On Earth there is a deviation of 23.44° from the perpendicular and the spin axis, responsible for there being warm and cold seasons (in this respect the influence of Earth's orbit ellipticity is weaker than the influence of the tilt, by several orders of magnitude). We do not know if the planet spin axis is perpendicular to its orbit, or parallel, or oblique.

(The reason is that the planet's spin axis is perpendicular to the plane containing the sun's motion, so is horizontal with respect to the surface of the planet at the position of the player.) If the game's sun apparent motion is due to the same mechanics, this implies that the player is somewhere on or very close to the equator of 4546B. It describes what is called a great circle on the celestial sphere.ĭays in the year from northern summer solstice:

Time is accelerated in the game, like in many other computer games, so one or several day/night cycles can be experienced by the gamer during a typical game session, which I imagine ranges from 20mn to 2h.įrom the player's location, the sun appears to rise and set at opposite points on the horizon and goes through the zenith (the point at the vertical of the player). It takes 20 to 40 hours to finish the game. You crash-land on the planet and try to survive there and escape. The planet has two moons, a gray one and a red one. However, the action takes place in a somewhat distant future, for which the nomenclature could just be completely different.) (To respect the current nomenclature, the name should actually be written 4546 b.

This name suggests it is the biggest (or first discovered) planet of a star, fictive too, called 4546. The whole game takes place on a small patch of an oceanic planet, a fictive one called 4546B. On Subnautica's flaws in celestial mechanics Sun

Subnautica game length