I propose you an interesting challenge, shortly it consist in be able to find again the earth starting from a far away planet in the milky way using one or more spaceships all this with the support of a program that I made with Matlab  , this little program simulate the control panel of our spaceship, calculate  coordinates,calculate the fuel needed to make warp, and plotting the maps.

In this challenge the player must follow some rules and possibly do not cheat , for do yes that all player are at the same level.
and also all player should compile a board diary , to  post it here in this topic.
now i will give a little background at the story, if you want you can change it.

i apologize for bad english...i hope that you understand 

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
[spoiler]

Year 2467
The first hyperdrive was built ,a new era had begun for the humanity and the space exploration .
Until that moment it had been explored only the solar system and the proxima centauri system  , but now it was open a new door toward the immensity of the universe.
The humanity will discover things that he would never haed imaginated!
In the subsequent years began to be descovered new abitable planets where began to stabilize the first extrasolar colonies.
however the hyperdrive engine wasn't enough to cover that huge galactic distances in low time.
So was ideated, in the year 2508, the first SWG stable wormhole gate , a dispositive able to model the space time and connect two point of the space at huge distances , so  the human colonization expanded until galaxy borders, furthermore in this period were discovered the first planets with unicellular life.
the human colonization continued without any problem , until in the year 2749, a mysterious event changed the idea of the humanity towards the universe.
A far planet with a little human colony disappeared in the nothing together his solar system.
The panic spread among the galactic population,what was happen?
An superior alien civilty? an unknown cosmic effect?...
few months later an SWG began to give problems, the arrival point became unstable
until to can't forecast his position, at the end in 2751 the system that ospited that SWG disappeared together at all his planets.
testimonials recount of huge jaws gone out from the SWG that engulfed the star...
since that moment all the SWGs unexplicably stopped working.
all the colonies remaned isolated and no one was able to rebuild an working SWG,
many colonies becam extinct , and oter try to reform themselves indipendently.

Year 3101
A far away colony had managed to survive and  to restabilize itselves, the earth by now was a far remember which it was lost every trace, but the feel to not be at home was present in the osiris1's inhabitants, when in 3102 was discovered an ancient space probe,that contained a gold disc with many information .
Scientists discovered that this probe came from the solar system and it contained the  position of the sun in the galaxy... that probe was Voyager 1




[/spoiler]

                        THE PROGRAM
download: https://drive.google.com/open?id=17fSJsrlHw1Duc1D6rEtnSl9hqvidlF9J  v 0.81
tutorial-1 how to install :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqW5gjW-SOk
tutorial-2 how to use    :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l21hFAoO9q0
no win xp 
tested on win 10



RULES

1. Before to do the jump (only for interstellar jump for interplanetary it isn't neceaasry is free ) , you must insert the distance to do and press the go button, otherwise the fuel won't be consumed.
2. you must insert the real hydrogen percentage of the planet where you are extracting them, if the planet has a 92% of hydrogen you must insert 0.92 .
3. you can't use the search tool , you can use it only for search:
   Sgr A*
   Deneb only when you are at 6000ly from the earth 
   Sirius  only when you are at 30-100ly from the earth
   you can use the stellar search tool only with a radius of 15ly ,  if you find the earth in this way, you have win but you must be able to go there.
4. you can use one or more ships.
5. if the ship that we are piloting , become destroyed you lost, you must reset all and post here on this topic your results.
6. you must/should create a board diary with at least this details 

       
      code of the actual planet         date 
      NOTE
      code of the actual planet         date 
      NOTE
      ...
      when you post it on this topic you must include a screenshot of the final map

     7. for make fuel you must put your ship in orbit around a gas giant and start the fueling ,more time you stay in orbit more fuel you'll get. max fuel               100000kg ->1600ly you start with 6500kg  if you have 2 ships, menawhile that the mothership make fuel, you can explore the system.
     8. you can use the time modifier ,except when you are refueling.
     9. for the starting point you can choose any planet that is similar to the earth and it must be in the milky way, at a distance from the sun between               5000ly and 30000ly  note that the maximum jump is 1500 1600 ly so at 30kly you must do at least 20 jump...

Good travel!

Oh nice your control panel, maybe in future Space Engine have this.
And I see in forum different version of challenge to find a way to return on Earth but without fuel limitation.
Maybe you can made a option for set the destination intermediaire and final instead the Earth for a case general and for set the fuel max.
And for hardcore, you can just refuel when your ship are on the atmosphere of the gas giant or other atmosphere with hydrogen or a another ship have fuel and where is dock, you can transfert fuel to the ship on the 2 ways.
I maybe test if I have the time.
Good luck and continuation (and good travel).

this is a test version of the peogram so there are many things to add , but for the moment i haven't much time
and you already can set a general position using the option "manual" and insert the coordinates of the reference seen from that location

.community suggestion are welcome!

This sounds awesome

version 0.7.2 aviable
change
added 2 boutton to add or delete a position 
now the last you->"Earth" coordinates are saved every time 

and also, i tried for the first time to do a complete mission but i failed
however for demonstrate that the program work fine i continued to travel without the fuel rules and i arrived at destination !


[attachment=0]map1.png[/attachment]

Although I haven't decided if I'm going to participate in this challenge, I just wanted to express how much I appreciate this program being made at all, even if just for the fuel system (I haven't been using much else). It's the beginning of making trips with ships more meaningful to have.

It would be great to have options to toggle different sections of the program so if we only want to use the fuel system or the coordinate system, the rest of the app can hide and the window will only show what is chosen. So if I choose to only use the fuel system, then it would be a much smaller window that doesn't cover up much of the screen giving me easier access to using it. Just a thought!

It would be great to have options to toggle different sections of the program so if we only want to use the fuel system or the coordinate system, the rest of the app can hide and the window will only show what is chosen. So if I choose to only use the fuel system, then it would be a much smaller window that doesn't cover up much of the screen giving me easier access to using it. Just a thought!

thanks Proteus!
yes i had in mind to do a thing like that, but i must study how to do it.(i'm not an expert programmer )
for the moment i can do a resizable window

Version 0.7.9 aviable
Change

• now the quantity of fuel extracted are calculated with the perfect gas equation
• separated the coordinates panel from the fuel panel
• resizable main window
• now isn't more necessary to press load/clear button at the start
  pressing it will reset all also the saved state , so if you want to conserve it you must to put it in another path from the main application path.
• more general coordinates calculating, now if you use manual the tag will change to
  you->destination..
  but there's always a little problem in the map also if you use an general Destination when you use plot the final destination will appear still as the earth (it's only a graphics error, the coordinates are corrects)

here is explained how to insert the new fuel extraction parameter
WARNING insert all number in whole form : 10^5 become 100000 or the state will be damaged or you will have to reset everything !
please continue the discussion about the program on this thread http://forum.spaceengine.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=400

Why is nothing working? Can someone please help me remove those posts and get it done right?

Thanks!

Why is nothing working?

You must have made at least 10 posts before all the functions of the website are available to you.

[quote="JackDole"][quote="Thimenu"][post]21665[/post] Why is nothing working?[/quote]
You must have made at least 10 posts before all the functions of the website are available to you.[/quote]
Oh I see. Thank you!!!

I didn't actually do this challenge, but I made one of my own and thought this was the best place to share the experience. 

I came up with some rather arbitrary limitations on fuel for a few of the ships, and methods for refueling. I wanted to explore in a semi-immersive way. Here are the limitations I came up with:

GOAL
Find habitable planets to colonize and new life forms to sample or contact in the Andromeda galaxy.

SHIP LIMITATIONS
Explorer 2
Warp: 8 hrs of usage at exp 14 (needed this capacity to get to Andromeda). Refuel by flying through the accretion disk of a black hole (this is a totally random way to refuel, but I thought it'd be exciting, so why not?)
Main Engines: 300 km/s of delta-V. Refuel by orbiting close to RsMin of a gas giant that contains hydrogen for about 5.5 days.
Sensor Range: 5 LY, <1.00 App. mag (this meant that when I searched star systems, I had to be limited to 5 LY, and had to ignore anything with App. mag greater than 1.00)

Shuttle (I used these for colony ships, assuming maybe 8 people and a ridiculously small and powerful fusion generator)
Main Engines: 90 km/s of delta-V
Atmospheric Flight: 24 hrs (easiest way to measure and keep track)
Sensor Range: 1 LY, <1.00 App. mag

Skylone
Main Engines: 60 km/s of delta-V
Atmospheric Flight: 24 hrs (easiest way to measure and keep track)
Sensor Range: 1 LY, <0.50 App. mag

CHANCE
I also made a little dice roller and created some chance. Anytime SpaceEngine told me the gas giant had hydrogen in atmosphere, I gave myself a 70% chance that it was true. I role-played this to mean that the ship sensors were telling me there was a good chance the planet had usable hydrogen for fuel, but I only got to roll the dice and see if it was true once I entered proximity of the planet.

I did the same kind of chance game for finding habitable planets and life forms. Upon entering a star system, there was a 30% chance that the planet SpaceEngine said harbored life was even habitable. If the planet was habitable I would approach the planet, and upon proximity of the planet there was a 8% chance of life and 2% chance of an advanced civilization. Upon landing on a planet with uncivilized life, there was a 70% chance of it being unicellular, 25% chance of it being multicellular, 4% chance of it being on the level of animals on Earth, and 1% chance of it being sentient.

So, because of my chance games, when Space Engine told me there was a planet with life, I knew that wasn't necessarily even habitable, much less containing life. And when it told me there was a gas giant with hydrogen for me to refuel at, I also knew that may not be the case.

With all my limitations, my goal, and my chance game, I got myself an Explorer-2 class ship with 2 docked shuttles and 2 docked skylones, and set out from Neptune to the Andromeda galaxy. I called my ship the Andromeda One. I will paste the log I made of the adventure with some interesting photos:

EVENT LOG
End of Log. Message received a few million years later.

I concluded that getting a ship close to a black hole is both difficult and dangerous, and may have unexpected results. So, next time, that definitely won't be the refueling method for the warp drive, lol.

hi Thimenu
i like your mode, with the chance game and the ships limitations, maybe i can implement all of this featurures in my program, but for now i haven't many time...at the moment i can insert your post as an alternative gamemode in principal post