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Re: Zones

#92
Basing this off of Cornflakes' ideas and putting aside Josh's stipulations for the moment (edit: oh cool! Seems like Josh wants to go the hierarchical zones way after all :) ), I'm wondering if the ownership mechanic could work like this: each territory has its own laws. If two agents/corporations are trying to establish ownership within a region and their territories overlap, then this overlap is handled differently depending on whether their respective laws conflict with each other or not.

Confliction mechanic:
  • If the laws conflict - then the two territories form a contested boundary between themselves and do not overlap.
  • If the laws don't conflict - then the two territories are freely able to overlap, and joint ownership is established in the intersection of the two territories.
Adding to this is the idea that one territory could subsume another. Entity A's territory is subsumed within Entity B's territory iff (if and only if) every point within Entity A's territory is also a point within Entity B's territory. The mechanics for a territory change based on whether or not it is subsumed by another territory:
  • If a territory is subsumed - then the subsumed territory is not legally able to change its laws in any way that conflict with that of the subsuming territory. If its laws conflict with the those of the other territory at the time of subsumption, then it has a legal grace period in which to either release ownership of the territory (which does not necessarily mean disestablishment of physical assets) or to change their laws to not conflict with that of the subsuming territory.
  • If a territory is not subsumed - then the territory is freely able to dynamically change its laws, which may bring it into conflict or accordance with the laws of other territories and dynamically change the local territory map.
Example
Say you had two mining corporations, MineCorp and Asteroid Ltd. Let's define a simple system of laws:

Mining Law System A
  • Positive conditions (mandatory):
    • Vessels belonging to this corporation are allowed to mine within this territory (implicit).
  • Negative conditions (illegal): <empty>
Now, if both MineCorp and Asteroid Ltd. use this system of laws, there's no conflict between them and they can both establish territories near each other which overlap in the middle, as shown below.
Image This is because System A only declares one condition: an implicit positive condition that makes it mandatory that vessels belonging to a corporation are allowed to mine in their own territory; System A says nothing about vessels belonging to other corporations. This is an implicit condition because it's contained within a default system of laws anyway. Assume that these territories are spherical, of equal size and equal strength. Let's now say that MineCorp changes its mind and uses a different set of laws:

Mining Law System B
  • Positive conditions (mandatory):
    • Vessels belonging to this corporation are allowed to mine within this territory (implicit).
  • Negative conditions (illegal):
    • Vessels not belonging to this corporation are not allowed to mine within this territory.
In this case, Asteroid Ltd.'s laws are not compatible with MineCorp's laws within MineCorp's territory, but both systems of law are compatible within Asteroid Ltd.'s territory. This has the effect of making Asteroid Ltd.'s territory squish against that of MineCorp's territory, while allowing MineCorp's territory to remain extended partway into Asteroid Ltd.'s.
Image This gives MineCorp a territorial advantage over the other corporation, so Asteroid Ltd.'s responds by using System B as well. This results in a contested zone being established between the two territories:
Image Now, let's say that MineCorp starts making a lot more profit than Asteroid Ltd. for whatever reason, and can afford to invest more into that particular territory by building more or better physical assets there. Eventually, MineCorp's territory may subsume that of Asteroid Ltd.
Image As soon as this occurs, Asteroid Ltd. are given a grace period within which they have a choice to make: EITHER they release ownership of their territory (which again does not necessarily mean disestablishment of their physical assets) and allow MineCorp to take full control of the volume OR they could modify their law system to become compatible with that of MineCorp's. An example of this would be:

Mining Law System C
  • Positive conditions (mandatory):
    • Vessels belonging to this corporation are allowed to mine within this territory (implicit).
  • Negative conditions (illegal):
    • Vessels belonging to this corporation are not allowed to mine within this territory.
Here, the explicit negative condition overrides the implicit positive condition. This eliminates the conflict between MineCorp's law system and Asteroid Ltd.'s law system.

One obvious question is: "What happens if the owning entity of a subsumed territory that has a conflicting system of laws with that of the owning entity of the subsuming territory refuses to change its laws to eliminate conflict within the allotted grace period?" (a bit of a brain sizzler)

This is an interesting question. It should be physically possible to do this, or else you couldn't have pirate factions that establish themselves within a system that is under the control of some government-like entity. There should be legal ramifications. My idea would be that you have law enforcement territories that extend throughout most of a civilised system and use a system of laws that contains the following:

Police System
  • Positive conditions (mandatory):
    • ...
    • Vessels owned by an entity whose territory subsumes that of another entity's - in which the subsumer's laws conflict with those of the subsumee's, and in which the subsumee's grace period has expired - are legally allowed to attack and destroy the assets of the subsumee within that territory.
    • ...
  • Negative conditions (illegal):
    • ...
This also has the effect that no entities can (legally) try to establish their own territories inside your own unless[/i] their laws are in accordance with your own off of the bat. If another entity tries to establish themselves within your territory and their laws conflict with yours, they are given a grace period within which to change their laws or to go away, and if they don't then you can legally destroy their assets within your territory.

Another question: "Why doesn't a subsuming corporation change its laws to be as harsh as possible to subsumed entities within the limitations of the system of laws of whichever entity's territory subsumes its own (if any)?"

And this is a good question indeed. :think:
Post

Re: Zones

#94
Cornflakes_91 wrote:Applied not to neighbouring zones but sub and super-zones i'd like your system :thumbup:
Well, a system like this should be applied to zones in general, otherwise it would be inelegant.

You could perhaps replace the "subsumption" mechanic with a "domination" one in which you only need to control >50% of another territory for the same mechanics to apply.

However, even if it's unrealistic, I prefer the subsumption mechanic, because it ensures that the relation is transitive; if A subsumes B, and B subsumes C, then A subsumes C in every case. That means B has to follow C's laws, and A has to follow B's and C's laws. This would probably make it considerably easier to reason about what laws must be obeyed within a given territory and feels more elegant to me.
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Re: Zones

#95
Cornflakes_91 wrote:I tend to agree with you thymine, but wouldn't that "you have to completely encompass others zones" lead to exponentially increasing demands to control area?

because i'd find that very illogical that i have to be 8 times as large as my direct neighbour to overpower him.


Applied not to neighbouring zones but sub and super-zones i'd like your system :thumbup:

Larger requirements for controlling equal amounts of space (once that space is incorporated to the "whole" of ownership) is exactly what happened to the romans, so I would have to say that not liking the need for larger forces to control additional equal spaces wouldn't preclude the applicability of the requirement.

:D
"The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it" ~Confucius
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Re: Zones

#96
ThymineC wrote:
Cornflakes_91 wrote:Applied not to neighbouring zones but sub and super-zones i'd like your system :thumbup:
Well, a system like this should be applied to zones in general, otherwise it would be inelegant.

You could perhaps replace the "subsumption" mechanic with a "domination" one in which you only need to control >50% of another territory for the same mechanics to apply.

However, even if it's unrealistic, I prefer the subsumption mechanic, because it ensures that the relation is transitive; if A subsumes B, and B subsumes C, then A subsumes C in every case. That means B has to follow C's laws, and A has to follow B's and C's laws. This would probably make it considerably easier to reason about what laws must be obeyed within a given territory and feels more elegant to me.
if they are within the same super-zone this applies, a>b>c is in the larger context always true, but in the Local context its more dynamic.
like guerrilia warfare, you may cannot overpower them as whole, but local you can overpower them.
the same applies to sub and super zones.
you may be stronger than the forces they have in the immediate vicinity, but when they call in reinforcements from that base on the other side of the asteroid field they are stronger than you.
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Re: Zones

#97
Cornflakes_91 wrote:if they are within the same super-zone this applies, a>b>c is in the larger context always true, but in the Local context its more dynamic.
like guerrilia warfare, you may cannot overpower them as whole, but local you can overpower them.
the same applies to sub and super zones.
you may be stronger than the forces they have in the immediate vicinity, but when they call in reinforcements from that base on the other side of the asteroid field they are stronger than you.
I think it's inelegant to have a system in which different rules apply at different scales. Elegance tends to arise out of having a simple set of rules or laws that hold over all scales. This is the case with the Mandelbrot set, for instance, and with evolution - it would be very strange if everything less complex than (say) an aardvark followed one set of laws and everything more complex followed another.

There shouldn't be any conceptual difference between zones regardless of scale. You simply have smaller zones/territories that may or may not be nested inside of larger zones/territories. I don't think it's unreasonable that a territory must be at least 8 times as large as another in order to subsume it, and I'm not necessarily sure it even has to be that big: let's say that the ownership "points" from different territories in a given sector are able to cancel out each other, and that only "surviving" points get spread (in an attenuating fashion) to neighbouring sectors. In that case, once your territory has extended beyond halfway into a neighbouring territory, your territory will begin to wrap around its station (or other central ownership-generating asset) and that will reduce the size of the other guy's territory in the other direction, making it easier to subsume them. This wasn't modelled in the images I posted above.
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Re: Zones

#98
Since we've been speaking of Josh's latest devlog, allow me to quote the relevant bit for people plowing through this thread:
Josh Parnell wrote:What with the recent introduction of zones and such (and continuing the implementation today), I find it interesting that the LT universe is starting to look quite similar at every level of scale. Systems are connected in approximate-spanning-tree-fashion, and can be thought of as spheres. Zones are using the same concept - spheres of influence connected by warp nodes. Even regions are modeled in the same fashion. So if you think about it all together, the LT universe is basically a sphere tree - just a bunch of recursively-clustered and connected spheres. Just something to think about. Rather elegant :)
So zones are things that must be connected by warp nodes?

Or things that can be connected by warp nodes?

Also, what's a warp node? Is it related to warp lanes?

:wtf:
Post

Re: Zones

#99
ThymineC wrote:
Cornflakes_91 wrote:if they are within the same super-zone this applies, a>b>c is in the larger context always true, but in the Local context its more dynamic.
like guerrilia warfare, you may cannot overpower them as whole, but local you can overpower them.
the same applies to sub and super zones.
you may be stronger than the forces they have in the immediate vicinity, but when they call in reinforcements from that base on the other side of the asteroid field they are stronger than you.
I think it's inelegant to have a system in which different rules apply at different scales. Elegance tends to arise out of having a simple set of rules or laws that hold over all scales. This is the case with the Mandelbrot set, for instance, and with evolution - it would be very strange if everything less complex than (say) an aardvark followed one set of laws and everything more complex followed another.
but it follows simple rules, even simpler rules than yours.

if you have more power inside a zone its yours.
force from all sub-zones gets counted. (force from superzones not).
sub-zones inherit the rules of their super-zones
end of ruleset.
Post

Re: Zones

#100
Cornflakes_91 wrote:but it follows simple rules, even simpler rules than yours.

if you have more power inside a zone its yours.
force from all sub-zones gets counted. (force from superzones not).
sub-zones inherit the rules of their super-zones
end of ruleset.
I think we're talking about different things, but it's good you bring this up because it's an area I hadn't considered.

In the ideas I just proposed, I was kind of dealing with downwards or lateral determination of control - where one entity's territory subsumes another entity's territory. This would be the case when the larger territory already has as owner.

With your ideas, I guess you're dealing with upwards determination of control, in which a zone that has no fixed owner (like an asteroid field zone) ends up controlled by the territory within it that covers the most space or otherwise has the most "ownership points".
Post

Re: Zones

#101
ThymineC wrote:
Cornflakes_91 wrote:but it follows simple rules, even simpler rules than yours.

if you have more power inside a zone its yours.
force from all sub-zones gets counted. (force from superzones not).
sub-zones inherit the rules of their super-zones
end of ruleset.
I think we're talking about different things, but it's good you bring this up because it's an area I hadn't considered.

In the ideas I just proposed, I was kind of dealing with downwards or lateral determination of control - where one entity's territory subsumes another entity's territory. This would be the case when the larger territory already has as owner.

With your ideas, I guess you're dealing with upwards determination of control, in which a zone that has no fixed owner (like an asteroid field zone) ends up controlled by the territory within it that covers the most space or otherwise has the most "ownership points".
my system also works without super-zones, as when you build a station somewhere you create a zone, and when an rival builds another station the zones get merged and points get counted.
or when an rival enters your zone with mobile forces points get counted.
zones themselfes have no inherent owner, no.
but when you build a station you are going to have superiority of the newly created zone by default, as your presence is the only presence.
Post

Re: Zones

#102
Flatfingers wrote:Since we've been speaking of Josh's latest devlog, allow me to quote the relevant bit for people plowing through this thread:
Josh Parnell wrote:What with the recent introduction of zones and such (and continuing the implementation today), I find it interesting that the LT universe is starting to look quite similar at every level of scale. Systems are connected in approximate-spanning-tree-fashion, and can be thought of as spheres. Zones are using the same concept - spheres of influence connected by warp nodes. Even regions are modeled in the same fashion. So if you think about it all together, the LT universe is basically a sphere tree - just a bunch of recursively-clustered and connected spheres. Just something to think about. Rather elegant :)
So zones are things that must be connected by warp nodes?

Or things that can be connected by warp nodes?

Also, what's a warp node? Is it related to warp lanes?

:wtf:
Correct. It seems zones are an abstraction to help with AI pathfinding and system generation. They do not appear to relate to ownership.
Their purpose appears to be defining where warp lanes connect to.
Post

Re: Zones

#103
Sasha wrote: Correct. It seems zones are an abstraction to help with AI pathfinding and system generation. They do not appear to relate to ownership.
Their purpose appears to be defining where warp lanes connect to.
Err...nope. they also relate to ownership.
From the first devlog to include zones:
JoshParnell wrote:Zoning is more than just a naming convention, though. It's a conceptually-clear way to think about space. Zones can have names, zones can have intrinsic value, zones can have security ratings, and zones can have...owners! Yes. Now we're getting interesting. How do you own space? Well, by force. Zones are considered to be 'owned' by whoever has the strongest presence there. How is that presence measured? To be determined. Could be military force, but I'm thinking more along the lines of the total value of permanent structures. Set up the biggest space station in an asteroid field and it's considered to be controlled by you.
Post

Re: Zones

#104
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Sasha wrote: Correct. It seems zones are an abstraction to help with AI pathfinding and system generation. They do not appear to relate to ownership.
Their purpose appears to be defining where warp lanes connect to.
Err...nope. they also relate to ownership.
Hence my latest confusion.

Are warp nodes what warp lanes connect to, as we've previously seen between planets?

If so, can an asteroid field have warp lanes connecting it to other things in a system? What about stations? How do warp nodes form when a zone comes into existence around a constructed object like a space station?

"Zones" I get (though I prefer to think of them per my earlier suggestion in which zones denote particular different kinds of influence). And warp lanes between planets I get (though I'd rather planets moved).

But zones as sources for whatever warp nodes are... that, I'm not getting.
Post

Re: Zones

#105
Flatfingers wrote:
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Sasha wrote: Correct. It seems zones are an abstraction to help with AI pathfinding and system generation. They do not appear to relate to ownership.
Their purpose appears to be defining where warp lanes connect to.
Err...nope. they also relate to ownership.
Hence my latest confusion.

Are warp nodes what warp lanes connect to, as we've previously seen between planets?

If so, can an asteroid field have warp lanes connecting it to other things in a system? What about stations? How do warp nodes form when a zone comes into existence around a constructed object like a space station?

"Zones" I get (though I prefer to think of them per my earlier suggestion in which zones denote particular different kinds of influence). And warp lanes between planets I get (though I'd rather planets moved).

But zones as sources for whatever warp nodes are... that, I'm not getting.
Im too confused about "warp nodes" :think:

I guess they are less of an actual object but more of an abstraction which the AI uses to connect zones to each other :think:

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