or, how does Nova decides who is on top?

My question is how does Nova decide what ship is farther away from the player at his keyboard when two non-PC ships' rleDs intersect? I've run a few tests and determined that dude, ship, or shan ID numbers have no control over it, directly anyway. Neither does the value in ship's total mass field or actual pixel size of a rleD.

I'd like to be assured that a particular ship is always drawn over all other ships in a system, except for the PC's. I've never witnessed the player not being able to view his or her ship.

Any tips?

Werhner

This post has been edited by Werhner : 01 October 2010 - 07:25 PM

Moved to the Developers' Corner as requested!

My off-hand speculation with nothing to back it up says it may have something to do with the order the ships are generated.

@joshtigerheart, on Oct 1 2010, 07:14 PM, said in Visual Depth of Ships:

My off-hand speculation with nothing to back it up says it may have something to do with the order the ships are generated.

That was my first guess too. However, even if true it then begs the question of what order the ships already in-system when you jump in are generated.

@mazca, on Oct 1 2010, 08:38 PM, said in Visual Depth of Ships:

However, even if true it then begs the question of what order the ships already in-system when you jump in are generated.

More or less random, I would think. My guess is that it decides (based on AvgShips) how many ships there should be, and then for each slot generates a ship based on the requisite düde resources.

It would be possible to test if they were ordered based on when they were generated.

Have five missions generate five visually distinct special ships, that each do nothing but dock and take off from a specific station (something small, so they'll overlap when they're docked).

Each mission has the objective OnObserve, and OnShipDone starts the next mission using the Sxxx command.

You then watch for if the order the ships were generated in has any effect on what order Nova stacks them in.

Thanks for the thoughts so far. What I've ended up with now is a fleet of ships (-130 to be precise) jumping in after a short delay. From that group of 6 ships, it seems as though roughly half will end up on top of a large, slow-moving vessel previously in the system, while the other half end up beneath it. The fleet of ships can be all identical, or a mixed group, but it doesn't seem to have any effect on who gets drawn on top and who gets drawn below; it truly seems random. Further, if there are two or three of the large, slow-moving ships previously in the system before the fleet jumps in, some of the fleet-ships will be on top of one slow-mover but will be beneath other slow-movers.

My 90% decision on this: it is random. Side-findings, however, include that a derelict gov't ship will always end up as the guy at the very bottom of the stack, i.e. all other ships get drawn above him. Also, I'm starting to suspect that the ship that gets drawn on top may be at a slight disadvantage in a close-combat gunfight, as his shots don't always seem to count as hitting the low-ship, while the low-ship's shots end up as a bulls-eye.

Thanks for y'all's input.

Werhner

Just a thought. Could it have something to do with class or AI Type? Or maybe even the ship variant type?