New way of calculating route: Get somewhere on 1 tank

szymciu07

S
There's a huge difference between economical and fastest route. What if there was a 3rd option, a golden middle, to get somewhere on 1 tank, without scoop?
Right now you can do it artificially by setting route through Low Security systems only, but that's just a workaround :)
 

szymciu07

S
True, but how does that help? I want to be able to plot not the fastest nor most economical route, I'd like to get to my destination on one tank
 

Stabby_Dave

Stabby_Dave
Yes. Plot a route to your destination. If the lines all the way there are unbroken, you can do it on one tank. If they aren't, you can't.
 

szymciu07

S
Ok.... See this:
The fastest route takes only jump range into calculation.
Most economical route plans the waaaay to economical, too many jumps.

Now let's say that the fastest route takes 9 jumps, but after 7th jump no more fuel.
So let's plan the route for 13 shorter jumps, thus making it possible on one tank without scooping. So no need for scoop while in the bubble.

You can do that by filtering systems right now but that's a workaround and not intended action.

Am I clear now? 😎
 

MK Regular

M
This would be nice, but I'm not sure if the relatively small benefits of such a route plotter would be worthwhile enough for FDev to go to the trouble of making a route plotter that can calculate this in a reasonable amount of time.

From what I understand, the algorithms that the route plotter uses are fairly simple and need very little in the way of processing power to run. I may not be correct here, but my guess is that the algorithms are as follows:
  • Fastest Route
    • Get a list of systems that are within the player's jump range
      • Note that this could probably be optimized to only take the 200-1000 systems that are farthest away
    • Find the system on the list that is closest to the destination system
    • Add the system to the route and repeat
  • Economical Route
    • Get a list of the 10-20 systems that are closest to the player
    • Run a fuel consumption calculation for each system
    • Find the distance to the destination (DtD) for each system
    • Subtract the the current DtD to the DtD of each system to get the net distance
    • Divide the net distance by the fuel consumption for each system
    • Add the system with the lowest distance/fuel ratio to the route and repeat
Both of these plotters are very simple and can plot hundreds of of optimized jumps in a few seconds. With this in mind, I'm really not that sure how to go about making a "destination in a single tank" route plotter. My best guess would be some form of looping economical route plotter with a minimum range:
  • Run a variation economical route plotter that excludes systems below a certain range
    • start the algorithm with a minimum range of 0ly
  • When the route plotter completes, determine how much fuel will still be in the tank
    • If there is fuel remaining, increase the minimum range of the plotter and repeat
      • This would probably work best with some kind of variable range incrementation (For example, 20ly, 10ly, 5ly, 2ly, 1ly)
    • If there is no fuel remaining, the previous route is the fastest without scooping
      • If using variable range incrementation, go back to the previous range, reduce the range increment one step, then add the new range increment and plot a new route
      • If using variable range incrementation and there is no smaller range increment, the previous route that could be achieved on a single tank is the fastest without scooping
Note that this algorithm will run the economical route plotter MULTIPLE times and will probably be very resource intensive. As such, if it needs to be done in a reasonable amount of time the maximum range to destination should be reduced for this plotting option. I'd say that this plotting option should only be used out to a distance of around 500ly, since you'll either bring a fuel scoop or be using economical routing past this point anyways.

Another way that a "destination in a single tank" route plotter could work would be with a fastest route plotter with a restriction to maximum range:
  • Run a variation fastest route plotter that excludes systems above a certain range
    • start the algorithm using the current jump range
  • When the route plotter completes, determine how much fuel will still be in the tank
    • If there no fuel remaining, decrease the maximum range of the plotter and repeat
      • This would probably work best with some kind of variable range incrementation (For example, 20ly, 10ly, 5ly, 2ly, 1ly)
    • If there is fuel remaining, the plotted route is the fastest without scooping
      • If using variable range incrementation, go back to the previous range, reduce the range increment one step, then subtract the new range increment and plot a new route
      • If using variable range incrementation and there is no smaller range increment, plotted route is the fastest without scooping
This variation is probably a bit less processor-hungry, but would still use quite a bit of processing power. Again, the maximum range to destination should probably be limited to 500ly to keep plotting times low (it's not like anyone sane would ever want to use this option past this distance anyways).

Both of these plotters are far more complex than the plotters they are based on, and would likely need quite a bit of optimization before they could be added to the game. Considering how infrequently this type of plotter would be needed, and that the entire point of the plotter could be avoided by fitting fuel scoop, I cannot see FDev adding something like this any time soon (unless of course half of the community bands together to get it added).
 

Factabulous

Factabulous
Makes no sense - when you spend time on one of those systems SCing out to an interesting planet, or get hyperdicted by aliens, or just scoop fuel, then it would need to replot.
 

szymciu07

S
MK_Regular said:
This would be nice, but I'm not sure if the relatively small benefits of such a route plotter would be worthwhile enough for FDev to go to the trouble of making a route plotter that can calculate this in a reasonable amount of time.

From what I understand, the algorithms that the route plotter uses are fairly simple and need very little in the way of processing power to run. I may not be correct here, but my guess is that the algorithms are as follows:
  • Fastest Route
    • Get a list of systems that are within the player's jump range
      • Note that this could probably be optimized to only take the 200-1000 systems that are farthest away
    • Find the system on the list that is closest to the destination system
    • Add the system to the route and repeat
  • Economical Route
    • Get a list of the 10-20 systems that are closest to the player
    • Run a fuel consumption calculation for each system
    • Find the distance to the destination (DtD) for each system
    • Subtract the the current DtD to the DtD of each system to get the net distance
    • Divide the net distance by the fuel consumption for each system
    • Add the system with the lowest distance/fuel ratio to the route and repeat
Both of these plotters are very simple and can plot hundreds of of optimized jumps in a few seconds. With this in mind, I'm really not that sure how to go about making a "destination in a single tank" route plotter. My best guess would be some form of looping economical route plotter with a minimum range:
  • Run a variation economical route plotter that excludes systems below a certain range
    • start the algorithm with a minimum range of 0ly
  • When the route plotter completes, determine how much fuel will still be in the tank
    • If there is fuel remaining, increase the minimum range of the plotter and repeat
      • This would probably work best with some kind of variable range incrementation (For example, 20ly, 10ly, 5ly, 2ly, 1ly)
    • If there is no fuel remaining, the previous route is the fastest without scooping
      • If using variable range incrementation, go back to the previous range, reduce the range increment one step, then add the new range increment and plot a new route
      • If using variable range incrementation and there is no smaller range increment, the previous route that could be achieved on a single tank is the fastest without scooping
Note that this algorithm will run the economical route plotter MULTIPLE times and will probably be very resource intensive. As such, if it needs to be done in a reasonable amount of time the maximum range to destination should be reduced for this plotting option. I'd say that this plotting option should only be used out to a distance of around 500ly, since you'll either bring a fuel scoop or be using economical routing past this point anyways.

Another way that a "destination in a single tank" route plotter could work would be with a fastest route plotter with a restriction to maximum range:
  • Run a variation fastest route plotter that excludes systems above a certain range
    • start the algorithm using the current jump range
  • When the route plotter completes, determine how much fuel will still be in the tank
    • If there no fuel remaining, decrease the maximum range of the plotter and repeat
      • This would probably work best with some kind of variable range incrementation (For example, 20ly, 10ly, 5ly, 2ly, 1ly)
    • If there is fuel remaining, the plotted route is the fastest without scooping
      • If using variable range incrementation, go back to the previous range, reduce the range increment one step, then subtract the new range increment and plot a new route
      • If using variable range incrementation and there is no smaller range increment, plotted route is the fastest without scooping
This variation is probably a bit less processor-hungry, but would still use quite a bit of processing power. Again, the maximum range to destination should probably be limited to 500ly to keep plotting times low (it's not like anyone sane would ever want to use this option past this distance anyways).

Both of these plotters are far more complex than the plotters they are based on, and would likely need quite a bit of optimization before they could be added to the game. Considering how infrequently this type of plotter would be needed, and that the entire point of the plotter could be avoided by fitting fuel scoop, I cannot see FDev adding something like this any time soon (unless of course half of the community bands together to get it added).
Click to expand...

Or, just decrease jump range and apply fastest algorithm, check if able to reach on 1 tank, if not decrease again and repeat :) that way the algorithm would take only a couple of iterations.
 

MK Regular

M
szymciu07 said:
Or, just decrease jump range and apply fastest algorithm, check if able to reach on 1 tank, if not decrease again and repeat :) that way the algorithm would take only a couple of iterations.
Click to expand...
That's literally what the 2nd algorithm I proposed is. It would still use up quite a bit of processing power (likely more than the economical plotter) and would still need to have a very limited range.
 

Misty_Dark

Misty_Dark
I do see the ingame value of this, and I do also see the issue with how we go about plotting the route...

it would be a nice feature, and it would be be great to have the suggested 2nd algorithm, where you can adjust the jump range combined with a much clearer indicator about how jumps in total and how many jumps you can on the current fuel tank. it would also be useful for the would it be worth to add another fuel tank, as the difference with total amount of jumps and how many jumps you can currently do would give a nice indicator for this... And we almost already have the 2nd option in the game, as you can adjust jumprange based on potential cargo, if you have cargo racks... so proably just a few weelkks worth of works get this done...
 

dunno

D
The NAV Panel already display's the systems you can jump to with current Main Tank fuel, Systems not in fuel range are highlighted for you.

The little Orange Arc above a Star's disc In Galaxy Map indicates stars which are within your FSD's current jump range, the quirk with this is that this jump range is relative to map cursor position, wherever you place the map cursor the orange arc depicts the stars within jump range, even when browsing thousands of light years away.

Note that the're two Fuel Gauges/lines in the mini-system panel, The thin line above the Main Tank fuel is Super Cruise fuel, this secondary SC tank is automatically replenished from the Main Tank, your Main Tank can be empty but you'll still be able to super cruise and power systems if the SC tank has fuel.
 
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