calculate distance between planets?

Post by **Disembodied** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 4:43 pm

lfnfan wrote:
what's the game time consideration with long jumps? I would rather do one long jump than two short ones 'cos it means less chance of ending up on the side of a space station

If you check the F8-F8 screen you'll find shipping and passenger contracts. These are time-dependent. If you're making one of these, or any other sort of journey where time is of the essence, then two short jumps are better than one long one!

lfnfan · Post by **lfnfan** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:05 pm

i see. interesting. Will take a look.

thanks all

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:11 pm

lfnfan wrote:
what's the game time consideration with long jumps? I would rather do one long jump than two short ones 'cos it means less chance of ending up on the side of a space station

It's taking extremely longer to make one long jump than two short ones. IIRC the time is something light ly-distance * ly-distance in hours, but I could be wrong on this formula. This won't have to worry you unless you are busy with a time-restricted cargo contract or something like that.

However, it's always nice to keep some reserve fuel for the injectors, once you have them!

Screet

CptnEcho · Post by **CptnEcho** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:47 pm

Distances and jump durations aren't the only considerations.

Combat engagements could use up fuel when witchfuel injectors are used by the player.
So pay attention to the political status of the system(s) you plan navigate, or you may find yourself ambushed by multiple pirate squadrons in an anarchy system.

Post by **Disembodied** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 10:27 pm

Absolutely. If you're making a jump into an Anarchy, make it a short one! There's very little that's worse than having to run through a bad-news system with nothing in the tank but fumes ...

tomsk · Post by **tomsk** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 8:16 am

Disembodied wrote:
Absolutely. If you're making a jump into an Anarchy, make it a short one! There's very little that's worse than having to run through a bad-news system with nothing in the tank but fumes ...

Or buy an external fuel tank which mounts on a missile pylon.

Zbond-Zbond · Post by **Zbond-Zbond** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 2:49 am

If we consider the time taken to traverse A - C to be the square of the distance AC, then the short-jump route A - B - C is quicker when the angle ABC is greater than 90degrees.

When the angle ABC is 90degrees, AC is the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle, so

ABsquared + BCsquared = ACsquared

..and the time taken for your journey will be the same using either route.

Happily the human eyeball is quite good at identifying right-angles

But re. actual distances, mightn't the lightyear in use represent the orbit of an Oo-planet around its sun?

Now I'll have to start flying between planet(s) & sun(s) -- unimpeded! -- to measure elapsed time(s) and create a fascinating spreadsheet

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 8:22 am

Now I'll have to start flying between planet(s) & sun(s) -- unimpeded! -- to measure elapsed time(s) and create a fascinating spreadsheet Mr. Green

THis won't work - the speeds of the ships and the sizes of the planets and suns are completely out of scale for gameplay reasons.

Planets are only about 30km across the distance between suns and planets are only in the tens of 100s of kms and speeds, rather than being fractions of the speed of light are effectively hundreds of km/h

Wiki pages · Post by **Thargoid** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 9:14 am

You can easily get such distances from the JSconsole (system.mainPlanet.position.distanceTo(system.sun.position)). That will give you the distance from planet-centre to sun-centre (subtract off the radii of both for surface to surface).

Although that said it won't do you any good, as DH is right about the scaling...

Oolite Bulletins

calculate distance between planets?

Pythagoras Theorem