|
Don't worry, I don't plan to leave the planet yet. It's just for my little game. I also hope that this is does not qualify as a programming question. It's more like a qestion about what exactly I should program. And if you do think it's a programming question, then please point me to the right place for it. 
Here we go:
Imagine you are sitting in a cloud of a few hundred billion stars, known as a galaxy. Your ship uses one of those old fashioned jump drives that can only jump over short distances, like max. five lightyears. Not the sort that can do the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.
The big question is how to select the coordinates for your next jump. Displaying the nearby stars is not much of a problem. Your position always is in the middle of the screen and the nearby stars form a small cloud around it. Rotating or zooming in or out a little are no big deal, but how can the player hold a course over several jumps?
It also would be nice to show the the coordinate points that lie within jumping range. It's not so hard to draw a sphere. In 2D a circle around your ship in the center and a few grid lines would do the job, doing the same in 3D with a sphere and 3D grid lines would probably get a little confusing. Also, how can you select any point in that sphere with a mouse click or what are the alternatives to select the coordinates for your jump?
I don't want to resort to cutting everything down to 2D, but the UI must be simple to use and understand, even for those who have not graduated from Starfleet Academy. Bonus points if it also looks good.
And yes, I have a galaxy map with a few hundred billion stars, which is only one of four billion galaxies (32 bit unsigned int) in one of four billion universes. Fortunately I did not have to store any of this on a hard disk.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
|
|
|
|
|
You might want to examine the source code of Stellarium[^] to get some ideas. I believe it is LGPL, but check to make sure if you are doing a closed source project.
Sudden Sun Death Syndrome (SSDS) is a very real concern which we should be raising awareness of. 156 billion suns die every year before they're just 1 billion years old.
While the military are doing their part, it simply isn't enough to make the amount of nukes needed to save those poor stars. - TWI2T3D (Reddit)
modified 21-Apr-17 23:20pm.
|
|
|
|
|
That's an interesting programming/UI/rendering challenge !
As for Cosmonauts, I don't think CP has any, but, certainly, we have hordes of asstral-travelers in the Lounge.
cheers, Bill
«When I consider my brief span of life, swallowed up in an eternity before and after, the little space I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, now rather than then.» Blaise Pascal
|
|
|
|
|
Buy a copy of Elite: Dangerous[^], see how their Galaxy Map and route plotting works, then design something better
|
|
|
|
|
Have you taken into account that none of the stellar objects are standing still, and that they're all a long, long way from where they appear to be?
You can cop out and say that that's all mathematically accounted for, but then you'll have to weave the calculations into the story, somehow (they're way too complex to ignore).
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
|
|
|
|
|
Sorry, no cosmonauts here but we have space cadets aplenty! 
|
|
|
|
|
and not to forget the space hamsters 
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
|
|
|
|
|
My wife is a calendar maniac. She logs every upcoming event and has recently been freaking about all of the stuff planned. She shares her calendars [yes, she has more than one] with me so I know what is going on. Looking at it last night, I commented that I didn't show any of the events she was concerned about. All of the settings looked correct for sharing.
I asked her how she was viewing her calendar and she said through the Google Calendar app. I was using the pre-installed widget built into my Galaxy S7. Once I installed the Google calendar app, all of the calendar events showed up on my screen. I removed the default calendar widget from the screen and added the widget built into the Google calendar app and I can see them all now.
Strange that the default app didn't show all of the events, but glad we have it figured out. And now I'm stressed too with all the stuff she has planned 
Hogan
|
|
|
|
|
I also use the Google thing - and have it pinned onto Chrome so it shows up on my desktop and the WookieTab. Very handy to have a calendar you can update from any of the devices!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
|
|
|
|
|
For the samsung calendar there's a setting somewhere which calendar(s) to use.
(Also which items to show, stoopid smart pone kept telling me my birthday was on 1 Jan [1970] till I figured how to hide those items - anyway why the heck do I need to tell my phone when I was born?)
I find the appearance of the s-planner calendar far better than others including google.
Sin tack
the any key okay
|
|
|
|
|
snorkie wrote: My wife is a calendar maniac.
Buy her a copy of the latest PermaCal calendar[^]. It assumes that every unit of Planck time less or greater than right now... is clock drift.
Best Wishes,
-David Delaune
|
|
|
|
|
The wonderful world of accounts & synch
Just migrated from a carrier phone (ATT HTC One M7) and found I had 4 different sets of contacts on the old phone to coalesce and weed duplicates out of. Calendar was not an issue as I do it the hybrid way of using installed Outlook on gmail account which populated both contemporaneously.
Now that I am once again on a Nexus, I get the stock functionality and don't need to deal with HTC's or AT&T's layered abstractions. I am fully capable of distracting myself.
|
|
|
|
|
Is a picture of Rembrandt's parents having sex an artist's conception?
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
|
|
|
|
|
That sketchy question paints an interesting picture and is hard to brush off, although quite unpalatable.
/ravi
|
|
|
|
|
You framed that reply quite nicely, perhaps I should canvas the lounge visitors and see what they think.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
|
|
|
|
|
Good idea, but I'm afraid that's easely said than done.
/ravi
|
|
|
|
|
You're right, I'd probably get a lot of off colored responses.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
|
|
|
|
|
Yes, and it's hard to draw a conclusion from just broad strokes.
/ravi
|
|
|
|
|
I won't do it, it would just cause me to dilly-Dali all day long.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
|
|
|
|
|
Right. And Van do we Gogh from there?
/ravi
|
|
|
|
|
Yes, this is a time waster, and as they say 'time is Monet'.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
|
|
|
|
|
As Fleetwood Mac once said, sometimes you just have to Goya own way.
/ravi
|
|
|
|
|
Where do you draw the line for kid sister safe?
... such stuff as dreams are made on
|
|
|
|
|
In the sand, obviously.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
|
|
|
|
|
OriginalGriff wrote: In the sand
In Wales, wouldn't that be "in the mud"?
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
