Correct me if I am wrong, but is there not already black holes within the game someplace? I recall someone posted a picture or video a while back. Maybe I dreamt it 😕

There are 3 types of black holes already in game

Here is nice video of some experimental hackery done by our dear developer:

🙂

Here's the only static one at the moment.. Although I'm pretty sure I implemented the 2 smaller types of blackholes too, but they are oh so rare 🙂

They are all in the code and have their own graphics... I just don't remember if I commented out the code for their placement... Thats for the smaller ones, the larger type does not get placed except once and that is for the center 😉

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Unfortunately it falls victim to being outside of the unexplored space radius, so you cannot view the system data, unless you go there of course...

If your wondering how on Earth I got the camera there without waiting for several years... its left shift and arrow keys... right shift is slower.

Yeah I don't know why I added in something as obscure as a Wolf Rayet star and forgot to include a pulsar 😆

by the looks of it its already progressing well

Go to the data/systems/core folder, open the black hole.lua and at the bottom, you see this line:

s:add_to_sector(-3125,0,v(0.5,0.5,0.0))

Just change the -3125 to 1, then you'll have the black hole next to Sol.

When you jump to that system, at 10 AU distance you accelerate with tens of km/s² towards the black hole so you have absolutely no control. but since the thing isn't solid, once you enter the center you're being slung away with an incredible speed. I read something in the order of 80 million km/s, 270 times the speed of light 😎

WR star? Where? I'd like to visit such a star and watch the hull of my ship get a tan 🙂

That's a good point - the game should bring you out of hyperspace at a safe distance from the star/other bodies *mental note*

Bah, I deliberately didn't mention that... Its better to keep these things mystical, or enigmanatic 😉

Seek and ye shall find.

The truth is I don't know where they are as there aren't any in custom systems like the galactic black-hole.

Due to a current bug in the game, there is a super-massive blackhole within range of Earth 🙂

Its sector 1,75 in the Uren system.

If I'm looking for a WR star, does it have a unique colour or description in the star map? A system of multiple stars doesn't have the spectral class of the primary star shown in the description. I know, it's not really important for the game, it's just that I'm really curious.

Sector view shows the colour of the primary star. Star colours used in the sector view are taken from the starColors table in StarSystem.cpp. For Wolf-Rayet stars, those values are:

(R,G,B values, 0.0 minimum, 1.0 maximum).

That said, you won't find a WR star in the standard universe. They are never selected during random system generation and there aren't currently any custom systems that create one.

In that case, I wouldn't mind adding a few (RL existing) ones myself. Once I learn how, that is.

Oh sorry Rob's right they aren't actually placed in the game. Although there was a bug which would let them be created as a companion star to a white dwarf which led to the creation of the blackhole I mentioned a few posts back.

That would be great, use the blackhole custom system as a base if you like as its pretty simple.

I also have an extensive star catalogue of named stars for future use with the game, so if you can give me the name of any WF stars that you add I can hopefully give you some reliable co-ordinates for the game 🙂

Oh and just so you know if there were any WF stars in the game right now, they would have a different description in the sector view and have a large icon IIRC, although the colours would be similar to other stars of similar spectral class. They would also have their own graphic in the system-view, but as for actually in-system from the players perspective they would not be anything special.

That's very interesting 🙂 the Black Hole system as a base would be a good thing, as I've read WF (or is it WR?) stars probably wouldn't have planetary companions due to the extreme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_evaporation

Maybe this system is a nice one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Velorum

In Stellarium I see it almost halfway on the line Alpha Centauri - Sirius, and with the distance being 840 LY I suspect the right place would be in sector (0,105). Not a very scientific way but it's all I have 🙂

Excellent 🙂 I have a Gamma 2 Velorum here.. it may or may not be the one you found.

Anway the co-ordinates of that should be -32,-253.4,-34.4. That same star map would put Sirius at these co-ordinates: -1.8,-1.9,-0.4.

I have just been reminded from this that in Pioneer our star chart is back-to front 🙂 At least when you compare it to traditional cartesian star maps.

Ok so it looks like that is not the right star 🙁 Thats a shame, does it have any other numbers or anything associated with it?

I have a delta velorum here, Kappa velorum, many other letters too but no Gamma 🙁

Actually... That could well be the star, I forgot that cartesian co-ordinate for the star is not the same format as Pioneer. It is not using sectors but Parsecs.. So actually I think we have found the right star...

Yeah I did the math, thats the star, woohoo. Distance is 257.7 Parsecs which is 850 LY :D.

It also says there is a Supergiant Class O orbiting alongside a WC8 star which I assume is the wolf Rayet class...? Wiki confirms that:

Seems you have a lot of enthousiasm 🙂

I would like to learn how to interpret those starmaps so I can add a lot of stars myself. Spica and the Pleiades for example. But also VY Canis Majoris, Antares, Betelgeuse, Canopus, Pistol Star etc.

Ah I was just happy to see that the starmap more or less correlated with our own data 🙂

The problems with adding new stars is:

A. Our stars co-ordinates are all wrong.

B. Means any new stars also have to be wrong.

C. If we do change to a 3d galaxy as has been discussed, literally all stars would have to be replaced/removed as *all* of the stars from the starmap I mentioned are added with correct co-ordinates.

The starmap in question would contain AFAIK every star you would have ever heard of.. It is a combination of several starcharts which I arranged and removed un-needed stars, I removed at least 12,000 of them. We're left with over 3000 named stars and constellation stars.

The use of real starcharts could be nice, 3000 known stars are more than enough. But then the use of the star map in Pioneer would be obsolete. A button so most of the nearby stars on the standard view would receive labels in changing colour for hyperspace range would probably suffice, together with making all the planets and other bodies of the system you're in, invisible. But that would mean that any system you jump to, needs all the background stars in the correct location. And a search function would probably be needed too then. The custom modified systems could have the labels alternate between official name and custom name every second, populated systems could have a small + sign behind the label. And a slider to increase/decrease the amount of stars with labels, according to distance. But that's part of it. Is that a bit along the line you guys discussed?

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Thanks for the answers guys :).

I'm very satisfied with what has been show and discussed so far.

Wouldn't it be interesting if that if you manage to pass through the centre of the super massive black hole you end up in a different galaxy, say Andromeda for example ?

You could explain the crushing effects of the singularity away by an artefact or special ship you have to aquire that can do the job. Would be an interesting twist to the game and give another reason for visiting it.

Still like the idea of finding derelict or lost ships around some black holes as well.

3D galaxy, I would say that would be a fantastic feature as it would put it on par with Infinity: Quest for Earth and adds more realism.

No, not like that. I was talking about a 3d sector view which would make Pioneer's galaxy proper 3d as opposed to its psuedo 2d galaxy. So as well as X and Y co-ordinates you also have Z. In-system is unchanged.

Since we spoke about it, Tom has waved his magic wand and made it happen 🙂 Its not merged yet so you can only check it out if you compile it yourself.

It would be great to have a proper 3d in-system view of the galaxy too, with the correct stars shining and selectable, but I think its just out of the current scope of the project. And a lot of stuff would have to be re-written, its not impossible, just very unlikely.

I know a way to defy the gravity of a black hole: find the Higgs-boson and learn how to manipulate the Higgs field in such a manner that all particles lose mass. Bonus: Instant acceleration & deceleration from 0 to lightspeed and back without any G forces.

😀

Oh is that *all* 😉

You simply have to adjust the frammistat on your hyperdrive until you've reversed the polarity of the neutron flow. 😉

But seriously, did you say that tomm has implemented a true 3D galaxy? If so that's a dream come true for me! 😀

😮 Oh no! Not that old Pertwee line! 😆