Oolite Bulletins

Posted: **Wed Dec 07, 2022 12:43 pm**

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 11:51 am
... is there anything you might have expected to be included in a Pack B?

I once wanted to do an X-rated Pack B, but I wasn't up to the task.

Posted: **Wed Dec 07, 2022 2:36 pm**

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 11:51 am
1) Would it have been difficult to rejig the vanilla game code to allow .oxp galaxies containing stars without planets? One might then create a more involved exploration scenario involving trying to find some stars too!

Just needs system.mainPlanet.remove() to be implemented. Probably not that difficult to do that in itself but it would need to come with a health warning that actually using it would break a lot of things! So much of the stock AI depends on system.mainPlanet existing, with some tweaks to ensure that in Nova systems (not that any would normally appear there to start with) it never gets as far as that bit because it's too busy entering hyperspace.

For SOTL I just moved the main planet to a position far enough away from the main star as to be undiscoverable, which was good enough as a basic workaround.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 11:51 am
2) Looking back at Communications Pack A - is there anything you might have expected to be included in a Pack B (perhaps Phkb's Death Comms)?

Anything, really. The point was that if anyone came up with their own personalities for any of the roles, they could make a similar comms pack for those. If I'd had anything specific in mind myself it would have been another personality in Comms Pack A, though.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 11:51 am
Would there be any chance of your uploading your galaxy generator programme to the wiki? (it is supposed to take .zip's) I can happily work in the various links to the relevant wiki pages...

There you go - galaxy-building code for both SOTL and Altmap
https://cim.sotl.org.uk/games/files/ool ... ilders.zip

Posted: **Thu Dec 08, 2022 7:21 pm**

I just downloaded and played the SOTL game for the first time.

(yep ... all these ideas you had seen from me so far popped up in my head just after READING about the game, not actually trying to play it)

In short, I got pretty hooked. This looks like a pretty exciting mission for those who like to explore. I can even think about how to make this available in the "main game". Again, I will think about it and then share what I came up with.

Here are my observations:

- 1. Hyperspace -

The hyperspace is pretty much unplayable using a keyboard. Let me guess. You have a joystick, you tested it only with the joystick and you thought "let's the markers tell the pilot how to lean the stick" is the right idea here. Because that is my impression from the design you chose there. Well, keyboard users can't "lean the stick" in any "intermediate position" in any sensible way. Using keyboard I am pretty much limited to about 3 LY jumps with 4 energy capacitor modules. % LY if I am very lucky. I tried a 6.8 jump, had to abort about 5 LY from my destination because I was in the middle of my last energy bank.

Proposals:
1. Have the marks moved around like you are "rotating" the ship in the whitespace. Light tap = your mark moves a little. Longer tap = your mark moves more. Hold key = mark starts moving slowly but accelerates, when you release the key, the mark slows down to a stop (like it had an intertia of sorts).
2. The "desired marks" - don't make them jump around like crazy. The "spacetime coherency" isn't decohering that fast. Make them move a little first, then speed up to relatively fast speed (about half of the max speed of yours) until they come near their new destination, then have them slow down until they are hovering there. Give them a little bit of time (few seconds) to stay there before a new "desired coherency setup" is generated and the marks start to move there.

However I came up with a different way to design a "manually piloted hyperdrive" and to give meaning to the "alignment" but I need to think about it a bit before I post it here.

- 2. Gravity sensor -

The gravity sensor is too inaccurate to find anything past about 1.2 AU. As an example I tried to explore "Cealeg" (the only system close enough to reach safely with the broken hyperdrive controls)

Think about our own science a bit. We built a gravimetric observatory that is able to detect gravity waves from billions of light years away. We actually built at least *two*. Because we wanted to make sure what they measure is really coming from the deep space and not from some "microwave someone used at the ground level" (I remember a story when some observatory detected something that looked like "alien signal" and then later it was determined the signal "did not came from ET but from a leaky microwave in the basement").

Another example. We built a gravity sensor that is sensitive enough to see the gravity difference caused by a slightly denser rock under the surface of our planet. I am talking about density of granite versus density of iron ore, uranium ore or thorium. We packed that into a probe, sent that probe into space using a chemical fuel based rocked (the lousiest imaginable) and used that to survey a bunch of stellar bodies including Earth (I think Moon and Mars got scanned and maybe Venus too but I am not sure about that).

So. We have Earth in an universe with such insane physics as ours has. It is 20XX (where 00 <= XX <= 22; I am not sure about the exact date right now and it is not that important to show my point). And it can build accurate gravimetric sensors that can see things billions of light years away. Now in the ooniverse the physics is much friendlier to science (there are "absolute coordinates" and "absolute time" available there but nor in our universe). It is year 3500 or so (again not exactly sure but definitely much later than 2022). And their gravity sensor can't see clearly a stellar body mere 2 AU from my location?

So here is my proposal:

1. If you are measuring the stellar body from a distance close enough (let's make it like 1000 km), the grav sensor can determine the surface gravity exactly.
2. The noise can be reduced to only in femto-g range by some 10 seconds of scanning.
3. The sensor can see bodies up to about 100 AU away from its location.
4. You spoke about "placing the main planet so far away that it is not discoverable". Make that 2500 AU and you are golden. The gravity field from such an object is so weak that it cannot be detected reliably (the Earth gravimetric sensor that sensed the stuff billions of light years away is some 30 km long and wide; the need to scale the thing down to fit inside a reasonably sized ship reduces accuracy but 100 AU shall still be realistically achievable).
5. But to not make things too easy, I would also propose to sum up gravitational influences from two objects if the second one is on the line that starts from the sensor and extends through the first one. This is because (as the code says) (yes, I took a look at the code too) the gravity sensor can discern between influences coming from different directions.

- 3. Gravity sensor filtering -

The gravity sensor would really benefit from some non-volatile memory storage. Having to reconfigure filtering each time I power cycle the sensor (which I have to when I want to move) is incredibly tedious and can lead to stupid mistakes (like assigning a bogus scan to already scanned and known object because "assign mode" instead of "filter mode" got selected, corrupting the data and leading to the need to rescan the body again).

My proposal is to clear this filter only when exiting the system (via hyperspace) but not when simply powering the sensor down.

Posted: **Thu Dec 08, 2022 7:52 pm**

Here is few more smaller things

1. The "money" shall not be shown nor mentioned anywhere. I don't think credits are pertinent in this particular case.
2. The "commodity market" should be replaced with a "resources status report". I think that could be doable because there are OXPs which replace that screen with a page stating something along the lines of "there is no commodity market here" (Planetfall and The Dark Monks are two that I remember were messing around with this page). This report would have two columns, in the first the raw ores would be shown, the second ones would contain things like wreckage and escape pods but also other stuff like available fuel.
3. The refitting page is pretty cumbersome. What would make a lot more sense would be something very similar to a "commodity market". The "commodities" would be the modules, you would have a limited number of each available, your starting ship capacity is 10 pieces (that is already stated in your wiki page).
4. The F5/F5 page (the shipyard) shall not mention "purchase". You would simply be able to swap the ship(s) for free. If you get that far (constructing a ship needs a lot of resources). Bigger ships would allow you to carry more modules, allowing you to explore deeper into the
5. The background information does not say anything about you. Are you "just one of the colonists" or "the leader of the ship". If you don't know, then my proposal would be that you are the leader and that the rest of the colonists were forced into hibernation when their resources ran out. They tried to "survive on hydroponics" but after few decades it became clear they can't spend enough time on both, food production and exploration so when they ran out of the easily accessible resources in their "home stellar system", they had to hibernate to conserve resources. Or the machinery (including the hydroponics) got damaged and after a few decades it became clear that "using scotch tape to keep the stuff together" isn't going to cut it for long term so hibernation time it is (fortunately the hibernation chambers was the only thing that did not suffer damage from the mis-jump, the most likely reason is that the hibernation chamber section had to be heavily shielded from the hostile universe outside and this shielding absorbed all damage from the rough hyperspace exit). You are the leader of the ship who was left awake and tasked with "finding enough resources to wake up the rest of the crew, repair the thing and finish the journey to a habitable planet".
6. Your spectral sensor is missing a few elements: Carbon (pretty common in any systems that contain habitable planets), Thorium (in our solar system it is much more common than Uranium; it can be converted into fissile Uranium by bombarding it with neutrons, meaning it is harder to exploit but nevertheless can be used whenever fissile Uranium is needed).

I also got a rough sketch how to make this a part of the main game:

The mission is introduced to you as "a weird spaceship found" in one of the systems. To accept the mission you arrive at the system in question, swap your current ship for the "weird one" and then hyperspace away to the "ninth chart". Your task is to find the modified colony ship, dock with it, then help it by exploring and acquiring resources. You can't do that using your "normal" ship because you need the "weird hyperdrive" to access that particular chart.

Since this mission is so long term, I would actually make it possible to return early to spend some more time in the "normal ooniverse". And then return back later. That could open more ways to help the colony ship. Like transporting some of the resources needed from the "normal ooniverse" (you would fill Shaula with "sample collection bays", move it to the "normal ooniverse", fill it up with stuff from the stockmarket, move it back to Local Maximum (the colony ship), unload the resources. But that would be tedious (the two systems shall be pretty far away from each other).

The reward for completing this mission should be some exciting new technologies that initially only you can access. You would then decide whether you want to sell these to the wide market for a lot of CrCrCr (with the downside of making it available to NPCs) or keep it to yourself.

Posted: **Fri Dec 09, 2022 3:33 am**

Well, I finally figured out how to explore the systems properly. After reading the code

You need to install 5 gravity detectors. That reduces the noise all the way to one femto-G. Enough precision to discover everything.

Using only one gives you enough precision to explore stuff up some 1.2 to 1.5 AU. And only when the planets are large enough. Small ones or fast ones will get lost in the noise.

Posted: **Fri Dec 09, 2022 9:08 am**

CalebOfIronAssMiner wrote: ↑Fri Dec 09, 2022 3:33 am
Well, I finally figured out how to explore the systems properly. After reading the code

You need to install 5 gravity detectors. That reduces the noise all the way to one femto-G. Enough precision to discover everything.

Using only one gives you enough precision to explore stuff up some 1.2 to 1.5 AU. And only when the planets are large enough. Small ones or fast ones will get lost in the noise.

Ahah! I never realised that (despite the words on the wiki page), and could never get my gravity detector to do anything much....

Well done! And "thank you" for publishing that, Caleb. I'll have to give it another shot.

I wonder how many people every really tried playing this properly. Cody likes the hyperspace sequence (he plays with a joystick), but has not really commented recently on too much else to do with this one. And you have also uncovered why the ship-equipping system works the way that it does!

I've edited the wiki page in light of your comments. I'd misread what it said.

Posted: **Fri Dec 09, 2022 4:41 pm**

I mean, in general the answer is: it's a barely tested prototype

But on this specific bit:

CalebOfIronAssMiner wrote: ↑Thu Dec 08, 2022 7:21 pm
The hyperspace is pretty much unplayable using a keyboard. Let me guess. You have a joystick, you tested it only with the joystick and you thought "let's the markers tell the pilot how to lean the stick" is the right idea here.

No, I have a keyboard. Haven't owned a joystick for decades. (I'm sure it *would* be easier with any sort of analogue control, but it's possible)

Fitting extra energy modules can help on the first run on any particular course. Once you've completed the first run, you get anticipatory markers of where it's going to go next, and can swap some of them out for more sensors. If you do the same run multiple times (I think it caps at 20) your penalty on that route for being off-course decreases as well, so you don't need to be as precise, letting you decrease the energy modules further and carry more fuel or other tools.

Posted: **Fri Dec 09, 2022 4:55 pm**

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Fri Dec 09, 2022 9:08 am
Ahah! I never realised that (despite the words on the wiki page), and could never get my gravity detector to do anything much....

Well done! And "thank you" for publishing that, Caleb. I'll have to give it another shot.

Ok, here is the correct way to find all planets in a system.

1. Install 5 gravity detectors.
2. Switch your engine to "cruise" mode (using the flight computer).
3. Get reasonably close to the star.
4. Run the scan until the bars stop moving (the fG bar will be jittering +-1pixel a little).
5. Stop the scan, assign it to the star, exclude the star.
6. Run the scan again until X,Y,Z stabilize.
7. Turn to face the source using the X,Y,Z.
8. Use hyperspeed to reach the source. Periodically stop, scan again and make course corrections as necessary.
9. If the star is behind you, you should see a pixel start to move slightly when you get a little bit close to the gravity source. Additionally, your hyperspeed shall slow down.
10. Get to the planet, stop about 200-300 km from it and scan it, running the scan until the bars stop moving (except the fG one jittering a bit). Assign this scan to the planet and exclude the planet.
11. Find the rest of the planet using steps step 6-10.

After you found the last one, the next scan will give you a direction to a phantom gravity source that is at infinity on line that starts from the star and passess through your current location. You can verify this by orienting yourself according to the X,Y,Z and then seeing that the star is behind you.

Another indication is that when you orient yourself towards the phantom source and starts to travel to it, as you get "closer", the gravity will drop instead of rise.

This is because the gravity scans you just made are slightly corrupt. The scan of the star includes the gravity of every planet at the point where you did the scan. The scans of the planet will include gravity of all the other that were not discovered yet at the time you did the scan (the ones you discovered before were filtered out), the scan of the second will include all but the first and so on. Only the last planet will have its scan accurate.

The errors are of low picoG or femtoG magnitude (depending on the sizes and relative distances of the planets) but they can be easily confused for "a very distant undiscovered planet".

When this happens, you can call it done and go to the next system. If you are the type of perfectionist who is not satisfied with "sloppy work", you can fix the scans with these steps:

1. Fly to the star, fly to its corona (carefully tap hyperspeed until the space in the aft, left and right view lightens, be careful to not get your hyperspeed masslocked by the star).
2. Include the star in the scan, exclude everything else.
3. Scan the star again (wait for the gravity bars to stabilize) and assign the new scan.
4. Now switch to the first planet.
5. For each planet (except the last) fly to it, get so close to it that the "alt" bar turns red (be careful to not crash into the planet), exclude everything except the planet, scan the planet again and assign the new scan to the planet.
6. If you did everything correctly, now when you try to run the scan (with everything known filtered out), you should get only noise in the fG bar and the X,Y,Z should never stabilize. When that is happening, there are no undiscovered significant sources of gravity in this system.

You can use less than 5 gravity sensors only when you want to do a "customary exploration". Even 1 allows you to find 1 or 2 planets. But if you want to make sure you got everything, you need 5 sensors to kill the noise. The systems may have up to 8 planets.

You won't be able to carry the spectrometer if you are not using a joystick because the "joystick-only" hyperspatial integrity alignment means you are going to need significantly more energy than you think so you need to load up on energy capacitors.

So hyperspace to the next system you plan to be explored and repeat the search there.

After you are finished with searching for planets, you want to go back to Local Maximum and refit the ship to carry the spectral sensor and the prospecting laser. Return back to the freshly explored systems and use the spectral sensor to scan the star and planets (as described in the wiki). Then using your computer find the lagrange points of the planets (one at a time). The closest one (less than about 0.5 AU) will most likely have nothing at its L4 and L5 but planets more than 0.5 AU away from the star will likely have an asteroid field at both. Use the prospecting laser and the spectral scanner to search the asteroids for resources. The scan will tell you a) whether the asteroid is an icesteroid, a space rock or a metallic asteroid. It will also tell you if there are any significant trace elements in the asteroid.

Also you will most likely be able to explore only about a dozen or two systems (your closest neighbourhood). Anything beyond that is out of reach because the game is still unfinished. Unless you hack the game to give you 200 LY in a single tank, that would allow you to explore everything.

[As cim says in the post after yours, this is only a "barely tested prototype". Means the game is unfinished. As an example there is space for scans like "planet stability" or "star stability" that are impossible to get (there are no instruments for that)]

Also there is a bug in the refitting screen. To refuel your ship you need to remove and then re-add the fuel tanks. This will make visible the "refill the tanks" option, which will refill your ship to full.

Also I got a patch that fixes the "grav sensor forgets the filter setup when powered off" but have no idea how to attach files to posts.

Posted: **Fri Dec 09, 2022 5:07 pm**

cim wrote: ↑Fri Dec 09, 2022 4:41 pm
I mean, in general the answer is: it's a barely tested prototype But on this specific bit:

So you got me hooked on a "barely tested prototype"

Congratulations (for a great idea)!

cim wrote: ↑Fri Dec 09, 2022 4:41 pm
No, I have a keyboard. Haven't owned a joystick for decades. (I'm sure it *would* be easier with any sort of analogue control, but it's possible)

Then you have super-accurate high speed fingers. Or you only ever tried to hyperspace into Cealeg. And used at least 3 energy modules and most likely 4 or more

(I fitted 4 to do my very first trip there).

cim wrote: ↑Fri Dec 09, 2022 4:41 pm
Fitting extra energy modules can help on the first run on any particular course. Once you've completed the first run, you get anticipatory markers of where it's going to go next, and can swap some of them out for more sensors. If you do the same run multiple times (I think it caps at 20) your penalty on that route for being off-course decreases as well, so you don't need to be as precise, letting you decrease the energy modules further and carry more fuel or other tools.

Fitting extra energy modules is exactly what I did. Hyperspacing to the closest system (Cealeg) is another trick I did to avoid dying in hyperspace on my first try. I guesstimated that the time spent traveling is proportional to the distance (and later verified it)

As I said in my previous post I managed to "fit a non-volatile filter setup storage" to the grav scanner. I can't post files here (I have no idea how and most likely the reason is I have no permissions to do that). Do you have a github or something?

(so my "almost nonexistent oolite coding skills" are not as nonexistent as I originally thought

)

Posted: **Sun Dec 11, 2022 1:22 am**

CalebOfIronAssMiner wrote: ↑Fri Dec 09, 2022 5:07 pm
As I said in my previous post I managed to "fit a non-volatile filter setup storage" to the grav scanner. I can't post files here (I have no idea how and most likely the reason is I have no permissions to do that). Do you have a github or something?

(so my "almost nonexistent oolite coding skills" are not as nonexistent as I originally thought )

Is this what you are looking for?

https://github.com/cim--/oxp-SongOfTheLabyrinth

And relieved to hear that you are adding to things!

Personally, I'd consider that the most important thing would be to add a zero-line to the gravity x/y/z read outs:

Maybe like the Coluber CH01 HUD? Or the Yet_another_HUD? See: HUD images here

Posted: **Mon Dec 12, 2022 2:52 pm**

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Sun Dec 11, 2022 1:22 am
Is this what you are looking for?

https://github.com/cim--/oxp-SongOfTheLabyrinth

Exactly.

When my internet (and my browser) stops acting up, I will make a pull request with the patch.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Sun Dec 11, 2022 1:22 am
And relieved to hear that you are adding to things!

Thanks.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Sun Dec 11, 2022 1:22 am
Personally, I'd consider that the most important thing would be to add a zero-line to the gravity x/y/z read outs:

I think so too but right now I settled for the high-tech solution of sticking a piece of paper next to that dial to indicate where that line is

.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Sun Dec 11, 2022 1:22 am
Maybe like the Coluber CH01 HUD? Or the Yet_another_HUD? See: HUD images here

Look good but I thing they need quite a bit of tweaking.

Personally I like the design with "the metal panes". They give the vibe of "improvised discovery spaceship". I think "nice HUD" is something that shall be added later after you collect enough material to "finish the improvised ship up".

P.S. When I looked through the code, I got laughs when I discovered that "discovered planets" are registered as "player kills".

Posted: **Mon Dec 12, 2022 2:59 pm**

CalebOfIronAssMiner wrote: ↑Mon Dec 12, 2022 2:52 pm

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Sun Dec 11, 2022 1:22 am
Personally, I'd consider that the most important thing would be to add a zero-line to the gravity x/y/z read outs:
I think so too but right now I settled for the high-tech solution of sticking a piece of paper next to that dial to indicate where that line is .

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Sun Dec 11, 2022 1:22 am
Maybe like the Coluber CH01 HUD? Or the Yet_another_HUD? See: HUD images here
Look good but I thing they need quite a bit of tweaking.

Personally I like the design with "the metal panes". They give the vibe of "improvised discovery spaceship". I think "nice HUD" is something that shall be added later after you collect enough material to "finish the improvised ship up".

P.S. When I looked through the code, I got laughs when I discovered that "discovered planets" are registered as "player kills".

Not my thinking. Those two HUDs have vertical bars with gradations. I think they both manage the gradations by using some sort of overlay on the viewscreen. They merely show how it could be done. They are, as you realise, quite unsuitable for SOTL.

Posted: **Mon Dec 12, 2022 4:48 pm**

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Mon Dec 12, 2022 2:59 pm
Not my thinking. ... They are, as you realise, quite unsuitable for SOTL.

That is what I meant with "the HUDs will need quite a bit of tweaking". I also think they are quite unsuitable for SOTL as they are because of lots of stuff that makes little sense in that scenario.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Mon Dec 12, 2022 2:59 pm
... Those two HUDs have vertical bars with gradations. I think they both manage the gradations by using some sort of overlay on the viewscreen. They merely show how it could be done. ...

I already downloaded these (plus a bunch of others HUDs). The zero line thing (personally I think it is a question of just placing an image at the right spot with the correct "Z" designation) is just one of things I would like to add.

Posted: **Wed Sep 13, 2023 7:29 am**

cim wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2015 4:20 pm
... until 1.0 (which might be a while away yet) the shape of the galaxy will change as more things get added and this affects the generation algorithm, ...

The SotL Exploration planet.info.plist (3Mb) contains a wealth of data.

Here is the detail for planet #1:

Code: Select all

"0 1" = {
	"layer" = "1";
	"coordinates" = "73 144";
	"random_seed" = "36 30 52 189 65 128";
	"concealment" = "100";
	"name" = "Pi Ratbemna";
	"sun_radius" = "894471";
	"corona_flare" = "0.07";
	"corona_shimmer" = "0.02";
	"corona_hues" = "0.03";
	"sun_color" = "0.926 0.550 0.524";
	"sun_distance" = "10000000";
	"sun_name" = "Pi Ratbemna";
	"sun_vector" = "0 0 1";
	"planet_distance" = "1000000";
	"radius" = "3000";
	"percent_land" = "0";
	"percent_ice" = "100";
	"percent_cloud" = "0";
	"has_atmosphere" = "0";
	"cloud_alpha" = "0";
	"rotational_velocity" = "0";
	"atmosphere_rotational_velocity" = "0";
	"land_color" = "blackColor";
	"polar_land_color" = "blackColor";
	"sea_color" = "blackColor";
	"polar_sea_color" = "blackColor";
	"cloud_color" = "blackColor";
	"polar_cloud_color" = "blackColor";
	"planets_discovered" = "0";
	"planets_available" = "5";
	"planet_position_0" = "-7593934.672 -142374.011 2894293.105";
	"planet_value_0" = "0";
	"planet_name_0" = "";
	"planet_position_1" = "1394931.964 412877.342 16419479.472";
	"planet_value_1" = "0";
	"planet_name_1" = "";
	"planet_position_2" = "50022813.218 -607933.659 -10353519.053";
	"planet_value_2" = "0";
	"planet_name_2" = "";
	"planet_position_3" = "46573162.957 3933575.687 -85351468.901";
	"planet_value_3" = "0";
	"planet_name_3" = "";
	"planet_position_4" = "125513431.115 995523.589 -46586838.355";
	"planet_value_4" = "0";
	"planet_name_4" = "";
	"planet_data" = "[{\"name\":\"\",\"axialTilt\":0.018673905054446892,\"habZoneRange\":0.27089312444858465,\"orbitalRadius\":8126793.733457539,\"orbitalPosition\":5.076524966382528,\"orbitalRadiusAU\":0.13544656222429233,\"coordinates\":[-7593934.672477218,-142374.01139411185,2894293.1047689426],\"mineralWealth\":0.41998417597715926,\"radius\":6736,\"temperature\":263.4853915983641,\"percentIce\":0,\"percentLand\":1,\"landFraction\":1,\"percentCloud\":0,\"cloudAlpha\":0,\"rotationalVelocity\":0.0006141988416734147,\"surfaceRadiation\":0.11597727777705025,\"seismicInstability\":0.0029878837171123302,\"surfaceGravity\":1.1723982723799526,\"zpos\":6043126,\"windFactor\":0,\"atmosphereVelocity\":0,\"habitability\":0,\"landColour\":[0.7421014885614168,0.23563191142661122,0.3136914667737165],\"seaColour\":[0.43722838491072336,0.6714111716819048,0.44594023518540904],\"polarLandColour\":[0.7285820471721618,0.6709593003480505,0.5775759855180868],\"polarSeaColour\":[0.6372283849107234,0.8714111716819049,0.6459402351854091],\"cloudColour\":[0.7407257792263877,0.6184128027960718,0.8336041345417518],\"polarCloudColour\":[0.6188092507509557,0.5059834647020248,0.5612541482137768],\"atmosphereType\":{\"composition\":\"metals\",\"thickness\":0.006441328905728333,\"seed\":8120912},\"trojans\":0.5415052112381823,\"trojanSeed\":14120788},{\"name\":\"\",\"axialTilt\":0.13708182260673216,\"habZoneRange\":0.5492875601031328,\"orbitalRadius\":16478626.803093985,\"orbitalPosition\":0.08475240931178601,\"orbitalRadiusAU\":0.2746437800515664,\"coordinates\":[1394931.9639228745,412877.34198847436,16419479.47200744],\"mineralWealth\":0.11688047763750811,\"radius\":5173,\"temperature\":136.66878905812717,\"percentIce\":0,\"percentLand\":1,\"landFraction\":1,\"percentCloud\":0,\"cloudAlpha\":0,\"rotationalVelocity\":0.001289741635690323,\"surfaceRadiation\":0.11597727777705025,\"seismicInstability\":0.0013136159585844457,\"surfaceGravity\":0.7390108574680976,\"zpos\":3833172,\"windFactor\":0,\"atmosphereVelocity\":0,\"habitability\":0,\"landColour\":[0.5931733334870886,0.12219744120826827,0.1960425973385771],\"seaColour\":[0.49607260296869676,0.6014566690202134,0.35306448207845187],\"polarLandColour\":[0.8757693391180454,0.7370431749322652,0.5161923870054038],\"polarSeaColour\":[0.6960726029686968,0.8014566690202134,0.5530644820784518],\"cloudColour\":[0.2772107965672439,0.44321270875782365,0.38774020629364075],\"polarCloudColour\":[0.3211064892453637,0.689844616358096,0.7015820659238762],\"atmosphereType\":{\"composition\":\"methane\",\"thickness\":0.0021190130161675685,\"seed\":961370},\"trojans\":0.12817070162663413,\"trojanSeed\":15015113},{\"name\":\"\",\"axialTilt\":0.05194432056031775,\"habZoneRange\":1.7027680728905599,\"orbitalRadius\":51083042.186716795,\"orbitalPosition\":1.7748904397489504,\"orbitalRadiusAU\":0.8513840364452799,\"coordinates\":[50022813.21822849,-607933.6585614296,-10353519.053158356],\"mineralWealth\":0.12600123097552832,\"radius\":5795,\"temperature\":-62.517966389136916,\"percentIce\":1,\"percentLand\":0.6181158649621459,\"landFraction\":0.7952896624053648,\"percentCloud\":0.2447227730420657,\"cloudAlpha\":0.2010400488977507,\"rotationalVelocity\":0.001214185709931974,\"surfaceRadiation\":0,\"seismicInstability\":0.004219792155656427,\"surfaceGravity\":0.8504700961542411,\"zpos\":4858545,\"windFactor\":0.01,\"atmosphereVelocity\":0.0000029999999999999997,\"habitability\":0,\"landColour\":[0.1446946907996641,0.2671989810500289,0.13601445669122714],\"seaColour\":[0.6161073123645537,0.6888871953305262,0.7801909674332435],\"polarLandColour\":[0.5443814354224045,0.5752857620247108,0.5965192610847387],\"polarSeaColour\":[0.8161073123645537,0.8888871953305262,0.9801909674332434],\"cloudColour\":[0.8322856348158258,0.21511687995638554,0.8587140278698475],\"polarCloudColour\":[0.442931351039061,0.39023239840298535,0.3018980135218697],\"atmosphereType\":{\"composition\":\"water\",\"thickness\":0.2010400488977507,\"seed\":14145119},\"trojans\":0.15908852021706096,\"trojanSeed\":4533349},{\"name\":\"\",\"axialTilt\":0.0026420219928325606,\"habZoneRange\":3.241044542095713,\"orbitalRadius\":97231336.26287138,\"orbitalPosition\":2.642085069809932,\"orbitalRadiusAU\":1.6205222710478564,\"coordinates\":[46573162.95741656,3933575.687294507,-85351468.90127604],\"mineralWealth\":0.3627229748739949,\"radius\":3614,\"temperature\":-118.01201827551154,\"percentIce\":0,\"percentLand\":1,\"landFraction\":1,\"percentCloud\":0,\"cloudAlpha\":0,\"rotationalVelocity\":0.0014640805865470696,\"surfaceRadiation\":0,\"seismicInstability\":-0.07326196316421893,\"surfaceGravity\":0.5339333026212096,\"zpos\":3607017,\"windFactor\":0,\"atmosphereVelocity\":0,\"habitability\":0,\"landColour\":[0.660458494238769,0.2846956749375424,0.23268286591986329],\"seaColour\":[0.6166656733102471,0.7447057628746636,0.424726894602518],\"polarLandColour\":[0.5143399589296151,0.41046381681713456,0.7940873646149819],\"polarSeaColour\":[0.8166656733102471,0.9447057628746636,0.6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	"star_data" = "{\"sequence\":\"Class M\",\"brightness\":0.058573252804844295,\"mass\":0.5291183204991363,\"radius\":894471,\"instability\":0.048323865740437594,\"coronaFlare\":0.06615496397740595,\"coronaShimmer\":0.016107955246812532,\"coronaHues\":0.032215910493625065,\"habitableZoneFactor\":0.5,\"mineralFactor\":0.1712758589402194,\"mineralSeed\":8870401,\"constellation\":\"Ratbemna\",\"name\":\"Pi Ratbemna\",\"vector\":[0.9608988529921291,0,0.2768996105421798],\"colour\":[0.9257322140972746,0.55,0.5242677859027254],\"brightnessIndex\":128,\"constallationIndex\":16}";
	"sky_n_stars" = "17230";
	"sky_n_blurs" = "62";
	"description" = "Class M star. System unexplored.";
	"economy" = "0";
	"government" = "0";
	"techlevel" = "0";
	"economy_description" = "No survey";
	"government_description" = "No survey";
	"inhabitants" = "None";
	"productivity" = "No survey";
	"station" = "sotl-exp-station";
};

I don't know enough to pick it all apart, but:

surfaceRadiation ?

seismicInstability ?

surfaceGravity ?

polar cloud color ? (I see that polar sea color & polar land color are mentioned in the wiki)

constellations ? ("star_data"= ... "Ratbemna\",\"name\":\"Pi Ratbemna\",\"vector\":[0.9608988529921291,0,0.2768996105421798],\"colour\":[0.9257322140972746,0.55,0.5242677859027254],\"brightnessIndex\":128,\"constallationIndex\":16}")

How much of the extra non-documented description actually maps onto OOlite's Vanilla-code capabilities, how much is provided by the OXP coding, and how much was built in for future development?

Posted: **Wed Sep 13, 2023 12:50 pm**

Polar cloud colour might have been me forgetting that it didn't exist as a core property. But it'll work if anyone implements it

The rest are OXP hooks because you can set and retrieve arbitrary planetinfo properties - they would at some point have gone into being data for economic or political detail (so e.g. high radiation planets would have imported radiation shielding). Constellations was probably just somewhere to park temporary calculation data which ended up in the planetinfo, but I guess it could be used for something.

Oolite Bulletins

SOTL Exploration v0.4 [WIP, 1.83 required]

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