Home » Stars! Clones, Extensions, Modding » FreeStars » Don't Let the Stars Fade Away
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Thu, 03 July 2008 02:10   |
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 ken-reed |
 | Senior Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 92
Registered: December 2006
Location: Oxfordshire, UK | |
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| ken-reed wrote on Wed, 02 July 2008 15:37 |
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That is the classical "best-fit" formula.  It gives good results, but why use that when you can use the exact math? 
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Good point. The only reason I used it is that Nova is largely built from the Stars! Technical FAQ and I'd already coded that bit. Plus, I didn't fancy converting the C++ to C# and bending it to the Nova data structures (Nova is a 32-bit application and doesn't bother with all the packing and using BYTES or shorts.
Still, as I say, you have a good point and I'll have a go at seeing if I can make it fit into Nova.
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I've had another look at both implementations and I'm surprised they give such good results because neither your implementation nor the one in FreeStars take into account the fact that gravity is actualy a log function (unlike temperature and radiation which are linear).
Also, the code (forgive me for being critical) is hard to follow. I could just blindly translate it to C# but I really do like to understand what the code is really up to (especially as Nova doesn't bother with all that fixed-point integer scaling. It just uses doubles.
So, just for now, I'm going to leave things as they are but have a little side-project to get to grips with your code and, once I fully understand it (variables such as "Excentr" have me a bit baffled at the moment) plug it in.
Don't let the Stars! fade away.
http://stars-nova.sourceforge.net
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Thu, 03 July 2008 07:48 |
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| m.a@stars |
 | Commander |
Messages: 2765
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left | |
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| ken-reed wrote on Thu, 03 July 2008 08:10 |
Nova is a 32-bit application and doesn't bother with all the packing and using BYTES or shorts.
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Bytes, shorts, and the like aren't critical for this math, as long as you remember to round up (or down) in the necessary places to keep results consistent with the original. 
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neither your implementation nor the one in FreeStars take into account the fact that gravity is actualy a log function (unlike temperature and radiation which are linear).
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That log function is only to show "gravity-like" figures. The real math is done with the "clicks", which go from 0 to 100 like Temp and Rad.
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Also, the code (forgive me for being critical) is hard to follow. I could just blindly translate it to C# but I really do like to understand what the code is really up to (especially as Nova doesn't bother with all that fixed-point integer scaling. It just uses doubles.
So, just for now, I'm going to leave things as they are but have a little side-project to get to grips with your code and, once I fully understand it (variables such as "Excentr" have me a bit baffled at the moment) plug it in.
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You should have seen the original (disassembler-derived) tangle. 
I cleaned it up a bit, and rewrote several parts which could be done in a somewhat simpler way. I didn't touch other places where I wasn't too sure what was going on or how to improve them. 
Many of the variable names you see are little more than hints about what they *might* really mean. "Excentricity" would be related to how far a hab value is from the center of the range. 
Hey, if it was simple, the Jeffs would have never bothered to code it in the 1st place. 
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, 11 July 2008 16:36 |
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| ken-reed |
| Senior Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 92
Registered: December 2006
Location: Oxfordshire, UK | |
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| aikeru wrote on Fri, 11 July 2008 17:20 |
If he reads this forum or someone knows or wants to chat about working on this:
aikeru [at] gmail [dot] com 
Let me know, please!!
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Hi,
Nice you hear from you. Nova is open source so you can do what you wish with the code. But, if you want to contribute to the "released" version you are most welcome and I'll provide what ever help you need to get started.
The first thing is to install the 2008 versions of Visual Studio Express. It's a free download from the Microsoft web site (my aim is to ensure that anybody can work on Nova without spending any money at all).
Then pull down the source code package from SourceForge, compile it and away you go.
In the documention folder (under General) is a list of things "to do". Pick any item you like if you want to play and have a go.
So far the only person working on Nova is me so I'm not using the SourceForge CVS system. If you have a contribution to make just e-mail it to me and I will l plug it in. If anyone else expresses an interest I'll move the code into the SourceForge CVS system so that we can do things "properly".
If you are going to work on the code I suggest you either wait for the July release or e-mail me for the latest copy of the code. The July release includes the following:
Colony ships are now scrapped when a planet is colonised as in Stars!.
Energy Capcitors now contribute to beam weapon power as they should.
The following secondary racial traits have now been implemented to date:
Improved fuel efficiency;
Cheap factories;
No RAM scoop engines;
Ulitimate recycling;
Low starting population;
Improved starbases;
No advanced scanners.
As it says on my web site Nova was a learning exercise. Some of the early code is, quite frankly, pretty bad and could do with some cleaning up. The later stuff is, I like to think, OK.
The documentation is minimal and neglected. If you want to work on the code it would be an incentive for me to rectify this.
Have a go and keep in touch. I'm just an e-mail away - although probably in a different time zone, I'm on GMT + 1 hour (British Summer Time).
Don't let the Stars! fade away.
http://stars-nova.sourceforge.net
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Thu, 17 July 2008 20:25 |
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| ken-reed |
| Senior Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 92
Registered: December 2006
Location: Oxfordshire, UK | |
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The features listed in my previous posting have now been incorporated into the source and binary releases on SourceForge.
[Updated on: Thu, 17 July 2008 20:26]
Don't let the Stars! fade away.
http://stars-nova.sourceforge.net
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Mon, 20 July 2009 18:28 |
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| Phenoca |
 | Civilian |
Messages: 2
Registered: July 2009
Location: Here | |
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| Iconian wrote on Sat, 27 January 2007 21:59 |
I think we need to answer three questions:
1. Where is Stars! right now, and where is it going? Specifically, is it dying?
2. If it is dying, what can we do to prevent that?
3. What can we learn from the past to prevent the mistakes, disagreements, and other problems that contributed to disunity?
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1. I think Stars! is dying.
2. Join the game, advertise amongst friends, or speak with the developers.
3. Stars!... Isn't a game you can pick-up and just start playing. The game takes a lot of time to learn, and excel at. I dislike being held-back by schedules, or slow tick-times, when playing against others. I do not feel the need to join the Autohost.org community, when there are already better games out there, that are more fast-paced yet share the same tactical-elements.
Stars! Does not appeal to Socializers and Killers (see: Bartle).
The steep learning-curve and tick-based nature of the game makes Stars! lose its appeal over MMOGs which are specifically designed to reach a multiplayer-audience.
Please PM me if you respond to any of my points, as this is my first and only post on these forums.
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Mon, 20 July 2009 20:13 |
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| Phenoca wrote on Mon, 20 July 2009 18:28 |
| Iconian wrote on Sat, 27 January 2007 21:59 |
I think we need to answer three questions:
1. Where is Stars! right now, and where is it going? Specifically, is it dying?
2. If it is dying, what can we do to prevent that?
3. What can we learn from the past to prevent the mistakes, disagreements, and other problems that contributed to disunity?
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1. I think Stars! is dying.
2. Join the game, advertise amongst friends, or speak with the developers.
3. Stars!... Isn't a game you can pick-up and just start playing. The game takes a lot of time to learn, and excel at. I dislike being held-back by schedules, or slow tick-times, when playing against others. I do not feel the need to join the Autohost.org community, when there are already better games out there, that are more fast-paced yet share the same tactical-elements.
Stars! Does not appeal to Socializers and Killers (see: Bartle).
The steep learning-curve and tick-based nature of the game makes Stars! lose its appeal over MMOGs which are specifically designed to reach a multiplayer-audience.
Please PM me if you respond to any of my points, as this is my first and only post on these forums.
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What a lot of rubbish! 
I'm a socialiser & I love Stars! I returned to Stars! 3 years ago specifically for the interaction & communication it involves with others.
4 years ago I had a stroke, suffered some brain damage & completely lost my memory & the ability to communicate beyond the level of about a 5 year old. So I sought something that would help me recover my communication ability & test my intellect.
Stars helped me to do both & I know of no other game that could have done that. Now I have nothing to prove & I just love the game.
The Stars community is also unrivalled in many ways. For example, flaming is almost unheard of, cheating is rare & experienced players are always willing to help develop the less experienced.
After almost 15 years Stars is still the best strategy game ever written &, tho it might take a while to become an expert, I know plenty of players that have played well in their first or second game. I won my second game myself against 15 other players including the legendary Jason Cawley.
If you like a quick game where you don't have to think too much then play a MMOG. If you like strategy & using your noggin then Stars is the game to play.
I find it hard to believe that Phenoca would post something that serves no purpose other than to try & damage this community.
Shame on him! 
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Mon, 20 July 2009 20:49 |
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| Phenoca wrote on Tue, 21 July 2009 10:28 |
| Iconian wrote on Sat, 27 January 2007 21:59 |
I think we need to answer three questions:
1. Where is Stars! right now, and where is it going? Specifically, is it dying?
2. If it is dying, what can we do to prevent that?
3. What can we learn from the past to prevent the mistakes, disagreements, and other problems that contributed to disunity?
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1. I think Stars! is dying.
2. Join the game, advertise amongst friends, or speak with the developers.
3. Stars!... Isn't a game you can pick-up and just start playing. The game takes a lot of time to learn, and excel at. I dislike being held-back by schedules, or slow tick-times, when playing against others. I do not feel the need to join the Autohost.org community, when there are already better games out there, that are more fast-paced yet share the same tactical-elements.
Stars! Does not appeal to Socializers and Killers (see: Bartle).
The steep learning-curve and tick-based nature of the game makes Stars! lose its appeal over MMOGs which are specifically designed to reach a multiplayer-audience.
Please PM me if you respond to any of my points, as this is my first and only post on these forums.
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1. Slowly yes, there is a widespread group of us that play it and keep coming back to it who are slowly getting older (and starting to literally die off)...younger/new players arrive, but aren't retained as much I think.
2. Stars! fan-base is among the most loyal, a finished clone would go a long way.
3. And the learning curve is made steeper by the fact that so much of the mechanics of Stars! has been analysed and is now vital knowledge to compete. I don't think is was an issue when Stars! was newer. Not to self, if I make a clone, make the underlying math either dead simple, explain it enough to be dead simple, or so insanely complex that even JC can't over analyse it.
Bartle... very interesting. You can take the test here. I would be curious to know what the average Stars! player gets. Myself, I scored Explorer:80% Achiever:65% Social:35% Killer:20%. The only summary of results I found were for everquest players(hardly the same gamestyle tho)
The scale of Stars! is what makes the tick nature necessary I think, what could be done easily at the beginning would become impossible once a large empire is established...tho I could be wrong, even the limited routing that stars has might make up for that. Blitz players would know better. Oddly enough, the SAH community is something of a middle ground - we generally only play small-medium games the blitz players tend to gather on IRC(or at least they did) and while every so often someone proposes large-very large scale games - and there are players who prefer that, they seem to collect...elsewhere. Tho that may simple be that the large games take so long that it only seems they're elsewhere when they're in fact just playing.
I do concede your point tho, as (eg) civilsation and other turnbased games (also) lend themselves much more the single player than muliplayer simply because swapping turn-files and seeming to do so little of the game as a whole in each turn draws the game out unpleasantly. I've attempted PBEM Civ once and we abandoned it. Hotseat is...ok but as with Star! the game takes longer to finish than one session and people logistics becomes an issue.
MMOG neatly solve this, but the persistence, start-at-any-time and single-player-among-thousands come with their own issues and I think Stars! players like the board-game aspect that a Stars! game has limits, an end and a winner(s) and can be started a afresh each time.
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Tue, 21 July 2009 01:28 |
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| gible wrote on Mon, 20 July 2009 17:49 |
Bartle... very interesting. You can take the test here. I would be curious to know what the average Stars! player gets. Myself, I scored Explorer:80% Achiever:65% Social:35% Killer:20%. The only summary of results I found were for everquest players(hardly the same gamestyle tho)
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I got Explorer 67%, Killer 67%, Socialiser 40%, Achiever 27%. That score doesn't represent that it's the social bits with the player community that really keep me glued to games I love.
I never play MMORPGs like the quiz is built on, but this works for both strategy games and pen-and-paper roleplayin'.
[Updated on: Tue, 21 July 2009 01:33] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Tue, 21 July 2009 19:13 |
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I'm a bit sceptical about the test but I did it twice anyway (there are a few questions where I was 50/50). Average result:
Socializer 67%, Explorer 66.5%, Achiever 43.5%, Killer 23.5%
The 4 players who've done the test so far average at:
Explorer 75.1%, Achiever 45.6%, Socializer 45.5%, Killer 34.4%
[Updated on: Tue, 21 July 2009 19:14] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Wed, 22 July 2009 11:25 |
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| Phenoca |
| Civilian |
Messages: 2
Registered: July 2009
Location: Here | |
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Thanks for your responses. I appreciate that you gave positive feedback to my negative feedback.
Socializer 67%, Explorer 60%, Achiever 53%, Killer 20%.
I was just referring to this test as a basis for generalization. I hadn't meant to stereotype everyone here as an Achiever/Explorer :(
And I do not know why this test called me an Explorer. Perhaps because I do not play 3D MMOs, though I am taking-up a 2.5D one. When I referred to: "Stars! lose its appeal over MMOGs which are specifically designed to reach a multiplayer-audience," I was referring to the city-building Persistent Browser-Based (Strategy) Games genre, as well as CosSup. I would rather not play Stars! with more than three players, as the AI is already better than myself (so I can compete with groups of AI instead of amongst a group of players), and I am not a fan of micro-management. As a game marketed to outsiders (i.e. people who have never heard of Stars!), there are no Quick Start guides, no gameplay-videos, no reviews - nothing that can be found using Google! Yet my biggest qualm is when the size of my empire becomes larger than the amount of ships and planets I can remember.
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| Re: Don't Let the Stars Fade Away |
Fri, 05 November 2010 20:42 |
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| Starcom |
 | Crewman 3rd Class |
Messages: 7
Registered: February 2003
Location: Barling Arkansas | |
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Well Hello Again
Its been about 8 years that Iv been gone seen Highlander left game about a year after me, I left him my Stars! web site, Its been dead for a long time, Dont know if any of you remember me, my web sight was STARCOM.COM, I had the games going that The winners would get a Silver Ring in the mail if they won.
How meny still playing?
Thanks all
Starcom
[Updated on: Fri, 05 November 2010 20:44] Report message to a moderator
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Can it be downloaded in one go, or must I browse the cvs tree file by file? 
