Design: Starlanes

Past public reviews and discussions.
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utilae
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#121 Post by utilae »

How bad would it be if starlanes did cross?

PowerCrazy
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#122 Post by PowerCrazy »

It wouldn't be catastrophic if they crossed, BUT once we have 20+ intersections it can get confusing very quickly. I'd think that we'd want to avoid this all together by assuring that they DON'T cross. So any public review on starlanes yet?
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utilae
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#123 Post by utilae »

Ok, then starlanes linking to the nearest stars are probably the best way to get around this problem.

Moriarty
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#124 Post by Moriarty »

linking to the nearest system won't completely do away with crossing. but as stated, it's the best way i know off to minimise it without actually writing code to get rid of any crossings.

a additional possible solution may be to colour the star-lanes... it'd be easier to see wha one does what, when they cross.

Kevin
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#125 Post by Kevin »

I suggest making the ratio of starlane speed to OR speed an option chosen at the beginning of the game. Easy to tweak when play-balancing, and setting a ratio of 1:1 effectively means "no starlanes", unless starlanes have a non-speed effect I haven't noticed.

Alternatively, have two options
Starlane speed = 5 # 5 * base speed
Offroad Speed = 1 # base speed

You could even make off-road travel _faster_ than the starlanes, but that would just be silly. :-)
- Kevin
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PowerCrazy
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#126 Post by PowerCrazy »

It would be better if off-road to starlane travel was configured in a .cfg file. Similiar to Civilizations rules.ini file that includes road speed. In this game we pretty much want EVRYTHING to be configurable, but only things that are fairly intuitive and easy to understand to be configurable as a setting at startup. For example, starlanes on or off, off-road travel on or off, planetary specials frequency, age of the universe etc. should be configuable on startup. But not such fundamental things as number of resources produced per pop unit, or mineral/AUs exchange rate, research paradigm, ratio of starlane to offroad travel etc. While these should be able to be changed, they should be changed via config file, and tweaked mainly by us for game balancing, or by the internet community for quite 'unique' game experiences.
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Impaler
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#127 Post by Impaler »

Thats a good general phisopohy to live by. SMAC uses an extensive document that alows you to change all kinds of things including tecnologies. I my self use a heavily modified version to acomidate how I feel the game should be played. I have also seen several intersting versions created by fans of SMAC for download on the internet. The easily modifiable nature of the document and flexibility of it make it a great tool for alowing the individual and comunity to create the "perfect" experience.
Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

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skdiw
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#128 Post by skdiw »

I think there should be an option for number of starlane in the beginning of them game. There could be different starlanes offering different bonus. By fault, a typical starlane, imo, should offer a constant bonus rather than a multiplier. That way as you get better tech in late game, the starlane becomes negligible, which makes sense to me sense latter warp dive should be powerful enough to just about teleport anywhere.

Other ideas I have is have about starlanes is appearing as random event, or cycles back every 50 turns or something.

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utilae
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#129 Post by utilae »

Anyone played FreeLancer. They have a cool idea for starlanes. At each system their are 'gates' which upon being entered is like a highway made through hyperspace. You exit the destination 'gate' in the destination system.

Odi
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#130 Post by Odi »

@utilae:
I definitely prefer the starlane-design, about the gates: Well, why not implement them as an system-level building that can be build for each wormhole and accelerates movement when entering from a system that has build a gate for this wormhole (one-way acceleration).

@skdiw:
Starlanes shouldn't become negligible. But the idea of an unstable starlanes is quite nice (starlanes with an unstable end, that moves its exit from one system to another; genereal unstable starlanes that irregulary disappear/reappaer every 15-20 rounds...)
zaba zaba zud zud

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skdiw
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#131 Post by skdiw »

I mean starlane should become less effective, negligible was an exaggeration. But it concieveable to incorporate physical phenomenon into warp technology at tech 40, isn't it? I think it adds strat for raids deep into enemie's industry a strtegic option kinda like long range bomber without suffer from "russian winter" as oppose to everyone guard the entrance to their territory, which I find silly and boring. You cetainly can still have some starlanes that provides multiplier bonus, but you get more of guard the system that as wormhole to your base game.

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#132 Post by Ablaze »

it concieveable to incorporate physical phenomenon into warp technology at tech 40, isn't it?
What do you mean by "tech 40"?
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skdiw
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#133 Post by skdiw »

I thought it was obvious but tech 40 mean up in the tech ladder, so development of advanced warp drives that creats tempoary starlanes or a rift in space that cuts down traveling time.

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#134 Post by Ablaze »

Ok, sure. I just thought it was rather odd to throw out some arbitrary number of steps up a completely undefined technology tree. How do you know that the 40th step up the tech ladder won't be the invention of chemical rockets and the ability to travel to the moon, or that by the 35th tech the game won't be won?

I'm not trying to pick nits here.. I guess I'll just assume that you meant early-mid game.

It seems to me like it's hardly worth it to put starlanes in if they are just going to be disabled early-mid game.
Time flies like the wind, fruit flies like bananas.

PowerCrazy
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#135 Post by PowerCrazy »

It has been basically decided that there will be a constant ratio between starlane travel and off road travel. It has NOT been decided what this ratio will be. However the purpose of the ratio is to keep starlanes absolutely more effective for travel as the game progress. Though inevitably with tech level 40 engines the difference will be sometihng like 1 turn through starlanes 2 turns off-road.
Aquitaine is my Hero.... ;)

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