Originally posted by Su-tehp:
In order to prevent this sort of gravitaional disruption, the Sphere built around Sol would have to go out beyond Pluto's orbit, which is, if I remember correctly, about 120 A.U.s from the Sun. Without question, in order to preserve all the planets in a solar system, a Dyson Sphere would have to encompass all planets in the star system. This would include jump nodes inside the system because jump nodes, so far as I know, form inside star systems.
But that's missing the whole point of a Dyson Sphere.
1a) A Dyson Sphere is created to collect all the energy from a star,
1b) while supporting the sentient beings who created the Dyson Sphere.
Because of this you want the Dyson Sphere's inside circumfrence(sp?) to be the same distance from your star as the planet you were created on. You also want the inside of the Sphere to have the same gravitational force as your planet of origin.
I don't remember who said it, or where I read it, but one scientist (or a group of) said that Dyson Spheres could never be created because their mass would require more material than exists inside of any star system.
So, because of how much mass the Dyson Sphere needs to:
A) hold it together from falling in towards the star, and
B) create the same gravitational force as the planet who's residents are building it,
basically the entire star system (except for the star of course) would be canabalized for the Dyson Sphere.
This means that you don't have to worry about Jupiter crashing into the Sphere, because Jupiter would have already been taken apart probably to create the gigantic atmosphere clinging to the inside of the Sphere.
So, (in conclusion),
1) a Dyson Sphere would on reach to the distance of the habitable zone of the star it surrounds, and
2) there would be no other planets, asteroids, etc in the star system because they would have been used to create the Sphere.
Now, on to the second point(s) I wanted to make.
Yes, the idea of six large textured planes (at a distance greater than Alpha 1 can fly), could be used to minic the inside of the Sphere.
And, for the exterior, I don't think that you need to create an object (like a planet object). Mainly because a Dyson Sphere would be much larger than a planet (and that's an understatement, at the distance above the Earth the Space Shuttle flys, if you were that distance above a Dyson Sphere, whereas the Earth looks round from that distance, the Dyson Sphere would look as flat as if you're standing on the Earth).
So how would I create a Dyson Sphere? Just create a Dyson Sphere .pcx and place it over the star in FRED (and I haven't tried this, so you might also need to make a black star or something to remove the star glow when Alpha 1 turns toward the Sphere.
Joe.
------------------
www.joek.comRevelations: A FS2 Campaign