Precise Navigation

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Revision as of 21:23, 19 December 2008 by Nick A'dim (Talk | contribs)

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Draft ver. 1

Preface

I want to thank AlleyKat for his great eve-video creation tutorials which made the basis for further subject research.

Zoom and visual navigation

Almost everyone is aware of basic camera works in EVE client, like rotations, zoom (anyway it's covered in eve tutorial). Basic zoom (which is actually not a zoom but camera reposition) is performed by whether pressing and holding left and right mouse buttons (LMB+RMB) and moving mouse up and down or scrolling mouse scroll wheel. But there is one nice feature of EVE client like true zoom (actually changing the camera's focus distance in terms of optics). it's preformed by pressing and holding Ctrl+LMB+RMB and moving right(zoom in) and left(zoom out). That feature is nice when you do some fancy camera works and shoot eve movies, but it might be useful in other areas.

360 Sharpshooting

when you open 360 scanner and minimap (F11), you see two sectors in lowest section of minimap. Grey sector represents view sector, and green - scan sector.
360 nozoom.jpg

When you press-hold Ctrl+LMB+RMB and move mouse to the right, camera zoom factor changes and grey sector dynamically reflects that change.

360 zoom.jpg

When zoom is maximal and scan angle is minimal - we have both sectors of the same size (actually view sector is a bit bigger, something around 7 degrees). These parameters give us sort of 360 sharpshooting setup.

360 zoom 5.jpg

Visual undocks

Horisontal

You should already know how to create undock bookmarks. You pick fast ship, undock, press max speed triangle, engage MWD and wait. When you have some distance from station (1500+ km) you create bookmark and be happy. The problem is that your BM might be slightly unaligned with undock vector. Some time ago CCP implemented random angle spread from undock vector. that unalignmet might lead to not instant warp off from the dock, especially when your ship is heavy BS or hauler or even freighter. But you can adjust your undock BM with zoom technique.

Warning: not all stations have their undock vectors aligned with axises of tactical overlay. Some Gallente and Amar bases have vertical down vectors, some stations have slight angle deviations.

When you are in hostile system, you don't even need to be on the same grid with station to recognize it by major structures layout to find undock vector. Here is zoomed view at FRP from over 4000 km distance.

4k zoom.jpg

If you already have some undock bookmarks, you might want to adjust them. When you don't zoom in, it looks like BM is ok.

Unzoom unalign.jpg

But after zooming in the offset becomes apparent. If you are unlucky enough, aligning to BM might kill you.

Zoom unalign.jpg

All you need is to navigate the ship to make the full line of tactical overlay marks (400 km) to point at dock bay.

Zoom align.jpg

Vertical

Vertical undock bookmarks appear the easiest to create. It's because projection dot of a station on the tactical overlay doesn't vanish when you leave station grid. The same applies to gates and might be used to create vertical FlyBy BMs. The procedure is quite simple - it's preferable to have station brackets active. After undock one has to evaluate projection dot position relative to undock spawn point(and ship position). After getting to the desired distance and not loosing projection dot, its position should be recreated relative to the ship.

Vertical FlyBy bookmarks

procedure to create vertically aligned flyby alpha and beta BMs is similar to creation of vertical undock BMs.

Bubble BMs

With zooming technique on can create bubble BM with high level of precision.

Creation

At the time of writing bubbles showed the ability to affect warp exit point at the distance up to 200km. So we will focus on creation of the bubble BM positioned behind the gate and able to catch warps from celestial to gate up to @100km.

Small remark concerning bubbles around station - bubble position should be aligned with station anchor point (which is depicted by station icon)

  • Warp to the target gate(station) @100km from desired direction and jettison a container with some junk on arrival. That container will be our distance reference point.
  • Move behind the gate and gain desired distance of 180-190km from reference container.
  • Make rough alignment and then fine-tune the ship position. For best result move camera as close to the ship as possible(mouse scroll wheel)
    1. rough alignment with gates
    2. maximum zoom shows inperfections
    3. start moving towards desired alignment of gates' anchor points
    4. when alignment reached - adjust distance using reference container to measure distance. Ship navigation during distance tuning is done with approach(closer) and orbit@1000km (farther) buttons.
Bubble bm.jpg
  • bookmark position for bubble

Reuse of BM

To use bubble BM one should warp to that BM and on arrival start approaching it to remove 2km deviation effect. That approach will introduce ship trajectory oscillation effect. To counter it one can perform approach to the gate and then again approach bubble BM - that technique will introduce oscillation along gate→gate axis which is perfectly acceptable. Ship is at position for deployment of "perfectly" aligned bubble.

Digitally precise navigation

Nav coord.jpg

Everyone ever creating bookmark might notice those lengthy rows of digits in BM creation menu. Those are the coordinates of current position inside current solar system. Every single system has sun in its coordinates origin. Axis X faces West, Y - Up, Z - South if you observe solar system with F11 minimap open (for N-E-S-W reference). Integer part of coordinate is measured in meters.

Digital undocks

CCP provides Toolkit for community usage. It includes also static data dumps. We will use the info about station position (coordinates of anchor point), relative position of undock spawn point and coordinates of undock vector.
Note: coordinates of player built outposts are not included into dump, but bookmark creation if perfectly possible but a bit more involved
To create digital bookmark one reads data about the station of interest from table in Appendix A. Numbers from dockOrientation* columns give us the estimation of undock vector.
Lets analyze Station ( Caldari 5 ) information.
dockOrientationX = -2.31896729019e-006
dockOrientationY = -0.239630699158
dockOrientationZ = 0.970864117146
Multiplying every value with 1'000'000 (=1000km) we see the difference along axises.
along X axis = 2m west. That deviation can be easily neglected
along Y axis = 239.63km down.
along Z axis = 970.86km south.
So the possible procedure is:

  • create bookmark somewhere near undock spawn point and make notes of X, Y, Z coordinates.
  • multiply every dockOrientation* with distance in meters (1km=1000m, not 1024 :)
    • if you have static dump installed on your PC you can use SQL to preform all calculations for you (see Appendix B for reference SQL)
  • start moving in estimated direction.
  • when you are about desired distance from base, adjust your position moving back and forth and check it with Add Bookmark - cancel buttons of People'n'Places UI.
  • when you are satisfied with coordinates - bookmark your position.
  • use this BM on your own risk. I found those digital BMs very freighter friendly (instawarp for possibly most awkward ship allowed to use docks). But don't ask for reimbursement for your lost ship when using this technique.

Appendix A

This table shows all entries of "station" type. Some entries are not present ingame.

typeName dockEntryX dockEntryY dockEntryZ dockOrientationX dockOrientationY dockOrientationZ
Amarr Citadel 370.617919922 8566 -390 -1 -1.19209289551e-007 0
Amarr Class A Starport -176 -11789.0810547 4116.49902344 0 -1.19209332183e-007 1
Amarr Class B Starport 2804 8566 -390 -5178 0 0
Amarr Factory Outpost -13208.5742188 88 237 -0.999999940395 5.96046412227e-008 0
Amarr Industrial Station 0 -21316.4511719 0 0 -1.00000011921 0
Amarr Mining Station -10709 -9721 -2069 0 -1 0
Amarr Research Station -13 -5689.26806641 0 0 -0.999999940395 0
Amarr Standard Station 199.788482666 -12936.9394531 51.9939537048 0 -1 0
Amarr Station Hub 0 11158.4707031 0 0 0.999999940395 0
Amarr Station Hub (Damaged) 0 11158.4707031 0 0 0.999999940395 0
Amarr Station Military 0 -21987.5253906 0 0 -0.999999940395 0
Amarr Station Military (Damaged) 0 -21946.9589844 0 0 -1 0
Amarr Trade Post -1749.89038086 -9967.82910156 27 0 -1 0
Amarr Trade Post (Damaged) -1749.89038086 -9967.82910156 27 0 -1 0
Angel Serpentis -1500 405 -1800 -1602 885 -2205
Blood Raider1 4674 14278 -650 -3327 0 0
Blood Raider2 64 -1249 1261 0 0 -3948
Blood Raider3 -294 -20500 2504 0 0 5255
C-O-1 0 0 0 0 0 -1
C-O-2 0 0 0 0 0 -1
Caldari Food Processing Plant Station -33431.2070313 -2574 2477 -1 -1.19209332183e-007 0
Caldari Mining Station -27844.5488281 -1354.30688477 2399 -1 5.96046518808e-008 0
Caldari Research Outpost 330.967285156 -837.971984863 12616.8886719 0 5.96046518808e-008 1
Concord Starbase -3152.70874023 -39840.2539063 -8244.79785156 -2.18674836105e-006 -5.39330758329e-005 -1
Concord Starbase (Damaged) -3078.81445313 -39928.6796875 -8394.49511719 -1.87754687886e-006 -5.02995826537e-005 -1
Dark Amarr Station H 0 -9631 0 0 -14338 0
Dark Amarr Station O -1449 -10148 24 -1645 -4313 -10
Gallente Administrative Outpost 68.9013824463 -15087.7041016 2996.0324707 0.000366347376257 0.0782493054867 0.996933698654
Heaven -896 -26555 4800 0 -21214 0
Jovian Construct -1203 -18300 5400 0 -4616 0
Minmatar Hub -2909 -1437.88049316 20657 0 5.96046447754e-008 1
Minmatar Industrial Station 6299 2654.04418945 -11165.6542969 0 0.00626164721325 -0.999980449677
Minmatar Military Station 30416.3066406 -1172 3099.96264648 0.999999940395 5.96046518808e-008 0
Minmatar Mining Station 11903.6494141 8452.42285156 -9744.41503906 0.999980449677 0.00626146793365 0
Minmatar Research Station 1390.30151367 27 28047.0371094 0.0313382260501 0.00616767024621 0.999489784241
Minmatar Service Outpost 3454.38549805 -103 1666.26000977 1 5.96046518808e-008 -5.92971076685e-008
Minmatar Station 17 3115 18255.1972656 0 5.96046518808e-008 1
Minmatar Trade Post 17 10096 12607.2060547 0 5.96046447754e-008 1
Research Outpost 3454.38549805 -103 1666.26000977 1 5.96046518808e-008 -5.92971076685e-008
Station ( Caldari 5 ) 123.39453125 -4043.97363281 17010.3242188 -2.31896729019e-006 -0.239630699158 0.970864117146
Station ( Caldari 6 ) -28557.8710938 -1158.93261719 2436.08154297 -1 5.96046447754e-008 0
Station ( Conquerable 1 ) 0 5079.0859375 -5337.78466797 0 0.195177391171 0.980767965317
Station ( Conquerable 2 ) 0 -6001.50634766 4509.06787109 0 -1 0
Station ( Conquerable 3 ) -1297.71374512 4860.29541016 6949.29296875 0.110589414835 -0.0197495371103 0.99366992712
Station ( Gallente 3 ) -1004.37133789 4872.74853516 5903.59863281 0.350109219551 6.31068269286e-006 0.93670886755
Station ( Gallente 4 ) 9264.68457031 884 0 0.999999940395 5.96046412227e-008 0
Station ( Gallente 5 ) 7933.66796875 208.236450195 -18212.3496094 0.280802875757 -0.00825552735478 -0.959729969501
Station ( Gallente 6 ) 9956.19238281 1058.91113281 0 0.999796926975 0.0201505292207 0
Station ( Gallente 7 ) 10679.8837891 1006.77294922 14350.2353516 0.999426364899 0.0338653326035 8.08496025684e-009
Station ( Gallente 8 ) 9788.60546875 938 0 0.999713182449 -0.0120400795713 0.0207010973245
Station (Caldari 1 Wrecked) 875.929870605 4958.72900391 -1991.92980957 0.921267271042 0.12210547924 0.369265168905
Station (Caldari 1) -170 3217 -12112.1542969 0 5.96046447754e-008 -0.999999940395
Station (Caldari 2) 11384.4287109 7499.12792969 -270.25189209 0.981180846691 0.193091094494 1.37698270564e-008
Station (Caldari 3) 2447.21484375 -3841 -2988 0.95105612278 0.30901825428 0
Station (Caldari 4) 36 6854.26220703 -7948.46679688 0 5.96046518808e-008 -1
Station (Gallente 1) 0 -5000 4800 0 -1 0
Station (Gallente 2) -4.19215595571e-009 6143.52929688 -3100.00708008 1.07482665044e-005 0.107010781765 0.994257867336

Appendix B

Here is the SQL query(MySQL dialect) to calculate undock coordinates for all stations in Nonni SELECT it.`typeID`, it.`typeName`, mr.`regionName` ,ms.`solarSystemName`, m.`itemName` , m.`x` +s.`dockEntryX` as 'DockX', m.`y`+s.`dockEntryY` as 'DockY', m.`z`+s.`dockEntryZ` as 'DockZ', m.`x` +s.`dockEntryX`+ s.`dockOrientationX`*2000000 as X, m.`y`+s.`dockEntryY`+ s.`dockOrientationY`*2000000 as Y, m.`z`+s.`dockEntryZ`+ s.`dockOrientationZ`*2000000 as Z, s.`dockOrientationX`, s.`dockOrientationY`, s.`dockOrientationZ` FROM mapdenormalize m, invgroups i, invtypes it, mapsolarsystems ms, stastationtypes s, mapregions mr WHERE i.`groupID`=m.`groupID` and m.`groupID`=15 AND it.`typeID`=m.`typeID` AND ms.`solarSystemID`=m.`solarSystemID` AND s.`stationTypeID`=it.`typeID` AND mr.`regionID`= ms.`regionID` /* AND ms.`regionID`=10000033 and it.`typeID` in (3867, 57)

  • /

and ms.`solarSystemName` like 'nonni'


ORDER BY ms.`solarSystemName`;