Auto and Manual Course plotting and travel times

Sockdotgif

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Apr 10, 2017
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Hey everyone, long time user of GC, first time posting to the GC forum.

my idea is to add a trajectory system (for advanced users who want a bigger challenge) in which you calculate and plot according to 1) how much fuel you have 2) your δ Velocity (read: DeltaV) 3) where you plan on going and a config option to enable/ disable auto course plotting. I'll explain below with a TL;DR before hand for those who don't want to read the whole system.


TL;DR : Add calculations and advanced GUI (via a config option) to show where character is in between launch point and destination, forces player to make specific maneuvers and trade off between wait times between landing and fuel usage.

Part 1 - How it works, the essentials.

(If you DO NOT have enabled manual Course Plotting in your config file) on launch, post exiting of the atmosphere, everything will go as per usual only now when you choose your planet, it will show your flight path, maneuver and burn points, δV, and expected fuel usage. you will arrive instantly in the destination planets atmosphere, rocket and all.

however

(If you have enabled manual Course Plotting in your config file) on launch, post exiting of the atmosphere, you will get the regular GUI where you can choose your destination. however, you will be prompted to plot your course via markers and burn rates, if you want to get to the planet faster, you'll have to burn more fuel and for longer. on the side bar to the right, you will see a few new fields such as: δV, Expected fuel usage, expected power usage, expected oxygen usage, Estimated time till arrival (time will depend on the amount of fuel you burn and for how long), and current fuel amount.

i will discuss o2/rf power usage later, but for right now here are the basic marker principals:


Part 2 - Markers
Markers would be plots between the earth and your destination. the markers being 1] controlled burn start, place this where you plan on speeding up, decreases travel time 2] controlled burn end (i.e. you started burning fuel 100km from earth, stop burning at 110km to raise your δV 3] a maneuver point, which (via a toggle menu) can be: a gravity assist (has to be within 50km of a planet, allows you to raise δV and time but lower fuel usage), a turn (specified degrees, uses a fraction of the amount of fuel it takes to travel 1 km e.x. it takes 4mb of fuel to travel 1km, it takes 1mb to turn 5 degrees), controlled fall landing (burn more fuel to land near spawn), free fall landing (burn less fuel to land at a random coordinate, relative to the spawn point) both of the former would require being within 100km of the planet, a solar-charge start/stop points (turn the rocket and extend solar panels to charge the battery, uses 1mb for ever 5km), enter/exit cryogenic state (uses a lot of RF but greatly decreases travel time, kind of like how Buildcraft's quarry uses a lot of rf, but mines for you), Probe drop (add a probe module [see part 3] to the ship and drop it onto a planet, requires you to be within 50 km of a planet)

Part 3 - Additional adaptability and possible implementation to other popular suggestions

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pre-script: before writing this section I searched the forums for similar ideas, however I found something better.
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I searched the most frequent suggestion sticky, and found this recommended suggestion to have some significant ability to be integrated.

---- Astronomy (Original thread author: Wolfboyft)

"Astrology... so we're introducing horoscopes into Galacticraft to predict future" - Ezer'Arch_2013

thread link: Telescopes and Astronomy



theory: you have to start by discovering celestial bodies and making maps before traveling (doing research before being able to craft anything a la thaumcraft) you use this research to map courses which you can input to the launch controller (this would have to be done with and without manual navigation enabled.) via a kind of schematic like item (a flight path, which multiple flight paths can be contained within another item/block called a course catalog, which holds pages a la enchiridion) traveling to the moon will allow you to discover more celestial bodies, make larger flight paths, etc. same thing with mars.

---- Travel (original thread author: flashman111)

thread link: Flashman's thread

Theory: In reference to flashman's suggestion thread, suggestion #7, #10, and #13:

in short:
#7 talks about a module system for ships, referencing steve's carts, allowing players to add tiered tanks for larger storage.

#10 talks about electric powered engines (ion engines, if hydrogen or oxygen was used to make the plasma used for propulsion)

#13 talks about how oxygen would/ should be required on your rocket for travel

longer travel time would up the oxygen requirement, eventually tanks lead to an oxygen cap on how much they can store, forcing you to add more tanks. a ship would require then: power, fuel, and oxygen, all input via the fuel loader (optionally you could have a small battery and add a solar powered upgrade, allowing infinite power in flight, allowing for another maneuver on the course plotting UI) along side this, oxygen could be combated using a cryogenic upgrade to the ship, greatly decreasing travel time while also greatly increasing RF usage. this would force the player to stop once and a while to recharge the battery and wake up from a cryogenic sleep, using more oxygen when you wake up.

---- Probing (general topic)

doing a prob drop [see part 2] on a planet would allow you to come back with compositional data (i.e. atmosphere type, day/night cycle data, etc) and geological samples (rare resources, i.e. diamonds, meteoric iron, etc) However to be able to probe planets, you must discover them via astronomy first. this would allow the player to set up a rare-resource farm with launch controllers and probes (only small chances for rare resources to be received from probes)

EOF

Tell me what you guys think, If you notice a conflicting statement or something that is confusing put it in the comments and i will respond ASAP. sorry that this might be overly complicated, as it was a huge jumble of ideas when i first began writing it.

This is just a suggestion, an abstract idea rather, I don't expect it to have a serious impact on the direction of the mod. that being said, at some point in the future, if/when GC for 1.8 drops, I might make this into a plugin as i know java, and am currently learning C++.

p.s. shout out to Pra for AmunRa, inspired a huge chunk of this thread.
 
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radfast

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Apr 27, 2014
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> I might make this into a plugin as i know java

Yes please. Galacticraft 1.8.9 is reasonably stable now, certainly stable enough to start coding a plugin. Full sources are on Github, "master" is the Minecraft 1.8.9 version. MC1.10 branch for 1.10.2 is in sync with 1.8.9.

I suggest make no change to Launch Controllers, those have a different purpose - i.e. controlled point to point flights.

I suggest look carefully at how the existing code works, before you make detailed blueprints for your new ideas. It is easier to integrate something if it fits with existing systems.

Probably the easiest way to deal with this would be a similar "inter-dimensional" flight like in AmunRa, but changing what the player sees and what the player can do during that flight.
 

Sockdotgif

Member
Apr 10, 2017
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Hey, Radfast :D

That was my initial plan, was to pull a state change during flight but have it control like a mini-game almost (like how you can code snake in computercraft)

will look into inter-dim. statechanging, thanks for the advice!
 

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