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Re: [Lindsey] Friday, December 15, 2017

#76
Hyperion wrote:
Wed Dec 20, 2017 9:42 am
This is why I said that the generation algorithms should be saved at every version, so that way someone can go back later from any point and create a whole new branch to tweak things which one person thought had lots of potential, but lindsey overlooked, not to say lindsey isnt paying attention, just that different people have different tastes.
I tried to explain on IRC that this wasn't possible, but I'll re-explain it here.

This isn't how coding procedural algorithms works. :P You're thinking of it as though it's a branching tree, and you could take different paths to have different results. In reality, each algorithm is a lot more like a painting. You decide what you have in mind, then you maybe sketch out what the general plan will be. After that, you begin painting - and soon after you start painting, you're unable to go back and change it, from, say, a painting of a house to a painting of a car. If you're painting a house and you want a car instead, you have to go back and start from (essentially) the beginning.

Lindsey's fighter algorithm will not work for space stations, cruisers, corvettes, battleships, carriers, etc. She'll have to make an entirely new algorithm for each "ship class" she wants to tackle. The only difference between the version is how much polish/variation they have. It's not so much about where the variation is. If constructed properly (and she is constructing them properly, mind you), it should still be possible to generate everything (non-buggy) she's generated before with that algorithm.

tl;dr: Procedural algorithms are done less "step by step" and more "all at once", making previous versions worth saving only as backups in case a bug creeps into the current version. Gifting them to players won't actually serve any purpose. :)
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Re: [Lindsey] Friday, December 15, 2017

#77
Talvieno wrote:
Wed Dec 20, 2017 9:53 am
Hyperion wrote:
Wed Dec 20, 2017 9:42 am
This is why I said that the generation algorithms should be saved at every version, so that way someone can go back later from any point and create a whole new branch to tweak things which one person thought had lots of potential, but lindsey overlooked, not to say lindsey isnt paying attention, just that different people have different tastes.
I tried to explain on IRC that this wasn't possible, but I'll re-explain it here.

This isn't how coding procedural algorithms works. :P You're thinking of it as though it's a branching tree, and you could take different paths to have different results. In reality, each algorithm is a lot more like a painting. You decide what you have in mind, then you maybe sketch out what the general plan will be. After that, you begin painting - and soon after you start painting, you're unable to go back and change it, from, say, a painting of a house to a painting of a car. If you're painting a house and you want a car instead, you have to go back and start from (essentially) the beginning.

Lindsey's fighter algorithm will not work for space stations, cruisers, corvettes, battleships, carriers, etc. She'll have to make an entirely new algorithm for each "ship class" she wants to tackle. The only difference between the version is how much polish/variation they have. It's not so much about where the variation is. If constructed properly (and she is constructing them properly, mind you), it should still be possible to generate everything (non-buggy) she's generated before with that algorithm.

tl;dr: Procedural algorithms are done less "step by step" and more "all at once", making previous versions worth saving only as backups in case a bug creeps into the current version. Gifting them to players won't actually serve any purpose. :)
I'm using a combination of both discrete and continuous procedural algorithms. Right now, the fighter has 4 algorithms - classic (like Freelancer - more human-adjacent), alien (less human-adjacent), vertical hull, and radial. Splitting the fighter algorithm into 4 discrete types helps me have more variation within those types. It would, for example, be especially hard to write one algorithm that could produce BOTH radial AND bilaterial symmetry AND still look good in most cases for both. I found this to be hard even with horizontal & vertical hulls.

Even if I don't respond to all of your comments, I read all of them. (Gotta spend some time coding tho ;p) I'm aware that everybody has different taste. Tal is right that trying to satisfy every request that I get for fighter appearance isn't realistic. I'm balancing a lot of different expectations and creative input, and I know that I'm not going to make everybody happy, not even with Hyperion's suggestion. But they WILL look good to the majority of players. And if you love the game but are unsatisfied with the ships, 1) that's what the ship builder tool is for (which is already a work in progress! ;D) and 2) that's what modding is for.
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"You’ve got to work on something dangerous. You have to work on something that makes you uncertain. Something that makes you doubt yourself... because it stimulates you to do things you haven’t done before. The whole thing is if you know where you’re going, you’ve gone, as the poet says. And that’s death."
- Stephen Sondheim
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Re: [Lindsey] Friday, December 15, 2017

#78
LindseyReid wrote:
Wed Dec 20, 2017 10:51 am
I'm using a combination of both discrete and continuous procedural algorithms. Right now, the fighter has 4 algorithms - classic (like Freelancer - more human-adjacent), alien (less human-adjacent), vertical hull, and radial. Splitting the fighter algorithm into 4 discrete types helps me have more variation within those types. It would, for example, be especially hard to write one algorithm that could produce BOTH radial AND bilaterial symmetry AND still look good in most cases for both. I found this to be hard even with horizontal & vertical hulls.
But because the whole game is effectively modular, additional discrete flavors of each class could be added later, no?
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Re: [Lindsey] Friday, December 15, 2017

#80
Ships Dec 20

I added tori as a possible wing shape & an algorithm for ships with a vertical hull, so this album is pretty wild. >:3
THE REDUCTION IN BOXINESS IS OVER 900000000000000000!!!!!!!!!!

"but I prefer the Freelancer-like ships you started with! :("
Do not worry, my loves. The weirder the algorithm is, the rarer you'll see it used.
Plus there's always the ship builder. :)
Ship Inspiration Pinterest!! (send me stuff)

"You’ve got to work on something dangerous. You have to work on something that makes you uncertain. Something that makes you doubt yourself... because it stimulates you to do things you haven’t done before. The whole thing is if you know where you’re going, you’ve gone, as the poet says. And that’s death."
- Stephen Sondheim
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Re: [Lindsey] Friday, December 15, 2017

#82
S46 wrote:
Tue Dec 19, 2017 10:24 pm
In fleets, there should be fighters and such of particular styles - if every ship in a fleet is unique, it suggests that it was formed from a rabble of pirates with handmade ships, but, if looking to achieve a more military look, those kinds of fleets would have specific types/styles of ships.
Erm... who or what suggested that every single ship thats produced gets its own random design?
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Re: [Lindsey] Friday, December 15, 2017

#83
LindseyReid wrote:
Wed Dec 20, 2017 6:26 pm
Ships Dec 20
So pretty. The sureal ships look amazing. I think the vertical ships need some more time in the oven. They just look too bulky to be a fighter class.

Vertical just seems so alien a concept that I'm not too surprised that they look off to me. They probably will look better with engine trails to show heading.
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all. - Oscar Wilde

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us. - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Re: [Lindsey] Friday, December 15, 2017

#85
After some thought, I've come to the conclusion that I'm really glad these "surreal" ships are there. First, they don't actually look bad at all - and as long as they don't appear much, they'll end up being one of those things: "Whoa, that's a weird ship. I want to follow it and get a better look."
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Re: [Lindsey] Friday, December 15, 2017

#87
Talvieno wrote:
Thu Dec 21, 2017 9:13 am
After some thought, I've come to the conclusion that I'm really glad these "surreal" ships are there. First, they don't actually look bad at all - and as long as they don't appear much, they'll end up being one of those things: "Whoa, that's a weird ship. I want to follow it and get a better look."
+100000

Definitely do tell me if the surreal ships don't look good. I'm going for a extremely-non-human, distant/hidden universe vibe with them. I think there's space for that plus classic Freelancer-style ships in LT, but even the surreal ones still have to look "cool", even if in a weird way.
Ship Inspiration Pinterest!! (send me stuff)

"You’ve got to work on something dangerous. You have to work on something that makes you uncertain. Something that makes you doubt yourself... because it stimulates you to do things you haven’t done before. The whole thing is if you know where you’re going, you’ve gone, as the poet says. And that’s death."
- Stephen Sondheim
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Re: [Lindsey] Friday, December 15, 2017

#88
I'm with Kekasi on the vertical-hull ships. They're hard to visually parse. I think that might actually interfere with gameplay: it helps to know which way a ship is pointing, and a vertical hull throws away all sense of direction. They look even more alien to me than the Surreal fighters.
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Re: [Lindsey] Friday, December 15, 2017

#89
Very nice, I love the torus wing, nice touch. I agree that the vertical hulls need some more work, but you're making excellent progress!
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Re: [Lindsey] Friday, December 15, 2017

#90
I found a couple vertical hull like concepts. But they all seem to be more shallow, or short, hulls instead of vertical, and many of them could be easily seen as a ship that's turning.

They also have a small profile from the front, which I think should be a common theme in fighters. Bigger ships will have shields so I don't think they'll need a smaller profile.
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An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all. - Oscar Wilde

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us. - Friedrich Nietzsche

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