Oolite Bulletins

KZ9999 wrote:

Assuming that I'm correctly reading this, then this raises some interesting questions about the LS rating for ships. If anyone knows what LS 1.00 is in real metres per second, I'd really like to know.

You can work it out with the Scanner Targeting Enhancement. This show the distance to a locked target.
Lock onto an asteroid and then time how long it takes at various speeds (Max. normal, fuel injected and jump) until you pass (or hit) the object. I did it once, but I've forgotten what the actual figures were. All I remember is I concluded that a Cobby MK3 wasn't fast enough (for me!)

@Eric: You are right. I tested it with a 250-repetitions loop and it returns values from -3 to 3. Therefore the comment in the code is wrong and the witchpoint distance varies from 9 to 15 times the planet radius.

another_commander wrote:

Code: Select all

	double planet_zpos = (12.0 + (Ranrot() & 3) - (Ranrot() & 3) ) * planet_radius;

which translates to 9 to 15 times the planet radius (or 9 to 15 * planet radius divided by 100, if you are reading the radius from the F7 screen).

Ok so the witchpoint distance equals ((9-15) times planet radius) divided by 100).
For Lave average witchpoint distance in km
x = (12 * 4116) / 100
x = (49392) / 100
x = 493.92 km

with a total variance range of 370 to 617 km.

I know I'm getting caught up in a fiddling little point but providing consistent calculable background detail is vital in aiding to the suspension of belief with fictional works. It doesn't matter how you break the rules, as long as the rules are broken in a consistent fashion.

KZ9999 wrote:

x = 493.92 km

with a total variance range of 370 to 617 km.

I also must add that the random generator returns a different fixed value for every system. (like the pseudoFixedD100_number in scripting). So it is random between systems, on returning in the same system the distance will always be the same. When you really need the distance for some documentation, better use the console for retrieving the value. e.g for Lave the distance is always: 452760 meters (452,76 km)