Oolite Bulletins

First things first: I'm a terrifying Noob, a total Noncompoop (sic). So I've no idea how tricky/impossible/undesirable this is:

It would be nice, on the Galactic Map, to display only a subset of systems, for instance: Only Rich Indus and Low Aggro (Agricultural) Systems of Confederate, Democratic, or Corporate governments, and leave all the other systems unmentioned or dimmed. This way one can easily find a system or combination of systems to play around in according to ones current inclination, which for me is still avoid pirates like the blazes, they're costing me more than I make in profits, while I have only standard shielding.

This could perhaps be realised by clicking on the explanatory icons left and right of the chart itself.

Just dumping this TC to see if someone scans it and scoops it up.

Try the '?' key - it does something like that.

Cody wrote:

Try the '?' key - it does something like that.

It does, but, only once the player has shelled out for the Advanced Navigational Array. And, nowhere in the instructions, so far as I could find, is there an explanation as to what each press of the key highlights! While an observant player will figure out how the computer sorts the color coding, it doesn't seem to be anywhere in the manual or on the wiki. (If I'm missing it, please link?)

For Mazur's benefit, I'll just plunk down that one setting shows a 'danger level' based on government type (red to green shading, green being safer), one the relative balance of industry versus agriculture (blue systems weighted towards industrial, green towards agriculture), and the third the tech level of the system (the lighter the shade, the higher the technology).

I never knew that!
And so never used this functionality

Being on a non-en keyboard, I reassigned only the keys that I understood, and "?" is not easy to use on my keyboard, so I went past this functionality.
Maybe I'm not the only one.

Layne wrote:

It does, but, only once the player has shelled out for the Advanced Navigational Array.

<nods> Which is as it should be!

Cody wrote:

Layne wrote:

It does, but, only once the player has shelled out for the Advanced Navigational Array.

<nods> Which is as it should be!

No argument there, but I think the real issue is the lack of documentation on the feature and how it works once you do pay for the upgrade.

Actually, the "?" highlighting feature works with or without the ANA, same with the "I" key showing system info. The ANA gives you the ability to change the route mode with "^" (Shift-6 on my keyboard). Agree with the documentation idea though (see point 1 on https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=17477)

phkb wrote:

Actually, the "?" highlighting feature works with or without the ANA...

Indeed it does! I've had an ANA for so long now, I'd not noticed.

phkb wrote:

Actually, the "?" highlighting feature works with or without the ANA, same with the "I" key showing system info. The ANA gives you the ability to change the route mode with "^" (Shift-6 on my keyboard). Agree with the documentation idea though (see point 1 on https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=17477)

It does? When double checking for my post above (because I couldn't remember if it did or not, myself) I could not get the '?' to do anything at all on a new commander with no navigational upgrades. Even just now, I checked, and starting a new commander, I get no change to the galactic map hitting the '?' key. Does nothing at all. When I load a saved game with the ANA installed, it works perfectly as always. (1.80 here, still haven't bumped up to 1.82.)

This is why I thought it'd need an ANA, but I've just tested 1.82 and 1.83 (trunk) and both allow it with a virgin Jameson.
Something must have changed after 1.80, I presume. It makes more sense if one does need the ANA for that function.

Layne wrote:

Cody wrote:

Try the '?' key - it does something like that.

It does, but, only once the player has shelled out for the Advanced Navigational Array. And, nowhere in the instructions, so far as I could find, is there an explanation as to what each press of the key highlights! While an observant player will figure out how the computer sorts the color coding, it doesn't seem to be anywhere in the manual or on the wiki. (If I'm missing it, please link?)

For Mazur's benefit, I'll just plunk down that one setting shows a 'danger level' based on government type (red to green shading, green being safer), one the relative balance of industry versus agriculture (blue systems weighted towards industrial, green towards agriculture), and the third the tech level of the system (the lighter the shade, the higher the technology).

Ach so... So I'll be looking for bright-blue bright-green combinations, try to remember all their locations, and then check those same positions for low danger levels in the other setting. Not quite as easy as what I'd envisioned, but it's a start.

(Yes, of _course_ I have ANA, even Gal SatNav, and what a nice gal she is).

Truth be told, I had no direct insight into what the ? actually did, either, and I'm considered fairly intelligent for a human being. Usually.

Mazur wrote:

Truth be told, I had no direct insight into what the ? actually did, either, and I'm considered fairly intelligent for a human being. Usually.

In-deed and deedy-doo. That thread Cody linked is the /only/ piece of documentation on the information modes that I've seen to date. Took me a few minutes of studying the map to work out what the colors stood for. Total digression, I've found it very handy to swap the '^' key for the '/' key instead, which puts all the galactic map modes on a single keypress only varied by use of shift (which makes that a '?') and right control (to alternate short path versus short jump time). Makes examining different parameters of the map much easier for me!

Layne wrote:

Mazur wrote:

Truth be told, I had no direct insight into what the ? actually did, either, and I'm considered fairly intelligent for a human being. Usually.

In-deed and deedy-doo. That thread Cody linked is the /only/ piece of documentation on the information modes that I've seen to date. Took me a few minutes of studying the map to work out what the colors stood for. Total digression, I've found it very handy to swap the '^' key for the '/' key instead, which puts all the galactic map modes on a single keypress only varied by use of shift (which makes that a '?') and right control (to alternate short path versus short jump time). Makes examining different parameters of the map much easier for me!

Good one! I'll do that, as well.

As a concluding thought, were i to (re-)write the Galactic Map, I'd keep most of it as is, except: I'd put the explanatory icons at the very sides of the window, and make them toggle switches, activating/suppressing the pertinent systems for display (and, possibly, for GalSatNav). Add Icon buttons for tech level 1-15 along the bottom.
Properly calculate the area available for display of the actual chart (currently it's off to the left for me by about half an icon width).

That way, one can for instance avoid all Anarchy systems when time allows, for a long series of jumps, like from Zadies to Anle. Now I had to deviate from the GalSatNav suggested routes manually twice, just to survive, but luckily the contract had plenty of wiggle room. (Cue: Jason Derulo) Or, like I said, only leave low ag and high indus from fairly safe governments selected, to look for nice couples away from the trodden routes.

Mazur wrote:

I had to deviate from the GalSatNav suggested routes manually twice, just to survive, but luckily the contract had plenty of wiggle room.

That wiggle room is good to have, and in certain circumstances it can be beneficial to deviate slightly from the suggested (usually the quickest) route.

I notice that the reference sheet also says extra kit is needed to use the '?' function. Is this a bug then, it being available to virgin Jamesons?