Realistic-style mod

[DiGuru]

I agree, etheral walker. And the size of the skybox can be any number, as long as we use fractals.

Would you like to lead the mathematic model of the mod? Or the whole AI, if you would like that.

About the messages: I think we just have to have a common mathematic model and those action lists. The object itself would only send notifications of changes to a list of nearby objects, including a current status (position, action list and vectors).

Each client program or point of view can cache those messages and interpolate the actions. That only works when the mathematical model and functions are all the same.

A trigger list would be a list of possible states (represented by numbers from a list of ID's), coupled to triggers that could happen when in that state. Those triggers would give the object an action list and change the state.

An action list would consist of a set of actions to be performed, couples to functions to make them happen and functions that would check if the goal was met.

And the trigger list would overrule/replace the action list.

So what we need to implement such an AI (and the messages that would be sent to the other objects), would be a list of possible states, a list of possible actions, a list of possible goals and the functions to implement those.

Would you like that?

[etheral walker]

I should do as many mathematics as you want, but I'm not a programmer (only an hpux admin). I should draw and put in equation many things, but I will need soem help to implement them in python

[DiGuru]

I send Shrike a PM to ask if he would want to lead the mod, and I am sending others PM's to see if they would like to join as well.

I can program anything, but I would like to concentrate on the overall picture. So I could do the programming, but we might want to see if we can find you a programmer. Do you know of one?

[etheral walker]

got no idea for the programmer, I'm trying to phone a friend to see if he is interested in

[DiGuru]

Ok. The PM's are sent, the start is made. If anyone else wants to join the team, you're welcome!

So, if you want to join, post here and state what you would like to do.

To start it off, I would want to do an evaluation of the project so far. If Shrike accepts, he will be the boss. We need someone to make sure all the boring bits are done as well. And he can take over the evaluation of the evaluation.



So, what do you think?

Would it be nice?

How should it work?

And post anything you think is relevant. Comments, sugestions, complaints, impossibilities, whatever. It is all welcome. Good feedback never hurts, even when it is very negative.

[mkruer]

So far everything you have discussed is not mutually exclusive to Rylix. It’s just that you are approaching it from the Macro War Concept, something that I have already discussed. About the only real difference between both is the use of AI’s for control. In Rylix it was forbidden to use as being to dangerous. This as about my only artificial constraint.

From my point of view your use of manually controlled ship would be even worst, and here is the reason. In order for you to remote control a ship, you have to broadcast your signal. Even if you encrypted it, I would still know its source. If you bounce it off a relay, I would still be able to track it back. I could also jam the signal making your ship dead in space. That is not to mention that the delay for you to send a message and receive it back would grow as distance increased, making even easier for me in my ship to kill your drone. Talk about sever lag. Finally I being close in battle could broadcast to my carrier as I would already be discovered it would make no diffrance. I would triangulate your location by your broadcasting and using this information my carried would just shoot you down. So in the end I might loose my life, (but I would doubt it because of your lag) I would have superior range making it ever more difficult for you to locate me finaly analysis you would loose everything and I might loose a few ships. I think in war that is a fair exchange.

I have already though of this scenario long before you brought it up here. In the end (with the lack of an AI for a ship, which is outlawed in Rylix) the only reasonable way to fight is to use humans. On top of that, and I mentioned it before for Rylix. You as the human control your ship via mindcontol, and use the ships sensors to replace your own five senses. With this any speed advantage a computer would have would be nullified.

Just some food for though.

And as for the AI for the Game, you need to talk to hellcat. There is already someone working on it for the dynamic universe part of VS. Rylix will undoubtedly be more difficult because of many more parameters, and the lack of any “flagingâ€

[DiGuru]

MKruer, I agree. We just approach all of this from the opposite side. So, while we are in an agreement about the background, we look at a different picture. We have a different framework to look trough.

Did you read my PM?

We could even make a different thread/board that only discusses the scientific mechanics, if you would like that.

The major difference between our point of view, is just that I try to take things as they exist today, and see where that would lead us if we would use that background for a space simulator.

While you have a specific picture about how you would like things to be, and create a coherent background to make all of that possible.

Both are well and good. As long as the result is a fun game. And they don't bite one another. They're just different. Nothing wrong with that.

So, yes, I know you have figured it out very well for Rylix. You can answer all questions very satisfactory. But that's not the point. So can I.

Does that mean that one of us is right and the other one is wrong? No. It just means, that we have a different point of view. And there is enough space for two mods. Not everyone has to see Rylix as the ultimate mod. For most, it will be. For some, it won't.

So, can we agree to disagree on some points? And the points we do agree upon, we can share.

[etheral walker]

that's the problem, giving a weapon to an AI. Robotics laws, by Isaac Asimov, and actually used by scientist, said that a robot must not use dangerous for human object.

[DiGuru]

What is an AI?

The code used by Vega Strike for npc's?

The program that runs a modern, armed, autonomous, unmanned vehicle?

None of the above?

It depends. At the start of the computers, they designed the Turing test to spot AI's: if you can talk to it for more than five minutes and would vote for it to be a human, a computer would pass that test.

While there are very specific programs that can do that some of the time, the definition of an AI has changed and evolved. There are even multiple definitions nowadays.

So, would the tactical computer of a future spacecraft be an AI? Most likely not. It would be like a 'regular' computer as we know it. Number-crunching. Making vectors into splines that would confirm to a specific goal. Dumb. But extremely functional. Lethal.

Why do you think most autonomous, armed planes are still remote controlled? They want a human to command the firing of that possibly lethal weapon. With all consequences.

What is the difference? I order a missile to 'launch and destroy'. The deed has been done. Why would I be needed to actually pull the trigger? As that would only instruct the computer to fire the weapon anyway...

[etheral walker]

an AI is not the game AI, but the soft you put in a war machine, to let it choose if it will fire or not when it see something
Just imagine a robot with a gatling ande window$$ installed on
ultimate weapon

[DiGuru]

an AI is not the game AI, but the soft you put in a war machine, to let it choose if it will fire or not when it see something
Just imagine a robot with a gatling ande window$$ installed on
ultimate weapon

Help!

[DiGuru]

As hyperspace jumps are the only 'improbable' technology we will use, do we make an explanation?

I would prefer the following explanation: 'It is designed by computers. They came up with it. It works. But I don't know of any human who understands it.'

A bit lame? How about this one:

"By tapping into vacuum quantifications, we registered a small discrepancy. Planck-scale. After more experiments, it seemed to be exactly the time two synchronous particles needed to exchange their spin state, when separated. After a long set of experiments, scientists came up with the notion, that there is a messenger that exchanges the state information. It always takes the same (almost inmesurable) time.

By modifying that information, particles could be changed on a very basic level. And *insert name of genious* came up with the notion, that that information is grouped. In a vacuum, with no mesurable sources of conflict (like large masses) around, it was even easier to change a specific signature of a whole group of particles (like a spaceship), than an individual particle.

That way hyperjumps were born. They're not really hyperjumps of course, but the public knows them as such.

The tricky part is the uncertanty principle: the longer the jump, the longer the fractals to specify the destination and the trickier the process to overlay that information on the particles involved.

In practice, that means that you can make very small jumps real fast and need an awesome amount of processing power and an exquisitely tuned drive to make very far jumps. Which will still take lots of time to get right"

Show the above to a good quantum physichist and ask him what he thinks. He won't be able to dismiss it. He cannot prove it either.

[DiGuru]

Yes, I made that all up. But does it matter? Who cares? Let's just use the first definition if we need one anyway. If we have to use hyperjumps at all (and we do), let's just leave it at that. Everyone knows how they are supposed to be and nobody doubts it that they're there.

Hm. Lame? Yes. Have we got better alternatives than making space travel take a really, REALLY long time?

[etheral walker]

it depends,
a nice way to explicate it is the critical mass. You, now, by bombarding atoms you should increase their eight, and then obtain a thermonuclear reaction. The principe of the wormhole is the same: an inifinite quantity of mass concentred in an infinitly little place. When you approach, your are attracted, and your speed increase drasticly

[DiGuru]

Yes, wormholes or any other probable explanation would be very nice. I don't like it at all, that we need to use something that doesn't exist today. Great bummer.

But how would wormholes be more probable? You don't want to know what the scientists think you would need to create one that would be able to transport a spaceship!

If it could be done at all, that is.

Does anyone have a better idea to speed up gameplay that could be used for multiplayer as well? (Otherwise we could just speed up time.)

[mkruer]

Actually I don’t have to answer that one, the US military already has. It all comes down to accountability. If a computer decides to kill some one then who is responsible? Our own emotions would never allow us to just hold the machine responsible, after all our own prejudice will prevent us from believing that a machine can be human. Also a machine cannot make ethical decisions, and until computers can start making ethical decisions then I doubt that anyone would just allow an AI to run rampant around the world. They would all have the mind of a child, not knowing wrong from right.

Lets put all of this aside and view it form another angle. Say we do allow a machine to kill. And we did accept that it was the machines fault. So we deactivate that system. The problem is that we still have hundreds of thousands of clone systems running around and I doubt that you could just apply a service pack to all the other systems. True AI’s will probably end up having to be birthed, and go though the same stages that we as humans go though. And that being said each experience would lead it to different conclusions, why would they even listen to us? AI’s of such a magnitude are infinitely more complex then even we understand today. Chances are we wouldn’t even know why it would be alive. And until such time that we do understand, I am afraid that all machines will not be very far away from their master.

That is another concept in Rylix. It happened, and being so we wont let it happen again.

[DiGuru]

MKruer, I can agree completely to that logic. But it is the same one used by Star Wars. AI's are dangerous: computers are forbidden.

Ok.

But, how the hell are you going to make space ships possible without computers in the first place? Where do you draw the line?

As far as the current AI-science is concerned, an human-like AI will not be possible. It cannot be done. So, there is no fear. No reason to forbid computers in the first place.

And it could not be done for real. If you use no computers, forget about conquering space. Newtonian laws are really easy. They are an exact science. That is, as long as you use computers to do the number-crunching. We don't want pilots doing all that math by hand!

Even if they could, it would take a long time. And we agree, that we need some way to speed up space travel. Make the pilots enter an animation in which they try to do it with paper and pencil, fade to the end point? No way. We need a better way.

And let's not even talk about manually aiming weapons. Anyone with a computer to do the targetting would take you out way before you would actually see your target.

We NEED computers.

[etheral walker]

[DiGuru]

Even Star Wars told us, that there has been computer assisted space travel for thousands of years, before AI's become a threat. AFTER which they decide to do away with computers.

Lucky for the producers, as the computers that existed at the time they made the movie were morons.

So, we should be nice sheep and emulate that in infinitum? (I.e.: for ever and ever.)

[mkruer]

Nope, I am not saying that. What I am saying is that we well never let it get so far out of hand until we know why its works, or more importantly why we work. With all the being said the. Rylix is already decked out till about 12,500 ESY there are areas that I am trying to avoid and AI for now is one of them. But to make it indifferent from your POV, who says that you can’t be a machine? Hell I have them running around rampant in the Rylix system already. The physics is the same, its almost boils down to human vs non human. Dose it matter? Nope.

"Knowing the future, and not being able to tell anyone sucks" - Me

[DiGuru]

MKruer, I think we could agree completely about all of it, when we would say that the realistic and strategic mod is in the near future, while Rylix is in the far future.

Agreed?

[DiGuru]

Btw.

We need a name for this mod, as PeteyG said at the beginning.

The first nice name posted will be used.

[mkruer]

As hyperspace jumps are the only 'improbable' technology we will use, do we make an explanation?

I would prefer the following explanation: 'It is designed by computers. They came up with it. It works. But I don't know of any human who understands it.'

A bit lame? How about this one:

"By tapping into vacuum quantifications, we registered a small discrepancy. Planck-scale. After more experiments, it seemed to be exactly the time two synchronous particles needed to exchange their spin state, when separated. After a long set of experiments, scientists came up with the notion, that there is a messenger that exchanges the state information. It always takes the same (almost inmesurable) time.

By modifying that information, particles could be changed on a very basic level. And *insert name of genious* came up with the notion, that that information is grouped. In a vacuum, with no mesurable sources of conflict (like large masses) around, it was even easier to change a specific signature of a whole group of particles (like a spaceship), than an individual particle.

That way hyperjumps were born. They're not really hyperjumps of course, but the public knows them as such.

The tricky part is the uncertanty principle: the longer the jump, the longer the fractals to specify the destination and the trickier the process to overlay that information on the particles involved.

In practice, that means that you can make very small jumps real fast and need an awesome amount of processing power and an exquisitely tuned drive to make very far jumps. Which will still take lots of time to get right"

Show the above to a good quantum physichist and ask him what he thinks. He won't be able to dismiss it. He cannot prove it either.

Sound more like a space Fold, something at already have been theorized and proven mathematically. The only problem is that in order to achieve such a jump, it would require all the energy in the universe.

Warp is also a propose theory for faster then light travel.

Ironically hyperspace IS made up.

[DiGuru]

Ironically hyperspace IS made up.

Yes, unfortunately. And we need it to make the game fun.

I wouldn't mind as much, were that not the only thing that doesn't exist today. All other things can be proven technology. It bothers me.

[mkruer]

MKruer, I think we could agree completely about all of it, when we would say that the realistic and strategic mod is in the near future, while Rylix is in the far future.

Agreed?

You could still be in the Rylix universe. It’s just that it would have to be placed around the year 2060 in the Sol system i.e. before they screwed up. The other thing is that you would be limited to ion engines only. As Faster then light travel has not been made possible. I could set an arbitrary date of 2065 or so for the first one way mission to another star. I would actually welcome this, it saves me a shoot load of back history, and it’s before everything changes. I would also win in the fact that 2060 ships are still in existence in 2153. and then we find out just how clunky those ships really are.

There are just a few things you would have to abide by.
Certain stuff could not be done (not a big problem)
You need to follow the terminology.
And eventually AI’s would be removed.