Straight vs. Diagonal

[Suicide Junkie]

He said it would be hard to convert to a hex grid.

Fractional movement would IMO overly complicate things for a little more realism.

I've just accepted it and gotten used to seeing distances as virtual boxes. ie. range 6 is not a circle around your ship, but a square.

[Fred]

hmm,

but you don't need fractions...a ship with 5 mp can just go 3 sq diagonal, a ship with 9 mp can just go 6 sq diagonal.

And the computer is..able to handle the internal use of fractions..

Fred

[Suicide Junkie]

How would you handle telling the user these things? Any ship that finishes its orders would have a 50/50 chance of having a fractional movement remaining.
Is 1/2 movement enough to use stellar manip?
Is a ship with 1/2 a movement able to move at all?
Can you move half a square, and finish the move on the nest turn?

The system as is is quite straightforward.

[Marty Ward]

I guess the best way to look at it is the movement points don't make sense but it works. But since this is space isn't using 2D movement weird to begin with?

[raynor]

I'm glad someone else finally mentioned the skewed movement system in the game. Though, I would keep it very simple and make every diagonal move cost exactly the same as moving along the horizontal and vertical. So, every diagonal move would require *two* movement points.

[PvK]

quote:

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Originally posted by raynor:
I'm glad someone else finally mentioned the skewed movement system in the game. Though, I would keep it very simple and make every diagonal move cost exactly the same as moving along the horizontal and vertical. So, every diagonal move would require *two* movement points.

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I think that would be a step in the wrong direction, myself. Ideally I think I'd like a coordinate system. I don't mind the existing system much though because it seems clear to me that the map (like many other aspects of the game mechanics) is a very broad abstraction of a game element where a representation would be some combination of very complex and inaccurate (i.e. 3 dimensions, inertia, gravity, orbiting planets, asteroid belt rings...).

I wouldn't mind if diagonals cost more, but the correct fraction is much closer to 1.4 than 1.5... ;->

As for SJ's questions below, I would answer no, no, and no. Then, fractional diagonals would also be relatively straightforward. I don't think it's a big deal for "realism" though, since the maps and movement are already clearly very abstract.

Oh, but if you do change tactical movement costs, then you MUST change weapons ranges to match. The AI might also need some re-tooling. All in all, I don't see this as an SEIV change MM will want to do, or that I'd want to see, especially compared with what else might be done with the programming effort!

PvK

[DirectorTsaarx]

Just to add to the complexity of the problem: how big is each square in the game? We can "fudge" the straight vs. diagonal distance somewhat by thinking of the square being much bigger than a ship, and therefore the ship could be anywhere in the square, and some of that "inaccuracy" in position could account for some of the discrepancies between straight distance vs. diagonal distance.

Finally, if hex-based movement systems are that much harder to program, then it might not be as easy as it sounds to account for fractional movement. Not to mention the headaches I'll get trying to decide if I'm in weapons range of the enemy if we try to account for the diagonals. (Although the AI would probably handle it much better, thus giving an apparent increase in AI combat ability, at least until we all get used to a new range system...)