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Star locations: Static or Dynamic?

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 9:04 pm
by Cossid
I've started different parts of random new galaxy creation, and this is one of the first things that popped into my head, what is everybody's opinion? Which then turns into a second question, of how to handle the hidden stars? :) Hidden stars don't really seem to have a place in a dynamic galaxy as best I can see it.

Re: Star locations: Static or Dynamic?

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 11:57 am
by sross
I voted static, here's why:

The location of the stars in the galaxy doesn't really matter, as the dynamic part of the game will be the planets within each star. I think that randomness is enough to satisfy the game's needs and adhere to the philosophy of a new look and feel per new galaxy.

I also like the idea of hidden stars, although I believe those were included by accident (bug) not as a feature. To be a feature, we need to come up with a viable story. Am I correct in that assumption?

Thanks for the question, Willis. Hope I added some depth

-Scott

Re: Star locations: Static or Dynamic?

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:21 pm
by Cossid
Yes, the at least 5 of the 6 (or was it 4 of the 5, I don't remember now) were edge stars that just weren't able to display with the drawing method avaialable, they got clipped off. 4096 I'm still now sure why, aside from it being the last number, nothing else really stands out for that one.

There is really no point in doing any hidden stars if you have a dynamic layout, as it takes too long to find them to be useful or beneficial.

But I also had in my head to ask, in the case of static layout, whether it should be exact layout equal to SE, or a fresh start on a static generation. Regenerating exacts from SE is possible, but it will certainly be time consuming.

The more I think about it, the more I lean towards dynamic location with no hidden, but that is my opinion.

Re: Star locations: Static or Dynamic?

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 6:31 pm
by monty
John Taylor and Kilton Flinn were amazed when the Dorsai! published maps for the MW3 Galaxy in an open Forum.

They weren't amazed that someone had maps -- they'd rather been expecting it.

They were amazed that those who had maps did not keep them secret.

So why did the Dorsai! publish the maps?

They figured -- correctly -- that noone else would be able to get organized enough to exploit the maps effectively.

The axiom was, "All change favors the Dorsai!"

Re: Star locations: Static or Dynamic?

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 10:27 pm
by Hetulik
As I think about this question -- static or dynamic I really have no preferance. Whichever would be easier to code I'd have to say. If about the same complexity dynamic might be cool and allow more flexibility.

I do have another dimension to this discussion. SE had 4096 stars and a 10x10 star map. It seemed like the hab and met ratings were relatively consistent across all the 4 week wars.

I'd like to propose more effort be spent into putting some flexibility into the map creation. 4096 stars are too many if there are only 50 active players initially. 4096 stars might not be enough if the game really takes off. So going dynamic and having an ability to influence the number of stars might be interesting. Additionally perhaps have flexibility on the quality of planets. Maybe have a game where the 95+ habs are really sparse. Or have more stars, but fewer nice planets -- as that would be another way if the number of active players is small to not have a plethora of good planets. Fewer nice planets leads to better competition.

A static map with hidden stars i don't care for that much. If we went dynamic -- hidden stars could become a feature at some point in time. I don't think any effort should be put into creating hidden stars.

Also i wouldn't spend time trying to recreate the exact SE starmap. Something similar would be fine.

Hetulik

Re: Star locations: Static or Dynamic?

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 10:36 pm
by Cossid
I really like the idea of having control over number of stars and quality of planets also, which is a part of why this topic is raised.

Then off on yet another tangent, there is the fact that dynamic layouts would make it harder for 'botting' or having AI do work, but at the same time require that the full map coords still be sent out once per war to each player in some format, which could still lead back to botting just the same, just a bit more difficult.

Dynamic locations is certainly the easiest from a coding standpoint, as those are very simple random locations, whereas static would be either a) creating a dynamic layout and standardizing it (quick, but inflexible), or b) mirroring an original layout (pretty time consuming, and inflexible).

Re: Star locations: Static or Dynamic?

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 3:15 pm
by Spectrum
Static or Dynamic -

What is the goal of the game?

From my perspective it should be TEAM play.

With a Dynamic map it makes it harder to orginize who will do what.

That is why I stayed with the original published maps and original PM information. Any one with the 'old ways' will have a slight advantage for a short period of time.

Spectrum