
Show HN: Super Planet Crash - CarolineW
http://www.stefanom.org/spc/
======
stefanom
I am the developer of the game (StefanoM). I'm glad people are enjoying the
game, and I'm sorry for the downtime -- I did not expect it to become this
popular.

If you have any improvements or suggestions (especially on the programming
side!), please email me directly.

Update: As an astronomer (and not a professional programmer), being on HN
makes me super proud. Thank you!

~~~
sullivanmatt
Hey stefanom, fantastic game. I see your website is having some trouble
keeping up. You should sign up for the free version of Cloudflare and put your
website behind it - then you'll not have nearly the trouble with the traffic
load.

(I'm not affiliated with them in any way)

~~~
stefanom
Thanks for the tip, Matt. I believe I have it set up now.

------
oldmanjoe
Nice. Unfortunately my solar system was stable for about 40 years and then
descended into a nightmarish world of Earth bouncing around the solar system
in what would have been a horrific experience for the citizens of the planet.
On the plus side the visuals from the multiple planets veering close to
destroying it would have been a sight to remember. Well, remember for the
short while that remained before the atmosphere either froze, was burned away
by the sun or stripped by the gravitational field of a giant planet.

------
todayiamme
I am usually quite resistant to games - even 2048 bounced off of me with
little affect - but something about the idea of creating solar systems and
playing around with nature's laws is deeply appealing and I just spent 15
minutes figuring out how to construct a system which can get as many points as
possible without imploding. (hint: large multipliers. Here's an initial
attempt that I intend to refine once I'm done with work;
[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2823906](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2823906)
)

~~~
bradleysmith
Got you beat[0] just barely, with only the addition of a dwarf star. The speed
multiplier is certainly the key. It also seems your initial planet placement
is random, so it's getting something that allows use of the dwarf star.

[0] -
[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2974678](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2974678)

~~~
fennecfoxen
At least one dwarf star, plus everything you can fit in the habitable zone,
seems to be the way to run it. The main trick is keeping the initial planet
from ejecting itself when you add these things.

~~~
pikipupiba
What you have to do is drop them at just the right distance to evenly space 9
of them while only placing one at the same orbital alignment of the two
central stars so they all follow the same orbit.

------
bagels
If you don't want to kill your site, you should make it possible to start a
new game without reloading the whole page.

~~~
stefanom
Good catch. I did not expect the game to become this popular, so I took what I
considered to be an easy shortcut.

~~~
clarkmoody
What sort of initialization are you doing that requires a full-page refresh?

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higherpurpose
I put a dwarf star in the middle of the Sun (it placed it right next to it),
and while it does destabilize the sun a bit, the rapid rotation of the dwarf
star stabilizes it overall. The planet doesn't rotate in an uniform way around
the two stars either, but it also seems stable overall, thus breaking the 500
year limit, at least:

[http://postimg.org/image/jepystvbz/](http://postimg.org/image/jepystvbz/)

~~~
PavlovsCat
I'm surprised I made it to 500 years ^^

[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2870842](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2870842)

------
lmm
Is there any way to delete the first planet? It seems like there's a
motivation to keep refreshing until it spawns somewhere convenient.

------
guard-of-terra
Start with an accreation disk, it will evolve into a stable system in a few
My.

------
wintersFright
does this imply that most solar system arrangements are unstable and we are
lucky in ours?

~~~
exDM69
> does this imply that most solar system arrangements are unstable and we are
> lucky in ours?

No, not really.

Even without knowing the masses of the planets and the sun here, the scale of
this game is _tiny_ compared to the real solar system. In realistic scales, it
is a lot easier to come up with stable configurations.

Planetary systems form slowly from a gas and dust disk surrounding a new born
star. The early protoplanets will collide with each other and form bigger
bodies and the system will slowly reach a stable configuration. Planets may be
thrown out of the system or flung into the star too.

The best current understanding of exoplanet systems is that there are
planetary systems orbiting the majority of stars out there. Our solar system
is neither an extremely lucky coincidence or a rarity among other stars.

~~~
hrjet
> The best current understanding of exoplanet systems is that there are
> planetary systems orbiting the majority of stars out there. Our solar system
> is neither an extremely lucky coincidence or a rarity among other stars.

All the exoplanet systems were discovered only recently (span of a few
decades). So we don't really know if those systems are stable in the long run,
and hence we don't really know if our solar system is "lucky" or not.

~~~
exDM69
> All the exoplanet systems were discovered only recently (span of a few
> decades). So we don't really know if those systems are stable in the long
> run, and hence we don't really know if our solar system is "lucky" or not.

Yes, all exoplanet systems have been discovered recently but the best theories
explaining the birth of planetary systems predict that the planets form very
soon after the formation of the central star. And we have good estimates about
ages of stars, which are several orders of magnitude (as in 10^8 vs. 10) older
than observations about exoplanet systems.

Statistically that means that we were not "lucky" and neither were any of the
other exoplanet systems.

Given that the science behind exploring exoplanet systems is so young, this
theory is not necessarily correct but it is the best understanding that the
scientific community currently has.

------
devinmontgomery
So I used this to answer the obvious question: life would suck on Tatooine,
with an earth-sized planet shooting in and out of the habitable zone. Then I
found this: [http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23051-only-the-
toughes...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23051-only-the-toughest-
would-survive-on-tatooine-worlds.html).

------
jpasden
So in "Super Planet Crash" the planets can't actually collide? I pumped 11
super-Earths into essentially the same orbit (in the habitable zone), and they
seemed to just overlap and do just fine. When I lose, it's always because a
planet flies off.

------
rootlocus
According to Kepler's law of planetary motion, the orbit of a planet is an
ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci. Although circles are ellipses,
having the planets start with a circular motion makes the system simpler but
somewhat unrealistic.

------
rajahafify
2 suggestion. 1) Make the new game not a full page refresh. 2) Remove the
first planet.

~~~
stefanom
I'll see what I can do over the next couple weeks.

------
kylec
3 bodies, 94.9 million, 500 years:

[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2987733](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2987733)

Surprisingly stable, given the Earth-sized planet's erratic orbit.

~~~
Solarsail
Looks kinda like you reached a 3:1 resonance between the small planet and the
mini star. I wonder if it's actually dynamically stable, in that the mini-star
is actually pushing the earth-sized planet towards that stable orbit.

------
thix0tr0pic
5 bodies, anyone have more?
[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2825038](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2825038)

~~~
vladtaltos
just placing them all in the same orbit works ;)

Congrats! You reached 500 years without going unstable! 120,047 points over
500.1 years!

~~~
vladtaltos
[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2833251](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2833251)

------
Kiro
137,479 points over 500.2 years by just clicking out 12 earths randomly in the
habitable zone and then set speed to max. Not sure I understand this.

~~~
andypants
Use the other planetary bodies for more points. 100k in 500 years is nothing!

~~~
Kiro
Ok, just meant that it was very easy to get to 500 years.

~~~
smackfu
Yeah, simple configurations are just stable and will last indefinitely.

------
m_mueller
I always wanted to know how it's possible to have a dual star system with
planets in between the stars. It's easier than I thought[1]. I guess the
heavier the second star, the further it must be from the inner planets.

[1]
[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2843935](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2843935)

~~~
PhasmaFelis
IIRC, those are now believed to be extremely common--one primary with nearby
planets, a secondary so far out that it's barely brighter than the background
stars.

Of course "far out" is the key there. I'm pretty a real planet stuck between
two stars with <2AU separation would be deeply, deeply fucked. o.O

~~~
m_mueller
Well, as my link shows, if the second star is a dwarf of any sort and the
planet is close to the 'main' star, it should be fine. Of course, habitability
is another question entirely.

------
srg0
It seems that running on the fastest possible setting helps to avoid (skip)
most collisions by making them near-collisions.

P.S. Got to 430 years.

~~~
claudius
Hm, I got to ~100 years with twelve small-ish bodies and it looks as if
integrating in shorter steps helps avoid the buildup of instabilities?

~~~
nmeofthestate
Different playback speeds can even make planets spin out while replaying high-
scoring systems. Bit disappointing!

~~~
PhasmaFelis
You should email the author directly (stefano.meschiari@gmail.com, according
to the site) if you have a reproduceable case. The simulation timestep isn't
supposed to change, only the display timestep.

------
supahfly_remix
Looks cool. How does the program keep errors from numerical approximations to
the inverse square gravity law from blowing up?

------
notduncansmith
I found a bug: [http://puu.sh/8arsr.png](http://puu.sh/8arsr.png)

The very first planet started on the absolute edge, then when I added a Dwarf
Star pretty close to the Sun, it altered the orbit such that the planet went
out of bounds but it didn't kill me.

------
TwoBit
It doesn't work for me with the latest FireFox. The interface won't let me do
anything. Maybe the server is simply overloaded, because it's almost
unresponsive and takes minutes to load the "high scores." It seems to work
under Internet Explorer though.

------
owenversteeg
I put 11 Earths in a row in very similar orbits. For some strange reason, some
of them went out after ~100 years and made new, stable orbits.
[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2980198](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2980198)

------
munchor
This needs a few "overflow-x/y: hidden", but other than that it's a great
game.

------
reshambabble
This is great, but I'd suggest having an instructional module as soon as a
user signs on with more details about the different planet sizes, what they
mean, and what the "actual" distance would be between the center and the 2AU
barrier.

~~~
stefanom
I am applying for funding to develop a more comprehensive educational
application. Hopefully the success of the game will give my application some
extra clout.

------
NicoJuicy
Just wondering, wouldn't anything create a solar system?

Just throw dust everywhere. planets will absorb materials, will become bigger.
Some smaller planets could crash against others (bigger ones) and could create
a mini planet orbiting the other (moon-earth).

------
cos2pi
I get NaNs when I put a Dwarf star as close as I can to the parent star.
Perhaps a black hole is generated? :)
[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=3069947](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=3069947)

~~~
wallzz
Or it got eaten by a big "Bug"

------
brownbat
Not sure how much of an achievement this is, but I was a little proud of my
co-orbital pair, introduced at around 37 years:

[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=5188442](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=5188442)

------
pikipupiba
I wonder if there is a way to perpetuate the "Star-Switching" feature of this
one

[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/index.php?view=4994899](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/index.php?view=4994899)

------
golergka
I've managed to do that with a system that I was trying to create to break it:
[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2830379](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2830379)

------
guybrushT
137 million fake points, 500 years, 1 addictive game.
[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=3032407](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=3032407)

A very simple and elegant idea. Well done.

~~~
kylec
Interesting, rerunning your simulation you lose a planet at 140.9 years (44m
score). I wonder if there have been some subtle code changes that affected the
results.

------
personjerry
I have found that starting a new game takes a significant amount of time due
to load. One way to remedy this is by enabling Work Offline on your browser
and simply refreshing the cached version.

------
phaemon
My best after a few attempts is:

500 Years, Score: 33,445,876, 7/12 bodies

See
[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2850139](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2850139)

~~~
Wohui
165 million

[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2893119](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2893119)

~~~
kylec
Weird, I replayed your simulation and you lose a planet at 336 years (89m
score). I wonder if the game was subtly tweaked since you played it, or maybe
your browser produced slightly different results than mine.

~~~
Wohui
Apparently these systems (dwarf-n-habitables) are hard to record correctly:
[http://www.stefanom.org/2000000-systems-
played](http://www.stefanom.org/2000000-systems-played)

I just observed the same result (89m 336y).

------
metaphorm
LOVE THIS. still trying to do 2 dwarf stars. is it even possible?

~~~
ch4s3
I did, but it only lasted like 50 yrs.

------
Crito
What physics model is being used for this? I can't seem to get tidal
acceleration to work properly (it seems to for the first orbit, then it
doesn't change.)

------
simonhorlick
Surprisingly addictive..
[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2821551](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2821551)

------
ycui1986
[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2923344](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2923344)

500 years, 42million

------
pvirgiliu
[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2825379](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2825379)

------
morganherlocker
Got to 1.2 billion 500 years, but it took forever. Next challenge: fastest
possible completion with the highest score possible.

~~~
kylec
Link? The high scores on the page top out around 400m.

------
Shivetya
looking at the high scores they all seem to be just exploiting the rules or a
bug. Can those types of attempts be filtered?

~~~
stefanom
Hi Shivetya,

Admittedly, the point system could have been better designed. However, for
this first attempt, I could not come up with a better alternative.
"Exploiting" the point system within the game is not that easy, so the people
that achieved the high-scores must have played tens, if not hundreds or more,
of games before finding the right timing and initial condition.

Those are all imaginary internet points anyway :)

------
FrejNorling
Got 7 bodies and 500 points... =)

[http://screenpresso.com/=XTGMc](http://screenpresso.com/=XTGMc)

------
z3phyr
I always get carried away, and disrupt the equilibrium of earth like planets
in the habitable zone with a brown dwarf :(

------
piyush_soni
Has someone created a mirror of the site yet which works? It's not opening up
for me as usual, the HN effect.

------
NicoJuicy
I tried it.

Create 12 planets as fast as you can, watch the sun in the middle.

After some time watching and focusing, change tabs...

"Real life image burn" :)

------
ch4s3
dumping a bunch of super-earths into the same orbit around a dwarf star seems
to work well. 125.8 years

[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2906533](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/?view=2906533)

~~~
pikipupiba
Yea, but what you have to do is drop them at just the right distance to evenly
space 9 of them while only placing one at the same orbital alignment of the
two central stars so they all follow the same orbit.

[http://www.stefanom.org/spc/index.php?view=4994899](http://www.stefanom.org/spc/index.php?view=4994899)

------
dpeck
Looks like something that would translate over to ipad/iphone really well.

------
easy_rider
Omg this is so awesome, and framestyle style website with retro coloring <3

~~~
stefanom
Thank you! The palette is the awesome base16 by Chris Kempson.

------
jgeorge
This is great, fantastic work stefanom! I'm already addicted to it.

------
honksillet
Doesn't seem to be working on any of the browsers on my mac

------
gojomo
Can't load but the mere chance it's anything like either the ancient coin-op
arcade game, 'Mad Planets', or the recent Flappy Bird variant, 'Flappy Space
Program', makes me like it already.

------
ch4s3
and we broke it

