Defaulting ship orientation

[drakmaniso]

I'm not sure if this information is needed, but if added it should be discrete and out of the way. Star Citizen displays the galactic plane in the radar globe, Evochron Mercenary show an artificial horizon (attitude indicator) on the HUD, and IMHO both of these only add visual clutter for something that is only useful on specific occasions. I don't think the ship hologram would be a good place either, there is some crucial combat info around it need to stay as easily readable as possible.

A good place may be the compass: the dotted cross could become some sort of attitude indicator. Not very precise, but it would give you a rough sense of your orientation relative to the galaxy.

 

[Memnoch]

To put that in Elite terms, when you exit super cruise near a space station, you have absolutely no idea what direction the landing hatch is located until it's close enough to determine what direction the station is spinning in

Which if I remember right I can determine from 53km out. I can therefore deduce which side the entrance is even if the game has not drawn it yet, or is too small too see.

 

[Mephane]

Which if I remember right I can determine from 53km out. I can therefore deduce which side the entrance is even if the game has not drawn it yet, or is too small too see.

Even if he would only be able to see which direction the station rotates from, say, at 1 km average distance to the surface, the effort to fly around towards the entrance is trivial. Considering that at 20km standard supercruise exit distance, the station is large enough to easily see its rotation... the OP's argument makes no sense to me.

 

[Mysturji]

I disagree with almost everything in the OP - "counter-clockwise" orbits (while looking down on the "north" poles of solar system objects) is merely a convention arising out of the fact that "western civilisation" (the most technologically advanced on planet Earth) arose in the northern hemisphere. If the Zulus or Australian Aborigines were the dominant technological civilisation on the planet, "North" would be "South" and planets would orbit "clockwise".

However, I agree that it's a minor pain not knowing which end to dock at until you're close to the station.
Maybe some extra bright lights at the "open" end?

 

[Rueplays]

@ HoshiQaVam

Not a bad idea to have a common reference point for when coordinated play amoungst players comes in. I think it might be something that could be integrated into the compass (duh) without getting too messy visually.

 

[Mephane]

I have thought about this a bit more, what would make sense is the general North/South axis of the dominating body, i.e. in orbit around a star - the star's axis, around a planet the planet's axis, around a moon... etc. all the way down to the axis of a space station's rotation. All heavily localized, therefore, and with no form of automatic or even semi-automatic alignment, just something like an North/South axis indicator on the scanner.

 

[Paulo_B27]

I don't have this problem. I can consistently work out where the front of the station is on my approach, based upon the way it is spinning and where the back of the station is.

Sounds like you can't see this, maybe because your graphics settings are lower?

 

[drakmaniso]

I agree that the station orientation is not a problem, once you have a bit of experience it becomes easy enough.

But what about flying with friends? How do you share directions if you're not flying in formation? For example while exploring an asteroid field, or space debris. Maybe even for coordination in combat... I'm sure there's a lot of situation where it would be useful to have a common reference for orientation.

Maybe having the ability to "ping" locations on the radar would be a good alternative...

 

[HoshiQaVam]

I don't have this problem. I can consistently work out where the front of the station is on my approach, based upon the way it is spinning and where the back of the station is.

Sounds like you can't see this, maybe because your graphics settings are lower?

Even if he would only be able to see which direction the station rotates from, say, at 1 km average distance to the surface, the effort to fly around towards the entrance is trivial. Considering that at 20km standard supercruise exit distance, the station is large enough to easily see its rotation... the OP's argument makes no sense to me.

The station's orientation is only a minor point. The more important issue I was trying to get across was attempting to describe your position, or an enemy's position, to someone else you're flying with.

If your wingman doesn't know what way your ship is facing, how can he know what enemy you're asking him to shoot at without having to skip through every single target to find a specific name?

There are plenty of situations where knowing North from South can be very useful.

 

[chris5281]

Yes, it's called the Conservation of Angular Momentum....

Um, I think you might be extrapolating a bit here. While it's true that in general the bodies of a solar system rotate in the same direction, this is because they were formed out of the same blob of 'stuff'. As I'm sure you're aware, the formation of a solar system is due to the collapse of a cloud of material and that collapse means any initial perturbation is amplified due to conservation of AM. I would imagine (without doing any calculation at all) that other factors, such as the influence of nearby bodies, has a much larger effect on those initial perturbations rather than the rotation of the galaxy, so ultimately the axial alignments of the stars are random. Similar to the Coriolis effect - while it is real, it is far to small to have an effect on your toilet water.

I'm happy to be corrected though. Do you have any references to academic papers in which stellar observations have shown that their rotation axes are preferentially aligned with the Galactic rotation?

I note that in our solar system there is a ~60 degree misalignment between the plane of the ecliptic and the Galactic plane...

 

[Dinosawer]

Um, I think you might be extrapolating a bit here. While it's true that in general the bodies of a solar system rotate in the same direction, this is because they were formed out of the same blob of 'stuff'. As I'm sure you're aware, the formation of a solar system is due to the collapse of a cloud of material and that collapse means any initial perturbation is amplified due to conservation of AM. I would imagine (without doing any calculation at all) that other factors, such as the influence of nearby bodies, has a much larger effect on those initial perturbations rather than the rotation of the galaxy, so ultimately the axial alignments of the stars are random. Similar to the Coriolis effect - while it is real, it is far to small to have an effect on your toilet water.

I'm happy to be corrected though. Do you have any references to academic papers in which stellar observations have shown that their rotation axes are preferentially aligned with the Galactic rotation?

I note that in our solar system there is a ~60 degree misalignment between the plane of the ecliptic and the Galactic plane...

I don't think you can actually measure the direction a star is rotating, only it's speed. (I could be wrong though).
The only info I could find on it is this NASA page which suggests that the angular momentum conservation is a small effect and star rotation is rather random:
http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_star.html#starrotation

 

[Soul Reaver]

The must be a tiny bit of Doppler shift between the two sides of the star, we just may not be able to measure it yet.

 

[Dinosawer]

The must be a tiny bit of Doppler shift between the two sides of the star, we just may not be able to measure it yet.

There is and that's how you can measure rotation speed (due to line broadening) but since you can't resolve the star in a telescope (it starts just a point of light) you can't see which side is moving towards you.

 

[avataR]

Oh, one more thing about stations: I think they all rotate counter-clockwise when you look towards them at the docking port side. This makes it really simple to know where the port is.

 

[chris5281]

There is and that's how you can measure rotation speed (due to line broadening) but since you can't resolve the star in a telescope (it starts just a point of light) you can't see which side is moving towards you.

There are ways in which it might be possible. For example, the Kepler data is good enough to detect the effect of individual starspots moving across the stellar surface. Combine this with an independent method of detecting the rotation speed (such as the broadening of the spectral lines) and you could infer the rotational axis. There is also this recent paper published in A&A whic proposes a method to spectrally identify a rotation axis:http://arxiv.org/abs/1402.3235. I however don't know of any cases where this has been successfully done, hence my doubt in the original poster's confident assertion.

One point of interest: in an eclipsing binary or a transiting expolanet system, there is a method by which you can infer the alignment the rotational axis of the star relative to the orbital plane. This is known as the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, and is basically due to the fact that as the planet or secondary star passes in front of the primary star, it blocks out the blueshifted side at a different time to the redshifted side, so you see a change in the shape of the spectral line during the eclipse/transit. Successful applications of this technique have shown in many cases there is a considerable misalignment between the two rotational axes, suggesting it's not all driven by Galactic rotation.

 

[Dinosawer]

There are ways in which it might be possible. For example, the Kepler data is good enough to detect the effect of individual starspots moving across the stellar surface. Combine this with an independent method of detecting the rotation speed (such as the broadening of the spectral lines) and you could infer the rotational axis. There is also this recent paper published in A&A whic proposes a method to spectrally identify a rotation axis:http://arxiv.org/abs/1402.3235. I however don't know of any cases where this has been successfully done, hence my doubt in the original poster's confident assertion.

One point of interest: in an eclipsing binary or a transiting expolanet system, there is a method by which you can infer the alignment the rotational axis of the star relative to the orbital plane. This is known as the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, and is basically due to the fact that as the planet or secondary star passes in front of the primary star, it blocks out the blueshifted side at a different time to the redshifted side, so you see a change in the shape of the spectral line during the eclipse/transit. Successful applications of this technique have shown in many cases there is a considerable misalignment between the two rotational axes, suggesting it's not all driven by Galactic rotation.

Oh nice, I didn't know that. Thanks, learned something today

 

[Commander Dave]

Orientation in space, and subsequently space games, is a bit of a pet peeve of mine.

The general opinion people seem to have is that "there is no up in space".

This is a fact. Many people hold it as an opinion also but if those people stop holding that view the fact of it will change not one jot.

To put that in Elite terms, when you exit super cruise near a space station, you have absolutely no idea what direction the landing hatch is located until it's close enough to determine what direction the station is spinning in

You can tell what side the hatch is from 20km which is the maximum distance from the station that you drop out of SC drive.
There is no issue doing this. It's trivial.
You just have to watch it for a couple of seconds. In that time your hands should be pipping to engines and throttling up. Your brain has now finished working out the direction of spin and you go for the side that would be going anticlockwise if you were in front of it. A couple of very small movements and you're there. Boost a couple of times and you're in comms range for docking permissions.
And most of the time you don't even need to do the checking the spin thing as the adverts are sticking out from one end or the other. Go for the advert end. They're little blue fuzzy things at 20km.
No mystery, almost zero effort and you're at the docking port in no time.
I can video this for demonstration purposes if you wish but honestly you can see it a thousand times on YT.
If finding the docking port is an issue then you could be doing something wrong or may have some fundamental misconception about what you're looking for.
We can help with that no worries.

 

[drakmaniso]

This is a fact. Many people hold it as an opinion also but if those people stop holding that view the fact of it will change not one jot.

The point was that the galaxy (or each each star) has a recognizable orientation, that could be used as a frame of reference to share directions between players. Which is exactly what "up" is on earth: a convention. Whether we'd use the same word or not is another debate.

The station orientation has been recognized by almost everyone as not part of the problem, since it's easy/fun the way it is. But having the mean to give another pilot a direction is currently problematic.

 

[Commander Dave]

The point was that the galaxy (or each each star) has a recognizable orientation, that could be used as a frame of reference to share directions between players. Which is exactly what "up" is on earth: a convention. Whether we'd use the same word or not is another debate.

The station orientation has been recognized by almost everyone as not part of the problem, since it's easy/fun the way it is. But having the mean to give another pilot a direction is currently problematic.

Conventions for orientation etc... of course, we use them all the time. Galactic North, system ecliptic etc... FoR dependent.

The problem is that frame of reference. I could say that such a station is oriented so that the entry point is pointing to Galactic North. Great. But you get there and you can't see which way GN is. That galactic FoR isn't relevant to that local area. OK, so give a local reference. Such a station is oriented so that the entry point faces away from the planet. That might work, assuming you can see the planet. If you can't you're none the wiser.
The point here is that being able to tell someone the orientation of the station when they're not there with you (in the same FoR) is completely useless information to them.
It seems to me that a simile would be for me to be able to tell another person the orientation of my main bathroom. It's different in every house (almost). I can't give them an orientation of the bathroom door that is relevant to them unless they are in the house. And if they're in the house they can just go and look for themselves.
It's like saying to someone "when you're in front of the door, the door will be in front of you".
Pointless and useless information.

If you can see the station you can tell which way it's rotating (unless you have a sight issue or a very specific disorder) and so you can determine which side the door is on.
Easy.
There is no circumstance where you could convey that information to another person where that information would be of use to them anywhere other than outside the station.

At the moment there is no way to convey information to other pilots other than by signals with a predetermined meaning (idiot code) using the hardware of the ship or by using something akin to Morse Code with the ship lights or another piece of hardware.
Ship to ship comms is something in the pipeline.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Perhaps something as simple as having a tiny pip on the outside ring of the compass pointing to galactic centre may help.