I dont know if it's me, and if i'm like the only person who has no life enough to sit here and try and work out the patterns if any on the ways the planets traverse the Zodiac belt, i mean sure, there might be, or there might not, but i had a very good, down pat theory on how the moon traverses, it, i was here watching for 13 hours every 5 minutes to see when it changed and how it changed, all good and fun, got the theory, now today, continuing my research, i come along and lo and behold the days just proved my theory wrong, i mean it worked for most of it, but i just really want to know. Is ther an actual pattern to how the Planets change their Signs or is it just random? Well really i just want to know if i just wasted 13 hours of my life doing nothing, when i could of been doing... work.

Do the planets irl move around randomly?

Probably not, but there just seems to be no pattern that fits to the Planets, and if there is, it always seems to change and jump around.

If the pattern is, say, 30 hours, and you calculated it was 25, of course its going to seem whacky. You have to figure out how long it takes for the Moon to make its full cycle before anything else really means anything the way you're doing it. (which is the hard way)

Actually from the 18 or so hours of data i collected with help from someone else, i worked it out to fit into 30 days, and it ends up at the same zodiac sign, but i dont know where it starts. But yeah if you want to know, the moon from the data i collected, went, Start, 2 day gap, change, 1 day gap, change, 2 day gap, change, yadda yadda yadda.

Then there's the retrograde which i actually have no idea how that would affect the cycle, if it actually goes forward, it just stays on the same sign, or if it actually stops moving all together or what. I think very complicated for Astrology is a understatment.

You don't necessarily need to know what the cycles are, though, just have someone check it before you go into a battle, or bashing, or whatever, every half day. The thing I've found is that you'll have a cost of will/endurance/power whatever you do if you want to use more than like one sphere a day, so you may as well bite the bullet. (That said, try to avoid negative spheres that cost 10p. That'll really sting. The others can be avoided damaging you too much.)

Yeah but if i can work out when what spheres are most effective and such, i can up the prices i will sell them for, i mean i could make millions if i kept it to myself Then again, it's all in the name of science! But it would be nice to know the specific or area when a certain sphere would be most effective for fighting for bashing, or influencing, would help alot.

Ah, the power of Trig :-P

Though, with retrograde, if it isn't constant, then calculus might be a bit more accurate, but, Trig could at least get you a rough idea of when what would be what.

I would just like to point out that it took scientists 3 theories and 1000 years of study to discover the way our planets actually move. The perspective from this one point makes things look a bit odd.

Just for the sake of it but..

YES THEY DO

True, but it is very unlikely that the movement of these planets is some insanely complicated quantum formula... Roark or one of the monkies DID have to code it, after all, and coders are lazy people, so, its probably a fairly basic formula with a retrograde factored in (which, btw, ISN'T random, if what I'm being told that the helpfiles say it is a 250 year cycle, and, if the retrograde was random, that wouldn't be in the least bit accurate.

So, with the knowledge that there are NO random factors in the planetary movement, and the fact that it is a 250 year cycle, you could actually get a pretty good idea of when what was going to happen. However, it would take a few IG years of observation to get all the needed plot points.

You just need to find one body that is steady and constant that you can track, and then track all the others in relation to it. Takes a while, but that is how I was do it...until I F'ed up and realised my theory was wrong.

It rounds to the nearest day. So something that moves quickly like moon will have this rounding be much more noticeable.

No you don't. You can track each body individually. Just figure out exactly how long its rotation is, and then figure out when it retrogrades.

I like my idea better, it sounds far more involved and complex!

Or you just pull out your handy dandny TI-83 and use a few sin waves :-p

Just remember, the scientist that figured it out spent a LOT of time pouring over charts and data. What I suggest some group does is setup an actual astrology /group/ in-game which actually keeps track of the daily changes. Get a couple of years worth of information and hope the Divine don't change the physics or orbits. :-)

I don't do maths.

Where is all this trigonometry coming from? There's not equation involved.

Its called a regression. You put in a few bits of data and it will find the formula. Also, standard orbits like these can be placed in sin waves, which allow you to read fairly easily when the planets will be in line (when their waves cross eachother) down to the hour, the formula/graphs being more accurate with the more points of data you start with.