[Release] Waypoint Here OXP

[spara]

My guest will be that your beacon got scooped by one of pirates. That's why you could not get back.

Highly unlikely since this oxp uses waypoints instead of beacons.

[Mazur]

My guest will be that your beacon got scooped by one of pirates. That's why you could not get back.

Highly unlikely since this oxp uses waypoints instead of beacons.

The ship might have been salvaged, sure, but the waypoint, indeed, is essentially an illusion created in the navigation-computer of my ship.
Which is, why in my view, it should also be possible to use it in Interstellar space: it's just a directive how to retrace one's step. In interstellar, space, I've had to run a few times, and without enough fuel left to complete my jump, needed to get back go the point where the GalCops were, in the hope of a dockable ship passing through.
(Of course, I now have the automatic fuel collector, so I guess I don't need that anymore). Still, if Thargoids are in the majority, it may be sensible to retreat out of range for a while to let shields recharge, before returning and rejoining the fight. After all, that's where the Galcops Behemoth is likely to remain, where one can refuel. And it is where the Alien Items are, which is a lucrative target to practice scooping up on.

[Smivs]

... the waypoint, indeed, is essentially an illusion created in the navigation-computer of my ship.
Which is, why in my view, it should also be possible to use it in Interstellar space: it's just a directive how to retrace one's step. In interstellar, space, I've had to run a few times, and without enough fuel left to complete my jump, needed to get back go the point where the GalCops were, in the hope of a dockable ship passing through.

But the whole point about interstellar space is that there is nothing there. A waypoint has to be set relative to something. Using your pilots' skills to backtrack a short distance is understandable, but expecting your computer to be able to remember nothing more than an arbitrary point in the middle of (genuinely, absolutely) nowhere is asking a bit much.
No, IS space is a black void where tech that relies on nearby stars, planets and fabricated beacons for reference points should not work.

[Mazur]

... the waypoint, indeed, is essentially an illusion created in the navigation-computer of my ship.
Which is, why in my view, it should also be possible to use it in Interstellar space: it's just a directive how to retrace one's step. In interstellar, space, I've had to run a few times, and without enough fuel left to complete my jump, needed to get back go the point where the GalCops were, in the hope of a dockable ship passing through.

But the whole point about interstellar space is that there is nothing there. A waypoint has to be set relative to something. Using your pilots' skills to backtrack a short distance is understandable, but expecting your computer to be able to remember nothing more than an arbitrary point in the middle of (genuinely, absolutely) nowhere is asking a bit much.
No, IS space is a black void where tech that relies on nearby stars, planets and fabricated beacons for reference points should not work.

Excuse me for saying, but that is not correct. Firstly, interstellar space is still less than 7 ly from two known stars, with loads of known constellations in the "sky" to pinpoint location from.
Furthermore, the computer knows which speed you employed and which direction changes you made, retracing that is simply a mathematical problem, for the computer to solve.
Now, if it's a technical problem that requires a complete rewrite Oolite, that's a different matter. But on logic I'm not ready to admit defeat on my desire.
Though it's becoming less urgent since I gained more confidence shooting down enemies (50 and counting).

[Diziet Sma]

Excuse me for saying, but that is not correct. Firstly, interstellar space is still less than 7 ly from two known stars, with loads of known constellations in the "sky" to pinpoint location from.

On that point, I'd disagree. Triangulation from known stars/constellations would not work over the kind of distances we're talking about. Move 1000 km in any direction from a 'marked' point, and the angles involved would not have changed by any measurable degree. Such methods are useful for plotting a heading, but not for high-precision pinpointing of position to within less than a few thousand kms.

Furthermore, the computer knows which speed you employed and which direction changes you made, retracing that is simply a mathematical problem, for the computer to solve.

On this point, on the other hand, I totally agree with you.

[cim]

Now, if it's a technical problem that requires a complete rewrite Oolite

It's not that bad, but the compass code does require the existence of a "main planet" object, which is why it doesn't work in interstellar where at best you have secondary planets.

I do have some extensions to the compass code on my list to look at for 1.84 - there are a few other OXPs which would also find them useful - so this might be something which can be sorted out at the same time.

[Smivs]

Furthermore, the computer knows which speed you employed and which direction changes you made, retracing that is simply a mathematical problem, for the computer to solve.

On this point, on the other hand, I totally agree with you.

Yes, I have to agree with that part as well. Logically that should be possible.
However I do like the 'being totally lost' element of IS space, so let's not let logic break the essence of it, even if this bit of common sense gets through.

[Layne]

However I do like the 'being totally lost' element of IS space, so let's not let logic break the essence of it, even if this bit of common sense gets through.

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!

[Mazur]

Furthermore, the computer knows which speed you employed and which direction changes you made, retracing that is simply a mathematical problem, for the computer to solve.

On this point, on the other hand, I totally agree with you.

Yes, I have to agree with that part as well. Logically that should be possible.
However I do like the 'being totally lost' element of IS space, so let's not let logic break the essence of it, even if this bit of common sense gets through.

So, make it a ASC Interstellar Enhancement Module, to be bought and sold again, as per preference?

[Cody]

I do like the 'being totally lost' element of IS space...

So do I, and would not want to see a compass in IS.

[Smivs]

No. But (although I really can't see what use it might be) a way of marking your entry point sounds harmless enough.

[cim]

Well, even if it was possible the core game still wouldn't have a compass in IS as there'd be nothing producing beacons there. It seems accidental to not allow OXPs to add beacons to things, though - especially things like planets or stations which might normally be expected to have them.

[Captain Obvious]

Excuse me for saying, but that is not correct. Firstly, interstellar space is still less than 7 ly from two known stars, with loads of known constellations in the "sky" to pinpoint location from.

On that point, I'd disagree. Triangulation from known stars/constellations would not work over the kind of distances we're talking about. Move 1000 km in any direction from a 'marked' point, and the angles involved would not have changed by any measurable degree. Such methods are useful for plotting a heading, but not for high-precision pinpointing of position to within less than a few thousand kms.

Well this is really, really sad. In fact, in the real world we do this now. So in a fictional universe where we are doing hyperspace travel, we damn well better be able to do it! We've actually had the technology for decades, but it wasn't validated (in space in a real mission) until Deep Space 1 (wikipedia article) was launched in 1998 and we got to validate the technology out in space (that's almost 20 years ago). While I can't find the info on NASA's site anymore (I guess they suck at old web pages like most other organizations) archive.org still has the info archived. Specifically, DS1's Autonomous Navigation system was really cool and did exactly what you are describing, although it did also use intra-solar objects like asteroids & planets in addition to other stars.

In fact, I would expect that the solar sail probes that Mr. Facebook is planning on sending to nearby solar systems will use similar navigational technologies since they don't require a conversation back to Earth to find out where they are. When you're 7ly away from home, that can take a LONG time!

I don't know what the current accuracy would be using today's technologies, but I know that it would stun you to find out how accurate some of these instruments are these days. Basically, we *HAVE* to know exactly where we are in real space travel because wondering around until we find something doesn't work. Also keep in mind that we aren't just taking pictures of distance objects in the visible light range, there is a massive amount of data in the infra-red and ultra violet that is also helpful.

EDIT: a good example of where this accuracy is required is a singleshot maneuver. If you're off by a small amount in your approach vector, your resulting vector will be wildly off and require a LOT of fuel to correct.

EDIT 2: I forgot to mention technologies like inertial sensors and gyroscopes that allow you to track where you are headed by passively sensing changes to rotation and acceleration. Finally, with an atomic clock on the ship and beacons transmitting time code from planets where there are bases, the location can be triangulated to the nearest meter or so similar to how terrestrial GPS technology works, except that we don't have to talk to the station, just receive the code (since we have our own clock locally). As far as receiving a signal that originated several light years away (and reducing in power by the law of inverse squares) this is what we're doing with our SETI radio telescopes now, so a theoretic future technology to receive such a signal intended for long distances should be conceivable, especially a time code because you don't have to transmit it all of the time -- you can transmit once per minute or some such, so that it's xmitting less than 0.01% of the time. It would still consume a lot of energy though.

[Captain Obvious]

Oh, I originally came here to post a bug, but I got side-tracked by the discussion, lol! So if I don't clear a waypoint prior to leaving a system, it seems to tie up that way point and I eventually run out of them until I save and reload. So maybe there's some way to check for invalid waypoints and clear them? Thanks for this very helpful addon!!

[phkb]

Waypoint Here 0.2 is now available through the download manager, which fixes the issue with waypoints not clearing after a hyperspace jump.