RV Sonnenkreis - Decoding Universal Cartographics

[Jackie Silver]

A little progress update - two things:

I'm working on a newer and faster and easier to use version of my Hab-zone Calculator - the eventual aim is to integrate it with the journal in 2.2.
For now I'm getting a bit better at doing GUI stuff in tkinter: (some placeholders though)

The other thing I'm doing at the moment is working my way through the Bright Star Catalogue. So far I've covered galactic longitudes 0 through about 28 degrees.
It's a slow trek but quite interesting; there are some quirky things (especially about the way some are named, and missing systems that have an invisible marker) but I'll need to visit more before drawing conclusions.

 

[Macros Black]

Hi Jackie. I'm surveying a bunch of HIP/HD systems currently, half-way through my list. If you want details, please feel free to contact me on discord (same name as forum name and also same name in-game).

Spotted your name near the Cancri Cluster, seems to be many HD/HIP systems from Maia up to the cluster where space is really thin

 

[Bravada Cadelanne]

A couple of insights 2.2 gives:

* 2.2 now allows one to search for a star by the underlying procgen ID, or by the procgen ID assigned by any covering sector. Unfortunately you still can't search duplicate names, but you can guess the procgen name of a system and select it that way.
* The Visited Stars Cache could potentially reveal the procgen ID of almost any star (though it won't reveal the name of unknown sectors). The same duplicate name search limitation applies.

Initial investigation shows that the galaxy is 128 x 64 x 128 h-size sectors, and that Wregoe sector is at (39, 32, 18) sectors from some origin.

The ImportStars does seem to have some bugs - e.g. it doesn't recognize "M Centauri" as a valid star system, and if the system name does have a valid procgen suffix but the prefix is unrecognized, then it will place it in the region at the origin.

 

[Esvandiary]

* 2.2 now allows one to search for a star by the underlying procgen ID, or by the procgen ID assigned by any covering sector. Unfortunately you still can't search duplicate names, but you can guess the procgen name of a system and select it that way.
* The Visited Stars Cache could potentially reveal the procgen ID of almost any star (though it won't reveal the name of unknown sectors). The same duplicate name search limitation applies.

Yep, although for semi-PG systems (e.g. systems in Col 285 or other named sectors) we could already do that. Also being able to do it for named systems now is cool though!

Initial investigation shows that the galaxy is 128 x 64 x 128 h-size sectors, and that Wregoe sector is at (39, 32, 18) sectors from some origin.

Yep, the ID64 only allows for 6 bits for Y (in contrast to the naming system which assumes 128 sectors high), which is interesting. The origin will be [-49985, -40985, -24105] as it is for the other stuff - at least, EDTS has a line saying "base_sector_index = [39, 32, 18]"
I've got a working version of code going ID64 <---> PG name as part of EDTS here.

The ImportStars does seem to have some bugs - e.g. it doesn't recognize "M Centauri" as a valid star system, and if the system name does have a valid procgen suffix but the prefix is unrecognized, then it will place it in the region at the origin.

Yeah, there are a few named stars that it doesn't seem to like... Most odd.

 

[Redfox]

FYI - just in case it can help with any of the amazing work you guys are doing here: I'm nearly done with visiting all "Blia Brai AA-A"* systems (as a little personal challenge/project). I'll be doing some exploring up here in the North-West for some time to come, so if you need anything checked out, just let me know.

 

[madbilly]

Hey all,
I figure this is the best place to pose star generation open questions. When I was in the Abyss, I seem to remember there being a lot more sub-dwarfs than I was used to seeing. I read a bit, and convinced myself that these are population II stars, since they were further from the galactic core and fitted the general profile. Now I've had to chance to catch with the musings of Jackie and the rest of you, I see that you don't think metallicity is really considered in stellar forge. So, was I imagining things when I "felt" there were more VIs there than Vs, or have you seen the same sort of thing?
Cheers

 

[Jackie Silver]

So, was I imagining things when I "felt" there were more VIs there than Vs, or have you seen the same sort of thing?

I haven't noticed it, but it certainly sounds like an interesting avenue to investigate. Whereabouts would you say there were most sub-dwarfs?

 

[Andrew Gaspurr]

I seem to remember that too, since I was especially keen on 'Hot Subdwarfs'. When I came down from Beagle Point I took the 'left leg' down Masefield's Ocean and the Orio-Persean Conflux, where I found a veritable starburst. It was there that I found quite a few B VI and A VI stars. At least the overall population of these stars was much, much higher than, say, in the outer regions of the galaxy; which might be attributed to the sheer number of O, B and A stars in the starburst region anyway.

 

[madbilly]

I haven't noticed it, but it certainly sounds like an interesting avenue to investigate. Whereabouts would you say there were most sub-dwarfs?

I followed route 33 across the Abyss south from Podar and felt there were a lot of M VIs there. However at that stage I wasn't really recording what I found, just trying to find my way through!

I seem to remember that too, since I was especially keen on 'Hot Subdwarfs'. When I came down from Beagle Point I took the 'left leg' down Masefield's Ocean and the Orio-Persean Conflux, where I found a veritable starburst. It was there that I found quite a few B VI and A VI stars. At least the overall population of these stars was much, much higher than, say, in the outer regions of the galaxy; which might be attributed to the sheer number of O, B and A stars in the starburst region anyway.

I'm actually only just entering Masefield's Ocean and the journey from the end of route 33 has certainly included more B and TTS stars than I found in the Abyss but I feel there are less VIs. However, this is all subjective really, a lot depends on the route plotter!

 

[Andrew Gaspurr]

(...)I'm actually only just entering Masefield's Ocean and the journey from the end of route 33 has certainly included more B and TTS stars than I found in the Abyss but I feel there are less VIs. However, this is all subjective really, a lot depends on the route plotter!

After Masefield's Ocean I recommend visiting the Segnao Starburst if you can spare the time. It is a veritabls explorer's heaven and there are many phenomena yet to discover there.

 

[madbilly]

The answer is a qualified "yes" as it depends on how much there is in the sector to being with, and doesn't (of course) pick up on hand-placed stars.
Generally speaking systems of "H" and "G" will always be exotic (Os, BHs, &c.), while "F" and "E" systems will tend to be B stars.
As you say, everyone has been looking at the AA-A H systems - I'm generally finding all the ones I look at have already been discovered - but there are 8 cubes of G systems within each sector. If you don't mind going high above and below the plane, search on AA-A G, BA-A G, EG-Y G, FG-Y G, CL-Y G, DL-Y G, YE-A G and ZE-A G and you should get pointed at a lot of bright systems (if there are any in the sector to find.)

I've tried to understand this naming business and I can't work it out, I think I need an animation. Why do these cubes give exotics and others don't? Why don't these cubes always exist?

I found an anomally that I can't work out if you already know about - I searched (example) SECTORNAME EG-Y H then it actually showed me ANOTHERSECTORNAME AA-A H0. Similar SECTORNAME BA-A H gave me ANOTHERSECTORNAME AA-A H0. Same with FG-Y H. This sector does have an AA-A H, but no CL-Y G, DL-Y G, YE-A G and ZE-A G (or Hs for that matter).

I only tried this out from frustration at it being so hard to find exotic stars normally. I actually don't enjoy using this method, I'd prefer to find them using in-game tools rather than gaming the game. I'd quite like to find some yellow hypergiants, white supergiants, blue supergiants, red supergiants, orange normal giants! WRs, carbon stars, etc. I imagine I'm no different from the rest of you, I want to explore and see what these stars are like.

 

[Jackie Silver]

I found an anomally that I can't work out if you already know about - I searched (example) SECTORNAME EG-Y H then it actually showed me ANOTHERSECTORNAME AA-A H0. Similar SECTORNAME BA-A H gave me ANOTHERSECTORNAME AA-A H0. Same with FG-Y H. This sector does have an AA-A H, but no CL-Y G, DL-Y G, YE-A G and ZE-A G (or Hs for that matter).

Which sector did you search for there?

 

[Jackie Silver]

Ah right, I got it - didn't read properly before - for a given sector, there is only AA-A H - there are no EG-Y H systems or any other H codes except for AA-A H. When you search on EG-Y H (for instance) that would be outside the borders of the sector, and so it returns you a system from the next sector along.

If you search on SECTORNAME AA-A H it may return the biggest (roughly speaking, primary mass > 30 solar masses) systems. If there are any.
If you search on SECTORNAME AA-A G, BA-A G, EG-Y G, FG-Y G, CL-Y G, DL-Y G, YE-A G and ZE-A G it may return the next biggest systems (primary mass <30 solar masses, but still big) systems, if there are any.

Basically if you're looking for the biggest stars, search on SECTORNAME AA-A H; if it doesn't get you any hits, move to another sector.

 

[madbilly]

Thanks Jackie. I still need to understand the whole sector/cube naming system to fully understand your answer, but with your help I'm a little closer. I probably need to pick a sector and fly around it noting star names, sizes etc. and compare what I find to your OP and primer elsewhere in the thread. There was mention that Alot gave a talk about this somewhere, is there a recording or pictures?

I wish the realistic view in the Galmap actually differentiated the luminosities like the skybox does, that would seriously improve my exploring experience.

 

[MattG]

It's important to remember that the mass code (so, g or h, etc) isn't the only indicator of "exotic" stars as you put it. Just because it has a higher mass code doesn't automatically mean it will have what you're looking for. For example, there are sectors that do have mass code h sectors that are almost all black holes. And whilst I've never seen a WR outside mass code h, I've also never seen a Carbon star outside mass d - and in fact a few of the star types you're looking for are more often found in mass code d.

I actually have pretty good success finding these brighter stars by using the Galaxy Map, set it to realistic, zoom out a bit and then move about the screen - you will often notice certain stars visible further away than others, or sometimes brighter. These are good candidates to check out, so home in on them and set a course.

As for trying to work out how the mass code / sector naming works, maybe this will help

Each sector is 1280x1280. Mass code h cubes are also 1280x1280 so there can only be 1 per sector, so it will always be AA-A h. The dimensions halve each time you go down a mass code - so mass code g are 640x640 and therefore there are 8 of them in the 1280x1280 sector. Mass code f is 320x320, meaning 64 fit in the sector - all the way down to mass code a which are 10x10 and over 2 million of them can fit in a 1280x1280 sector. There is a way to work out the sector codes for each mass code - but outside mass code g and h there is very little point, and those ones are easy enough to remember

 

[madbilly]

EUREKA!

GOT IT!

It went like this: [noob] :S :O [mad] [???] [blah] [sad] [ugh] [cry] [woah] [big grin]

Thank you all for your help and patience, I promise I will not use my new found knowledge recklessly!

Thanks Matt and Jackie for your explanations. I finally found Alot's slides on the DISC site, I knew I'd seen them somewhere and went back to looking in Jackie and Alot's sigs! All your drawings and explanations came together and I was almost there but there was one last thing I couldn't understand until.... I turned my head on its side and it all became clear!

I will try again with the realistic view in the Galmap. Personally I've found it distinguishes very little between stars that in real life are many orders of magnitude different in luminosity and size, but maybe I'm expecting too much and should look for more subtle signals. The limit in vertical distance (Y plane) view is also something I find very annoying, when horizontal (X and Z) view is such long distance; it makes navigating in low density areas particularly difficult, never mind looking just to see what's there.

Again, thanks

 

[Esvandiary]

GOT IT!

It went like this: [noob] :S :O [mad] [???] [blah] [sad] [ugh] [cry] [woah] [big grin]

Thank you all for your help and patience, I promise I will not use my new found knowledge recklessly!

Thanks Matt and Jackie for your explanations. I finally found Alot's slides on the DISC site, I knew I'd seen them somewhere and went back to looking in Jackie and Alot's sigs! All your drawings and explanations came together and I was almost there but there was one last thing I couldn't understand until.... I turned my head on its side and it all became clear!

Glad we could help.

I need to go back and finish the proper write-up at some point, so you're not relying on slides with very little context...
Not to mention that one or two minor bits of those slides use out-of-date info (won't be anything that you've used to get to this understanding, don't worry, haha)... Some of it is actually a bit simpler than we thought at the time.

 

[madbilly]

I just found an interesting quintuple system. M0VZ, L0VZ-T0VZ, L0VZ-T0VZ. First time I've seen VZs in these classes.

 

[CMDR EfilOne]

I just found an interesting quintuple system. M0VZ, L0VZ-T0VZ, L0VZ-T0VZ. First time I've seen VZs in these classes.

In the spectral classification system : V indicates the Luminosity class, and also defines if a star is in the main sequence (V), dwarves (VI), subdwarves (VII), or else, giants (IV), supergiants (III and II), or hypergiants (I and 0/Ia*). As for the last letter, this is the luminosity subclass, and in your example, "Z" indicates an unusually strong ionised helium line at 468.6 nm in the star's spectrum hinting, at an extremely young star. "Z" also stands for "Zero-Age". Other luminosity subclasses can be A, AB and B as well

 

[madbilly]

In the spectral classification system : V indicates the Luminosity class, and also defines if a star is in the main sequence (V), dwarves (VI), subdwarves (VII), or else, giants (IV), supergiants (III and II), or hypergiants (I and 0/Ia*). As for the last letter, this is the luminosity subclass, and in your example, "Z" indicates an unusually strong ionised helium line at 468.6 nm in the star's spectrum hinting, at an extremely young star. "Z" also stands for "Zero-Age". Other luminosity subclasses can be A, AB and B as well

Thanks EfilOne. I was just commenting that this was the first time I'd seen VZ stars in M, L and T classes, I've seen O, B, A, F and G before, so only K left to find. Z fits the age, they're only 218 million years old.