FreeOrion

NightFish, also add that off-starlane travelling should be changeable - either by a single #define or const in the code, or by editing a text file.

So do people like this idea. It would be cool.


I'm not sure of your view on the idea. It would be cool though, fast offroading would be risky, would you do it and loose all of your ships. It would be like going through bad terrain. If you don't go slow then bang you loose half your ships. If you try to send 1 colony ship via fast offroad, you would loose it.


Does that mean you like the idea? What are your thoughts?

Thumper had a mini reversal.

Starlanes could be considered as "mapped" areas of space. And have a high degree of safety assured when traveling on them. But there is always a small cahnce of...

Going offroad should be a Scout function designed for mapping and exploration.

The scout would need extra sensitive sensors and ... ... travel relatively slow as compared to starlane travel. advances in sensor tech would improve scout offroad speed.

Sending a war fleet offroad would be possible if it has a scout component.

Sending a colony ship offroad without a scout should be near suicidal.

-Thoughts anyone?


Thumper

You know guys their aint much stuff out their to Hit, thats why they call it SPACE!!

Lets atleast put a little spin on this and say the StarLanes are maped areas of "gravametric Distortions" that can distort and rob energy from a ships warp field, once mapped though they can be used excellerate a ship by a sling shot like manuver used around a planet.

For the Destructive types we can say that if a ships moving at high warp speed suddenly impacts an un mapped Gravametric Distortion the effects can be well "Distorting" on the ship. Thus for safety the ship must move slowe enough for a collison with a gravimetric Distorion to be non-leathal.

And yes this is another one of my "Nameing" issues.

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Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

If we allow players to fly faster offroad we add the changing ratio of starlane speed to offroad speed we have been trying to avoid for the sake of our AI ever since we first talked about starlanes. On top of that the AI needs to weigh if going offroad is worth the losses it will suffer.

Also it'll be one more thing you'll need to micromanage. I really don't want to set the speed everytime I send a ship offroad.


One more thing we haven't talked about: How are starlanes generated? Are they purely random, meaning that a system with only one starlane might occur everywhere in the galaxy? Or are they not really all that random and those one-lane systems only occure at the edge of the universe if there's nothing else to connect to?

Why not link OR speed to sensor tech?


Thumper

Good idea, but we wanted to keep the ratio of off-road to starlane constant for the sake of the AI. It's just one more thing that could confuse it.

It will certainly be in the XML config file. Making it a #define or const would require a recompile...unless you want to hex-edit the executable

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FreeOrion Programmer

It would seem to me that the ratio between on and off road speed would be something that needs carfull balancing. The current idea of 1-4 sounds good but we cant be shure of it untill we are near done, maybe 1-5 or 1-3 is more fun.

I dont realy see why it will confuse the AI if the on/off ratio is adjustable. If the AI is making its choices based on a fastest route determination then the on/off ratio will just determine if path A is faster then path B. In either instance the AI is going to be have information that is acurate and unique to the game map it is on. How do the paramiters of the route finding subroutine confuse the overall AI?

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Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

Impaler has a point here. I can only assume that the AI is going to attempt to not only find the shortest path between 2 systems by traversing the starlane graph, but also calculating the time it would take to go there directly. The hard part is the graph traversal....calculating the straight line time is trivial in comparison, so I'm not sure how the AI could get confused....

The AI should be able to say "OK, I can go from System A to System B by off-roading, which will get me there in 5 turns, or I can go through starlanes through Systems X, Y and Z in 3 turns. The problem is that System Y is controlled by my enemy, so I will elect to go off-road and avoid the threat."

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FreeOrion Programmer

Well, I can only reiterate what the programmer guys told us on the old board. And that was that a constant ratio was better for the AI. Also I think a constant ratio is best for gameplay. If we're going to have starlanes in our game we might as well ensure that they are meaningful throughout the game.

Well, as one of the programming guys, I don't think the AI will be making its decisions based on ratios, but on actual computed data.

Whether its good for gameplay or not is another matter....which I guess is part of the debate here. I just wanted to throw out the fact that a constant ratio isn't a big deal when it comes to the AI.

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FreeOrion Programmer

It's not so much an adjustable one with a #define.

The problem happens when we get engine tech that improves the speed of off-road mid-game. That's what we're discussing here..

From what I remember, the AI group was going to set their heuristics based on an unchangeable (mid-game) ratio.

This is why I sugtgest using sensor tech and not engine tech for determining OR speed. If you're using sensors as a limiting speed factor and only sensors it is a very easy computation. You just don't travel faster than you can see/sense and avoid obsticles, whatever they may be. Once the route is surveyed then the engines are your speed determining factor.


Thumper

If you could choose to go fast offroad, I imagine that you would just choose between fast and slow when going offroad. Also damage, etc, if going fast, would be automatically done.