Circle is the New Square |
Thu, 10 April 2014 16:21 |
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skoormit | | Lieutenant | Messages: 665
Registered: July 2008 Location: Alabama | |
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I just created the universe for Dynamic Duos 6, which involved remapping the stars into a circle of such a size that the intended star density (in this case, the density of a medium/dense universe) is maintained within the circle.
And now I am wondering why all games don't do this. A circle doesn't have corners to deal with. Corners make it hard to have balanced starting positions for all players. And since we can move individual planets wherever we like now with StarsHostTool, it's easy to make sure nobody gets hurt by the luck of the starting location. Just arrange everyone more or less evenly around the circle.
An advert for a game that will be remapped in this manner should specify how the locations of the HWs will be determined.
One method is to divide 360 by the number of players and place each HW that many degrees apart (measured from the center of the circle), at a particular distance from the center.
I like to vary both parameters (degrees and distance) randomly to avoid making it easy for the players to eyeball the universe and pick out the obvious HW locations in year 2400.
By altering the distance parameter, the game can be set up for generally earlier or later conflict. A short distance from the center puts the players closer together. A large distance spreads them out more.
If that method is too uniform for your tastes, you can instead divide the universe into slices (one per player), and pick a random point within each slice (perhaps at some minimum and/or maximum distance from the center).
Any other thoughts on fun ways to set up a circular universe?
What we need's a few good taters.Report message to a moderator
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Re: Circle is the New Square |
Fri, 11 April 2014 07:28 |
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I would vote in favor.
Currently the player in the centre faces unfair odds with enemies on all sides, or an unfair advantage that he can expand in any direction if he has enough scouts.
I was planning on reading Neil and your posts on how to do it, but I left it on the backburner as I had already created ATSR2 by then.
For reference, can you repost how you created your circle universe here?
I know my minefields.. but I'm a chaff sweeper.
I used to curse when I got stuck in traffic... till I realised I AM traffic.Report message to a moderator
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Re: Circle is the New Square |
Sat, 12 April 2014 12:58 |
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neilhoward | | Commander | Messages: 1112
Registered: April 2008 Location: SW3 & 10023 | |
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skoormit wrote on Thu, 10 April 2014 13:21I just created the universe for Dynamic Duos 6, which involved remapping the stars into a circle of such a size that the intended star density (in this case, the density of a medium/dense universe) is maintained within the circle.
Skoormit,
I am flattered that you like my idea enough to present it as your own.
neilhoward wrote on Sun, 30 March 2014 15:28Skoormit,
I would like the stars distributed in a circle, and teams radiating out from the centre like spokes on a wheel. This way there is no uneven advantage from access to corners, and each team has one player closer to the centre. I prefer that each team has their HWs within 162ly of each other, and that the nearest enemies (for the player closer to the centre) be ~300ly distant.
A medium dense universe has ~360 stars at a density of 2.5 stars per 10kly^2 (or 1 star per 40kly^2). To achieve that density a circle would need a diameter of ~677ly.
I would gen the medium dense uni and stretch to large size with Stretched Universe, then remap to a circle with Universe Creator 1.3, then move HWs with Xyligun's StarsHostTool.
Here is an image template to use with UC 1.3, to remap a for a circle. To visualize the spokes I recommend I have added transects with the grey line showing distance to scale between team HWs, and a red line showing distance to scale between closest enemies. Last, is an image of one possible distribution of HWs. Of course we do not want to use this exactly, as it would be too easy to predict the positions of enemy HWs. If inner worlds are ~300ly from the centre and ~300ly (ie between 257 and 324ly) from their nearest enemies that should be adequate if each inner world average between their two nearest neighbours is close to those averages of all inner HWs.
Here is a reference for universe size info, and a tutorial to resize a universe.
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