Grid on/off question

[Chaos Theory]

The polar regions aren't represented on the map. Thus, a wide range of incident angles relative to Planet's inclination will allow all of the game map to be visible upon approach.

I interpreted the manual quote as referring to what you might find over the horizon. Sure, you know if it's water or land, but that's not much information. You could find mindworms, other factions, pods, fungus, etc.

[Sikander]

It seems likely that they would also have been programmed to enter an orbit around Chiron upon arrival, which means that they should be able to see the whole planet.

[Qwerty88]

I always assumed this was a bug the programers hadn't noticed, as for unity servey, if they saw chiron they whould have a map, not an outline, so they saw it or they didn't, and don't worry about it being a sphere progected onto a rectangle, because if you start thinking about that it all falls apart because the width has to decrease as you deviate from the equator, and you can't explain all the scenarios with for sides rather than rotation maps

[Xian]

Originally posted by Sikander
It seems likely that they would also have been programmed to enter an orbit around Chiron upon arrival, which means that they should be able to see the whole planet.

Excactly

[Mart]

Anyway, Alpha Centauri probably has no planets.

See this site

http://www.extrasolar.net/

And go to The Planets section
Write: Proxima Centauri, as only this star from this triple star system appears to have a large planet.

[Qwerty88]

alpha cetauri refers to the entire trinary star syster, proxima is considered to be orbiting around the mass created by alpha centauri A and B