MPLOT

Formerly the play-by-post forum for my TSGS Space Force game, now the private forum for development of the new Space Force Science Fiction RPG game. I've retained the entirety of the original game threads here, to be mined for possible content. See the introductory post for more information.
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Solomoriah
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MPLOT

Post by Solomoriah »

The Actor's Guide describes the MPLOT program, which is used to lay out flight plans. It just so happens I'm working on a web-friendly version of this very program... here's a screenshot of the title page, and a copy of the Operations Manual.
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chiisu81
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Re: MPLOT

Post by chiisu81 »

:D
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Re: MPLOT

Post by Solomoriah »

https://www.basicfantasy.org/spaceforce/mplot.html

Take a look, tell me what you think...
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chiisu81
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Re: MPLOT

Post by chiisu81 »

Love the retro console look! 8-) That IBM Plex Mono font is amazing, may have to try it out in my text editors.

Jeeeez, looking at the javascript code :shock: how'd you generate all those entries?! Ok so I start out typing "Help" to get a list of all possible commands. Most logical to start with either "Destination" or "Find"; but trying either shows I need to set a starting location. Ok, how do I know or find that out? Also, when I try "Destination" by itself I get "invalid arguments". Since there's no "Man" command like on the Linux CLI to learn what the arguments are, I'm kinda stuck on that as well. :(

Edit: ok figured out "Destination 1" worked, but how would I know that equals Sol? Why does "Destination 3" have more values than 1, 2, or 4?
Edit 2: "Limit x" where x can range from 1 to 300 (that I've tried so far). "Option" by itself is a binary value of either "Nearer" or "All".
Edit 3: ok after setting "Destination 1" I could then do "Add Sol". When I try "Print" I get "Line Printer Not Connected?!" Omg this is like dealing with printers at work. :lol:
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Solomoriah
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Re: MPLOT

Post by Solomoriah »

Don't you just love undocumented programs?

The data was generated from the HYGXYZ data set, with some changes, using a custom Python script. Only stars "near" to SOL are in the program; HYGXYZ has a LOT of stars in it.

LIMIT is the jump limit, i.e. the maximum distance the ship can go in one jump. This is used by the FIND command to figure out what stars are in range. Nova-class ships have a jump limit of 13 light years.

OPTION ALL means show all stars when you FIND; OPTION NEARER shows only stars that are nearer to DESTINATION than the current star (i.e. the last one on the list). If no destination is set, FIND behaves as if in OPTION ALL mode regardless of the setting.

SOL is 1 because of course SOL is 1. :D

So when figuring out a course, I start with ADD 1 to get SOL on the list. I could also ADD SOL if I want. Tip: You can abbreviate commands. A 1 does the trick.

Then I set my DESTINATION, and then use FIND to look for stars that I can reach that might be in the correct general direction.

Oh, and the PRINT command is a joke, though I may at some point add a PDF generator.
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Solomoriah
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Re: MPLOT

Post by Solomoriah »

... and now I've started on the printing code. :D

But there is an error. The bearing angles should be in a range (-180 degrees, 180 degrees) but are coming out in a range (-90 degrees, 90 degrees). Not sure if I'm just off a factor of 2 or if the formula is more wrong that that. Copied and pasted from Stack Overflow, of course.
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Solomoriah
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Re: MPLOT

Post by Solomoriah »

Printing works. Headings are right (I'm 98% sure, anyway). And I've added a command to INVERT (reverse) the current course.

Next up: LOAD, SAVE, and CATALOG commands.
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Re: MPLOT

Post by Solomoriah »

LOAD, SAVE, CATALOG, and DELETE now work.

And I brightened the non-white colors so they would show up better.
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Re: MPLOT

Post by Solomoriah »

I will mention that the time formula used in MPLOT is different than the one I used in the previous PbP game; if you use MPLOT and reproduce the courses from that game, the travel times will be different. The formula I used before has fatal flaws (get a ship with a long jump distance and you can time travel backwards...) so I had to revise it. This one is a modified parabolic curve.
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Re: MPLOT

Post by Solomoriah »

And now, the manual.

EDIT: Moved the manual to the first post; it's been updated a bit also.
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