Travel time R10

[hyfe]

Ok. I don't know wether its a polite to start a parallell discussion here. But I'd really like a discussion thats goes *alot* slower than the one on PD, and with moderators that keep it on topic. And please read spinners post on AD to get a clue what i'm talking about

So please; Stay on topic

[disclaimer]I've skipped alot of stuff i might have written, to make it shorter and more discussable. and I *am* tired atm [/disclaimer]
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1. differentiated traveltimes and no max eta
At first glance this is an ok idea imo.
+ Forcing people to co-operate in-cluster'ish
+ More strategy / more choice
- Means the end of alliances as we know them, sundering friendships like this cannot be a good thing imo

2.differentiated traveltimes on either defence / attack
Keep flat traveltimes on either defence or attacks, and differentiate the other.
+ Old alliances will still have a role to play
+ Old alliances will slowly be undermined
+ Alliances based on location still get advantages
- hard to balance. (All attack eta 12. defense eta 8-12 fx)

3.As it is now
+ Nothing changes
- Nothing changes


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Now; this may be another discussion, but imo the issues are so intertwined. How will the choice of random/private afffect these choices?

1.100% Private
You are with your friends. Is a must if we have totally differentiated travel times imo

2.100% Random
If we do this; we need something to keep the old structures semi-alive. If the old alliances doesn't have any function anymore, PA will die imo. We need to have some relations stay the same between rounds; PA is a social game!

3. Semi-Random Semi-Private
Small blocks of players (1-4) gets shuffled around randomly. Gals ought to take atleast 15 players.

[Tactitus]

As I stated in my reply to Spinner's thread, I don't think this would end up being much different from r4 parallels. If you liked r4 parallels, then you'll probably like the proposed R10 travel time. It doesn't really change much, imho. It just replaces a single alliance/powerblock dominating the whole universe with lots of local alliances dominating their local areas. Luck will be a big factor: if you end up close to a bunch of allied galaxies, you can work with them to dominate your area; if you end up close a bunch of enemy galaxies, well, you'll be screwed (most of your allies will be too far away to help you).

I guess I expecting something a bit more innovative.

[Sun_Tzu]

I'd have to say remove cluster and paralell etas, less easy bashing, more work for the roids, less luck-determined. Infact, you could skip a shuffle as no eta-advantages could be obtained this way.

Oh, and I want private, I got several m8s coming back to the game for rnd10 and if it goes random then that's just ****ing up our unified plans :/

[hyfe]

Originally posted by Tactitus
As I stated in my reply to Spinner's thread, I don't think this would end up being much different from r4 parallels. If you liked r4 parallels, then you'll probably like the proposed R10 travel time. It doesn't really change much, imho. It just replaces a single alliance/powerblock dominating the whole universe with lots of local alliances dominating their local areas. Luck will be a big factor: if you end up close to a bunch of allied galaxies, you can work with them to dominate your area; if you end up close a bunch of enemy galaxies, well, you'll be screwed (most of your allies will be too far away to help you).

I guess I expecting something a bit more innovative.

Well.. as long as there is no specified center, I don't think the situation will become 'as bad' as it was r4, as there will be no really 'natural groupings'. Combined with random or semi-random galaxies i think is a good thing[tm]

Were You expecting something more innovative? or hoping for something more innovative? ... There is only so much you can do as long as you stay within the genre

[marmor]

I'm just thinking.

This universe will be made of a coordinate-system, with planets spread out up and down the x- and y-lines. This will mean for the singel planet that it will have different opportunities then other planet. Lets say a planet is placed at the egde of the universe. That planet will have fewer planets surrownding it for attack and defence, then a planet at the center.

So i wonder. Could each planet be placed at the center in its 'own map'? Does anyone understand my way of thinking?

[spectrum]

what about monthly shuffles instead ?

[spectrum]

Originally posted by marmor
I'm just thinking.

This universe will be made of a coordinate-system, with planets spread out up and down the x- and y-lines. This will mean for the singel planet that it will have different opportunities then other planet. Lets say a planet is placed at the egde of the universe. That planet will have fewer planets surrownding it for attack and defence, then a planet at the center.

So i wonder. Could each planet be placed at the center in its 'own map'? Does anyone understand my way of thinking?

simple to implement a warp-around (like cluster 51 is next to cluster 1 (in a 51-cluster universe) like cluster 1 is to cluster 2.


(comparable to a ring: no matter where you are placed, there is no edge, although you could place 51 marks on it and call them cluster 1-51)

[marmor]

Originally posted by spectrum
simple to implement a warp-around (like cluster 51 is next to cluster 1 (in a 51-cluster universe) like cluster 1 is to cluster 2.


(comparable to a ring: no matter where you are placed, there is no edge, although you could place 51 marks on it and call them cluster 1-51)

yes, my point exactly. hum, will it be like that?

[hyfe]

Originally posted by marmor
yes, my point exactly. hum, will it be like that?

if they want it like that; it'll be like that

A universe clipped at the edges just sounds silly imo....

[KingGnome]

A universe wrapped at cluster 50 is bad - it would restrict the size of the universe... (or it would mean that some ppls gal m8's keep changing)

Personally, what I would like to see universe-organisation-wise would be something much much more complicated.

I would like to have all planets in a bubble - perhaps to make it simpler, it should be a set of 3d coordinates... coming out in a conceptual balloon, so as the universe grows, planets are added at the outside edge of this balloon (after shuffle ofc...)

your galaxy (or zone...) m8's could be the 8+9+9 ppl which differ by one digit - this might only be practical in a random universe... I'm not entirely sure about how private "galaxies" would work...


[x,y,z] --> zone m8's = [(x+1/x-1),(y+1,y,y-1),(z+1,z,z-1)]

The result of this would be the removal of galaxies as we imagine them (e.g. 3 of x,y,z's zonem8's are different to x+1,y,z's zonem8s)

With a system like that, and with time travel based on the euclidean(sp?) distance, it would make a huge difference to the way the game dynamics work...

one planet being the largest planet in the universe would no longer be able to directly threaten the 10th largest on the other side of the universe - since the 10th largest probably has sufficient allies slightly closer to get sufficient defence...

One of the largest drawbacks of this approach is that it would completely change the game of planetarion - but isnt that what R10 needs?

[edit: perhaps the "private galaxy" could be the 7 people involved in a 3d cross... would bring renewed meaning to the GC, since he'd be at the center and the only person who was closest to all of his "galaxy" (everyone else would have 1 person who was 1 space outside his closest neighbours) - I like that idea actually ]

[hyfe]

KingGnome: Any grouping is just that; 'a grouping'. Wether its 2D or 3D doesn't change that fact. And the only thing a 3D model offers that i can see is added complexit, for no apparent gain.

And the idea of disbanding galaxies; i'm not for that either .. Since everybody would have a different center, and want to be the center of their own local ally, it would wreak chaos :-) (hmm... on second thought, might be fun though) (However, i'd much rather have this feature in a 2D-universe than a 3D-universe..)

For adding galaxies, who says galaxies have to be added to the "end"? If the entire thing is round, you can stick in new clusters anywhere, it'll be the same. Which preferably means spreading them out evenly. You'll have to figure out something smart with the co-ors though...

Either way; increasing Cluster size instead of universe size when adding more galaxies after tick start would seem more balanced imo. (it removes the problem of having to change co-ords too)

[KingGnome]

Originally posted by hyfe
KingGnome: Any grouping is just that; 'a grouping'. Wether its 2D or 3D doesn't change that fact. And the only thing a 3D model offers that i can see is added complexit, for no apparent gain.

Not really... because the difference isnt as easy between 2d and 3d coordinates - the difference that I was trying to get at was between what is considered as a single unit
Currently, a single unit is a galaxy, and any C/P/time travel discussions are centered around a galaxy...
most 3d models could also be significantly closer to what the reality would be

any change thats going to make a large enough impact is going to have to be huge

[hyfe]

I understood what you meant; I just didn't make myself clear enough

You can have no single units with a 2D universe too ( A square which wraps around edges perhaps?)(or if you want added complexity, use something like the surface of a sphere(nice for traveltimes)). It'll be just like having gal.size = 1.. with different travel times between different galaxies..

Either way; 2D is alot more understandable than 3D, so what are the advantages of 3D?

[KingGnome]

Originally posted by hyfe
Either way; 2D is alot more understandable than 3D, so what are the advantages of 3D?

3D is just an "extension" of 2D - yes, it takes a little longer to work out how far [1,2,3] is from [19,7,-5] than it does to work out how far [1,2] is from [19,7] - but the actual working out in either case is likely to be done by a web tool or similar (i.e. it may take a lazy player 30 seconds with a piece of paper to work out the 2d distance, but only 10 to load up a tool and type it in... which is going to win?)
I personally dont think that 3 sets of coordinates should be seen as any different to 2.5 - which is what we have at the moment
If a non-trivial travel time is going to be employed (as I think it should be) then tools will sort out how long it takes rather than ppl trying to work it out themselves

Conceptually, a 2d system is fake - the current 2.5 system even more so... and if a 2d system were employed with the "units" being planets, then it would be yet more fake

Part of the attraction for me about the 3d system is that it is more realistic - the world is 3d, space is 3d, ANY sort of space combat will be 3 dimensional

with a 3d system, you would get rid of the .5 concepts of clusters or paralells (which I admit you could do with a 2d system, but I feel that would be just as confusing as with a 3d system, so its not really a reason to keep 2d)

I guess you could ask what the advantage of quake is over doom - being able to move around in 3d space is more complicated because we have this extra dimension, but the freedom of the player completely changed the genre...

I dont think that moving PA to 3d would have the same effect on PA as quake did to 3d shooters, but I really do think that the vast majority of gamers (not pa players, but gamers as a whole) would find the third dimension to be not a problem

[Sun_Tzu]

Position the gals in a 3D-envirement then and add a 4th coord for each planet, either way, has nothing to do with the ETA-discussion since you are both advocating the same thing...

The problem as I see it is that the huge travel-times(and more so, the differences in them) as proposed are fecking illogical, why the hell do we build wormhole manipulation-tools if we're not gonna be able to open up a wormhole and get where we want fast? besides, space-warfair between galaxies even would require the use of some sort of wormhole or you'll have to spend a human life-time attacking...

Oh yeah, and to make the sending 6:55 pointless you could have the fleet "stall" for a tick(both defence and offence), basicly you issue an order and it takes them a tick to gather the fleet and open the wormhole. However your target doesn't get a notice until the next tick when your ships are on-route.

Random Stupid Smilie: :e_chick:

Edit: And if you want some logical faster eta's make them to the gals that differ 1 co-ord from yours, with a 3D system this would be 8gals around each gal that are "closer"

[hyfe]

Originally posted by KingGnome
3D is just an "extension" of 2D - yes, it takes a little longer to work out how far [1,2,3] is from [19,7,-5] than it does to work out how far [1,2] is from [19,7] - but the actual working out in either case is likely to be done by a web tool or similar (i.e. it may take a lazy player 30 seconds with a piece of paper to work out the 2d distance, but only 10 to load up a tool and type it in... which is going to win?)

Well... if you want to move away from groups (as in galaxies) you need co-ordinates that are easily workable. The coding part of doing it is trivial, that i agree with, but using the 3D system as a player is not trivial.... Think about the poor BC's!

Another way to think about positions; is a set of distances between planets. It is this set of distances which makes the difference. It doesn't matter if you annote positions with 3, 5 or 42 numbers (or letters), in the end its just a set of distances. Now: given that players are going to use this set of distances, for my part; you need heavier arguments than 'realism' (as a spacewarfare game is in itself inherit unrealistic) to justify bringing in adde complexity.....

[hyfe]

Originally posted by Sun_Tzu

The problem as I see it is that the huge travel-times(and more so, the differences in them) as proposed are fecking illogical, why the hell do we build wormhole manipulation-tools if we're not gonna be able to open up a wormhole and get where we want fast? besides, space-warfair between galaxies even would require the use of some sort of wormhole or you'll have to spend a human life-time attacking...

Illogical? Are you applying logic to how a wormhole is supposed to work?

either way its hugely irrelevant imo. If you're going for realism; how about fixing the targetting system?

[Andy_r]

There seems to be a lot of support for wrap-round co-ordinates when calculating etas.

This has 2 problems (only one of which I realised when I posted in Spinner's thread)

1) the lowest cluster numbers will soon be too big to attack the newly inserted high clusters that are next to them.

2) what happens when a new cluster is inserted while ships are in motion across the discontinuity? Return etas would occasionally be longer than send etas? Could alliances sign up accounts in order to slow down enemy fleets?

My suggestion is to fix the number of clusters at tick 1, and only add players to existing galaxies after then, giving everyone an 11th player, then a 12th and so on.

[Sun_Tzu]

Originally posted by hyfe
Illogical? Are you applying logic to how a wormhole is supposed to work?

either way its hugely irrelevant imo. If you're going for realism; how about fixing the targetting system?

indeed, that'd be great, remove all targetings so all firing is random(bcalcs are obsolete) and the set it so that you can hit your own units in battle(and other allied units), hitting your own more frequently the bigger your bashing of the enemy is.

Now that'd be exciting to play

[hyfe]

Originally posted by Andy_r
There seems to be a lot of support for wrap-round co-ordinates when calculating etas.

This has 2 problems (only one of which I realised when I posted in Spinner's thread)

1) the lowest cluster numbers will soon be too big to attack the newly inserted high clusters that are next to them.

2) what happens when a new cluster is inserted while ships are in motion across the discontinuity? Return etas would occasionally be longer than send etas? Could alliances sign up accounts in order to slow down enemy fleets?

My suggestion is to fix the number of clusters at tick 1, and only add players to existing galaxies after then, giving everyone an 11th player, then a 12th and so on.

That is all from the premise that all new added gals will be added to the same place. In a wrap around universe which have no ends; this would be and extremely silly thing to do

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by hyfe
Well.. as long as there is no specified center, I don't think the situation will become 'as bad' as it was r4, as there will be no really 'natural groupings'.

The groupings will be just as real whether they're "natural" or not. If you're close to a bunch of local galaxies that are allied against you, and your allies are all further away, then you're screwed. You'll be smacked down and there's nothing you, or you allies, can do about it.

Combined with random or semi-random galaxies i think is a good thing[tm]

Possibly; but when you tie major changes together it makes it rather difficult to evaluate them on their (individual) merits.

Were You expecting something more innovative? or hoping for something more innovative?

Yes. (both, actually)

... There is only so much you can do as long as you stay within the genre

I really hope you're wrong about that, because I think they've milked this particular genre for all it's worth. I don't see this R10 travel time proposal as being much different from r4 parallels. They've been mostly recycling ideas since R1 and I was really hoping they'd finally go for something a bit more radical.


Also, I think people are getting sidetracked on how the universe would wrap around and how new players/galaxies/clusters would be added. Technically, it's not really a difficult problem (not that PA couldn't manage to screw it up anyway ), but it's not really germane to how the proposed travel time would affect the game. Let's just stipulate that the universe wraps around and move on. If people really want to talk about universe geometry, perhaps someone could start a new thread?

[Gerbie]

When I look at how it is now: before the shuffle a lot of gals are opened. After the shuffle and combination of gals, empty gals remain. Those are still nog filled. All you need to do is fill the holes by randomly selecting an emtpy gal and filling it.

If you do random gals, you could also opt for a system with 10 people/gal where you can later add new players to each gal by lifting the maximum per gal to 11, 12...112(?!). Would be a nice feature.

[Chax]

Originally posted by KingGnome
I guess you could ask what the advantage of quake is over doom - being able to move around in 3d space is more complicated because we have this extra dimension, but the freedom of the player completely changed the genre...

I dont think that moving PA to 3d would have the same effect on PA as quake did to 3d shooters, but I really do think that the vast majority of gamers (not pa players, but gamers as a whole) would find the third dimension to be not a problem

I was following your argument up until this point. But now I don't get it any more.

There is a difference between Quake and Doom apart from the minimum requirements on hardware?

[hAl]

Originally posted by KingGnome
A universe wrapped at cluster 50 is bad - it would restrict the size of the universe... (or it would mean that some ppls gal m8's keep changing)

Personally, what I would like to see universe-organisation-wise would be something much much more complicated.

I would like to have all planets in a bubble - perhaps to make it simpler, it should be a set of 3d coordinates... coming out in a conceptual balloon, so as the universe grows, planets are added at the outside edge of this balloon (after shuffle ofc...)

your galaxy (or zone...) m8's could be the 8+9+9 ppl which differ by one digit - this might only be practical in a random universe... I'm not entirely sure about how private "galaxies" would work...


[x,y,z] --> zone m8's = [(x+1/x-1),(y+1,y,y-1),(z+1,z,z-1)]

The result of this would be the removal of galaxies as we imagine them (e.g. 3 of x,y,z's zonem8's are different to x+1,y,z's zonem8s)

With a system like that, and with time travel based on the euclidean(sp?) distance, it would make a huge difference to the way the game dynamics work...

one planet being the largest planet in the universe would no longer be able to directly threaten the 10th largest on the other side of the universe - since the 10th largest probably has sufficient allies slightly closer to get sufficient defence...

One of the largest drawbacks of this approach is that it would completely change the game of planetarion - but isnt that what R10 needs?

[edit: perhaps the "private galaxy" could be the 7 people involved in a 3d cross... would bring renewed meaning to the GC, since he'd be at the center and the only person who was closest to all of his "galaxy" (everyone else would have 1 person who was 1 space outside his closest neighbours) - I like that idea actually ]

Even with a balloon the people on the edge have a completly different kind of universe than people on the middle. Peoples location would still be importart to have any chance of them winning. And where the suggested wrapping idea might work (possibly) for a 2D universe it seems hard to implement for a 3d universe.

The galaxy idea forming from the natural alignent of the planets like in the 3d cross you suggest would mean that every planet was member in 6 gals and GC of a seventh. Amusing but unworkable. More practical would be a 3x3x3 cube forming a gal with 27 members.

hAl

[hAl]

Originally posted by Tactitus
As I stated in my reply to Spinner's thread, I don't think this would end up being much different from r4 parallels. If you liked r4 parallels, then you'll probably like the proposed R10 travel time. It doesn't really change much, imho. It just replaces a single alliance/powerblock dominating the whole universe with lots of local alliances dominating their local areas. Luck will be a big factor: if you end up close to a bunch of allied galaxies, you can work with them to dominate your area; if you end up close a bunch of enemy galaxies, well, you'll be screwed (most of your allies will be too far away to help you).

I guess I expecting something a bit more innovative.

What is different is that anyone in a local alliance as you call it has a different look upon the universe where in r4 parallel the situation in a par was the same for all. But if you have a localized alliance in an area then some gal might be closer to another hostile area than others or some might be closer to an unorganised area of the universe that is easy to roid.

In a parallel r4 like universe all galaxies within a para alliance were in the same situation and to cooperate was good but for all in a 2D universe the gals in the middle of an allied area have no close target or close enemies where the gals on the edge could have either.

hAl

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by hAl
What is different is that anyone in a local alliance as you call it has a different look upon the universe where in r4 parallel the situation in a par was the same for all.

Yes, but how different will it really be? If we're neighbors, then our travel times to most points in the universe will be the same. Yes, there will be a few places closer to you than me, and vice versa; but most of the universe will look the same (wrt travel time). Likewise, our neighbors once removed will have a few more planets that are closer or further away; but still, for most destinations, they will have the same travel times as we do.

But if you have a localized alliance in an area then some gal might be closer to another hostile area than others or some might be closer to an unorganised area of the universe that is easy to roid.

Yes, my galaxy might be closer to a hostile area than yours; but as long as you have the minimum travel time to defend me, then no problems, right?

Not to say there won't be a few interesting edge cases, but I think that for the vast majority of players, it'll be a lot like R4.

[MAdnRisKy]

Given the expected player base I would expect it to be a lot more like round 9 than round 4