What is "Gate Distance"?

[TBV]

I was hoping the Gate Distance as listed in the Universe map would
be a good guide to the size of sectors.
But the Unknown sector between Montalaar and New Income has only
two gates 90 km apart and is listed as gate distance 40km
I checked for shortest route, longest route minus shortest route and distance
from the ecliptic but nothing seems to fit.

Anyone have any thoughts?




EDIT: Title

[pjknibbs]

It's probably the average distance of the gates from the centre of the sector--40km with gates 90km apart would be about right in that case (assuming they truncate it to the nearest 10km).

[TBV]

Doh. didn't think of that. Thanks. I'll check it out.

[TBV]

Unfortunately it would appear not.

Thuruk's Pride has 3 gates, all exactly 45.3km from the centre of the ecliptic.
The universe map lists the gate distance as 90km

[Xenon_Slayer]

Sounds like it is the maximum distance between the gates.

[TBV]

It's not that either..

Thuruk's Beard has 3 gates, 2 of which are 44.3 km from the centre, and the other 40.8km. Yet the universe map lists 140km?

[Nanook]

I have yet to figure out what 'gate distance' actually means. You can see it change when you zoom in and out, but what exactly does it mean? This begs for an official response.

[TBV]

Nanook wrote

You can see it change when you zoom in and out

The gate distance on the universe map does not seem to change when you
zoom in and out, but the distance indicator in the upper left corner of the
sector map does. I always thought this was supposed to be the height of
the view point from the origin of the ecliptic and that this was to indicate scale?

[Nanook]

Nanook wrote

You can see it change when you zoom in and out

The gate distance on the universe map does not seem to change when you
zoom in and out, but the distance indicator in the upper left corner of the
sector map does. I always thought this was supposed to be the height of
the view point from the origin of the ecliptic and that this was to indicate scale?

You're right, I read 'sector' when it was actually 'universe'.

But the number in the upper left corner of the sector map is shown when you're not in a sector, and doesn't seem to depend on what you have highlighted. Besides, the 'height' value is given in the lower right, along with the other two coordinates. The upper left number and percentage change when you zoom in and out. It must have something to do with some scale, but I haven't figured it out yet. At first I thought it was the grid scale, but it behaves wrong for that. I'm sure it's something 'intuitively obvious'.

[Carl Sumner]

Did you allow for the third dimension? That will change the distance.

[TBV]

Nanook wrote

Besides, the 'height' value is given in the lower right

Yes but that's the coordinates of a selected object.

What I meant was that the upper left distance is saying that your looking
at the sector from above, from this distance. So that although the map
replaces the real stations with icons, it is of the same scale.
This is what the sector looks like from 354km above or whatever.

I wonder if the Universe Map's gate distances remain from X2 and that
when they moved the gates in X3 they didn't update the distances.
I realise there are new sectors in X3.
It's just that when you try to find a pattern, it can hold up for 10 or so sectors.
But then you come across one that would appear to follow a different
logic for the Gate Distance calculation.

Hmm maybe I'll reinstall X2 at the weekend and investigate.

Carl Sumner wrote

Did you allow for the third dimension? That will change the distance.

Yes. In quite a few of the sector's the gate coords make this easy, ie 0,0,43.2 / 0,0,-43.2 etc.

[leloa]

in x3 the gate distanc semm to be the distance betwen two opposite gates(N,S for exemple)

[jlehtone]

X2 sector map had a value that told the spacing of the grid at current zoom level. That was handy, for you could easily see from the grid when the TL was within the 10 km box to drop the station where I wanted.

The X2 galaxy map did not have gate distances, because all sectors were basically of the same size. Only couple odd gates.

The number in the X3 sector map, it could be a view distance. I wonder what the view angle is then? (That should be computable.) It is definitely more than what you see on the map.

[TBV]

leloa wrote

in x3 the gate distanc semm to be the distance betwen two opposite gates(N,S for exemple)

TBV wrote

Thuruk's Beard has 3 gates, 2 of which are 44.3 km from the centre, and the other 40.8km. Yet the universe map lists 140km?

So that would appear not to be the case.


jlehtone wrote

X2 sector map had a value that told the spacing of the grid at current zoom level. That was handy, for you could easily see from the grid when the TL was within the 10 km box to drop the station where I wanted.

The X2 galaxy map did not have gate distances, because all sectors were basically of the same size. Only couple odd gates.

Thanks. That's saved me quite a bit of time.

jlehtone wrote

The number in the X3 sector map, it could be a view distance. I wonder what the view angle is then? (That should be computable.) It is definitely more than what you see on the map.

Is it not

X 0
Y 0
Z distance in upper left

And after hitting insert

X 0
Y minus distance in upper left
Z 0
?

[Ironbuket]

Not sure about the previous games, but in X3TC 'gate distance' appears to be the visible radius (half the diameter) of the sector when zoomed out (in sector view).

The sector continues beyond the zoomed out view, however it is very rare there is anything beyond that boundary. So effectively it is the radius from the sector centre that you would reasonable expect to find anything, and can be used in conjunction with the explore command.

Proof: Drop a satellite in the exact centre of a sector. Fly out to the visible edge of the sector (as shown in the zoomed out view). Select the satellite as your target and it should be close to the gate distance indicated on the universe map.

Dear Mod, I apologise in advance for bumping something so old, but please consider that my motives are virtuous as this is the top Google hit for the query 'x3tc gate distance means' and did not contain an answer.
- neither did any of the other hits

Thx