Okay, I, like many other people, would like to see some method of marking locations of good asteroids, or at least being able to write down semi-precisely the location of a particular asteroid within a sector.

The problem, as has been stated many times in the past, is that in-sector coordinates can be exploited to create auto-mining bots.

Well what if we had some sort of compass system displayed on the HUD so we could what our approximate heading is. Obviously there's no "ground plane" nor any "magnetic north" in a sector, so they'd all be imaginary values. Maybe the ecliptic and the sun?... The ecliptic, by the way, is the name for the imaginary plane described by the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Translated into Vendetta, the plane described by the "main"planet's orbit around the star.

So basically, 0x0 is level with the ecliptic, pointing directly at the sun. 180x0 is pointing directly away from the sun. 180x45 is away from the sun, rotated 45 degrees "above" the ecliptic.

This creates interesting problems. Like what if you're inverted. Well, simply make it positive numbers on either side of the ecliptic to 90 degrees, at which point the numbers start down again. Well this means that for any given heading, there are two elevation angles. Well, if you're searching for a particular roid, it'll probably mean that one angle points towards your roid, and the other angle probably points off into space somewhere. It shouldn't be too hard to pick out which direction to chose from that point.

And since all indicated vectors are relative to the starting position, it makes it probably near impossible to make an "auto-mining bot," but a lot easier for players to find particular roids. All they need to do is know where to start from, and go from there.

Sounds really technical, but could work.

If I read some of the previous posts about this topic correctly, there was, and probably is, still a coordinate system in place, even if we can't access it. Why not simply allow a player to hit a command that will in essence, retain a loc on a single roid, even after leaving a sector to unload. Then when they return to the sector they hit the command again and the roid is selected again, as long as it's within 3000m of the ship. The command could simply take note of the single roids x/y/z and make a local note on the client machine, then upload it to the radar when called. The player is unable to view the x/y/z so is unable to make a bot, but is still able to return to the last visited roid. Or allow a log like the /navroute to be created so that you can keep a catalog of your favorite rocks ("/roidloc" or something to that effect). The file that stores the coordinates could be encrypted so that no one can decode it out of game for bot purposes. Not sure if that's too hard to do or not.

wow, johnhawl218... that sounds great!

Both CP & johnhawl's ideas would work well together, I think. CP's can be used to help get into the general vicinity, so you have the 'roid in radar range, and johnhawl's helps you pick out the specific 'roid.

I'd definately like the idea of tagging good spots and being able to nav back to them. Maybe have them show up similarly to jump exit points or wormhole points, with a different reticle icon perhaps. I'd say we don't expose the co-ordinates, simply give them names and the ship takes care of the rest. Being able to auto-route to them in the nav computer would be great too.

Certainly beats pen and paper :)