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Jump Navigator

TheEngineer

SOC-14 1K
Hi folks !

Heres another piece of useless software


http://www.vuraldi.de/Traveller/NavCalc.zip

Its maybe good for showing the difficult job of a navigator.
NavCalc shows a target system planet, let you choose jump arrival coordinates and vector, shows 10/100D limits, jump duration related planetary movement, jump exit points and related real space travel times.

Still some to do's, but the core is working...

Regards and good night..

Mert
 
I've been playing with this. I imagine you're planning on having it eventually calulate the whole trip time, including the travel time out/in from the 100D limit at both ends? And are you thinking of including jump masking from the system primaries? Eventually, of course, it would be really good if such a software could include the movement of destinations around their primaries.

By the way, when I went down from 1G in the travel time calculation, I got a "divide by zero" error. I think you need some error-trapping there.
 
Hi !

Yes. Yes.
Guess, I will combine functionality of Systemview (which displays the whole system and deals with primaries jump masking, too) and this one.
Well, basic problem is, that I need some virtual 3D coordinates of the systems, in order to calc any jump vector.
So far its just a test, how things could work.

Did I hear these bad words "error" and "trapping" ?
 
I have recently been working on a "pen-and-paper" calculator for jump masking, based on the hex grid used for mapping subsectors. I'm trying to allow for how close worlds are to their primary and for the movement of worlds around their primaries, and for the actual positions of star systems relative to each other.
 
I'm for the coalition for freedom from inhumane detainment for errors and other program bugs. I'm afraid there will be no talk of "trapping" any errors! Errors, bugs, 'features', 'enhancements', and other similar entities just want to be free!


Mert, this is a cool idea. I'll play with it in a week or two when things calm down at work then give you some solid feedback.
 
Hi !

Wildly coding I merged SystemView and NavCalc...
And it includes orbital movement now, too.

Heres a screenshot showing good old earth on its orbit, relativ jump duration positions based on mean jump duration, a destination marker on planet coordinates itself, the jump vector and calculated jump exit point at the actual 100 D limit. (And a bunch of buttons and edit fields on the left
).
SysViewShot1.png


The actual snapshot build (as always with sources and executable) is available here .

As I do not consider it to be Systemviews job to generate starsystems, I wonder which format imports I should implement.

What I perhaps will do is to generate just the data I need for display using the extended UWP data.....

Tricky part left is to finish the method to derive system positional data in order to get a reproducable jump vector orientation between two systems.

Suggestions...?

Regards,

TheEngineer
 
Hi !

Some more changes....

Systemview is now able to read "System details.txt" files generated by Stuart Ferris fabulous H&E software and convert this data to a XML format file processable by Systemview.
It now works well for single-star system.
Multi-Star systems are a bit more complicate, as there seems to be no information in the "details" file about the orbital position of the companion stars.
Guess I will assume close or far companions now as they do not cause major trouble....
At least its modifiable in the XML data file.

Additionally SystemView is also able to use Stuarts WBS sector data files now, in order to to select a departure world.

For both departure and destination planetary system a "virtual" Z-coordinate, as well as ecliptic rotation and tilt data is generated.
It is possible to use existing 3D data, e.g. like the informationen provided by Malenfant in his Real Near Star Map.

I will upload the current software snapshot today evening...


In the next step I will use these sets of data to calculate a 3D jump vector between those two systems based on a CRC method. So generated values are reproducable even under alternate programming environments (I always use CRC cascades to fake random numbers).

Even if it starts to become a bit more scientific I plan to produce a map overlay, which displays the value of the gravitational force vector in the ecliptic level in order to get a more realistic jump zone map.

Its really fun to program such senseless stuff

Well, at least its math practice....

Regards,

TheEngineer
 
Hi !

New version is available here .
Jump vector can now be calculated automatically based on the virtual coordinates of the systems.

Well, my main intention for this stuff is to stress the feeling for 3D and planetary system space a bit and perhaps that space travel even in Traveller is not just a walk in the park.
Everything is moving and intersystem and in-system travel sometimes really is a matter of timing. It should bring a bit more life in the planetary systems, regardless if they are generated with H&E or made by hand.
Besides, by editing the system data files even other orbital objects could be integrated, e.g.
jump limit space ports or La Grange ports, in order to neutralize effects of jump shadowing/masing.

Regarding the jump space model I had choosen the z-compressed type, meaning, that there is a 1:1 relation but the axis pendicular to the galaxy ecliptic is even more compressed. So there is a somehow reliable geometric relation between J-space and n-space.
Anyway, if somebody does not like this, the jump vectors could also be created randomly or even entered by hand.

I will work on to implement the fully gravitic jump limit model (its not really working right now.. :( ).

Robject, many thanks for this link.
I will try to set up a filter for that format soon.
Is there already something around to convert H&E data in this format ?

Regards,

Mert
 
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