| Robbie | Date: Thursday, 21.07.2011, 12:24 | Message # 1 |
 Pioneer
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United Kingdom
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| Thought I would share my latest adverture with SpaceEngine. How to return to Earth using a 'space ship' (the space-ship of your mind!  there is no ship - there is no spoon ). It's a mini form of game-play for the uninitiated player - and it's pretty good fun in its own way. The starship does have a warp speed cap and can only travel certain distances with its jump-drive. So these limitation become a challenge in solving certain problems on the return journey to Earth. However to play this mini game, one needs to be self-disciplined; to have a certain mindset to impose rules upon oneself and not to cheat in anyway. One must work within the parameters of this challenge. So if anyone wants to try this, read on:
What are the prerequisites for the journey:
1 - The maximum warp-drive speed for interstellar travel is capped at 1 parsec/sec. One can travel freely anywhere in any direction in the galaxy. It is however also the slowest method of travel. e.g. it would take 8-hours just to cross from one side of the galaxy to the other side at maximum warp speed.
2 - The jump-drive is the fastest method of travel. It has unlimited power, but can only work when locked onto a destination star. It has a maximum jump-range of 500 parsecs. If a star is slightly outside the jump-range, e.g. 515 pc, then either use the warp-drive to close the 15 parsec gap, then do a jump, or select another star that is within that jump-range. (To lock-on a star and auto-jump to it, select the target star with the selection pointer and press 'G' key to fly there).
3 - The HUD can be used for read-outs, to give distance on selected stars for the jump-drive, and to also give a distance from the galactic core - used mainly for the purpose to find Sol and the local arm position relative to the core.
4 - The magnitude (default 7.0) and the zoom (FOV 20) can also be used as a tool to reveal possible target destination stars for the jump-drive.
5 -Do not use the search box (F3) to locate the star Deneb or Rigel by auto-marker else it will simplify the challenge. Those two should be found by intuiting their position in the local spiral arm either by sight or by clicking on any star with the selection pointer to help locate their positions. The onscreen labels must be switched off too, again only the selection pointer is allowed to pick on a star to get its name.
So with these prerequisites in mind, the journey can begin. The objectives are:
Start at the center of the galaxy, then fly to some arbitrary point 'above' the galactic plane while heading off in the direction of the local spiral arm. To get a position on the local arm use Sag-DEG, the magellenic clouds or Andromeda to give a rough heading. It doesn't have to be an exact heading, because when we get to ~8500 pc (+/-500 pc) from the galactic core and about ~1000 pc above the galactic plane, we should finally see our 'beacon' star - Deneb! It's one of very few biggest brightest stars seen between the spiral arms, and can be seen from ~25,000 Ly away. From here, Deneb will be our guiding star to Rigel. And Rigel is the first critcal way-point for getting back to Earth. The task then is to find a series of jump paths to hone in on Rigel. This will be a challenge in itself too, because not many stars can be seen when jumping high above the galactic plane. You will need to use the magnitude and the zoom tools as an aid to help find certain stars to assist with jumps to Rigel. When you finally arrive at Rigel, use my video guide here for the rest of the journey back to Earth.
I must admit, trying to use the jump-drive at the start to get away from the galaxy core when surrounded by billions of densely packed stars was a challange in itself. Trying to find and select the furthest seen star for the jump required some fancy 'sideways' flying at maximum warp speed, just so I could compare the slowest moving stars (those farthest away) to the fastest moving stars (those closest to me). Flying sideways is a really good way to filter out unwanted stars, it just makes it so much easier to identify the stars you want to jump to. Even with the ones identified, I still had to pick on them randomly, until I found the best one to give me the greatest jump possible.
edit: My first attempt at this challange took me a total of 42 jumps, that was just to get to Rigel alone Thereafter, it took only another 5 jumps to get to Earth.
Of course my way is just one way to return to Earth, but I am sure there are plenty of other ways to do this.
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Added (21.07.2011, 15:24)
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Update: I managed to reduce the number of hyper-jumps to 31 yesterday, that's 16 jumps less than the 47 jumps I did in my first attempt. Total journey time from galaxay core to Earth took me 1-hr 15-mins. 
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| SpaceEngineer | Date: Friday, 22.07.2011, 01:46 | Message # 2 |
 Author of Space Engine
Group: Administrators
Russian Federation
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| Quote (Robbie) total journey time from galaxay core to Earth took me 1-hr 15-mins.
And no crashes?
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| Robbie | Date: Tuesday, 26.07.2011, 21:49 | Message # 3 |
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Pioneer
Group: Global Moderators
United Kingdom
Messages: 590
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| Ah... Well... not completely, not during my first attempts anyway. I had a few crashes initially when trying to get away from the dense population of stars in the core area. But... saving my way-point positions until I got away from the core always helped me to get back to where I needed to be if SE did crash on me. I found turning off procedural clusters helped to keep my crashes to a minimum, at least while jumping away from the core. Once I was away from there , SE did not crash at all.
I've done a video here demonstrating how I use my jump-drive to lock onto certain stars prior to making a jump. I'm doing a strafing motion using warp-drive speed (1 Pc/sec) to get a lock onto the best star possible that is within my jump-drive range (Maximum 500 Pcs). all other information is in video. also best watched at 1080 HD and at full-screen if your broadband speed allow it. Enjoy
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