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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#271
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
ThymineC wrote: It doesn't make it any harder to balance. As Josh said, "Well, whether you want to call it the radius of a wormhole or the max emerging distance isn't really important to me".

It's about as trivial an issue as whether a blueprints can do 100 runs and cost 1400 credits or do 1 run and cost 14 credits. You can make endpoints X m in radius and have ships spawn within Y metres of the perimeter, or you can make endpoints have an X+Y metre radius. Makes no difference to anything but my proposal.
im currently thinking that emergence radius != entry radius to the wormhole.
so the area you can come out in is larger than the area you can get into it
What gameplay benefits would that have?
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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#273
ThymineC wrote:
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
ThymineC wrote: It doesn't make it any harder to balance. As Josh said, "Well, whether you want to call it the radius of a wormhole or the max emerging distance isn't really important to me".

It's about as trivial an issue as whether a blueprints can do 100 runs and cost 1400 credits or do 1 run and cost 14 credits. You can make endpoints X m in radius and have ships spawn within Y metres of the perimeter, or you can make endpoints have an X+Y metre radius. Makes no difference to anything but my proposal.
im currently thinking that emergence radius != entry radius to the wormhole.
so the area you can come out in is larger than the area you can get into it
What gameplay benefits would that have?
dunno, just a thought of mine.
after the second thought everything that seemed useful vanished.

but we are seriously getting off-topic, and there is already a thread for this



edit: ninja'd, and agreeing to the ninja
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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#274
Cha0zz wrote:
ThymineC wrote: What gameplay benefits would that have?
I think it would mean that you exit next to the entrance of the endpoint, so you can't collide with traffic coming trough when entering/exiting.
But you could still collide with traffic that was near but not within to the endpoint even if you designed it like that. You could solve the problem by designing an algorithm to make ships appear somewhere where other ships were not, but you could just as easily use that algorithm whether endpoints were small and you had a large "emergence radius" or endpoints were large and you had zero "emergence radius".
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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#275
ThymineC wrote:
Cha0zz wrote:
ThymineC wrote: But you could still collide with traffic that was near but not within to the endpoint even if you designed it like that. You could solve the problem by designing an algorithm to make ships appear somewhere where other ships were not, but you could just as easily use that algorithm whether endpoints were small and you had a large "emergence radius" or endpoints were large and you had zero "emergence radius".
yes, you could still collide but chances would be much smaller for it happening, since ships density would be high on entry points and much lower on the exit ones (since everyone in the vicinity of the endpoint would be near the entry point)
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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#277
ThymineC wrote: But you could still collide with traffic that was near but not within to the endpoint even if you designed it like that. You could solve the problem by designing an algorithm to make ships appear somewhere where other ships were not, but you could just as easily use that algorithm whether endpoints were small and you had a large "emergence radius" or endpoints were large and you had zero "emergence radius".
you'd have more area to emerge safely, as you dont have to forcely move through space that the other ships you may collide with also have to use
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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#278
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
ThymineC wrote: But you could still collide with traffic that was near but not within to the endpoint even if you designed it like that. You could solve the problem by designing an algorithm to make ships appear somewhere where other ships were not, but you could just as easily use that algorithm whether endpoints were small and you had a large "emergence radius" or endpoints were large and you had zero "emergence radius".
you'd have more area to emerge safely, as you dont have to forcely move through space that the other ships you may collide with also have to use
Then how about this: the further towards the centre of the endpoint you move, the higher your chance to be transited per tick. The further away you move, the lower your chance.

When you transit, you have a higher chance of being transited further away from the centre of the receiving endpoint. This approximates the idea of having an emergence area beyond the boundary of an endpoint, but still allows for people to be transited if they wait long enough even if they're not close to the centre.
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Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#279
Gazz wrote:
JoshParnell wrote:Yes! Temporary / hidden wormhole appearance is and will remain a feature ;) So I guess we're agreeing on that point? :)
While I sometimes disagree with what I suggested, in this case I do not. =P

You just never confirmed anything at all about interstellar travel so this is the first nugget of information period.
Good to have these expectations set. Now we know that borders will be porous.

Implications: Since the cost of limiting access to your territory and possessions to trusted NPCs will quickly become prohibitive, betrayal and theft will be rampant. Whatever you have, someone else can take simply by appearing with little warning and more guns. Civilizational boundaries won't exist as such; the world will look more like a map from a level of StarCraft, with units going wherever they want as long as there are enough of them in a group. Gameplay beyond the purely local/personal will be mostly about rewarding players who can react quickly to massed incursions, and carry out such operations themselves, rather than about carefully planning expansion to obtain, hold, and exploit strategic resource nodes -- i.e., considerably more RTS than 4X. Always needing to watch your stuff will indeed insure that expansion (of territory or research) is self-limiting, and will keep the focus of the game on exciting action.

I am reduced to wondering whether this magic number of temporary/hidden massholes may be controlled by a slider. :)
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Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#280
This does appear to be Josh's first pronouncement on this topic, but I don't think it's quite as bad as you make out, Flat. I think Josh was kind of illustrating that the scenario you outline would be an option for you, depending on your universe configuration - equally you could go to the other extreme of feasible lock-downs. As an assertion, I'd say that the default will be somewhere in the middle, based on balancing during beta (i.e. this will be the "Josh approved" setting).

Given the number of different methods that have been proposed in this thread alone, there are many ways in which Josh's words could be implemented as a mechanic. It would be good to know more; but then why spoil the surprise? We know it'll be slick and well thought out when it arrives...
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Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#281
Flatfingers wrote:I am reduced to wondering whether this magic number of temporary/hidden massholes may be controlled by a slider. :)
Of course :) So, by your analysis, on the one side you get an RTS and on the other a 4X. What's the problem? :( Choose your style of game..
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” ~ Henry Ford
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Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#282
JoshParnell wrote:
Flatfingers wrote:I am reduced to wondering whether this magic number of temporary/hidden massholes may be controlled by a slider. :)
Of course :) So, by your analysis, on the one side you get an RTS and on the other a 4X. What's the problem? :( Choose your style of game..
Indeed. I write the same thing here:
ThymineC wrote:
Flatfingers wrote:So trying to design system connection physics to solve the problem of defending fixed jump points doesn't actually help the larger game -- in fact, I think it very likely hurts the big-picture gameplay.

In fact, I would say that it's actually extremely unstable borders -- the kind you get when lots of ships can show up anywhere with little warning --that are what are really boring. There's no point in trying to obtain possessions of any kind when someone can easily take them away from you.
The system can be balanced Goldilocks-style to make borders vicissitudinous but not overly so - in particular, you can make borders more stable by making U-type wormholes less numerous, more short-lived, or harder to detect, and less stable by doing the opposite.
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Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#283
"Temporary / hidden wormhole appearance is and will remain a feature" seems pretty unequivocal to me.

But maybe I'm just confused, and the slider controlling the number of random entry points into any system can be set to zero. That would be equivalent to enabling stable borders.

It's hard to hear "tone" in these things. So let me add that while I think making borders porous will wind up hurting strategic play in LT, and I do find that disappointing as it limits a fun way of playing, I'm not all that upset:
  • I could be wrong. Maybe porous borders won't hurt strategic play.
  • I don't have all the facts. Maybe I'm misunderstanding how this will actually play.
  • I might be right, but it doesn't matter if I incorrectly think other people like strategic play.
  • It's not my game. If I have an opinion, I say it and then let it go.
Moving on....
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Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#284
Flatfingers wrote:"Temporary / hidden wormhole appearance is and will remain a feature" seems pretty unequivocal to me.

But maybe I'm just confused, and the slider controlling the number of random entry points into any system can be set to zero. That would be equivalent to enabling stable borders.
Yes, it is unequivocal. We're going to have U-type/temporary/hidden wormholes; that's now given. The thing is, you're assuming that there must be absolutely no wormholes of this type for borders to be stable. That's almost certainly not the case and they shouldn't be too stable anyway.

Well, I guess you challenge your own assumption later in your post.
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Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#285
Flatfingers wrote:"Temporary / hidden wormhole appearance is and will remain a feature" seems pretty unequivocal to me.

But maybe I'm just confused, and the slider controlling the number of random entry points into any system can be set to zero. That would be equivalent to enabling stable borders.
Sorry, I meant that it will remain a feature in that the code will exist to support it. The probabilities governing it, as you suggested, could essentially turn the mechanism off. I didn't mean to suggest that I will force it on you as a part of the game, rather just that it will be implemented and supported :) If changing the constants that govern a feature can be completely disabled (as in this case), I see no reason to be too worried about it :)
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” ~ Henry Ford

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