Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

After having played the demo (edit: of Dominions 1! Oops! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif ) a bit...

Dominions is too complicated in areas that should be simple, and too simple in areas that should be complicated. The interface is one of the worst offenders. Most of the game's information is not presented in a very well designed manner. Too many times am I left wondering "what the hell just happened," "what the hell does this do?" or "how does this work?" There are no global reports to be found, at all. There is no way to tell a territory to repeatedly build some units. You have to click many many times to do so. I have no idea at all how the tax incomes are figured out, and there is nothing in the game to indicate how such is arrived. It seems loosely based on population, but that is obviously not all there is too it. I also have no idea why they seem to vary from turn to turn. The resources my territories have vary over time, for no reason that I can see. Often, I will have some territories that NEVER recruit any units, no matter how large of a gold surplus I have. And yes, they do have some resource production. A lot of the log Messages the game sends are lacking in useful information. There is no way I can figure out to match the name of a nation to its territory, flag, or anything it possesses. This is just poor game design. There should at the very least be a window you can access that displays all empire names next to their flags. Starting a new game just to figure out which empire is which is an absurd solution. Even with maximal useage of gold income and as much expansion as can be done, the AI still manages to ammass several times as many units as I ever can. Even when I manage to defeat their forces that are attacking me, they just bring in 2-3 times as many as they just lost, in the next turn or two. I am thinking it has hidden cheating bonuses to income and such so over used in games... The unrest level of territories doesn't seem to be very consistent. There are too many undefined options for the orders for your troops in combat. There is no simple indicator telling you whether you have troops in a territory or not on the map. There should also be a separate indicator telling you whether you have heroes or not there. I could go on, but I shall stop here. All in all, Dominions 1 come up lacking to me. It does have some nice ideas, but the game seems rather unsophisticated.

[ January 07, 2004, 03:09: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

Fyron,

Many of your concerns are in fact addressed as you become more familiar with the game. But I will be the first to admit that there is quite a learning curve. If the documents were good, they would have all the nations with units listed with their flags in color, right? Well...the documents aren't that good...but the in-game help is at least acceptable.

I will have to concede some of your points on the interface. But information like what troops are in an enemy territory will probably be put into the basic province info in the patch as multiple players have mentioned this. Well...one can hope.

Tax income is simple...just add all the incomes of all the provinces you control plus all the gold-generating structures you possess. Why does it vary from turn to turn? Dominion, positive or negative. From your favorable dominions of order, growth, and productivity you will get additional income. Lucky events can also add to your income for a particular year or subtract from it if you are unlucky.

Resources also vary with dominion. There are moreover some really, really bad events that cost you population on a permanent basis.

What information would you like to see in log Messages? Just curious. A number of additions which would not be all that difficult (I wouldn't think) have been proposed by various players.

To correlate nations with flags...this is easy...just go to "score graphs." Hover your mouse over the flag you are interested in in the graph legend. And you will see what flag corresponds to which nation.

The AI will often amass cheap units that aren't all that great in large number. Especially Ermor. The other AIs don't know how to deal with Ermor, so I would just exclude that nation from SP games. If you are building resource-intensive troops and your enemy is building non-resource intensive troops it will be easy for them to amass more of an army than you can. Also, if they have many more territories than you do...well...they will have more income and more centers of troop production. I disagree...I don't detect any hidden cheating bonus. Keep in mind that troops may be summoned as well as bought.

There is a very simple indicator of whether you have troops in a territory. Look at the territory (assuming you own it). If you have troops there, you will see a blue rectangle of one size or another. The size corresponds roughly to the number of your troops. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

You are the first person I have ever heard call dominions unsophistocated. I beg to differ with this assessment.

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

Funny, when i first stumbled upon the demo i thought it was a tad overwhelming but i had nothing to do so i stuck with it for a couple days. I then realized...Wow, there is so much variety and just as i got good at the first race i played, the demo ended http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif . I needed more! I spent time learning the rather unintuitive interface and surfed this site for help and "Game Over?". So i bought it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif LOVE IT! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I'm still learning and i don't know if it will ever get redundant. The Last time i almost overlooked a game due to it's apparent over-complexity was also a game put out by an independant publisher that is STILL on my hard drive...Space Empires IV http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif Both games IMHO are very sophisticated http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif .

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

Ya, the game is not unsophisticated, but the interface and game systems are neither immediately intuitive, nor transparent and simple. (If tax were a direct function of population, _that_ would be unsophisticated.) It just takes some learning to figure things out. Then, almost everything Fryon mentioned is addressed pretty well - he just hasn't found or figured out many things yet.

The AI "level" determines the build bonus. Use Easy if you want to have a good chance as a newbie. I believe "normal" is the non-cheat level, and anything above that gives the AI a bonus.

PvK

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

I always thought it was pretty obvious, or at least easy to learn which flag=what country....

I mean...Abyssia is red with a fire on it...they are fire people...

Atlantis is blue with a trident on it...seems obvious if youve ever seen 'the little mermaid' hehe

Ermor has a bloody SKULL on it...skull...undead?

Ulm has the moon, night....dark, black, Ulms armor =)

Caelum has snow..Ryleh has astral (mind flayers anyone?)...and so on...other then the new countries they are easy to learn once you play a little bit.


Some of your other concerns are valid however, and I belive (hope to god) they are being worked on in the new patch, especially the click click click obsession.

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

Woah Nellie!!!

Not to be rude Fryon (but it'll come off that way...) but did you actually take any time at all to check the filters and the different screens for national information? There is a screen (F3?) that shows nation, god, and flag. There is a filter to show the presense of troops and comanders on the main map. F1 will also allow you to see provincial information in more detail, and link you to the province you want to look at more closely, and too any commander you may want to issue new orders to.

Anyway, there is a level of micro, though its a far cry from the micro found in other games. I'm not sure why it bothers people that they can't calculate their income or resources quickly and easilly since it really doesn't matter all that much, the values are clearly shown, and since the unrest level and scale level effects them changes in those areas will impact the values from turn to turn. I will grant that the documentation for the demo is poor, and that even the manual with the full game is barely adequate, but its not really that difficult to figure it out, or read one of the new player threads here.

If you care to I suggest you take another look at the game with a more open mind and a more rigerous approach in using all the filters and info screens, the info is there, and fairly easilly accessed once you find the appropriate hot keys (my Favorites are F1 and F5...).

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Erm... I was talking specifcally about in individual provinces, not globally. *note that this is now obseleted by later complaints of poor interface design*

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I do not recall off the top of my head, but there were a lot of log Messages that lacked anything specific about the event, just stating that it occured.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That is a poor design choice. The name of the nation should be shown in many locations, not just a score graph. It should especially be shown when looking at their territory. As it is, you have to memorize every flag with the nation name. This is unecessarily complicated.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They still amass large numbers of resource-intensive troops, and it doesn't matter if I build resource-cheap troops.

[quote]Also, if they have many more territories than you do...well...they will have more income and more centers of troop production. [/qoute]Well of course. I am not talking about a huge empire compared to a small one, but equal sized empires, even when they have worse provinces.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I certainly do.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">These were not summoned troop types.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Umm... I said, on the map itself. So you can see the relative levels of troops in ALL territories at once, not have to clumsily select all of them at once. SE4 suffers from this as well, though it is not as big of an issue there because the system map is the game, whereas there is no territory map at all in Dominions.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">"Unsophisticated" was the most polite term to come to mind when writing that... perhaps you would prefer "unpolished" or "unweildy." At least it is not as bad as MOO3...

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Funny, hardly any of the things I have mentioned sound like they are address well at all (if even addressed) from the responses so far.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The problem is that the game seems to use some randomness in determining it, which is silly.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmm... so it does have cheating bonuses... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Anyways... it sure doesn't seem to play fairly at the normal level.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It is the very fact that you have to do that memorization to even think about interacting with them that is the problem. There is only one hidden screen that shows the correlation. It is not any fun to get Messages from an AI and have no idea which empire it is that sent it on the game map because there is no good way of figuring that out. Not even showing enemy troops or engaging in combat has the enemy's name! Just a flag. Ridiculous.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">All of my concerns are "valid." They may have answers (and I hope they do, in fact), but they are still perfectly valid concerns. I take offense to your insinuations.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sorry, hitting random function keys to figure out which race has which flag never occured to me. As I said before: "Not even showing enemy troops or engaging in combat has the enemy's name! Just a flag. Ridiculous."

Actually... none of the function keys do anything for me. No info screens pop up at all. So no, I did not check any info screens, as none are accessible to me.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That purple and red box? Rather silly icon for a button if you ask me. There is no way to know what that is trying to show you unless you want to take hours figuring it out. This is a disturbing trend in this game, and makes for a rather poor demo.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">And I am supposed to know these magic hotkeys how? I see no in-game help of any sort, anywhere. I have no desire to spend my time reading a 60 page pdf manual for a demo. A demo should be easy to use, to show off the game. It should not be confusing! There is not even a basic tutorial to get you going. Unsophisticated, unpolished, lacking.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No, there is no level of micro. There is only tedium where there should not be. You can not do any micromanaging. The kind of stuff you do is not approaching micromanagement.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Planning ahead? Not having to react? Being able to know how many troops you will be able to support and build _easily_ without having to guess? Having a feeling of being a part of the empire you are in control of? There are many reasons.

Scale level? Are you referencing the various empire attributes? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes it is. If it were easy to figure out, I would never have written this post. Being forced to read Online sources just to figure out how to do the basics of a demo is again not what a demo is supposed to be like at all. You should be able to just sit down and start playing, and have a decent chance at surviving. Illwinter has a lot to learn about how there is beauty in simplicity.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That is another indication of a very poor interface. There are no buttons for any of these, no menus, nothing. Just phantom links waiting for hotkeys without reference. At the very least there should be a "game" menu that has "links" to all of those screens.

There are not very many filters (4 in fact), and half of them are not even useful filters for gathering more information. The only useful filter is the troop size one, which doesn't look anything like what it does. At the least it should have a picture of a troop, not just a purple and red box, as its icon.

So overall... my complaints boil down to (mostly) one thing: this game has an extremely poor, unpolished (dare I say unsophisticated?) interface that makes it much harder to get into than it should be. Very elementary mistakes were made in designing it that give it a very unprofessional feel.

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sucks huh.

Still best computer strategy game I've ever played so you can't be to picky. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

If you like really deep, challenging, highly imaginative games with a deep logic to them its worth the effort.

Cheers

Keir

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

Oh dear... that was the Dominions 1 demo, not the Dominions 2 demo... boy is my face red. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif Guess I should get the Dominions 2 demo now... pretend I said "Dominions 1" everywhere I said "Dominons 2"... lets hope Illwinter has gotten their act together in the second incarnation... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif I still don't see what the big fuss was over Dominions 1...

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

Hahahahahaha.... Oh, man... that was funny! I was wondering why the "F" keys didn't work, and the red/purple box button, and so on... it was almost like you were playing a different game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Edit: Which is not to say that Dominions II seems slick and professional, or that its high points are interface and intuitiveness, or even that it has an in-game tutorial yet. And the designers still expect you to sort of "know" certain things, like how a god's magic levels, scale settings, and dominion strength will affect the game. But it is certainly much better than Dominions I in terms of giving the player feedback... well, I hope you like it!

-Cherry

[ January 06, 2004, 06:53: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

Fryon,

I remember you from my SEIV days and know that you really like the system that SEIV has in place. I found it ok, but not great. Everything was so clear cut and the people with the best spreadsheets won; I ended up finding it very dry. In the case of Dominions, it is more of a touchy feely game and I really love it. The very ambiguity makes it fascinating, makes it more like a real world where you do not know the statistics of people, you have to make a best guess. You are not impressed by the game, which is your right. I suspect that you will never really like this game because it is quite different than the more clear cut kind of game which I believe you like.

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well tax income is determined by land terrain (farmland is the best), population, presence and type of a fortress, and unrest. Oh, and additional gold producing structures, like a gold mine... Plus the dominion effect affecting the province, specifically order, productivity, heat/cold, and growth. Perhaps size of the territory as well, but I am not sure.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I find the reports adequate, but no more. They are full of "a handful", "many", "some", or "one fifth" (as in "one fifth of the population there"). In fact, I have taken to reading one message, going to the province, figuring out how bad (or good) it was, and going back to read the next one. Easy with keyBoards shortcuts, but time consuming.


<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">On the other hand, they almost never build a fortress. And those huge armies of them are usually 80% militia, led by the cheapest commanders : not just cheap, but dirt cheap and nearly worthless. I suspect that in the first turns the AI is putting all its gold in recruiting militia wherever it can. They can easily outnumber you 2 or 3 to one that way, with the same budget.


<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It is on the map. If you don't see it, go to map filters and chack "show troops". It will show, on the map, the rectangles giving you ary size. Of course, you only see yours, and the enemy when it is at your frontier. Or if you have a scout in the province.





<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, for combat at least, if you click on the message, you get a losses report witch clearly tells who attacked whom, and where. Of course, you need to figure out the name of your neighbors, but if you keep playing a little it will soak through. And wathcing the battle replay also gives you the names.


<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Are you by any chance using a fancy keyboard with "alternate" functions on the function keys ? In which case there should be a small button next to them to put them back to their original value ?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't know... a big square that gets bigger when you recruit, blue for your troops, red for the enemy. The symbol is even the NATO symbol for infantry (but you do need some experience in wargaming to know that). But everybody agress with you : it takes time to learn that game. By the way, there is a walkthrough available, which should take you through all the steps to help you learn. There is a link on illwinter's page...


<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes you can, you just haven't found it yet. You can set taxes in each province, you can put your army in neat little formations and give lots of orders to your commanders, including which spells to cast and in chich order. May I recommend the walkthrough again ?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">He is. Order for exemple gives you a 7% gold income bonus, per level. But only in provinces where your God's influence (the candles) is strong enough for your empire bonus to take effect. And so on...

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">All those "F" things are also available via the Menus (icons) on the right of the screen, most notably the "statistics" and "magic" ones. Using the hotkeys just saves you two clicks...

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think you misunderstand. That red box is not an icon, it is a representation of troop strength. When you click on it, you actually click on the province under it, which brings all the details for the province, including the army list. In an enemy province, the "province info" button gets you a more detailed report of enemy troops, as far as you know them.


<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That was one of my first impressions : the interface is not what it could be. On the other hand, in my experience, The game with the most fancy interface are seldom the most interesting. And wirh experience, you'll see that the interface is adequate. Even if it still has some rough edges.

OOpsies, by the time I put this together, you posted again... Ok, half of my answers are probably off the mark http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ January 06, 2004, 06:56: Message edited by: General Tacticus ]

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Heh http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Well as they say... no blood no foul http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Some of your complaints did seem rather strange as all of the hotkeys can be accessed from mouse clicks as well, but seems we've figured out what the problem was http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I didn't play much of Dom1, and I'll agree that if I had simply come to it without trying to find additional information and bugging the forums with questions I would have dropped it as well. The interface to Dom1 was a royal pain, Dom2 is at least an order of magnatude better, however, the documentation is still rather lacking in my opinion.

Dom1 was really more of a love it or hate it game, Dom2 does a good job of making it more difficult to hate http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

Dom1 generated alot of excitement in places such as the strategy newsGroups. Obviously not from the "buy a pretty box" crowd of average gamers. What kept it in the conversation is that it was the best game for people into wide variety and deep strategy.

And alot of the discssion did also revolve around the graphics, interface, learning curve, etc. What kept us going was the fact that the developers were in the newsgroup joining in the discussions. Well actually, I feel like I should say the programmers and graphic artists were there. This was one of the few games Ive ever been involved in where I felt we were all developers rather than just complaining Users.

Now Dom2 exists. Most of what we asked for is in it. Much of what we have asked for in this new forum for Dom2 has been acknowledged by the programmers. I fully expect numerous patches. Not to fix bugs, but to add our requested features.

This is not an off-the-shelf game, and in my opinion its not a game for off-the-shelf Users. IF you can get past the learning curve then I can almost gaurantee this is a game which will outlive a dozen off the shelf games.

[ January 06, 2004, 16:02: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

I find myself really confused about the underlying complaint, namely that the game has a poor interface and (the game) is unpolished. Let me explain.

One of the games that is widely acknowledged as being highly polished with a great interface is Warcraft III. When I tried playing that game I ultimately came to realize that, interface-wise, there were many things that needed to be done which could only effectively be done by hotkey and which weren't at all obvious to a new player.

Dom II, by contrast, is completely accessable with a mouse. If there's something you want to do you can probably click around and find it. All it takes is the realization that much of the visible information can be interacted with. Once you know what you want to do, Dom II has a HUGE set of hotkeys that let you easily manage almost every usual function.

Warcraft III's 'polish' seems primarily to be in it's simplicity. There is more-or-less a 'right' way to set up your base that quickly becomes automatic because the number of options is small - you need to harvest resources which means you build the resource harvest units and buildings first then you either upgrade your resource gathering ability or start the intial armies all while scouting the surrounding area.

Dom II's polish is in the details. Every time you try a different type of Pretender with any given theme/nation you have to reconfigure the way you play the game to a certain extent. Ulm with the Iron Faith theme and an Astral 10 Pretender plays completely differently from Standard Ulm with a Rainbow Pretender. The polish shows in how many different VALID ways there are to play.

Yes. There IS a learning curve, and it IS severe. But the basic complaint should have been that the game was too complex, not that the interface is bad or that the game is unpolished. Though to be fair, I suppose that may be the benefit of having survived the initial part of the learning curve speaking and that there is no way to perceive the difference until one has done so.

~Aldin

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

Comparing any real strategy game to filth like Warcraft is just plain silly... Warcraft is not a strategy game.

I see that you missed the post where I mentioned that this was from playing Dominions 1 demo, not Dominions 2...

It is entirely possible to see past a learning curve... that is what makes people try to get past it in the first place, because they see something worthwhile.

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

Do you mean to retract your complaint that the game is unpolished and has a poor interface? I didn't understand that from your post that you'd been playing the Dom 1 demo rather than that of Dom 2. If so, my post is moot. If not, my comments about WC3 are legitimate because they address the two issues you were complaining about, not because they served any comparison within the realm of "strategy games".

~Aldin

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

I had edited it to mention Dominions 1 instead at the top quite some time before you made your post... My statements still stand about Dominions 1.

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't think simplicity is the same as polish. Polish means getting the little things right, and in interface terms means anticipating what a player might want to do, and giving him a way to do it that's as straightforward and as easy to use as possible. I love Dom2 to death, but the game definitely isn't "polished." There are a ton of things that could be cleaned up. These things range from the completely inconsequential - like typos, and the text in some windows exceeding the window space - to the mildly annoying - like the lack of a mouse map scroll - to the truly aggravating - like the inability to scroll the army setup screen except by clicking on the scroll bar. Dom2's interface isn't as bad as some people say it is - I feel that, as you say, it lets you do most things you want to do - but it certainly could be much better, and isn't "polished" in any way. There are lots of places for improvement: the message screen, the army setup screen, the way information is presented about what is in an enemy province, etc. There should be a command to just cycle through (or reveal) your own scouts, since these are the commanders most often "lost" in a game since you can't see them on the main map if you don't have their province selected. Yes, you can cycle through all idle commanders using [N]ext idle commander, but I almost never want to do this - I just want to find my scouts. In the late stages of PBEM games, where I might not have seen my map for a few days, this is the first thing I forget, and want to be able to do. But I can't. Lack of polish.

A good example of polish in a fairly complex real-time strategy game is Rise of Nations. The designers there anticipated almost everything a player might want to do in a game, and gave him or her a simple way to do it (not in terms of strategy, but simply interface mechanics). In Dom2, you can also do most of what you want to do, but it's a much bigger pain.

I think Dom2 is the best strategy game I've ever played. However, I do understand when people complain about its lack of polish. I think that the game is so rewarding that this lack of polish is forgivable. I disagree with those who claim the game should cost less because the lack of polish doesn't justify a $50 price - I think that's crazy when you consider how many hundreds of hours of total enjoyment you'll probably get out of the game. But as to the simple claim that the game is unpolished, I have to agree.

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

Fyron, tell us when you get into dom II demo. as a pillar of the Shrapnel forums, your opinion is rather interesting to hear.

It would be the first time (truely!) that I hear from a grognard strategy gamer that he dont appreciates dominions. Perhaps you will be such person, but I hope you will be as engrossed as us by the richness beyond belief of this game.

Happy playing.

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmmmmm I would be willing to debate that but I think Im a rare person still playing Dom1 games.

I would be interested in your opinion of the Dom2 demo. That is if you dont mind feeling like your in the wrong bar of the wrong town talking about the wrong team. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ January 07, 2004, 13:41: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

In time. There is this meddlesome school...

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Laf. Noone has ever refered to me as a "pillar" before. Just cause I blab too much makes my opinion more valuable? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ January 08, 2004, 04:27: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

9806 Posts!!!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

But there is no noise in outer space... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What? Haven't you ever seen those "in a galaxy far, far away" movies?

Space vessels in outer space make a lot of noise moving around, plus, when they get hit by something, you get those spectacular explosions - even outside of all atmosphere.

Everything's possible in high-tech universes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You are not allowed to call Fyron a "noisy fellow" unless you are involved in a Space Empire4 PBW and battling him for good.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

Erm... in reality, sound waves have 0 chance of every travelling in a vacuum. Explosions would be very muffled. The only combustible gas is that which comes from inside the ships, which is far too limited to create the massive explosions seen in most science fictions movies/shows. High-tech does not eliminate the basic laws of the universe.

[ January 09, 2004, 01:12: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's not quite true, as enough energy will still create a sign wave.
Black hole makes deepest-ever note

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I believe we need a humour injection, stat! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

You know, there was once a Star Trek episode where Data reported an explosion with a volume of someething like 4x10^23 decibels... forgetting not only that sound doesn't travel in space, but that decibels are already a logarithmic scale... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Though I suppose it would be possible for a sound that loud to travel through space... remember, space isn't REALLY empty, there's the minute amount of interstellar hydrogen, as well as the constant quantum fluctuations of matter and antimatter being created and destroyed out of nothingness... so if you hit a molecule of hydrogen REALLY hard and it shot over a few kilometers and hit the next molecule of hydrogen, which just happened to hit another molecule of hydrogen, I guess you could call that a "sound wave" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Actually, I suppose a sound of any volume would travel through space, because there's no friction to stop the hydrogen molecules from moving until they hit something... the sound would just travel VERY slowly! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't. A good way to carry out a joke is to act as if it isn't a joke... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

Of course there is noice in the universe! God has a big band playing harps and horns and stuff. If that isn't noicy nothing is. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

He also speaks to some of us http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">...can you give me some idea of his blessing effects? I wanna know if become sacred is worth the trouble http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

The "no sound in space" argument seems a bit silly to me in many cases. Where there are living humanoids, they tend to have air around them, so they will hear when their ship gets hit, etc. It seems quite reasonable artistic license for sci-fi film-makers to be able to place microphones all over the scene - even contact microphones on torpedoes, etc. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

That Data example is hilarious. TNG bleh...

PvK

Re: Move Along, Nothing to See Here
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, I for one believe that a sound that strong would not just send hydrogen atoms colliding with each others, it would ignite a nuclear fusion with each collision. Wait, forget it, it would start a matter to energy direct transformation !! And do BAAD things to any galaxy that happened to be nearby !!

[ January 09, 2004, 08:17: Message edited by: General Tacticus ]