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Re: The General Unhappiness Thread

#181
A (cheap) trick to enable a large simulation without impacting the real-time performance would be to
cache the calculation-orders, and execute them as a batch process in intervals.
For example, every time the user docks at a station or changes the system, or is in some menu-transition.

Here the simulator then executes all the out of system events. This will take some toll on the CPU, but does not bother as much
as then done during the flight/action.
If the player spends too much time in realtime flight, the simulation halts meanwhile. Its not too noticeable in the end, if "fast travel" is assumed
to speed up time.
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Re: The General Unhappiness Thread

#182
masseffect7 wrote:The question I have is whether the original vision of LT is even possible to create right now. When you have a limitless universe combined with an AI that can essentially do everything that the human player does, I can see how that would lead to issues.
You're really talking about clustering and Level of Detail faking - you clearly can't 100% simulate the universe, so you have to decide which things must be simulated and which things can be re-calculated and re-set at certain important points.

This is pretty much the accepted solution, and can work well, although you can optimise it dramatically by only executing a calculation to determine the state of the sector/system/entity rather than a full-blown simulation.
The further away a sector/system/entity or the fewer connections the player has to them or the time since last check, could determine the scale of the range of possible outcomes and even which calculations are needed - if the system's star went nova then no more calculations need be done for that system, for example. :-p
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Re: The General Unhappiness Thread

#183
masseffect7 wrote:The question I have is whether the original vision of LT is even possible to create right now. When you have a limitless universe combined with an AI that can essentially do everything that the human player does, I can see how that would lead to issues. <snip>

Simulating 25 different economies and calculating how the different individuals and factions would react to changes would be a very difficult problem to deal with, and that's without taking into account how AI actions in systems without trading posts affect economies <snip>
This should be easily resolvable via the same method Minecraft and other, similar games use: load "chunks" of universe, and de-load them as you leave. Keep only very small amounts of specific data which is recalculated as you access it.

For instance: you have a trade empire in de-loaded chunks which is supposed to send 10 units of a good to a system near you every so often? Have that somehow hooked into the current system, so the deloaded system doesn't have to process it. Essentially, just because the universe is infinite and procedural does not mean all parts of it need to be functioning at all times, only accurate from the player's perspective.

If you have that same trade empire sending units to another system and you are not in *either* system, have it do the calculations either a) as you load the trade/asset info screen, b) as you putz around in system, the machine code loads in elements like that in priority order, with priority determined by Josh to be what is most likely to be relevant to a player immediately upon entering the system (ie hostiles, then astronomical bodies, then trade info, etc.).

In this way you're not maintaining dozens of simultaneous instances of hard processing. You queue it and do the math as needed. The majority of the values can be set in such a way that for X amount of time out of a system, A, B, C, and D happen (and interact correctly) so when you return the new state is as it would have been had you spent your whole time in-system observing. This is possible with known feats of programming, and is commonly done in other games.

TL;DR: the issue you imagine is not one which I suspect poses the problems Josh currently faces.
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Re: The General Unhappiness Thread

#184
I admit I'm still a bit concerned. Lots of people seem appeased by the recent post, but it's really nothing until the new promises made are acted on.

The general hype makes me unhappy, as this just feels like another beginning to the same old cycle. I hope I'm wrong but I won't really be happy until such a time as that has been demonstrated.
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Re: The General Unhappiness Thread

#185
kaeroku wrote:I admit I'm still a bit concerned. Lots of people seem appeased by the recent post, but it's really nothing until the new promises made are acted on.

The general hype makes me unhappy, as this just feels like another beginning to the same old cycle. I hope I'm wrong but I won't really be happy until such a time as that has been demonstrated.
I'm not appeased, but I also don't want to punish Josh too much for delivering bad news.

As I have said, I'm not happy that the last two years have been 95% sideways development and 5% forward. Unless Josh finds a break through or changes the way he does things, we will be lucky to see LT in the next 10 years. (of course Josh will have run out of money long by then)

I think we should encourage Josh to keep communicating, but at the same time respectful criticism of what he communicates is ok.
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Re: The General Unhappiness Thread

#186
Zanteogo wrote: As I have said, I'm not happy that the last two years have been 95% sideways development and 5% forward. Unless Josh finds a break through or changes the way he does things, we will be lucky to see LT in the next 10 years. (of course Josh will have run out of money long by then.)
I'm actually fine with this. Perhaps because of my background in project management, but problem solving often takes the majority of time when known solutions don't exist. Someone made the point recently that they wished they saw evidence of Josh actually taking the known solutions (might have been you,) and I fully agree with that too, but I'm encouraged by the description of the iterative process which he's been going through, because despite repeated failure it's certainly not time wasted. (I realize you didn't say it was time wasted, I'm just trying to highlight the value of failures.)
Zanteogo wrote: I think we should encourage Josh to keep communicating, but at the same time respectful criticism of what he communicates is ok.
I think if Josh is able to continue communicating, or at least find a way to get word out through a CM, many of the problems with this project will be resolved.
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Re: The General Unhappiness Thread

#187
kaeroku wrote:I admit I'm still a bit concerned. Lots of people seem appeased by the recent post, but it's really nothing until the new promises made are acted on.

The general hype makes me unhappy, as this just feels like another beginning to the same old cycle. I hope I'm wrong but I won't really be happy until such a time as that has been demonstrated.
I don't see there's much to be hyped about yet, to be honest. And, I, too, hope he acts on his new promises. I also hope he actually takes some time to consider alternative methods of dealing with his code problems.

Time will tell, though. :)
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Re: The General Unhappiness Thread

#188
In my opinion it's a good thing that Josh brought in News (And I guess I'm not even remotely alone with that :ghost: ).

But it'll be a lot more reason to Hype/Celebrate when such news become more regular instead of rare occurences (Of course those news don't have to be as extensive.)

So now it's time to sit down with a smile, drink tea and see how it progresses. :wave:
Apparently, sometimes stuff might happen.
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Re: The General Unhappiness Thread

#189
Talvieno wrote:
kaeroku wrote:I admit I'm still a bit concerned. Lots of people seem appeased by the recent post, but it's really nothing until the new promises made are acted on.

The general hype makes me unhappy, as this just feels like another beginning to the same old cycle. I hope I'm wrong but I won't really be happy until such a time as that has been demonstrated.
I don't see there's much to be hyped about yet, to be honest. And, I, too, hope he acts on his new promises. I also hope he actually takes some time to consider alternatives methods of dealing with his code problems.

Time will tell, though. :)
I have similar sentiments. I'm note exactly hyped, but Josh's return has provided me and, it looks like, many others, with a much-needed infusion of hope for the project.
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Re: The General Unhappiness Thread

#194
Now that the topic's alive again, I wanted to chime in here and both give some thoughts, and perhaps get some feedback on LT as it stands. I realize this is verbose, but it's 4.5 years worth of thoughts, snowballed into one post.

I am an original Kickstarter backer, and really loved the idea of the game, and the look/feel that Josh presented when it was first put out there for all of us to fund. Waiting for a year was no big deal, having had a lot of experience with the development side of things. I even suspected (highly) that ~1 year was far too little for a game, even a barebones shell, and so the second year passed without much impact. Year three came and went, and I started to really question what was going on, especially after Josh had his episode and went AWOL for a long time with no updates. I suspect many were having the same thoughts - the game was now abandonware, gone the same route as titles like Cube World from Picroma.

I think we're at year 4.5 now past the KS funding. LT popped up in the back of my mind a few days ago, so I came looking to see if the Beta was being passed around and having Let's Play videos made of it. Needless to say I was a bit startled when I found out there was no such distribution to the Beta backers (I am not one), nor was there a date in mind for it. LT was still being programmed as "an engine" and not "a game with a date in mind".

I know from reading posts out here that Josh has apparently switched his mindset to a more pragmatic stance, and tries now to look at LT as a game and not an engine, but I remain worried. Here's why: There have been so many setbacks, so many changes in scope and the approach to that scope, that there's never been any point in time at which someone said: "Okay, enough is enough, we need to refocus and shoot for X date as a deadline for release". The mindset is still present (for Josh at least, I think) that he is free to work on LT without the responsibility that regular developers would have - owing a product to the publisher who backed the developer, by a deadline.

Many products get delayed, but they always have that premise in mind - that the people who backed it are waiting to see it come to fruition, and that it simply cannot and should not be a work in progress indefinitely. Dates (firm ones) have to be chosen, even if they get pushed once, twice, or thrice. The grey nebulous "it's getting closer" and "it's progressing every day now" just don't cut it when you have the responsibility of delivering.

Other games come to mind: Cube World, which Wollay and his wife worked on. It had a public Alpha which was well received, but then had YEARS of complete silence without any further progress or contact. Kenshi, which still to-this-day is stuck in development, which back in 2012 (when I bought a copy) had already been in development for almost 7 years. That puts it over 10 years now, probably closer to 11. Chris (it's creator) keeps plugging away, having brought additional team members on, but it -still- doesn't get released, year after year.

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I guess what I'd like to convey here is more directly for Josh, and comes as a bit of life wisdom (as I'm nearing 50 now and have plenty to give). That would be: for your own good, both personally and professionally, and the success of your career moving forward.. put your foot down with your subconscious and give yourself a deadline. Don't waffle on it, don't marginalize the need for it. Figure out what *absolutely* can't be avoided to finish the game, get people working towards a specific set of goals, and get LT pushed out. You can work on 1.1, 1.5, 2.0, etc after the fact. The more you delay, the more you hurt your baby, and in the long run.. yourself.

The last thing I want to have to do, is add LT to the list of Cube World, Kenshi, and the many others that have faded into memory. Many of us won't be around if it takes another year or three. Help us keep LT off that list.
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Re: The General Unhappiness Thread

#195
I don't know about Cube World, Jaga, but I was glad to see your post.

Can I first welcome a fellow backer to these forums who understands the anxiety many of us have had concerning the game of Limit Theory. You make points that this older and even more mature (in years) gamer has been making for some time. As much as I can appreciate others point of view I was always in the camp of "the game" of Limit Theory with limited interest in other aspects of development. It's unlikely that I will ever be very excited by how the game finally arrives as the game is all I've ever wanted.

It's true I've never really pushed for deadline dates as I was aware of the anxiety such talk caused Josh. And the truth is it's never been one of his strong points as most who have followed the progress of LT will attest to.
Jaga wrote: Many of us won't be around if it takes another year or three. Help us keep LT off that list.
Your observation can be understood in more than one way. My concern is that by the time I see the game I will be too old to appreciate it. :angel:

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