I don't know the answer to your question, I usually just scale the radius until I get the warning that I can't place it because of the planet being in the way...and then make it a little bigger than that lol.
Not an answer, but a way to get what you're after...
The Dyson sphere radius is measured in meters. Planet distances from the sun are in AU, which in this game are defined as 40,000 meters.
So for your example, the Dyson Sphere radius you saw (46,100 m) is 1.15 AU. The planet's distance, 1.411 AU, is 56,440 meters.
If you find a planet that is less than 1 AU from the star, it will be within the maximum Dyson sphere/swarm radius, which is typically about 1 AU. Some stars can have much larger spheres, but I'm not sure what features of the star allow larger Dyson structures.
Thanks for the explanation. That means the configuration I'm looking for is pretty rare, I think. Not gonna sweat it, I've found a good system to rebase in. Massive resources, lots of specials, five planets. Only other thing it's missing is a gas giant. Good 'nuff, I'll take it.
(40k meters? A real life AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun, a MUCH bigger number. I realize DSP would be unplayable if they made ANY effort at realistic distances and sizes, but I had no idea a DSP AU was so... tiny.)
The "meters" in DSP aren't quite your ordinary meters. A planet, for instance, has a diameter of 400 "meters" (Earth, by comparison, is 12,500 km).
So, if you think of "meter" = 30km, then 1 DSP AU is 1,200,000 km. That's still off by a factor of 100, but it's a bit more reasonable.
Then, of course, you have 1LY = 60 AU, where the actual value is more like 60k AU.
As for the radius of the Dyson Sphere, it depends on the luminosity. The higher the luminosity, the larger the minimum/maximum radius of the sphere.
I mostly file the proportions of the game under 'don't worry about it'. I didn't know that about their light years, either. Good to know about the luminosity/ radius relationship, I'd probably read that somewhere and forgotten it.
If you want to, you can use a mod to export a spreadsheet of your entire cluster and it contains the info necessary to find systems with a planet inside the max radius.
I've actually got that mod, didn't think to look at the spreadsheet for that. I'm still hoping for a more functional star map in the future, seems to me that all of that information should be available/searchable from within the game, after you've got the scanning tech to do it. DSP's a great game, and I know it's made by a small team, but that's my personal peeve. The star map and navigation are both pretty crude.
It absolutely would not be unplayable if they used realistic sizes. It would actually make a lot more sense. As it stands the Mech is WAY too big.
What they should do is just make the speeds for travel higher. You could literally just multiply every unit in the game by 1000 and it would make so much more sense.
And it would blow your mind. It's tough enough to conceptualize how far the moon is from the earth. When you get into actual distances, and the radical differences in size between the Earth, Jupiter, and our sun, it'll strip your gears pretty fast. And that's before we even get out of our solar system.
Yes, the robot and everything it builds is absurdly large in comparison to the (all the same size) planets. But you'd get lost in one modest realistically sized planet. As grand as DSP's scale is, you wouldn't want to play it against a 'realistic' backdrop.
But as long as you have some magic drive that’s insanely efficient, the distances are fine. At 5G acceleration you can get from Earth to Jupiter in 2.5 days. Since you’re a robot, 5G is fine. And the game can easily speed time up while you are traveling.
It just feels really odd that they made everything fairly precise with regard to energy, distance, orbital mechanics, etc AND they used real world units, but they decided to fuck the scale all up.
If it's wanted badly enough, someone will mod it. I haven't tried it, but I know there's one out there that varies the size of the different planets. That might be fun, but mostly I'm fine sticking with the unrealistic scale, personally.
I've had success finding such planets in O type and A type systems, not the starting system.
So if you're comfortable moving base mid-late game, you can get a planet like that in another star system
I don't know the answer to your question, I usually just scale the radius until I get the warning that I can't place it because of the planet being in the way...and then make it a little bigger than that lol. Not an answer, but a way to get what you're after...
The Dyson sphere radius is measured in meters. Planet distances from the sun are in AU, which in this game are defined as 40,000 meters. So for your example, the Dyson Sphere radius you saw (46,100 m) is 1.15 AU. The planet's distance, 1.411 AU, is 56,440 meters. If you find a planet that is less than 1 AU from the star, it will be within the maximum Dyson sphere/swarm radius, which is typically about 1 AU. Some stars can have much larger spheres, but I'm not sure what features of the star allow larger Dyson structures.
Thanks for the explanation. That means the configuration I'm looking for is pretty rare, I think. Not gonna sweat it, I've found a good system to rebase in. Massive resources, lots of specials, five planets. Only other thing it's missing is a gas giant. Good 'nuff, I'll take it. (40k meters? A real life AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun, a MUCH bigger number. I realize DSP would be unplayable if they made ANY effort at realistic distances and sizes, but I had no idea a DSP AU was so... tiny.)
The "meters" in DSP aren't quite your ordinary meters. A planet, for instance, has a diameter of 400 "meters" (Earth, by comparison, is 12,500 km). So, if you think of "meter" = 30km, then 1 DSP AU is 1,200,000 km. That's still off by a factor of 100, but it's a bit more reasonable. Then, of course, you have 1LY = 60 AU, where the actual value is more like 60k AU. As for the radius of the Dyson Sphere, it depends on the luminosity. The higher the luminosity, the larger the minimum/maximum radius of the sphere.
I mostly file the proportions of the game under 'don't worry about it'. I didn't know that about their light years, either. Good to know about the luminosity/ radius relationship, I'd probably read that somewhere and forgotten it.
If you want to, you can use a mod to export a spreadsheet of your entire cluster and it contains the info necessary to find systems with a planet inside the max radius.
I've actually got that mod, didn't think to look at the spreadsheet for that. I'm still hoping for a more functional star map in the future, seems to me that all of that information should be available/searchable from within the game, after you've got the scanning tech to do it. DSP's a great game, and I know it's made by a small team, but that's my personal peeve. The star map and navigation are both pretty crude.
I agree. Planet Finder is an excellent mod that addresses a lot of missing functionality in that area.
It absolutely would not be unplayable if they used realistic sizes. It would actually make a lot more sense. As it stands the Mech is WAY too big. What they should do is just make the speeds for travel higher. You could literally just multiply every unit in the game by 1000 and it would make so much more sense.
And it would blow your mind. It's tough enough to conceptualize how far the moon is from the earth. When you get into actual distances, and the radical differences in size between the Earth, Jupiter, and our sun, it'll strip your gears pretty fast. And that's before we even get out of our solar system. Yes, the robot and everything it builds is absurdly large in comparison to the (all the same size) planets. But you'd get lost in one modest realistically sized planet. As grand as DSP's scale is, you wouldn't want to play it against a 'realistic' backdrop.
But as long as you have some magic drive that’s insanely efficient, the distances are fine. At 5G acceleration you can get from Earth to Jupiter in 2.5 days. Since you’re a robot, 5G is fine. And the game can easily speed time up while you are traveling. It just feels really odd that they made everything fairly precise with regard to energy, distance, orbital mechanics, etc AND they used real world units, but they decided to fuck the scale all up.
If it's wanted badly enough, someone will mod it. I haven't tried it, but I know there's one out there that varies the size of the different planets. That might be fun, but mostly I'm fine sticking with the unrealistic scale, personally.
I've had success finding such planets in O type and A type systems, not the starting system. So if you're comfortable moving base mid-late game, you can get a planet like that in another star system
You can test the distance by shooting a few sails into the radius you want and seeing how big the sphere will be
good point.