Stellar Types: Impact on game play

[Jeffr0]

From First In I saw that some might use stellar data to determine the color of the star and how big it appears to be from the main world....

Hmm.... Always seemed to me that getting that kind of information was more trouble than it could possibly be worth. But reading through an old Double Adventure the other day, I noticed that there's a really cool ship whose performance depends more on stellar types than say... the presence of gas giants.

Is there any other benefit for going to the trouble to figure out the stellar indormation?

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Cool descriptive bits to give the players about the ambient light, the sunsets, etc. Also, if the sun is, say, the right shade of red, you might have the characters totally miss the Imperial sunburst on that cargo they're loading (and think is totally local).....

 

[Cymew]

I always felt that mentioning the light from two suns falling through the viewports conveyed a sense of "otherness" that helped set a scene.

A certain scene on Tattooine comes to mind as well.

 

[Hemdian]

Describing different lighting situations can help remind players "they ain't in Kansas anymore." Ideally you want to know star colour and brightness as seen from the distance you are at. Other factors may play a part too.

Don't know if you're familiar with the old style sodium street lights (still quite common in the UK) but if you are you'll be aware how a dim orangy light can screw up your sense of colour. The police sometimes have difficulty with eye-witness reports of nighttime incidents: they often get the car colour wrong.

The film "Pitch Black" also featured an example of a nice over-bright effect (some kind of eye protection might be required).

Regards PLST

 

[Plankowner]

Heh! Why pick on Kansas! Just because we are flatter than a pancake (proven in a Topological Study) doesn't mean all you meanies can just insult us whenever you want. Kansas has more astronauts per capita than any other state, we have space in the blood!

I also like the over-white light that Battlestar Galactica uses whenever they show the surface of Caprica.

Color and intensity add a lot of flavor and otherworldliness to a game. BUT, I'm not sure you need to do a lot of calculations to give that flavor. Knowing the star color (M, K, G, F, A) and where in the habitable zone (Temperature) the planet resides is probably enough to wing it for a quick description.

 

[TheEngineer]

Whats Kansas ??

 

[KrasnyKot]

Originally posted by TheEngineer:
Whats Kansas ??

The sourceworld of that famous "Old Rocket Whisky"

To get back to the thread, once upon a time, in a Challenge magazine long, long ago...
There's been a 2300AD article on such topics, I remember a description of a Planet orbiting a dim M-class dwarf star and why local plant life can't use colored petals to attract local insect life. (everything is just dim red or reddish grey) But here the plants use green or blue cold lights.(Just like fireflies do)
It was just an example, but I never forget this description, which IMO gave a quite eerie strangeness.

 

[jcrocker]

I used that article as inspiration, and not long after spent some time detailing the local light scheme on a planet the players touched down at. Red star meant dim lighting, sky looked grey-ish, occasional 'fireflies' with blue light. I even had the locals make a point of having a candle burning during the day [low TL], just to get some white light in the house. One player turned to another and said, "yeah, a red sun would be *wierd*..."

Mission accomplished!

 

[Hemdian]

As I understand it (somebody correct me if I'm wrong) the stronger the light the less noticeable the colour is.

So a dim M-class star would show everything in poor red lighting (and would presumably be cold, too) and a dim K-class star would be like the sodium lighting I mentioned before, but a strong M-class star would just have a subtle salmon-coloured cast over everything and a strong K-class star would have a slightly golden cast. "The Matrix" used a subtle green cast when in the Matrix ... not sure there are many green stars ... but gives you an example of a coloured cast.

Meanwhile an A-class star would be whiter than we're used to and would seem a bit cold (even when its not). Ever used one of those "natural daylight" lightbulbs? Usually sold to artists. At night a room light by one of those will seem colder and less inviting than other rooms because normal lightbulbs are actually a bit yellow.

Now that I think about it I think I'm going to invest in some coloured lightbulbs for use during a session. Strip lights for aboard ship, and appropriate coloured lightbulbs when planet-side.

Regards PLST

 

[Maladominus]

Does a "red star" always shine a red-ish color upon the worlds of its system? Do the residents of those worlds see "red atmospheres" and reddish horizons?

This is one thing that I'm not sure how to deal with in the campaigns, as I'm certain that "filters" (and reflectors?) can change the original color of something by the time it reaches humanoid eyes.

 

[Maladominus]

Originally posted by TheEngineer:
Whats Kansas ??

It is Toto's homeworld.

 

[Plankowner]

Toto was a Vargr. HE was the real leader of the adventures that later became famous as the "Oz Campaigns".

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Originally posted by Plankowner:
Toto was a Vargr. HE was the real leader of the adventures that later became famous as the "Oz Campaigns". :rofl:

Citizens still shiver and tell tales along the Yellow Brick Main of the Vargr corsair known as Toto and his First Mate, Dorothy...

 

[KrasnyKot]

Originally posted by Jeff M. Hopper:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Plankowner:
Toto was a Vargr. HE was the real leader of the adventures that later became famous as the "Oz Campaigns".

Citizens still shiver and tell tales along the Yellow Brick Main of the Vargr corsair known as Toto and his First Mate, Dorothy... </font>[/QUOTE]And didn't they pick up that ashamed Ihatei and the defective agrobots along the trip?

 

[Peter Schutze]

>Does a "red star" always shine a red-ish color upon the worlds of its system? Do the residents of those worlds see "red atmospheres" and reddish horizons?

Atmospheric composition should have a bigger effect than star type on apparent sunlight color. Plants would be the main effect of solar wavelengths while temperature would affect apparent brightness / size at particular distances

 

[aramis]

Fundamentally, all stars in the main sequence produce light we would consider "white", but each is brighter in certain wavelengths. What it will do is determine which form of "chlorophyll equivalent" is dominant. (Note that earth has about 3... and the dominant one happens to reflect green light and absorb blue and yellow...)

So it will have a stronger effect on vegetation. And certain things will look odd.

You want to see what a red star's light looks like? get a trio of small lamps, and put one red 25w bulb in the center, and two 50w bulbs immediately to either side. Not much difference, but a few things will look odd...