Horizons Distance on radar screen

[Esvandiary]

Thanks very much for the answers Mark, very helpful.

Would there be any chance of hearing about the method used to calculate the maximum local speed in SC? (Assuming a single star with no other mass affecting things, that is...)
It seems like the "acceleration" changes at different distances, would be very interested in finding out how it's worked out!

 

[Mark Allen]

For reference the scale used in the logarithmic radar is log10, with an offset outwards on 1/15th of the radar's size. It's doing something a little odd (as the input range is already normalised to the range of your sensors, so it's log 10 of a number in the 0-1 range which is then scaled back up) but I think it should be behaving itself. I've made a note to have a review of that when the current deadlines pass .

@Esvandiary The supercruise flight model (top speed, acceleration/etc) is defined as it would be if you weren't mass locked, then we just multiply all speeds and accelerations by (1-masslock). Your final mass lock is calculated as the maximum lock you're currently getting from any body (notionally, which body has the strongest gravitational influence on you right now) - which is a little complex.

The obvious starting point of just using the inverse square law based on the objects mass, but that ran afoul of the huge differences in scale between planets and stars: it made it very very difficult to approach planets as the star's gravity is dominant until you get very very close (in cosmic terms). What we ended up with is that for every body we do use an inverse square law, but we use a normalised mass of each object rather than its actual mass - effectively we consider large objects (stars and gas giants) to be a lot lighter than they actually are for the purposes of mass lock only.

Does that help?

 

[Zak Gordon]

Hi Mark,

Is it possible to get the radar to not default to minimum zoom level all the time, like one of the first things i find myself always having to adjust is the zoom from the default minimum range. I can't see any option to change this, but for example, whenever i enter a new region i want to know all the possible dangers around me, and having the radar zoomed out to max range gives me a better indication of this i find.

So it resetting to minimum, and then my needing to set it manually to max each time is a little cumbersome. Is there not a play state it can remember maybe? So if it has been set to max range, the game keeps it like that until the player changes it? something like that?

Thanks for you consideration.

 

[Esvandiary]

@Esvandiary The supercruise flight model (top speed, acceleration/etc) is defined as it would be if you weren't mass locked, then we just multiply all speeds and accelerations by (1-masslock). Your final mass lock is calculated as the maximum lock you're currently getting from any body (notionally, which body has the strongest gravitational influence on you right now) - which is a little complex.

The obvious starting point of just using the inverse square law based on the objects mass, but that ran afoul of the huge differences in scale between planets and stars: it made it very very difficult to approach planets as the star's gravity is dominant until you get very very close (in cosmic terms). What we ended up with is that for every body we do use an inverse square law, but we use a normalised mass of each object rather than its actual mass - effectively we consider large objects (stars and gas giants) to be a lot lighter than they actually are for the purposes of mass lock only.

Does that help?

Not sure if it helps, but it's very interesting to hear about the challenges you encountered getting a model that made sense and was still fun!
I'd noticed that stars don't seem to behave the same as planets when it comes to the mass-related slowdown effect as you get near them; the reason makes a lot of sense now you've said it!
Basically I'm trying to find a way of estimating how long it'd take to fly a certain distance in SC (assuming flying straight away from primary star with nothing else in the system), and was wondering how the local max speed was determined when quite far away from anything - the "ambient" local max caused by distance to the nearest star, rather than anything introduced by a nearby smaller object. I'll throw more maths at it based on what you've said, thanks!

As an aside, the current mass slowdown effect is extremely cool; I'm a big fan of planetary braking, nothing like seeing the ETA hit 0:01 sneaking past the exclusion zone of a planet, and then slow down just in time to drop into a starport

 

[wstephenson]

Thanks for taking time in the face of the 'current deadlines' to talk to us, Mark. Could you answer me something about mass-locking? It seems that the SC mass lock factor reduces as soon as the current mass lock defining body is outside the 'forward hemisphere' of the ship. It feels like the masslock effect on SC flight decreases faster when you have turned away than when approaching the body. Is this special cased in some way, or is it just a result of travelling away from the mass lock body?

 

[furrycat]

As an aside, the current mass slowdown effect is extremely cool; I'm a big fan of planetary braking, nothing like seeing the ETA hit 0:01 sneaking past the exclusion zone of a planet, and then slow down just in time to drop into a starport

Less cool when the planet is landable and the ship assumes, with no way for you to override that decision, that the reason you are approaching is to enter orbital cruise. Then it pops up the blue cruise sphere when it's too late for you to react to it, decides you are "too fast" and throws you into an emergency stop.

On my wishlisht: option to disable automatic orbital cruise; preferably by adding a manual "drop to orbital cruise" bind but I'd settle for a "shut off all orbital cruise functionality" bind or menu.

 

[Esvandiary]

Less cool when the planet is landable and the ship assumes, with no way for you to override that decision, that the reason you are approaching is to enter orbital cruise. Then it pops up the blue cruise sphere when it's too late for you to react to it, decides you are "too fast" and throws you into an emergency stop.

I've noticed that too... I have slowly started getting better at dodging it though

So I haven't worked out yet whether the OC "blue line" is in the same place as the emergency drop line would have been previously for a given planet. It feels like it's bigger, but then recently I've seen non-landable planets with surprisingly large exclusion zones and I'm not so sure.

I'm not sure if you can power off the Planetary Approach Suite, and if so whether that affects anything? (Alternatively, not having one fitted at all... That's a rather more long-term choice, though )

 

[furrycat]

So I haven't worked out yet whether the OC "blue line" is in the same place as the emergency drop line would have been previously for a given planet. It feels like it's bigger, but then recently I've seen non-landable planets with surprisingly large exclusion zones and I'm not so sure.

I'm sure AkenBosch or someone said he raced Turbo Hour in 1.5 mode to avoid the issue altogether.

I'm not sure if you can power off the Planetary Approach Suite, and if so whether that affects anything? (Alternatively, not having one fitted at all... That's a rather more long-term choice, though )

I don't think you can power it off. You can definitely remove it. I tried. It makes no difference.

 

[Mark Allen]

[...]Is it possible to get the radar to not default to minimum zoom level all the time[...]

Already fixed in 2.1 - Radar range should be preserved through jumps

[..]It seems that the SC mass lock factor reduces as soon as the current mass lock defining body is outside the 'forward hemisphere' of the ship. It feels like the masslock effect on SC flight decreases faster when you have turned away than when approaching the body. Is this special cased in some way, or is it just a result of travelling away from the mass lock body?

There *shouldn't* be any influence from direction on mass lock, it's meant to be purely location based. The only except is the virtual lock we apply if you have a targetted location that's in your forward arc to enable you to drop out at things like scenarios that have no actual mass to .

Less cool when the planet is landable and the ship assumes, with no way for you to override that decision, that the reason you are approaching is to enter orbital cruise. Then it pops up the blue cruise sphere when it's too late for you to react to it, decides you are "too fast" and throws you into an emergency stop.

On my wishlisht: option to disable automatic orbital cruise; preferably by adding a manual "drop to orbital cruise" bind but I'd settle for a "shut off all orbital cruise functionality" bind or menu.

We certainly need to make sure that sphere shows up a little earlier in some cases, but some option to disable your PAS temporarily or similar seems reasonable - will make a note.

[...]So I haven't worked out yet whether the OC "blue line" is in the same place as the emergency drop line would have been previously for a given planet. It feels like it's bigger, but then recently I've seen non-landable planets with surprisingly large exclusion zones and I'm not so sure.

I'm not sure if you can power off the Planetary Approach Suite, and if so whether that affects anything? (Alternatively, not having one fitted at all... That's a rather more long-term choice, though )

The orbital cruise zone is about 390km bigger than the old drop out point - on some planets that's huge, on others is an insignificant difference (it's 110% of the planets average radius plus 400km). If you don't have horizons or have no PAS the drop point is at 110% + 5km, which is exactly where it used to be.

 

[wstephenson]

There *shouldn't* be any influence from direction on mass lock, it's meant to be purely location based. The only except is the virtual lock we apply if you have a targetted location that's in your forward arc to enable you to drop out at things like scenarios that have no actual mass to .

Ah, that's what's causing it. Yes, I was thinking of the effect when I have a targetted location (and am normally overshooting it ) It's noticeable, when overshooting, how the ship slows down as if you had deployed chutes, once the location goes out of your forward arc.

Please could you ensure that the virtual lock is applied again when dropping out at low wakes? It (and the lack of distance/time on their hud billboard) makes hitting one a bit fiddly at the moment.

 

[Esvandiary]

Great info re. the OC line - I wasn't just imagining it after all! Thanks

I've just been thinking re. masslock... I assume as well as having their mass "artificially reduced" for locking, stars also behave differently to planets to determine the "ambient" max local speed if you aren't particularly close to anything? I say this because that local limit appears to be based on the distance to the nearest star rather than the nearest body - planets don't appear to count.

 

[Matt L. Icious]

For reference the scale used in the logarithmic radar is log10, with an offset outwards on 1/15th of the radar's size. It's doing something a little odd (as the input range is already normalised to the range of your sensors, so it's log 10 of a number in the 0-1 range which is then scaled back up) but I think it should be behaving itself. I've made a note to have a review of that when the current deadlines pass .

Thanks for the answer, with log[SUB]10[/SUB] I don't have to re-calibrate my gut feeling.
I'll mull about the rest until I assume your deadline has passed. Good luck making it through crunch time.

 

[Henri]

Wish crunch time could be expedited.

 

[zachzaf]

But, in "linear" mode the distance is most definitely not linear.

If you set the mode to this and slowly pass an object then the scanner blip bows around the Centre, when it should trace a straight path. I logged a bug report about this in the alpha test stage when the "linear" mode was added.

Linear and logarithmic are in relation to calculations of space/distance. That is linear or log is representative of the relation of distances to objects, not the map type. an item will always bow around you unless you are on the exact same plane X/Z and heading Y right at it. At which point instead of bowing, the ship will just explode.

 

[Ra'Kaan]

Already fixed in 2.1 - Radar range should be preserved through jumps

WOOT! Thanks for this minor fix ! My solution was to make a macro on my G13 to press the zoom out key 5 times. Still, I'm stoked to see this implemented! lol (It's the simple things in life...)