Oolite Bulletins

Greetings all.
[FYI, flying an "Iron Assed" Cobra Mk. IV in G3.]

Is it possible to plot a long range course?
A course that is different to the 'shortest' (yellow lanes) or 'quickest' (blue lanes).

Thank you.

<shakes head sorrowfully> Nope!

Thank you, Cody.

Of course, nobody prevents you to either "eyeball" the map and set your next jump to your intended system (according with your "long range" intention), or use (say) a pen & paper (or notepad(++) ) approach to eyeball/write it down/follow the jumps one by one.
It wouldn't be an in-game "automated" course/route, but, considering you could go around the galaxy just to make longer the jump between two neighboring systems, obviously, the choice is yours!

Cheers. Yup, that’s what I’ve been doing: stick to the shortest route and then make some detours. It would just have been ‘so cool’ to be able to plot a course on the galactic map.

A lot of people have requested waypoints and "avoid this system" on the route planner over the years, I'm guessing it's a non-trivial problem.

It's certainly possible to adjust and tweak the hyperspace destination with the scripting controls we have available. Looking at the problem from my knowledge of the current toolset, the main problem is how to effectively do a UI that works when docked and while in space. Ideally, you would need a mission screen to select and change destinations, but mission screens shouldn't be used while in space. That limits what can be done to something that needs to interface on the F6 screen. On that screen we are constrained by not being able to assign any key presses to custom functions. On top of that, a mission screen utilising a system map doesn't have the ability to take input from that map - all you can do is display a map. Control of the map would have to come from the user selecting menu items. Which again, is not an ideal UI experience.

So, there are some issues to overcome, and some of them will need core code changes to be completely effective. Therefore, yes, non-trivial.

ffutures & phkb
Thank you for the replys. I can now appreciate the challenge in implementing this idea.

Taka wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2019 6:13 am

Greetings all.
[FYI, flying an "Iron Assed" Cobra Mk. IV in G3.]

If you're still Ooliting, is there any chance you could possibly do some testing for us?

Cholmondeley

Sorry, I haven’t been playing much recently.

Taka wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2019 6:13 am

Greetings all.
[FYI, flying an "Iron Assed" Cobra Mk. IV in G3.]

Is it possible to plot a long range course?
A course that is different to the 'shortest' (yellow lanes) or 'quickest' (blue lanes).

Thank you.

Taka - have you seen this: Route Planner OXP?

phkb's Display Current Course OXZ also shows cargo contract route-to-destination.

Incidentally, Route Planner OXP gets a little confused (but still manages to function) when I cross a void along a long convoluted route to reach a cargo contract destination. There's only a couple places where I can cross a void -- and some of the ways I can cross take longer than following the non-misjump routes.