Custom GPS markers on your HUD
The GPS screen in the Terminal is where you manage your waypoints. Each waypoint is defined by X, Y, and Z coordinates in 3D space. Coordinates can be negative and positive, depending on in which octant they are relative to the center.
How to create or delete waypoints[]
The GPS panel has the following buttons:
- New From Current Position -- Creates a waypoint and fills in the player's current X/Y/Z coordinates automatically.
- New -- Creates an empty waypoint and lets you type in the X/Y/Z coordinates manually.
- Delete -- Delete the selected waypoint
- Search -- Enter text to filter the list of waypoints.
You can also create new waypoints right after someone else pastes coordinates in the chat, or right after you click the "Create GPS Marker" button in a Data Pad: These shared coordinates first appear in your waypoint list in gray for a while. Double-click them to store them permanently and make them visible in your HUD.
How to distinguish waypoints[]
For each waypoint you can define the following properties:
- Name: The default waypoint name is the player name and a number, so always edit the name to something meaningful. The name must not contain colons (the ":" character).
- Description: Optionally, you can leave yourself a message why you need this waypoint. Is this ore deposit mined already, is it a surface depot or especially deep? What does this Trading Outpost offer again? Is this ledge the only way to get across this mountain pass? And so on. This text is not included when you copy and paste the entry.
- Color: You can colourise a series of waypoints in gradient colours to make it easier to follow them in the right direction. Or you can colour-code different types, such as bases, ores, factions, etc. Either set a colour using the slider, or enter hexadecimal or HSV values.
- Show on HUD: Whether this coordinate is visible to you. Disable less relevant signals to decrease visual clutter on your screen, and only show the ones on your HUD that you want to use right now.
Tip: Double-click an entry in the waypoints list to toggle the visibility on/off quickly. - Always Visible: If "Show on HUD" is active, optionally enable this option for important waypoints that should remain visible as HUD signals even if they are behind you.
How to copy and back up waypoints[]
Waypoints have a specific format that is automatically recognised by the game.
- Copy to Clipboard: Copies the selected waypoint into the clipboard. This is one way of making a text backup of important waypoints, or transferring waypoints to another save (which works if the planets are in the same location there). You can also paste this copied waypoint in the chat to share it with other players.
- New From Clipboard: If you have text in your clipboard in the format "
GPS:name of waypoint:0.0:0.0:0.0:", this button creates a new waypoint at coordinates 0/0/0 and names it "name of waypoint".
GPS Related Shortcuts[]
Press (TAB key) to hide or show the whole HUD, including the waypoint signals.
Press (H key) to cycle through seeing detailed signals, short signals, or no signals on your HUD.
Press (ENTER key) to open the chat console, and enter /gps to create a new waypoint quickly:
/gps
Creates a new waypoint from your current position. Will only be visible to yourself./gps <name>
Creates a new waypoint from your current position and names it. Will only be visible to yourself. Name can include spaces but no colons./gps faction
Creates a new waypoint from your current position and shares it with other players in your faction./gps share
Creates a new waypoint from your current position and shares it with everyone globally.
Tips[]
Waypoint coordinates are sorted by name. There is no sorting by distance, so you have to use custom naming patterns to filter the list: For example, use planet names as prefixes to roughly sort coordinates by distance on a large scale. This way, when you search for a certain ore on a certain planet, you won't have to go through the ore markers from other planets, and you can focus on waypoints in local distance.
Don't share the coordinates of your base(s) on public multiplayer servers, it attracts griefers.
The colon is used as data separator so don't use colons in the GPS name. This includes not using smilies like :-).