VS Game: Custom Systems

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pyramid
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VS Game: Custom Systems

Post by pyramid »

About custom systems
For some of the quests I will require particular bases or planets to be present in a specific system. While leaving the general approach of dynamic universe generation, the special objects relating to quests (see e.g. the Shipyard in quest_shipyard_bomb) to be always present in the system the quest was designed for. I think, leaving the system generated randomly and launching the base when initiating the quest is not a good idea since people will remember the system setup more likely when they have encountered something interesting in it. Therefore, I'd like to hand create the systems for which quests will be committed. As far as I could see, there should be no problem with that.

Another proposal is related to the data/sectors directory. Currently, only Crucible, Sol, Redemption, and Special are being used by the VS game. My idea would be to move the remaining (starting with small letters and having _system index) to testsystems subdir in case anybody still needs them. They seem to be leftovers from the past when cvs repo was shared for privateer mod and the vs engine.
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Post by jackS »

re: custom systems
Something I'd actually like to see happen (which also isn't particularly difficult to achieve) is to have all reachable systems on the jump graph generated and checked in to the repository. Clearly, we're not going to full-custom design ~2k systems anytime soon -- that's what the existing universe generator is for, and that's what I'm expecting to generate them :) -- but having everyone start with the same initial condition (though they'll diverge with AI system takeovers) will certainly help with a number of issues (bug report reproducibility, incremental improvement to assorted locations, rigorous testing of interactions between AI takeovers and custom star systems, etc.).
In general, I have a strong suspicion that having all the systems available for editing will encourage useful tinkering with galactic geography and tourist locations :).

That being done, we'll need to go back and hack on the jump graph a bit to make sure all of the capital systems actually exist (most don't right now), and then give them interesting defining characteristics, etc. The nice thing about such an endeavor will be that, barring some likely annoyances from the undertested interactions between custom-defined systems and hostile takeovers, this is all in dataside territory.
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Post by pyramid »

I'm in for the custom systems. Was trying to find some information on home systems for the different races and factions on the wiki and the universe document. The little that I've found should be translated in to secors/systems/planets. The missing information should be completed.

Using VSMap3D, I am musing about possible home world locations. Orientations are referring to the map view.

* The Aera seem to be located in the lower part of the galaxy. Their origin sector is Aeneth, and their home world Aeneth should be located somewhere in the middle of the system. I propose the Eilmahru system. Any suggestions on the planet (n-th planet, name)?

* The Rlaan originate from SCx9362 (supposedly) system, which I would place somewhere in the middle of the violet see of systems on the upper right part of the galaxy around the Ahbzeentk/Azztllkab system. A clarification of the naming sequence sector/system/homeworld is appreciated.

* Klk'k: Given Cephid_17 as the starting system of the Klk'k, I would place their home world Ktah, somewhere near, e.g. in the Crucble/Oldziey system

* Shmrn; "Beckett's Murky Venture" seems to refer to the "Beckett" sector but no system is occupied by the Shmrn at the beginning of the game. Only 6 systems are used by them and they are all in the Crucible, Redemption, and Callisto sectors. So maybe their home is in the Bernards_star system?

* Uln: around Ahbz/Amun

* Dgn: Only one system occupied: Beckett/Ross248

No info was to be foundon Lmpl, Mishtali, and Nuhln
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Post by jackS »

pyramid wrote: Using VSMap3D, I am musing about possible home world locations. Orientations are referring to the map view.
By default, down in VSMap3D would appear to correspond to Rimward, up to Coreward, left to Spinward, and right to Antispinward. (personally, I always drew my maps with up as Rimward (hence the numbering on the RBL sectors) :) )

One important thing to note is that it's pretty easy to do surgery on the map, and that this will in fact be necessary. We're not limited to using the existing systems and jump links -- in fact, we'll certainly have to edit some of them to make the history line up, and to remove duplicate names (e.g. a Bifrost system in the Crucible sector which shouldn't be there, as the human factional homeworlds are much closer to Sol, etc. -- it just happened to be in one of the names files for naming star systems and was thus randomly assigned.)
pyramid wrote: * The Aera seem to be located in the lower part of the galaxy. Their origin sector is Aeneth, and their home world Aeneth should be located somewhere in the middle of the system. I propose the Eilmahru system. Any suggestions on the planet (n-th planet, name)?
That is indeed about the right portion of space.
pyramid wrote: * The Rlaan originate from SCx9362 (supposedly) system, which I would place somewhere in the middle of the violet see of systems on the upper right part of the galaxy around the Ahbzeentk/Azztllkab system. A clarification of the naming sequence sector/system/homeworld is appreciated.
"SCx9362" can be retconned out of existence at this point. The name is really, really old, and predates the current map and associated sectors.

The Ahbzeentk/Azztlkab system is in about the right location.
pyramid wrote: * Klk'k: Given Cephid_17 as the starting system of the Klk'k, I would place their home world Ktah, somewhere near, e.g. in the Crucble/Oldziey system
Ktah is further away from Cephid 17. Cephid 17 is intended to be a bit out toward the fringes. We should be putting Ktah in the Crucible sector, somewhere in the gap between Crucible/Kton_meth, Beckett/Ve, and Beckett/Galway.
pyramid wrote: * Shmrn; "Beckett's Murky Venture" seems to refer to the "Beckett" sector but no system is occupied by the Shmrn at the beginning of the game. Only 6 systems are used by them and they are all in the Crucible, Redemption, and Callisto sectors. So maybe their home is in the Bernards_star system?
Callisto sector? I'm going to assume you meant Solace/Callisto.

The home planet of the species that was turned into the Dgn and Shmrn is in Beckett's Murky Venture, but the surviving Shmrn were resettled on a planet in the Redemption sector after the Fraternal War. At or near Bernard's star is a pretty reasonable placement.
(and for those who get confused about such things, Bernard's star != Barnard's star)
pyramid wrote: * Uln: around Ahbz/Amun
Not quite. The Uln homeworld will be in Ingatwa sector (see: references to Uln's Royal Ingatwa Fleet)
pyramid wrote: * Dgn: Only one system occupied: Beckett/Ross248
Yup. All other Dgn settlements are Shaper controlled.
pyramid wrote: No info was to be foundon Lmpl, Mishtali, and Nuhln
The Saahasayaay homeworld should probably be somewhere in the vicinity of Ahbzeentk/Zbzz

The Lmpl and Nuhln are total uplifts, and don't really have home planets in a sense that we need to care too much about - we can assign them to pretty much anything in the Bztutpt, Aantlbzz, Aantutpt, Bzzahbtktk, Ibpzez, Ahbzeentk, Eebzpt, Ohzzz, or Ailzzptpt sectors.

The Mishtali homeworld should be somewhere in Torkelsen sector, along with the Unadorned capital, but not too many jumps from Sol.

The Purth homeworld should be in Solace, somewhere near to Magellan.

The Bzbr homeworld is somewhere in Eeyenjylk sector.
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Post by pyramid »

I hope VSMap3D can be reworked to place the camera on the opposite side of mily way, so that the orientation is aligned and simplifies discussions.

My proposal would be to list in canon/database separate homeworld locations (where necessary and applicable) for:
* The origin homeworld
* Homeworld at the time of UTCS (and any other required eras)

The preferred format would contain the following information:
* Sector
* System
* Planet name
* Planet type
* Capital name

Thus, the current information resumed in the format sector/system/planet name (new additions to the previously discussed are in bold):
* Aera: Aeneth/Eilmahru/?
* Rlaan: Ahbzeentk/Azztlkab/?
* Shmrn Origin: Beckett/?/Beckett's Murky Venture
* Shmrn UTCS: Redemption/Bernards_star/?
* Dgn Origin: Beckett/?/Beckett's Murky Venture
* Dgn UTCS: Beckett/Ross248/?

* Klk'k: Crucible/Esoak/Ktah
Between Crucible/Tkon_meth, Beckett/Ve, and Beckett/Galway sounds like a new system. Must be the origin, since it's shaper territory and at least 7 jumps away from actual Klk'k territory? And probably different from the actual home system which I would suspect somewhere in Beckett/Goddart or /Pelius? (too bad one cannot rotate VSMap3D around local coordinates to see the current view from all sides).

* Uln: Ingatwa/Antaios/?
* Saahasayaay: Ahbzeentk/Zbzz/?
* Mishtali: Torkelsen/San_128/?
This faction is not yet in the data set as well as all the following ones, so it's difficult to choose a location. Maybe one of the 'unknown' faction systems in this sector or even one without any jumps?

* Purth: Solace/Tvx_aq/?
Somewhere near to Magellan seems to be all LIHW territory, though Tvx_aq is the closest to andolian territory (Magellan/Varuna).

* Bzbr: Eeyenjylk/Dahmahneth/?

** Lmpl: Ohzzz/Ptzptl/?
** Nuhln: Aantlbzz/Azzptz/?

..nizzze namzzzz, whoot abtzzzzz sssomessss essssessss :)
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Post by Rabiator »

jackS wrote:re: custom systems
Something I'd actually like to see happen (which also isn't particularly difficult to achieve) is to have all reachable systems on the jump graph generated and checked in to the repository. Clearly, we're not going to full-custom design ~2k systems anytime soon -- that's what the existing universe generator is for, and that's what I'm expecting to generate them :) -- but having everyone start with the same initial condition (though they'll diverge with AI system takeovers) will certainly help with a number of issues
AFAIK most "random generators" in computers are actually pseudo-random generators that will always give the same sequence when starting with the same initial values. This way the same "random" universe could be generated every time.
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Post by legine »

Hi,

I am not sure if I got the first post right.
Do you want to Inject missiondata to the Random Galaxy Generator or do you want to have mission Systems be generated as fixed systems?
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Post by pyramid »

There are various issues that we want to achieve when going away from random system generation.

1) The random generator receives only a limited number of parameters (planet types, factions at the start of the game, jump points, ...). This leads to a situation where most of the systems look very similar. In the long run we want to keep system generation externally and customize most of the systems to be more individual, including placing stations, specific backgrounds, special objects, and maybe in the further future even procedural surface or system background generation (but that's far off for now). The topic here is avoiding dullness.

2) Some missions interact and rely on certain objects to be present in the system (base or planet types). Those system can be customized already and will progressively be so. Yes, mission systems must be fixed systems, there's no way around.

3) The faction strategical mechanisms are still not very well designed nor tested. Interactions on galactic scale will depend not only but among other issues on the system design (from the point of view of system design mainly bases present in a system). To allow for debugging and testing, we need repeatability.

4) Multiplayer mode will require a persistent galaxy to wander about, so that a system once visited by a player will be the same the next time he or another player visits it.

5) A stable economy and politics interactions will require that ships are produced in ship yards, and the locations of (particularly landed, in this context) flight groups remains the same, the next time you load a game or reconnect after a network timeout. This means predefined locations for shipyards.

6) As far as i know, we are not using a pseudo-random but a random generator without seeding.

7) When a player wants to reset a game to a new universe configuration in single-player mode, he will be able to do so using an external auto-generator which we will provide at some point in time. Though considering that the only things that will change are the planet/base names and planet/background textures, I'm not sure what's the point of it.

I might have missed some reasons.
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Post by legine »

I see.
1) The random generator receives only a limited number of parameters (planet types, factions at the start of the game, jump points, ...). This leads to a situation where most of the systems look very similar. In the long run we want to keep system generation externally and customize most of the systems to be more individual, including placing stations, specific backgrounds, special objects, and maybe in the further future even procedural surface or system background generation (but that's far off for now). The topic here is avoiding dullness.
What would you whish how this should be done?

I mean would it be great if you say this system is fixed, another one has 1 base (and has the option to mission X in one system)?
Or would it be more cool if the Generator new, for that Mission which I place in system a I need in system b a agricultural planet (places a agricultural planet in b)?
Or both?
2) Some missions interact and rely on certain objects to be present in the system (base or planet types). Those system can be customized already and will progressively be so. Yes, mission systems must be fixed systems, there's no way around.
I am not so sure about that, see above.
3) The faction strategical mechanisms are still not very well designed nor tested. Interactions on galactic scale will depend not only but among other issues on the system design (from the point of view of system design mainly bases present in a system). To allow for debugging and testing, we need repeatability.
That you can only Change if you radicaly change the way VS handles Data. At least I think that. You need to centralize Data and teach them how they hgave to interact with each other. I would like to have that for piArmada too for various reason. (see point 1 ? ;) )
If there is interest I would like to throw my so far brainstorm results into the battle which is far away from beeing usable since I still working on research of what VS has. (currently it looks more like a redesign from the scratch :P which is again not totaly what I want)
4) Multiplayer mode will require a persistent galaxy to wander about, so that a system once visited by a player will be the same the next time he or another player visits it.
There is imho more to that then you wrote here. I need a stable system design for piArmada too. Even worse I need other action than the common game needs. But thats another thing Ihave to deal with.
5) A stable economy and politics interactions will require that ships are produced in ship yards, and the locations of (particularly landed, in this context) flight groups remains the same, the next time you load a game or reconnect after a network timeout. This means predefined locations for shipyards.
Yes. I need that Bases can be placed in Systems and stuff, therefore I need to make the game aware of interaction with other "Items" in the game. Same like you do.
6) As far as i know, we are not using a pseudo-random but a random generator without seeding.
I think thats not that difficult to change. A seeded Generator should be handled very similar to the unseeded one. (Thought I forgot how RANDOM worked in c++ :P )
7) When a player wants to reset a game to a new universe configuration in single-player mode, he will be able to do so using an external auto-generator which we will provide at some point in time. Though considering that the only things that will change are the planet/base names and planet/background textures, I'm not sure what's the point of it.
You talk of tools? Yea we should provide tools. Even if you can edit things by hand. It is just easier if you have a editor that supports the work.

I have said it already. I work on piArmada and I think I want to have a API aviable that let handles VS game Engine most of the Data and gives me a powerfull API to do piArmada magic.
I originally wanted to iterate from what we have to what I want. But I so much dislike certain things within VS that I would like to start there instead of piArmada.
Which makes me a bit of uncertain atm. I mean I am new to this and start to think on various things I would like to change in VS. (A lot of stuff is realy not bad. Dont get me wrong here. I just thing that most of the stuff is quite xhaotic to me. I miss the beauty and the art of the code. If you know what I mean. It is hard to find words of the reasons of my dislikes. It is sometimes that I dont understand.
In the end I would like to diskuss data handling in general and make a plan to change that.

This involves:
Datamanagement, Datausability, API capability (which is better then I might currently sound).
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Post by pyramid »

Actually there are the possibilities of having both, custom systems having determined stations, or mission scripts placing stations in the system when executed. I prefer the first method as it is more believable (imagine you have run the mission once, and it will never again be executed. the station would suddenly disappear from the system when you revisit it). But you always have the other option available via python.

Data/API are supportive topics that have the function of supporting a desired mechanism (for vs game and mods). The latter has become focus of discussions between developers. Rough ideas exist, the detail work still needs to be done.

Your thoughts are always welcome. Feel free to share them. And, yes chaotic code is the result of letting the nature have it's uncontrolled growth (Maybe a Shaper on the dev team would be of some use ;-) )
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Post by legine »

Actually there are the possibilities of having both, custom systems having determined stations, or mission scripts placing stations in the system when executed. I prefer the first method as it is more believable (imagine you have run the mission once, and it will never again be executed. the station would suddenly disappear from the system when you revisit it).
Hmm,... .
Thats not what I mean.
If you talk about custom system, I think of Systems that are predisigned in every detail. So you have to set up all the useless gimmics that are there.
But what you realy want is only to set up places the mission actually takes place in. Maybe you just want to determine a general place like somewhere in an Asteroid field.

If you can collect the Data at universe Creation you can make sure that such places that fit to a mission realy exisit. And if you change Universe creation to take place not at the start but while the game takes proceed you will be able to dynamicly put the Missions in.

What you gain is that while storylines exisit they will be always somewhere else. Each game will be slightly different, maybe bringin something new.

Ofc. You can turn the way define a system and dynamicly create Mission on locations. But in ways of storytelling (I do a lot P&P GMing) this aproach is less athmospheric since you try to dynamise the story and not the places. You see what I mean?

In a multiplayer you need other tools to set up stories. Well we would need some of those if we move to a real Game version Process, but that is not something we neccessarily need.
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Post by Neskiairti »

or... it could randomly generate over time... with economic backing..

and then the mission script would locate a station/planet within X number of jumps from current location..

it doesnt need to spawn the station, it just needs to find a station..
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Post by pyramid »

Making the mission be spawned in a different system (that fulfills your needs) is also possible with the current setup. You'll need to create a persistent quest and when executing it you can check if a certain station (or other objects) are present in that system. You then proceed with the adventure, otherwise you skip. I still haven't started doing this type of adventures and this is not described very well in the wiki but you may look on quest_drone to get a kickstart on how to do it.
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Post by klauss »

Doing that kind of "dynamic quest" is very difficult with the current setup. First, it's difficult because you have to tell the user where to go, and you wouldn't know because you can't inspect inactive systems (let alone ungenerated ones). Furthermore, it's difficult because there's no API to gather intel about the innings of an inactive (generated or not) system, AFAIK. Finally, it's difficult because the entire quest lib lacks support for it (so one would have to code it all).
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Post by Neskiairti »

it seems to me.. for a dynamic universe, that kinda stuff is going to need to be done.. you know?

from the bare bones of 'system x is in position y and has planet' or whatever.. which would be done at the start..

then it would have to slowly move out.. to have a real dynamic universe, economy, quests, factions pushing here or there..

well.. not necessarily.. but depends on how events are triggered I guess.. weather news reports on action, or action is triggered by news, you know?

It just seems a little backwards to me.. generating a planet, a system, a station, or whatever.. for a mission.. instead of a mission to balance out the game's ever changing environment.. a player might have more impact on it that way too..
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Post by klauss »

Well, dynamic quests are a feature listed in the wishlist. But it's hard to implement right now. Maybe eventually the API will evolve into a better state.
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Post by Neskiairti »

I cant picture the reason it was designed this way in the first place :P Vegastrike has always been a very... overthetop game. almost more than the programmers could do it seemed. but they are working out all right..

I hope it does get implemented properly. a thriving changing universe where you can make an impact is very important for the replayability of a game.
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