SEV: Taking me to the edge of sanity

[Fyron]

If you play in windowed mode, you can use your PC for other things during the turn processing. Browse the web, chat on IRC, play other games (even SE4 heheh), etc. Its only in fullscreen that the window being out of focus causes it to halt processing.

[Phoenix-D]

hah, that'd be a trick. Play SE4 and SE5 at the same time, see which game you finish first.

[Slick]

Imperator Fyron said:
Slick said:
I'm thinking this is a negative consequence of going from square grids to hex grids.

Hexes have 6 adjacent locations to analyze, squares have 8. If anything, hexes should reduce the pathfinding calculations by virtue of 25% fewer adjacent locations to consider. Of course, if you optimize it to ignore squares/hexes that are in the opposite direction of the target, you pretty much have 3 versus 3 locations to consider. Sight and larger systems, plus double the movement, seem like they would have more of an effect than hex vs. square.

Except that your incorrect opinion does not reflect reality. Hex grids do require more math overall when compared to square grids. If hex grids provided more efficient pathing, then why aren't all 2D computer games coded for a hex grid? This is illustrated more especially in the early days of computer gaming, when computing power and graphics forced optimization everywhere. Nowadays, optimization is not so important to programmers. They expect their customers to store their bloatware on ever increasing storage devices and play their games with ever more powerful CPU's and graphics cards.

[Phoenix-D]

Slick, that's just silly. Many of the early PC wargames were ports of board versions, and they had hex grids. And PC games have -always- been prone to bloat. Its gotten a little worse lately, but not much more so.

[Fyron]

Slick said:
Except that your incorrect opinion does not reflect reality. Hex grids do require more math overall when compared to square grids.

More math overall? How so? You can find adjacent hexes exactly equivalently to square grids; the constant offset x,y coordinate values are different, but it is the same amount of math (add an x value, add a y value). You can efficiently represent and parse both hexes and squares in 2d arrays, with not much difference in computational complexity. We discussed this on IRC yesterday; some important bits:

<Vornicus> a hex system is just a square system with two specific paths disabled
...
<Vornicus> If you're looking at the linked object model, a hex only has six links where a grid has eight (and an ortho grid has four); if you're looking at the array index object model, then grid rejects (0,0) as nonadjacent, hex rejects x == y as nonadjacent, and orthogrid rejects (x + y) & 1 == 0 as nonadjacent
<Vornicus> it was a bit technical
<Vornicus> But the point is that a 2-d array can describe a hex grid as well as it describes a square grid.
<Vornicus> Anyway, without obstructions, a path is found almost trivially

If hex grids provided more efficient pathing, then why aren't all 2D computer games coded for a hex grid?

Because they are weird-looking, and most games are designed for the masses?

[Slick]

See, that's the thing. When a kooky theory conflicts with reality, it doesn't need to be argued. Hex map games (board games) have been around since well before your were born and most of them are still around. They sell just fine. They aren't wierd-looking. They are actually more natural looking and they map an area most efficiently for polygonal mapping. This is why you find hex grids in nature, but not square grids (honeycombs, crystal structure; there are many examples). The only thing more efficient is free movement. Yes, of course, these games are desinged for the masses, who else would they be designed for? But are you really trying to say that people wouldn't buy a hex map game because it is "wierd-looking"? Or are you trying to say that programmers fear a creating "weird-looking" product and fear that the "masses" wouldn't like it? That makes no sense at all. If the programmer was so worried about how it looked, he could easily use whichever grid system he chooses and not make the grid viewable, but we don't see that either; most grid games allow turning on the grid.

[Fyron]

Kooky theory? Geeze, sorry for hazarding a guess... Can you point out any mass-market (PC) games that used hexes? All I can think of use floating point or squares.

Anyways, this is all tangential to the point that hex grids don't necessarily require any more computational power than square grids...

[President_Elect_Shang]

Imperator Fyron said:
Can you point out any mass-market games that used hexes?

Heroscape; but I agree the hex should be better than the square.

[Phoenix-D]

Imperator Fyron said:
Kooky theory? Geeze, sorry for hazarding a guess... Can you point out any mass-market (PC) games that used hexes? All I can think of use floating point or squares.

Almost every wargame ever made?

[Fyron]

"mass-market" is an important qualifier there. Wargames are generally even more niche than TBS space opera games.