High Frontier distance calculator
Welcome to the High Frontier distance calculator utility. This handy utility allows you to calculate the number of burns/turns between locations on the HF map.
Currently this is still a work in progress but the basic distance calculations are working and you can also place limits on things like radiation and crash hazards for the trips.
Send any comments and suggestions to skumtaske at gmail.com or via GeekMail to "busch".
Latest news (June 25th):
- Implemented a new "Balance burns/turns" trip selection strategy
- Added support for downloading the utility for offline use. Simply right click within the utility and choose the install option
- A display of distance that doesn't totally obscure the locations
- A sort of progress indicator show the number of algorith iterations and maximum number of trip under consideration simultaneously
How to use
You simply click on any site hex, Hohmann or L-point intersection. The selected location will now be highlighted and you can then click on "Calculate distances" to find the distance from the selecteded location to anywhere else on the map . When a location is
highlighted you can also see which other locations it is connected to, shown in orange. This is mostly for information purposes and to make it easier to spot errors in the utilitys map database
After the distance calculation has completed you can click on any location to see the best trip, shown in white. If no cost is shown and no trip shows up when you click a location this is because the limits placed on the trip prevent going there. Try increasing max allowed number
of hazards.
Trip selection strategies
The utility currently two strategies are supported:
Reduce burns
This strategy does everything to reduce the number of burns used. This means it will always stop at Hohmann intersection to avoid paying for the burns. The only exception to this
rule is if the trip has enough free burns from slingshot or moon boost to pay for the turn.
Current issues: this strategy has a weakness if you limit hazards. This can in some circumstances prevent it from finding trips through these types of Lagrange intersections.
Balance burns/turns
This strategy balanced the number of burns vs number of turns in each trip. This is accomplished by assigned a weight of 2 to each burn and weight of 1 to each turn used(
an option to change weights is coming soon). The strategy minimizes the weight of each trip.
Current issues: In some uncommon circumstances the selected trip will not be
the best due to "complications" with Hohmann intersections. A fix for this is know but is very CPU intensive so it is left out for now.
Help
I have taken great care when digitizing the HF map but there are around 600 locations and many more connections so there are bound to be a few errors still in there. You are welcome to contact me and
point out any errors. Please include the node id where there is a problem.
Since the trip optimization algorithm is fairly complex and the map very large I haven't been able to verify that all suggested trips are correct. If you find a problem with a trip please
send me: - Node id for the start of the trip
- Node id for the destination
- A short description of what is wrong with the suggested trip
The original High Frontier map is used with permission from Phil Eklund.