Starlanes, why?

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

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Aquitaine
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#16 Post by Aquitaine »

Exactly. Factors such as the value of an individual world are important, but if an AI Empire has, say, 10 lush worlds in the corner of the map, and its border worlds are medium/low value in terms of income, then it's just surrendered quite a lot of space just because a planet with a monetary rank of 32 might have a positional or strategic rank of 3.
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skdiw
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#17 Post by skdiw »

Aquitaine wrote: 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.
That's one of many reasons why I recommended to implement sectors thing. It is useful even just as a programming tool.
gunsan wrote: If you feel like it, please share your opinions! I'm quite dead against it but there could be things I've overlooked, naturally.
-Imagine a starlane that links your homeworld to the backwaters of another empire. All of sudden, those two linked system becomes a huge strategic spots. Just imagine space treches and mountains; just as you go through valleys and flat plains instead of over a mountain, a starlane speeds up your trip too in space.

-Imagine a cluster of connected systems. Just imagine how easily to defend those cluster because your ships can move back and forth from back lines to front lines in an instant. That region of system has logistic benefits for your military.

-Or how about a system with a bunch of one-way starlanes that connects to all parts of the galaxy. Who ever controls that system sure got some power. Imagine you can launch fleets to whoever at will in one turn and will take them 10 turns to respond with an counter.

-Starlanes can be used to nerf overpowered rich planets. By making rich systems have a lot of starlanes going into them, the system becomes harder to protect and make the game more balanced.

-Starlanes is a good excuse to put flashy lines to spice up the graphics.

If we implement starlanes correctly, it should enrich the game. By proper, I don't mean moo3 starlanes cuz that system was stupid. I think its biggest mistake in starlane department is having all systems connected by one or more starlanes.

On another note, ppl have suggested to add "mountains" and other specials to the galaxy map as well as to the tatical space combat map. Special regions like nebula or black hole may have some gameplay effects.
:mrgreen:

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#18 Post by Daveybaby »

skdiw wrote:If we implement starlanes correctly, it should enrich the game. By proper, I don't mean moo3 starlanes cuz that system was stupid. I think its biggest mistake in starlane department is having all systems connected by one or more starlanes.
If the AI can handle the presence or absence of starlanes equally well (and to be honest - pathfinding is one of the easier aspects of the AI to get working) then the game could be made totally flexible w.r.t. use of starlanes.

You can give the user absolute control over this aspect of the game in the galaxy generation:

Starlane Quantity:
* None (a la Moo1)
* Few (a la Moo2)
* Some
* Many
* Full Connectivity (a la Moo3)
* Custom

Starlane Travel Speed (compared to normal travel)
* No increase
* x2
* x4
* x8
* Custom

Allow Offroad Travel?
* Yes
* No

Allow Starlane Travel for system ships?
* Yes
* No

Okay, implementing some of this stuff would probably be waaaaaay too much hassle in terms of AI (i.e. optional starlane travel for system ships) but the rest of it shouldnt be too difficult, and would allow players to play exactly the sort of game that they want.

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#19 Post by Bastian-Bux »

Is this a deja vu?

Or did we discuss this whole starlane thingie back in the good old days? Oh yeah, we did :).

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#20 Post by Daveybaby »

Heh, i'm sure this wont be the last time either. We have yet to get to the stage where it causes a flame war as soon as someone mentions the phrase.

Aquitaine
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#21 Post by Aquitaine »

I'm rationalizing by saying this thread is about what we can do in a mod. :)

Yes, you could code it so that the AI behaves well without starlanes. The problem is that that's a totally different AI than one with starlanes; it's not as simple as just having a 'yes/no' for starlanes. We would have to write two AIs, and that's not a very good use of our resources. At least, not when we already passed one way. :)
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#22 Post by Daveybaby »

I could have sworn i read somewhere that you wont necessarily have full starlane interconnectivity - i.e. some systems may have no starlanes connected to them. If thats the case then the AI has to be able to work equally well whether there are starlanes nearby or not. If it is stuck in a backwater it needs to be able to plan routes and strategies just as well as if it is connected by starlanes to every nearby system.

If thats not the case then ignore everything i just said. :roll:

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#23 Post by Aquitaine »

That is not the case, but it is possible to have 'offroading,' so the AI can probably be taught that doing so is an acceptable plan, but that's far and away different from 'no starlanes at all.' Starlanes are the primary mode of travel and it'd be a gamble to travel without them.

When FO gets to a mature state, like after v1.0, then I'd say we could work on an AI smart enough to work well in either case, so you could have one race, perhaps, that does not/cannot use starlanes but travels much more efficienctly offroad.

-Aq
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Krikkitone
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#24 Post by Krikkitone »

On a Somewhat related note, I would be a nice feature to have starlane 'continents' and 'islands' ie groups of stars that are interconnected to each other but not others. (this would provide some of the 'Terrain' if some starlane/non starlane travel required different engines)

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Starlanes - Four lanes, six lanes, and toll booths.

#25 Post by guiguibaah »

Just my 2 cents - I agree with Aquitaine's argument. Late game moo2 ende dup becoming "Who could attack first with the largest fleet" because there was no way you'd be able to defend your worlds. It often came to a "Ok I mass-bomb his planet. It's dead.. Oh dang, he mass-bombed my other planet... Hmm, do I try to stop him, or do we both continue mass-bombing each other" Then once the fleets collided, the game was over.

Maybe change the name from "Starlanes" to Jumplanes... I mean, many games use the jumplane concept, such as Freepsace, Wing Commaner, Moo3 and Earth and Beyond.

What would be interesting would be the ability to create future starlanes linking one planet to the next.

Anyhow.
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#26 Post by Aquitaine »

I don't think what we call it matters especially. It's not like you see them as anything other than lines on a map. :)
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utilae
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#27 Post by utilae »

Krikkitone wrote:On a Somewhat related note, I would be a nice feature to have starlane 'continents' and 'islands' ie groups of stars that are interconnected to each other but not others. (this would provide some of the 'Terrain' if some starlane/non starlane travel required different engines)
I have a cool idea, to do with nebulas. In Moo2 nebulas slowed space travel (I think). So, why don't we have nebulas that speed up space travel. We could also have star lanes that slow travel.

Nebulas could come in different colours to represent different effects (starlanes could be similar). Nebulas could be area effect versions of star lanes. With starlanes certain routes (the starlane) are faster. With nebulas all routes within the nebula would be faster. It would also mean that you don't have to necesarily deal with bottle necks, a common factor of starlanes. Nebulas could be open space type environments, where you could be attacked from any angle.

We could also have nebulas that contain starlanes, providing more interesting effects. The end result is terrain that is made up of a variety of features (not just starlanes).

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#28 Post by Aquitaine »

That is another example of setting up a system of rules that the AI can follow, only to then circumvent it with a system that is difficult for the AI to follow.

I'm keen on things like Nebulas for terrain (especially for tactical combat) but it is always a difficult question when you want to add something that bends the rules some of the time; simply because it makes the AI's job harder doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't do it, but it should make us question it very closely to make sure that the benefit is worth the price.

I'm not sure in this case that it would be.

-Aq
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#29 Post by skdiw »

Daveybaby wrote:I could have sworn i read somewhere that you wont necessarily have full starlane interconnectivity - i.e. some systems may have no starlanes connected to them.
I interpreted the design doc the same way too. Am I wrong or are we going to have all system be connected with at least one starlanes? Cuz that would be Moo3 all over again. :( Starlanes or not, the AI should be able handle it. You don't want an AI that always attack adjacent systems. I thought starlanes were passed but it would be different from moo3 meaning that much of the star systems weren't even connected at all; which is why I suggested the programmers team to implement the galaxy map on a free matrix so a simple pathogrean theory minimizing function can be applied. In doing using the matrix, we can add nebula, space aliens, do offroad calculations... easier.

I don't remember the design doc saying explicitly that all systems are connected. I could be wrong. I just remember that starlanes were passed, but that doesn't preclude the possibilty that some systems won't be connected.
:mrgreen:

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#30 Post by Aquitaine »

We did not explicitly pass having connected systems or not; however, for the purposes of AI programming, it is, in fact, a very significant ordeal to have it handle both systems that are connected and systems that aren't.

It is entirely forseeable that we could, one day, have an option for '% of unconnected systems' and simply have 'no starlanes' as an option as well. I don't think anybody can dispute that some people like playing with them and some like playing without them, but it really is not a small investment in AI to have it play both ways right now. So there is no mechanism for 'unconnected star systems' anytime soon, but I do agree that it's a good idea and I'd be glad to see it once we can afford it!
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