A new take on wormholes

The most appropriate place for Questions, Queries, and Quandaries regarding the nature of the Vega Strike universe and its past, present, or future history. Home to the occasional unfortunate RetCon.
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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by Deus Siddis »

safemode wrote:The "ant to emperor" comment had to do not with your ability to become more influential in your ability to effect the game, but in that no matter how powerful you get, you're still just 1 privateer in the game. You'll never be able to interact with the game in a manner other than that you did when you first started. It lacks the infrastructure to make you into a faction leader, or even a flightgroup leader. It lacks the various things that you would be able to do as someone of such a higher status, like negotiate with the leaders of other factions and such, declare war and give commands to other flightgroups and ships or have bases built etc etc. As an "emperor" your gameplay changes from flying around and trading/shooting to managing others. The game doesn't have the infrastructure for the "managing" aspect that would be indicative of being an "emperor" all we have is ant and bigger ant.
Like I said, "Emperor" was too strong a word, "Lord" is more what I meant. You lead forces (your escorts) into battle, command and fight beside them, and can realistically win against another military squadron. You can even decide which faction ends up controlling a backwater system on a warfront.

Hopefully in the not too distant future players will be able to deploy/purchase stations or other infrastructure (assets that automatically produce revenue/resources, but need to be protected because of their high initial cost).

Because basically it doesn't make a huge difference if the game allows you to at some point build most things yourself outright, or instead only gives you the option to purchase most of those things- you get to about the same functionallity either way (though I personally much prefer building as a more realistic feature for a far future deep space setting like VS). VS as it stands now, is the kind of game where you can buy basically anything that you can afford.
You dont understand what i'm talking about when i say campaigns. I dont speak of a directed plot that the player is basically forced into or requests to be into . The game would have a campaign regardless of what the player does. They can free roam and do whatever they want, the campaign of VS would continue on without them, with the dynamic universe modifying events and times of events throughout the campaign. If the player jumped into plot somewhere along the way, intentionally or accidentally, then they can choose to do missions and such and the campaign would be fine with that. But the player isn't necessary for events to take place. Think of the campaign as mostly gentle nudges given to factions to get them to interact in an intentional way to give the VS universe the feel the time period ought to have. Certain specific events may be scripted to occur under given situations, but for the most part, the AI and dynamic universe are in control. The player can be part of the story or not, but the story occurs and goes on regardless. It starts when the player initiates the game for the first time.
Well I guess that does sound like a more potent dynamic campaign system than I had imagined. It'll be very interesting to see how it handles important NPCs, what outcomes the player still determines and most of all if each time you play it really is a different experience (a very difficult challenge for campaign systems to overcome).
Friends aren't bought. You earn them by helping others or simply being "famous"/successful. It wouldn't be something related to a fixed number, but helping someone may cause them to bond with you etc etc. They wouldn't be unconditional friends for you to use and abuse though, they're not remote control units.
But you don't buy 'friends', you buy ships. Then (their?) AI's fly them, or spaceborn or low level uplifts or whatever- the possible explanations are quite numerous, but the gameplay is really all that matters in this particular instance. Besides, you don't think you run a Thales on your own do you (that is- no sentients or automation to help you)? And yet you still don't have to worry about mutinies when flying anything bigger than a one-man fighter.
If you could attach firmly, performance of a company to funding in a socialist system, then it would work fine, just as good if not better than private. But you can't really do that in a socialist system, because of the mentality of a socialist regime, anything that ended up performing poorly would simply get more funding, because to kill it and start over or without it would not be acceptable as people would depend on it already.
Well you wouldn't want to put you eggs in one basket under any system. Whether individual corporations or overlapping government divisions, you need to have competition or else things eventually devolve.
Performance is easy to define, and it has nothing to do with advantages during war.
If it doesn't directly or indirectly provide competitive advantages during wars as well as self-maintenance and improvement, then as far as factions are concerned, it doesn't matter. Because those are the three things that kill factions- getting conquered, internal instability and getting behind in the race "forward" towards bigger and more complicated.
Performance is simply how much income compares to cost. If the company is pulling more money in than it's spending then it's performance is good.
But performing good doing what? If your economy is really big on paper, but fundamentally it has just soda bottling plants and large office buildings full of software engineers, then unless that faction has powerful friends, it is in fact very weak in spite of its "performance". It needs to be able to produce weapons and battlefleets to fight the aera or other competition, not be very efficient at producing things that offer little physical advantage like sugar water and bloatware operating systems.
Some services a government performs are no income or always going to cost more than they receive, like fire companies are today. That cost has to be paid by taxes, and it's taxes that would have to be highly controlled and treated harshly in order to keep such services efficient. That complication is why it's always best to have as few of these types of services as possible, because the government's ability to remain efficient is inversely proportional on an exponential scale to how much it has to do.
So what you're saying is that very small goverments can run everything but large governments like we see in VS can only run a few of the things in their vast empires, or else they become extremely inefficient?
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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by loki1950 »

So what you're saying is that very small goverments can run everything but large governments like we see in VS can only run a few of the things in their vast empires, or else they become extremely inefficient?
That has always been a problem as the necessary bureaucracies are costly and subject to various internal dynamics :mrgreen:

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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by MC707 »

safemode wrote:There is very little "unknown" about the periodic table of elements. To simply create an element and give it magical properties is retarded, especially when it comes to elements. They have predicted properties based on how many protons/neutrons they have. You dont even need to actually see/discover an element to fairly accurately predict many important features of an element simply by where on the periodic table it would be placed. This is something that's been done time and time again where the predictions of where an element is on the periodic table (when they weren't discovered yet) allowed the scientists to find the element because they almost knew exactly what kind of element they were looking for, it's properties and abilities.

Now, i'm not saying we can predict the abilities of everything and especially not how compounds will behave and such, what i'm saying is that it's retarded to just create an element give it all sorts of abilities, because of all the things we have that aren't known, the periodic table of elements puts a fairly good handle on elements. and Atoms on their own, all have the same components, so one new element isn't going to do anything the others can't. It just sounds dumber than spec.
Ok I get what you mean. Just don't call the makers of Starflight retarded, they are NOT.
safemode wrote:If that's a possibility for you then you've got no grasp on anything we're talking about here. A game where that would be possible would be retarded, as what kind of rules would a game where people had access to that kind of power have? Why would there be those rules, though i suppose if you're going to be as bankrupt in the logic dept to allow that kind of ability, you dont need any logic to make up rules of what else you can't do or can do.
All right. I got your point. I will drop the matter, but for gentleman's sake, chill out. This is an open discussion where everyone can comment and give ideas, not a "i gotta win contest!!1". No wonder only I and Deus Siddis have commented :| .
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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by safemode »

Deus Siddis wrote:
safemode wrote:The "ant to emperor" comment had to do not with your ability to become more influential in your ability to effect the game, but in that no matter how powerful you get, you're still just 1 privateer in the game. You'll never be able to interact with the game in a manner other than that you did when you first started. It lacks the infrastructure to make you into a faction leader, or even a flightgroup leader. It lacks the various things that you would be able to do as someone of such a higher status, like negotiate with the leaders of other factions and such, declare war and give commands to other flightgroups and ships or have bases built etc etc. As an "emperor" your gameplay changes from flying around and trading/shooting to managing others. The game doesn't have the infrastructure for the "managing" aspect that would be indicative of being an "emperor" all we have is ant and bigger ant.
Like I said, "Emperor" was too strong a word, "Lord" is more what I meant. You lead forces (your escorts) into battle, command and fight beside them, and can realistically win against another military squadron. You can even decide which faction ends up controlling a backwater system on a warfront.

Hopefully in the not too distant future players will be able to deploy/purchase stations or other infrastructure (assets that automatically produce revenue/resources, but need to be protected because of their high initial cost).

Because basically it doesn't make a huge difference if the game allows you to at some point build most things yourself outright, or instead only gives you the option to purchase most of those things- you get to about the same functionallity either way (though I personally much prefer building as a more realistic feature for a far future deep space setting like VS). VS as it stands now, is the kind of game where you can buy basically anything that you can afford.
The main problem with this is that you'll change the gameplay dynamics by moving from a realtime combat type game to a empire building/managing type game. This alone isn't too bad but you have to realize the NPC's will also have the same potential and functionality. It may turn out to be too much to process per frame per unit, even if we cheat and choose a limited selection to be able to pursue those interests. So not only are there hardware limitations i'd be concerned with but I'm not too sure VS wants to be a game where you're concerned with micro-managing an empire rather than being in the position you're in as just 1 faceless person among millions participating in historic events where you know history will never remember your name despite what you've done. When you become someone of power like founding your own faction, you've changed the game significantly. Maybe it'll be better, maybe not. Sometimes less is better, like in such a case where a game tries doing too much and forgets to really establish coherent identity.
You dont understand what i'm talking about when i say campaigns. I dont speak of a directed plot that the player is basically forced into or requests to be into . The game would have a campaign regardless of what the player does. They can free roam and do whatever they want, the campaign of VS would continue on without them, with the dynamic universe modifying events and times of events throughout the campaign. If the player jumped into plot somewhere along the way, intentionally or accidentally, then they can choose to do missions and such and the campaign would be fine with that. But the player isn't necessary for events to take place. Think of the campaign as mostly gentle nudges given to factions to get them to interact in an intentional way to give the VS universe the feel the time period ought to have. Certain specific events may be scripted to occur under given situations, but for the most part, the AI and dynamic universe are in control. The player can be part of the story or not, but the story occurs and goes on regardless. It starts when the player initiates the game for the first time.
Well I guess that does sound like a more potent dynamic campaign system than I had imagined. It'll be very interesting to see how it handles important NPCs, what outcomes the player still determines and most of all if each time you play it really is a different experience (a very difficult challenge for campaign systems to overcome).
It all depends on how intelligent we can make the AI's. Not only the unit AI's but the faction AI's. That will determine how flexible we can make campaigns and missions.
Friends aren't bought. You earn them by helping others or simply being "famous"/successful. It wouldn't be something related to a fixed number, but helping someone may cause them to bond with you etc etc. They wouldn't be unconditional friends for you to use and abuse though, they're not remote control units.
But you don't buy 'friends', you buy ships. Then (their?) AI's fly them, or spaceborn or low level uplifts or whatever- the possible explanations are quite numerous, but the gameplay is really all that matters in this particular instance. Besides, you don't think you run a Thales on your own do you (that is- no sentients or automation to help you)? And yet you still don't have to worry about mutinies when flying anything bigger than a one-man fighter.
this is what i mean by trying to do too much and losing your identity. A game where you start controlling more and more ships as if they were under your remote control would quickly devolve into a more inaccurate and lopsided game of "mow down and do whatever i want". It's a way of overcoming balancing and it should be avoided at all costs. NPC's need to be their own player. Meaning, if you want to say that when you buy another ship, you're basically also employing another pilot, then they can break that contract whenever it suits them during battle and you'd basically be out of that ship and money.

I prefer to say that you earn your following through your performance in the game, both individually and how you interact with the NPC's. This way it's much more obvious that these other ships that follow you and help you are other players , and you do not have any implied ownership of them. This makes it much less of an imbalancing force in the game because these other players aren't just going to blindly follow you and do what you want.
So what you're saying is that very small goverments can run everything but large governments like we see in VS can only run a few of the things in their vast empires, or else they become extremely inefficient?

exactly. The oversight over a large empire by a central entity would be orders of magnitude more inefficient than local independent authorities, be them smaller governments or private entities. The efficiency of a government decreases exponentionally as it increases in size. Governments are nothing more than necessary evils. They are parasites on the working and producing aspects of society, but they are needed ....to a point, which is why they came into existence. But they are self serving parasites that if you let alone, will tend to grow and grow and they will take and take from the producing citizens and give to themselves. You can always hope for an ideal, minimalist government that only does what it absolutely needs to, but over time people become lazier and lazier and so they give more and more power to the government, eventually the only way to correct things is for the society to collapse and be reborn, as governments dont know how to reduce itself and give back power.
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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by safemode »

MC707 wrote:
safemode wrote:There is very little "unknown" about the periodic table of elements. To simply create an element and give it magical properties is retarded, especially when it comes to elements. They have predicted properties based on how many protons/neutrons they have. You dont even need to actually see/discover an element to fairly accurately predict many important features of an element simply by where on the periodic table it would be placed. This is something that's been done time and time again where the predictions of where an element is on the periodic table (when they weren't discovered yet) allowed the scientists to find the element because they almost knew exactly what kind of element they were looking for, it's properties and abilities.

Now, i'm not saying we can predict the abilities of everything and especially not how compounds will behave and such, what i'm saying is that it's retarded to just create an element give it all sorts of abilities, because of all the things we have that aren't known, the periodic table of elements puts a fairly good handle on elements. and Atoms on their own, all have the same components, so one new element isn't going to do anything the others can't. It just sounds dumber than spec.
Ok I get what you mean. Just don't call the makers of Starflight retarded, they are NOT.
I never said the people who made starflight were retarded. I said what they did was in the context of our intention here. Obviously if starflight has a totally different intention with their game then what's acceptable or appropriate sci fi would be different. You can range all the way from the infinite probability drive as acceptable technology in a particular game to having generational ships that are limited to Ion drives and absolutely no technology that isn't either currently in use or in development.

Because of the type of universe VS exists in and the type of gameplay we want to have in it, I think we're better off getting closer to the realistic end of the spectrum rather than the fantastic. Not only would it be necessary to do so for aesthetic reasons, but to justify the universe and gameplay we'd need a more restricted level of technology and advancement, despite being a thousand years in the future and having contact with aliens and such.
safemode wrote:If that's a possibility for you then you've got no grasp on anything we're talking about here. A game where that would be possible would be retarded, as what kind of rules would a game where people had access to that kind of power have? Why would there be those rules, though i suppose if you're going to be as bankrupt in the logic dept to allow that kind of ability, you dont need any logic to make up rules of what else you can't do or can do.
All right. I got your point. I will drop the matter, but for gentleman's sake, chill out. This is an open discussion where everyone can comment and give ideas, not a "i gotta win contest!!1". No wonder only I and Deus Siddis have commented :| .
Well, it was a discussion about replacing spec for much of it's beginning, and it's in a low traffic forum section. It's not going to get the attention of many people and those who know enough about the game and how it works simply are too busy, which is why development has slowed for a while now. We kinda went on a tangent in the last couple of pages. I'm not trying to win, I just think it's important for anyone really interested in being involved in VS realize that while it's intention is to be fully dynamic and flexible and create this open-ended yet involved gameplay experience, that doesn't mean that there aren't limits and restrictions within the universe. Limits and restrictions are even more necessary in such a dynamic and flexible system as without them you'll quickly lose any resemblance of a believable and thus immersive reality. Players always tend to want less restrictions, less limits, as you can see with just about every cheat/trainer having an infinite ammo or infinite energy code/feature etc. When i see SPEC or wormholes and what not, I see it as a chip away at the realistic limits set within the game. If you can do that, then what stops you from doing this. And if that's this powerful, then That needs to be even more powerful to balance and back and forth, with no limitation because if you can have the power to do spec or wormholes then it makes sense you'd have enough power to continue the balancing of ever powerful weapons and defenses. There would be no end besides something arbitrarily set. The game no longer becomes fun.
So when someone suggests that wormhole travel or SPEC is just as good or should be kept and used then I would have to demand that a justification that sets limits to an appropriate level is made so as to stop and limit what we're saying players are capable of doing.

But in reality, i dont suspect this idea to get beyond this thread. None of the higher ups are interested in changing the story or tech behind it, at all it seems. And on the game side of things, well, you know how limited we are when it comes to development time. It's not a high priority. The back and forth discussion is what was intended here. The intention was to harden the theory and specifications for the Nexus system by defending it and pointing out failures in the other current systems. It's worked as what i first suggested has definitely evolved over the course of the thread to a more workable and what would be a more believable system.
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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by MC707 »

safemode wrote:
MC707 wrote:
safemode wrote:If that's a possibility for you then you've got no grasp on anything we're talking about here. A game where that would be possible would be retarded, as what kind of rules would a game where people had access to that kind of power have? Why would there be those rules, though i suppose if you're going to be as bankrupt in the logic dept to allow that kind of ability, you dont need any logic to make up rules of what else you can't do or can do.
All right. I got your point. I will drop the matter, but for gentleman's sake, chill out. This is an open discussion where everyone can comment and give ideas, not a "i gotta win contest!!1". No wonder only I and Deus Siddis have commented :| .
Well, it was a discussion about replacing spec for much of it's beginning, and it's in a low traffic forum section. It's not going to get the attention of many people and those who know enough about the game and how it works simply are too busy, which is why development has slowed for a while now. We kinda went on a tangent in the last couple of pages. I'm not trying to win, I just think it's important for anyone really interested in being involved in VS realize that while it's intention is to be fully dynamic and flexible and create this open-ended yet involved gameplay experience, that doesn't mean that there aren't limits and restrictions within the universe.
You could have said it in a more... mature way. But enough of it, it is done.
safemode wrote:Limits and restrictions are even more necessary in such a dynamic and flexible system as without them you'll quickly lose any resemblance of a believable and thus immersive reality. Players always tend to want less restrictions, less limits, as you can see with just about every cheat/trainer having an infinite ammo or infinite energy code/feature etc. When i see SPEC or wormholes and what not, I see it as a chip away at the realistic limits set within the game. If you can do that, then what stops you from doing this. And if that's this powerful, then That needs to be even more powerful to balance and back and forth, with no limitation because if you can have the power to do spec or wormholes then it makes sense you'd have enough power to continue the balancing of ever powerful weapons and defenses. There would be no end besides something arbitrarily set. The game no longer becomes fun.
So when someone suggests that wormhole travel or SPEC is just as good or should be kept and used then I would have to demand that a justification that sets limits to an appropriate level is made so as to stop and limit what we're saying players are capable of doing.

But in reality, i dont suspect this idea to get beyond this thread. None of the higher ups are interested in changing the story or tech behind it, at all it seems. And on the game side of things, well, you know how limited we are when it comes to development time. It's not a high priority. The back and forth discussion is what was intended here. The intention was to harden the theory and specifications for the Nexus system by defending it and pointing out failures in the other current systems. It's worked as what i first suggested has definitely evolved over the course of the thread to a more workable and what would be a more believable system.
Limits? Cheat/trainer? Infinite ammo/code/feature/[money]? Finally something we agree on. First, before taking SPEC or wormholes (which I don't see as abuse mechanisms anyway since even with those, it takes ages to get to the AI cores run which then I do see as abusive), we must take out the save file hacking. I - personally - stopped playing VS after I decided to hack the save file because it took me months to get money just for a mule. After that, it became an overkill. I had every single ship money could buy, and ceased playing after a little while. I've said it in other posts, save file hacking definitely cuts a good deal of time play, and I am pretty sure many people that come here and learn how to hack a save file, do so and stop playing after awhile. And just like you said, the game no longer becomes fun. After taking that overkill out, we then can change the current system of travel, which as I said I won't discuss any more :wink:.
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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by Deus Siddis »

safemode wrote:The main problem with this is that you'll change the gameplay dynamics by moving from a realtime combat type game to a empire building/managing type game. This alone isn't too bad but you have to realize the NPC's will also have the same potential and functionality. It may turn out to be too much to process per frame per unit, even if we cheat and choose a limited selection to be able to pursue those interests.
As mentioned, the game already works this way though. I have fought flightgroups with my own flightgroup. It is very fun and not imbalancing as far as I can tell, kind of like Battlezone 2 set in deep space and it also takes advantage of the fact that most all ships in the game are specialized and ment to work in groups.

There's only one adjustment that'd make it better, which is to be able buy escorts outside of the cargo of a 'carrier' like a Mule or Clydesdale that I have to lug around with me. And there's only one new feature, not directly related, which is to be able purchase some sort of deployable station kit or such, that sits there and pulls in money/resources over time and maybe can be expanded/upgraded and leave defending ships in its cargo bay. Basically a mule with no engines that slowly but passively makes you richer.

I don't want to, and I don't think anyone else wants to, negotiate with factions, command flightgroups from systems afar or micromanage things in general.
Sometimes less is better, like in such a case where a game tries doing too much and forgets to really establish coherent identity.
IMO, VS is a giant RTS with strike craft, corvettes, capital ships, and various different planets and stations and their defense forces. Inside this giant RTS is the player, who plays somekind of tactical simulator controlling a force that can be anything from just his own ship to a small flightgroup (that is, not anything like the three dozen archimedes and teslas and two hundred escorts that factions can wield so many flightgroups of).

Having played the game since 0.4.3 was a fresh release, that is the sense it has given me from a number of interlocking elements. And along with its content, this has impressed me as a unique and internally coherent identity, like you say.
this is what i mean by trying to do too much and losing your identity. A game where you start controlling more and more ships as if they were under your remote control would quickly devolve into a more inaccurate and lopsided game of "mow down and do whatever i want". It's a way of overcoming balancing and it should be avoided at all costs. NPC's need to be their own player. Meaning, if you want to say that when you buy another ship, you're basically also employing another pilot, then they can break that contract whenever it suits them during battle and you'd basically be out of that ship and money.
The AI will never be as good as you are. The more ships you have under your command, the more of your own money the inferior AI is flying around and putting at risk and therefore the less of an edge your own human skill and decision making offers in battle. So at some fleet size, no matter how good you are at doing or commanding, you'd be losing your expensive ships faster than you could afford to replace them. And it might take you hundreds of hours of playing to get yourself built up to this point in the game in the first place.

And again, you're still nothing against any one of the hundreds of large Aera task forces pushing into various systems over a wide front.
I prefer to say that you earn your following through your performance in the game, both individually and how you interact with the NPC's. This way it's much more obvious that these other ships that follow you and help you are other players , and you do not have any implied ownership of them. This makes it much less of an imbalancing force in the game because these other players aren't just going to blindly follow you and do what you want.
That's good too. But most games, VS included, give you forces that will blindly follow you around because that's it's own kind of fun, and not anyless balanced as long as it costs enough time or money to get them. Having to buy million credit escorts puts a heavy counterbalance on your little fleet and what you can do with it. You break it, you bought it, in other words.
exactly. The oversight over a large empire by a central entity would be orders of magnitude more inefficient than local independent authorities, be them smaller governments or private entities. The efficiency of a government decreases exponentionally as it increases in size. Governments are nothing more than necessary evils. They are parasites on the working and producing aspects of society, but they are needed ....to a point, which is why they came into existence. But they are self serving parasites that if you let alone, will tend to grow and grow and they will take and take from the producing citizens and give to themselves. You can always hope for an ideal, minimalist government that only does what it absolutely needs to, but over time people become lazier and lazier and so they give more and more power to the government, eventually the only way to correct things is for the society to collapse and be reborn, as governments dont know how to reduce itself and give back power.
Okay, that makes sense. Though management within corporations is more or less a government with those same issues. The advantage of the private sector then becomes in its modularity, which it can afford because it doesn't usually get involved directly in military operations, which require huge well organized forces.
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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by safemode »

I split off the savegame talk to it's own thread in the Developers Focus section. Figured it was sufficiently separate of a topic and was going to run on for a while.
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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by safemode »

The problem is, that it's not what is intended as the game VS is still yet to become. That is, it's supposed to be about a character within a universe (you) with an intricately detailed back story and plot and your journey and adventures within that universe as events unfold around you. You're not meant to move from 1st person to 3rd person, and while certain aspects of empire building are present, we dont currently have the infrastructure to have 1st person empire building. The gameplay and UI for someone building an empire would be drastically different from that which we currently have. Your interactions wouldn't be on a pilot to pilot basis or with random fixers in bars. You'd be meeting with other leaders, negotiating terms of agreements and dealing with matters of a much larger scale than what any privateer would see. That's the kind of stuff that's missing that i'm talking about there.

I dont oppose being able to build your own flightgroup, even your own faction or found a company that gains power over time and such. I just think it's extremely complicated to make doing that feel a part of the same game as the person who participates in the events of the game on the end-level in a ship by himself. It should all feel like you're playing the same game within the same universe, no matter if you're a pirate, privateer, military, flight group leader, faction VIP, faction leader, CEO etc . That's a lot more complicated than anything we currently allow the player to do. We work-around a lot of things that would need to be simulated realistically in many of those situations, such as the input/output and production (non-existant currently) of bases. Such a thing is a non-issue when the game is played on the lower end of individual power but if you can rise to the level of someone who controls bases and such, then you would be competing on a level where those aspects of the game need to be simulated.

But to not also get into what is probably a thread on it's own. This part of the discussion refers to the aspect of what ought to be possible in the game and the limits thereof. In particular, not so much as it refers to your role in the game, but in the technological abilities of those within the game.
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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by Deus Siddis »

safemode wrote:I split off the savegame talk to it's own thread in the Developers Focus section. Figured it was sufficiently separate of a topic and was going to run on for a while.
Thanks.
safemode wrote:The problem is, that it's not what is intended as the game VS is still yet to become. That is, it's supposed to be about a character within a universe (you) with an intricately detailed back story and plot and your journey and adventures within that universe as events unfold around you. You're not meant to move from 1st person to 3rd person, and while certain aspects of empire building are present, we dont currently have the infrastructure to have 1st person empire building. The gameplay and UI for someone building an empire would be drastically different from that which we currently have. Your interactions wouldn't be on a pilot to pilot basis or with random fixers in bars. You'd be meeting with other leaders, negotiating terms of agreements and dealing with matters of a much larger scale than what any privateer would see. That's the kind of stuff that's missing that i'm talking about there.
All that stuff might make a really interesting addition to the game if someone wanted to code it, but what I'm talking about is much simpler than that. It's two things basically:

1) When I buy more than one ship, whatever ship I'm not flying should follow me around and follow orders using the current escort command code (simple commands like follow me, attack hostiles, attack selected target, run for it) that is already used by hired escorts and carrier/cargo strike craft that you have launched. A baby step from what the game currently allows.

I think this makes the technological believability of the game much greater as well, because with computer technology and UAVs of today, I really can't believe a universe where this isn't possible 1000 years from now, outside of a post-apocalypse setting (which VS probably isn't, with space travel and everything).

2) Buy deployable station builders (like an MCV or Colony pod) and then deploy them. That station then acts like a friendly escort mule without engines (defenses, dockability, destructability, etc.) that slowly becomes stocked with things you can take for free (that have no price as far as the game is concerned) and/or makes you credits over time. Whatever escort ships you own and leave inside that station will help defend it. This would be more work I would think, but it would mostly rely on features and code already implemented it seems to me, like the base / large ship internal point and click interfaces.

This makes the game more technologically believable to me because with the plain old automation or, dare I say, nanotechnology of the distant future, it is hard to believe this wouldn't be possible, and with the vast, vast distances of space, a much more believable necessity of infrastructure than pure space trade. Because space has huge resources to be tapped, but moving them across its expanses should also take huge resources, so building and using local infrastructure seems alot more plausible, at least for small operations.
I dont oppose being able to build your own flightgroup, even your own faction or found a company that gains power over time and such. I just think it's extremely complicated to make doing that feel a part of the same game as the person who participates in the events of the game on the end-level in a ship by himself. It should all feel like you're playing the same game within the same universe, no matter if you're a pirate, privateer, military, flight group leader, faction VIP, faction leader, CEO etc.
Ultimately the game is about navigating and combat piloting vehicles alone or in a wing of said vehicles (which you may or may not be commanding) building up assets and doing missions (including trade runs). Nothing is going to change this core gameplay, not a dynamic campaign, seamless planetary flight, realtime base interiors or any other big time feature; they can only add to it.
That's a lot more complicated than anything we currently allow the player to do. We work-around a lot of things that would need to be simulated realistically in many of those situations, such as the input/output and production (non-existant currently) of bases. Such a thing is a non-issue when the game is played on the lower end of individual power but if you can rise to the level of someone who controls bases and such, then you would be competing on a level where those aspects of the game need to be simulated.
Well base output is something that should and will eventually be simulated though right? Part of the planned dynamic economy system I thought it was.

Either way what the game currently has for an economy shouldn't pose problems for this I wouldn't think.
But to not also get into what is probably a thread on it's own. This part of the discussion refers to the aspect of what ought to be possible in the game and the limits thereof. In particular, not so much as it refers to your role in the game, but in the technological abilities of those within the game.
Then to me this is all feels very relevant. The greatly advanced technology and vast space setting make greater self sufficiency and localization alot more believable than flying lightyears around to collect all the things you need, and that cilizations need.

Of all the realism/believability issues with VS, this one along with the fast travel times of 0.5 bugs me the most, because it is an expression of the core gameplay that is a lie, in a game that presents itself as a simulation.
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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by safemode »

indeed, the idea that there wouldn't be a remote control feature for ships using a type of in-universe ai seems far fetched. It would _have_ to be simpler than the AI we use to simulate other living pilots in the game however.

While those types of things wouldn't change the game by themselves, i think they're incomplete with just remaining with the UI given to players who are simple pilots and nothing more. A person of stature that has his own base and flight group and such is gonna be in a different strata of socio-economic interaction, and that should be reflected in the game.
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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by Deus Siddis »

safemode wrote:indeed, the idea that there wouldn't be a remote control feature for ships using a type of in-universe ai seems far fetched. It would _have_ to be simpler than the AI we use to simulate other living pilots in the game however.
Simpler as in having no 'free will' code (that decides if, when and how much it does what you tell it to) or simpler in that it has fewer/poorer maneuvers/marksmanship in and is thus less effective in battle and navigation?
While those types of things wouldn't change the game by themselves, i think they're incomplete with just remaining with the UI given to players who are simple pilots and nothing more. A person of stature that has his own base and flight group and such is gonna be in a different strata of socio-economic interaction, and that should be reflected in the game.
I'm not sure I understand precisely what kind of new gameplay you're saying would what to add to this? A more complex communication/diplomacy engine maybe? (like that of Master of Orion, or Starflight or Star Control?)

But maybe this could be met by eventually tying player assets into the dynamic campaign system, so that it would build extra missions for you based on what you had.

Example 1: The campaign system sees that Araxia has been destroyed by an Aera fleet based around a Cruiser and a couple Destroyers, Andolian reinforcements are not near by, and the player has arrived in Atlantis with a formidable squadron of Goddard bombers. The campaign then spawns a mission for the player to accept/decline to harass or destroy the fleet, at a bounty of 50% the value of each capital for each capital destroyed, plus 25% of the value of each strike escort for each strike escort destroyed.

If you have just one Goddard or a fleet of a dozen Gawains (no torpedos) then it doesn't offer you this mission. The same mission is applied to all other AI privateers and hunters in the system or nearby systems with the correct fleet size/quality/type, for as long as the Aera fleet remains and reinforcements have not yet arrived.

Example 2: The campaign system sees that there are insufficient mines around a trantor planet and the player has a couple asteroid base mines within 1 jump of said trantor, and the pirate activity along this route is low. The campaign system then spawns a 'mission' for the player to accept or decline, asking if he would like to form a 1 year contract with the Merchant faction to buy all his base's output of ore for a set price X, and they provide the transportation.
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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by safemode »

Deus Siddis wrote:
safemode wrote:indeed, the idea that there wouldn't be a remote control feature for ships using a type of in-universe ai seems far fetched. It would _have_ to be simpler than the AI we use to simulate other living pilots in the game however.
Simpler as in having no 'free will' code (that decides if, when and how much it does what you tell it to) or simpler in that it has fewer/poorer maneuvers/marksmanship in and is thus less effective in battle and navigation?
Simpler as in no free will. How well it responds to attacks and follows orders could be an upgrade option even. Better AI cores could be something you can equip a ship with. Cheaper ones wont support the same number of maneuvers and reactions and randomness of those reactions as more expensive varieties, making the cheaper ones more predictable and possibly easier to take out.
While those types of things wouldn't change the game by themselves, i think they're incomplete with just remaining with the UI given to players who are simple pilots and nothing more. A person of stature that has his own base and flight group and such is gonna be in a different strata of socio-economic interaction, and that should be reflected in the game.
I'm not sure I understand precisely what kind of new gameplay you're saying would what to add to this? A more complex communication/diplomacy engine maybe? (like that of Master of Orion, or Starflight or Star Control?)
Well, i think once you own a base and/or a flightgroup (with real people involved too) then diplomacy and relations with other higher ups should become a primary feature of your gameplay. No longer would flying individual missions be part of your daily routine. You would be sending others to do that and you would be doing things you'd expect the owner of such things to do. That doesn't mean you couldn't take joy rides of course.
But maybe this could be met by eventually tying player assets into the dynamic campaign system, so that it would build extra missions for you based on what you had.

Example 1: The campaign system sees that Araxia has been destroyed by an Aera fleet based around a Cruiser and a couple Destroyers, Andolian reinforcements are not near by, and the player has arrived in Atlantis with a formidable squadron of Goddard bombers. The campaign then spawns a mission for the player to accept/decline to harass or destroy the fleet, at a bounty of 50% the value of each capital for each capital destroyed, plus 25% of the value of each strike escort for each strike escort destroyed.

If you have just one Goddard or a fleet of a dozen Gawains (no torpedos) then it doesn't offer you this mission. The same mission is applied to all other AI privateers and hunters in the system or nearby systems with the correct fleet size/quality/type, for as long as the Aera fleet remains and reinforcements have not yet arrived.

Example 2: The campaign system sees that there are insufficient mines around a trantor planet and the player has a couple asteroid base mines within 1 jump of said trantor, and the pirate activity along this route is low. The campaign system then spawns a 'mission' for the player to accept or decline, asking if he would like to form a 1 year contract with the Merchant faction to buy all his base's output of ore for a set price X, and they provide the transportation.
it's not so much the missions available that is what i'm concerned with. It's the way you get them, who is giving them to you, and who it effects by accepting and declining. example 2 is more in tune with the type of things a player would do and have to deal with. No long is his routine a matter of flying base to base and doing things, it's managing his business. He's basically moved from the street to a desk job.

But that's not to say that the player has removed himself from the events in the game that transpire and make up the unfolding campaign that existed when he was just a simple privateer. That is all still happening and the player should still be a part of it, it's just going to have to be a totally different capacity. How we would construct that interaction such that it's the type of interaction you'd expect between someone who runs a company vs a lone privateer is what is more complicated than simply injecting missions that are conditional to your assets. I would say, that I'd want the player to feel like an executive when he becomes one. To feel like a general for example, when he's in control of a military flightgroup. To feel like a faction leader if he pursues that direction and succeeds. All within the confines of realtime space combat/strategy/simulation/etc that we currently do.
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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by Deus Siddis »

safemode wrote:Simpler as in no free will.
Cool.
How well it responds to attacks and follows orders could be an upgrade option even. Better AI cores could be something you can equip a ship with. Cheaper ones wont support the same number of maneuvers and reactions and randomness of those reactions as more expensive varieties, making the cheaper ones more predictable and possibly easier to take out.
The only problem with different levels of AIs is the believability/realism factor once again. Basically any AI created for VS is going to run on part of a modern consumer computer in reality, while in game it is a devoted combat control system 1000 years more advanced. So any AI would need to be full power to not be an obvious "game device".

Though, with all of these uplifts, cyborgs, cyborg uplifts and other crazy things flying around, many with seemingly limited or no free will or perhaps no understanding of how they'd die along with their ship, there certainly is temptation for such a game device, so that different types of "pilots" offer different skills in combat.

It just isn't as realistic and believable, since if the game can simulate these things, so could a future bargain-bin AI certainly.
Well, i think once you own a base and/or a flightgroup (with real people involved too) then diplomacy and relations with other higher ups should become a primary feature of your gameplay.
That shouldn't be too much of a change though, since you just shift from dealing with less important people to more important people. Business is business, as they say.
No longer would flying individual missions be part of your daily routine.
That's part of the idea, actually. There's only so long you can have the player living hand-to-mouth doing other people's laundry before he starts to get bored. This would help the gameplay evolve into more big strokes tasks, as the player becomes more established.
You would be sending others to do that and you would be doing things you'd expect the owner of such things to do. That doesn't mean you couldn't take joy rides of course.

. . .

it's not so much the missions available that is what i'm concerned with. It's the way you get them, who is giving them to you, and who it effects by accepting and declining. example 2 is more in tune with the type of things a player would do and have to deal with. No long is his routine a matter of flying base to base and doing things, it's managing his business. He's basically moved from the street to a desk job.
Not quite, it is more like you advance from a hunter-gatherer to a farmer (if you choose this path). Instead of hunting your food, you plant it and protect it.

While it might be really safe to do so, you can't just plant a base in a long established and well developed system and expect it to make back its cost in a reasonable time frame, because everyone close by mostly have what they need anyway and the best locations have already been taken.

To make real credits you have to establish somethings on the frontier where things aren't safe. And when you have valuable assets spread around a system with dangerous pirates or a looming Aera invasion, you can't afford to just sit at your desk. You have to lead a mobile force to your different assets to defend them from attack (spreading out defenses simply wouldn't have enough concentration to protect them) and probably you might want to run local campaign missions and establish alliances with other privateers to stave off threats to your locallity that are too big for you and your forces to handle alone (like the Aera).

In short, you don't have to worry about doing the space game equivalent of manual labor or risk your life/wallet in risky bounty missions, but you also now have a stake in what happens. You can't just fly your little transport to greener pastures when the Aera come through. Farmers aren't nomadic.
But that's not to say that the player has removed himself from the events in the game that transpire and make up the unfolding campaign that existed when he was just a simple privateer. That is all still happening and the player should still be a part of it, it's just going to have to be a totally different capacity. How we would construct that interaction such that it's the type of interaction you'd expect between someone who runs a company vs a lone privateer is what is more complicated than simply injecting missions that are conditional to your assets. I would say, that I'd want the player to feel like an executive when he becomes one. To feel like a general for example, when he's in control of a military flightgroup. To feel like a faction leader if he pursues that direction and succeeds. All within the confines of realtime space combat/strategy/simulation/etc that we currently do.
Well not having to run little missions for folks helps make you feel like you've "made it". But there's other little artistic and gameplay things that can be done without a major overhaul or would happen naturally through the dynamic universe, methinks.

For instance, getting more and more press in the local and then larger inter-system networks would be an example of an artistic evolution. Similarly, being approached by fans and employment-seeking privateers. Simply seeing your own awesome technological shit everywhere is another example of this.

For gameplay, if you have doubled the infrastructural development of Cephid 17 (not a huge task), you have also doubled its (and now your own) target profile to the Aera. Obliterating you and your system weakens the Human Confederation enough to be worth dispatching a small task force to do so. Similarly, a friendly faction might decide to build a garrison or post a guard around your setup if you developed a backwater system enough that it became more economically valuable to them. Also, having the power to destroy small or medium stations and flight groups is a nice gameplay difference from the early game.
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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by safemode »

In keeping with the argument that the new take on wormholes is a means of making the game more believable and realistic, i think we should split the discussion between various aspects of realism in the game.

1. Technological.
2. Rendered.
3. Functional.


Technological realism would deal with the amount of fi in the sci within the game. It's a balance between how much we are imagining that's outside of our abilities currently and how much we extrapolate from our actual reality. This is where the wormhole discussion falls.

Rendered realism would deal with how we represent aspects of the game to the user. This is a balance between realism and immersive eye candy. The truth is, space is vastly empty and boring. It's our job to make it less boring without adding sparkly vampires aka something obviously wrong.

Functional realism deals with the behavior of the game. This is mostly a balance between feasibility with our hardware/software limitations and believability/flexibility. This is the AI, the collision system, physics in general and the unwritten campaigns/missions.

A good rule to have when introducing something heavily based on the fictional side and less so on the realistic one is that if we're going to ask the user to suspend some disbelief, we have to give them a realistic reason to do so. The thing that is being made up needs to have a real functional purpose in existing and that functional purpose needs to be backed up in the canon if necessary.

For example, one aspect of the game that is weak in that rule is the Nano Plague. No in-game canon reason is given for explaining how the nano plague detects nanites. Nor does it make any attempt to explain how it targets the current civilization's nanites in relation to the nanites of the Ancients. It doesn't explain why no civilization has attempted to shield against the nano plague detecting nanites. etc etc. From a functional realism standpoint, it falls on it's face. What is it's vector of travel? cloud-like? Obviously it would have to be networked in order to process information if it's indvidual pieces were tiny enough to disassemble nanites. How would it power such inter-communication, how would it move fast enough to do what it's said to have done? Etc etc. That's where it falls on it's face technologically. It's never rendered, so we dont have to worry about that. But nevertheless, it obviously feels like it was shoehorned in last minute as a plot device to accomplish something that seemed necessary but unlikely to occur. It, however, doesn't feel like a necessity in itself, it is not involved in the game at all, yet it's integral to the canon and the technological state of the game. It breaks the rule of suspension of belief in that it's asking us to ignore all these points, because it's serving this purpose, but that purpose can be served by many other more believable things. Hence it fails, it fails in the same way wormhole travel fails.

Taking from some other posts above, if we enact strict physical limits on the abilities of nanites, they no longer pose as a god-like technology that would ruin the game dynamics. And if we impose some of the other limitations i mentioned on not needing shields or wormhole jump engines that bend space and time, then we dont need nanites to be god-like either to be effective components in-game, nor do we need to mix vastly different levels of technology together like machine guns firing bullets and engines that warp the fabric of space.
The narrower our most advanced thing the players deal with and the more common things, the more believable the universe becomes. How can you ask someone to believe that every ship has the ability to warp space (to an unlimited frequency no less) but you have to wait for the refire rate of your stupid laser canon?

My method of FTL while functionally similar to wormhole travel in that it would serve the same purpose of getting a player to vastly separate locations in a short time is better in every respect mentioned above to wormholes, and any other FTL method.

To clarify something, the probes wouldn't be self replicating nanites. They would be nanites that self organize and construct the nexus on location after being shot out rail-gun style at relativistic speeds. Not every species does it this way though. Humans figured out how to do it this way, and spread out over hundreds of years in this manner, leapfrogging to system to system. The Aera may have a different means of constructing their nexus'. Another race may have a means of inducing a natural nexus. In all the cases, the teleportation occurs under the same principles. The different methods for initiating the setup can be a part of the differentiating qualities of each race (not necessarily each faction, but like human vs aera vs etc).
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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by loki1950 »

This pop up over the weekend http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... =6&t=14932 from the rendering and Technological side.

Enjoy the Choice :)
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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by Deus Siddis »

safemode wrote:In keeping with the argument that the new take on wormholes is a means of making the game more believable and realistic, i think we should split the discussion between various aspects of realism in the game.
Sure go ahead, it's your topic, split it however you want.
Technological realism would deal with the amount of fi in the sci within the game. It's a balance between how much we are imagining that's outside of our abilities currently and how much we extrapolate from our actual reality. This is where the wormhole discussion falls.
I think this will also be the category where most discussions fall under.
Rendered realism would deal with how we represent aspects of the game to the user. This is a balance between realism and immersive eye candy. The truth is, space is vastly empty and boring. It's our job to make it less boring without adding sparkly vampires aka something obviously wrong.
I think part of this is also capturing the "essence" of the things we can't be fully realistic about for gameplay and aesthetics reasons. We've already discussed the following, but it can still serve as an example to help make this point- space is vast, but spec is very fast, which spoils the feeling of space being vast. So while you don't need to be conservative to the point that a trip to a nearby solar system takes years, you can make it take a number of minutes and get this feeling of emptiness and vastness across.
Functional realism deals with the behavior of the game. This is mostly a balance between feasibility with our hardware/software limitations and believability/flexibility. This is the AI, the collision system, physics in general and the unwritten campaigns/missions.
As long as certain things are abstracted, this might be the least common of the three.
A good rule to have when introducing something heavily based on the fictional side and less so on the realistic one is that if we're going to ask the user to suspend some disbelief, we have to give them a realistic reason to do so. The thing that is being made up needs to have a real functional purpose in existing and that functional purpose needs to be backed up in the canon if necessary.

For example, one aspect of the game that is weak in that rule is the Nano Plague. No in-game canon reason is given for explaining how the nano plague detects nanites. Nor does it make any attempt to explain how it targets the current civilization's nanites in relation to the nanites of the Ancients. It doesn't explain why no civilization has attempted to shield against the nano plague detecting nanites. etc etc. From a functional realism standpoint, it falls on it's face. What is it's vector of travel? cloud-like? Obviously it would have to be networked in order to process information if it's indvidual pieces were tiny enough to disassemble nanites. How would it power such inter-communication, how would it move fast enough to do what it's said to have done? Etc etc. That's where it falls on it's face technologically. It's never rendered, so we dont have to worry about that. But nevertheless, it obviously feels like it was shoehorned in last minute as a plot device to accomplish something that seemed necessary but unlikely to occur. It, however, doesn't feel like a necessity in itself, it is not involved in the game at all, yet it's integral to the canon and the technological state of the game. It breaks the rule of suspension of belief in that it's asking us to ignore all these points, because it's serving this purpose, but that purpose can be served by many other more believable things. Hence it fails, it fails in the same way wormhole travel fails.

Taking from some other posts above, if we enact strict physical limits on the abilities of nanites, they no longer pose as a god-like technology that would ruin the game dynamics. And if we impose some of the other limitations i mentioned on not needing shields or wormhole jump engines that bend space and time, then we dont need nanites to be god-like either to be effective components in-game, nor do we need to mix vastly different levels of technology together like machine guns firing bullets and engines that warp the fabric of space.
Good summary. Agreed.
They would be nanites that self organize and construct the nexus on location after being shot out rail-gun style at relativistic speeds. Not every species does it this way though. Humans figured out how to do it this way, and spread out over hundreds of years in this manner, leapfrogging to system to system. The Aera may have a different means of constructing their nexus'. Another race may have a means of inducing a natural nexus. In all the cases, the teleportation occurs under the same principles. The different methods for initiating the setup can be a part of the differentiating qualities of each race (not necessarily each faction, but like human vs aera vs etc).
Cool idea. Making the major species more different from each other makes them all more believable and much more interesting. FTL performance is one area where everyone seems the same, which definitely leaves room for improvement.
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Re: A new take on wormholes

Post by TBeholder »

safemode wrote: Technological realism would deal with the amount of fi in the sci within the game. It's a balance between how much we are imagining that's outside of our abilities currently and how much we extrapolate from our actual reality. This is where the wormhole discussion falls.

Rendered realism would deal with how we represent aspects of the game to the user. This is a balance between realism and immersive eye candy. The truth is, space is vastly empty and boring. It's our job to make it less boring without adding sparkly vampires aka something obviously wrong.
Yeah. There's known nav point and then green thingy which basicallyis shown where your warp-meter or whatever detects an anomaly - they can work with it, so they can detect it at short range. IMO, that's palatable enough.
safemode wrote: For example, one aspect of the game that is weak in that rule is the Nano Plague. No in-game canon reason is given for explaining how the nano plague detects nanites. Nor does it make any attempt to explain how it targets the current civilization's nanites in relation to the nanites of the Ancients. It doesn't explain why no civilization has attempted to shield against the nano plague detecting nanites. etc etc.
...
But nevertheless, it obviously feels like it was shoehorned in last minute as a plot device to accomplish something that seemed necessary but unlikely to occur.
Well, they supposedly tried and failed, and it was too long ago to affect anything present directly. As to what it is - IMO having things that are powerful, present but not yet ever successfully dealt with can be good if done well: this helps to keep people on their toes, otherwise setting becomes a bit too cozy and neo-mundane and not like one step from the frontier.
safemode wrote: Taking from some other posts above, if we enact strict physical limits on the abilities of nanites, they no longer pose as a god-like technology that would ruin the game dynamics.
Well, let's see.
Basically it's a set of artificial ribosomes (plus everything they need to work and make proper macrostructure) designed to process wider variety of materials (e.g. metals or corundum) and structures (e.g. monocrystal metal pin), right? On the one hand, it's more universal than normal bio-tech, but on the other hand they are more clunky, as not only they are de-specialized, but they are developed - one won't dare to let them to optimize themselves and evolve out of control into something more self-reliant - or you'll end up adding to old good rhinovirus, mutant coliform bacterium and cockroaches headaches like nanoassembler-infesting virus, reactor slime and literal computer bugs (of course, these going be created on purpose anyway).
Hence, in the end you get rather inefficient (construction vat needs to be fed and pampered like a garden), but extremely flexible artificial lifeform which grows cellphones and bombs like fruits, only with more efforts on control and feeding. The only variables are how much of control and feeding it needs and how much troubles it gives to grow increasingly bigger and more complex things properly. Probably you'll get beautiful composite armor sheets, but have to cut them to size with tools (grown by parts as well).
On the "creepier" end, you have cells cyborgized with nanofactories (much like mitochondria) tumbling down the generations, and thus lots of human strains who produce antidotes to common toxins, or poisons they are immune to, has "nonorganic" part in tissues, and so on. And of course, tons of new bio-weapons on modded lifeforms, from mild (like metal-gnawing cockroach or ant surviving short decompression) to devious (immunity-hijacking bacteria, not harmful until activated with traces of something innocent like perfume).
Not godlike, but quite a lot of weird things.
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Re: A new take on wormholes

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Deus Siddis wrote:
safemode wrote:They would be nanites that self organize and construct the nexus on location after being shot out rail-gun style at relativistic speeds. Not every species does it this way though. Humans figured out how to do it this way, and spread out over hundreds of years in this manner, leapfrogging to system to system. The Aera may have a different means of constructing their nexus'. Another race may have a means of inducing a natural nexus. In all the cases, the teleportation occurs under the same principles. The different methods for initiating the setup can be a part of the differentiating qualities of each race (not necessarily each faction, but like human vs aera vs etc).
Cool idea. Making the major species more different from each other makes them all more believable and much more interesting. FTL performance is one area where everyone seems the same, which definitely leaves room for improvement.

Indeed, i think the idea that multiple races come across the technology is plausible, but that they all do it the same way is rediculous. Perhaps the aera have a natural magnetic sense much like birds and such, and this causes them to be biased more towards detecting the fluctuating natural magnetic nexus' that occur around planets and stars. At first travel would be random but eventually they create computers that can model the fluctuations and allow them to synchronize a given nexus to whatever the destination nexus is oscillating at, giving them fairly dependable natural means of travel.

There would be other methods too, mixtures of natural and synthetic, fixed setups only, varying levels of power (allowing larger ships to teleport etc)

This changes the strategies of the races in the game as well, and may help explain how the aeran war started, since they dont require physical constructs to jump.
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Re: A new take on wormholes

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Turbo Beholder wrote:
safemode wrote: For example, one aspect of the game that is weak in that rule is the Nano Plague. No in-game canon reason is given for explaining how the nano plague detects nanites. Nor does it make any attempt to explain how it targets the current civilization's nanites in relation to the nanites of the Ancients. It doesn't explain why no civilization has attempted to shield against the nano plague detecting nanites. etc etc.
...
But nevertheless, it obviously feels like it was shoehorned in last minute as a plot device to accomplish something that seemed necessary but unlikely to occur.
Well, they supposedly tried and failed, and it was too long ago to affect anything present directly. As to what it is - IMO having things that are powerful, present but not yet ever successfully dealt with can be good if done well: this helps to keep people on their toes, otherwise setting becomes a bit too cozy and neo-mundane and not like one step from the frontier.
The thing is, it's not present, anywhere in the game, despite being everywhere. And the ancients may have tried, and thus their failure would be lost in time but the current civizations aren't that old to have tried and forgotten, or given up, they haven't had the ability to make nano-tech for that long. In fact, their introduction to the nano-plague is supposed to have been fairly recent such that the massive losses incurred during that upheaval is still remembered, and that fear is what keeps anyone from trying again. However, nothing is said about any of the points i mentioned above about research into blocking the nano-plague, discovering how it detects / networks / moves / generates the power to do all of that. It's retarded to think that of any of the civilizations, they wouldn't be conducting such research. And not answering how the nano-plague detects a nanite is not acceptable. Nanites dont all produce some type of inherent glow that can be seen by some detector, there's nothing about them other than their size as to make them similar to any other nanite. So how does the nano plague think it can do it?

It's like saying i have a money detector. Now, one person may make money out of silver and shape them into coins. Another would make it out of paper and shape it in a thin rectangle. Another may use gold bullion. Some other person may make money out of shells. But, my money detector detects them all without any sort of pre-screened info. Nanites could be networked any number of ways operating on any frequency. They can be made of any number of substances,give off any amount of energy, etc. There's nothing that makes one nanite similar to another except the scale of it.


I have no problem with the idea of introducing some ancient artifacts, or even TWHON relics, but this nano plague detecting nanites thing just doesn't make any sense at all.
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Re: A new take on wormholes

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loki1950 wrote:This pop up over the weekend http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... =6&t=14932 from the rendering and Technological side.

Enjoy the Choice :)

Forgetting that i dont believe in negative energy and the fact that it would take insane energy to create the wormhole in the first place, much less happen to find a naturally occuring one to slip your negative energy / exotic matter in to keep open. Forgetting all that, one of the other things that has always bothered me about people talking about wormhole travel is that the nature of the wormhole is the same as that of a black hole. It's gravity fed. You dont just walk into a wormhole, you are sucked in, and much like a black hole, the curve of space becomes nearly vertical, meaning light is not getting out, much less you, but you're ok cuz you're going to pop out on the other side, right? Wrong. The other side is doing the exact same thing. So what does this mean for you, you're pulled in towards this area where gravity stops pulling you "down", but which you are unable to move out of since doing so would require moving faster than light. Congratulations on traveling to your slow eventual death. That of course is assuming you survived the tidal forces acting on you as you approach the tunnel portion of the wormhole.

Your best bet is to hope that some type of negative curvature of space is possible where, although you are sucked in on one side to this tube area, if you try to get out the other side you will be sucked out equally as fast. What would that look like? It wouldn't look exactly like the in only inverted, that makes no sense at all. A white hole would push out in all directions, it would be a ball you could never reach, no matter how fast you were going or trying to get to it, it's distance would be constantly increasing from you. It would be seen as constantly moving away from you. It would be a ball that the closer you tried to get to, the faster it would move away. until you reached the speed of light and then the distance would be constant, but you'd still never be able to reach it.

My 2d representation of what you would need to have in existance is the following.
What happens in the wormhole is much like a moebius (sp?) stripping of space. You go down through it like normal, but you end up on the "wrong" side of the other side. This allows you to have the correct curvature of space to not ever be able to fall into.
In the 2d graph shown originally, space is curved in the same direction if you pass through from one side to the other, so in essence, the white hole side if we are going from top to bottom looks exactly the same if we use the perspective of the travelers looking from bottom to top. This means the white hole side is the black hole side depending on which side you're looking at, which is wrong.

The output of the wormhole has to be the horizontal sides, not the top or bottom. That is the only region of the wormhole that produces a curve where viewed from the traveler has the correct curvature of anti-gravity and indeed, never being able to reach. Some type of moebius stripping of space has to occur where the wormhole spits out the center of it's sides.

The problem with this of course is that it's not spitting you out in our universe, but a parallel one.
einbettung_wh.png

edit:
Let me explain the graph a bit more. See, if we assume that you have to be able to travel through the tunnel, and the top of the graph is our starting point, then we have to assume that the grid pattern is below our traveler, and that represents space. Now on the other side, this would seem to be above our traveler, so we invert the graph to see how things would look to our traveler, since space has to be below the traveler, not above him in this 2d representation. Now we are given the exact same graph we started out with, so thus we are left with two black holes connected together, and no white hole at all. Space looks exactly the same on either end of the wormhole to a traveler going through it. They become stuck in the tunnel portion, unable to exit, no matter which side they approached from.

The only possible exit then is if space is not connected cleanly from one side to the other, but rather space becomes a twisted moebius-like contortion where the top of the funnel at the top of the graph becomes the top of the funnel on the bottom (rather than the bottom of the funnel on the bottom as it is originally shown). This means you exit into 1 of 2 possible parallel universes, depending on which side of the wormhole you entered. The bottom of the top funnel is one universe, the top of the bottom funnel is the other universe. The two can't reach eachother via the wormhole, since nothing could ever climb the curve that is linking them.

That's the best your wormhole travel can do. Have fun with getting stuck in parallel universes.

Note: I dont condone wormhole travel, nor do i think it's feasible. This is just what i believe would be the only way that such a wormhole could function in any useful manner. It's much more likely it would just function as two black holes and the link between them would be invisible to all but the suckers who go in either side, but even that i dont believe to be possible.

edit again: just remembered.
There need not be 2 separate parallel universes, much like the bottom of the graph can be some distant part of the same universe as the top, so too can the two sides of the inner portion of the graph.
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