Before I go demanding another feature be added to Celestia, let me just say I love the program a lot, and it brings back those memories of my youth when I would sit in front of the Commodore 64 playing "Halley Project"-- anyone remember that game? It was probably the earliest version of celestia. One could traverse the solar system in a spaceship looking for planets and moons.
The controls were primative, the textures of the planets were nonexistant (they were just colored disks), and all spaceflight was confined to a plane-- but it was quite ahead of its day in my own opinion... at least for space simulation games made in the 80s.
Anyway, I was thinking about a possible addition to the next version of Celestia that would include an ETA indicator during spaceflight. It could be part of the object info at the top left side of the screen that tells you how long it would take at your current velocity to reach the object.
Obviously, it would only work when you had an object selected and were actually moving toward it. It seems simple enough. Just calculate the distance between the observer and the object, and divide by the radial component of the observer's velocity, and refresh the value each second.
The only complication I could envision would be if, through an error in trajectory, or by the motion of the object, that the observer is not actually traveling directly toward the object. At some point, as the radial component of the observer's velocity goes to zero, (then negative!), the ETA goes to infinity, then negative.
To skirt that problem, perhaps make ETA functional only in "follow" mode after the "center" function has been applied.
-Randy
brings back memories!
Re: brings back memories!
rwaldrep wrote:Before I go demanding another feature be added to Celestia, let me just say I love the program a lot, and it brings back those memories of my youth when I would sit in front of the Commodore 64 playing "Halley Project"-- anyone remember that game? It was probably the earliest version of celestia. One could traverse the solar system in a spaceship looking for planets and moons.
The controls were primative, the textures of the planets were nonexistant (they were just colored disks), and all spaceflight was confined to a plane-- but it was quite ahead of its day in my own opinion... at least for space simulation games made in the 80s.
omg yes I had that on my 128...It was the beginnings of my quest to produce a program that would do what Celestia would...Unfortunately I never completed that dream until 3 years ago when I was introduced to Star Trek Armada and its capabilities to add planets...I began developing countless maps and what not but never officialy released any of them...I went on to Armada 2 and felt there had to be something better...so I began looking for space sims on the internet when I chanced upon this wonderful software...and have finally reached the plateau I was climing for...
Theres one thing I will always be thankful for is this software!
ps>> Didnt that software require the GEOS operating system for the 64?
I'm trying to teach the cavemen how to play scrabble, its uphill work. The only word they know is Uhh and they dont know how to spell it!
I have a comidor amiga that still runs! And I Still have that game, and it works to 
)
, this is star lion