WaveMotion/pioneer — comment on commit 660afbb3c6ae7104e595ccb45e18a2784309bc36
File:  line 0
By WaveMotion:

The other rename commit died in a sketchy rebase, so I'll repost @Brianetta's comment on that here:

>I'd still recommend Sidereal.

>X: Beyond The Frontier has a stationary external camera as its only camera. Activating it dropped it in space, and it stayed in a fixed location, tracking the player's ship as it flew around (or, more usually, away).

>Sidereal might not be an extremely common word outside of astronomy, but it's well known and understood in that circle. In addition to this, it's unambiguous and easy to look up.

>Still, it's your code, and I'm not going to get in your way if you want to name it this way instead.

Yeah, I'm still somewhat on the fence about the naming, which is why I've kept it as a separate commit. You're right that "stationary" connotes that it may stick in the same position as well as ship-relative orientation—I hadn't considered that.

It's not a huge deal either way, but my concern is that there isn't a wikipedia page dealing with the meaning of "sidereal" that specifically states that it means "star-aligned", and the existing articles are about sidereal time and other time-related concepts, so it may be difficult for the player not familiar with astronomy to make the inferential leap from that to a camera that stays aligned relative to the background stars. Another (less significant) is that it may look like a compound of "side" and "real" instead of one word and leave players confused; my own brain still parses it that way if I don't pay attention.

It's not that I have a low estimation of players' intelligence, I just want them using as little brainpower as possible. :)