Starlanes, why?

Daveybaby · **Posted:** Mon May 10, 2004 9:37 am

Hmmm... well if thats the solution the FOs maps are going to have to have more starlane interconnections than Moo3. Even on the 'lots of starlanes' setting, Moo3 had lots of very long sections of galaxy which were only connected to everything else at 2 or 3 bottleneck systems (or even 1 if you were at the end of a spiral arm) systems. Fortunately the occasional wormhole opened things up a tiny bit - but that usually just meant that you had to defend 3 or 4 systems instead of 2 or 3.

Rockstone · **Joined:** Fri Feb 27, 2004 10:15 pm **Posts:** 61

Gunsan wrote:

Quote:

Don't worry Gunsan, I hear you. I was very much against starlanes and its mechanisms, but some starlanes will add to strategy.

- Nice to know there are other starlane sceptics on the forum.

Yes, I agree that starlanes will add to strategy in some ways. Like if you were fighting a ground war in mountaineous areas where control of certain mountain passes is paramount.
However, space is the cosmic ocean. A very different setting. There was some talk about frontlines in previous posts. Let me just say thus: a frontline is an abstract concept. In a way there are frontlines in a space, but they are not defined by trenches and solid obstacles but by technological capabilities, logistics and the risk of enemy countermoves. Generally, you need a string of systems to support and supply your spacefleet for example and conversively, relatively sheltered base areas exist inside an empire.
It's just that I don't see the reason for starlanes to define what's behind the frontline. This should be regulated by other factors in the game.

Quote:

There are some advantages to having starlanes.

- If you feel like it, please share your opinions! I'm quite dead against it but there could be things I've overlooked, naturally.

Quote:

In addition, you will get the option to mod the game or to turn starlanes off if you really wanted.

- Indeed, this is the good thing.

i dont like star lanes either. 1. dosent exist unless there are 500 balck holes only a light year away and even then thats just a theory! :twisted:

ha! ha!

Rockstone · **Joined:** Fri Feb 27, 2004 10:15 pm **Posts:** 61

Aquitaine wrote:

The AI argument:

With no starlanes, the only limitation is range, like it is in MOO2. Yes, the concept of frontlines is artifical, but it is essential for the AI; after all, the player knows to garrison the most important worlds. The player knows which worlds are threats. Even without starlanes, the player can guess where the enemy might strike, but it essentially lowers or even removes the heterogenous nature of the map; it makes all systems equally vulnerable in the late-game.

In this situation, it is very difficult to have an AI that can come close to matching a human player. It is difficult to teach an AI what an 'important' star system is outside of the value of the worlds in it. With starlanes, though, you actually have geography, in a sense; there may only be three 'entrances' to your Empire, and so the AI sees this as a border, as a front line; it can also plan an actual attack strategy and say things like 'I am going to attack his mining world, and to do that I must get past points A and B, so I will garrison point B with a small force and move on to point A through starlane X.'

Much of what I know about the challenges of AI programming does not come from my being an AI programmer (I'm not) but from watching the development of EU2, HoI, and Victoria, all of which have enormous challenges with AI. The distinctions they use tend to be along the lines of 'the eastern front' or 'guard the northern coast of France.' The more we can distinguish the map, the more the AI can work with it.

This was actually not my reason for initially supporting starlanes; it's one of the few things I like about MOO3 even as a player, but as I learn more about what our AI challenges will be, it helps me keep in mind that the computer has to play the same game as we do.

what is EU2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :evil:

Impaler · **Posted:** Fri Jun 18, 2004 12:13 am

An idea I like is for StarLanes to be exploitable ONLY if a ship is equiped with a "starlane drive" which would NOT be the only type of interstellar Drive system. Just like differnt weapons have various combinations of range, rate of fire, damage, acuracy and special abilites their could be several competing Drive systems to add flavor to the game.

Here are some examples

HyperDrive - Fast and Expensive but requires you to have already explored (or traded for a map of) a system to travel their safely (or else you might fly right into the sun). So theirs a chance of having your ships destroyed/damaged if you go to an unexplored system. Also ships cant be redirected when in transit

Jump Drive - Instantly transports you a limited distance but is Hugely expensive and late in the Game. Their would be some kind of Interdictor tec that blocks you from entering or exiting systems.

Worm Hole Drive - Opens a wormhole to a location alowing a whole fleet of regular ships (up to a size) to acompany the ship with the Drive. Again very very expensive.

Warp Drive - A medium speed medium cost Drive that dose alows a ship to be redirected enroute. You can push a warp drive past its normal max speed and it will take damage or in extream cases blow up.

Ram Scoop - a very large Drive that collects interstellar hydrogen. Very vulnorable to attack but cheap, these ships go faster in Nebulas (all others go slower), overall rather slow though

Star Gate - Good old stargates just like MOO has always had are built in a system and alow any ship below a particular size to instantly move between systems similarly equiped.

Solar Sail - A solar Sail is relativly slow but very cheap, it can only depart from a system that has a special "Sailing Laser" improvment and speed is dependent on the power of the laser. Theis no stipulation on the destination system though so its good for cheap colonization or one way trips.

Their could also be several types of SYSTEM drive each with unique properties, I'm still thinking up these though.

hadrian_27 · **Posted:** Fri Jun 18, 2004 1:40 am

I agree with starlanes in the fact that they should offer a limited amount of fast transportation between star systems. However I don't think that starlanes should be as in MOO3 where everything is connected. There should be 2 or 3 starlanes at the most branching out from a single system, and perhaps some systems without any starlanes to them. In order to explore these areas a player will need to invest the time to send scouts through open space.

Perhaps there could even be "starlane clusters", areas seperate from each other with high conncentrations of starlanes. The philosophy being that the more variance in the game, the more strategic the game can be.

Geoff the Medio · **Posted:** Fri Jun 18, 2004 3:34 am

tzlaine states "the decision has already been made that offroading is not part of the game."

http://www.freeorion.org/forum/viewtopi ... 1734#11734

As such, it seems pointless to discuss various different broad categories of interstellar shipdrives that do things other than just fly along starlanes.

Daveybaby · **Posted:** Fri Jun 18, 2004 7:58 am

Geoff the Medio wrote:

tzlaine states "the decision has already been made that offroading is not part of the game."

I believe thats mainly due to the difficulty in getting an AI written that can handle either method of travel competitively. If the AI people manage to create something which achieves this, then offroad travel becomes a possibility. However, i wouldnt hold my breath.

Rockstone wrote:

what is EU2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I believe it was the question mark that you wanted.
EU2 = Europa Universalis 2. Google for it.

Geoff the Medio · **Posted:** Fri Jun 18, 2004 5:41 pm

Daveybaby wrote:

I believe thats mainly due to the difficulty in getting an AI written that can handle either method of travel competitively.

Read the post I linked to:
tzlaine: "Offroading is built into the pathfinding algorithm I wrote"

I suppose there are other issues than pathfinding...

I don't think that doesn't change the fact that it's been decided, however.

FreeOrion

Starlanes, why?

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