The belt was laid out with its own arithmetic - a centre BELT_AHEAD in front
of the fleet, rocks spread BELT_DEPTH either side of it - so its near edge
reached back to within a screen of the convoy. At the aspect it was
eyeballed on that was just outside the view; at a wider one, or any zoom
out, rocks appeared in plain sight.
#126 already answered this question for the rest of the game, so the answer
is borrowed rather than restated: AsteroidField's keep-out rect and its
push-out-through-the-nearest-edge placement are public now, and the belt
runs through them. That also means the two cannot drift apart later.
The distance moves as well, 2200 to 2900. The clamp alone would work, but it
would work by pressing every stray rock onto the boundary line; with the
belt properly out in front, the clamp has almost nothing left to do and the
belt still looks laid out ahead rather than pinned to the edge of the
screen. Measured: nearest rock 1551 units out, against a keep-out that
reaches 1100.
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