Galaxy Map designator for known/unknown systems

[Fimbul_Fambi]

There is currently an option to change the color of system names on the Galaxy map for systems that aren't owned by the current player. I'd like to see that option enhanced to include two colors. The first would be for unknown, unowned systems. The second would be for known (detected with sensors) unowned systems. This would tell players at a glance what systems they need to send ships to explore, and which systems that they can click on for more information.

[Geoff the Medio]

There is currently an option to change the color of system names on the Galaxy map for systems that aren't owned by the current player. I'd like to see that option enhanced to include two colors. The first would be for unknown, unowned systems. The second would be for known (detected with sensors) unowned systems. This would tell players at a glance what systems they need to send ships to explore, and which systems that they can click on for more information.

The trouble with this is how to decide when a system has been explored. I assume what you really want to indicate is whether the player knows about any planets in the system, or whether the player needs to send a detector near or into the system in order to see any planets therein. There's no reliable way to know which is the case for a system though... Depending on content files, planets could have a variety of stealth levels (either all the same in a given system, or varying from planet to planet in the system). This means there's no single threshold of detection level at a system that can be used to classify systems as "fully explored" or "unexplored".

[MGyver]

What about adding sensor range balloons to the map? Adding a 'fog of war' perimeter would show what has been probed by sensors in the past.

[PL_Andrev]

The better way than sensors is a ship / scout in system.

If we talk about "sensors" we should know
- type of sensor for ships only
- type of sensor for colonized planet (like radar station)
- how to calculate range if few sensors are installed
- how to build technology patch for sensors

But if we talk about discovered/undiscovered systems I saw a brilliant idea at Stars! game:
There was a report about each star system:
Report...

• ...is not available (unvisited / undiscovered system)
  ...is current (when star system is colonized or there are a ship in the system)
  ...is 9 years old (system was last visited 9 turns ago)

[Geoff the Medio]

Report...

• ...is not available (unvisited / undiscovered system)
  ...is current (when star system is colonized or there are a ship in the system)
  ...is 9 years old (system was last visited 9 turns ago)

The last turn when each emipre has visibility of each object is already tracked by FreeOrion, although displaying that information is a bit more complicated than having a per-system indicator, because each object in a system may be visible or not on different turns. A pop-up, or line in a known objects list, could show the last turn something was visible, though. The current UI is geared around showing currently-visible objects, and a subset of objects (such as systems and planets) in their last-known state for the human player.

The concept of whether a system is "visited" is less useful though, as having a ship in a system is not necessary to have visibility of a system or objects in it. That said, whether a system has been "explored" is also tracked per-empire, and I think is determined by whether the empire has ever had a ship or owned a planet in a system.

[MGyver]

Long-range sensors for seeing what massive objects are in a system
Short-range sensors for determining the properties of those objects

[Bigjoe5]

Long-range sensors for seeing what massive objects are in a system
Short-range sensors for determining the properties of those objects

That's overly complex.

How it works is:

Weak sensors give you visibility of low stealth objects such a systems
Higher level sensors give you visibility of slightly stealthier objects such as planets
Even stronger sensors give you visibility of even stealthier objects such as buildings

Going into the system helps by decreasing the distance, but I don't see any huge need make it compulsory by introducing (galaxy map) sensors that only work at that range.

[Zireael]

Is it normal that I am somewhere that is labeled as 'Deep Space', but in the Fleet window it is labeled as smth else, say, 'Silk'?

Or if I have 60 systems according to the settings at the start, yet have discovered only circa 20 and there are no starlanes heading towards unexplored regions...

I like PL_Andrev's idea too.

[Yakk]

Decouple detection range from stealth?

Each Sensor has a Range and a Penetration.

Detection range:
Stars: Sensor Range*2
Planets: Sensor Range
Ships: Sensor Range/2

Stealth: Compare Stealth level to Penetration.

2*Penetration <= Stealth: Ship/Building/Planet cannot be detected unless it attacks/otherwise interacts.
Penetration <= Stealth < 2*Penetration: Ship/Building/Planet can only be detected in-system.
Stealth < Penetration: Stealth has no effect.

With this split, the idea of "I have explored this star for planets" exists. Similarly, a graphical "sensor cloud" makes sense, showing the range at which your sensors work (with the two thresholds of "planets" and "ships").

A "stealth planet" is possible. If they get their stealth over your penetration, they don't see the planet until they arrive in-system. If they double your penetration, you can't even find it in-system. This would allow "hidden planets" to exist that show up only after someone climbs the sensors tech tree, or for someone to build hidden outposts for spy games or the like.

[eleazar]

...I assume what you really want to indicate is whether the player knows about any planets in the system, or whether the player needs to send a detector near or into the system in order to see any planets therein. There's no reliable way to know which is the case for a system though... Depending on content files, planets could have a variety of stealth levels (either all the same in a given system, or varying from planet to planet in the system). This means there's no single threshold of detection level at a system that can be used to classify systems as "fully explored" or "unexplored".

Doesn't that indicate to you that the stealth/detection system has problems -- at the very least as it applies to planets?

Decouple detection range from stealth?
....
A "stealth planet" is possible. If they get their stealth over your penetration, they don't see the planet until they arrive in-system. If they double your penetration, you can't even find it in-system. This would allow "hidden planets" to exist that show up only after someone climbs the sensors tech tree, or for someone to build hidden outposts for spy games or the like.

I'm not clear on what problem this is supposed to be solving-- except maybe make the display of scan-range cleaner (which is in the game, but the option under "galaxy map" to display it is off by default)

Also don't forget the overzealous stealth system we have also allows pretty much everything to be stealthed, including buildings, and IIRC specials, stars and starlanes.

[Geoff the Medio]

Doesn't that indicate to you that the stealth/detection system has problems -- at the very least as it applies to planets?

Not really... The idea of stealth / detection is that you can't always see everything in the universe, and that you need more detection than something's stealth to see it. Some of those things you can't or haven't seen might be in a system, but whether you have seen everything in a system isn't really a property of that system.

Granted, it would probably be awkward if there were lots of very stealthy planets, particularly at the start of the game. But I think this is a content problem, not a basic flaw of the mechanism. Every planet shouldn't start with 5 stealth, and a very stealthy planet should be fairly rare, or a mostly late-game issue. In that case, seeing a system marked as explored would usually mean that you would know about all the planets in it.

...allows pretty much everything to be stealthed, including buildings, and IIRC specials, stars and starlanes.

Only game objects can be stealthed, which are systems, planets, buildings, fleets, and ships. A starlane isn't separately stealthy from the planets it's attached to; if you've explored a system, you know its starlanes. A special isn't separately stealthy from an object it's attached to; if you detect the object adequately, you know its specials.

[Bigjoe5]

Doesn't that indicate to you that the stealth/detection system has problems -- at the very least as it applies to planets?

I personally sort of liked the idea of all planets becoming visible automatically upon entering a system. For one thing, it means that the ships will be able to move around the planets in combat like they're supposed to, and more immediately relevantly, there would be a definite point at which a planet is "explored". This means that the player can know with certainty that systems that he has been to do not have any planets that he doesn't know about, which means he doesn't have to keep re-exploring the galaxy every-frickin'-time he gets a new detection tech.

The thing I don't like about it is that it means that even very stealthy empires can't hide their planets as well, even from empires with poor detection, because all they have to do is go into the system to find all the planets. So here's a possible solution:

Upon entering a system, you automatically gain basic visibility of all planets that you don't already have partial/full visibility of. This means you can't tell if/by whom they're owned or what the environment is, etc, or interact with it meaningfully (knowing the size might be necessary for space combat purposes). That may seem to make it super-obvious that there's a stealthy player there, but not if there are randomly stealthy planets strewn across the galaxy (relics of the precursors, perhaps associated with the Ancient Ruins special, or some variant thereof).

That way, the player knows for sure when he's seen all the planets in a system, and only needs to re-explore a handful of specific locations when he upgrades his detection. Stealthy players on the other hand, can still hide their planets without immediately being discovered by low-detection empires when they enter a system.

[eleazar]

A starlane isn't separately stealthy from the planets {systems?} it's attached to; if you've explored a system, you know its starlanes..

IIRC you used to like the idea of stealthed starlanes, did you cool on it, just haven't got around to it, or are there technical problems?

Doesn't that indicate to you that the stealth/detection system has problems -- at the very least as it applies to planets?

I personally sort of liked the idea of all planets becoming visible automatically upon entering a system. For one thing, it means that the ships will be able to move around the planets in combat like they're supposed to, and more immediately relevantly, there would be a definite point at which a planet is "explored". This means that the player can know with certainty that systems that he has been to do not have any planets that he doesn't know about, which means he doesn't have to keep re-exploring the galaxy every-frickin'-time he gets a new detection tech.

The thing I don't like about it is that it means that even very stealthy empires can't hide their planets as well, even from empires with poor detection, because all they have to do is go into the system to find all the planets.

I don't know if a colony is an "object", nor what difference that makes, but if we must have super stealthy empires, and that can't be accomplished by hidden starlanes (which seems the least problematic and most practical way to do it), then it would be preferable conceptually and game-play-wise to hide a colony rather than the whole freaking planet. It's not too hard to think of intermediate techs that would provide levels of stealthiness for a colony, while it sounds rather silly that anything other than late game super-tech could cloak an entire planet. And they you won't have ships flying through (or detouring around) invisible planets, nor will you need to write down every planet you ever detect, so you have some sort of record to search for disappearing planets.

[Geoff the Medio]

IIRC you used to like the idea of stealthed starlanes, did you cool on it, just haven't got around to it, or are there technical problems?

It just hasn't been implemented yet. I was describing how things work currently.

Edit: Having planets always be basically visible to ships / empire-owned planes in the same system seems reasonable. A way to stealth starlanes also seems important to make it actually possible to fully hide (system-scale instead of planet-scale) from other empires. In that case, though, there might be similar issues with needing to repeatedly explore systems to know that you know about all their starlanes...

[Bigjoe5]

I don't know if a colony is an "object", nor what difference that makes, but if we must have super stealthy empires, and that can't be accomplished by hidden starlanes (which seems the least problematic and most practical way to do it), then it would be preferable conceptually and game-play-wise to hide a colony rather than the whole freaking planet.

Conceptually, yes definitely. Gameplay-wise - well, what happens when you try to interact with a planet with a stealthy colony on it? For example, you try to drop an outpost on a planet that's already owned by someone else?

...nor will you need to write down every planet you ever detect, so you have some sort of record to search for disappearing planets.

IIRC, disappearing objects should be shown in their last known location, so if a planet was cloaked, you would see it in it the state it was in last time you saw it (just as if you had moved out of detection range normally), probably with a message about how many turns ago it was last detected.

...there might be similar issues with needing to repeatedly explore systems to know that you know about all their starlanes...

True. I'm hopeful this will be a lesser issue however, since the only areas that will need to be re-explored will be on the borders of the empire's space - while a hidden planet could be practically anywhere, a cloaked starlane leading to an enemy empire is unlikely to be in that empty system sitting in the heartland of the empire.