Talk:Under The Hood
For saved game file discussion, NKF's analysis of LOC.DAT "20 binary rows, 50 entries" contains Geoscape tokens
- Nothing = 0
- UFO = 1
- X-Com Craft = 2
- X-Com Base = 3
- Alien Base = 4
- Waypoint = 7
--JellyfishGreen 06:05, 23 Aug 2005 (PDT)
JFG or anybody, what's the Great Circle Route?
enquiring minds want to know!
The best way to explain great circles is to first think of the old saying: "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line". For example, the shortest distance between the points (0,0) and (4,4) lies directly on the line y=x. To find distances in planer geometry it is as simple as finding a straight line which goes through those two points. But we have to remember that this is only true for Euclidean (or planer) geometry.
The Earth, however, is not a plane. It is a sphere. Spherical geometry is not the same as Euclidean geometry. A point-to-point distance is simply a line segment on a Eclidean (2d) graph, but when translated into spherical (3d) coordinates it is now an arc. In the same manner as extending a line segment creates a line, extending an arc creates a circle. Navigational buffs out there call this circle: "the great circle". Hope this helps. --Zombie 10:31, 5 Nov 2005 (PST)