Freelancer "angles" units?

Ok, this came up because I’m trying to add a TL to Sigma-19. Now, the “rotation” of the box that defines the straight line between Ogashawa and Hawaii is -90, 50, 0.

I hand corrected a TL ring to 0, 50, 0 to match what I know its orientation ought to look like. (Actually, on second update - I needed to flip the rings to 0, 230, 0. This means that a 180 degree turn in Freelancer units is actually 180 degrees for real. Okay, that makes sense. But see below.)

However, by using a cartesians to polars conversion I was able to show that the implied angle between Ogashawa (-16585, 0, 3026) and Hawaii (286, 0, 17012) is actually 39.65 degrees instead of 50.

Before, I was getting my placements wrong as I was able to define the first trade lane position by sheer luck, but then subsequent rings (at 7500 units from the first) were at the wrong positions relative to the first.

What I’m curious about is what the units of the degree-coordinate system actually are - they’re clearly not actually degrees as we define them, but they’re not radians either. (at least in the sense that the 0,0,0 position is not simply translatable to the origin of the object you want to start from, since to translate trade lane positions I need cosines and sines)

If I knew the conversion factor, then I could immediately calculate TL ring positions just by defining the position and angle of the first ring.

Help, anyone?

EDIT: Ok, you know, I think I’ve almost got it.

The trade lane angle is related to the reciprocal of the ratio of distances that defines the coordinate transformations between TL positions. If someone can help take this and systematize it for me a bit better I’d appreciate it.

Update: To compound the confusion, I have no idea if Freelancer uses a right-hand or left-hand coordinate system:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_coordinate_system#Orientation_and_handedness

(Ultimately I want to write a program that’ll calculate TL positions for me given the position and orientation of one of them plus the separation between rings and how many I want to have)

Ok, thanks for the link to FLDev

Based on the definition you’ve given, FL uses a left-hand coordinate system. I’ve been using FL mod studio actually, which helped me see where the TL rings are going.

I’ll diagram some stuff out later to try and sort out what I think FL is doing.

Ok, I looked in the FLDev code and I have it all understood. FL defines angles in terms of the reciprocal of the normal “arctangent” formula for deriving the angle from delta-x and delta-y (i.e. it’s a modified Cartesians to polars conversion).

2D version of the 3D conversions used in FLDev

Armed with this I can now properly figure out my tradelane builder

And for Timmy51m? I can’t get FLE to work a damn. Period. I can view systems but can’t edit at all. So it’s hand INI-ing or using the FL Mod Studio.

CK256 wrote:
With FL Studio you can copy and paste objects from one system ini to another, so it’s just a matter of finding a TL going the direction you want, then edit the names and IDS codes.

I can’t find any copy-paste functions.

I usually work out the angle I need then use a bit of trigonometry (finally found a use for it!) to calculate the X and Y steps between the TL ring segments.

Yep. I did this. I had to use my calculation of the implied angle (I call it that because it acts like the coordinate system is rotated compared to what FL’s is) but I used trig to get the right subsequent positions in my Excel spreadsheet.

The TL will also work with +/- Z displacements as well up to about 30 degrees, if you keep the TL rings vertical the ships will ascend and descend the TL in a horizontal orientation, kinda like an escalator!

I remember this craaaaazy mod that had exactly that! I wish I could remember the name because the first time I saw it, and my ship WENT UP, I was like O_O WHAAAAT.

FL Studio is invaluable here when adding the TL encounter zones as you can check the zone is aligned with TL rings.

CK256

That’s exactly what I ended up doing - after I got the Excel worked out I was able to line up the TL beautifully between Ogashawa and Hawaii. I’ll show it off later today.

I remember one star system, it looked like two trade lanes crossed each other? And then what happened was that I realized the navmap only gave a 2D projection, because it was like a highway interchange