I'm still working on adding fuel⛽ to the game.

The mechanics of fuel seem to be simple - take and use it, it's just fuel bro, but there are many points (scientific and gaming).

As I wrote earlier, the game will feature reactive fuel ⛽ for the ship's main engines. All kinds of gases (nitrogen, hydrogen, argon, methane, etc.) will be used as fuel for the electric rocket engine of our ships. This fuel will be used for take-off/landing on planets, as well as for suborbital flights between different locations on the planet.

Thermonuclear fuel will also be needed to generate energy on the ship (hydrogen or helium-3). For more information about fuel, see the previous post:

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Here is one of the interesting scientific points that I encountered during development, and which I did not know before (or knew, but did not realize):

• First, let me remind you that the main parameter determining whether your ship will be able to take off or land will be the so-called characteristic velocity Δv (delta-v) - this is the change in the speed of the spacecraft, which is necessary to perform the maneuver. For takeoff from Earth, approximately Δv = 9.4 km/s is needed, for takeoff from the Moon it will take Δv = 1.7 km/s.

• The situation here seems intuitive:

The larger the planet, the stronger its gravity and the more Δv is required for takeoff, and therefore we will use more fuel. By the way, it's not very correct to say "strong gravity", it's more correct to say "acceleration of free fall", but it's more convenient for us to say "stronger gravity", so let's continue to say that :)

• But there is such a moment:

The "Alfa" planet in the Centauri A system is an Earth-like planet (a planet with swamps and moss), its radius is close to that of Earth, but its density is noticeably less than that of Earth. This means that its g (acceleration of gravity) is much less than that of the Earth, in other words, its gravity is weaker.

It would seem that everything has been sorted out. But, wait...

• And here, for example, is the planet "Beta", which is 1.5 times! It is larger in radius than our Earth and its 3 times heavier (the so-called super-Earth class of planets). Probably there the Δv will be huge at all, and no ship will be able to take off from its surface?

But physics saves us a lot: the acceleration of free fall g = G * M / R2, please note - the larger the radius of the planet (with the same mass), the lower its acceleration of free fall! Having calculated g for planet Beta, we will be surprised - only 30% more than on Earth. Takeoff is quite possible. Although jumping and falling on such a planet is still not recommended.

• So it's not 100% if the planet is big — it will have a huge acceleration of free fall and things are bad. There are a lot of planets in the universe from 1.2 to 4 radius of our planet, but at the same time they have a small/medium density (super-earth class)

By the way, super—Earth-type planets are a very common type of planets, perhaps they are even more common than Earth-like planets, but for some reason not a single such planet has been spawned in our Solar System.

By the way, there is a situation opposite to super-earths - for example, we landed on a planet small in radius (say, like the Moon), but very dense (for example, there is a lot of metal in it). On such a planet, imagine, the acceleration of free fall can be even greater than on Earth!

Of course, in the game you don't have to sit with a calculator and calculate what the acceleration of gravity is on a particular planet :) Everything will be calculated in advance when adding different planets to the game. And the mass and radius will just be background information. But now you will understand what is behind these numbers.