First things first. I have received *no* traffic regarding system
generation in the past two weeks. This means that everyone
knows all there is to know about star system generation, that the
current generation system is ideal and supplies all the information
that everyone needs, and that everyone already has their own ideal
computer program to generate systems, planets, shipping lanes, etc.
I'm glad that everyone is happy. (Now that I've lit a few fires under
a few seats, especially my own ;-).
You may remember my mentioning a program for a simulation of *real*
(yes, *real*) star system generation based on an article in the
Journal of the British Interplanetary Society (JBIS) called
'Extrasolar Planetary Systems: a Microcomputer Simulation'. I do
have a copy of this program, but I haven't been able to get it to
run on my Sun-3. I have been in touch with the author of the program
([email removed]) who has given some ideas on where to
look, but I haven't had the time, and may not in the near future.
The program is repored to work on HP9000/350, Sun-3, and IBM-
compatible PCs (note my earlier warning). This program provides all
sorts of neat information from planetary albedo and axial tilt to
eccentricty of orbit and surface acceleration and everything in between.
If you would like a copy of this program just to have or to try and
fix (the author thought the problem may be in the accretion
routines and the random number routines that are called), let me
know and I'll email a copy. Note that the shar file is about 80K, so
I may have to compress it to get it past mailers with size restrictions
or break it into parts.
- -- Bill Morrison
Star System Generation Discussion Coordinator
[email removed]