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Indirect route shorter than direct

Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 10:13 pm
by PhilHibbs
I was at Xeeranre, and I wanted to get to Zadies, but it was out of range (7.2 LY), so I hyperspaced to Anarlaqu. I then found that I had enough fuel to immediately hyperspace to Zadies.

Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 10:31 pm
by JameSpal
Do you have fuel collector OXP loaded and a fuel scoop? Maybe you got the extra you needed during the hyperspace jump???

Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 10:41 pm
by PhilHibbs
I don't have any OXPs, but I do have fuel scoops.

Re: Indirect route shorter than direct

Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 11:36 pm
by CptnEcho
PhilHibbs wrote:
I was at Xeeranre, and I wanted to get to Zadies, but it was out of range (7.2 LY), so I hyperspaced to Anarlaqu. I then found that I had enough fuel to immediately hyperspace to Zadies.
Sometimes the math works out that way. The maps may not be perfectly accurate.

Subspace Currents

Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 11:46 pm
by KZ9999
It's about the efficiency of the engines creating the wormholes for hyperspace travel. It takes less fuel to generate the two shorter jumps than one long jump. It feels like there is a cubing rule in effect when the computer calculates the fuel consumption for a jump. (Perhaps one of the high commanders could confirm that fact.) The shorter jumps are cause less time shift in the travel too.

This is why the Advanced Navigation Array always takes the shorter jump paths over the long ones. As a general rule of thumb if a system is within 7.5 light years and intermediate one within 3.5 you can often reach it with one tank of fuel.

Once you have a Witchspace Fuel Injector, you always try have 2-3 light years of spare fuel from every trip just in case of a laz-fest.

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 11:23 am
by Cmdr James
The time taken for a jump is certainly non-linear. I think its a squared relationship, but I havent actually check the code recently.

Im pretty sure the fuel is meant to be linear, so 2 short jumps should be exactly the same (as long as they are in line) as one long one. There could be rounding errors though -- as we know which systems were involved, someone could repeat the experience and check debug info to see exactly how much fuel is used for each step, and see what happened.

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 2:19 pm
by JensAyton
Oolite carefully and lovingly recreates the original bad maths and rounding errors of Elite. This is necessary to ensure that exactly the same jump routes exist. :-)

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 3:47 pm
by tomsk
Xeenranre to Zadies - 7.2LY

Xeenranre to Anarlaqu - 2.4 LY
Anarlaqu to Zadies - 4.4 LY

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 4:07 pm
by Solas
Oolite really is an alternative Universe ( Ooniverse :)

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 5:09 pm
by Disembodied
Or ... the map is a 2D representation of 3D space. Maybe. If I haven't got horribly confused ...

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 5:21 pm
by Sarin
Well, while it is, direct route is always shorter in both 2D and 3D.

The real reason is that Oolite rounds the distance to multiples of 0.4 LY. So while the distance between stars in indirect route is rounded down, in direct route it is rounded up, resulting in this effect. In Ooniverse, there is pplace for technobabble....

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 10:31 pm
by Screet
Sarin wrote:
Well, while it is, direct route is always shorter in both 2D and 3D.
Strange thing is, that I've once read an article claiming that for sailors this is not the case. However, they do have to move on a sphere...thus it's 3d with a restriction.

Screet

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 10:38 pm
by Gimi
Screet wrote:
Sarin wrote:
Well, while it is, direct route is always shorter in both 2D and 3D.
Strange thing is, that I've once read an article claiming that for sailors this is not the case. However, they do have to move on a sphere...thus it's 3d with a restriction.
Screet
Being a sailor, I can tell you that you absolutely right. It is called " Great Circle Navigation" and brings in such wonderful mathematics as Spherical trigonometry and so on. It is quire simple really, shortest distance between two points on a sphere, is not a straight line, but a curve.

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 10:50 pm
by JensAyton
That’s because there are no straight lines on a sphere. :-)

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 11:23 pm
by Solas
or in this case " Rounded Navigation "