artificial starlanes

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Rapunzel
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artificial starlanes

#1 Post by Rapunzel »

just want to bring back up an idea createt a year ago.
I was away for a while, but couldn't find anything else to this matter.

"The Void"

If the general idea fixed about starlanes prevent such a construct a "artificial starlanes" then please say so.

I do not want to discuss the starlanes at general or the of road travel since they are not open for debate, so please don't post such things here.
Dieser Text basiert ausschließlich auf frei erfundener Interpunktion und Orthographie. Jegliche Uebereinstimmungen mit geltenden Regelungen sind rein zufaellig und wurden nicht beabsichtigt.

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#2 Post by noelte »

artificial starlanes haven't anything to do with what you try to introduce. artificial starlanes will (if they are in) connect systems. You won't be able to select one starlane entry to be at the void.
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Rapunzel
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#3 Post by Rapunzel »

I was simply refering to that old thread, since it had some discussion on creating artificial starlanes.
The void could still be discussed in that thread, but since we have empty systems, Black holes or such, there may not be a need for the void at all.
In any case the two points can be handled independently.
In this thread I only want to suggest the possibility of creating you own artificial starlanes. These should take several turn to build (so that the AI hase some warning up frant that things are going to change) and should be very vounarable at both sides, not to mention the maintainace.
The benefit coudld be to connect physically close parts of your empire, which are fare away from each other, speaking in existing starlane terms.
Dieser Text basiert ausschließlich auf frei erfundener Interpunktion und Orthographie. Jegliche Uebereinstimmungen mit geltenden Regelungen sind rein zufaellig und wurden nicht beabsichtigt.

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Geoff the Medio
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#4 Post by Geoff the Medio »

I put notes on starlane creation, and destruction, on my wiki musings page.

I suspect it would be done with effects, and be well-linked to the concept of starlane visibility as well.

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#5 Post by Rapunzel »

I would think that starlanes would need some stucture supporting them (like in Babylon 5).
So first of the sturctures would have to be build on both sides and are easy targets, so that no missuse like (create new starlane to enemy homeworld) is likely.
Dieser Text basiert ausschließlich auf frei erfundener Interpunktion und Orthographie. Jegliche Uebereinstimmungen mit geltenden Regelungen sind rein zufaellig und wurden nicht beabsichtigt.

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#6 Post by Kharagh »

I think artificial starlanes are a great idea.

They offer totally new stratigic possibilities and enable you to draw your colonized worlds closer together. Doing it with structures from both sides of the lane seems like a good way to prevent overpowering them.

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#7 Post by Rapunzel »

There could be a problem with the drawing of the new starlane though.
As I have learned the lane-generation-code trys not to have overlapping lanes, or lanes intersecting not connected stars.
Maby artivicial lanes would have to have a different color or something the like.
Dieser Text basiert ausschließlich auf frei erfundener Interpunktion und Orthographie. Jegliche Uebereinstimmungen mit geltenden Regelungen sind rein zufaellig und wurden nicht beabsichtigt.

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Geoff the Medio
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#8 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Rapunzel wrote:As I have learned the lane-generation-code trys not to have overlapping lanes, or lanes intersecting not connected stars.
Maby artivicial lanes would have to have a different color or something the like.
The algorithm that generates the starlanes starts with a Delauney triangulation of the star systems. That connects all systems to the nearest other systems such that the angles between the connections (the starlanes) are as big as possible. This means that crossed starlanes just will not happen, and lanes passing near other systems they're not connected to only happen on the edges of the map where there's no possible way to avoid it.

The actual starlanes on a map are just a few of the potential lanes in the Delauney triangulation. Many of the lanes in the triangulation are removed, in order to make the map more interesting (but still fully connected).

I figured that player-created starlanes would have to lie on the same potential starlane pathes as the ones at the start of the game: the lines of the Delauney triangulation. This would ensure that no crossed lanes occur.

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#9 Post by Rapunzel »

Geoff the Medio wrote:I figured that player-created starlanes would have to lie on the same potential starlane pathes as the ones at the start of the game: the lines of the Delauney triangulation. This would ensure that no crossed lanes occur.
This would mean, that the player can't choose the start-/end-star freely according to the limit of his tech, so there would have to be some way to make all possible starlanes visible a system could actually have.
Furthermore I don't know if the lanes on such a triagulation would satisfy a player that want's to build a "shortcut" in his empire. Propably trying to connect far away parts without may stop's at Systems in beetwean (Which can make the travel only longer).
Dieser Text basiert ausschließlich auf frei erfundener Interpunktion und Orthographie. Jegliche Uebereinstimmungen mit geltenden Regelungen sind rein zufaellig und wurden nicht beabsichtigt.

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Zanzibar
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#10 Post by Zanzibar »

The way wormholes worked in Moo 3 could work... they were a completely different color from regular star lanes, and could be easily distinguished. Of course, it won't take 1 turn to go instantly across your empire that way, but the idea applies.
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Geoff the Medio
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#11 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Rapunzel wrote:This would mean, that the player can't choose the start-/end-star freely according to the limit of his tech, so there would have to be some way to make all possible starlanes visible a system could actually have.
Yes... why would that be a problem?
Furthermore I don't know if the lanes on such a triagulation would satisfy a player that want's to build a "shortcut" in his empire. Propably trying to connect far away parts without may stop's at Systems in beetwean (Which can make the travel only longer).
The most useful / desirable shortcut would be between two adjacent systems that could be, but just happen to be not connected... so that instead of a one or two turn movement, you've got to go around a big loop and it takes 8 or 10 turns to get where you're going. If you want to get somewehre half way across the map, you can just make several shorter lanes. This wouldn't be a significant increase in travel time, and the whole point of the lanes is to make some meaningful geometry to the map so you can have front lines and blockades and such... if we start allowing lanes anywhere, we're sort of back to effectively having no lanes (or hidden lanes between all stars) which is contrary to this design point.

There was some extended discussion about the relative merits of having lanes that cross other lanes and whether this looked good / was confusing / hard to make sense of. Initially I thought it wouldn't be a problem, but after trying it out, I changed my mind and now agree that it's best to avoid crossed lanes. This would extend to player created lanes as well.

And the Delauney triangulation is pretty good. You can get a direct connection to most of the close-by systems, and the further away ones will be not very far off of a straight line by passing through a nearby system.

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#12 Post by Rapunzel »

Geoff the Medio wrote:The most useful / desirable shortcut would be between two adjacent systems that could be, but just happen to be not connected... so that instead of a one or two turn movement, you've got to go around a big loop and it takes 8 or 10 turns to get where you're going.
After some thinking this seems right. Making longer lanes seems interresting at first, but does not make the Systms closer to each other ...
Dieser Text basiert ausschließlich auf frei erfundener Interpunktion und Orthographie. Jegliche Uebereinstimmungen mit geltenden Regelungen sind rein zufaellig und wurden nicht beabsichtigt.

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