Display of Starlanes and Supply Line in the Galaxy Map

[Geoff the Medio]

[edit] image updated to include Sandlapper's better idea about displaying blockades.

In this example Red and Yellow are allied, and Red is at war with Teal. This sort of display is intended as normal, and in-fact is quite close to what the game currently does. It could be applied to various proposals.

• * Solid colored SLs: Standard supply routes between colonies
  * Parallel striped colored SLs: A Standard supply route shared by 2 empires. I.e. both have colonies at both ends. (Olympus to Vindemiatrix)
  * SL colored differently at each end: Supply lines connecting allies. (Graffias to Asterope)
  * Grey SLs: SLs not used as supply lines.
  * Dotted line: A Military supply line, connecting to ships beyond standard routes.

Thoughts:
* If the alliance between Yellow and Red were ended, but they didn't go to war, the Graffias-Asterope line would be broken, while Olympus-Vindemiatrix would remain active.

* Red has blockaded Teal's Dnoces. Notice that no supply lines go to it, in spite of all the adjacent colonies.

* The fleet at Cannon has 3 Red colonies at 2 SLJs away. Presumably supplies could be coming from any of those three. But if supply line cutting is going to be an important part of the game, those lines should be visible. But if this line were cut, i suppose it would jump to Kilja or Arneb. I rather dislike the idea of manually creating Military supply lines. (Also applies to fuel routes for non-combat scouts, colony ships) If one is possible, i believe the optimal line should create itself. Such automatic military supply line would be a little harder to block by the enemy, but saves the uninteresting micro of defining throw-away supply routes.

A bit of progress toward this has happened, as seen below:

[eleazar]

A bit of progress toward this has happened, as seen below:

I'm glad this is being worked on, but i'm at a loss as to what the blue lines now represent.
Or what concept of empires-shape is the basis.

[Geoff the Medio]

...i'm at a loss as to what the blue lines now represent.
Or what concept of empires-shape is the basis.

The blue lines connect systems that the player's empire can supply (or rather, could supply, since supply doesn't actually happen yet). Enemy ships block supply, supply can't be sent to or through unexplored systems, and supply can be sent at most 4 starlane jumps from the source (which is the only player-owned system, labelled as before with the player's colour).

[eleazar]

...i'm at a loss as to what the blue lines now represent.
Or what concept of empires-shape is the basis.

The blue lines connect systems that the player's empire can supply (or rather, could supply, since supply doesn't actually happen yet). Enemy ships block supply, supply can't be sent to or through unexplored systems, and supply can be sent at most 4 starlane jumps from the source (which is the only player-owned system, labelled as before with the player's colour).

OK, i see what you are doing. Among other things, the line between Izar and Sargas threw me off.

But i really don't what the Solid lines extending into un-colonized space from the colonies. For one thing, the no-mans-land between empires would look extra-filled with the colors of multiple empires, when it's really the empty space between them. Also i want to use the solid lines for something else.

One modification that works no mater what the colored lines signify, is to darken the "unowned" lanes significantly. (see my image at the top of the thread) As it is the unowned lanes tend to look as important or more so, than the less contrasting colored lanes. Also darkening the lanes will mitigate the unfortunate appearance that the lanes are shooting out of the actual stars. Darkening the unowned lanes may require some tweaking at the small magnifications to make them visible.

[Geoff the Medio]

But i really don't what the Solid lines extending into un-colonized space from the colonies. For one thing, the no-mans-land between empires would look extra-filled with the colors of multiple empires, when it's really the empty space between them. Also i want to use the solid lines for something else.

So how should systems that an empire can get fleet supply to, or the lanes between these systems, or the lanes along which the supply can occur, be indicated?

...unfortunate appearance that the lanes are shooting out of the actual stars.

The start of the drawn lane could be pulled away from the star a bit, so it appears to start in empty space a bit away, but still clearly linking the two systems...

[eleazar]

But i really don't what the Solid lines extending into un-colonized space from the colonies. For one thing, the no-mans-land between empires would look extra-filled with the colors of multiple empires, when it's really the empty space between them. Also i want to use the solid lines for something else.

So how should systems that an empire can get fleet supply to, or the lanes between these systems, or the lanes along which the supply can occur, be indicated?

First off i'd use "the lanes along which the supply can occur" because it seems to communicate the idea better. I'm sure exactly what treatment i'd prefer, a dotted or dashed line comes to mind. The answer would be dependent on what relation (if any) the supply area has with the area of vision, and fog of war issues. I would like to make it clear how much of the universe the player has currently under observation, something MoO1,2 did rather badly.

...unfortunate appearance that the lanes are shooting out of the actual stars.

The start of the drawn lane could be pulled away from the star a bit, so it appears to start in empty space a bit away, but still clearly linking the two systems...

That would also be helpful, especially if the transition was gradual, as it is on the sides. But of course wouldn't effect the primary reason i want them darker i.e. to make the colored lanes stand out more.

[emrys]

So how should systems that an empire can get fleet supply to, or the lanes between these systems, or the lanes along which the supply can occur, be indicated?

Out of interest, what would it look like if you were to progressively desaturate the colouring of the lanes for each jump away from the supplying system e.g. first jump is full colour, second is 70%, third 40% etc..

Also, is the multi-jump supply range indication supposed to be the default display, or a kind of overlay mode you could toggle, with the "between actual colonies and fleets" mode shown in the first post the default?

[Strategyman]

well can't we have raids on trade convoys i mean like a empire tips off some pirates to go raiding? So it would make a trade blockade except its from inside the empire? This game feature would be useful and if this sounds out of topic i'm sorry.

[Geoff the Medio]

Out of interest, what would it look like if you were to progressively desaturate the colouring of the lanes for each jump away from the supplying system e.g. first jump is full colour, second is 70%, third 40% etc..

It would presumably make it harder to see the supply-carrying lanes... Would this desaturation be indicating anything to the player?

Also, is the multi-jump supply range indication supposed to be the default display, or a kind of overlay mode you could toggle, with the "between actual colonies and fleets" mode shown in the first post the default?

I'm not sure what two systems you're referring to here, but I think the plan would be to have eleazar's most recently described display be used by default.

[emrys]

Out of interest, what would it look like if you were to progressively desaturate the colouring of the lanes for each jump away from the supplying system e.g. first jump is full colour, second is 70%, third 40% etc..

It would presumably make it harder to see the supply-carrying lanes... Would this desaturation be indicating anything to the player?

yep, the "minimum number of hops from supplying system", so you can get a quick visual overview of which systems you can supply easily, and which are more out-on-a-limb, i.e. to visualise the supply radius.

Also, is the multi-jump supply range indication supposed to be the default display, or a kind of overlay mode you could toggle, with the "between actual colonies and fleets" mode shown in the first post the default?

I'm not sure what two systems you're referring to here, but I think the plan would be to have eleazar's most recently described display be used by default.

The "two systems" bit referred to the contrast between the first image in the thread ("eleazar's system" ?), which clearly only shows supply lines in use between actual colonies and fleets, and the work in progress image you showed which shows all systems which could be potentially supplied out to four jumps from the supply source. For the latter view, 'shading' the lanes based on their distance from the supplying colony could both add information to the view, and reduce the visual clutter from loads of coloured lines everywhere. This wouldn't be needed on eleazer's image, since it's not showing 'potential' supply lines, so there's going to be less 'clutter'.

[Geoff the Medio]

yep, the "minimum number of hops from supplying system", so you can get a quick visual overview of which systems you can supply easily, and which are more out-on-a-limb, i.e. to visualise the supply radius.

I don't think this would be very useful... As long as you can see the supply-carrying lanes, it doesn't really matter how far you they are from the nearest source. (If there's a bottleneck, it will be visible either way...) There are also a few other hard-to-see and somewhat complicated situations that could arise, but this suggestion wouldn't help clarify them.

Also, it's not very scalable as supply radius grows. If you have some very well developed supply sources that can supply 8 or so jumps away, then the colouration of the lanes will be rather dim at the extremes, and the distinctions between different numbers will be hard to see easily. Easily-visible drops of 30% per jump only works up to 3 or 4 jumps.

More useful to show might be the max amount of supply that can be provided to ships in a system, if we end up limiting this.

The "two systems" bit referred to the contrast between the first image in the thread ("eleazar's system" ?), which clearly only shows supply lines in use between actual colonies and fleets, and the work in progress image you showed which shows all systems which could be potentially supplied out to four jumps from the supply source.

It's probably just becase it's out of its original context, but it's not clear from eleazar's image and accompanying discussion how one decides which starlanes are "in use" as supply lines. In particular, in some cases, systems two jumps apart have coloured lanes through uncolonized systems between them, but in other cases, there is no colouration along a seemingly equivalent path. There's mention of not manually creating supply lines for ships, which implies that the rest was assuming explicit manually-created supply lines between systems, which might be the explanation.

(Discussion of details of how to decide what supply routes should exist or how to pick them or whether the player should pick them are best kept to the above-linked threads.)

Regardless, the practicality of using a system that looks like eleazar's mockup likely depends on the assumptions that went into it, so it may not be practical to use such a system in the actual game.

If systems that can be fleet-supplied and systems in which the player has some visibility are the same though, we'll probably want to have some indication of which systems these are and which starlane connections cause the systems to be supplyable / visible. If there are also a separate classification of systems or starlanes that do or could connect systems for planet / resource distribution purposes, we'll probably want to indicate that separately.

[eleazar]

well can't we have raids on trade convoys i mean like a empire tips off some pirates to go raiding? So it would make a trade blockade except its from inside the empire? This game feature would be useful and if this sounds out of topic i'm sorry.

Yep, you are off topic here— this is the graphics forum. If you want to discuss pirates read the threads Geoff links to in the post above.

emrys: i don't think changing saturation would be a good way to indicate something with starlanes— unless we are sure that that the max length would be very short, 3-4 lanes. Even then it may not be a good system. The saturation of various empire-colors is bound to vary in it's purest form, thus the appearance as the saturation is diluted will vary quite a bit between empires.

From here, an example of a better way (dotted lines) to display attenuation of supply lines — assuming that the game has such a concept:

The "two systems" bit referred to the contrast between the first image in the thread ("eleazar's system" ?), which clearly only shows supply lines in use between actual colonies and fleets, and the work in progress image you showed which shows all systems which could be potentially supplied out to four jumps from the supply source.

It's probably just becase it's out of its original context, but it's not clear from eleazar's image and accompanying discussion how one decides which starlanes are "in use" as supply lines. In particular, in some cases, systems two jumps apart have coloured lanes through uncolonized systems between them...

My example is meant to indicate interplanetary supply which travels only 1 SLJump between planets. The anomalies at "Alula" and "Weiszecker" were probably meant to contain Distribution Hub Outposts which allows planetary supply to travel through empty systems, (or i might have misses a system can't remember for sure). If you don't like the concept of those outposts, imagine "Alula" and "Weiszecker" colonized by the adjacent empires, and the mock-up works as intended.

(Discussion of details of how to decide what supply routes should exist or how to pick them or whether the player should pick them are best kept to the above-linked threads.)

Regardless, the practicality of using a system that looks like eleazar's mockup likely depends on the assumptions that went into it, so it may not be practical to use such a system in the actual game.

If systems that can be fleet-supplied and systems in which the player has some visibility are the same though, we'll probably want to have some indication of which systems these are and which starlane connections cause the systems to be supplyable / visible. If there are also a separate classification of systems or starlanes that do or could connect systems for planet / resource distribution purposes, we'll probably want to indicate that separately.

I agree it's premature to try to hash out the details of the graphics when the underlying mechanics are not established.
But mock-ups can demonstrate that a particular set of rules could be clearly displayed, and a muddled mock-up could indicate the opposite. I would argue that the development of these game-rules shouldn't stray too far from what is possible in mock-ups, because the players comprehension of the rules of ship and planetary supply and fog-of-war to a high degree will depend on the effectiveness of the GUI. And not every concept can be clearly displayed.

[emrys]

... an example of a better way (dotted lines) to display attenuation of supply lines ...

Nice, clear and informative. Good to have visual thinkers around.

[Geoff the Medio]

Will dotted fleet supply lines interfere with the recently suggested dots for fleet movement lines?

Also, how should the game display coloured starlanes (for resource exchange within an empire) when there is more than one empire capable of using the same starlane? Currently there is only one empire colour per half-starlane shown, no matter how many empires could use the lane for resource sharing.

[eleazar]

Will dotted fleet supply lines interfere with the recently suggested dots for fleet movement lines?

Yeah, they probably would. The previous posts are from an old mockup from when the fleet supply rules were not yet established.
I favor dashed lines for fleet supply now since it stacks better with dotted move lines.

Also, how should the game display coloured starlanes (for resource exchange within an empire) when there is more than one empire capable of using the same starlane? Currently there is only one empire colour per half-starlane shown, no matter how many empires could use the lane for resource sharing.

I haven't looked at that question for ages, but i don't think there's a decent solution besides making the lanes wider to accommodate each color.

EDIT: i'll probably suggest/push some additional rules about how supply lines of empires in various diplomatic relationships would interact. This would effect how the lines look, but there's no reason to worry about that till later.