argument to remove need for spec

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TBeholder
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Trade stations

Post by TBeholder »

Brendan wrote:The end result of all this is that each solar system ends up with space station/s near important resources, with either a jump point (as ships equipped with jump drives would need to know where the destination is) or "worm hole generator" near the space station (or something else near the space station). Of course no sane person is going to transport raw resources to a processing plant billions of kilometres away in the middle of nowhere - they're going to build the processing plant into the space station itself to reduce transport costs.
Or somewhere near the source, for that matter?..
space stations are cargo transition points for interplanetary trading vessels and shuttle craft. They also provide entertainment facilities for pilots not wishing to go "planet-side".
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by IansterGuy »

TBeholder wrote:
Brendan wrote:...no sane person is going to transport raw resources to a processing plant billions of kilometres away in the middle of nowhere - they're going to build the processing plant into the space station itself to reduce transport costs.
Or somewhere near the source, for that matter?..
I agree, the map should make sense if there is enough content to do it. All permanent installations should simply be forced to be generated near a natural significant object. Specifying station types could also be done, but any station should plausibly be able to do all basic operations.

@safemode I didn't post this before because I felt my arguments a big distraction from your work on upgrading python and other things. Lots of good points needed to stick and the posts where getting too long for that. On that thought, here another really long post for everyone. :)
safemode wrote:Seamless planetary flight sounds like you're looking to combine the most boring aspects of space exploration with the most boring genre of games Flight simulators. [...] That's not a game. That's a training tool. There is no practical way you can make that entertaining.
I would argue this otherwise because your saying you don't enjoy simulators and VegaStrike is one of the few physically realistic space simulators out there. The only games I can play are simulators and I do it for fun. I still say the same thing to this argument I have herd before, leave the simulation in as basic game play and possibly add non realism as optional equipment to buy. This can apply to every non realistic feature one could implement and would face the inconsistencies head on. Anyone interested in programing a system called RAILS "Rectification Array for Inertialy Linear Space" :lol:

This is just suggesting that the game continue to be what says on the front page of this site, a "3d Action Space simulator". I interpret this as 3d Action, built on top of a space simulator. I think that perfectly describes what should continue to be accomplished.
safemode wrote:Spec. Not needed. We dont need to spread our finite resources thin for no real reason and then be forced to create another even less plausible FTL mechanism that doesn't offer anything towards gameplay for the player and needlessly complicates physics simulating and game mechanics.
Making planets more exclusive is good, making them completely unreachable by removing SPEC exploration removes features without replacing it with something interesting. The only way I can see this making sense is if you also want to completely replace Semi-Newtonian physics with point and fly ship on rails physics.

Point and fly would be supported by me as long as it is off by default but can be turned on at will like a device, similar to but more pronounced than the way "Iwar2" has it on by default and can be turned off temporarly,shown here on this video. This video also mentions and inhibition field near all of the bases.

People are divided on the subject and I do prefer Newtonian physics greatly myself. Anything else is too easy to master, and I would have been bored with this space simulator long ago I think. If looking for a younger audience, the game could cheat on the physics. Though if replacing Newtonian physics, any breaking of the laws of motion I think ideally should be tweakable if it is not already. That would be most useful to everyone including modders.
safemode wrote:...other ship is usually over a kilometer away and close combat is nearly impossible because the game has to have ships capable of extreme speeds because the distances everything you need to go to are too great to have realistic speeds, so you spend the entire time spinning around and around trying to find the AI ship that is simply zipping by you back and forth or racing away to 6000 meters before making another pass
The new ballance if slowing ships a bit. Maybe speed matching could be automatic if people don't use it when shooting at something or when autopiloting somewhere .
safemode wrote:or even better, hitting spec and suddenly being a thousand km's away with no chance of catching. awesome.
This would not happen in new proposed jump hubs as soon as interdiction would be put up there, and it would stop happening elsewhere too with shipboard drive interdiction.
safemode wrote:These aren't simply tweaks or minor issues that need to be fixed here and there, they're fundamental problems involved with the basic layout and implementation of VS and it's been this way for years.
Yup, which is why I'm glad the consensus is to concentrate game play to those Jump hubs and significant places. It puts it on track for action paced game play as I have long vouched for with my interdiction field and inhibition field comments.

Here is where the debate still is when you get to the point where you would remove SPEC. I don't know how much code this effects but to create harmony in close quarters battles there must be limitations on FTL travel and on how much a player use them to increase their relative velocity to opponents during combat. There are only two sane ways that I can imagine a complete solution done, and the simplest one that your suggesting involves removing a large part of current and future game play which I really don't support. So lets look at really how much work each is and what current work is lost and what is the relative payoff. Would be much more pride in creating a creative solution I think.

Without interdiction fields around stations to inhibit FTL transport drives in the hub, or some sort of way to reduce the combat ultility of SPEC, it would indeed become imcompatible with space shooter game play.

Traditional 3D Space Shooters must have these limitations. The difference here is either having in game devices to explain the fictional physics, or changing cannon game physics to create action paced close quarters combat. I much prefer coming up with a creative realistic solution that sticks to reality.

For the record I really like the unique Semi-nutation physics Vega-Strike has. It is one of it's main appeals I thought. I'm not a fan of ship on rails dogfights. I would prefer to keep the much more individually entertaining Newtonian physics, and reserve options to improve it. Some of these improvements.

Without sandbox game play the appeal is tied up in one time scripted missions which would run out and don't even exist in the dynamic universe. I would prefer that most scripted missions are reusable, like the sandbox missions and politics in the highly rated & modded combat simulator Warband. |Offica||Desura|Youtube| Though the mission computer and bar is fine, characters with personalities like in War Band that come go, and lead their armadas, would lead to infinite variety. Beware this could also lead to endless addiction but is good for continued development.
safemode wrote:I'm inclined to believe that a feature that's been broken / partially implemented for years to the detriment of gameplay isn't a feature that is just waiting to simply be fixed but is rather a feature that should never have been implemented in the first place.
I would rather say nothing is a detriment to game play unless it I had been given priority over something else with more potential for long term results. If there was nothing else at the time it was an asset. It is easy to no longer give something priority once the alternative is well defined as better.
safemode wrote:Every system (or nearly) that the player jumps into should be bustling with activity as soon as they enter it. Units should be contacting them and dockable ships should be well within a short flight while the player gets their bearings. The systems should look alive and things should be busy near the [...] gateways in and out of the system. We dont need to simulate 20,000 units to do this. Patrols that scan you for contraband would now make sense. Bases can be full of characters and the mission computer can be full of various things people need to get done rather than a meager handful of things. All of that makes sense when you bring everything in towards the wormhole and make it the crossroads for the entire system. Each system would then have an intrinsic identity that the player will notice rather than every system being identified simply by their background texture.
Now this sounds just like what I figured you where hinting at for new game play the hole time. The only thing is, this involves lots of content creation, so maybe we need to start being nice to people who are good at telling stories, and create an environment to allow them to have fun building what your describing here. JackS dosent want to reveal any story so he has created a cannon queries bug tracker. This is an issue to work around, I would think it better just to have it all open to be contributed to.
safemode wrote:Obviously that doesn't mean you couldn't point your ship into empty space in a system and fly and fly and eventually reach distant planets or moons etc. But you wouldn't. it's not fun. It's not fun now and it's not going to be fun then.
Your assuming no SPEC which points out the problems with removing it. This is a good direction, but it would be optimal to allow people to develop biased on their motivation for developing in the first place. Keeping it open beyond just implementing simple jump hubs play is my suggestion, because removing things won't fix all the game play problems alone.
safemode wrote:The discussion of SPEC is going to end up being decided by what gets better implemented. Or implemented at all.
LOL, I partially agree but SPEC is already implemented. What does that say about SPEC :) I still think killing SPEC would get negative long term results. Though your strangling of SPEC has been pretty positive discussion wise.

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Shark wrote:1. I would like to see SPEC stay. Though I would like to see it mostly limited to (but not forcibly limited to) 'trade routes' that generally follow the shortest/best route between two (or more) locations.
I agree, a setup of space lanes like in freelancer would be good. They could work differently be bigger, faster, but I like the idea that when you are in the lane all the ships inside are pulled along but will instantly stop if when flying out of the lane or being interdicted. Pirates could interrupt a space lanes and have a inflow of victims till they are chased away.
Shark wrote:Alternately, we could limit SPEC drives to large ships such as huge inter-system ferries that carry players' ships between systems. You would then simply 'dock' with the ferry, and watch as the ferry transports you between systems.
Actually I was thinking this would make more sense if it could be done by any capable ship that is paid enough for their time and effort. This would solve the problem with ships getting stranded in space while they have a full bank account. This is to say the mission computer should be available everywhere. Maybe save too, because I have never played a game where I wish I could note save anytime to replay a moment.
Shark wrote:2. I agree that 'docking' with planets currently is a bit weird. Maybe replace it with space elevators and ferries as long as it is visible to players? I.e. you dock with a station, the station puts you on the elevator/ferry, and the elevator/ferry takes you to the surface. And you see it all happening. Time compression of course would speed things up for the player as per usual. I.e. if you really want to get to a planet's surface you can, but it's going to cost you money and time.
Agree with all of this. A low orbit skyhook could be an interesting alternative to the geosynchronous space elevator.
Shark wrote:3. I think atmospheric damage is a good idea, except for ships specifically designed for atmospheric flight. But planetary flight is not currently implemented and probably never will be so the point is moot.
Well this makes me sad because it is like to say that the engine is aging and will be eventually abandoned. What really is wrong with VegaOgre? It has planetary flight and seemed like it was the future of upgrading the engine to keep it updated. I'm almost afraid to hear the answer. Developers talk about refactoring and it seems like a good idea, but how extensive is that. When would be the optimal time to do it, I think the goals and payoffs would be best well defined for results.

Shark wrote:4. I'm not a big fan of wormholes. I think they are kind of cheesy. But I am not totally against them if they are popular with a huge number of people and I can choose not to use them. They were OK in Deep Space 9 because they were exceedingly rare. Making them more common is suckage IMO.
Again totally agree. I don't like the two sided wormhole graphic at the jump nodes much since ships can fly in at all directions. I would like the see that graphic as a rare wormhole that can with the right equipment be traversed but can also be crashed into or sometimes lead to the wrong randomly generated universe where you can meet yourself, just as a potential Easter egg. :)
Shark wrote:In general I would like to see more infrastructure in space above and beyond the solitary space stations floating around planetary systems.
The solar systems should resemble the layout of real solar systems with asteroid belts around planets and suns. Though interesting and rare phenomena like collisions, making local asteroid and junk fields may happen more often due to intelligent life.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by Shark »

I like SPEC.

I think wormholes should be rare like in Star Trek.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by Spaceman »

The SPEC drive is not fun. The basic idea is to go really fast. The spec drive doesn't let you go really fast if you are pointed at or close to a source of gravity. Therefore, we need a "really fast" drive that doesn't care which way we're pointing or how close we are, but it also needs to play nice with autopilot. For this, I say a combination of Newtonian thrust and either time compression or inertial dampeners (to avoid pulping the pilot) would be desirable. That is to say, I want to be able to press the "really fast forward" or "really fast back" button and accelerate really really fast. When planet surfaces are implemented (in the next release, right?) and you're in the atmosphere, you can just use normal speed thrust, and for suicide or a quick orbit you can press the "really fast" button.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by TBeholder »

Spaceman wrote:The SPEC drive is not fun. The basic idea is to go really fast. The spec drive doesn't let you go really fast if you are pointed at or close to a source of gravity. Therefore, we need a "really fast" drive that doesn't care which way we're pointing or how close we are,
Wrong. This would mean everything zips past everything way too quickly and physics gets very choppy. See how bad are collisions in SPEC now sometimes? Want it like this, but all the time?
The whole point of mass-lock in SPEC and its Elite precursor is to move very fast when nothing happens anyway and move reasonably fast when something happens, i.e. around objects that can be interacted with.
Spaceman wrote: and either time compression
Inherently incompatible with multiplayer.
Spaceman wrote: or inertial dampeners (to avoid pulping the pilot)
Did you see current acceleration values (in-game ship stats) for fighters in VS? Yup.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by Spaceman »

TBeholder wrote:
Spaceman wrote:The SPEC drive is not fun. The basic idea is to go really fast. The spec drive doesn't let you go really fast if you are pointed at or close to a source of gravity. Therefore, we need a "really fast" drive that doesn't care which way we're pointing or how close we are,
Wrong. This would mean everything zips past everything way too quickly and physics gets very choppy. See how bad are collisions in SPEC now sometimes? Want it like this, but all the time?
The whole point of mass-lock in SPEC and its Elite precursor is to move very fast when nothing happens anyway and move reasonably fast when something happens, i.e. around objects that can be interacted with.
Spaceman wrote: and either time compression
Inherently incompatible with multiplayer.
Spaceman wrote: or inertial dampeners (to avoid pulping the pilot)
Did you see current acceleration values (in-game ship stats) for fighters in VS? Yup.
Look, bud. When I'm hanging out in orbit of a planet (or just outside of orbit or whatever) and it takes FIVE FREAKING MINUTES to build up enough acceleration to get any closer to it, something's wrong. What's going to happen when atmospheric flight is implemented? Are we going to SPEC/warp to the planet and then just leisurely take our time to de-orbit and get to where we are reasonably close? Maybe some of the hardcore players will, but this is BORING. The collisions could be fixed either by sub-dividing the physics processing a whole bunch or casting a ray from the last frame's location to the current frame's. As for time compression, I was not considering multiplayer.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by loki1950 »

Re:the 5 minutes just a reminder that in a real orbital situation those 5 minutes would be 5 hours :wink: Changing orbits can take all day in the real universe look at the maintenance burns that all satellites have to do just to stay in position out of fuel out of service and end of life for that satellite.So we have to speed things up to prevent that boredom but we also want to maintain being a simulation engine not just an other space shoot'em up as we do use real physics in the background not the arcade physics that we have all seen and played. Their are finally lots of people who are actually knowledgeable about real space flight that they will prefer reality to fantasy.Our goal then is a compromise between hyper reality and cartoon with player satisfaction thrown in to keep us honest 8)

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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by Spaceman »

Well, I definitely think that something needs to be done to make close proximity flight appear faster. Maybe the spec drive could be a little faster when it's close to gravity sources, or maybe when a ship launches from a planet it could start at a lower altitude (although I don't know how this would work when we can actually physically land on planets), or maybe (at least just for single player) one could utilize time compression.

Realism is fun, but low-speed space flight alone is only interesting when you are in a low orbit. That sweet spot does not take long to reach from a planet's surface, but if you are in a high orbit, the distance you have to cross to get to a low orbit could be accomplished much better with the aid of the SPEC drive, if you ask me. Also, sometimes you feel trapped in the gravity well of a celestial body and your SPEC drive can't get you out of there in a reasonable amount of time. SPEC is a futuristic technology, and I do not think its applications are being explored to their fullest potential. Being able to control how fast your SPEC drive makes you go, ranging from 0 to about 10C would be great for circumstances where you just want to skip all of the BS and get into a planet's atmosphere. I'm thinking ahead.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by warpnoob »

I recently found a game that has no in-system FTL mechanic, but uses actual newonian physics. If that's what you want, go check it out.
http://pioneerspacesim.net
EDIT: Now that I actually took the time reading through most of this, I got some ideas.
I'm greatly against ditching the SPEC drive altogether, and I'm also against jump points. What if we instead steal an idea from Freelancer and implement something like trade lanes, except they are some sort of gravity beams that either greatly enhance the speed of a spec drive (which will require reducing that speed outside of those beams) or reduce the energy cost (which also requires changes that others already mentioned) or both?
This will give the game the benefits of in-system jump points (like all the action gathering in one place) without removing the player-experienced vastness of space, and it gives some possibilities for interaction- like pirates that set up a spec jamming trap along the lane or an enemy faction disabling one of the beam emitters to temporarily cut off one planet from another. Those emitters could even be built by a player!
Or we go completely insane and implement a stationary spatial ripple emitter (SSPR) which, from time to time or upon request in lesser-trafficed areas, generate a pulse wave that greatly accelerates a spec-enabled ship. Much like in the first Voyager-episode, remember? The ship would, of course, have to ride on the wave, and the benefit would be gone if the ship changes course or leaves spec.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by klauss »

Spaceman wrote:As for time compression, I was not considering multiplayer.
Ah, but you have to. Otherwise you lock yourself in game mechanics that rule out multiplayer gameplay. And there's no getting away from that.
Spaceman wrote:The collisions could be fixed either by sub-dividing the physics processing a whole bunch or casting a ray from the last frame's location to the current frame's.
Not so easy. If you divide as much, the game is unplayably slow (tried). If you cast rays, collisions are unforgivingly precise (you get random collisions mid-SPEC, because another ship just happened to zip through you, no fault of yours, but players just say "WTF!").

High-speed traveling with precise collisions and high numbers of NPC ships as we have (and want) require very good quality AI that we just don't have.

To have what you want, even if we wanted it too, you'd have to improve the AI to the point where all this is doable. It's easier said than done. By far.

In essence, most proposals of this sort fall short in hindsight. Changing one aspect of the game ripples throughout the game, in ways most people complaining just don't understand nor bother to try to understand.

You want an action arcade game. I suggest the privateer mods. Same engine, almost same game, but the way you want it (action-packed, gameplay taliored to the impatient - somewhat).
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by Deus Siddis »

klauss wrote: High-speed traveling with precise collisions and high numbers of NPC ships as we have (and want) require very good quality AI that we just don't have.
By the way, is it true solar systems in VS are actually at only 1/10 true scale?

If that is the case then we may have another option to reduce travel time.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by klauss »

Deus Siddis wrote:
klauss wrote: High-speed traveling with precise collisions and high numbers of NPC ships as we have (and want) require very good quality AI that we just don't have.
By the way, is it true solar systems in VS are actually at only 1/10 true scale?

If that is the case then we may have another option to reduce travel time.
Depends which. Sol is 1:1, I think. The other handcrafted ones are of course made up, but about 1:2 or 1:4, and I believe autogenerated ones yeah, around 1:10.

Why?
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by warpnoob »

He thinks that by reducing the size of solar systems, travel time will be equally reduced.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by Deus Siddis »

No not equally reduced at all because of the multiplier cap and interdiction having a bigger effect than absolute distances. And I personally hate the idea of making the game world smaller to ease travel. I also believe SPEC can be tweaked to noticeably reduce more of the tedium of travel.

But...

Having 1/10 scale systems is the worst of both worlds. You can't say you have full sized realistic systems and you haven't sufficiently mucked around with scale to optimize the travel experience.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by klauss »

I think the biggest reason to stick to 1:10 scale, is numerical precision. We don't have the required numerical precision in-engine to accurately simulate delicate maneuvers outside the solar system at those scales (ie: you can get totally fucked by travelling past the last planet and engaging in combat or something like that).

And we're already using doubles and all the precision hardware math allows.

Localized coordinate systems don't work for overall physics simulations (you still have to compute the movement of the coordinate systems themselves).

So... 1:10 scale gives you enough margin to stay out of that can of worms.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by Deus Siddis »

I thought I had read somewhere that doubles gave your millimeter precision out to the orbit of Saturn, which would give about centimeter precision for the distant most reaches of the solar system.

Are those number incorrect or is centimeter precision just not good enough for things like point defense?
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by klauss »

Deus Siddis wrote:I thought I had read somewhere that doubles gave your millimeter precision out to the orbit of Saturn, which would give about centimeter precision for the distant most reaches of the solar system.

Are those number incorrect or is centimeter precision just not good enough for things like point defense?
That's technically true for double's 56-bit mantissa at 50AU (if considered as just a coordinate), but not so when arithmetic is involved. Then, you have to account for intermediate rounding errors. When you add the simulation quantum and the requirement to be able to represent relative speeds of 1m/s, things get hairier.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by loki1950 »

And those rounding errors tend to accumulate especially in our case of simultaneous differential equations in every physics frame :wink:

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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by IansterGuy »

Deus Siddis wrote:No not equally reduced at all because of the multiplier cap and interdiction having a bigger effect than absolute distances. And I personally hate the idea of making the game world smaller to ease travel. I also believe SPEC can be tweaked to noticeably reduce more of the tedium of travel.
I agree with this. SPEC should have much potential to be made better. Like discussed previously it is not the distance but rather the density of the interesting interactions in the system.

Like eluded to previously, making the SPEC drive optional and unnecessary by creating Space Lanes for travel between navigation points around planetoids and Warp Gates, would condense the action. It would condense the action into a thin web of networks, which would dramatically increase the population density where it matters, even if the system was extended to actual size.

The best argument I have heard against this is simply that the Artificial Intelligence would need to be reprogrammed to use these space lanes and avoid collisions. Seems like the Artificial Intelligence is the limiting factor in a lot of things that people want done. If reprogramming the Artificial Intelligence was not an issue, fixing game balance issues would be easier.

This makes me want to look at the Artificial Intelligence code and see if the project is not yet using OpenSteer or a similar library. My guess is since VegaStrike has had a tendency to avoid refactoring and prefers to maintenance, that it has it's own method.
klauss wrote:[...]Localized coordinate systems don't work for overall physics simulations (you still have to compute the movement of the coordinate systems themselves).
From what I understand some games like MSI's "Star Citizen" use what in they call "Battle Instances" where the game treats normal gameplay as a matchmaking system and when an encounter is detected creates what I think you Klauss are calling a "localized coordinate system".
klauss wrote:So... 1:10 scale gives you enough margin to stay out of that can of worms.
I'm assuming that your saying that it is technically possible to make actual battles stable far out beyond the solar system by making local instance. Seems like your saying it just too much work for not enough payoff, because those orbiting 'coordinate instances' themselves lose precision you say.

This makes me think what does that effect if everyone you meet becomes part of a local instance? Anything other than new objects entering the 'coordinate instance' a little off of where they should be? Or maybe it's when instances combine together or what not to include in the Coordinate instance. To me the logic seems solvable, just seems like a lot of work when it is so easy to avoid.

The more I think about this, it does seem exactly like a huge can of worms to open for an aging game that does not plan to completely refactor and has other more basic needs. It is an extremely interesting thought none the less.

Though I like the idea of full scale systems, if one can't have full scale systems it is hardly worth pretending to have them. I'm sure most players hardly notice the laws of physics being broken by planets orbiting right beside each other without the surfaces cracking like an egg and turning to lava.

Though making all the systems to be any closer than 1:10 instead of fixing SPEC seems pointless, since the distances will still be too huge to travel without SPEC. Space lanes and improved Artificial Intelligence seems like the best solution for those who feel lonely traveling through space, chasing Non Person Characters that fly randomly for no reason. I think the game development just needs to follow more reason. Things that clean up the game play and not so much follow bygone ideals, including some of the ones I have been pushing like gravity.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by jackS »

(I had a longer set of comments, but I took too long to post and got logged out so you all get the short version)

1. I'm pretty certain the 1:10 isn't a precision issue, as I recall the testing for "did the 32->64 bit position fix work?" was dogfighting out near Pluto. In particular, IEEE 754 gives you a 52 bit mantissa and that should be plenty accurate out to >100 AU. If I recall correctly, the system scaling at 1:5 is A) configurable via a single variable and B) mostly not due to fundamental technical issues. I seem to recall some concerns about the really, really big polygons at 1:1 and needing very large textures to sell it, but I think that's mostly an issue of early-mid 2000s GPUs/machines. If you want 1:1 scale distances, the engine can probably handle it.

2. Very real scaling problems existed and likely still exist with respect to 1:1 modeling of relative orbital velocities (e.g. Earth relative to Sun velocity is ~30km/s and, worse, involves acceleration in order to have an elliptical orbit, so matching velocity is insufficient). This exposed issues with using 0,0,0 as a fixed reference point, physics time quanta, and associated problems with satellite path modeling (e.g. Luna, around Earth). Some of these were fixed, mostly the lattermost and others were brushed under the rug via some HUD changes, but I'd be surprised if the key fundamental underlying issues have gone away. (Fun fact - very early VS engines attempted to model star system orbits via gravitational forces -- this always ended in planets being thrown out of the system and the rest being devoured by the sun. Still was fun to watch zoomed out and with time acceleration though.)

3. To reiterate what Klauss said some (months? years?) ago in this thread - separating the mechanics from the concepts is probably a good idea when thinking about SPEC. SPEC is a poisoned brand name at this point. So, mentally replace SPEC with "in-system FTL". From a canon perspective, all that the current canon really needs is some somewhat inconvenient non-jump-network means of FTL between star systems (avoids the need for attacking only through a fixed gate location (attacker nerfed) while not having the "all areas equally accessible" (defenders nerfed) awkwardness of an efficient hyperdrive alternative to jumping, and makes off-network systems reachable, if economically isolated and temporally inconvenient - think islands without airports: fly as near as you can and take a boat). The key aspect of both of these current canon requirements is that they both happen off-screen. The player doesn't do either of these things in game (certainly not in real time, though you could probably get away with handwaving a bit here). For (intended) simplicity, we merged in-system FTL with the secondary outsystem FTL in the canon. This is not a deep merge - it's been changed before, and could easily be changed again. Having 3 (or more) modes of FTL has some other issues to probably deal with, but... eh, perhaps the replacement mechanics for SPEC will also be a viable secondary FTL system. Don't know. What I do advise though is to work out the mechanics from a strictly desired-gameplay perspective first, since we didn't (SPEC was a post-hoc hack replacement for autopilot/time compression since neither were multiplayer compatible) and it bit us because we never really defined what we wanted SPEC to really be, gameplay wise.
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by klauss »

jackS wrote:(I had a longer set of comments, but I took too long to post and got logged out so you all get the short version)

1. I'm pretty certain the 1:10 isn't a precision issue, as I recall the testing for "did the 32->64 bit position fix work?" was dogfighting out near Pluto. In particular, IEEE 754 gives you a 52 bit mantissa and that should be plenty accurate out to >100 AU. If I recall correctly, the system scaling at 1:5 is A) configurable via a single variable and B) mostly not due to fundamental technical issues. I seem to recall some concerns about the really, really big polygons at 1:1 and needing very large textures to sell it, but I think that's mostly an issue of early-mid 2000s GPUs/machines. If you want 1:1 scale distances, the engine can probably handle it.
Well, I did my own testing recently and there were many precision issues, especially when trying to dock with far-away orbiting (moving) stations. If the reason for the scale isn't precision, it still is a limiting factor (even if not the direct culprit of the current scale).
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by ezee »

Hi .

Just in case , i have found an interesting tutorial and blend script ( yeah python ) that
uses bullet physics for reproduce newtonian gravitation :
http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/58230

Realistic Gravity Simulation in video ( with script elaboration and test) :
[youtube]http://youtu.be/8C8VHI0xWoM[/youtube]

Edit : and a nice galaxy tutorial here : ( with physics and particles )
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aVOQw-BIf0[/youtube]

Code: Select all

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

Post by PaulB »

My 2 cents worth on game design.
I'm not a game designer but I do have some programming background.

Anyway, to me what's important is the number of "things" to do in the game to have fun, Maybe:
(1)multiple Story lines (a) moderate (b) some what harder (c) harder
One could be say mining/trade related with modest combat needs
Two could be a more varied story line with more need for combat/defence etc.
Three could be a more complex story line and difficulty
To cater to missile launcersa broad selection of game players

(2) I like the In-system travel and intersystem travel in Privateer
(a) I like some newtonian physics but too much of "relality" can be a time consuming and boring thing for some people. I like the ship control in Privateer but would like to see it expanded some - but not to the extent in Evochron Mercenary.
(b) I like the Asteroid mining and planetary landing and mining in Evochron Mercenary as well as "Containers" you can come across in space (hidden or just there to be found) that you can tractor the contents to use or sell. All that is quite cool.
(c) I like the weapons in Privateer and the ability to modify them if you know how - of course I can see where Mods wold be a problem where the game can be multiplayer - but then the games needs a Weapons Lab type feature like in Evochron Mercenary or some way for the player who makes the money (credits) able to find and outfit his ship beyond just minimal limits. I like my Galaxy with (2) Tachyon cannons and (2) Plasma Guns and (2) 20each IR missile launchers and (2) 20each FoF missile launchers and (1) 20each Proton Torpedos. Where as in Evochron Mercenary the ships (Frames as they call them) are quite limited to weapons and equipment and missiles and game play is generally hours to do much of anything useful.
(3) the Reputation system in Privateer and so more or less Vegastrike seems more or less reasonable but maybe some expansion. Where as in Evochron Mercenary - I don't like it. You can be on good terms with Navy, Energy, Mining factions in one system and a Good Overall rating and Jump to another system that is supposed to be Fair (a few hostiles) and you may be acosted by any and all. The Navy in one system is not necessarily the same Navy in a different system. You have to try to develop and "Local" Rep in each system (the "Hostile" systems presumably virtually impossible). Some of it, regardless of the explanation, just doesn't make since to me. PGG and Vegastrike in that respect seem more consistent.
(4) Auto Pilot from planet/station/etc to planet/station/etc. Intersystem Jump Gates and maybe add like in Evochron some scattered Wormholes to distant and special systems. And some Uncharted things to find and use.
I guess I think the game should be
(1) Fun (2) Challanging (3) lots to do
not
(1) extremely time consuming (2) extremely challanging (3) a big learning curve (4) Fun (5) some things to do

As Ive' posted before - it sounds like the WCU or Privateer++ sounds more towards what I would like to see in a Sim with some of the Evochron Mercenary stuff added in.

Paul
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by jackS »

klauss wrote:
jackS wrote:(I had a longer set of comments, but I took too long to post and got logged out so you all get the short version)

1. I'm pretty certain the 1:10 isn't a precision issue, as I recall the testing for "did the 32->64 bit position fix work?" was dogfighting out near Pluto. In particular, IEEE 754 gives you a 52 bit mantissa and that should be plenty accurate out to >100 AU. If I recall correctly, the system scaling at 1:5 is A) configurable via a single variable and B) mostly not due to fundamental technical issues. I seem to recall some concerns about the really, really big polygons at 1:1 and needing very large textures to sell it, but I think that's mostly an issue of early-mid 2000s GPUs/machines. If you want 1:1 scale distances, the engine can probably handle it.
Well, I did my own testing recently and there were many precision issues, especially when trying to dock with far-away orbiting (moving) stations. If the reason for the scale isn't precision, it still is a limiting factor (even if not the direct culprit of the current scale).
Intriguing. I'm not really surprised that there are issues involving orbiting objects that far out (orbiting in general has historically had quantization issues), but I wouldn't be surprised if those started quite a bit closer to the origin point than issues with non-orbiting objects. Or, to put it in a different perspective - whatever problems we're having out there shouldn't be due to the precision of the positional coordinates themselves. That still leaves plenty of room for other causes :)
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Re: argument to remove need for spec

Post by klauss »

It's true, it does kick in much sooner than Pluto.
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Call me "Menes, lord of Cats"
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