Telescopes and astronomy

Dex Luther

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This opens room for other ideas like satellites and space telescopes. A telescope installed in a space station or "stand-alone" like Hubble would yield images from farther planets and/or more detailed images of closest ones. Satellites could be used to link or boost up the transmission of images and data between planets and bases... kind of cool for multiplayer...

... stop here or drive Mic crazy for once?​

yeah but what's the point if all you see is plain images? Like I said, if it's just going to be plain images, it might as well be pre-defined space images from NASA. It would be prettier to see than just plain grey images based on the seed, which would show the terrain before you did anything to it. You wouldn't be able to see craters, your landing site, or the base you built. That's why I said the mod should take the image at the time you request it (with limitations I already explained). That way if you're looking at a planet you've actually been too, you could actually see your base, other people's bases there if you point the telescope in the right direction.

Satellites don't really change anything because they're just another "Wouldn't it be cool" item. If they were already planned, then maybe we'd have to think about that.
 

IsoMS

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So what? I'm afraid that magical one-word posts like this don't tell much.

If you think that probes will add something to the game, please explain us why and how it would work in the game.


Probes would be investigation turtles, like the turtles from ComputerCraft,

when opening the guy and entering to follow command:

"programs"

it will show you all possible commands u can use.

then enter: "send planet (EXAMPLE) mars"

When landing on that planet it will tell you later on when getting back, which kind of mobs and kinds of ores/rock will be there..
 

Dex Luther

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Probes would be investigation turtles, like the turtles from ComputerCraft,

when opening the guy and entering to follow command:

"programs"

it will show you all possible commands u can use.

then enter: "send planet (EXAMPLE) mars"

When landing on that planet it will tell you later on when getting back, which kind of mobs and kinds of ores/rock will be there..
You already know what kind of rocks and mobs will be there. Also Probes don't usually return.
 
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Ezer'Arch

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yeah but what's the point if all you see is plain images?
To find a suitable place to land. If I want to implant a base, I would prefer a flat area. To establish a colony, a flat and large area. I wouldn't like to land on a place bombarded and full of craters, by a cliff or atop of mountain either. Depending on the planet, you might land on dangerous spots with lava, rivers of poisonous and aggressive substances et al.

You wouldn't be able to see craters, your landing site, or the base you built.

... gray images...

pnHPnTH.jpg


Say that again.

j/k

The images that the telescope could generate, depending on the technology level:
- True image / Standard: exactly what map item does now.
- Topographic: colors tell the height, shifting from light green for lower heights to dark red for higher heights (example).
- Pedologic map (fancy name?): shows the types of exposed soil on the surface, such as rocks, regolith, liquids, lava, ores, ice/snow caps, hazards.
- Biomes: like Rei's minimap.
- Morphologic map: you would be able to analyze underground levels down to the bedrock at a higher cost of energy.

EDIT: some data could be shown along the images with such as light level, radiation exposure, gravity, atmosphere composition (has O2, is it toxic?), weather (clouds, storms, view distance, sky visibility), and other things that you should be aware of beforehand because, once landed, it might be too late to go back and try to fix things up.

EDIT2: Instead of tiers, you'd need to insert circuit upgraders to add new functionalities to the telescope.
 
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MasterOanarchY

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As always Ezer. Well thought out, explained, and with pictures.
Since this is too easy for you. Your next assignment requires pop-ups.
 
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Dex Luther

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To find a suitable place to land. If I want to implant a base, I would prefer a flat area. To establish a colony, a flat and large area. I wouldn't like to land on a place bombarded and full of craters, by a cliff or atop of mountain either. Depending on the planet, you might land on dangerous spots with lava, rivers of poisonous and aggressive substances et al.



... gray images...
*snip*
Say that again.

j/k

The images that the telescope could generate, depending on the technology level:
- True image / Standard: exactly what map item does now.
- Topographic: colors tell the height, shifting from light green for lower heights to dark red for higher heights (example).
- Pedologic map (fancy name?): shows the types of exposed soil on the surface, such as rocks, regolith, liquids, lava, ores, ice/snow caps, hazards.
- Biomes: like Rei's minimap.
- Morphologic map: you would be able to analyze underground levels down to the bedrock at a higher cost of energy.

EDIT: some data could be shown along the images with such as light level, radiation exposure, gravity, atmosphere composition (has O2, is it toxic?), weather (clouds, storms, view distance, sky visibility), and other things that you should be aware of beforehand because, once landed, it might be too late to go back and try to fix things up.

EDIT2: Instead of tiers, you'd need to insert circuit upgraders to add new functionalities to the telescope.

The issue with your picture is that it's not an image generated from the seed. It's a screenshot. You or someone else specifically suggested the image be based on seed. In which case you won't see any of that. All You'll see is the image of the terrain as it originally generates. No matter how big you build your base. Open your world in World Edit and select those chunks and have it regenerate those chunks from the seed. See if you get your base back. You won't. THAT was my point about plain images.

Astronomers set the (usually) DSLR cameras on their telescopes to have long exposures in order to collect as much light as possible to have better looking pictures. Of course they also have to set their telescope to track across the sky because of the Earth's rotation, but I think we can leave that aspect out for simplicity. During that "light collection" mode, the mod is taking a screenshot of your selected area much like the one you posted.

Other than that, I think the rest of your post sounds really fun.
 

Ezer'Arch

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The issue with your picture is that it's not an image generated from the seed. It's a screenshot.
When I suggested that a map could generated from a seed it was for simplicity and the idea hadn't expanded that much. I thought "why send an invisible player and load remotely chunks if all I want is just preview the terrain where I might land on?", since generating a plain image from a seed was less resource-consuming than loading remotely chunks.

But the idea expanded from a simple device to preview a terrain to a sophisticated device that could make a full research of a planet remotely and can be a great aid for teams in a server, some play the research role, others are the explorers . It justifies more resource-consuming methods.

EDIT: resource-consuming = requires more computing, RAM, disk storage etc.
 

Dex Luther

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When I had suggested that a map could generated from a seed it was for simplicity and the idea hadn't expanded that much. I thought "why send an invisible player and load remotely chunks if all I want is just preview the terrain where I might land on?", since generating a plain image from a seed was less resource-consuming than loading remotely chunks.

But the idea expanded from a simple device to preview a terrain to an sophisticated device that could make a full research of a planet remotely and can be a great aid for teams in a server, some play the research role, others are the explorers . It justifies more resource-consuming methods.

And who doesn't want to look at their house on the moon? lol

Overworld is flat and goes on forever. Or at least for 8 hours. Which is as far as I've gotten in creative mode.

Technically, the Minecraft world doens't go on forever.
 
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vetranofwar

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Sep 14, 2013
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To find a suitable place to land. If I want to implant a base, I would prefer a flat area. To establish a colony, a flat and large area. I wouldn't like to land on a place bombarded and full of craters, by a cliff or atop of mountain either. Depending on the planet, you might land on dangerous spots with lava, rivers of poisonous and aggressive substances et al.



... gray images...

pnHPnTH.jpg


Say that again.

j/k

The images that the telescope could generate, depending on the technology level:
- True image / Standard: exactly what map item does now.
- Topographic: colors tell the height, shifting from light green for lower heights to dark red for higher heights (example).
- Pedologic map (fancy name?): shows the types of exposed soil on the surface, such as rocks, regolith, liquids, lava, ores, ice/snow caps, hazards.
- Biomes: like Rei's minimap.
- Morphologic map: you would be able to analyze underground levels down to the bedrock at a higher cost of energy.

EDIT: some data could be shown along the images with such as light level, radiation exposure, gravity, atmosphere composition (has O2, is it toxic?), weather (clouds, storms, view distance, sky visibility), and other things that you should be aware of beforehand because, once landed, it might be too late to go back and try to fix things up.

EDIT2: Instead of tiers, you'd need to insert circuit upgraders to add new functionalities to the telescope.
wait a second.... I WANT THIS ADD ON
 
This opens room for other ideas like satellites and space telescopes. A telescope installed in a space station or "stand-alone" like Hubble would yield images from farther planets and/or more detailed images of closest ones. Satellites could be used to link or boost up the transmission of images and data between planets and bases... kind of cool for multiplayer...

... stop here or drive Mic crazy for once?​

Yeah... create space station... launch satellite. Then he adds radio image senders and recievers, a collab w/ computercraft, and connected super-telescopes.
 

Dex Luther

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so if this would be implemented galacticraft would also be comptable with CC?

Not necessarily. There's a mod called Open Peripherals, which is an add-on for CC. It allows players to use tons of things with CC. For example Direwolf's SMP video yesterday showed him using Open Peripherals to get CC to be able to display information from an Ender Tank. I'm not 100% sure how Open Peripherals works though. Does it just "work" with various mods, does the author have to code compatibility with a mod, or can the user just enter appropriate block IDs into a config file.

I know that part of it is that it enables CC computers to pull information from machines and items, so Galacticraft would only have to make the information available. In theory anyways. You'd be able to have a Computer display a planet/moon's information as long as the satellite beamed it down to a block on the surface, which was placed next to a computer. The user would then wrap that block using peripheral.wrap() and a bit of code.

The info would look something like:

Name: Moon
Gravity: 18%
Atmosphere: None

Computer Craft does have an API though, so writing Galacticraft with that in mind shouldn't be too difficult. I think the question would be does the CC API allow for what we would like? Would it be better to use Open Peripherals, CC, or a combination of both.
 

Jappards

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Aug 2, 2013
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Telescopes are awesome and this mod is built to explore the universe, so what about that you need to "discover" a planet?
To discover a planet, you need a telescope, then you need to make a picture of that planet, it then opens up in the star map and the planet GUI.
Once you unlocked the planet, it`s moons are unlocked too, once you unlocked a moon it`s planet (and that planets moon) are unlocked too.
You don`t need to unlock the moon.
This makes a lot of sense and gives a lot of a feel of that you are exploring space, what this mod wants to give you.
 

Dex Luther

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Telescopes are awesome and this mod is built to explore the universe, so what about that you need to "discover" a planet?
To discover a planet, you need a telescope, then you need to make a picture of that planet, it then opens up in the star map and the planet GUI.
Once you unlocked the planet, it`s moons are unlocked too, once you unlocked a moon it`s planet (and that planets moon) are unlocked too.
You don`t need to unlock the moon.
This makes a lot of sense and gives a lot of a feel of that you are exploring space, what this mod wants to give you.

The whole "unlocking" thing is dumb. Nowhere in Minecraft do you ever "unlock" anything. It's available whenever you have the resources for it. I don't play the magic mods like Thaumcraft and Ars Magica because the "unlocking" mechanic is annoying. If I wanted to spend hours researching I'd become a scientist.
 

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