argument to remove need for spec

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jackS
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by jackS »

I guess there's a sanity check to be done (namely, did the code for handling orbits, since it's a different beast than the normal object movement code, actually ever get updated to use doubles? Probably, but, stranger things exist in the code base). That aside, VS never did handle orbital-scale velocities very well, so if we really want to fix this sort of thing, we'd have to rethink how we want to deal with relative velocities in km/frame ranges (for, say 30km/s and 30 fps) which, even with arbitrary precision, is still a nasty quantization issue.

Edit:
Even for more leisurely orbits, it's still going to be fairly large jumps between physics frames. VS has a number of hooks for velocity matching, but not, (at least from my aged recollection) for "orbital-reference-acceleration" matching. I can see a clear approach to a hack to fix this (make every object exist in some particular orbital context and apply the same shift to all objects in said context so that the base doesn't appear to "jump" away/toward you on a given physics tick) but I'm not sure that that's the best way forward.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by ezee »

I wonder what is the real concern in vega strike with newtonian simulation .
My guess is that the simulation of sci-fi vessel technology ( learn the onboard systems ,
specific vessel manoeuver etc ... ) is more important than other consideration like real distances , newtonian forces and all " details " about space physics .
Why ?

Because as pilot , actually , you learn nothing about space mechanism .
You want to orbit to that distant planet ? Press autopilot and that's all .
If the gameplay was like the Orbiter simulator , that would be different .
But here , i don't know how things works , i have no mean to verify that my orbit
is correct , no reference system to use .

So if the universe of vega strike was not in moovement ( moons turn around planets , planets turn around suns , suns riding in the branchs of a galaxy ) , who really care ?
Understand me : Why take precious cpu time to compute positions that in fact are irrelevant ?
Irrelevant because it's not a challenge for the pilot to be in a newtonian space , the only
challenge is for the programmer of the auto-pilot . The pilot only press auto pilot to go
to his final destination .
Say earth is located at (-120,60,10 ) or ( 100000000000,100000000000,666 ), the result
is the same , i press A to go there . :lol:
How many cycles were consumed by computations , only to justify a real newtonian system that add nothing in the gameplay ?

Or i missed something ?

Ah , and for SPEC i would like to hear the same sound that had the ship of Yan solo
when Chewie did correctly his job .
http://goo.gl/mnZFE
:wink:

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 if (!track.HasWeapons())
            {
                // So what are you going to threaten me with? Exhaustion gas?
                return ThreatLevel::None;
            }
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by klauss »

ezee wrote:So if the universe of vega strike was not in moovement ( moons turn around planets , planets turn around suns , suns riding in the branchs of a galaxy ) , who really care ?
Understand me : Why take precious cpu time to compute positions that in fact are irrelevant ?
We were pondering those issues a while ago, when considering moving the bulk of gameplay away from planets, while not totally removing the possibility of approaching them.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by jackS »

There is, I guess, an underlying VS(engine) vs VS(universe) vs VS(current/planned game) tension wrt. how planets, orbits, etc. are modeled.

From a canon perspective, the way things have worked in-game with planets throughout VS(engine) history (e.g. "let's land this Ox on a planet") is frequently nonsensical ( heavily populated planets in VSU would not look kindly on most VSU ships attempting to land, either at all, or anywhere near civilization, depending on the group in question, the class of vessel, and the degree of trust between the planetary government and the ship in question -- but then again, we usually (and not without reason) gloss over the drives on most ships either qualifying as WMDs in their own right or necessarily making the ship one, so .. YMMV). So, from a canon perspective, restricting ourselves to dealing with orbital infrastructure wouldn't particularly be difficult, and the fact that things in a solar system move relative to each other only intersects with canon when concepts like "trade lanes" pop up (and those could still be written, or even modeled, as dynamic paths with a little effort). The lack of orbital infrastructure around planets in general I think may have more to do with A) pre-2006 era engine limitations (and associated art and other decisions) on the number of simulated entities and B) "it was good enough for Privateer" syndrome than anything else.

From an engine perspective, there has long been a noticeable group that wants an engine that lives up to the title of "simulator" - not necessarily fully realistic or full fidelity, but rather an aim to model the things that are clearly present. I think the particulars of in-engine orbits probably matter more for mods that have much lower accelerations than the current/intended/likely VSU craft of the UtCS era, but there's certainly a constituency that would want the engine to model such things, even if for VSU, by default, the orbital periods were all set to infinity for simplicity.

Both of these show up again at the VS(game) level because VS, the game, doesn't really have a terribly firm stance on where it sits between simulator and arcade platform. It has mixed lineage and a mixed user-base. Now, from the engine perspective, assuming that simulation is viable in the first place (that is, scaling considerations are surmountable), configuring a simulator to act like an arcade game is resource inefficient, but an otherwise pleasantly late-binding decision that could probably even surface as multiple playable modes and/or user-level toggles, etc. (After all, VS already has global multipliers for scaling all acceleration and velocity settings.)

Personally, I think it would be ideal if the simulation aspect was functional for solar-scale, but sufficiently data driven that behaviors ranging from "stationary" "orbiting" objects are ignored for physics to "welp, I guess we'll be here in a slowly decaying orbit because we're out of fuel" are both possible for different users of the engine. On the other hand, making solar-scale simulation work takes more effort. *shrug* There's certainly an argument for turning off features, either via engine or dataset not specifying them, that aren't likely to be up to snuff soon. On the other hand, if you turn too many of them off, you effectively lose testers and people may assume that whatever exists is the intended final state of affairs (both of which have unfortunate side-effects). Partly this comes down to "sensible defaults" - but getting those right is about as common as common sense ;-)
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by Deus Siddis »

jackS wrote: I think the particulars of in-engine orbits probably matter more for mods that have much lower accelerations than the current/intended/likely VSU craft of the UtCS era, but there's certainly a constituency that would want the engine to model such things, even if for VSU, by default, the orbital periods were all set to infinity for simplicity.
What were the intended acceleration ceilings for the craft of the UTCS era, by the way?
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by IansterGuy »

ezee wrote:You want to orbit to that distant planet ? Press autopilot and that's all .
If the gameplay was like the Orbiter simulator, that would be different .
But here, i don't know how things works, i have no mean to verify that my orbit
is correct, no reference system to use.

Irrelevant because it's not a challenge for the pilot to be in a Newtonian space, the only challenge is for the programmer of the auto-pilot. The pilot only presses auto pilot to go to his final destination.
Say earth is located at (-120,60,10 ) or ( 100000000000,100000000000,666 ), the result
is the same, I press A to go there. :lol:
How many cycles were consumed by computations , only to justify a real newtonian system that add nothing in the gameplay ?

Or i missed something ?
In some ways this is right. SPEC is too convenient but it has to be so easy. There are no alternatives to SPEC. Pilots often do not thruster to a destination because it either takes too long or the maneuver would be too difficult with no advantage except maintaining shields that charge quickly anyway.

I propose similar types of things I proposed before:
  • Add Vector indicators and HUD Lines to provide instant feedback for relative motion.
  • Remove speed limits in maneuver mode and instead make it activate a Kinetic Inhibitor field. The field would but a directional resistance on objects that would be stronger the faster the object is moving into the field.
  • Add gravity and orbital indicators Apoapsis and Periapsis and add back time compression and any time saving just for some orbital fun in single player. Also add atmospheric resistance that can do damage to the ship
  • Long SPEC start up and cool down times; make SPEC start up interruptible with damage and interdiction.
  • Make shields lose and gain integrity more slowly. While still being able to raise and lower them quickly before SPEC.
  • Make ship encounters more frequent with Space Lanes. Make SPEC use more fuel and replace common travel with externally powered Warp Space Lanes.
Kinetic Inhibitor Field
Though ships could still overshoot their target, this would eliminate the tactic of creating ridiculous speed differences to avoid another ship since there are not tracking abilities without SPEC. At the same time while on it would protect a target from long range kinetic attack. It would also allow automatic protection from space debris.

This way kinetic weapons like a telephone pole with attached rockets are not the ultimate space weapon, but rather weapons that can do damage at slower velocities like plasma bolts.


Warp Space Lane Gateways
These would be in orbit around and make Warp pathways between points of interest. The lanes would normally have two gates and make two curves to the destination, so to get around the two main obstacles; the destinations themselves which are normally planetoids.

Each gateway would have two rings and produce two parallel lanes, one going each direction, and the cross-section would be big enough for cruisers to pass through. The two gateways would orbit each destination point in such a way to avoid local obstacles.

The lane gates would emit out the beam that is the lane. Along the length of the lane would be several repeater buoys that are kept in place by their interaction with the beam itself. To maintain the lane during orbit the lane gateways are paired with another on the same orbital axis. That way smaller adjustments to the lanes and buoys path are required during orbit.

All objects within the beam would simply be propelled their direction of the beam. So if the beam is interdicted all a player would need to do to continue to the destination is get back into the beam somewhere beyond where it is interdicted.


Conclusion
With all these implemented the game would be a lot different and a lot better combat.

It would create a hybrid between true space simulator and action shooter with very little to no compromise for fans of point and shoot. It would repair discrepancies and provide reason for physical aspect of the current game like maximum combat speed and limited weapon ranges, piloted spacecrafts instead of drones. It would condense the action and create places and methods for ambushes that requires tactics to perform and overcome.

With skilled players, slower ships would use planned SPEC maneuvers to quickly get within close range to harass faster ships. It would make maneuverability a real asset without the need for unrealistic accelerations.

I'm sure that there is some aspect of what I'm suggesting that I have not communicated fully yet but, in general I think it would get rid of hand waving while improving everything it touches. This is my ideal. If it never gets built in VegaStrike that's fine. I enjoy the thought alone.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by klauss »

IansterGuy wrote: [*]Add Vector indicators and HUD Lines to provide instant feedback for relative motion.

[*]Add gravity and orbital indicators Apoapsis and Periapsis <snip>

[*]Long SPEC start up and cool down times; make SPEC start up interruptible with damage and interdiction.

[*]Make shields lose and gain integrity more slowly. While still being able to raise and lower them quickly before SPEC.
I fully agree on those points
IansterGuy wrote:[*]Make ship encounters more frequent with Space Lanes. Make SPEC use more fuel and replace common travel with externally powered Warp Space Lanes.[/list]
That's dangerously similar to some other game. Ie: unoriginal.

Lets try to be more original. We had said space buoys and an AP that can follow them in SPEC.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by IansterGuy »

klauss wrote:
IansterGuy wrote:[*]Make ship encounters more frequent with Space Lanes. Make SPEC use more fuel and replace common travel with externally powered Warp Space Lanes.[/list]
That's dangerously similar to some other game. Ie: unoriginal.

Lets try to be more original. We had said space buoys and an AP that can follow them in SPEC.
That right, i merely forgot. So the ship still powers it's own movement, Which makes more sense but the lanes single buoys along the center help by amplifying and optimizing the warp fields. Each side of the buoys would optimized for one way traffic and would hinder ships going the wrong way. Without a gate the largest ships could still use the lanes Warp Field optimizations.

The reason I was thinking externally powered is because I think the start of the lane would make more visual sense if the lanes had some way to power a visual connection between the buoys. With single buoys just a small visual beam between them. That way as the buoys move through space against gravity to follow the starting\ending nodes, the player would suspect that they are being powered to do these constant maneuvers from a source. At the same time it would make the lane easier to follow.

Just as note to staying completely original, I assume almost any continuous Faster Than Light technology uses Spacial Warping by expansion and contraction to function. All other methods of FTL temporarily leaves or skips through the 3rd dimension or are instantaneous. I call what SPEC and creates simple a warp field, but it could be called other things. I think SPEC could stand for many number of things. But in particular I like 'Spacial Propelling Expanse Containment drive' because I imagine it propels space itself expanding and contracting and creating separation between large and small spatial expanses. Then the field would continue to be simply called a SPEC field as you Klauss diligently call it.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by klauss »

No, the sole purpose of the buoys would be to keep the path clear of debris.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by jackS »

(apologies, as this post is somewhat tangential to the FTL portion of this thread)

<begin thread tangent>
Deus Siddis wrote: What were the intended acceleration ceilings for the craft of the UTCS era, by the way?
Sustained or burst? :)

Broadly speaking, I tend to think in terms of 3 fundamental categories of thrust levels for (primary) engines (assuming that the same mission can be accomplished with a viable fuel/payload ratio):

1) Fractional g (T << 1g: your ship does not ever land/takeoff, at least not under it's own (normal) power. Changing direction is a big deal and probably premeditated, even in cases where fuel consumption is not constrained due to very high Isp engines. Combat is possible, but it is not dogfighting.)
2) Some gs (T ~ 1+g: you tend to run into engine or fuel limitations before most structural and some biological limitations. You could probably take off and land on many planets if the ship was designed for it, but escaping gravity wells is noticeable because the planetary pull cancels out a fair fraction of your potential acceleration. Dogfighting is possible, whether or not it is practical.)
3) Many gs (T >> 10g: your thrust potential is not usually primarily limited by engine technology, but first encounters constraints on fuel, structural integrity or pilot/passenger/cargo endurance. )

My comment was mostly with respect to class 1 drives (i.e. things using principles we can actually understand the mechanics for at interplanetary flight scales sans *magic* and less-than-stupifying fuel/payload ratios). If you have class 1 drives, orbital mechanics is really, really important.

VSU(UtCS era) uses a combination of handwavium and unobtanium to (implausibly) achieve class 2. Most plausible technologies, even assuming unforeseen breakthroughs, make you choose between high Isp and high thrust. Some allow variability that slides the Isp/thrust tradeoff point either discretely or continuously. We effectively assume you can get both due to A) wildly unrealistic efficiency in transferring energy from the fusion reactor to the reaction mass and B) implausibly compact and low-mass reactors for their associated outputs. iirc, neither of these are completely hardcoded (reactor mass/space certainly isn't) although reactor efficiency for thrust is certainly an obscure configuration variable, if it's exported that far out (can't recall). With class 2 drives, orbital mechanics are still noticeable, but can usually be assumed secondary unless you're particularly close to another object. If you can continuously burn at 1g for an hour, you're moving fairly fast, as in, same order of magnitude as Earth relative to the sun. After a week (assuming constant burn), you'd be closing in on 2% C. At ~3.5g, a day would get you to 1% C. At .01C, a 1000 ton(metric) ship (for comparison, space-shuttle launch mass is ~2000 tons metric) has a couple of gigatons of kinetic energy, so we're already well into "do not try this at home" territory wherein any ship is a day away from being some civilization's bad day, but there's really no avoiding what the folks at project Rho refer to as "Jon's Law for SF authors" - although various tweaks can certainly be made to make some of the implications less immediately obvious, or to require longer lead times to WMD levels (for instance, very plausibly altering fuel efficiency as a function of thrust - although it means player-levels of desired thrust might require quite the fuel budget :) ) .

So, I think the general idea was that dedicated military small craft capable of independent operation would have peak sustained acceleration (sufficiently efficient for patrol or passive combat maneuvers (i.e. getting to the engagement area in a reasonable amount of time {because it is a universe intended for playing in rather than reading about})) of up to a few gs (loaded) and peak thrusts (loaded, at terrible fuel efficiency) of several gs with continuous operation periods (at cruise efficiency) of at least a day. Longer operational period craft would have lower cruise thrusts. By analogy to modern craft, civilian designs and other forms of military craft may be operating at much higher efficiency and much lower thrust, but to the degree that thrust control is assumed variable (it's not in the game-engine, save for "overdrive", so only discretely at the moment) many of these ships could conceivably generate the necessary thrust to do ground->orbit, albeit at truly terrible fuel efficiency, whereas other ships may just not be capable of withstanding the shock stresses involved with higher gs and/or landing (larger VSU ships tend toward very large surface area/mass ratios to maximize (semi-hardened) radiative surfaces and are thus a bit touchy about such things), or otherwise have appropriate passenger facilities, leaving them completely spacebound. In general, in the VSU, orbit<->ground operations on developed planets should be expected to be handled either by associated infrastructure (mass drivers, space elevators) or shuttles/other assistive craft. Less developed planets won't have these - or dedicated anti-ship defenses to intercept ships on impact trajectories.

Certainly, though, there are pieces woven into the canon that imply that anti-g suits/couches etc. exist in active use for peak thrust. Parasite or other carried craft may tend more towards the peak thrust model, as they don't have to have the same operational time parameters. Missiles could be considered a case of type 3 (very high peak acceleration), but they break the operating parameter assumption - they either trade thrust for efficiency and have very limited burn time, or they operate at similar thrusts compared to small-craft. VSU craft, as currently implemented in the data set, have far too little of their mass as fuel (any fix to this should probably adjust the fuel consumption rate as well). This was part of directives to keep the fueled and unfueled masses similar for handling, perhaps to make balancing easier, perhaps to head-off expected player confusion (which happened anyway due to cargo mass pushing things in the other direction) - either way, it's been so long I don't really recall all of the discussions from that time.

TL;DR version
The tl;dr version of the above being that, in order to adhere at least somewhat to the "newtonian dogfighting in space" goal (even if there's some inherent silliness there), VSU has many craft with >1g sustained (for viable refueling frequency) thrusts, many more craft with high fractional g sustained thrusts (torch drives FTW), and a fair number of craft with multiple g (unsustainably inefficient wrt. fuel consumption) thrusts, because FTL means that you can fly around at high accel for a few 10s of minutes and then go refuel as a viable gameplay approach.

<end tangent>
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by jackS »

klauss wrote:No, the sole purpose of the buoys would be to keep the path clear of debris.
If you want to get playful with the presumed relationship between normal and FTL space terrain/topology, you could also have the buoy network exist to mark out the (current, if you want dynamism on some level) optimal paths between given points that may not be apparent without "mapping" ( - if you want to play up ocean-charting analogies. Taken to its extreme, you might get the sails+currents model of FTL from Drake's "Lt Leary Commanding" series, but that's really a different model altogether.) Doing so would also make going off the charts potentially interesting. Clearly, YMMV for definitions of interesting ranging from "discover faster path" to "THIS! IS! SLOW! <kicks FTL engine down a well>" )
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by klauss »

jackS wrote:
klauss wrote:No, the sole purpose of the buoys would be to keep the path clear of debris.
If you want to get playful with the presumed relationship between normal and FTL space terrain/topology, you could also have the buoy network exist to mark out the (current, if you want dynamism on some level) optimal paths between given points that may not be apparent without "mapping" ( - if you want to play up ocean-charting analogies. Taken to its extreme, you might get the sails+currents model of FTL from Drake's "Lt Leary Commanding" series, but that's really a different model altogether.) Doing so would also make going off the charts potentially interesting. Clearly, YMMV for definitions of interesting ranging from "discover faster path" to "THIS! IS! SLOW! <kicks FTL engine down a well>" )
That was the initial intention, but then one notices that buoys are totally unnecessary when nav data can resolve the issue in a virtual non-physical way.

So, buoys being cute, the excuse of keeping the lanes clear came to mind ;)
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by jackS »

klauss wrote:
That was the initial intention, but then one notices that buoys are totally unnecessary when nav data can resolve the issue in a virtual non-physical way.

So, buoys being cute, the excuse of keeping the lanes clear came to mind ;)
<begin technobabble>
Buoys could be motile (move to reflect underlying changes) and highly visible/responsive to sensors while in SPEC in ways that allow/improve-the-ability-of the nav map to update itself without having to actually do a full remap of things yourself? That is, by analogy, you could conceivably map a coastal shore region with high quality sonar, or you could just have a buoy out in the shallows that says "shallows" and some others that say "shipping lane" and when you ping them via radio they report the current depth given tidal conditions and/or have bright lights so that you can notice they're there at night.
<end technobabble>
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by Deus Siddis »

jackS wrote:(apologies, as this post is somewhat tangential to the FTL portion of this thread)
I asked the sidetracking question so it is on me. :)
Just wanted to confirm that the craft with greater than 10 G acceleration in units.csv were oversights. (mission accomplished)
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by IansterGuy »

LOL, so essentially the reason for using the space lanes is because the ship gets to the destination sooner. The ship moves faster within them even though it maybe be a longer path and so therefore the autopilot prefers them. That seems simple to implement. The reasoning could be many, but they would only effect gameplay if these features showed up in regular SPEC travel.

Using Dust and Debris fields to create a traveling space landscape.
If regular debris hindered and sometimes temporary interrupted regular SPEC travel for example then it would add an element to the game. Then having updated tracking data of debris in orbit would be an as advantage to manually avoid them or to use them to player advantage.

I think it would be fun to have any place where hull damaging battles from energy weapons took place to fill up with dust debris and cause a SPEC obstruction. Then dust debris would be removable either by those cleaner drone ships that fly around randomly tractor in particles, or by buoys, ships, or stations that pushes it out of the way with their wide area repulsor fields. Space dust clean up missions! Sounds exciting, and safe, LOL!

This way commonly traveled paths would become faster but would also deteriorate over time. Especially outwardly perpendicular to the common orbit, due to orbital speed differences. Debris and dust clouds would naturally collect around space lanes and stations since space battles most often happen close the them. Dust and debris would be gradually pushed to the outskirts of an area by stations, ships and buoys repulsor fields.

Some people talked previously about some sort of subspace landscape that can be mapped and navigated but debris and dust clouds would accomplish a similar thing. In addition if ships were not totally vaporized every time they were destroyed, it could make for lucrative salvage missions.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by Deus Siddis »

So has this discussion evolved from jump hubs to trade lanes?
klauss wrote:I think we must subscribe to Freelancer's idea of trade lanes. If not in Freelancer's form, in some other, but it's just a natural and useful construct.
The problem with this is it is what we already have. The spec autopilot takes the shortest route between points and if you look at your system map view, you see other ships moving along your same narrow path (until they are outside your radar range). The trouble is:
  • You never see other craft because the incredible speeds used means they are never anywhere near a visible distance for any length of time, without interdiction.
  • Interdiction is turned off because with the current traffic density, travel would be interdicted clear across the system and you would never reach your destination.
  • Spec has tended to be so slow in the past because its configuration variables were set too conservatively.
  • Slower spec is boring because without interdiction nothing happens along the way and missions pay far too little given player time investment.
I do not see how trade lanes can fix any of the above issues better than spec and they will limit player freedom unnecessarily. If I recall correctly, what made Freelancer work was its super miniaturized (theme park flavored) environment, not so much its freeways.

But I think there is a good chance we could 'balance' spec to accomplish our goals with minimal engine level changes. We just have to be clear about what our goals actually are:
  • Do we want high traffic density that only shows up on the radar or do we want meaningful encounters through the interdiction mechanic?
  • How much of player-relevant action do we what happening around hubs versus along travel routes?
  • How much time do we want the player to spend between saving 'checkpoints'?
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by jackS »

Deus Siddis wrote: But I think there is a good chance we could 'balance' spec to accomplish our goals with minimal engine level changes. We just have to be clear about what our goals actually are:
  • Do we want high traffic density that only shows up on the radar or do we want meaningful encounters through the interdiction mechanic?
  • How much of player-relevant action do we what happening around hubs versus along travel routes?
  • How much time do we want the player to spend between saving 'checkpoints'?
So, in terms of what Trade Lanes did in Freelancer, I think they accomplished 2 primary things for gameplay:
1) They made it possible to go from certain points to certain other points faster
2) They provided specific locations where "bad/important things" could happen that weren't right next to interstellar capitals, military bases, etc.

#1 is something that there are a very large number of potential ways to make happen. Even if it's simply having there be particular paths that are well-behaved with respect to the in-system FTL implementation, I don't think whatever solution we pick needs to (or should) particularly closely resemble trade lanes from the outside even if it ends up effectively creating trade lanes (for their #1 above purpose) - in particular allowing one to go "off-road" but loosening guarantees of how easy it will be to use the insystem FTL "off-road" could even work in terms of "out-of-scope use of our fragile feature successfully masquerades as an intended additional feature" territory.

#2 is actually the much more important feature wrt. Deus' list above (which are among the right questions to be asking, imo). A couple of questions I'd add to the list are "what type of non-hub interactions do we want to support, and why?" and "how many (fundamentally) different types of location do we want to create?"

I think part of the issue currently is not traffic volume, but traffic volume diversity. NPC ships (except for local-hostiles like Pirates/Luddites) spread themselves out along the edges of the graph of navigable points in a system fairly evenly on a random walk of the navigable points (the Pirates/Luddites attempt to stay in the midsections of these edges unless the military presence in the system is low). There's no sense that one path is a busy freeway, probably patrolled by the locals, and another path is an infrequently travelled side alley that may or may not be visited by anyone much at all. Similarly, the current homogeneity of modeled development across systems (all systems of a given faction produce ships at the same rate) means that you don't get much divergence of locales - the freeway between LA and San Diego != the freeway between Tuscon and Las Vegas. If we want a system in which we can either become or need to be concerned about highwaymen or other dangers of insufficient local control, then we need some wilderness (inter-system level) and/or dark alley (intra-system) equivalents. If we're primarily worried about nutjobs, then maybe we're fine because they'd happily go after the densely populated freeway section, trying to take down as many ships as possible before they're inevitably overwhelmed. If we're looking for nice, safe areas, then... I guess we're mostly concerned about traffic and a good set of bypass routes for those just passing through the system?

I think a good starting place would be to basically list all of the types of places that player interactions should be occurring in, and then make sure that our system allows/requires the player to often be in one of them while still having A) the capability (and perhaps an exploratory motivation) to go off the beaten path and B) preserving a sense of scale that these aren't just a set of rooms that the player is moving between (i.e. some sense of continuousness at the universe-level in the connection between places).
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by jackS »

Or - another idea, if you want to play with "lanes," is that you could invert their convenience: they could just be the published subset of the standard patrol routes by the locals. Follow the yellow-brick road, and you have a safe, if slow and boring, journey wandering past routine traffic stops, immigration checkpoints, and filling out customs declaration forms under the watchful eyes of locals with large guns (assuming that the locals are friendly and not themselves corrupt). On the other hand, you could wing it out into the wild on your own, unhampered, path, (which may trigger local suspicion on why you aren't filling out those customs declaration forms, if they have the manpower to care) but it's also dark out there, and you might be eaten by a grue.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by klauss »

jackS wrote:Or - another idea, if you want to play with "lanes," is that you could invert their convenience: they could just be the published subset of the standard patrol routes by the locals. Follow the yellow-brick road, and you have a safe, if slow and boring, journey wandering past routine traffic stops, immigration checkpoints, and filling out customs declaration forms under the watchful eyes of locals with large guns (assuming that the locals are friendly and not themselves corrupt).
That was the idea of buoys. Furthermore, trade lanes would have checkpoints (armed buoys) that would act both as safe harbor and choke point, and possibly interesting mission targets as well. The AP (or standard route from A to B) would take you across a series of strategically placed (but far-apart) buoys. In-between, you have normal SPEC. The buoys would be at lagrangian points or something like that, and their utility would be both as checkpoints and waypoints for patrol craft.
jackS wrote:On the other hand, you could wing it out into the wild on your own, unhampered, path, (which may trigger local suspicion on why you aren't filling out those customs declaration forms, if they have the manpower to care) but it's also dark out there, and you might be eaten by a grue.
And when you do that, I was thinking, you'd randomly (seldom but sometimes) encounter debris, and be hit, and be damaged and thrown out of spec. Dangers of deep-space travel.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by Deus Siddis »

jackS wrote: I think part of the issue currently is not traffic volume, but traffic volume diversity.
I fully agree.

I would also suggest traffic be better grouped so that you would often encounter a number of ships (a flight group) at once but then encounter nothing for a while after. This would allow interdiction to function properly- random and significant encounters punctuating periods of efficient travel. It's intra-intra-system traffic diversity.

If spec interdiction would not affect members of the same flight group (and some AI improvements were made to better support very loose formation flying) this would become a possibility. It would also make escorts a working feature.
I think a good starting place would be to basically list all of the types of places that player interactions should be occurring in, and then make sure that our system allows/requires the player to often be in one of them while still having A) the capability (and perhaps an exploratory motivation) to go off the beaten path and B) preserving a sense of scale that these aren't just a set of rooms that the player is moving between (i.e. some sense of continuousness at the universe-level in the connection between places).
We could probably break places down into two groups- Artificial and Natural. Artificial is everything small and not fully persistent, space stations, capitals, flight groups, debris fields, alien creatures, etc. Natural is everything that is unimaginably huge and static, planets, moons, asteroid belts, suns, nebular solar systems, etc.

Each has some unique gameplay issues it creates for an FTL mechanic.

With artificials, the trouble is you cannot detect them from any reasonable distance so you basically have to stumble over them (they make poor hubs as a result). They basically requires implicit interdiction (if you are to encounter them away from naturals) because at the speed necessary to get across a system in good time (100c and above, times two for oncoming traffic) human reflexes won't hit the brakes in time.

With naturals, the trouble is their size means you need near-FTL to get around them or visit different parts of them, but not so much that you could impact them before you have a chance to react. Also, while they are good hubs for their visibility and persistence, they encompass such a large area that visitors are fairly spread out or even separated by the object itself (for a common example, ships on the other side of a planet from you).
klauss wrote: That was the idea of buoys. Furthermore, trade lanes would have checkpoints (armed buoys) that would act both as safe harbor and choke point, and possibly interesting mission targets as well. The AP (or standard route from A to B) would take you across a series of strategically placed (but far-apart) buoys.
I think this would be a good thing to implement regardless of intra-system FTL method. Spawn the stations that are not orbiting planets or wormholes on the path directly between them. It seems a lot more deliberate and helps space feel less barren.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by IansterGuy »

klauss wrote:
jackS wrote: On the other hand, you could wing it out into the wild on your own, unhampered, path, (which may trigger local suspicion on why you aren't filling out those customs declaration forms, if they have the manpower to care) but it's also dark out there, and you might be eaten by a grue.
And when you do that, I was thinking, you'd randomly (seldom but sometimes) encounter debris, and be hit, and be damaged and thrown out of spec. Dangers of deep-space travel.
This seems like the right direction to get started. It would be very simple and effective and could be expanded upon greatly if so desired.

As for the random damage I believe it should happen more often the faster the ships travel. It would be as if the system is able to quietly compensate for debris at slower speeds. Then players would naturally go slower in uncharted space.
Deus Siddis wrote: I think this would be a good thing to implement regardless of intra-system FTL method. Spawn the stations that are not orbiting planets or wormholes on the path directly between them. It seems a lot more deliberate and helps space feel less barren.
Note that if orbits and maybe gravity was included placing stations directly between destinations would only work when the destination are in adjacent to each other in orbit. Other space lanes would need to move slowly both against gravity to stay in position and move the ends of the path to stay with the orbit of the destination.
Deus Siddis wrote: If SPEC interdiction would not affect members of the same flight group (and some AI improvements were made to better support very loose formation flying) this would become a possibility. It would also make escorts a working feature.
There was some discussion on how to allow ships to fly in SPEC together without having them crash into each other when ones suddenly stop.

Though my solutions ranged to very complicated, I think the simple solution was to separate always on Passive Interdiction from activated Active Interdiction methods.

Basically always on interdiction would prevent collisions interdicting objects on a collision course, and would be said to work because the warp field bubbles would combine into one when they get close. On the more complicated side I even suggested chasing an enemy into their warp bubble would allow shooting them out of SPEC, or even allow ramming while in SPEC by using thrusters.

Activated interdiction would attempt to prevent enemies from SPECing and would have a collateral effect on all nearby SPEC systems. It also included SPEC buster missiles which all worked on a concept of projecting plasma interference toward the targets.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by jackS »

Deus Siddis wrote:
jacks wrote: I think a good starting place would be to basically list all of the types of places that player interactions should be occurring in, and then make sure that our system allows/requires the player to often be in one of them while still having A) the capability (and perhaps an exploratory motivation) to go off the beaten path and B) preserving a sense of scale that these aren't just a set of rooms that the player is moving between (i.e. some sense of continuousness at the universe-level in the connection between places).
We could probably break places down into two groups- Artificial and Natural. Artificial is everything small and not fully persistent, space stations, capitals, flight groups, debris fields, alien creatures, etc. Natural is everything that is unimaginably huge and static, planets, moons, asteroid belts, suns, nebular solar systems, etc.

Each has some unique gameplay issues it creates for an FTL mechanic.

With artificials, the trouble is you cannot detect them from any reasonable distance so you basically have to stumble over them (they make poor hubs as a result). They basically requires implicit interdiction (if you are to encounter them away from naturals) because at the speed necessary to get across a system in good time (100c and above, times two for oncoming traffic) human reflexes won't hit the brakes in time.

With naturals, the trouble is their size means you need near-FTL to get around them or visit different parts of them, but not so much that you could impact them before you have a chance to react. Also, while they are good hubs for their visibility and persistence, they encompass such a large area that visitors are fairly spread out or even separated by the object itself (for a common example, ships on the other side of a planet from you).
Very good points - but along a different axis than I was actually thinking of at the time.

I was thinking different types of locale in terms of effective setting and the associated type of gameplay that might make sense there - just imagine adding "IN SPACE" or "SPACE-" after/before each of the following:
Slums
Unexplored Wilderness
Suburbia
Desolate Highway
Busy Highway
Metropolis
Warzone
Border crossing
Warehouse district
Warehouse district at night
Somalian coastline
Disneyland
Settlement
Biker Bar
Dark alley

- clearly that's not a great list because it A) isn't broken down into a small set of at least partially orthogonal axes (like development/population/rule-of-law), which is what I was actually thinking about trying to do, and B) contains examples that don't all clearly map well to flying your spaceship through, but I figured I'd go quick and concrete for this post. In each of these settings, you could imagine different viable gameplay interactions ranging from trade to racing to smuggling to waiting interminably to running for your life to that crowning moment of awesome when you take down your first capital ship to laying waste to the hopes and dreams of everything the locals held dear with your vastly superior firepower.

One of the things, for instance, that VS needs for some of the gameplay interactions people desire (e.g. piracy or other localized lawlessness) is areas that are isolated but not desolate, so those should probably be indicated by independent axes (currently, not so much). However many dimensions we pick,it's generally better to have fewer for a taxonomy. The natural -> artificial (or, perhaps equivalently large-permanent -> small transient) axis is a pretty good one to try to incorporate though :)
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by Deus Siddis »

jackS wrote: ... broken down into a small set of at least partially orthogonal axes (like development/population/rule-of-law), which is what I was actually thinking about trying to do,
So how would you say these axes interact with in-system FTL mechanics? I imagine all the above examples boiling down to two questions-- how densely are objects spaced (objects being anything of interest or collision hazards) and over how wide an area. Because whatever the environment my two competing FTL concerns would be:
  • I don't want to not interact with something because I was going too fast to notice it or couldn't stop it from moving so fast itself.
  • I don't want to be prevented from leaving this area of space indefinitely or to have to fly for hours without saving to reach a place where FTL is handicapped.
If Disneyland has individual attractions spread out over a whole system, but there are few obstacles between them, that is good.
If Slums are densely filled with drifting debris and haphazardly arranged bio-domes, but this doesn't extend beyond a ~100 kilometer radius, that is good.
However if the Busy Highway has a ship every ten kilometers over a billion kilometer stretch, then that is not much fun.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by klauss »

Unless SPEC isn't hindered that much and there is a way to control SPEC multiplier (ie: control SPEC speed) precisely enough to navigate at SPEC speed through crowded parts.

Just sayin'
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by Deus Siddis »

I suppose you can also set your governor to 1 m/s, which without interdiction will still have you traveling at about the speed of light, but with carefully balanced interdiction values that number could be a lot more reasonable.

Still, the idea of interdiction pulling you into 3 interesting encounters with clear sailing and fast travel in between, feels more user-friendly to me than moving at a constant but reduced pace through a line of 100 mundane ships/groups to screen for those interesting 3. I must admit that I am biased towards having a less populated and less civilized universe in general though.
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