Oolite Bulletins

Mmm I'm unsure weather a map in which there are multiple magnetic fields per system could technically have a southern eastern or western anything.

I tried to stick with inner and outer if I needed any spacial recognition of place. To use compass points gives the feel of very single planet bound thought process, (not really surprising) which the races would have moved beyond as soon as they exited their particular magnetosphere.

Just a thought.

Clym,

North, East, South and West on a map have nothing to do with magnetic fields (North is not defined by a magnet but other way round with north and south on a magnet was defined by the direction it pointed on earth) but I get your point. I had considered this when naming the regions but I didn't think rimward/inner, hubward/outer, clockwise and anti-clockwise was the way to go (too much like Terry Pratchett's Discworld).

I did ask people to let me know if they wanted name changes to regions. You have actually hit upon one of my reasons for me asking in the first place. So if you have better names please suggest.

[For your information: North in the solar system is defined as everything above the plane of Earth's orbit (above is the side in which the North pole of the Earth points). Any body in the solar system's poles are defined as a North pole if it points above that plane. This definition is very Earth centric. I would prefer the definition that the North pole is the pole when viewed from outside of the body has the body rotating anti-clockwise. By my definition Venus's pole designations would swap. There is also a North Galactic Pole too but again its definition is Earth centric with the North Galactic Pole being the galactic pole above the Earth's orbit]

How is getting your head round the map scripting going?

Phantor Gorth

PhantorGorth wrote:

Clym,

North, East, South and West on a map have nothing to do with magnetic fields (North is not defined by a magnet but other way round with north and south on a magnet was defined by the direction it pointed on earth) but I get your point. I had considered this when naming the regions but I didn't think rimward/inner, hubward/outer, clockwise and anti-clockwise was the way to go (too much like Terry Pratchett's Discworld).

Seemed to work for the others without too many complaints.
To be honest both have drawbacks, which is why you'll find looking back that most of the titles were kept as generic as possible. Don't get me wrong I like the unified galaxy, as other people have said it's something new and that's very cool.

But if I'm learning (and struggling with) a new way of map design, then I can't administer the map as well (as the tech is currently beyond me). But you see the pay off for doing the work on the map was administrating the fun bit!. I'm just seeing things (appear) run away without my OCD level of care, there are still some systems that need some work, Southern Prairie co-operative? Seriously? The Anener Collective that's separated from itself by at least 2 jumps? I think there are a couple of missing connections in there two, I'd have to check and checking takes time.

Don't worry I'll fix it all eventually. 1 map, 3 maps makes no odds to me. It's just not going to happen quickly. In the mean time to help the techno-rebuild would it be useful for me to supply the existing 5 maps in svg format? or just certain parts of them? All doable.

ClymAngus wrote:

I'm just seeing things (appear) run away without my OCD level of care, there are still some systems that need some work, Southern Prairie co-operative? Seriously? The Anener Collective that's separated from itself by at least 2 jumps? I think there are a couple of missing connections in there two, I'd have to check and checking takes time.

The daft Southern Prairie Co-operative name is because I couldn't think of anything at the time. No one has suggested doing anything to the map other Nemoricus so it is mostly stuff I came up with. If you want it changed just say and say what you want instead. I see your point on the Anener Collective I can drop or change that easily enough.

As to missing connections they will only be wrong if the script's algorithm is wrong. Take the world Leera which has according to the wiki page a hub count of 17 but my script only gets 15. I looked into this and the other two worlds Leusar and Soansoar are 7.33 and 7.02 light years respectively from Leera. Now I am aware that there maybe a need with the algorithm for the distance to be rounded before multiplying by 0.4 but if you do this and round down Leusar is still outside 7 lys so I can only assume the wiki is wrong.

If someone can say definitively what the distance calculation should be then I should be able to modify the script accordingly.

Phantor Gorth

One way to find out I take it the data for current Galaxy and position is held in the player data? See I'm not so sure, so the map is going on the xy co-ordinates yes? so unless some other mathematical equation is applied to ALL the co-ordinates before they're actually placed, we would assume that it is what it is.

We need to pop there with a hot wired player file with all the map bells and whistles, a full tank of gas and see what we can reach. Assuming that the wiki is wrong (although more likely) is at best still assumption.

I really hope that it is, to be honest else the auto-plotting although it doen't go out the window adds another stage of complexity fixing it.

@ClymAngus: Player data? You going to trawl through a save game file?

You could go to the world and see what distance the Oolites inbuilt chart says it is or I look at the code to see what the calculation actually is.

Phantor Gorth

Due to my wife being rather poorly in RL and my eldest's 8th b'day I've not had chance to cast my normally DH (bug) eye over the latest iteration of the map - I'll add my input (if that's alright) in due course - but I don't like names that relate back to human/earth like directions - I'd rather have fluffy and nebulous naming that somehow insinuates that non-humans also had a hand in the naming...

Apologies for not stating so earlier. (definitely not lack of interest, simply lack of time)

ClymAngus wrote:

I really hope that it is, to be honest else the auto-plotting although it doen't go out the window adds another stage of complexity fixing it.

Well if the Wiki does turn out to be wrong I was going to use the XML output of my spreadsheet and write another script to use with that as another way to generate the XML map data file anyway. Mind this originally was so you could create maps of other sets of 8 galaxies built from other seeds.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Due to my wife being rather poorly in RL and my eldest's 8th b'day I've not had chance to cast my normally DH (bug) eye over the latest iteration of the map - I'll add my input (if that's alright) in due course - but I don't like names that relate back to human/earth like directions - I'd rather have fluffy and nebulous naming that somehow insinuates that non-humans also had a hand in the naming...

I am sorry to hear about your wife's health. When you get the chance let me know what you want changing.

Phantor Gorth

PhantorGorth wrote:

@ClymAngus: Player data? You going to trawl through a save game file?

You could go to the world and see what distance the Oolites inbuilt chart says it is or I look at the code to see what the calculation actually is.

Phantor Gorth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQMfN0UFqms&NR=1

PhantorGorth wrote:

Here is an alternative to the middle section of Nemoricus's Trade Route 2 (We need better names for these routes by the way) -> Orriaso, Raceed, Eraso, Erbebeti, Qubiisis, Anares, Vereinat, Isata, Tiintele, Enqura, Enbece, Ismaarbe, Relequar, Verige, Artibius. This makes it even more epic.

Can't find much in the east of the map.

Phantor Gorth

Nice find. However, one of my considerations in making routes is how profitable they are. I'm inclined to think that mine is better for that purpose. Still, there is certainly no shortage of room for another route on this map and I can't really complain. See what I came up with for Galaxy 5! That was just nuts by comparison.

Now, I'm currently looking to see if I can find the least unprofitable route across the Eastern Industrial Belt. I believe that I've found it, but I'm not quite sure yet.

EDIT: Okay, my current best path both through and beyond the Belt starts at Artibius on the Epic Route.

Artibius, Verige, Relequar, Enqura, Usquat, Leorqu, Tianorin, Getere, Inlebi, Bilaza, Atxeteer, Onbeso, Teerbi.

It's marginal in places, but it's the best that I could find.

I think east/west/north/south are all OK, really – it's just a useful convention applied to a 2D map representing a 3D space. All planets will have these axes, one way or another, and everyone knows what they mean.

I will wait until the cardinal directions argument is settled before/if I make changes to the appropriate names on the map. In the mean time here is my next update to the map:

GALAXY 6 (v4)

Phantor Gorth

That blue-green is too subtle among all of the purple routes. A paler, brighter shade would be better.

Nemoricus wrote:

That blue-green is too subtle among all of the purple routes. A paler, brighter shade would be better.

I find that cyan stood out very clearly but then I am probably see it differently to you as I am likely to be using a different viewer (Evince Document Viewer in my case). I have more trouble with Trade Route 1's dark blue. To hopefully fix it for you I have increased the cyan from #00A0A0 to a brighter #00FFFF and replaced the v4 pdf. Let me know if that's still a problem.

Phantor Gorth

Much better.

Nice work, PhantorGorth.