Space · How it works
The twilight line
Mercury has no air: the Sun decides. Its day bakes the ground, its night freezes it, and between them the twilight line moves all the time.
In the game
How to get it
In Mercury's orbit, at your ship's navigation table, choose the landing place Twilight line: the shuttle sets down far north where the Sun is setting (within 6 degrees of the horizon), where the line moves at a walk. The HUD tells how far the night or the dawn lies and which way.
What it is for
In the twilight band and in the shadows a space suit holds; there the molten pools freeze and melt, the scarps cast their long shadows, and the hermesite waits.
Why it exists
A world you cross at a run: stay too long in the day or in the night and you die.
The same text the game shows in its progress tree and on the item's sheet (I).
What it is for
In the twilight band and in the shadows a space suit holds; there the molten pools freeze and melt, the scarps cast their long shadows, and the Hermesite waits.
Day, night and shade
- In the Sun the ground bakes: about 110 °C at 5 degrees, 240 °C at 20, up to 430 °C at noon.
- In a shadow (a crater wall, a scarp, a roof) far less: hide there when the Sun climbs.
- At night the ground freezes: -20 °C at dusk, down to -180 °C.
- A space suit stands 120 °C and -150 °C; the Thermal suit 320 °C and -230 °C; each cytherite armour piece 40 °C more heat, each glacite one 40 °C more cold.
The line moves
A Mercurian day is long (about 73 hours), but the planet is small: the line sweeps the equator at about 9 m/s, faster than you run; beyond 65 degrees of latitude it slows to a walk and you can follow it. One degree of the Sun's height is about 6.7 km of ground.
On the progress path
ME1MercuryMain path
- This stepME1 · The twilight line
- NextME2 · Thermal crucible: molten hermesite
Sub-actions (counted in your progress)
- Gear for Mercury — Thermal suit, Molten metal