Oolite Bulletins

If all's well in your ooniverse, you've bought the equipment and all, then here's an example of what you should be seeing.

Ignore the speed dial in the HUD, it's showing what the speed would be with an unmodded torus running.
Observe the combat mfd in the lower left. Near the end of the third line shows the modded torus' true speed, with a 4x multiplier.
Zoom zoom.

Er... um.... I... uh... forgot to buy the drive.





It works. However, I'd argue that it's TOO fast. I mean, holy heck, I went from witch point to planet in just a few seconds! Perhaps the scaling needs to be tweaked so that time to planet from witchpoint isn't quite so fast? The real benefits should kick in in "interplanetary" space, if you follow what I mean.

I also notice a shaking effect when hitting the top speeds, is that intentional or just a neat unintended side effect?

I hardly ever see it get past 2x on the beacon to planet run; I still wind up getting masslocked just like before installing it. So keep some spare fuel handy to feed the injector, you're not gonna outrun bandits with an updated torus.

Thing is, if you use the torus away from the planet, then turn back towards it, you'll have kicked in enough momentum to hit the planet FAST. I mean twice I did it and it reminded me of planet entry shown in the Elite:Dangerous trailer

mossfoot wrote:

Thing is, if you use the torus away from the planet, then turn back towards it, you'll have kicked in enough momentum to hit the planet FAST. I mean twice I did it and it reminded me of planet entry shown in the Elite:Dangerous trailer

I did a quick experiment.
I flew away from the planet, watching it accelerate gradually as I flew away. It maxed out at 8x.
Then flipped over and flew back. It gradually decelerated as I neared the planet, finally braking to 1x then masslock. It's not gonna crash you into the planet.

Although it could smash you headlong into asteroids, the rocks being unpowered objects that don't masslock. If you see asteroids ahead, be careful.

Yeah, I'm not worried about crashing into a planet, I'm just saying that my experience going witchpoint-to-planetward feels way too fast. It slows down to x1 when it gets close, sure, but I don't think it should only take ten seconds to reach the safety zone

mossfoot wrote:

Yeah, I'm not worried about crashing into a planet, I'm just saying that my experience going witchpoint-to-planetward feels way too fast. It slows down to x1 when it gets close, sure, but I don't think it should only take ten seconds to reach the safety zone

Perhaps then this is the best way to modify the torus drive to work with that (was it Redspear's?) Large planets & suns (and hence longer spacelanes) mod...

- Neelix

Neelix wrote:

mossfoot wrote:

Yeah, I'm not worried about crashing into a planet, I'm just saying that my experience going witchpoint-to-planetward feels way too fast. It slows down to x1 when it gets close, sure, but I don't think it should only take ten seconds to reach the safety zone

Perhaps then this is the best way to modify the torus drive to work with that (was it Redspear's?) Large planets & suns (and hence longer spacelanes) mod...

- Neelix

Given that this could be useful in a number of addons, like the one you mentioned, perhaps an easy way to modify the parameters is the way to go, so when people create apps dealing with size and distance they can test and recommend ideal settings?

Perhaps the problem for me is I'm in a system with a distant star. The farther the Star, presumably the sooner the multipliers kick in? Or am I wrong on that?

What if the speeds reached were based on distance relative to star/planet mass? Imagining concentric circles around each star or planet, for example. The bigger the mass the larger the rings, each ring out being the next possible level of multiplier. In cases where they overlap (moons and planets) the stronger gravitational effect is used...

Cmdr Wyvern wrote:

Although it could smash you headlong into asteroids, the rocks being unpowered objects that don't masslock. If you see asteroids ahead, be careful.

The "retrieve a black box from a large and crowded asteroid field hals way to the star" missions in RRS could get interesting...

mossfoot wrote:

What if the speeds reached were based on distance relative to star/planet mass? Imagining concentric circles around each star or planet, for example. The bigger the mass the larger the rings, each ring out being the next possible level of multiplier. In cases where they overlap (moons and planets) the stronger gravitational effect is used...

It's looking like that's exactly how it works. The further away you are from a star/planet's gravity well, the higher the "warp factor". Though it's topping out at 8x.

I'll play around with it a bit more tonight, but it just seems like I'm getting to the planet too fast, maybe those circles need to be stretched out a bit?

Thanks for the replies, in  v1.2:
-Nonlinear speed calculation result faster travel to sun and less fast to planet: the speed is proportional with the square of distance, so the main lane get a few bonus only but somewhere over 1000km will reach the maximal 8x much faster than before.
-Better handling of Additional planets.
-Fix the ovelapping gravity if the distance is small between two planets or moons.

mossfoot wrote:

The farther the Star, presumably the sooner the multipliers kick in?

The distance of the sun finally is not used but the size of the planet is counted.

mossfoot wrote:

I also notice a shaking effect when hitting the top speeds

This is a bug what I can not fix at OXP level.

Cmdr Wyvern wrote:

Ignore the speed dial in the HUD

Upgrade your NumericHUD to v3.24 and you will see the correct speed.

Norby wrote:

mossfoot wrote:

I also notice a shaking effect when hitting the top speeds

This is a bug what I can not fix at OXP level.

Bug? I'd call it a feature Like the ship is taking the strain, which explains why the limiters are put in place as factory default.

planet-to-planet and planet-to-sun seems to be working fine in terms of scaling up speed, I think (from what I've tested). However, Sun-to-planet (or witchpoint) has you launch at spaceballs level Ludicrous Speed (minus going plaid ) with no build up.

I like what I see but no doubt some feedback on speed levels (from people with faster ships) and some general consensus on the degree of accelleration might be in order?

Another thing noted, the engine trails get left FAR behind as you look behind you while accelerating! (kind of fun the first time, watching the engine trail get farther and farther away...