Here's a Rad Idea for a Coord Sys

Huh?

Honestly, no-one is going to have fun typing these things with any sorta accuracy, and generalizations are going to start bunching up stars along the easy-to-write coordinates. Well...this is in the stead of anyone using unwritten software to place planets in the database.

So, during one of my most evil chemistry classes, right through an important discussion about thermochemistry, I sat in class and figured out an easy-to-use coordinate system which is both adaptable and fairly usable. It, with the use of a pocket calculator (and the knowledge of the modulous function) can get you a star system located to within about 1/5000 of a radian. I know that's not TOO accurate ...but it's better than nothing.

And here it is:

• Each sector is divided into eight quads numbered 1-4 on top of 5-8.

• Each quad is measured in fractions of 1/1000 ths of a quad. This should gaurantee people writing three-digit whole numbers, which are hard to confuse. The conversion between them and "theta-radius-height" can be done with a simple formula, easily programed or done on paper.

• Conversion formulas

  • Inner Sectors

    theta = pi ( 1/4 ( sector# - 1 ) + 1/16 ( SubSector# + 1 ) mod ( 4 ) + 1/32 ( Quad + 1 ) mod ( 2 ) + theta_prime / 3200 )

  • Outter Sectors

    theta = pi ( 1 / 8 ( sector# - 1 ) + 1/32 ( SubSector# + 1 ) mod ( 4 ) + 1/64 ( Quad# + 1 ) mod ( 2 ) + theta_prime / 6400 )

I haven't worked out the ones for radius or height but they're comming along. I have to sort through the ol' RoboBoxes(tm) and find my old Milky Way galaxy notes from last summer. I had a resonably accurate set of numbers in either radians or light years for the radius of the galaxy and the radii of the inner-outter sectors I worked out previously. (Just be patient, man!)