Coordinates

pippo · Jul 6, 2015

I remember reading some time ago that you could type in the navigation search (in the galaxy map) basic coordinates instead of a system name.
I remember thinking it was a rather cool feature but never tried it.

I tried tonight and nothing happened.
Am I mistaken and such feature never existed? Was is present in the game but later removed? Am just I doing it wrong?

xondk · Jul 6, 2015

Haven't heard about this, would be nice though since searching for 'sector' named systems you've written down, rarely works.

RogueMason · Jul 6, 2015

xondk said:
Haven't heard about this, would be nice though since searching for 'sector' named systems you've written down, rarely works.

Actually, it works alright; you just need to hit search a second time and it should get going... well, it does for me, anyway

Can't say I've heard of a coordinate-searching system, though. It could be useful, though.

Engadine · Jul 7, 2015

OP,

Unfortunately it's not possible, although it would be a great feature.

I misread something a while back and thought it was possible, turns out it's not.

Gorrister · Jul 7, 2015

Or, you just could search in the grit. Works like a roadmap.

Imsaho · Jul 8, 2015

I have a question about coordinates and since this is a new account (well, forum account anyway, in-game I'm finally within spitting distance of elite status for exploration) I can't start a new thread. So I realize this is a tiny bit of a thread-jack but hopefully close enough to the topic that it won't annoy anyone.

Anyway, I've noticed that many of the online ED databases out there show systems where the coordinates are to several decimal places of precision.

Obviously, from the map, you can make a rough estimate to an accuracy of +/- 0.2 for X and Z and then read Y to the nearest integer right off the map.

So my question is whether there's an in-game way of seeing a system's coordinates numerically? Or have they reverse-engineered some packet-sniffed traffic?

I wish the nav computer was smarter and you could say "here are the systems I want to visit, calculate the best order for me to visit them in". Until then (not holding my breath, mind), I often do it by hand and having some way to quickly and easily compile system coordinates would be helpful.

Thanks!

iain666 · Jul 9, 2015

They're reverse engineered, AFAIK, but no packet sniffing is involved.

Verbose logging gives you things like this
"System:3(Hypuae Ain MT-F c25-3) Body:0 Pos

1.60371e+011,3.83305e+008,-4.97067e+010) " - I'm not certain what that's telling me though.

Also programs like ED Discovery are building a database of distances between systems that can be used to determine more precise coordinates from a sufficiently large dataset to enable triangulation from Sol.

Imsaho · Jul 11, 2015

Fantastic! Thank you so much. I only wish I had known about this earlier.

It looks like the position info is deliberately obfuscated. There isn't an obvious correspondence between the numbers shown in the log (the ones in scientific notation) and the numbers which appear in the galaxy map. There are also some long hex numbers which may contain them.

Anyway, I've turned the detailled logging on and, knowing that others have reverse engineered it, will return to puzzle that out at some point.

Engadine · Jul 11, 2015

Imsaho said:
I wish the nav computer was smarter and you could say "here are the systems I want to visit, calculate the best order for me to visit them in". Until then (not holding my breath, mind), I often do it by hand and having some way to quickly and easily compile system coordinates would be helpful.

I very much would love this. I've tried on numerous times whilst in an area to try and scan the complete systems within my chosen grid area, but the only way of get a list of the systems in there is by eye and using the Gal Map.

RockSlice · Jul 11, 2015

Imsaho said:
It looks like the position info is deliberately obfuscated. There isn't an obvious correspondence between the numbers shown in the log (the ones in scientific notation) and the numbers which appear in the galaxy map. There are also some long hex numbers which may contain them.

The position info in the log isn't obfuscated. It's just useless for us. That position is where you are within the system.

Imsaho · Jul 11, 2015

RockSlice said:
The position info in the log isn't obfuscated. It's just useless for us. That position is where you are within the system.

Looking at the scientific notation numbers, that was my first assumption, because the samples I looked at went from negative to positive or whatever even though the two systems were within a couple of LY of each other. Anyway, I figured I was wrong because there are databases out there with system coordinates to several decimal places.

There is some other stuff in there I haven't had the time to investigate closely, packed as long hex digits. Perhaps they're hiding in there. (new sig!)