[UPDATED RELEASE 03-07-2014] Superhub V1.6 OXZ

[Commander McLane]

Looking at the code again I notice that it defines the situations in which no Superhub shall be added. Which already means that it uses the opposite end of the pseudo-random spectrum, so the Superhubs are created in the systems with 0.5 < pseudoRandomNumber < 1 instead of the systems with pseudoRandomNumber < 0.5.

What I often do is to set an arbitrary range between 0 and 1, and if I want to add different kinds of things I set different arbitrary sets. For instance:

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if(system.pseudoRandomNumber >= 0.1 && system.pseudoRandomNumber < 0.6)
{
	add one kind of thing
}
if(system.pseudoRandomNumber >= 0.4 && system.pseudoRandomNumber < 0.9)
{
	add another kind of thing
}

Both kinds of things are added with a 0.5-probability, but there is only a 0.2-probability that they both will appear independently in the same system. Obviously by changing the arbitrary values you can make that more or less likely.

If you have lower probabilities for each object you can put a lot of variants in the scale between 0 and 1, and it is your choice whether two objects have a chance to appear in the same system or not.

[JensAyton]

I was right – my solution was indeed broken.

Here’s a simpler solution than PhantorGoth’s (which has been properly tested and everything). It scrambles the pseudoRandomNumber by using it and an arbitrary “salt” value as the seed of a simple psuedo-random number generator. Each salt gives a different per-system random value in the same range as pseudoRandomNumber.

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this.scrambledPseudoRandom = function(salt)
{
    // Convert from float in [0..1) with 24 bits of precision to integer.
    var n = Math.floor(system.pseudoRandomNumber * 16777216.0);
    
    // Add salt to enable generation of different sequences.
    n += salt;
    
    // Scramble with basic LCG psuedo-random number generator.
    n = (214013 * n + 2531011) & 0xFFFFFFFF;
    n = (214013 * n + 2531011) & 0xFFFFFFFF;
    n = (214013 * n + 2531011) & 0xFFFFFFFF;
    
    // Convert from (effectively) 32-bit signed integer to float in [0..1).
    return n / 4294967296.0 + 0.5;
}

Usage:

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if (this.scrambledPseudoRandom(344336) < 0.5…

Obviously 344336 should be replaced with a different randomly-selected value in each context this is used.

[Thargoid]

Somehow I think I'll just stick to things like system.ID for mine. This is getting a little Heath-Robinson.

[Commander McLane]

Somehow I think I'll just stick to things like system.ID for mine. This is getting a little Heath-Robinson.

But will lead to the mentioned problems. If everybody adds their stuff in systems with system.ID < n, then all system below n will look the same and have all the stuff in them, and all systems above n will look the same and have no stuff at all in them.

[JensAyton]

I strongly suggest not using system.ID or any other stable property, for the reasons already mentioned. While it took a while to get there, my last approach is tested, correct, easy to use and solves the problem.

[JazHaz]

Have created a wiki page for this OXP:

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Superhub

[JensAyton]

It’s a bad idea to put documentation inside an OXP. Mac users will not see it, and other users are likely not to look.

[pagroove]

It’s a bad idea to put documentation inside an OXP. Mac users will not see it, and other users are likely not to look.

For all my next versions of OXP's I will put the documentation in the main .zip file. to make it also user-friendly for Apple etc.

[Commander McLane]

There is a small oversight in the Superhub spawning script: it doesn't check for system.isInterstellarSpace, therefore it throws an error on misjumps, because it can't find the main planet or its station.

Fix: add

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|| system.isInterstellarSpace

to the first if-statement.

[pagroove]

Thanx,

Noted for the next update!

[Switeck]

Any chance Superhub can be redesigned to use smaller than the 4096x4096 texture file it currently uses?

Most of the texture appears to be black "dead space", so if it was all crammed together it looks like it'd fit in 2048x2048.

I had one Oolite crash that said it couldn't allocate 64 MB of memory for that texture alone. I attribute Superhub to be the largest contributor of the huge memory spikes I'm seeing from rapid wormhole-jumping. During rapid wormhole-jumping, the game seems to allocate memory for Superhub's massive texture file a few times over until garbage collection can "catch up".
Were the texture reduced to 2048x2048, it might fit within 16 MB of memory.

As for when to spawn Superhubs, I use this code:

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	if(system.techLevel > 10 && system.economy < 4 && system.government > 4 && system.countShipsWithRole("pagroove_superhub") < 1) {
		this.xOffset = (Math.random() * 10000) + 10000; // x offset between 10 and 20km
		this.yOffset = (Math.random() * 10000) + 10000; // y offset between 10 and 20km
		if(Math.random() > 0.5) this.xOffset = -this.xOffset; // 50:50 chance of offsetting in the other direction
		if(Math.random() > 0.5) this.yOffset = -this.yOffset; // 50:50 chance of offsetting in the other direction
		system.addShips("pagroove_superhub", 1, system.mainStation.position.add(Vector3D(this.xOffset, this.yOffset, 0).fromCoordinateSystem("abs")));
		return;
	}

I figure Communist systems would not allow such a capitalist-style station in their systems. Their Gulags and Factories are good enough for them.

[pagroove]

I think that is a good idea to resize the texture indeed and repackage the OXP.

[pagroove]

figure Communist systems would not allow such a capitalist-style station in their systems. Their Gulags and Factories are good enough for them.

Unless it's a 'Chinastyle' communist system.

[pagroove]

@Switeck. BTW in the Superhub v1.2 there is already a smaller texture included. It resides in the texture directory in the sub dir 'smaller version'. You have to get this texture and copy it over the texture in the texture folder.

[pagroove]

mm last night I came across a Superhub and I can confirm that the rescaled texture is not good (buggy). I believe a few pages back Commander McLane posted a link to a correct version of the texture.