Off Topic Thread

[jars_u]

Originally Posted by Astorax

...Been playing Distant Worlds and its pretty good...

How in general terms is combat and ship design handled in Distant Worlds? From looking at some of the video online I get the impression it is a RTS - select all gaggle kind of affair. How does ship design compare to SE4?

[jars_u]

I'm curious to solicit thoughts from people who have played

Distant Worlds and Armada 2526

in general what they like or dislike (as it pertains to wanting or not wanting to see in SL) and if you feel they were worth parting with your money for (or perhaps would be when the price drops).

I haven't spent any real time playing Flotilla yet so haven't any real insights to share yet.

Thanks.

[getter77]

http://starruler.blind-mind.com/ Star Ruler

Yet another 4x dealie for Star Legacy to compete with. I find the timing of all these ambitious projects popping up one after another after stewing all this time to be quite delightful. Should be something for everybody's tastes and really give a shot in the arm to the entire genre set.

Big dev Q/A thread, where one of the staff is actually a Goon, over at SomethingAwful in the Games forum.

[jars_u]

Originally Posted by getter77

I find the timing of all these ambitious projects popping up one after another after stewing all this time to be quite delightful.

I agree - I'm glad to see the genre is alive and well. Here are a couple of other projects/recent releases that might be of interest:

Star Ruler

Thousand Parsec

Free Orion

Aphelion: Phoenix Rising

Distant Worlds

Armada 2526

Flotilla

[MarcoPolo]

Originally Posted by jars_u

I'm curious to solicit thoughts from people who have played

Distant Worlds and Armada 2526

in general what they like or dislike (as it pertains to wanting or not wanting to see in SL) and if you feel they were worth parting with your money for (or perhaps would be when the price drops).

I haven't spent any real time playing Flotilla yet so haven't any real insights to share yet.

Thanks.

I am actually currently playing Armada 2526, And I must say it has a way of growing on you. But maybe because I have had so little time to figure out its nuances. I am not sure if it would hold my interest as much if I was playing it for more than a few hours every lazy Sunday or so.

However I will say this about it, it falls short of what I would call a truly immersive game universe. I am sympathetic towards its building construction and tech tree, to a point. But its weaknesses is definitely the way war is waged. Very uninspiring and short lived. I would have preferred a Sins of a Solar Empire style engine or even a 2D gratuitous space battles style (if gfx and developing an upto date engine proved too costly)

As for FreeOrion, its ok as far as 1st impressions are concerned. But its more like a game I would of played in the 90s than something I would even give a chance to today. Its very conservative and lacks any innovation or ingenuity.

I also got a copy of Lost Empire Immortals, but I have from 1st impressions deemed Armada 2526 the worthier candidate. Lost Empire just seems way too repetitive for my liking, and despite it having its unique system of planet resource building, its still quite unpalatable for me.

However Star Ruler seems worthy of a look by me. I'm not too sure about Thousand Parsec, seems dated and constrained by a tiny budget.

Here are some more stellar scales for you amusements

HERE

Stellar Scales and the Future of Planet Detection

PlanetQuest

As well as some real life star system comparisons.

5 Worlds of Kepler

Five Exoplanets

First Time Photos of Extrasolar Planets

Corot 7b

Gleise 5c

[Ed Kolis]

To get back off-topic, thought I'd share some nursery rhymes... programmer style!

// Little Bunny Foofoo v1.0 beta
public static void Main()
{
	var foofoo = new Bunny();
	foofoo.Size = 0.001; // foofoo is a little bunny
	var forest = new Forest();
	forest.PopulateMice(typeof(FieldMouse), 50); // TODO - more diverse mouse population
	foofoo.HandleMice(forest);
	var fairy = new Fairy(Alignment.Good);
	for (var chances = 3; chances > 0; chances--)
	{
		fairy.SetDesiredVisibilityOf(foofoo, "mouse handling", false);
		fairy.Warn(foofoo, "mouse handling", "goonification", chances);
		foofoo.HandleMice(Forest);
	}
	fairy.SendLink(foofoo, "somethingawful.com"); // should turn him into a goon!
}
// Mouse event handler
private static void HandleMice(this Bunny bunny, Forest forest)
{
	foreach (var mouse in forest.Mice.OfType())
	{
		bunny.Scoop(mouse); // prevents mouse out of range exception
		bunny.Bop(mouse.Head);
	}
}

REM ANNUAL TODO LIST
1 PRINT "1-2 BUCKLE SHOE"
2 GOSUB BUKLSHOE
3 PRINT "3-4 SHUT DOOR"
4 GOSUB SHUTDOOR
5 PRINT "5-6 PICK UP STICKS"
6 GOSUB PIKUPSTX
7 PRINT "7-8 LAY THEM STRAIGHT"
8 GOSUB LAYMSTRT
9 PRINT "9-10 BEGIN AGAIN"
10 GOTO 1

// Dog Finding Script
// TODO - figure out why we're getting out of memory errors
function FindMyLittleDog() {
	// Find all dogs in world
	var dogs = Array();
	for (var i = 0; i < world.length; i++) {
		if (world[i].type == "dog")
			dogs.append(world[i]);
	}
	// Criterion: it's a little dog
	var littleDogs = Array();
	for (var i = 0; i < dogs.length; i++) {
		if (dogs[i].height < 15)
			littleDogs.append(dogs[i]);
	}
	// Criterion: it's a he
	var littleMaleDogs = Array();
	for (var i = 0; i < littleDogs.length; i++) {
		if (littleDogs[i].sex[0] == 'M' || littleDogs[i].sex[0] == 'm')
			littleMaleDogs.append(littleDogs[i]);
	}
	// TODO - check with SPCA on ethicality of these next search criteria
	var withCuts = Array();
	for (var i = 0; i < littleMaleDogs.length; i++) {
		if (littleMaleDogs[i].cuts["ears"] < 5 && littleMaleDogs[i].cuts["tail"] > 10)
			withCuts.append(littleMaleDogs[i]);
	}
	// Where oh where could he be?!?
	return FindMyLittleDog();
}

[Louist]

So Ed, this means that ships will have two speeds, one for travel within a system, and one for between systems? And if so, with both speeds be the product of a single all-purpose engine, or are there separate engines for each type of movement?

As to DW, I've been having an issue with AI automation. Even when I tell the AI to take care of negotiations, gifts, and treaties (Or however that option was termed), I am still forced to deal with every message sent my empire's way. Am I misreading that option, or is there something else I am missing? I've been trying to role-play as my empire's most advanced cruiser, but a foreign message every 10 minutes is really breaking the immersion!

[Astorax]

Yes, unfortunately, the diplomacy is the only part of the automation that isn't fully automated, lol. I really like the feel of the game though and they are majorly responsive to the community, kicking out extra things and bugfixes in patches pretty quick. Reminds me a lot of Stardock actually.

[Ed Kolis]

Yes, ships will have more than one speed attribute:

1. Jump speed - used for interstellar travel. Restricted to jump lanes (think warp points that take time to traverse; ships cannot be intercepted or commanded while jumping).

2. Acceleration - used for in-system travel, and (slow) interstellar travel apart from jump lanes. Movement will be newtonian (no fuel cost to coast, no speed limits, takes time and fuel to slow down).

We haven't quite worked out the combat mechanics yet, but combat will either use the newtonian mechanics from in-system travel, OR it will use a combination of that and a "maneuverability" system. Depends on whether we have tactical combat or not (tactical combat in multiplayer is looking rather unfeasible, but in single player it would be doable, just not a top priority at the moment), as well as how the newtonian mechanics work out in practice!

The way this maneuverability system would work is, combat would be turn-based, and fleets would be stuck on little "plates" - regions of space that they're confined to, with the size determined by their acceleration attribute. Each round of combat, the plates would shift in space based on their current strategic speed, acceleration, and orders from the previous game turn ("pursue other fleet" or "maintain course to Rigel" or whatever). Then the ships in turn could maneuver on the fleet-plates in a non-newtonian fashion (e.g. "move 3 km forward" or whatever); each ship would be confined to its fleet-plate, though, to avoid breaking the strategic movement calculations. Then ships would fire weapons if possible, and you go back to the plate-shifting phase, until the fleets are out of weapons range or all but one side is wiped out.

It would be interesting in this system, actually, if capital ships had little or even zero maneuverability, while fighters could zip around like crazy... would put more emphasis on the fleet formations and strategies, since you couldn't tweak those to any significant degree in combat if the maneuverability was so poor!

[Baron Munchausen]

With jump drives and maneuver drives being separate, does this mean we can finally have a distinction between "jump ships" and "system ships"? That's a major point of tactical ship design that we've never had in the SE series. By making the jump drive large and expensive, you can give a decent advantage to the defensive side because system-only ships will be inherently cheaper. And carriers for larger ships than fighters will make a lot of sense.