Beanstalk (space elevator) model

Well, you could always just say that the base of the cables is on some sort of rotational system. The hard part to explain is how a station can remain in an orbit fixed over a planet's pole. It's a little bit difficult.

Agreed... but I'm unable to think of a better solution. I cannot make the stations actually orbit the planets.

That was fast. It looks really good too. The illusion that it is decending down to the surface looks believable. As for the planets rotating problem...I thought about that too, and I doubt we have any solution. I think we just have to live with planets that orbit at supersonic speeds. If only we knew what controlled the orbital speed....

Another answer is to create a texture for the planet that minimizes the appearence of rotating. But this would mean restricting the planets using beanstalks to very featureless, Venus like ones

Or...we could imagine that the bottom of the cable is not anchored, but is rather suspended above the surface of the planet in a 'super' low orbit. Pods and traffic approach the floating bottom of the cable by flying to it. This is also a rather unbelievable solution though.

Anyways, my plan was to just overlook the rotating planets, like we already do.

Shane, answering your questions:

I had imagined the cables being 10-20 meters in diameter. A 1-3 meter cable as you have designed seems feasible for an initial beanstalk, but I would think that later the cable would be heavily augmented to prevent it being severed by debris etc. However, it really doesn't matter. What you made is quite cool. A collison hull would be nice. As for a station, it seems that the beanstalk station has no unique featurs, and is similar to half a dozon others. It has a cargo spewer, which is something the counter weight should have (to simultate that the cable is being used to ferry cargo up and down from the surface. Another reason why I thought a farily substantial cable would be best. One thick enough to have a 'rail' system of sorts interally to move cargo pods up and down.)
Unless you feel up to it, a substantial 'connection' point isn't that necessary. The cables could just be slapped onto a PS station somewhere.

Really, I would be happy with whatever you come up with. It already looks quite cool. Does the station you used have a pod spewer?

I now see why PS stayed away from this. What a can of worms...

Originally posted by Cambragol
As for a station, it seems that the beanstalk station has no unique featurs, and is similar to half a dozon others.

Just to be clear: The Beanstalk habitat type is just that: a type... not a model. Habitat types just determine traffic patterns and traffic cargo generation around that station. A habitat type has no avatar representation in the game.

And, unless I miss my mark, we cannot create new station types. We can only replace current stations. So... if I add the beanstalk to, say, the Administration Station model, it will appear everywhere an Administration Station is used in the game.

In other words, as I'm currently persuing it, we would gain a beanstalk station model only if we lose one of the original station models. Not good. I don't know about Epic, but I find the current amount of station models available for modding to be quite lean... I would not want to lose my Administration Station model for Asylum just to get a beanstalk. Hell, I wouldn't even want to lose my Prison model.

@GrandpaTrout: Is the above correct? While creating a new station type out of the modular parts is possible (Good Lord! What a pain in the ass that would be)... would adding its entry to the station_creation.ini file allow the geography program to pull the new station model and use it correctly? Or are there deeper programming issues I'm missing?

The picture above is just a render. Not an in-game screenshot. I just used it to illustrate the cable model. I haven't converted the beanstalk model yet (and probably won't until I get some advice from GrandpaTrout ).

The model has a seperate code in the map file from the station type. You can add as many stations as you like. (well, I temper that with saying I don't know the limit to the number of station models).

The matchup of model to station type is done by the cluster designer using the geog.exe tool.

If this looks like too much work for little gain, a beam object could be used instead. And an asteroid could be used as the anchor point. Both of these items would be placed with the station environment package. The station itself would just be a free floating station near the asteroid. Much like an airport terminal is near the runways. (to say it more precisely, the large asteroid would actually be near the station, even if it does not look that way visually).

Hey, that is exactly what I was thinking while I was at work. It seems kindof obvious now that the model to use would be an asteroid station. We could simply create a custom 'space elevator' object that is placed by the geog.exe tool. As long as the space elevator is more or less sticking out of the asteroid, there would be need to place it with too much accuracy. It might even work as simply as locating the two objects in the same place in orbit. They will overlap, but appear to be a single object to the player. Then we don't lose one of the station models.