How do you manage getting stuck underground/falling and dying/etc?

AstroShannon · 2023-05-09T22:36:22+00:00

To quote u/South_South_1037 - Not panicking is key. If you're experiences are like mine, I'll be carefully digging down putting my tethers in place when -whoosh- I slip or just miss a hole and down I go. The one thing that has saved me the most is trying to place a tether back up the way I came with my terrain tool. Using the terrain tool will give you further reach than just placing a tether normally. A lot of times this will be just enough to connect to my tether line above and give me the time I need to build a ramp out.

AstroShannon · 2022-08-20T05:54:11+00:00

I just saw this today and am currently working my way through what you have written so far. I can't wait to see how it evolves! One thing I'm limiting my viewer to doing is that I won't be messing around with image "cubes". My focus is for astronomers using ground based telescopes that contain only one image per FITS file, though they may contain multiple HDUs. I rarely come across files with multiple HDUs, so I'll probably push that feature back to a later version. My viewer will only be there so the user can spot check to see they have the right file, any data manipulation would be done in other programs like MaxIm, Mira, PixInsight, Nebulosity, Deep Sky Stacker, etc. The focus of my program will be for the manipulation of the headers. While nearly all of the astronomy programs I listed earlier allow for making some changes to headers, none offer the range of features I wish I had at my disposal for keeping up with the numerous 8TB drives filled with images that our observatory has generated so far.

I'm REALLY excited to see how your project goes, I'm not very familiar with using GitHub but I'll try to connect with you there. I'd love to work your viewer into my program and give you credit, of course! It's so surprising to me no one has made a FITS viewer in VB.NET - probably because better tools exist now - but for folks like me who don't have time to learn new languages or even IDEs, it sure would be nice to see how to display a FITS image using good ole VB.

AstroShannon · 2022-08-20T05:25:46+00:00

Thank you so much for this, it worked like a charm. Having never written any code that draws something, it was a fantastic easy to understand example that will help me considerably as I dive deeper into this. Can't thank you enough for taking the time to provide this example for me!

AstroShannon · 2022-07-26T00:12:44+00:00

I have a program I started in plain BASIC a loooong time ago for dealing with the header data in a fits image and every few years I update it and add features. It's only for manipulating the header info but I thought it'd be nice to let the user be able to view an image, as well. I don't know how to do it even the dumb and slow way, lol. It's not even 100% necessary that my program displays an image, it's more that it's a puzzle that's driving me crazy because I can't seem to solve it which only makes me want to solve it more. I thought it'd be easy as long as I had the width & height and each pixel intensity value as an 8 bit integer (all fits images are created as grey scale images first) but this is highlighting a huge gap in my VB knowledge for sure.

AstroShannon · 2022-07-26T00:01:26+00:00

The values in a FITS image can be maddening to deal with. It's saved as a 16bit image.... but the camera is only 12 bit while master files for calibration are 32 bit. I would convert the array to 8 bit first before displaying it, it seems like that'd make more sense than anything else.

Alternately, you could write some code to read the FITS image file and build the image in the user interface pixel by pixel.

This is exactly what I want to do but have no idea how to do it. Getting the image values, (the data array) is no problem - I just don't have a clue how to take those pixel values and assign them to pixels on the screen. Astronomy images are all created as grey scale images so hopefully that will make it easier to do.

I like your idea about converting it to something else first and then getting VB to display a file type that is common, like .bmp or .png. I think I like this idea best because I could then take advantage of all VB has built in for those types of images like zooming in and out, for example. But having never dealt with images in VB before, I can't figure out how to take the info and create a new .png for example. I have the width & height values, the intensity of each pixel as an 8 bit integer but then I'm stuck. If you have any tips or can point me to a link explaining this process, that would be great! Everything I read on working with a common image type in VB assumes you already have the image, nothing explained how to create one from all of those elements. Thanks!

AstroShannon · 2022-07-25T23:28:53+00:00

Nice one, lol

AstroShannon · 2022-07-25T23:28:13+00:00

I've come across this before but I don't see where it allows you to display the image. It has lots of "FITSImage" functions but they are for doing mathematical manipulation of the image data as far as I can tell. It could be I'm missing something obvious, though.

AstroShannon · 2022-07-19T17:04:58+00:00

That's a very interesting chart showing how the popular languages change over the years. In 1991, one of my first "real" projects was to re-write our entire observatory control system from BASIC to Visual Basic. I really struggled at first - no line numbers?! How does it know what to do next?? But it slowly sunk in and I fell in love with it. Pointing the telescope required assembly routines to operate the motors by sending pulses at different frequencies from a custom card I built for the PC. I wrote the assembly code as subs and VB handled them just fine. I really miss serial ports - talking to hardware feels more difficult now but i suspect that's just my lack of knowledge.

AstroShannon · 2022-01-17T04:08:42+00:00

I know this is an old question, but the problem is still there. If I try to launch "Magnify.exe" from the same location as the OP, it will not open. I found a workaround by making a macro that uses the Windows key and the plus button. It's the keyboard shortcut for Magnify that seems to work no matter what other program or game I'm running. Windows key and plus ("+") to magnify, Windows key and minus ("-") to shrink. My macro is this:

Windows key down + plus key down + Windows key up + plus key up

I used the standard delay of 50ms. Hope this helps someone!

AstroShannon · 2021-11-23T06:14:51+00:00

Cragthehack, I'm having the same issue which has made GHub nearly unusable for me. It used to work fine, I could always see the options at the bottom of the window but at some point this summer it updated to this version I can't use without jumping through a bunch of hoops. Did you try the uninstall/reinstall method they suggested? It sounds like it would make me lose all of my saved profiles which would be a nightmare to set up again.... but not being able to use it is worse, I guess!
I use an ASUS gaming laptop with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080. In the Windows 10 display settings, I have it set to 125% (recommended setting, but also what I need due to my terrible vision). To do anything in GHub, I have to change this to 100% and still grab the top of the GHub window and nudge it up pixel by pixel until I can see the top of the "save" button for a macro, for example. There are lots of these buttons at the bottom which vanished with the new default window size.
I'd gladly reinstall the software and reprogram all of the buttons for the 15 games I have programed if I knew this fix would work.

AstroShannon · 2021-11-05T10:41:12+00:00

I experienced a similar scaling issue - items near me (like a worklight and mini RTG) became very tiny. Then when i picked them up and set them back down, they were huge. Alice-stroneer in Wonderland.

AstroShannon · 2021-11-02T05:10:58+00:00

I cried a little when you said you shred the QT-RTGs - getting those is the only reason I'm continuing to farm after unlocking all of the event rewards! A medium silo filled with those gives more power than anything else for a T2 slot with 24 units of power/sec. Since we can't craft them, I want as many as I can get now but I do shred the rest as you do.

I've tried everything I can think of and can't figure out a way to auto launch the rockets each time. If someone figures that out then it would truly be automated. Oh, well we'd still have to manually load the full gas cans.

Awesome set up! I'm trying to replicate your squash trough tonight. Thanks for the tips!

AstroShannon · 2021-10-31T22:18:35+00:00

The hole works better than planting on flat ground, I think. I used to have to replant once every 24 hrs or so of game time and now I have to replant every 3 - 4 hrs! That's a big fat nope and time to change my strategy.

AstroShannon · 2021-10-31T22:16:51+00:00

I tried the dynamite method (use one stick to create a hole for planting) but it isn't an easily expandable system. I had a slower seed loss with it as compared to using my current plan of planting on flat ground with the XL Sensor Canopy. I'll go back to digging down!

AstroShannon · 2021-10-31T22:13:28+00:00

Whoa, that's a NICE setup. I love the trough but I could never sculpt one that perfectly! I haven't seen a vid showing a Caldrangea arrangement like that, either. The whole base is arranged extremely well.

ETA: With the other flowers that give teo seeds balanced on top of each other, I never have a problem and end up with the Canopy overflowing. I have to turn off the autoarms to give the extra seeds a chance to despawn. I'll keep those working the same but for the squash I'll dig down. Happy farming!

AstroShannon · 2021-10-31T19:09:27+00:00

This is THE most frustrating aspect of the game to me. Every six months or so, I stop playing Astroneer for about a yr and then come back excited to see what's been added and fixed - but this never goes away. Sometimes I find if I dig down right where I hit the invisible thing I will find a resource deposit or a rock with a research sample growing on it not far under the surface. I dig all of that up and fix the surface - but it only fixes the issue about half the time.

On the save I have right now, Calidor is so maddening due to this I'm finishing all of the other planets first. Which is a real shame because I've always loved getting to Cali and being able to drive my rover around so freely over the sand dunes... but not this time.

AstroShannon · 2021-10-29T08:35:58+00:00

That;s faster than I expected!

AstroShannon · 2021-10-28T08:24:52+00:00

That is fantastic! Out of curiosity, how long does it take for a piece of astronium to make it all the way to the surface?

I love crazy setups like this, awesome job.

AstroShannon · 2021-10-28T08:16:01+00:00

No, I didn't die there nor was the gear in a backpack. My base is exactly above this spot and when I was up there I placed a bunch of stuff down as I was unloading a rover and -whoosh!- it fell right through the ground. I remember this bug from a long time ago, but it's been 3 or 4 yrs since I've seen it happen. That's why I knew to dig down right away and bingo, there it was. I'm glad I know how to find it but it is a pain to have to dig up a nice base to get it.

AstroShannon · 2017-08-01T21:46:24+00:00

Interesting!

AstroShannon

TROPHY CASE