DEV Community

Discussion on: Learning to Create Video Games

Collapse
 
therealkhitty profile image
Mary Thompson

I also experiment with game ideas in Unity. Not to the extent you have though. I wish I knew how to use meshes and make bumpy spheres! Always nice to see others projects. Awesome. I think the planet's gravitational pull is wonderful the way it is, lol. You just needed one more element, constant speed. It's the fact that the Earth is moving at a near constant speed that we don't go crashing into the Sun or flying off into nowhere. Now I'm curious if that would actually work... I must try!

Collapse
 
_darrenburns profile image
Darren Burns

Yeah, I realised pretty quickly that I forgot about tangential velocity. I did actually try this by applying an arbitrary force to a planet, and it did cause the planet to start orbiting. It always fell ended up launching off into space eventually, or eventually it came crashing into the planet it was orbiting around!

I wasn't sure how to calculate the exact force I had to apply to each planet in order for it to maintain orbit. It made my brain hurt :)

Collapse
 
therealkhitty profile image
Mary Thompson

I'm no math wiz. My brain hurts anytime I have to do any math, lol.