sun positioning and size in 1.71

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 9:52 am

What has changed with the positioning and size of suns in 1.71?

When I first tried out System_Redux.oxp yesterday, I was irritated by the suns being so small and far away from the planet, like in this screenshot of Zamaes (Galaxy 4).

Then CaptKev told me today that System_Redux.oxp doesn't influence the suns. So I tried without the OXP installed. He is right, the sun is still far away.

But I was sure that this is not how it was. So I fired up 1.65 for comparison. Guess what? The system looks completely different.

If this change of position and/or size of the suns is not intentional (and I don't think it is), I call it a bug.

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 10:37 am

I’m no seeing this behaviour. Please try without OXPs.

elite · Post by **elite** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 10:39 am

Silly question but do you have FarSun oxp installed? It places the sun further away.
I think the sun being further away is better and looks more realistic, but hey, we are all different.

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 11:21 am

I can confirm that even without any OXPs the suns are still too small. (And no, I don't have farsun.oxp.)

Oolite 1.71 (used the updater), MacBook Pro, 2GHz Intel Core Duo, OS X 10.4.11, ATI RadeonX1600.

Post by **Kaks** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 11:27 am

Hmmm, a bit of a shot in the dark, and a way of showing my ignorance about macs, but could this have anything to do with the type of processor?

If it turns out that all the PowerPC macs show a very small sun, we'll at least have a starting point...

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 11:37 am

Well, for a start, Ahruman uses a Mac, too, and he doesn't see it. Second, my Mac is an Intel, no PowerPC.

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 12:20 pm

Now, this is definitely very weird. At least I know it is the drawing size of the sun that is too small, not the positioning too far away.

I went to the sun in my current system, to check out its position. And it seems to be fine, roughly 1.000.000 meters from the planet, which is where Oolite usually places the suns.

But it is too small. The corona, however, does seem to have the right size. I could enter it and had a nice effect when I looked back to the planet:

The corona was all around me. Actually I was already far within the sun as it should have been.

At the point where my jumpdrive was mass-locked, my front view was like this:

Seems like far away, doesn't it? But still the cabin temperature is rising fast, even if I fly towards the planet from this point.

Another strange thing: I flew towards the sun. Then I dived a little (around 90 degrees, so not away from the sun). I dived back towards the sun. Now the sun was drawn much smaller than before, but growing much faster!

Something is definetely wrong here!

Post by **Eric Walch** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 2:24 pm

I also noticed a sun that was far to small. It is not the distance of the sun becauce the flight time to the sun is the same as in 1.70, but the drawn size of the sun. When flying towards it until the circle of the sun starts to touches the sides of the screen, I am already so close to the sun that the altimeter is red and the fuel scoops start.

But when I ask for the size with the console I get:

> system.mainPlanet.radius = 47110
> system.sun.radius = 114018.3359375

These sizes are OK but it is drawn to small.

I use a 700 mHz G4 i-Mac

FSOneblin · Post by **FSOneblin** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 8:54 pm

Well, if the sun start's to get bigger, then the sun is a Supernova! This happened to me When I flew to the planet that had the nova mission, and waited too long when after I got the refuges. When I flew back to the system that had the nova, the sun looked like the one with the really long name, and the cabin kept getting hotter. The constore did not make it.

Don't panic: FSOneblin

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 12:56 pm

No, FSOneblin, this is not related in the slightest way.

@ Eric: So it seems to be a Mac bug? But strange that Ahruman doesn't see it.

I am contemplating to make a new install with the full 1.71 download file (I had used the updater). Perhaps that will fix it (although I remember Ahruman mentioning somewhere that the full version was created using the updater as well).

Shall I give it a chance?

Post by **Disembodied** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 2:59 pm

Don't know if this is related, but I've just downloaded 1.71 and, although in the first few runs anyway the suns seems normal, I've just seen a very small wormhole. Escorts were flying through it normally, although they seemed to disappear some distance before they flew into the blue hole. It was showing up as a solid blue blob in front of me until I was almost on it, before I could see the usual radiating "sunburst" pattern -- at which point I fell into it. I made a normal "hitchhiking" witchjump, but the wormhole did look very, very small.

Maybe it was just old, and "decaying"? I don't know if wormholes do this, and I don't think it had been around for all that long anyway.

System specs: OSX 10.4.11, 2GHz Core 2 Duo iMac, 1GB memory, ATY,RadeonX1600 with 128MB VRAM at 1440 x 900 full-screen mode, shader effects set to "simple".

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 3:10 pm

Hmm, wormholes do get old and decay or shrink. But IIRC they stay stable with the same size until the last few seconds, so the shrinking only takes a few seconds. You can see it shrink, and then usually it's too late to approach it. If you haven't seen it shrinking, then it was small in the first place.

A sufficient explanation for a small wormhole would be a small creating ship. Small ships create small wormholes, big ship create big wormholes, Generation Ships (I mentioned that once) create MOOOOONSTER wormholes!

But, if it's a bug, it could well be related. The common denominator is that a spherical non-ship entity (in one case a planet-entity, in the other case a wormhole-entity) is drawn smaller than its actual entity size would suggest.

Post by **Disembodied** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 4:16 pm

Hmmm... I could be imagining things... I'm still spending a lot of time admiring the glorious nebulae.

I have, since, seen perfectly normal-sized wormholes.

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 4:48 pm

Commander McLane wrote:
A sufficient explanation for a small wormhole would be a small creating ship.

Possibly a Kestrel. Those things are ludicrously small – only slightly bigger than a missile.

Post by **Disembodied** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 12:24 am

I don't have the Kestrel installed, but you're probably right. I just saw a Moray Medical witch out in front of me, as it approached the Navigation Buoy straight out the station. Terribly bad manners, I thought, leaving its wormhole there right in everyone's way, but the hole was pretty small and only lasted for 5 or 6 seconds so I suppose it's not so bad! Later in the run, I saw a Cobra III make a jump -- politely, in the middle of nowhere -- and his (normal-sized) wormhole lasted for about 40 seconds.