Off Topic Thread

[Xrati]

Tired of using the same old thread to go off topic in? Well put it here... :p

[MarcoPolo]

Ok I have a topic of sorts, given this game centres on planet colonisation, thoughts of Avatar and planet Pandora come to mind, hehe.

In recent years the discovery of exoplanets (planets outside our own solar system) have been on the rise. As instrumentation becomes more and more sophisticated, the likelihood of scientists stumbling upon an Earth-like terrestrial planet in our lifetimes, is ever more probable.

There are even plans by NASA and the ESA in this coming decade to launch satellites with highly sensitive equipment capable of detecting terrestrial worlds upto half the size of Earth. Projects like the ESA's Darwin, COROT and NASAs Terrestrial Planet Finder (http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/TPF/tpf_what_is.cfm) are among some. Of course the expectations are lofty but within reason, given the advancements in inferometer technology coming along way.

How would this impact human culture and beliefs if another Earth like planet was discovered around Alpha Centauri (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri) and would there be a renewed interest in space exploration if this were the case? Given that this scenario is likely to occur within the next decade or so and certainly almost guaranteed within the next 30 odd years.

[Xrati]

"To boldly go, where no man has gone before" comes to mind! ;)

[jars_u]

Sticking to Their Guns: BioShock 2 Devs Revive XCOM… as a First-Person Shooter

http://www.xcom.com/index.html

[InfStorm]

How would this impact human culture and beliefs if another Earth like planet was discovered around Alpha Centauri (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri) and would there be a renewed interest in space exploration if this were the case? Given that this scenario is likely to occur within the next decade or so and certainly almost guaranteed within the next 30 odd years.

The impact would be negligeable so long as fusion technology remains outside of our grasp. We simply do now have the technology required to build interplanetary ships, much less interstellar ships that would survive in the cold reality of space. Radiation, water & air requiremets, and survival of several humans stuck into a small space for an extended period of time are huge hurdles we sill need to resolve first, no matter how many earth-like worlds there are.

[Xrati]

Augh!!! :doh: Just a few minor details!!! :re:
Let's get going! :D

[Gregstrom]

The impact would be negligeable so long as fusion technology remains outside of our grasp. We simply do now have the technology required to build interplanetary ships, much less interstellar ships that would survive in the cold reality of space. Radiation, water & air requiremets, and survival of several humans stuck into a small space for an extended period of time are huge hurdles we sill need to resolve first, no matter how many earth-like worlds there are.

I'm not sure how essential fusion technology is. For that matter, Orion (the 1950's-1960's one) could quite reasonably have gone interplanetary (and maybe interstellar the slooow way) if people were willing to put up with the downsides.

[Astorax]

Hey guys, thought I would drop by and see how things are going. Would love a status update - project still going, that sort of thing.

Looking forward to this game release!



-Astorax

[Ed Kolis]

Oh, it is still going... sorry for the lack of updates!

This week, along with various behind-the-scenes changes/fixes/additions, there are now realistic units of distance (km, ls, au, ly), and the "mod editor" app now supports saving and loading, though you still can't edit much of anything yet!

The "realistic units of distance" probably merits a bit of explanation: Yes, a planet might have a radius of, say, 5,243 kilometers. And yes, it could be several au from the planet to its star, which might have a radius of 1,000,000 km. And the next star over, yes, that might be 5 ly away!

So how do we display everything on screen without it all being teeny tiny little sub-pixel-sized dots? :P

That's where logarithms come in :D Since the scale of space IS so vast, we're now using a logarithmic display scale for the zoomed-out views of objects; only VAST differences in size will be noticeable. So Jupiter will look bigger than Earth, but not that MUCH bigger, at least not until you zoom in on it (we're still maintaining the actual sizes for collision detection and zoomed-in views!)

[Astorax]

Hey Ed! Good to hear its still chugging along and making progress. Could you hazard a guess as to how far along you are? Say, half way done? lol, sorry, I'm just anxious for new games and a purported "SE 4.5" catches my fancy!

Been playing Distant Worlds and its pretty good. They are ironing some bugs out but so far so good.

Hope you guys are well.

-Astorax

[Louist]

So Ed, this means that ships will have two speeds, one for travel within a system, and one for between systems? And if so, with both speeds be the product of a single all-purpose engine, or are there separate engines for each type of movement?

As to DW, I've been having an issue with AI automation. Even when I tell the AI to take care of negotiations, gifts, and treaties (Or however that option was termed), I am still forced to deal with every message sent my empire's way. Am I misreading that option, or is there something else I am missing? I've been trying to role-play as my empire's most advanced cruiser, but a foreign message every 10 minutes is really breaking the immersion!

[Astorax]

Yes, unfortunately, the diplomacy is the only part of the automation that isn't fully automated, lol. I really like the feel of the game though and they are majorly responsive to the community, kicking out extra things and bugfixes in patches pretty quick. Reminds me a lot of Stardock actually.

[Ed Kolis]

Yes, ships will have more than one speed attribute:

1. Jump speed - used for interstellar travel. Restricted to jump lanes (think warp points that take time to traverse; ships cannot be intercepted or commanded while jumping).

2. Acceleration - used for in-system travel, and (slow) interstellar travel apart from jump lanes. Movement will be newtonian (no fuel cost to coast, no speed limits, takes time and fuel to slow down).

We haven't quite worked out the combat mechanics yet, but combat will either use the newtonian mechanics from in-system travel, OR it will use a combination of that and a "maneuverability" system. Depends on whether we have tactical combat or not (tactical combat in multiplayer is looking rather unfeasible, but in single player it would be doable, just not a top priority at the moment), as well as how the newtonian mechanics work out in practice!

The way this maneuverability system would work is, combat would be turn-based, and fleets would be stuck on little "plates" - regions of space that they're confined to, with the size determined by their acceleration attribute. Each round of combat, the plates would shift in space based on their current strategic speed, acceleration, and orders from the previous game turn ("pursue other fleet" or "maintain course to Rigel" or whatever). Then the ships in turn could maneuver on the fleet-plates in a non-newtonian fashion (e.g. "move 3 km forward" or whatever); each ship would be confined to its fleet-plate, though, to avoid breaking the strategic movement calculations. Then ships would fire weapons if possible, and you go back to the plate-shifting phase, until the fleets are out of weapons range or all but one side is wiped out.

It would be interesting in this system, actually, if capital ships had little or even zero maneuverability, while fighters could zip around like crazy... would put more emphasis on the fleet formations and strategies, since you couldn't tweak those to any significant degree in combat if the maneuverability was so poor!

[Baron Munchausen]

With jump drives and maneuver drives being separate, does this mean we can finally have a distinction between "jump ships" and "system ships"? That's a major point of tactical ship design that we've never had in the SE series. By making the jump drive large and expensive, you can give a decent advantage to the defensive side because system-only ships will be inherently cheaper. And carriers for larger ships than fighters will make a lot of sense.

[Ed Kolis]

Yes, that's the plan :) As a matter of fact, we were discussing docking at yesterday's meeting... seems like we came to the conclusion that without "sectors" in the game, the easiest way to implement repair in a fair manner is to require the ship being repaired to dock at the repair ship, or vice versa!

[Astorax]

Ed, that makes sense. A question though: Would repairing a ship take resources or would it basically be dock + time = done? What I mean is would your repair ship need to construct components with resources and then repair the ship? What type of model is being used for this?

[Ed Kolis]

We were discussing that issue too, and it seems the consensus is, since we're going to use the "build an empty/broken hull, and fill/fix the components" model (like SE3), it would make sense for repairs, like construction, to use resources, since the two are basically identical.

I know SE3 didn't do it QUITE like that - you paid the entire cost for the hull and all associated components up front, rather than just paying for stuff as it gets built, while repairs were free - but this way seems more consistent :)

[Astorax]

Hmm, so is having the resources modeled? What I mean is would the repair ship physically have to pick up the resources and carry them to the damaged ship or site to build a new whatever and build components from resources in-ship?

It would probably be easier to abstract that to just -resources from your Empires total but it is cool to actually model it.

[dumbluck]

I don't know, astorax, that sounds a bit like micromanagement hell to me.

[Astorax]

No, that part would be automatic. It would require, however, that there be all available resources needed on the world to begin with.

Meh.

It would probably be easier just to abstract it all, I suppose.

[Xrati]

EASY is always better!!! :D

[jars_u]

...if capital ships had little or even zero maneuverability, while fighters could zip around like crazy... would put more emphasis on the fleet formations and strategies...

:up: I think that sounds like an excellent implementation. Would also allow firing arcs for capital ships to have meaningful repercussions for both design and combat strategies. Also if capital ships didn't "dog fight" as much as ships generally do in 4X games having a system where ship Captains are able to grant minor benefits (as sometimes seen in RTS, +1 defense, etc.) could help further tailor a players style.

[jars_u]

...does this mean we can finally have a distinction between "jump ships" and "system ships...

They were forced to eat Robin's minstrels... and there was much rejoicing.

[jars_u]

Saw Flotilla on Steam today - never heard of it or http://www.blendogames.com/ before and while it has some obvious limitations it for me is also intriguing enough to put money down on it. Thought it would be of interest to the SL thread on its own merits but also very applicable to the SL ship design/combat discussions.

Review: Flotilla, or Ender’s Game: The Game (http://www.charge-shot.com/2010/03/review-flotilla-or-enders-game-game.html)

FLOTILLA gameplay (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN5fJB0bo48&feature=related)

[jars_u]

...Been playing Distant Worlds and its pretty good...

How in general terms is combat and ship design handled in Distant Worlds? From looking at some of the video online I get the impression it is a RTS - select all gaggle kind of affair. How does ship design compare to SE4?

[jars_u]

I'm curious to solicit thoughts from people who have played

Distant Worlds (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/distantworlds?q=Distant%20Worlds) and Armada 2526 (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/armada2526?q=armada%202526)

in general what they like or dislike (as it pertains to wanting or not wanting to see in SL) and if you feel they were worth parting with your money for (or perhaps would be when the price drops).

I haven't spent any real time playing Flotilla (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/flotilla?q=flotilla) yet so haven't any real insights to share yet.

Thanks.

[getter77]

http://starruler.blind-mind.com/ Star Ruler

Yet another 4x dealie for Star Legacy to compete with. :cool: I find the timing of all these ambitious projects popping up one after another after stewing all this time to be quite delightful. Should be something for everybody's tastes and really give a shot in the arm to the entire genre set.

Big dev Q/A thread, where one of the staff is actually a Goon, over at SomethingAwful in the Games forum.

[jars_u]

I find the timing of all these ambitious projects popping up one after another after stewing all this time to be quite delightful.

I agree - I'm glad to see the genre is alive and well. Here are a couple of other projects/recent releases that might be of interest:

Star Ruler (http://starruler.blind-mind.com/)

Thousand Parsec (http://thousandparsec.net/tp/)

Free Orion (http://www.freeorion.org/index.php/Main_Page)

Aphelion: Phoenix Rising (http://wyvernstudios.net/)

Distant Worlds (http://www.matrixgames.com/products/379/details/Distant.Worlds)

Armada 2526 (http://www.matrixgames.com/products/376/details/Armada.2526)

Flotilla (http://www.blendogames.com/flotilla/)

[MarcoPolo]

Oh, it is still going... sorry for the lack of updates!

This week, along with various behind-the-scenes changes/fixes/additions, there are now realistic units of distance (km, ls, au, ly), and the "mod editor" app now supports saving and loading, though you still can't edit much of anything yet!

The "realistic units of distance" probably merits a bit of explanation: Yes, a planet might have a radius of, say, 5,243 kilometers. And yes, it could be several au from the planet to its star, which might have a radius of 1,000,000 km. And the next star over, yes, that might be 5 ly away!

So how do we display everything on screen without it all being teeny tiny little sub-pixel-sized dots? :P

That's where logarithms come in :D Since the scale of space IS so vast, we're now using a logarithmic display scale for the zoomed-out views of objects; only VAST differences in size will be noticeable. So Jupiter will look bigger than Earth, but not that MUCH bigger, at least not until you zoom in on it (we're still maintaining the actual sizes for collision detection and zoomed-in views!)

Great news Ed Kolis! This is music to my ears. Finally a logarithmic scale system integrated with an epic space strategy game :)

I don't think it has ever been done before but mind you I will be completely fulfilled with such attention to detail.

Some space strategy hardcore fans are very focused on combat styles and how things will be weighed up. Being an astronomy buff as well as into military strategy and heavily into facts/figures and logistical considerations... I tend to embrace realism as well as the entertainment or X factor.

Very few people understand how vast space is. And I enjoyed the days of Elite when games of the 80s also tried to educate us by trying to create a guestimate to how our stellar neighbourhood might be.

I hope Star Legacy will have a real stellar map mode, where you can start an empire from earth, whereby all stars (at least within the 1st 100ly) are represented accurately (by that I mean distances and star types and sizes)

Here I found a clip that I think sums up astronomical scale nicely WOW (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q)
Note that the last star (biggest known to date) would put its diameter almost at the orbit of Saturn!!!

[MarcoPolo]

I'm curious to solicit thoughts from people who have played

Distant Worlds (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/distantworlds?q=Distant%20Worlds) and Armada 2526 (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/armada2526?q=armada%202526)

in general what they like or dislike (as it pertains to wanting or not wanting to see in SL) and if you feel they were worth parting with your money for (or perhaps would be when the price drops).

I haven't spent any real time playing Flotilla (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/flotilla?q=flotilla) yet so haven't any real insights to share yet.

Thanks.

I am actually currently playing Armada 2526, And I must say it has a way of growing on you. But maybe because I have had so little time to figure out its nuances. I am not sure if it would hold my interest as much if I was playing it for more than a few hours every lazy Sunday or so.

However I will say this about it, it falls short of what I would call a truly immersive game universe. I am sympathetic towards its building construction and tech tree, to a point. But its weaknesses is definitely the way war is waged. Very uninspiring and short lived. I would have preferred a Sins of a Solar Empire style engine or even a 2D gratuitous space battles style (if gfx and developing an upto date engine proved too costly)

As for FreeOrion, its ok as far as 1st impressions are concerned. But its more like a game I would of played in the 90s than something I would even give a chance to today. Its very conservative and lacks any innovation or ingenuity.

I also got a copy of Lost Empire Immortals (http://www.paradoxplaza.com/lostempire/), but I have from 1st impressions deemed Armada 2526 the worthier candidate. Lost Empire just seems way too repetitive for my liking, and despite it having its unique system of planet resource building, its still quite unpalatable for me.

However Star Ruler seems worthy of a look by me. I'm not too sure about Thousand Parsec, seems dated and constrained by a tiny budget.

Here are some more stellar scales for you amusements

HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FwCMnyWZDg)

Stellar Scales and the Future of Planet Detection

PlanetQuest (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5GLEzunf84&feature=related)

As well as some real life star system comparisons.

5 Worlds of Kepler (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaf-nPAW7Fs&feature=related)

Five Exoplanets (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoXCWRel_Io&feature=related)

First Time Photos of Extrasolar Planets (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt_dGm2qALA&feature=related)

Corot 7b (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCX-e0qT6IE&feature=related)

Gleise 5c (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmTjAmop688&feature=related)

[Ed Kolis]

To get back off-topic, thought I'd share some nursery rhymes... programmer style! :D


// Little Bunny Foofoo v1.0 beta
public static void Main()
{
var foofoo = new Bunny();
foofoo.Size = 0.001; // foofoo is a little bunny
var forest = new Forest();
forest.PopulateMice(typeof(FieldMouse), 50); // TODO - more diverse mouse population
foofoo.HandleMice(forest);
var fairy = new Fairy(Alignment.Good);
for (var chances = 3; chances > 0; chances--)
{
fairy.SetDesiredVisibilityOf(foofoo, "mouse handling", false);
fairy.Warn(foofoo, "mouse handling", "goonification", chances);
foofoo.HandleMice(Forest);
}
fairy.SendLink(foofoo, "somethingawful.com"); // should turn him into a goon!
}
// Mouse event handler
private static void HandleMice(this Bunny bunny, Forest forest)
{
foreach (var mouse in forest.Mice.OfType<FieldMouse>())
{
bunny.Scoop(mouse); // prevents mouse out of range exception
bunny.Bop(mouse.Head);
}
}

REM ANNUAL TODO LIST
1 PRINT "1-2 BUCKLE SHOE"
2 GOSUB BUKLSHOE
3 PRINT "3-4 SHUT DOOR"
4 GOSUB SHUTDOOR
5 PRINT "5-6 PICK UP STICKS"
6 GOSUB PIKUPSTX
7 PRINT "7-8 LAY THEM STRAIGHT"
8 GOSUB LAYMSTRT
9 PRINT "9-10 BEGIN AGAIN"
10 GOTO 1

// Dog Finding Script
// TODO - figure out why we're getting out of memory errors
function FindMyLittleDog() {
// Find all dogs in world
var dogs = Array();
for (var i = 0; i < world.length; i++) {
if (world[i].type == "dog")
dogs.append(world[i]);
}
// Criterion: it's a little dog
var littleDogs = Array();
for (var i = 0; i < dogs.length; i++) {
if (dogs[i].height < 15)
littleDogs.append(dogs[i]);
}
// Criterion: it's a he
var littleMaleDogs = Array();
for (var i = 0; i < littleDogs.length; i++) {
if (littleDogs[i].sex[0] == 'M' || littleDogs[i].sex[0] == 'm')
littleMaleDogs.append(littleDogs[i]);
}
// TODO - check with SPCA on ethicality of these next search criteria
var withCuts = Array();
for (var i = 0; i < littleMaleDogs.length; i++) {
if (littleMaleDogs[i].cuts["ears"] < 5 && littleMaleDogs[i].cuts["tail"] > 10)
withCuts.append(littleMaleDogs[i]);
}
// Where oh where could he be?!?
return FindMyLittleDog();
}

[Gandalf Parker]

You might get a real kick out of this..
http://www.99-bottles-of-beer.net/
I often refer to it when people are discussing different program languages and trying to choose one.

(Oh and I love the SA Goons reference)

[Smight]

Any news , is the project still alive:confused:

[Kwayne]

It is, though there are holes in game design documentation we should fill before progressing forward. Too bad we announced the game without a complete game design document but that's just how much amateurs we are.

[Gregstrom]

I don't think that necessarily makes you amateurs (Elemental?). Also, there wouldn't have been so much interesting discussion if the design documentation was complete.

[Kwayne]

I don't think that necessarily makes you amateurs (Elemental?). Also, there wouldn't have been so much interesting discussion if the design documentation was complete.

Yes but no matter how interesting they are, discussions won't make a game done. It would be less disappointing for everyone if you knew what is to be expected, yet you got nothing from us except an irresponsible announcement from last year. Without a full GDD those promises raised false expectations we have no choice but to betray, especially when it comes to the time of release.

[dumbluck]

I for one would much rather see the release date promise broken in favor of fixing gameplay issues. Just because everyone else releases beta code (or sometimes even alpha code!) for purchase, doesn't mean that you have to. Buck the Trend! Forge your own path! and all that stuff....