Is there a reason we don't have Compass in OC flight?

fandango

fandango
I got a message called "TIP OFF" which, for the most part, was a pretty fun mission (no idea who wanted me to do it or why) which required me to go to a remote sector and find a crashed ship (looked like a Condor?).

The only annoying part is trying to find the LAT/LON in "Orbital Cruise" flight.

Why wouldn't you have a compass at that point?

Am I doing this the wrong way? I had to watch both LAT/LON and keep rotating my ship until they increment/decrement visually and use trial and error to find the coordinates.

Once you drop-out of OC, you get the compass, but if you're 1 LAT/LON out, it's a long haul.
 

fandango

fandango
Well, in OC you get lat/lon references as soon as you're in orbit and a compass as soon as you drop into atmosphere. Is there a better way to get to the wanted coordinates in OC than just spinning around like a whirling dervish and looking at the numbers incrementing/decrementing.

I'm not really criticizing the science here (I'm not an expert), just wanting to reduce a rather tedious and time-consuming part of the process. :)

EDIT - In fact, I'm wondering if the Planet View in System Map is waiting for markers to be implemented by FDEV at some point (either by Mission automatically or by CMDR manually by putting in Lat/Lon).
 
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Zeeman

Zeeman
aRJay said:
Do compasses work in a meaningful way at that altitude?
Click to expand...

I don't care what you call it, but we need a way to know which damn way to poi t the damn ship in orbital cruise. Either that, or let us mark lat/long on the system map so we can fly down to the target, in the same way as when aplanetary base is selected.

Z...
 

Mark Lock

M
Lestenio said:
Surely there couldn't be a lat/long reference on an uncharted planet. How would you define the base 0,0 position?
Click to expand...


Lat 0 = equator of the planet, Long is arbitrary, probably it is synchronized with UTC so at 12 UTC the sun is exactly above Long 0 of that planet, just speculating, however the reason why compass is not there is cause you are too high for it to work right, no idea anyways

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

However you get it while gliding I think, 2.5km/s is fast enough to get to the exact point if you are already close enough
 

fandango

fandango
aRJay said:
Do compasses work in a meaningful way at that altitude?
Click to expand...

Looking at the Planet View in System Map, it seems that any body has been implemented by the devs as having distinct poles.

At the altitude where OC comes into play it's close enough to take a vector from your ship to the planet core and then use another vector (planet internal UP axis) to calculate a compass with it's N (albeit one that will go pretty crazy near the pole).
 

Lucius-Darcia

Lucius-Darcia
fandango said:
I got a message called "TIP OFF" which, for the most part, was a pretty fun mission (no idea who wanted me to do it or why) which required me to go to a remote sector and find a crashed ship (looked like a Condor?).

The only annoying part is trying to find the LAT/LON in "Orbital Cruise" flight.

Why wouldn't you have a compass at that point?

Am I doing this the wrong way? I had to watch both LAT/LON and keep rotating my ship until they increment/decrement visually and use trial and error to find the coordinates.

Once you drop-out of OC, you get the compass, but if you're 1 LAT/LON out, it's a long haul.
Click to expand...

fandango said:
Well, in OC you get lat/lon references as soon as you're in orbit and a compass as soon as you drop into atmosphere. Is there a better way to get to the wanted coordinates in OC than just spinning around like a whirling dervish and looking at the numbers incrementing/decrementing.

I'm not really criticizing the science here (I'm not an expert), just wanting to reduce a rather tedious and time-consuming part of the process. :)

EDIT - In fact, I'm wondering if the Planet View in System Map is waiting for markers to be implemented by FDEV at some point (either by Mission automatically or by CMDR manually by putting in Lat/Lon).
Click to expand...

I have read somewhere that a compass in orbital causes some technical issues and that's why we don't have them.

FDev announced improvements to planetary map and coordinates in 2.2
You should be able to "target" a specific lat/lon destination once you have scanned the planet to approach there like at a planetary base.
Let us wait and look how this imrovements works when 2.2 (beta) comes mid october
 

nathdixon92

nathdixon92
We do to an extent along the top. We have our bearing given in degrees. Besides, the poles of a planet may not be the same as ours,
 
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Lucius-Darcia

Lucius-Darcia
nathdixon92 said:
We do to an extent along the top. We have our bearing given in degrees. Besides, the poles of a planet may not be the same as ours,
Click to expand...

Let us don't forget, that most bodies don't even have a magnetic field.
But for a cartographic latitude and longitude you don't need a magnetic field. So we should be able to simulate a compass based on this cartographic coordinates.
 

nathdixon92

nathdixon92
The degrees could be considered a compass as they do seem to line up with what we define as NEW.

0 is heading what we call North (up the y-axis)
90 is heading East (along the positive x-axis)
180 is South (down the y-axis)
270 is West (along the negative x-axis)
 

fandango

fandango
nathdixon92 said:
We do to an extent along the top. We have our bearing given in degrees. Besides, the poles of a planet may not be the same as ours,
Click to expand...

But this doesn't appear in OC (one of the more useful periods in coordinate hunting), that's the point I was making. :) (unless you were responding to someone else?)
 
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DukeWally

D
You're right, I've noticed the same thing when searching for Tip Off coordinates. Only way I know is to watch the lat/lon and maneuver around until the numbers are going in the direction you want. There absolutely should be a heading indicator in OC. Let's see what enhancements are included in the next patch -- being able to target a specific lat/lon like a base would be ideal.
 

Codger

Codger
I just drop down, get a bearing, then fly up to just above drop down height to get there. Works well enough.
 

Stone7

Stone7
nathdixon92 said:
The degrees could be considered a compass as they do seem to line up with what we define as NEW.

0 is heading what we call North (up the y-axis)
90 is heading East (along the positive x-axis)
180 is South (down the y-axis)
270 is West (along the negative x-axis)
Click to expand...

On this subject, not a perfect solution but the best we have right now;

https://youtu.be/xmaZq5buVlM

Oh and dig that funky lounge music :cool:
 
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