Planets

Im not sure why, but i dont think Star/clad will add any planets. But there are plenty of mods that add a great number of new planet types. As for having different looking city graphics on different planets, that might be something that would use up too much memory and put the game toward that dreaded 2 gig limit. And for something that would look kinda cool, but that you wouldnt see the majority of time that you are playing, they just aren't gonna do that

Good news, bad news, and other tidbits...

Several mods give you additional planets, including 7 Deadly Sins and Distant Stars.

Cities are all the same from race to race. The more models and textures you add, the more the game loads up at the start, even if a particular race is not present. For every tidbit, you move closer to a 2 gig memory limit that will crash the game. By making these features homogenous, they ease up on that happening.

It is possible for mods to add skins that enhance what is already there, but most prefer to eat memory on new planet types rather than visual effects on pre-existing planets.

I think that the moons should actually orbit the planets. i dont understand how they can make those as big as every planet.

The game isn't set up for Newtonian physics or changing phase lane lengths. In fact, the map is purely representative, seeing that phase lanes are predetermined. It's like me drawing a road map for you. It won't be accurate, but it gives you an idea where you're going.

I don't know about in Rebellion, but the Distant Stars mod for Trinity makes moons stand alone bodies, but that are smaller with significantly reduced population and resource quantities. Maybe they'll tweak them further to make them more significant in said sense.

well, in no way at all are any of the elements of the game realistic. I go on about this all the time. The planets dont orbit; they are waaaaaay too close to each other and their sun; the size of the planets compared to ships, stars, gas giants and asteroids is pitiful; there's no such thing as green stars; the planets don't gravitate things toward them; there's no collisions...

Not happening...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganymede_(moon)

It has a diameter of 5,268 km (3,273 mi), 8% larger than that of the planet Mercury, but has only 45% of the latter's mass.  Its diameter is 2% larger than that of Titan, the second largest moon. It also has the highest mass of all planetary satellites, with 2.02 times the mass of the Earth's moon.

That's how.

There are, our eyes just can't see them.

Mostly irrelevant fun-fact!: The reason that plants and the like are of the colour green, is because the plants doesn't want the green part of the light that hits it, and thus bounces it off which makes it look green to us.

So a plant is in fact not green, it's a rainbow of colours that we don't see.

 Edit: Why is the quote broken?

The . in my name breaks quotes, I really need to do something about it.

Most moons are not that big and most planets are not that small so that logic is horrible to go with

And ships are made way too quickly compared to everything else.....ships go too fast.....scale of ships to planet is off.....If   I wanted a realistic space simulator I'd go look for something besides SIns.

nothing about the laws of physics is broken by building ships fast. It's just very difficult to do.

Granted, showing a hologram of what you want to build and then some how causing it to materialize bit by bit doesnt make much sense (why wouldn't you just materialize the whole thing at once if you could do that?), but nothing says you can't do it.

However, no solar system could be stable with planets 2/3rds the size of a star (even if it were a small star) and closer than moons orbit planets

The speed, well, it's hard to tell. since the size of the solar systems are way off and the scale of ships to planets is also off, I find it difficult to tell the speed of them. So I reserve judgement until I see some way to reconcile those other things. 

Green stars irk me like none other...Aplos has the right idea with how stars should have been done...

I agree, why NOT add more planet types, and celestial object types in general? It would only make the game better, and is very easy to do. Water worlds should definately be added.

Yes, there are mods for it, but if we followed that logic, there is no need to have any planets, ships and races in vanilla game, just the engine and mods. Vanilla Sins should be also be expanded.

I have had fights with people on these forums about the meaning of 'Green stars' and their existence.

regardless, I agree that it is one of the simplest flaws to fix.

When you see green stars in sins, it's only because your scientists are viewing them through chromatic filters to study temperature differences and other properties as earth scientists sometimes do.

This may be the case for blue stars as well since actual blue giants are relatively short-lived and very hot and bright.  It's hard to imagine a stable and habitable planetary system forming around them.

I tend to not care much because y'know, I'm playing a game which is meant to be fun and not a physics lesson.

The worst discussion I ever saw was on the Gal Civ II forums...at some point someone argued stars were green because aliens likely "terraformed them" to be a more desireable color...

ROFL what an idiot I can't even count how many issues there are with that.

"Hey you guys, check it out. It looks like a star, it feels like a star, but it's green. I had nothing better to do with the polycronos engine but to make a fake star and freak people out. I even managed phase lanes from two planets that don't even share a solar system to further confuse everyone."

If someone were to really stretch logic, one could claim that the solar system sets we see in Sins is simply a mapped out representation of phase travel, and that every planet there isn't necessarily in the same solar system or orbiting the specific star, but are connected by naturally occuring phase lanes that make travel more convenient through these sets of planets and stars. But then again, it's a universe where no one has tried strapping phase engines to a planet.

Strikecraft -> Corvettes -> Frigates/Cruisers -> Cap Ships -> Titans/SBs -> Attack Planets?

A whole new level for Sins 2 perhaps...

Just so I'm on the same page as the rest of the thread, is this more or less a purely aesthetic request or is there something that additional planet types are expected add to the way the game plays? 

I've seen people clamoring for moons since the original release and now we have Dwarf Planets (which were moons for a short time).  Net result in my games:  They're asteroids with a slightly higher population cap.  I guess it's nice to see a little more variety but I'm not making gameplay decisions any differently because of them.  What other niche are the additional planet types being floated here meant to fill? Outside of having a different texture, "why" whould they make the game better?

Green stars are what happens when you see a double rainbow--they are exceedingly rare and are..like, beautiful man--so beautiful.

Yes, they could also add something to the game. See Sins Plus mod for inspiration.