Player Features and Ideas Discussion

A belt, by definition, must encircle something. In this context, you are correct. Normally this would need to be a gravity well.

We seem to have asteroid puddles, instead. In theory, they are fixed by some gravity source, despite the fact they have not diffused themselves along this plane.

Gameplay, this makes sense. It's not that you have a hard time finding the asteroids in a belt, but belts are so big, that others would have a hard time finding you.
Real space effects and dynamics, it is just too easy for people to not run into each other enough.

Storyline explanation: I suspect these asteroid clusters have a source, something like a wormhole connecting to a system that is densely packed with these rocks. If the wormhole opens, and finds room on our side, more asteroids fall through to our side, until it reaches a balance with that local region of space.

If you really want to be realistic with asteroid belts, and copy the one that is in our solar system that is between Jupiter and Mars. The biggest asteroid wouldn't be any bigger then a car, (which is pebble sized compared to a frigate) and each asteroid would be several thousand miles apart from each other.

Actually, just about every asteroid belt is within a few au of a planet, if not closer.

Actually, the largest asteroid in our solar system is upwards of 1000KM in diameter with several that are hundreds of KM across.

Asteroids

Dispersion is correct though, the large ones are millions of km apart .

But those are not the only things that are "strange" about Eve Physics, for instance the space shuttle travels at 7.7km/s in orbit around the Earth, which is also traveling around the sun at 29.8km/s. So the Shuttle goes faster than the fastest dramiels in MWD and the Earth is going faster still by a factor of 4.

In real physics, your ship would have to match velocity (speed and direction) with a station before docking, not just drive straight toward it.

That goes for asteroids as well, which are traveling faster in real velocity than the Earth is (since they are in a higher orbit) so you would have to match speed and direction (and rotation) with a roid in order to harvest it.

But, in order to make Eve physics like real physics, we would all have to take classes in Orbital Dynamics
Elementary Orbital Equations

WHich would be un-fun I can assure you.

I think the asteroid belts as they are are fine. just suspend your disbelief for a little bit (not much more than you have to already to play a spaceship) and let it be.

Asteroids, not asteroid.

I'd be all for more realistic asteroids. I don't see why having to scan stuff down to mine it should be seen as a negative. They wouldn't even need to move dynamically (relative to a celestial any movement would be irrelevent anyway), the server could just nudge them a little further along their 'orbit' every now and again when no one was looking.

I'd love to see more photorealistic/bigger asteroid belts.

I've been thinking about the comet idea too, that would be ace.

Also we should be able to mine planetary rings, that would be awesome. As it is, rings are just 2D textures, it would be awesome to see them as 3D asteroids and ice when you get close enough.