Author Topic: Update on Progress  (Read 252748 times)

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Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #480 on: February 11, 2020, 03:25:29 AM »
Well, no, because aurora doesn't have barycenters.  Or more specifically the barycenter is always locked to the 'parent' object.  Which is fine IMO, but certainly precludes certain interesting configurations.

I plan to have the jump points around the main system. Theoretically, I could add jump points in other systems. However, this has the same game play problem as orbiting jump points. If the jump points move then distances between destinations also change, which means a lot more micromanagement in understanding the shortest route when there are a lot of internal connections, or ensuring you have enough fuel for a particular journey. The same issue exists with planets or LG points, but useful destinations tend to be in the inner system so the change in overall distance is usually much less.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #481 on: February 11, 2020, 03:27:26 AM »
Well, no, because aurora doesn't have barycenters.  Or more specifically the barycenter is always locked to the 'parent' object.  Which is fine IMO, but certainly precludes certain interesting configurations.

I took him to mean '"I wonder if it would be possible to..." add barycenters as an object in the orbital body database table.' A mere matter of deciding how to render them (just a visual marker floating in space instead of a big circle floating in space), how to name them (I don't think astronomers ever have, so make something up), and then dealing with whatever odd special cases have been lurking all these years simply because the center of a system has always been a star. How hard could it be, right? :D

If that's what he does, I think the system is a trap. With a few jump-points at some Lagrange points you can navigate between the four systems easily enough, but how would you ever get out? The first ships you send to another star system would have to have a range of at least 1.6 trillion km just to be able to get there and back. I guess you could stash your return fuel at the gate, but still.

Maybe if the jump points were spread out so that they can be anywhere in the system instead of clustered near the center? Then it would be less of a trap, because the two pairs of stars would swing closer to and farther from each jump point. Maybe you would be cut off for a hundred years when the distance went up, but you would at least know it was coming.

I wasn't planning to have a barycentre, but if I did the easiest way to handle that would be an invisible star.
 

Offline sloanjh

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #482 on: February 11, 2020, 07:55:35 AM »
an invisible star.

That sounds like a great Astronomy thesis topic!

John
 

Offline Viridia

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #483 on: February 16, 2020, 05:30:31 PM »
This is looking amazing! Looking forward to the BSG story as well, the Crusade one has been great.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #484 on: February 18, 2020, 03:09:28 PM »
I'm in Philadelphia for a few days so there won't be any more reports or updates until the weekend. I've have started the prep for the BSG campaign though.
 
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Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #485 on: February 22, 2020, 09:11:44 AM »
I've seen some speculation on the Discord about the C# Aurora release date. It is likely to be the end of March, not the beginning. I haven't even finished the prep for the new campaign, although I hope to have that done this weekend.
 
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Offline Father Tim

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #486 on: February 22, 2020, 10:38:09 AM »
March 32nd?  March 34th?  March 40th?
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #487 on: February 22, 2020, 01:14:22 PM »
March 32nd?  March 34th?  March 40th?

:)

At this point, I am still happy with late March. Need to run this last test campaign, create an install program and do the code obfuscation. Anything not found by that point can get fixed post-release. The only unknown is the obfuscation, but there are plenty of options if one doesn't work as planned.
 
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Offline Caplin

Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #488 on: February 23, 2020, 11:08:01 PM »
I just want to say, I'm thrilled beyond belief that this is happening and I can't wait to play.

I literally just spent 30  minutes reading back through the "Changes List," topic, when I had just intended to pop by and see what was new. I can't tell you how excited I am for this, and I hope that it is as accessible for me as VB6 was.
 
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Offline Tikigod

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #489 on: February 24, 2020, 01:18:21 AM »
I just want to say, I'm thrilled beyond belief that this is happening and I can't wait to play.

I literally just spent 30  minutes reading back through the "Changes List," topic, when I had just intended to pop by and see what was new. I can't tell you how excited I am for this, and I hope that it is as accessible for me as VB6 was.

If anything I imagine the C# version should be more accessible than the VB version ever was.
The popular stereotype of the researcher is that of a skeptic and a pessimist.  Nothing could be further from the truth! Scientists must be optimists at heart, in order to block out the incessant chorus of those who say "It cannot be done. "

- Academician Prokhor Zakharov, University Commencement
 

Offline Kaiser

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #490 on: February 24, 2020, 08:03:23 AM »
Can't believe it.
 

Offline Ayeshteni

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #491 on: February 24, 2020, 01:56:54 PM »
Squeee

Aye
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #492 on: February 27, 2020, 04:42:53 PM »
Just spent a couple of hours bug-hunting.

I couldn't understand why my geological survey ships seemed to be choosing asteroids at the far side of the system when auto-surveying. Couldn't find anything wrong with the code that selects the next body and it has been working for years anyway. I reset their courses a few times and it kept happening. Then I suddenly noticed almost straight after I set a course for one ship, the asteroid the ship was heading to wasn't there any more. After searching, I realised the asteroid had moved to the far side of the system. It quickly became apparent that the survey selection code was fine, but the asteroids themselves were changing to a mirror-image location during some orbital movement phases. Only asteroids - not planets. As they both used the same orbital movement code that was extremely weird.

I starting stepping through the code and realised the asteroids were orbiting at insane speed. More checks needed. Then I checked the database and realised that every asteroid in the game, except in the starting system, had an orbital period of one hour, regardless of distance. I checked the asteroid creation code and couldn't find a problem with the code that created the year length. The only situation in which the asteroid would be set to a one-hour year is if the orbital distance was zero. After more head scratching and code-stepping I finally realised that at some point during the code modifications to add star system design, I had accidentally moved the year-length algorithm after the orbital distance generation code, but only for asteroids, not planets. That meant that when the year-length algorithm ran for asteroids, the distance was still zero and the code selected one hour as the year. That one-hour year was causing the mirror-flipping for asteroids, which in turn was sending my geosurvey commanders insane :)

Sometimes bug-hunting can be a little obscure :)

Offline Alucard

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #493 on: February 27, 2020, 05:15:04 PM »
The only situation in which the asteroid would be set to a one-hour year is if the orbital distance was zero.

I would strongly recommend throwing an exception in weird cases like these, unless you need to support zero distance for some reason. The program crashing with the nice C# stack-trace could save you a lot of time. Learnt this the hard way unfortunately.
 

Offline amram

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #494 on: February 27, 2020, 06:50:53 PM »
Just spent a couple of hours bug-hunting.

I couldn't understand why my geological survey ships seemed to be choosing asteroids at the far side of the system when auto-surveying. Couldn't find anything wrong with the code that selects the next body and it has been working for years anyway. I reset their courses a few times and it kept happening. Then I suddenly noticed almost straight after I set a course for one ship, the asteroid the ship was heading to wasn't there any more. After searching, I realised the asteroid had moved to the far side of the system. It quickly became apparent that the survey selection code was fine, but the asteroids themselves were changing to a mirror-image location during some orbital movement phases. Only asteroids - not planets. As they both used the same orbital movement code that was extremely weird.

I starting stepping through the code and realised the asteroids were orbiting at insane speed. More checks needed. Then I checked the database and realised that every asteroid in the game, except in the starting system, had an orbital period of one hour, regardless of distance. I checked the asteroid creation code and couldn't find a problem with the code that created the year length. The only situation in which the asteroid would be set to a one-hour year is if the orbital distance was zero. After more head scratching and code-stepping I finally realised that at some point during the code modifications to add star system design, I had accidentally moved the year-length algorithm after the orbital distance generation code, but only for asteroids, not planets. That meant that when the year-length algorithm ran for asteroids, the distance was still zero and the code selected one hour as the year. That one-hour year was causing the mirror-flipping for asteroids, which in turn was sending my geosurvey commanders insane :)

Sometimes bug-hunting can be a little obscure :)

I love bugs that require the fine tooth comb to figure out.  Your brain spends the whole time screaming this is stupid, wtf, why is this even a possible outcome?, and everything you check is correct, except one thing and while its wrong, the code that set it that way is correct, so you have to keep going up the ancestry of the strange values, until you see it and facepalm - far too often it warrants it, you've done a stupid that didn't seem it at the time, lol, quickly followed by curse you past me, you caused this dammit.