnetic disaster.

[Loppysaurusrex]

Or if the map is a large one you could be woken up in the middle of the night by a sudden rumble... was it an earthquake or aftershock? was it a meteor... or a satellite falling to earth... maybe a quick and dirty source of scrap metal

Honestly this wouldn't happen that often in real life so I feel like it would break immersion.

[Orwell 1984]

Or if the map is a large one you could be woken up in the middle of the night by a sudden rumble... was it an earthquake or aftershock? was it a meteor... or a satellite falling to earth... maybe a quick and dirty source of scrap metal

Honestly this wouldn't happen that often in real life so I feel like it would break immersion.

Here you can see how many satellites are out there, it is actually the earths satellite ring (so yes our planet have a ring)

http://www.universetoday.com/42198/how- ... -in-space/

Those are all will be cooked when the solar activity reaches the levels mentioned in the story.

[toebar]

that doesn't mean they will fall from the sky

[The_Hawk35]

Pretty much every satellite we have up there when they fail will crash to earth. Only the VERY VERY few at high earth orbit might escape.

[ChillPlayer]

I don't see why a geomagnetic disaster would alter a satellites orbit. Orbit is established by accelerating a mass to a velocity where it practically "falls" around the planet. To have a satellite crash into earth you would have to put the same amount of energy in reverse direction so that the orbits' periapsis is placed on or in earth. Sure LEO (low earth orbit) spy satellites might be eventually dragged back to the earth without periodically re-adjusting the orbit by commands from earth, but this may take years if you don't put reverse energy into it's orbit.

And even then, most satellites are not made to reenter orbit, they will melt down in the athmosphere. Which would make for a lot of shooting stars but hardly any part would hit the ground. If some parts would make it through, chances that a part that survived the ride comes down in Canada are even lower, because there's no sense to make a LEO over Canada, LE orbits usually follow the equator with earth's rotation.

If you're interested in this topic I can highly recommend the free space simulator "orbiter" or, with a slightly less emphasis on orbiting, Kerbal Space Program

[JErosion]

I was just tossing it out there without any real seriousness to it, however...

solar flares knock fry satellites all of the time, part of what helps protect them is the earth magnetic field, and if the mysterious geomagnetic event that is spoken of in the game is a pole reversal... all that protection will be gone... the instruments that correct the position of those satellites wont be working... and while most of whats out there wont drop down to earth... its the satellites that are in Low Earth Orbit that will fall first. and they just dont orbit the equator. This is where weather and spy satellites usually orbit.

Catalog of Earth Satellite Orbits

[Orwell 1984]

If somebody will tell me once again, how stupid is playing games, I will bring this up as an example to finish them off.

Thank you for participating in my ultimate fatality combo.

Especially thanks for the Catalog of Earth Satellite Orbits by JErosion.

I just find it really funny that we play a game that have totally nothing to do with satellites but we can talk about satellite orbits, actually related to the game

[ChillPlayer]

I was just tossing it out there without any real seriousness to it, however...

solar flares knock fry satellites all of the time, part of what helps protect them is the earth magnetic field, and if the mysterious geomagnetic event that is spoken of in the game is a pole reversal... all that protection will be gone... the instruments that correct the position of those satellites wont be working... and while most of whats out there wont drop down to earth... its the satellites that are in Low Earth Orbit that will fall first. and they just dont orbit the equator. This is where weather and spy satellites usually orbit.

Catalog of Earth Satellite Orbits

for some reason I was thinking this morning that polar satellites will always be in MEO or HEO and therefor are not relevant to the discussion - well obviously this is wrong :lol:

The solar flares mess with the electronic of the satellites, they don't make it deaccelerate until it crashes into earth - unless of course it messed with the electronics in a way that the satellite receives the command to deorbit, which is not completely impossible but highly unlikely. They don't need to correct their course continously, I didn't have the exact period present but the link you posted mentions 2-3 corrections per year unless temporal high solar activity forces to add more corrections.

To bring this back to TLD: let's assume this happend all, massive solaris flares, earth magnetic field gone (reversal takes several thousand years), satellites electronics all fryed. It would take months for satellites to get dragged back to earth, but when we start the game we begin immediately after the crash of our plane that happend due to this strange disaster. The timeframe simply does not add up to see falling satellites in the sky, at least not for the first 150 days or so.

Then, maybe (I really don't have the calculations for this) we might see some satellites reentering the athmosphere. If they make it to the ground is a different story. To me, falling satellites sound more like a hollywood vision of a "geomagnetic disaster", not something that would actually happen.

But... This thread was initially started about meteors and we should see at least 1 shooting star per hour. When I'm out with my telescope I see meteors through the whole night, not as many as during a shower but every night some particles (ususally just a few mm in size) burn up visually in the athmosphere. It would be nice to see one from time to time in the game, if only so we can wish to make it safely home without a wolf attack

And - for the satellites freaks - you see alot of satellites move through the sky, just watch out for a slow moving, not blinking star, it's usually a satellite. We should see some of them too in the game.

[EDIT] oh I forgot: we have auroras in the game therefor there's still a magentic field (or particles wouldn't be charged up to interact with the athmosphere). So the geomagnetic desaster must be indeed a strange one

[Renegade30]

The solar flares mess with the electronic of the satellites, they don't make it deaccelerate until it crashes into earth - unless of course it messed with the electronics in a way that the satellite receives the command to deorbit, which is not completely impossible but highly unlikely. They don't need to correct their course continously, I didn't have the exact period present but the link you posted mentions 2-3 corrections per year unless temporal high solar activity forces to add more corrections.

Most satellites on earth have decaying orbits due to the 'wobble' mainly caused by the gravitational effects of the moon but also uneven gravity over the surface of the earth. It would be quite plausible to have several satellites come crashing down to earth every few months after an initial year or so of no orbital corrections.

EDIT

To bring this back to TLD: let's assume this happend all, massive solaris flares, earth magnetic field gone (reversal takes several thousand years), satellites electronics all fryed. It would take months for satellites to get dragged back to earth, but when we start the game we begin immediately after the crash of our plane that happend due to this strange disaster. The timeframe simply does not add up to see falling satellites in the sky, at least not for the first 150 days or so.

Just on this comment. We don't know for sure that the geomagnetic disaster happened at the same time of the plane crash. If it had, why is the entire place deserted and dead bodies everywhere so soon? It's my thinking that electronics can still work partially. For example, electricity would still work, however semiconductors are not likely to work if there is enough inductance in the circuit for geomagnetics to have damaged the semiconductors with high voltages. It is possible that if the circuit is shielded, on the board or otherwise, the circuit could be undamaged by the storm, at least initially. This makes me think that the plane crash actually takes place several weeks after the initial disaster.

Hmm I might start a thread on this

[ChillPlayer]

It would be quite plausible to have several satellites come crashing down to earth every few months after an initial year or so of no orbital corrections.

which is exactly what I said, after 150 days or so some satellites might crash down

The reason I think that the event must have just occured when we start a new game is simple, it says so in the beginning:

A mysterious geomagnetic storm has brought your plane crashing down into the Northern Canadian wilderness

And given the state our character is in when the game starts, I think the crash just happend a few moments ago, certainly not 3 months ago. As for the rest you are asking (dead bodies everywhere and so on) I think we have to wait for the story mode to reveal the reason for this.

TL;DR: The game tells us that the disaster just happend and therefor satellites will continue to orbit the earth for at least a few more months before we see them falling out of the sky.

[Hitchhiker]

Or if the map is a large one you could be woken up in the middle of the night by a sudden rumble... was it an earthquake or aftershock? was it a meteor... or a satellite falling to earth... maybe a quick and dirty source of scrap metal

That was the very first thing I thought of when I saw "meteors", something falling to earth, perhaps a satellite falls and is spread across the countryside you have to look for parts and scrap metal to use. Just even having those shooting stars from time to time would be awesome.

[Seshins]

Or if the map is a large one you could be woken up in the middle of the night by a sudden rumble... was it an earthquake or aftershock? was it a meteor... or a satellite falling to earth... maybe a quick and dirty source of scrap metal

That was the very first thing I thought of when I saw "meteors", something falling to earth, perhaps a satellite falls and is spread across the countryside you have to look for parts and scrap metal to use. Just even having those shooting stars from time to time would be awesome.

I think any shooting stars in the game should remain just that, for immersion and beauty perhaps? My limited understanding of oribtal dynamics suggest it highly unlikley satellites would burn up through orbital decay for quite some time.

Also unless you had every meteor(ite) landing within the game world blatantly as a piece of space junk, you would be hard pressed to explain to the player the concept of "that shooting star looks like a shooting star but is actually a satallite re entering the earths atmosphere because of reasons" you know?

[togg]

+1 for this. Shooting stars should be added without thinking twice. They're beautiful, they happen all the time. They would add something special to the upper part of the game.