Hey @JayKyburz
I know you’re not spending much time on NP but I was thinking a warp world would be pretty amazing…
Every X ticks every star is SHUFFLED, your stars can be scattered anywhere, A whole map rearrangement. Half of your stars could all of a sudden be on the other side of the galaxy… your undefended capitol could become surrounded by enemy forces…
This would be crazy and it would be sooo much fun.
One obvious issue, ships in transit. There are a few solutions…
- they could be scattered to hit some random star
- they could hop back to their source star
- they could warp to the star they’re headed to, resolving any possible conflict, and appear post warp wherever the star lands.
Not sure how had it would be to build in the randomizer, but that, with a set time… or even a random clock! could be crazy fun.
thoughts?
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Yes and No. I quite like idea of stars moving around gradually… but it would have to be gradually to my mind. What’s the point of having them sporadically jump about the to other side of the galaxy? NP is a game of strategy - that goes completely out of the window if you can’t even plan where to send ship next. It would be frustrating and in the end more luck than anything else.
In reality stars drift apart as the Universe expands… that would be a bit dull as it would just mean you have to keep increasing range. If they were all moving around in different directions, very slowly, that would be interesting. I think having black holes or other gravitation forces at work could be the answer, although I imagine it would be a nightmare to code.
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I think we’ll have to agree to disagree @Myk
I don’t see point in gradual movement. What’s the fun in that? Maybe a spiral into a black hole… where they get faster and faster and closer and closer as they move to the center… but we both agree that requires lots of additional effort no one will place.
What I’m asking for would be SOOO much easier to actually do. A game that has an element of random shuffle. If people don’t like a mix of random luck in a game they don’t have to play with the setting… much like some people don’t like turn based or dark universe games.
The random shuffle is the point. Rather than remove strategy it ADDS a whole new strategy to a game that has already established a pretty straightforward path. No longer can you build out from the center, create automated ship movements that feed the outer edges and then push from the boundaries… Every star matters if that star might end up on the other side of the galaxy in 2 ticks.
Without knowing the details of how the current system is built, it seems like the main required components would be an arrangement shuffle… much like the current galaxy generation process, autofilled with the current star conditions rather than randomly generating them. Beyond that pushing forward all “pending” ship movement to it’s conclusion as the first step in all reshuffles (Which would also create a new level of strategy as people try to figure the best ways to use the knowledge that movement will be warped… saving hours of travel) - then deciding if this is shuffle is random or set to a certain tick count.
I know we could get at least one large game going with these conditions.
Er, do you mean how things move faster depending on how close they are to the middle?
We take 1 year to orbit Sol, Pluto takes 247.94 years, Mercury takes just 88 days. The same applies to satellites orbiting Earth. And to Sol’s orbit of the galactic centre (with some differences).
I’ve always thought this would be cool to have. Moving everything randomly is also interesting. IMHO, time permitting, it should be a new game setting. Star Movement: [Static, Orbitals, Swapping]
What’s the fun in that?
Because of the difference in orbital speeds your neighbours now may not be neighbours in a few cycles. You need to make long term plans based on future events. They are predictable but hard to take into account and make planning more complex.
My comment was more in reference to Myk’s reference to black hole, being visualized as a large spiral galaxy, the entire game space being in motion around the central nexus.
Though individual rotation between and around each other could also be interesting as things slowly spun around the galaxy over the course of the game.
The larger point being that changes on that scale could be great, but would require more energy to execute than a quick but fun random warping. Which could be executed relatively quickly and be a fun variant.
A better suggestion to this would be a pattern. In addition, I prefer a centralized start with ample preparation time. Only after early expansion(within the first few cycles), then the stars would start floating apart.
Lets say that map was divided into an outer and inner orbit(perhaps more?). A player would own a cluster of stars either on the outside or inside. Thus, there will be more players on the outside. The stars in the inner orbit would be move left, while those in the outer orbit will move right. Lets make the increments small. Lets say every 12 ticks, the stars will move 1 hour of range relative to its direction. But who says each orbit has to move the same amount. Cool Right?
Then make the map more dynamic. A string of non-moving stars should stay in-between the orbits. There should be few stars to for more stable frog hopping. These stars will determine when the player wants to expand outside their ring.
How does this make things interesting?
First, you have your regular competitors to the left or right of you. The ones of the right will attack slower, but the ones of the left will attack faster. Scary. However! It is only by an incredibly small amount. Then you have the opponents on the outside ring. They may expand grow to enormous sizes. You may think it won’t matter, but what about 12 cycles later?
Think about this. It may be the best idea so far.
I have been thinking about this as an interesting variant for a while and the star movement would be fairly easy to implement. The tricky part is moving carriers. Do we allow you to launch a carrier when a star is in range, even if the star will go out of range during the jump? Does the arrier curve through space “chasing the star”.
Or does does the carrier need to predict where the star will be at a time where they can intersect.
I would need to steal that feature from Subtifuge where you can scrub ahead in time to see how this will all interact in future.
I just checked out Subtifuge. It is indeed a very interesting game. In addition, the fact that it only takes 1 week to finish seems pleasing. At the moment, I despise turn-base games or stagnating 8 player games. They simply take too long for my taste. It is ironic, but I prefer 64 player games. There are more action involved and diplomacy doesn’t end in just 3 stages.
Next, I believe NP could use a “chasing the star” variable. In fact, if NP2 had that kind of feature, it would revolutionary. Perhaps the idea of fuel could come into play and add another depth of strategy to the game. However, many players hate my ideas. They believe it adds too much complexity, which I think is shortsighted. One of the reasons why is that diplomacy plays too large a variable on every scale. Something else is needed to balance out the disparity between diplomacy and skill. This is extremely true when a two players of different skill levels face off. It often ends up in a stalemate and the only thing that could be done is with diplomacy.
I think you assume that the navigation software on the carriers can do simple mathematics and calculate the trajectory of a moving body and when listing the range to a star simply use the range it will be if the ship left during the current tick. Heck, us puny humans can already do those calculations! The carrier then makes a beeline for the estimated position, rather than curving through space.
I think the ship shouldn’t be able to jump to a star that will be out of range by the time it arrives, they would have run out of fuel and can calculate that.
This of course all assumes predictable star movement, such as in a rotating galaxy.
I would vote for the realistic options of of predicting movement and planned intersection point.
If you want to make the most of the feature you could have multiple settings.
Static - Stars are stationary as currently.
Galactic Orbit - Stars orbit the galactic centre using semi-realistic physics. That is, further out stars move slower. Orbits can be circular or elliptical.
Random Orbits - Stars move in elliptical orbits but centred on a random point in space. This allows future calculation and strategic planning while still being very chaotic.
This opens the possibility of having multiple orbiting galaxies, that is orbital points which themselves orbit the centre. Could be fun.
Physically switch planets. The carriers are still moving to the same location, just their arrival is different.