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EternusIV
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Good work Sargon - I didnt think of that.

 

I'm using those distance figures for my 3-D map and its cleaning up some loose corners.

:lol:

 

Hey Silly,

 

Those distances are nothing to do with the distances between the systems! :P

 

The 'distances' quoted per WP are the distance in Astronomical Units (1 AU = ~93,000,000 miles) from the WP to the systems Primary.........

 

But hey, if it makes your map a bit easier, then who cares..... :cheers:

 

The distances in AU for the WP's, like the ones for any planets, are only of significance if the systems has some sort of terrain characteristic......

 

Chief Cartographer to Ur-Lord Tedric

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Hehe

 

I knew that )

 

Its better than the WAG method thus far (or this werid numerical approximation I used before)

:lol:

 

For me, I just try and re-draw the map so it makes the most sense..... :P

 

The spatial one would be real interesting, but perhaps there would be just too much to learn.....only the Oracle knows the truth

 

Occasionally Challeneged Chief Cartographer to Ur-Lord Tedric

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Well here is what I did with Azuth/Sargons line of thought (not much better than WAG)

 

I havent seen any AU distance from center of system greater than around 2600 AU. Since I'm approximating, I'll guess the max distance is 3000 AU (anyone seen greater than this?)

 

System A connects to system B. The warp point in system A that leads to B is 0.4 AU away from center of A. The warp point in system B that leads to A is 2400 away from cetner of B.

 

3000-0.4 = 2999.6

 

3000-2400=600

 

Total distance between systems is 3599.6 AU (the sum of the diff 2999.6+600)

 

What the heck right? This allows greater distances for higher warp points and lesser distances between lower warp points.

 

I'm sure it has NOTHING to do with actual distances between systems but its what I'm using for now.

 

I still see no harm in giving us actual distances between systems. :P

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EternusssIV,

 

a little odd as 3559.6 AU would be about 20.79 Light Daysss out, which would put the sssyssstemss in danger of colliding.

 

Usssing good old Sssol, the nearessst sssyssstem is Proxima Centauri, which isss jussst over 4 light yearsss away. Which would be a tad over 252,791 AU'sss dissstance.

 

We having not been able to get official sssanction to purchassse a mapping sssyssstem have been usssing an old ssstandard (MSss Excel) in a linear fassshion. It hasss worked admirable ssso far mapping sssyssstemsss up to 11 jumpsss out.

 

Asss to your initial thought of a 4-8 pinted ssstar, not sure asss on our largessst map we have had sssome crisssssscrossssssing and therefore do not necessssssarilly have a point that isss not interconnected with another point. But perhapsss we need to map everthing up to 12-16 out to be sssure on any potential pattern.

 

We are jussst glad to have found other Sssentient life formsss out there (sssome ssseem to be a bit agressssssive).

 

CTO, Sssarasss

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Sssssssir-

 

Yeah- as an astrophysics student, I'm not too convinced that the SNROTE galactic map presents the danger you suggest (its a game map - and I doubt it accounts for the subtleties of realistic system placement...otherwise, give us distances, solar masses, the equivalent of a hubble constant and a relativistic frame of reference)

 

I'm using the numbers as a sssssscale. The most convenient measurement for my program is 1 light year. The distances translate to tenths of light yearssssss.

 

(EDIT: 4.4ly is a decent average approx but does it represent the average distance between all stars in SNROTE? Who the heck knows! :lol: If I used the AC scale as you sssugest, there would be little variance between systems regardless of the size of their connecting warp points. I'm sticking with a system that the distance between systems is somewhat tied to the difficulty connecting warp points...again...could be wrong :P )

 

The variance is just enough to set my mind to ease until I think of something else or my species somehow develops the parallax method to determine distances to stars (they can build a NTWD but can't figure out the distance to a star in the sky... :lol: )

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(they can build a NTWD but can't figure out the distance to a star in the sky... :lol: )

Heh, they can, but figure that this would stand an excellent chance of taking away from the mysticism currently enjoyed by high-ranking members of your homeworld's astrophysics community (ie, it might make mapping less fun :P

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:lol:

 

Behold!

 

A secret society within secret societies. An upheaval in the scientific creed of open knowledge! Perhaps we need to beat our fundamentalist cartography cults into submission.

 

We were wondering why those black helicopters would arrive and swoop up all the kiddies who figured out trigonometry on their own and applied it to the stars!

 

(Gotcha Pete. Spaghetti maps it is, I'll stop asking for distances :P )

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Actually, would it be a crime to give us distance without any frame of direction? We're certain someone who's been avidly exploring since Turn One could eventually use such numbers to rough out directions, but it would take an awfully long time.

At least the distances would give us something to play with without any real in-game effect.

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Yeah thats what I was hoping for too.

 

I think Pete's fear is that even with given distances, without direction, you can find out the angles between systems if you have a triangle formation, or a closed geometric loop - which if connected to some other geometric shape, can give you a decent estimate on the shape, and perhaps a pattern.

 

My little measurement system isnt accurate BTW. It breaks the rules of geometry. :thumbsup:

 

I think I could hammer out a little spreadsheet that would approximate distance related to warp class with the data I have using triangulated systems, but like Azuth's figures, I'm starting to fear that the relationship between warp class or distance and the distance between systems isn't that linear at all. I even tried estimating distance using the fuel cost figures and things still don't work out perfectly.

 

Perhaps hundreds of more systems and hours upon hours of dragging 3-d shapes will reveal the mysteries of the galactic map (goodie fun!).....but I'm temporarily retired from the cartography business :P (Until I'm trapped in lab waiting for data NEXT week :lol: ) But hey! At least I have this awesome 3-d program that assists with data management too :cheers:

 

If anybody out there is still giving it a good try, I'd be more than happy to hear the other theories. :thumbsup:

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Here’s my current conjecture. :P

 

The warp point difficulty rating has nothing to do with whatever system or warp point is at the other end of the link. It is just a function of the attributes of the system where it is located. (pure conjecture :cheers: )

 

I would imagine that the SNROTE software adds a system and randomly sets the star class, size, etc. Then it randomly assigns a number of warp points, with a minimum of 1 (you must have at least 1 warp point). Then the warp points are all assigned orbital distances. This may be totally random, or the star may affect it. (Science fiction theory would have the warp point affected by the mass of the star.) Then the warp point size is assigned as a function of the orbital distance and/or the star’s attributes. Finally, the warp point difficulty class is calculated as a function of all the above. I believe there was an official comment that difficulty class is actually a number and the ratings (A, B, C, etc.) are general classification groupings.

 

My previous post listed ranges of orbital distance and size at each difficulty class. Taking this one more step would involve examining those ranges for each class of star. If the warp point difficulty rating is a function of warp point orbital distance, warp point size, star class, star subclass, star size, and star number, this could be solved as a matrix. But it’s been a long time since I’ve done any matrix-math, or least-squares-fit, or whatever. Also, I think I would need many more data points.

 

Now lets move on to the warp point links. I’ve started to look at this topic as 2 sub-topics. I no longer think the warp linking has anything to do with the warp difficulty.

 

I’m assuming the software generates a huge number of star systems and their warp points, then begins linking those warp points later. The “first” warp points would be linked, moving slowly and somewhat randomly toward the “newer” warp points. Since we don’t want new start-up empires getting mixed up with older well-established empires.

 

Star systems could be generated and placed on a Cartesian or radial coordinate system, starting at the center and spiraling outward. The oldest stars would be concentrated in the middle, but there would be a little overlap as the system spirals outward.

 

I think the warp points are linked up in a somewhat random fashion, but heavily weighted to link up with other warp points close in age and/or close on the coordinate system.

 

Notice that there is a somewhat, sort-of, similarity in system names for an empire. Both my empires have sort-of Slavic sounding names. Other players on this board have mentioned somewhat Native American sounding names. I believe the similarity denotes physical proximity.

 

We have all noticed loops. My cockroach empire has 4 systems that are all linked to each other. Each of those systems has 1 additional warp point that links to different systems outside of the loop. Two of these systems are also incorporated in another loop.

 

I think the software doesn’t link up all of the warp points for a system at a time. Instead, it links up 1 point for a system, then moves on to another system and links up 1 warp point, then moves on to another system… But it comes back to the first system before too long, and jumps around that way. As the software randomly chooses the next system, it would have to be weighted to selecting among the oldest systems still available. Again, we don’t want new start-up empires getting mixed up with older well-established empires.

 

So according to this theory, the looped systems would be close in proximity. The warp links extending out of the loops would have a greater chance of reaching farther distances. Possibly into another turn of the spiral, but they can’t be allowed to go too far.

 

One-way links are another matter. I’ve only found 1 so far, and don’t know yet if it leads to another 1-way link in a continuous chain, or if it was laid “on top” of an existing 2-way link. (I’m hoping the 1-way link traverses a very great distance on the Cartesian coordinates.)

 

Anyway, that’s my 2-bits. Sorry for the length of the post, especially since I rarely ever even post anything at all. The linking theory is nothing but pure speculation. I can’t think of any way to prove it.

 

Someday I may have the time to plug some data into a least-squares-fit thingy and see what happens. We may even have software for that at work. At least it seems possible to prove or disprove the warp difficulty part of this.

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Encouraging news :thumbsup:

 

I won't dream about waht to do with that extra credit point just yet though :thumbsup:

THe hot rumor on that is, if you send a copy of the note from Pete and six dollars (yankee) you can run an extra 40 orders on your next turn. Just a rumor but it looks believable

 

l :P:cheers: ker

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Sha'thar wonders, off-hand, if there has ever been a system created which is connected to the rest of the universe via a single one-way warp point out?  :P

We heard of a player whose homeworld met that description. I believe he dropped before finding a one way back in. Sort of hard to harvest a colony that cannot send goodies back.

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I absolutely forbid Empires from saying their HW is 0,0,0.  I after all am the center of the universe.

However unpleasant this sounds it appears to work out that way. There was one time when he was actually at ( 0, 0, 0.001) but that was either a fluke or an inaccurate round off error. It was shown not to be involved in the use of the word humble.

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