Home » Stars! Clones, Extensions, Modding » FreeStars » Feature questions
| Feature questions |
Thu, 02 February 2006 10:43  |
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 Kelzar |
 | Master Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 112
Registered: January 2006
Location: Ohio, US | |
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One of the things that has always bothered me about stars is that it has "edges" and "corners". Is freestars restrained similarly or will there be the possiblity of screen wrap as if the map were transposed onto a sphere? Does the coding allow the possiblity of 3D and 3D with screen wrap?
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| Re: Feature questions |
Thu, 02 February 2006 18:29  |
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| Madman |
 | Officer Cadet 1st Year |
Messages: 228
Registered: November 2003
Location: New Zealand | |
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Speaking for myself, I quite like the idea of edge wrapping for fairness reasons - it breaks down the huge variation of starting in the corner, or starting in the middle.
However, it does have a large effect on gameplay (most people would have more neighbours) so does affect the game balance. It also adds some complexity to the UI.
Perhaps as an option in FreeStars X where X>1.0.
[Updated on: Thu, 02 February 2006 18:36] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Feature questions |
Sun, 12 February 2006 22:17 |
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| Zoiker |
 | Petty Officer 2nd Class |
Messages: 59
Registered: January 2006 | |
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| LEit wrote on Thu, 02 February 2006 17:54 |
And Madman hits it out of the park...
I may have added that wrapping a galaxy doesn't make much sense in reality.
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For many races, the starting position, relevant to the galaxy, can be a huge advantage or disadvantage, so I think this could make a lot of sense. When I play a -f race or I'm in the mood for a lot of diplomacy, I much prefer to be in the middle of the galaxy. OTOH, when I'm playing a slower race (i.e. HP or modest HG) then being on the edge or the corner provides a much shorter border to defend whilst the economy ramps up.
From a coding perspective, so long as the designer has encapsulated the Location behaviors the calculations shouldn't be that problematic.
Cheers,
Zoiker
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| Re: Feature questions |
Mon, 13 February 2006 20:32 |
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Yep - and wormholes can be used to go from one side of the map to the other. No need to wrap the universe around (this isn't Pac-Man after all). Just define several wormholes and you can do the same thing.
Ptolemy
Though we often ask how and why, we must also do to get the answers to the questions.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Feature questions |
Mon, 13 February 2006 21:15 |
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Hehe, hence my suggestion to add 'thicknesses' in version "348754" 
Seriously though, for a moment, just a simple z-coordinate is very easy to handle in client. You can do something like ctrl+click to drag 'height' of waypoint up and down. Alternatively (or additionally) you could have a type in or slider on shp order's waypoints to adjust the coordinates manually (I'd like to have this just for x,y - it's a pain getting that fleet to go _exactly_ where you want it. To make life easier you can make normal drag and drop of waypoints snap to planets in z just as they normally do in x and y.
Visually, spinning and rotating map is trivial, if you feel the need to do this in client (but not really needed for playability.) As another visual aid you could make objects on map appear larger when 'higher' or smaller when 'lower' (when not in habitability view.)
There's heaps more methods I haven't bothered to list here... Just showing how conceptually simple it is to implement z coordinate.
To be honest, the game works well enough just in x and y, I suspect adding z adds unnecessary complexity, but it's certainly plausible.
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| Re: Feature questions |
Tue, 14 February 2006 10:10 |
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| BlueTurbit |
 | Lt. Commander
RIP
BlueTurbit died Oct. 20, 2011 |
Messages: 835
Registered: October 2002
Location: Heart of Texas | |
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| gible wrote on Tue, 14 February 2006 03:05 |
...then add in a wrapping universe
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Now there's a good thought. No more getting stuck on the edges or corners with limited expansion compared to the other races.
BlueTurbit Country/RockReport message to a moderator
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| Re: Feature questions |
Tue, 14 February 2006 18:41 |
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| BlueTurbit |
| Lt. Commander
RIP
BlueTurbit died Oct. 20, 2011 |
Messages: 835
Registered: October 2002
Location: Heart of Texas | |
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a physics team led by Jean-Pierre Luminet of the Observatoire de Paris proposes that the universe is the shape of a volleyball, or something much like one — a shape that geometrists call a "dodecahedron," the union of 12 curved pentagons. They base the result on CMB data reported this year by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP).
"A dodecahedron universe is kind of a wrap-around universe," says study mathematician Jeffrey Weeks, a MacArthur Fellow based in Canton, N.Y. The "edge" of such a universe simply connects with its opposite side, sort of like a videogame in which a spaceship leaves the right side of a screen only to appear on the left. Someone living in such a universe would perceive no edge to it, for that reason.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-10-08-volleyball-univ erse_x.htm
BlueTurbit Country/RockReport message to a moderator
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| Re: Feature questions |
Wed, 15 February 2006 03:40 |
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| Madman wrote on Wed, 15 February 2006 18:03 |
Another thought with a wrap-around universe: give everyone their own local coordinate system, so everyone thinks they are right in the middle of the universe. In addition to making it nicer to use the GUI, it would also add a little justification for each race feeling 'special' in the scheme of things.
Then if you went a step further and had different star names for each player, it would be very hard to communicate positional information with someone you hadn't met yet - it would be hard to even tell anywone where your homeworld was (mine is at (0,0) - where's yours?  ). Not impossible - "see that cluster of stars that forms a pentagon and has a big empty space to the left of it? Lets use that as a reference point."
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I just said that...
"Star coordinates displayed relative to the player's homeworlds, and individualised starnames, it would only be a minor headache once you got proficient at it, and even less so if you build in sharing player info, but it adds a small touch of realism without causing major headaches(like gravity wells(good idea tho ) "
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| Re: Feature questions |
Wed, 15 February 2006 08:08 |
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| iztok |
 | Commander |
Messages: 1206
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
| BlueTurbit wrote on Tue, 14 February 2006 16:10 |
| gible wrote on Tue, 14 February 2006 03:05 |
...then add in a wrapping universe
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Now there's a good thought. No more getting stuck on the edges or corners with limited expansion compared to the other races.
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... no more secure edges, as you have now 360 degree border. Attacks coming from every direction. In the late game hard to find your core planets, as the map scrolls all-around. Navigational nightmare.
All that you have in Reach for the Stars, and I can tell you it is almost unplayable even on the medium (50*50) map. IIRC I never finished campaigns, as at some stage mission maps became wrapped, and too big to be fun.
BR, Iztok
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Its game. 
Must be easy and fun to play without breaking both your mouse and your brain to travel 3D near and around gravity wells of our physics. We play on 2D hyperspace map of quite strange universe with linear distances. There are only 3 minerals and planets exist without suns. 
Not very realistic, but might be funny to try ...