Overview
A custom rocket and a custom spacecraft orbiting HOM.
HOM's Circle of Influence is a small circular area around the planet HOM, in which objects can be put in an orbital trajectory around the planet.
Commonly abbreviated as COI, for Circle Of Influence, it represents the area around a planet where it's gravity is in effect.
In real life this is actually called the Sphere of Influence. Since this is a 2D game, the term gas been changed to the Circle of Influence. This is usually the most congested area in most sandboxes as any object launched in a successful launch will appear orbiting HOM in the COI.
However, the structures being sometimes big, and the lack of space in COI coupled with the varying orbital speeds of modules increases the chance of collisions when the modules are left unattended, or when a newly launched body collides with something else while doing an escape maneuver, poses a problem in the sandboxes.
Construction In HOM's Orbit
Construction of Space Stations in HOM orbit is by far the easiest to do, because it takes the least amount of time and fuel to get to a particular place in the SOI than any other location in the game.
However, keeping things from colliding each other in the orbit is tricky, due to the limited available space.
Spacecrafts orbiting HOM.
Tips To Manage Modules in Orbit
- When your module is launched successfully in sandbox,it appears in an orbit roughly in the middle of the surface of HOM and the outer edge of the SOI. Putting things below this line rules out the chance of collisions when you are in an escape trajectory. But you might have trouble when you are re-entering the atmosphere.
- Similarly, If you put your objects above this line, you might have problems while escaping,but you will be okay when you re-enter.
- If you put your things in this line, however, you will always have trouble whenever you try to launch new things into space.
- Try putting your modules in the edge of the SOI, like shown in the top picture,that it has the least chance of getting hit by an escaping body.
- Speed your modules to speeds that it just barely didn't touch in the red bar in the speedometer, like in the image to the right, so that an escaping body, if colliding with it, will cancel out each others velocity, going at roughly the same direction, therefore minimizing the damage.
References
Image Credits:
- Credits for the top picture go to CreeperCom.
- Credits for the bottom picture go to Estes705.