Will the real Experimeter system please stand up?

[defaultuser]

Normally, if you spot a disconnected system, then you know where the Experimenters are even if you don't have the Detection level up high enough. Then there is this:

fo9.jpg (121.49 KiB) Viewed 1898 times

Hmm. TWO systems. And both have Kraken nests with nowhere for them to go, so they're building up. From previous discussion of another problem, I understand that the map is laid out first, then the Outpost positioned and connections removed. I suspect that the original looked something like:

fo9a.jpg (120.7 KiB) Viewed 1898 times

Making Elnath the true Experimenter system.

[MatGB]

Yup, or Locris. That's not the worst I've seen (someone put a screenshot up of several cutoff) but it's fairly indicative of the problem. Worst I've had myself was on a spiral galaxy setup and they spawned about a 3rd of the way along an arm, cutting off the entire rest of the arm from the galaxy, including an AI player. Before starlane bores, had to defeat them carefully in order to then mop up the map.

I really think we need to have the Experimentors as part of galaxy creation and placed the same way as AIs, possibly as if they're another species, the current syste, while mostly working, is too prone to errors.

[defaultuser]

Elnath is indeed the Experimenter system. As a bonus, there are currently twelve Great Krakens penned up in there as well (turn 255). They are waiting to try to burst forth with their cousins to cause havoc. As I have wrapped up the rest of the map and am waiting, their freedom will be short-lived I'm afraid.

[Vezzra]

I really think we need to have the Experimentors as part of galaxy creation and placed the same way as AIs, possibly as if they're another species, the current syste, while mostly working, is too prone to errors.

Yes, absolutely. Moving the code for creating/placing the Experimentors to the universe generation Python scripts will simplify things and offer far more flexibility. E.g. instead of disconneting an already existing system with all the hassles that come with this, just create an additional system. No more headaches about disconnecting entire parts of the map...

[defaultuser]

Out of curiosity, in the current system are the lanes the Experimenters open the old ones that were erased, or just random ones to nearby systems?

[Vezzra]

Out of curiosity, in the current system are the lanes the Experimenters open the old ones that were erased, or just random ones to nearby systems?

The latter.

[LGM-Doyle]

Creating a new system has the problem of not fitting into the galaxy morphology: cluster, spiral etc.

However, after Fix bug #563 stars systems too far apart lands, I think that it will be straightforward enough to use the DisjointSet implementation to select a system after the empires are placed and ask the question, "Will removing this system's starlanes isolate any other systems?" in a timely fashion.

[Vezzra]

Creating a new system has the problem of not fitting into the galaxy morphology: cluster, spiral etc.

Good point. Can be circumvented by selecting and removing one of the system positions before starlane creation and creating a system at that position afterwards though.

However, after Fix bug #563 stars systems too far apart lands, I think that it will be straightforward enough to use the DisjointSet implementation to select a system after the empires are placed and ask the question, "Will removing this system's starlanes isolate any other systems?" in a timely fashion.

With an algorithm like that already in place that would be another viable solution of course.

[MatGB]

If it's going to be part of the Python setup, then placing them before empires would make sense, add flexibility to placement, etc. Plus, you could make it much more likely they appear in roughly the middle of the map not out to one extreme, reducing the luck element for players seeking to avoid or beat them (in a multiplayer game on a large map, I'd be annoyed if my opponent 'won' before I'd even managed to explore to that side of the map, for example).