Sure, there is, but you have to be in the system to do it. You can trilaterate the system's coordinates by measuring distances to known reference points:
EDDiscovery is probably your best tool for this.
Well, not really a fan of 3rd party software that might be digging into my PC. Let's just say I'm overly cautious and that FD should make it part of the game.
However, this has bugged me for some time now; and I actually think the answer was staring me in the face the whole time.
You actually can get X, Y, Z data directly from the game's navigational map. I've looked and SOL is definitely 0:0:0. I compared this to ADITI and found it to be 73:-338:-159
I think FD just wanted us to find this out on our own.
Each grid appears to be in 10LY X 10LY squares.
If I select ADITI and move the mouse up or down, then the second number changes. So -338 is the distance ADITI is south of the galactic plane as centered on SOL.
I'm going to experiment some more, get the numbers from the navigational map for each ELW and compare; but I think this actually will allow accurate 3D plotting of positions.
[Edit] -
So I played around a little and applied it just to the Pythagorean Theorem:
Knowing now that SOL is 0:0:0 I picked two ELWs with known SOL distance:
* ADITI - 380.60LY
* SYNUEFE AL-P C21-4 - 433.87LY
This distance is the travel distance, so is not a straight line, but rather a combination of distances between the stars we jump through.
If we assume that ADITI is located at - 73:-338:-159 then the hypotenuse distance to SOL is
345.79LY.
If we asume that SYNUEFE AL-P C21-4 is located at - 28:-461:-118 then the hypotenuse distance to SOL is
461.85LY
This is problematic, because we have not solved for the offset of the planet from the Z-Axis. Also, I
Perhaps have not quite figured out how to read the X,Y,Z positions from the navigational map.
Still, it's in the ballpark in terms of LY distance. You could create a relatively decent 3D depiction of the ELWs using this as a method.
But we can apply the theorem twice and get an accurate distance:
[Edit] I've modified the (+) and (-) marks to match in game.
So:
X axis is (-) left of the SOL~SAGITTARIUS LINE (+) is right.
Y axis is (-) below the galactic plane (+) above.
Z axis is (-) away from SOL towards Barnard's Nebula (+) is between SOL and SAGITTARIUS.
I think it is a two part calculation:
- Part 1 is to determine the hypotenuse distance at your current Y axis using the A, B, lines to determine the C measurements.
- Part 2 is to determine your hypotenuse distance to SOL using the C,D, to determine the E measurements (SOL distance).
I'm pretty sure that the ADITI coordinates are correct. So let's appy those.
LINE A (known): 159LY
LINE B (known): 73 LY
LINE C: answer = 121.28LY
LINE D (known): 461LY
LINE E: answer = 380.60LY which is spot on!
