Tales from the spacelanes...

[spud42]

sweet...

[Norby]

the towbar broke when doing some fine manoeuvres in the Aegis

Nice tale. Another chance if you buy Towbar Repair Bot or Stabilizer but the cheapest if you repair within the station, just be fast to find your loot at where you left. If you take a rest (save then load game) another pilot surely tow it back meantime.

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The wrong link is fixed by redirect, thanks for the report.

[Diziet Sma]

Quickly pressing F5 twice on the flight console soon discovers the reason. The destination is Anxeonis not Anxebiza!!! what was an easy money short delivery run has now turned into a desperate race against time to deliver the parcel!!

Curiously enough, this is one of the reasons delivery destinations are highlighted on the Long Range Chart..

[spud42]

true but they dont stay highlighted and if you run explorers club there are lots of marked stars... still it pays to RTFM...lol

[Diziet Sma]

Waiting for docking permission he kept an eye on the Clipper and noticed a fairly distinctive pattern of stars just below it. Taking notice of the shape of the impromptu constellation, he reasoned that theoretically if he started from his relative position in the docking lane (about half way) and flew towards the position where the clipper is (a few degrees above that group of stars), surely the station will not have moved too much in orbit so he could retrace his path back to the trail of junk he’d left behind and pick it up.

A short (in game) time later and with a repaired towbar, he exited from the station, towed the BC back in and exited the station again. Positioning himself at about where he thought he was before docking – to many a warning from the station to clear the lane! – rotating around until he found the constellation again, he blasted off to try and find the bits of the ship he’d left behind. As he hoped, scattered along the line he flew were the bits and pieces that had broken from the ship, drifting about waiting to be picked up – no-one had come across them.

Feeling very pleased with himself, Hennessey picked up the bonus tonnes of alloys and cruised back to the station. On the way in he began to appreciate the old galactic explorers and the ancient mariners of Mother Earth and their skills in stellar navigation, rather than having a neat bit of software in your navcom that can tell you exactly where everything is.

From one Ancient Mariner to another - I salute you, sir! I've used distinctive constellations more than once myself, though not in the above manner, I must admit..

[SteveKing]

Nice tale. Another chance if you buy Towbar Repair Bot or Stabilizer but the cheapest if you repair within the station, just be fast to find your loot at where you left. If you take a rest (save then load game) another pilot surely tow it back meantime.

Thanks Norby. I have bought the Towbar Repair Bot a couple of times and it was has been handy at the times it was activated, but I tend to forget to buy before I need it and so it becomes a ‘shut the gate after the horse has bolted’ purchase. I guess if I hadn’t forgotten to buy the repair bot, then I wouldn’t have seen the handy little constellation and thought about navigating out to retrieve the bits and pieces. Now when I tow something back to the station, I try to give myself a visual reference for just such a task. I’m starting to enjoy using Towbar now that I’ve RTFM!

What I think deserves the kudos is the dev’s foresight to keep the ambient stars in a system fixed so they can be used as a navigation tool.

Just a thought, maybe Towbar and other maintenance prone (oxp) equipment could have a maintenance cost available in the ship outfit screen when the equipment has degenerated to (say) 25% reliability (or perhaps added to the o’haul cost), pay it and the equipment reliability resets to 100%.

From one Ancient Mariner to another - I salute you, sir! I've used distinctive constellations more than once myself, though not in the above manner, I must admit..

Thanks for the comment Dizzy. For me, that sort of thing adds to the immersion. Hennessey is a little impulsive, but he’s not silly. On one junk retrieval trip recently, he also came across an escape pod – not sure if it was the hapless pilot of the ship he’d just towed back – makes him think about joining the ranks of the RRS.

[Wildeblood]

true but they dont stay highlighted and if you run explorers club there are lots of marked stars...

How old is the version of Explorers' Club you're using!?

[spud42]

true but they dont stay highlighted and if you run explorers club there are lots of marked stars...

How old is the version of Explorers' Club you're using!?

sorry to confuse you..

the explored stars have a green cross on them , initally the target star has a red plus on itand its name shows, but if you change F6 screen then go back to galaxy map the red plus is gone. what i didnt notice is the amber mark on the star...

is there or could there be an OXZ to keep the destination of parcel contracts and cargo contracts stars names persist until the contract is completed or missed?

[cim]

is there or could there be an OXZ to keep the destination of parcel contracts and cargo contracts stars names persist until the contract is completed or missed?

The orange mark should be present so long as the contract is active (different shapes used for different contract types). Even if another OXP marks then unmarks the system it should still be there.

[spud42]

is there or could there be an OXZ to keep the destination of parcel contracts and cargo contracts stars names persist until the contract is completed or missed?

The orange mark should be present so long as the contract is active (different shapes used for different contract types). Even if another OXP marks then unmarks the system it should still be there.

cheers.. back to RTFM again... lol

[Wildeblood]

The orange mark should be present so long as the contract is active (different shapes used for different contract types). Even if another OXP marks then unmarks the system it should still be there.

Orange, you say? Since the subject has arisen, Explorers' Club currently uses green Xs for visited systems and orange diamonds for unvisited systems. What colour & shape combinations could it be using to avoid confusion with contract or mission destinations?

[cim]

The core game uses the traditional red X for destinations in Thargoid Plans, and orange diamonds, pluses and squares for passenger, parcel and cargo contracts respectively. All are set to the default scale.

[Disembodied]

Explorers' Club currently uses green Xs for visited systems and orange diamonds for unvisited systems.

Is there any need to mark unvisited systems? If marked = visited, then unmarked = unvisited would help reduce visual clutter.

[Venator Dha]

The core game uses the traditional red X for destinations in Thargoid Plans, and orange diamonds, pluses and squares for passenger, parcel and cargo contracts respectively. All are set to the default scale.

Would it be possible to change the parcel + for an X as I find this hard to see, especially with the zoomed out mapping in 1.81 it gets hidden when your are in the delivery system - I've jumped out a number of times only to realise that I should have visited the station to drop of a parcel

[spud42]

The orange mark should be present so long as the contract is active (different shapes used for different contract types). Even if another OXP marks then unmarks the system it should still be there.

Orange, you say? Since the subject has arisen, Explorers' Club currently uses green Xs for visited systems and orange diamonds for unvisited systems. What colour & shape combinations could it be using to avoid confusion with contract or mission destinations?

no, just checked and all i have is green x for visited systems. no marks for unvisited systems. oolite 1.80 and explorers club from OXZ manager ingame.