There are times when in a system and looking at the starfield that I'm curious about a particular star or group of stars that I see. It's not really possible to correlate visible stars from the cockpit with the galaxy map. Now that we have the FSS, it would be great if we could use a variant of that to identify the stars that are visible in the sky, see their type and select for FSD jumps.
Ability to browse the visible starfield and identify/select stars
- Thread starter petercoxphoto
- Start date
Back to this one, there's no information stored in the star field, it's just an image generated from your current position in the galaxy so you can't make any queries against it, the FSS uses the exact same image so there's no difference there.
Given that the starfeild is regenerated each time you jump and it keeps track of the position of the stars, I dont see why they couldn't impliment this as a feature especially since you can lock on to every visible star via the galaxy map.
What a neat idea - and actually star position is already used for navigation by devices on earth. they call it celestial navigation, and it's an electronic form of what ship captains used to do. Like the "Astro-inertial navigation system" in the SR-71.
It would be nice, but there is no actual data stored in the background star field. You can't focus on a star in the background star field and figure out how far away it is, you can't even use triangulation or parallax movement. It doesn't keep rack of the position of stars, it's generated each time from your location in the galaxy at the point of arrival in the system, for instance try SC 20 ly to that nearby nebula, the image doesn't change even when you have traveled the full 20ly to the nebula, you will still see it in the starfield as it was when it was 20ly away, because the star field image generated is a static image from your arrival point in the last system.
It still has to store mathematical values for those stars though and it uses those values to generate a cosmic background image.
The galaxy map uses the pointers for the stars and so does the locking recital for jumping.
Yes the starfeild is just an image but there is still math involved in generating it.
The OP's idea, from a programming sense, isnt far fetched at all especially since part of the code necessary to do it already exists in the game.
The galaxy map uses the pointers for the stars and so does the locking recital for jumping.
Yes the starfeild is just an image but there is still math involved in generating it.
The OP's idea, from a programming sense, isnt far fetched at all especially since part of the code necessary to do it already exists in the game.
Yes there's maths involved in generating it, but that doesn't mean it contains any of the data that was used to generate it, and that's what if required if you want to use it for plotting or in any way to locate stars and features.
[/quote]The OP's idea, from a programming sense, isnt far fetched at all especially since part of the code necessary to do it already exists in the game.[/QUOTE]
And you know what they use that code for? Generating the galmap. It would be a huge step from generating a background image to actually creating a background that could be used for plotting or locating features, it's not something you can simply slap on as an afterthought, the entire thing would have to written from scratch, and keep in mind they would have to recalculate the entire thing every time you jumped as opposed to the galmap being pre-generated, how long exactly are we going to allow for generating this background? People already complain about the length of time of a hyperjump.
There are far more worthwhile things to do to advance the game than spending months on a feature that may or may not be actually worth doing depending on how much it slows the game down.
no... they dont have to write it completely from scratch.
half of the code necessary for them to impliment the OP's idea already exists in the game. they just have to write some additional code to augment the star system locking to the FSS.
the "image generation" wouldnt even be part of the script.
the pointers for the star systems are all persistent. the "Starfield" doesnt matter in implimenting this idea at all.
Especially since OP isnt asking that the FSS show you the physical star. just to be able to pick it out from the star field through FSS without opening the galmap.
the pointers for those stars have to be persistent otherwise you get stars dropping off the galaxy map within 20ly.
Infact code from both galmap and "Select target ahead" could be added to FSS to make this work.
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I like this idea, I’ve seen a post by Ziljan in this section with the same suggestion so others may like the idea as well.
As to whether FD can or should implement this suggestion? I’ll leave that up to the developers, I’m sure they are capable of prioritizing suggestions if they like an idea.
As to whether FD can or should implement this suggestion? I’ll leave that up to the developers, I’m sure they are capable of prioritizing suggestions if they like an idea.
I think the simplest way to do this would be to add an option to enter the galaxy map, displaying it from your current ship position, orientation and field of view.
This would display the stars in the same relative positions as seen from the cockpit, allowing easy selection of the one that interested you, and uses existing mechanics.
Devs, whatcha reckon?
This would display the stars in the same relative positions as seen from the cockpit, allowing easy selection of the one that interested you, and uses existing mechanics.
Devs, whatcha reckon?
Yeah, I'd like markers in the skybox indicating stars in jump range.
Also could we leave the conjecture about how easy or difficult this would be to implement at the door. These threads get can caught up in the Speculative How instead of discussing the What and Why of a suggestion.
Also could we leave the conjecture about how easy or difficult this would be to implement at the door. These threads get can caught up in the Speculative How instead of discussing the What and Why of a suggestion.
I'd like an option to see what I'm looking at.
Like a toggle to show nebula names, and star names, even distant galaxy names.
and I would say constellations, but they only work from Sol...
But yeah, nebula would be the most helpful overlay for me.
Sometimes I see one, then can't find it on the map.
Nebula aren't too common, so that's easy, just a floating label. But I'm not sure how to select star stars, except from a "star section" zoom level on the FSS, that shows a load of stars as selectable objects within a certain range in Ly.
Like a toggle to show nebula names, and star names, even distant galaxy names.
and I would say constellations, but they only work from Sol...
But yeah, nebula would be the most helpful overlay for me.
Sometimes I see one, then can't find it on the map.
Nebula aren't too common, so that's easy, just a floating label. But I'm not sure how to select star stars, except from a "star section" zoom level on the FSS, that shows a load of stars as selectable objects within a certain range in Ly.
that would be a fine way to do it as well. +1
It might take some tinkering on the backend but I think there's merit to this suggestion. The ability to take the "second star to the right and straight on 'til morning" approach to exploration would be a welcome feeling for many explorers. It would also add a (potentially) intuitive way to just "pick one" without a loading screen and a lot of mouse waggling. While difficult to master, it would also give seasoned, dedicated explorers ways to learn the galmap by sight, adding a somewhat niche yet interesting skill to the game.