Symmetric Route Plotting

[trollson]

This is a fairly trivial suggestion, which probably won't be noticable to most players...

When you plot a route A > B the systems traversed should be the same as if you'd plotted a route B > A for the same ship and load, but obviously in the reverse order.

This isn't currently the case - the reverse route can follow a completely different path.

I can complely understand why this would be the case, and it wouldn't take much to place an ordering on two systems when calculating the route, simply reversing the order of the systems if necessary.

Unless there is a reason why a route A > B > c would be valid, but C > B > A would not?

Why do I care? Well, after forging a route between two distant systems, ensuring that I have scanned everything along the way, I am now doing it all again on the return leg!

Perhaps this is really a first world problem...

 

[Arnoldo]

sorry, route will be different..

In theory, the last hop or two on a route will always a lot less than max jump range as route is optimised more at the front part of the journey. The B to A journey has the optimised segments at the start and will, usually start at a different destination than the final hop on the AB journey. Take a search of the forums for the formula used to calculate optimum distance for route plotting in the core - explains things soooooooo much more eloquently than me

 

[trollson]

@Arnoldo I am well aware that there will be shorter hops at the end of the route _calculation_. This doesn't mean that the route A > B cannot be the simple reverse of B > A if the algorithm first applys some deterministic ordering to the end points, and reverses the resultant sequence if needed. This is independent of the path finding algorithm being used - _iff_ the path is bidirectional.

 

[NW3]

I'm not sure I understand why you want this. As an explorer, I'd prefer the routes to differ, so I can gather more exploration data.

 

[trollson]

I'm not sure I understand why you want this. As an explorer, I'd prefer the routes to differ, so I can gather more exploration data.

I understand. When pure exploring I try to cover as many differen systems as possible - using economical routing and looking for systems I haven't visited (easier with the new filter).

However when running longer trading missions, I still want to fully explore the systems I travel through, so it can be a slow process to get to the destination, but I'd like the return leg to take advantage of the route I had just explored.

Sure, I could just "no explore" - but I'd have to hand back my Space Scouts Exploration Badge if I volenteraly leave something unexplored.

However manually navigating the first couple of jumps along the return leg, eventually autoroute does find the right path.

Really thougb, its an expectation that the best route A > B and B > A should follow the same path which is revealing.