Home » Stars! Clones, Extensions, Modding » FreeStars » Don't Let the Stars Fade Away
| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Tue, 22 May 2007 09:35   |
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 m.a@stars |
 | Commander |
Messages: 2765
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left | |
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| Innocence wrote on Tue, 22 May 2007 14:49 |
LOL, yea but if micro management pays off players WILL micro manage.
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As well they should, since the "No thanks, I'll micromanage my 1500+ freighters by myself" option will always exist. 
But other players should be able to choose NOT to micromanage, or at least not so extensively, without losing all their chances to win for their "lazyness"
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Removing freighters as seperate ships doesn't necessarily mean removing raiding and disruption. You could still do blockades and if desired implement an abstract system where minerals sent to system are captured if the system is under blockade.
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Well, blockading is different than raiding.  Also, that "abstract system" needs to be not much more complex than plain freighters and also appeal to the Pirate that everyone of us is at heart. 
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This might even give the Mass Drivers a comeback - they're not much used as it is. Perhaps then PP will finally be a PRT worth playing 
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The trouble with PP is scarcity of minerals. Allow them to fling pop too and we'd be talking some progress. 
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As for SS and SD they're very strong PRT's regardless of raiding freighers or not
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Well, with CAs, JoaTs, ISs, and even ITs no longer needing to protect their civilian shipping, their Econ advantage would increase. 
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I'm all for automating certain features, but if you leave an opening for the player to make adjustments you need the automation to be 100% effective or the player will end up micro managing anyway.
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90% or even 75% effective could be enough, as long as it keeps MM to a minority portion of every turn. 
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I recall reading about this. However I don't see the need of such a bank - the minerals should still be present on each system - I'm only out for the freighters
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Bank -> taxes/reserves/centralized research -> justification for automated pop migrations and "third-party" mineral/goods shipments.  Also enabling "economic warfare", whatever that would mean for Stars. 
All in all a not quite welcome loss of control, where Total Control is one of the few key features of Stars. 
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Anyway, ask ten players and you'll get ten different suggestions on how to change/improve/remove a feature. My point is merely that adding a crapload of features to Stars! and removing all limits (like ship designs) wont necessarily make it a better game.
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Again, wholeheartedly agree. 
So many Stars, so few Missiles!
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Tue, 22 May 2007 14:18 |
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| Innocence |
 | Crewman 2nd Class |
Messages: 10
Registered: December 2005
Location: Denmark | |
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| m.a@stars wrote on Tue, 22 May 2007 15:35 |
But other players should be able to choose NOT to micromanage, or at least not so extensively, without losing all their chances to win for their "lazyness"
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That's the ticket exactly. I guess if you put hard work into automation you could make it work 90-95% as effective as MM, making MM much less desirable
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Well, blockading is different than raiding. Also, that "abstract system" needs to be not much more complex than plain freighters and also appeal to the Pirate that everyone of us is at heart.
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Hehe, aaaargh! Yes, I see your point. The satisfaction of raiding a freight convoy is far superior to simple blockading a planet Fun is what games are for after all.
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The trouble with PP is scarcity of minerals. Allow them to fling pop too and we'd be talking some progress.
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Actually that's a very good idea! It make take som balancing, but it'd surely bring the PP on par with the other PRTs.
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All in all a not quite welcome loss of control, where Total Control is one of the few key features of Stars.
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So true
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Sun, 27 May 2007 18:29 |
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+1 for support of a Stars! clone that will run under 64-bit XP/Vista (32-bit mode is fine).
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Mon, 28 May 2007 10:02 |
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| m.a@stars |
| Commander |
Messages: 2765
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left | |
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| goober wrote on Mon, 28 May 2007 15:24 |
The mineral moving system need not be freighters. How about using the stargates? You still have to use freighters initially, but once a stargate is built it could become part of the mineral moving network subject to whatever strictures. IT mineral movement should obviously be more efficient/quicker over long distance etc. IT may also get advantage of mineral movement completion before battle, while everyone else gets it after battle. This would also mean that HE would need to be able to build stargates, but only for mineral transfer.
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Well, it still seems plain Freighters would be simpler than all these significant changes.
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As to the raiding/pirating side of things ... how about the possibility of interrupting a mineral transfer when you kill a starbase and gaining the minerals if you have some freighters/cargo space with you? Could Robber Barons/Pick Pocket scanners steal a percentage automatically if in orbit as a transfer goes through?
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All battle debris, including that of Bases, rains down on planets, same as packets. So you'll need to actually take the planet to steal them, or use Robber Barons...
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I'm sure folks can come with other possibilities.
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Simpler, faster, better alternatives, if possible.
So many Stars, so few Missiles!
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Tue, 29 May 2007 09:04 |
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| goober |
 | Chief Warrant Officer 3 |
Messages: 175
Registered: December 2003
Location: +10 | |
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| m.a@stars wrote on Mon, 28 May 2007 10:02 |
| goober wrote on Mon, 28 May 2007 15:24 |
The mineral moving system need not be freighters. How about using the stargates? You still have to use freighters initially, but once a stargate is built it could become part of the mineral moving network subject to whatever strictures. IT mineral movement should obviously be more efficient/quicker over long distance etc. IT may also get advantage of mineral movement completion before battle, while everyone else gets it after battle. This would also mean that HE would need to be able to build stargates, but only for mineral transfer.
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Well, it still seems plain Freighters would be simpler than all these significant changes. .
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Hmmm. Not sure how it's more complicated. Your Freighter management system presumably can only work with the freighters available. Sounds like the same with gates. The freighters have to be sent to a place pick up minerals and take them where they are wanted by the automated system. With what I suggest they just get shunted via stargates. For IT the freighters should go via gates if available or space if not. If a gate is being built at a planet, perhaps the freighters should wait until its built. Seems simpler to do it just by gate. The freighters would require tech/minerals ... so do the stargates. Managing stargate upgrades/availability would surely be simpler than freighter upgrades/availability in optimising mineral movement. Giving HE stargates that won't let them travel through them doesn't seem so awkward.
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As to the raiding/pirating side of things ... how about the possibility of interrupting a mineral transfer when you kill a starbase and gaining the minerals if you have some freighters/cargo space with you? Could Robber Barons/Pick Pocket scanners steal a percentage automatically if in orbit as a transfer goes through?
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| m.a@stars wrote on Mon, 28 May 2007 10:02 |
All battle debris, including that of Bases, rains down on planets, same as packets. So you'll need to actually take the planet to steal them, or use Robber Barons...
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So what's the big deal about a % of those falling into SS hands if they have the right scanners in place? Or anyone elses for that matter if they have the cargo space. This seems to fit with folks desire to have pirating options and be able to reap the reward of killing starbases or getting your mineral stealers in range.
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I'm sure folks can come with other possibilities.
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| m.a@stars wrote on Mon, 28 May 2007 10:02 |
Simpler, faster, better alternatives, if possible.
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There is a faster, simpler system for moving stuff round the stars universe than using stargates? ... must of missed something in the help files
Variation on theme: you learn how to create and control the wormholes in Stars! space for mineral transportation at prop5 say. On building any type of orbital over your world you automatically put a wormhole in place for such purposes. At prop 13, your control of wormholes is such that you can also send pop through too. Your automated system can now manage pop and minerals.
Effectively you just the MM management system in place with a specious cover story.
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Tue, 29 May 2007 11:29 |
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| m.a@stars |
| Commander |
Messages: 2765
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left | |
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| goober wrote on Tue, 29 May 2007 15:04 |
Hmmm. Not sure how it's more complicated. Your Freighter management system presumably can only work with the freighters available. Sounds like the same with gates. The freighters have to be sent to a place pick up minerals and take them where they are wanted by the automated system. With what I suggest they just get shunted via stargates. For IT the freighters should go via gates if available or space if not. If a gate is being built at a planet, perhaps the freighters should wait until its built. Seems simpler to do it just by gate. The freighters would require tech/minerals ... so do the stargates. Managing stargate upgrades/availability would surely be simpler than freighter upgrades/availability in optimising mineral movement. Giving HE stargates that won't let them travel through them doesn't seem so awkward.
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That means changing Gate capabilities, giving Gates to a race which didn't have them, forcing everyone to wait until they got basic Gate tech and could build them everywhere, and basically making every race a flavor of IT, which would do wonders for the IT's usefulness to all others, too. 
Whereas freighters are ships, just like warships, SFXs, bombers, and whatnot, and cargo can be added to just about any hull, and you need it anyway to grab debris and packets, trade with the MT and move pop unless you want to use pop-flinging massdrivers too.
So we'd be using the old Freighter system, somewhat altered, or even simplified, and the new Gate system, with all its potential balance-altering issues for blockades, pillage, overgating, etc...
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As to the raiding/pirating side of things ... how about the possibility of interrupting a mineral transfer when you kill a starbase and gaining the minerals if you have some freighters/cargo space with you? Could Robber Barons/Pick Pocket scanners steal a percentage automatically if in orbit as a transfer goes through?
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Sounds fair, but what about deep-space pillaging? And battle debris, and packet-stealing, and MT-trading... Also, minefields would lose one of their sieging abilities: that of denying mineral shipments to get thru.
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So what's the big deal about a % of those falling into SS hands if they have the right scanners in place? Or anyone elses for that matter if they have the cargo space. This seems to fit with folks desire to have pirating options and be able to reap the reward of killing starbases or getting your mineral stealers in range.
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Anyone having a "pirate" scanner can grab any minerals they want anyway, perhaps only a strategically important mineral type, and not just a percentage of all. Everyone else needs a "pirate" scanner, which makes the SS races ppl you want to befriend and not just kill on sight.
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There is a faster, simpler system for moving stuff round the stars universe than using stargates? ... must of missed something in the help files
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Supernova proposed a pan-galactic Banking system, linking all planets and races, and enabling stock-exchange economics and economic warfare. Which solved some problems and created others, of course, not least of which was the paradigm shift of all cargo ops.
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Variation on theme: you learn how to create and control the wormholes in Stars! space for mineral transportation at prop5 say. On building any type of orbital over your world you automatically put a wormhole in place for such purposes. At prop 13, your control of wormholes is such that you can also send pop through too. Your automated system can now manage pop and minerals.
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In other words: IT on steroids for everyone.
Wormhole control has been proposed before, but not that complete.
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Effectively you just the MM management system in place with a specious cover story.
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Yeah, freighters are low tech, and gating cargo/pop thru interstellar distances is high-tech and the realm of a few races only. As specious as they come.
So many Stars, so few Missiles!
In space no one can hear you scheme! Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Wed, 30 May 2007 03:16 |
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| goober |
| Chief Warrant Officer 3 |
Messages: 175
Registered: December 2003
Location: +10 | |
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| mazda wrote on Tue, 29 May 2007 10:04 |
Here we go again.
Some people take some tactical aspect that they find boring, or can't be bothered to do, label it as micro-managing in order to denigrate it, and then want it removed from the game.
Can I ask why some aspects are considered unnecessary hassle, whilst other stuff is considered an essential part of the game ?
Perhaps someone would like to not have to bother where to move their warships - just tell the computer which planets they want to take and let it get on with it.
Maybe you just want a game where all you have to do is make strategic decisions ?
But for me, moving minerals to where they are most useful is just as important as laying/sweeping minefields.
I know I never do enough of either !
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Personally, I enjoy the economy building together with the inherent mineral pop and mineral movement required and I have no particular desire to see it automated.
In the late game, when you have a large number of planets and there is a lot of work to do to keep things running it does become a chore: I'd prefer to be able to concentrate on minelaying/sweeping/skirmishing/poring over scans to find that elusive enemy fleet and the like. With this in mind, I wouldn't be averse to just being able to set my production queues and having a mineral management system that would move the minerals between my planets in my clear region of influence so I didn't have to worry about it. I tend to just shift a big chunk of minerals to particular planets and they are my production centres. I'd be happy with something that did something as coarse as that. I'd be even happier if I could automatically designate a particular planet as a base for all new ships and then they made there way there by the quickest available route,merging as they go, so I could then distribute them where I wanted them. I usually have to spend what seems like an age setting this up via the routing command.
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Wed, 30 May 2007 04:39 |
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| m.a@stars |
| Commander |
Messages: 2765
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left | |
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| goober wrote on Wed, 30 May 2007 09:16 |
I wouldn't be averse to just being able to set my production queues and having a mineral management system that would move the minerals between my planets in my clear region of influence so I didn't have to worry about it. I tend to just shift a big chunk of minerals to particular planets and they are my production centres. I'd be happy with something that did something as coarse as that.
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Private experiments show that is indeed doable:
find which production center will need minerals after the current turn's production
find which nearby mineral piles will sit unused
match the two by distance/availability of freighters
do almost the same for breeders/colonies/maxed-out worlds
use the same freighter(s) for several related runs. Build more freighters if needed
I found the last point to be somewhat elusive, and planning for more than one turn requires the assumption that building Qs/priorities won't change too much. 
Special situations, such as AR mineral Fountains supplying the owner and allied races weren't contemplated.
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I'd be even happier if I could automatically designate a particular planet as a base for all new ships and then they made there way there by the quickest available route,merging as they go, so I could then distribute them where I wanted them. I usually have to spend what seems like an age setting this up via the routing command.
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Well, once setup, routing works pretty well. Allowing for "routes" to use the necessary intermediate stops, for refueling or to avoid overgating, would be nice, although perhaps not worth the hassle.
But you pointed out something that's been lurking on my mind since forever, and that Stars partially does already when "merging" with a planet:
create a new "merge" flavor such as "merge with possible identical tokens" on arrival or perhaps "merge with any fleets carrying the same merge flag AND route"...
[Updated on: Wed, 30 May 2007 06:10]
So many Stars, so few Missiles!
In space no one can hear you scheme! Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Wed, 30 May 2007 06:46 |
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| goober |
| Chief Warrant Officer 3 |
Messages: 175
Registered: December 2003
Location: +10 | |
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| m.a@stars wrote on Wed, 30 May 2007 04:39 |
use the same freighter(s) for several related runs. Build more freighters if needed
I found the last point to be somewhat elusive, and planning for more than one turn requires the assumption that building Qs/priorities won't change too much.
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I envisaged some kind of tick box mechanism. You check the box if the planet is to be a production centre. You put what you want in the production queue and flag the intention for it to be a long term plan.
Regardless of whether such a mechanism is in place, I'd also really like to be able to update multiple production queues at once.
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Well, once setup, routing works pretty well. Allowing for "routes" to use the necessary intermediate stops, for refueling or to avoid overgating, would be nice, although perhaps not worth the hassle.
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Again, I'd be happy with something coarse I could adjust. As long as the majority of the links in the network are reasonable, you'd only have to change a relatively small number. I envisage the route lines appearing after the application of some heuristic algorithm and me being able to shift and adjust them.
Would something similar work for mineral movement management? You run your mouse pointer/double click over the transport routes for that turn and a little pop up message tells you it's routing such and such minerals to such and such place for such and such production and you can delete/modify them. So it would be more of a mineral management tool/reminder/prompt rather than an actual automated system.
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But you pointed out something that's been lurking on my mind since forever, and that Stars partially does already when "merging" with a planet:
create a new "merge" flavor such as "merge with possible identical tokens" on arrival or perhaps "merge with any fleets carrying the same merge flag AND route"...
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On reflection, it's the little things such as that, along with being able to do various kinds of multiple changes that would make the biggest difference to my enjoyment of the game and reflects something Innocence was saying about the UI. I don't want, where possible, to be doing the same tasks, over and over again each turn, when a change to the UI would make it a straightforward one time command/update for that turn.
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Wed, 30 May 2007 09:11 |
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| m.a@stars |
| Commander |
Messages: 2765
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left | |
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| goober wrote on Wed, 30 May 2007 12:46 |
I envisaged some kind of tick box mechanism. You check the box if the planet is to be a production centre. You put what you want in the production queue and flag the intention for it to be a long term plan.
Regardless of whether such a mechanism is in place, I'd also really like to be able to update multiple production queues at once.
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So, more or less, whip up a "planet report" and tick/select the planets you want, then assign a previously defined prodQ (hopefully including ships, bases, packets...) to all of them. Simple and client-side and handy as should be.
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Again, I'd be happy with something coarse I could adjust. As long as the majority of the links in the network are reasonable, you'd only have to change a relatively small number. I envisage the route lines appearing after the application of some heuristic algorithm and me being able to shift and adjust them.
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Something like selecting the planets you want from the Planet Report and tell them "Route to X". Then, as part of the overall "route optimizer/detangler/unsillyfier" assign reasonable intermediate waypoints to those routes.
I've often dreamed of a lil button that, once I've painstakingly adjusted a ship's route by hand, would allow me to "save route as" and "assign as default" that route for all ships that follow...
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Would something similar work for mineral movement management? You run your mouse pointer/double click over the transport routes for that turn and a little pop up message tells you it's routing such and such minerals to such and such place for such and such production and you can delete/modify them.
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Yeah, something derived from the Fleet Report, and dealt with in much the same way as when a "Patrol" ship tells you it's selected a new target. Only the "mineral advisor" would need to tell you why some planet is gonna run out of mins, while the nearby colony has surplus stuff...
As I see it, the "advisor" would point out which planets need which minerals, and suggest the most likely sources for those, hopefully after sorting out most of the simpler 1-to-1 trips where a freighter was available (or at least idle and close by) and then the player would need to decide what to do with the (hopefully few) remaining routes where there's no freighter, or the amount demanded is bigger than the available surplus...
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So it would be more of a mineral management tool/reminder/prompt rather than an actual automated system.
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My own thoughts, too, as it would be rather difficult to make it 100% automatic/perfect and player input would be routine anyway.
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it's the little things such as that, along with being able to do various kinds of multiple changes that would make the biggest difference to my enjoyment of the game and reflects something Innocence was saying about the UI. I don't want, where possible, to be doing the same tasks, over and over again each turn, when a change to the UI would make it a straightforward one time command/update for that turn.
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So true.
So many Stars, so few Missiles!
In space no one can hear you scheme! Report message to a moderator
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 Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Fri, 17 August 2007 03:32 |
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| ken-reed |
 | Senior Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 92
Registered: December 2006
Location: Oxfordshire, UK | |
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Hi,
I hate to admit this but I consider Nova as a personal learning project (I did have ideas of opening it up to the world in general but found that I just couldn't "let it go"). I've loads of ideas to try out but it would just take too long to explain what I'm thinking about.
As an aside, I got a binary install project working last night (at 2:00 am ... I don't sleep much due to some medication I'm taking at the moment). It needs work but it's basically functional. I'll include that in the next release so non-developers can start to play with the beast if they like).
As far as Nova is concerned, download the source code and have a good bit of fun playing with it. Ton's of stuff to do but ... Hey! ... have fun. Mail me the details of anything you are happy with and I'll plug it into the project. Also, tell me about any problems and I'll fix them in the code base.
Just remember, Nova is not work. It's fun! Play, enjoy and learn (I've learned C#, ASP .Net, XHTML and CSS just from this little project ... that can't be bad).
Right. I'm off to start working on clearing the major problems in the bug list (I'm on leave today). Should keep me busy for a while.
Cheers!
Ken
PS Check out the updated web site.
Don't let the Stars! fade away.
http://stars-nova.sourceforge.net
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Sat, 18 August 2007 14:26 |
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| ekolis |
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Messages: 51
Registered: May 2006
Location: Cincinnati, OH, USA |     
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Hey Ken,
I've got a question for you... 
See, I've been working on my own 4X game lately, and I've had some trouble with the save/load code. I initially tried saving the game by simply calling on a library called "XStream" to dump everything to an in-memory XML representation (actually several - one with all data for the host, and then one with only the data that each player knows about for each player), and then I zipped that up and saved it to some files. Problem is, that was really slow because the XML representation was absolutely HUGE so it took forever to create it and zip it up. Also, savegames would be incompatible if I changed even the slightest thing in the game classes. I then tried using a library called "Hibernate" to put it all in a database (the DBMS is called "Derby" and it's only 2MB and is really easy to set up a database with programmatically!) and then zip up the database, but it took forever for Hibernate to create the database schema. (Though I guess I could just generate the code to create schema once and save it to a file included with the game so that file could just be run against the database; I'm not sure yet if the slow part is creating the code or executing it against the database!) So I was wondering how you handled saving and loading in your game... have you come up with any clever solution that I might want to borrow? Or are you just using something like the binary serialization built into .NET? (I haven't tried Java's binary serialization yet; I figured that would make things *really* incompatible between game versions!)
Thanks!
-Ed
Mr. Flibble says...
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