Strange asteroid limitation...

Thu Mar 11, 2004 9:40 pm by metral

Hello all! (this is my first post

) I hope this is in the right forum...

While attempting to "remake" the New York system slightly differently and larger, I ran into this interesting problem:

I placed the badlands nebula and asteroid field close to the edge of the map, but not too close. The nebula showed up fine, but I discovered that the asteroids showed up only in a particular area of the nebula (even though the defined asteroid field covered almost all of the nebula).

By altering the asteroid draw distance to 20k (from 2k or so), I discovered that the asteroids were bound within a certain region of the original map size. Asteroids were only created by the game at points within a square approx 140x140 to -140x-140 coordinates. My asteroid/nebula field was mostly out of that zone so it ended up with a complete nebula and a small thin asteroid field bounded on one side by my coded boundary and cut-off on the other end with this odd 90 degree corner. I tested this in several other locations on the map as well...

I'm wondering if anyone else has encountered this problem or has a solution. Oh, and has this has already been discussed before? I searched but couldn't find a topic of this sort... thanks

Edited by - Metral on 3/12/2004 12:22:29 AM

Fri Mar 12, 2004 10:21 am by Megistos

I can't think of any technical limitations that would produce that result. If you've tried it nearer the centre of the map and still got that, I can only think it's something to do with exclusion zones, they're not actually defined in the system's ini file. First step, check what happens if you move both further into the system. Welcome to TLR in any case

"A good pun is its own reword"

Mon Mar 15, 2004 10:36 am by Schizm

could also be the fact that he's doing the mod in the new york system... new york, from what i've read, is a notoriously difficult system to mod.

Mon Mar 15, 2004 11:17 am by Accushot

Only a couple of ideas I'm afraid, but have you tried looking at the actual file for the asteroid field? In DATA/SOLAR/ASTEROIDS there is a file called "li01_badlands_asteroids.ini", with these contents:

[TexturePanels
file = solar\asteroids\rock_shapes.ini

[Field
cube_size = 355
fill_dist = 1250
tint_field = 15, 15, 15
max_alpha = 1.000000
empty_cube_frequency = 0.200000

[properties
flag = badland_danger_objects
flag = danger_density_low

[Exclusion Zones
exclusion = Zone_Li01_badlands_low_density_asteroids
exclusion = Zone_Li01_to_Li04_hole
exclusion = Zone_Li01_Benford_to_Iw03_gate
exclusion = Zone_Li01_Tradelane_20
exclusion = Zone_Li01_013_Station_Li01_05
exclusion = Zone_Li01_012_Station_Li01_04
exclusion = zone_Li01_Jumpgate_to_Iw03
exclusion = Zone_Li01_Badlands_exclusion_asteroids_01
exclusion = Zone_Li01_12_exclusion
exclusion = ZONE_Li01_vignette27_exclusion
exclusion = ZONE_Li01_vignette28_exclusion
exclusion = ZONE_Li01_vignette53_exclusion
exclusion = ZONE_Li01_vignette60_exclusion
exclusion = Zone_Li01a_to_Li01b_hole

[Cube
xaxis_rotation = 0, 0, 180, 180
yaxis_rotation = 0, 30, 90, 195
zaxis_rotation = 0, 0, 180, 180
asteroid = badlands_large1, -0.700000, 0.500000, 0.500000, 3, 35, 0
asteroid = badlands_medium2, -0.400000, -0.400000, -0.700000, 5, 0, 0
asteroid = badlands_small1, 0.300000, -0.650000, 0.200000, 0, 50, 8

[DynamicAsteroids
asteroid = dasteroid_badlands_small1
count = 10
placement_radius = 200.000000
placement_offset = 150.000000
max_velocity = 50.000000
max_angular_velocity = 3.000000
color_shift = 1.000000, 1.000000, 1.000000

---------------------------------------------------

The exclusion zones are usually used to prevent asteroids straying into tradelanes etc., I suspect this is your problem. Try removing them/commenting them out and see what happens. Failing that, trying editing "cube_size = " to a higher value, this may give you a bigger field. Oh, and welcome to TLR.

Edited by - Accushot on 3/15/2004 11:18:17 AM

Mon Mar 15, 2004 3:58 pm by Firewing

I noticed a similar thing.I made a silverton field and it shows up fine (it's big and in the lower left corner of the map).
I placed a copperton field in the bottom centre, but it doesn't show up at all (it's a tad further away than the first field, so I guess it's out of the box...)

Mon Mar 15, 2004 11:33 pm by metral

Hmm.... well I've already tried removing/commenting out the exclusion zones defined in the system ini file and the badlands asteroid ini file...

I doubt that the cube size has much of anything to do with asteroid exclusion; ratherly, asteroid placement within the asteroid field. The larger the cube size, the less frequent the asteroids, I noticed. most of the variables in the badlands asteroid field ini file are pretty self-explanatory. Well at least I think they are... lol

cube_size -- size of area in which a single asteroid is placed, chosen from list defined in the "cube" block
fill_dist -- dist at which asteroids are first drawn
tint_field -- zone "color"
max_alpha -- maximum alpha fade of the asteroids ???
empty_cube_frequency -- chance of 'cube' w/o an asteroid

"Properties" block; flags.... any ideas

"Exclusion Zones" block -- defines exclusion zones that affect this particular field.

"Cube" block-- defines cube orientation, asteroid archtypes available for use in the field.

"DynamicAsteroids" block -- refers to the little flying asteroids that you can shoot and blow up (the minable ones in minable fields)

I doubt theres too much in the asteroid definition files that could restrict it the asteroid appearance... maybe I'll try with a *new* system. perhaps the game has built-in restrictions defined particularly to systems that already exist, and those restrictions won't exist for new systems? its worth a try

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