ELEX Solar System

I checked and the sun set in the east. That's OK - some planets do that. A nice touch, really.

Then I watched the moon. YOW! I can see it spinning and another moon spinning around that moon. But the moon doesn't move across the sky!! It could be a massive coincidence but I think it's more likely that the body I'm on is tidally locked with it - which means the thing I'm standing on is actually the smaller body and that "moon" is the main planet!

That tiny moon circling the barren planet seems to orbit once every couple of minutes. That thing must be really close to the planet. The moon the game takes place on isn't exactly crawling, either, rotating around every few hours.

I need to keep my eyes on that sky more. Seems like there should be a lot more eclipses happening…

(I really hope this is a case of famed German attention to detail and not just a case of the developers running out of time before they could get the moon to move across the sky.)

Nice observation. I wouldn't even have paid attention to this. Hopefully I remember when I start playing.

Can't be sure that you're on the smaller body, though. The larger body in the system can become tidally locked to the smaller, too.

I remember having a nice, long look at the night sky one evening when I was trundling across a vast dessert. Then I got jumped by some very angry mutants/thugs, and promptly forgot about my nocturnal viewings.

Woah, nice find. I wonder if this is planned or just a graphical thing? It sounds planned actually. Would be really cool if this played a part at some point.

The "moon" *DOES* move, but rather slowly. If it's in the west it moves up and right.


@Ripper, I thought the smaller would always get locked before the larger unless you get real lucky with the initial state and the larger just happens to match up?

Originally Posted by Zloth
The "moon" *DOES* move, but rather slowly. If it's in the west it moves up and right.


@Ripper, I thought the smaller would always get locked before the larger unless you get real lucky with the initial state and the larger just happens to match up?

If you started out with the pair in isolation, with the same angular momentum, you'd expect the smaller (I should say lower mass) body to become locked first. But the formation of a solar system is chaotic, with planets and other bodies impacting, flinging each other around, dragging on each other, stealing moons, and all sorts. Just in our system we've got a planet rotating counter to rest of the disc, moons rotating counter to their planet, Uranus knocked 90 degrees on its side, Pluto locked to its moon, and so on.

You could have a planet with low angular momentum, paired with a large moon that is spinning much faster, and the planet could become locked first. All things being equal, you could say that its more likely that a moon is locked first, but you certainly couldn't be sure.

Originally Posted by Ripper
All things being equal, you could say that its more likely that a moon is locked first, but you certainly couldn't be sure.

True… and actually, the moon (I wish the game would give it a name!) has a tiny moon spinning around it. Tiny and VERY close to the surface! (This is the max separation I've seen.) That would definitely mess with things.

But, as it happens, the moon is moving across the sky at about the same speed as the sun and along pretty much the same track. That got real clear when I stopped messing around and just let the game sit with the moon right over my characters head for several minutes. No tidal locking. Oh well.

The moon does have one side with far more darker features than the other side, much like the nearside/farside of our own moon.

The tiny moon spinning around it only seems to have one crater. I suspect it's actually the a Death Star that has gotten very dusty.