Ship ranges, enemy strengths and a crash - beta 1z

from Stardock Forums
1z is much nicer well done guys.

However ship ranges are not at all right (sorry Guys).

I think we all agree ship ranges are a 'gamey' feature that we all agreed needed to be introduced to improve early-mid game. As its gamey there must be a 'justification'. Fuel supply or computer nav-range limitations(!) would do.
At the moment the colony ship is allowed to reach its destination (if you get there in short hops) but wont take the planet when it gets there - I don't know yet what happens with warships. I really don't lie this, if its out of range how can it get there? It is certainly not right that it is allowed to sit off an 'out of range target' but not take it.

In a freeware game I played this was handled by making ships have to plot a start and end point. Range would be handled by considering the ship to move in a series of hyperspace jumps that needed a 'jump-on, jump-off hard object for ships the computer to plot a course between the two points - rather like the theoretical concept of hyperspace travel using event horisons of dark holes.
In the case of the game i played before, you could reach destination 'Z' from start point 'A' which was out of range in one leap if you 'hopped' between solid bodies on the way - such as planets and space stations.

In GalCiv you could use asteroids, debris other ships gas clouds anomalies etc which would not detract from the freedom of exploration and would add another little nuance to moving about the map.

Secondly I am playing my first 1z game as usual on 'comfortable' and have been attacked by the Altarians. Quite early on - no big deal I thought - except they have balltleships and I have just developed the technology (gulp) ok no problem - THEN they attacked my planet - they have war tech advantages up at 28 to my 6 to 8 - how the hell did they get there this quick? They were definately no where near 28 at this stage in games i have played with earlier betas at the same difficulty level

Thirdly I am getting long delays whilst the ship array is updating-since the ranges thing was added perhaps(?) it is confusing as there is no indication the calculations are still ongoing - you see a ship on-screen, with movement points and you click at it to no avail only to see the screen update latter.

My mini map got messed up and i lost the yellow locator triange yesterday for a while - anyone had that?

Finally i had a complete crash to desktop this am.

Steevo

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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
bump - sorry
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
bump bump - sorry

p.s. i wont do this ever again i am really wanting people to chat with me on the ranges issue - this worries me a great deal

s
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Nasty bug travel through a worm hole and get stuck. I can travel to systems with trade routes if the trade route dies because of war all my ships would be stuck
stranded in a Aliea sector.


I hate ranges all together and when GC goes gold if I can turn off ranges I will. I can not see how they can be justfied fuel does not work, in space fuel is used only to accelerate or slow down. Even with our technology we can send probes like Voyager to the stars.
Voyager will travel forever.
Sensors I can find planets with my survey ship so we know where they are.

Maybe it can be reasoned that ships like colony ships and tranport ships must stop for food and supplies. Because they care a large population they have to stop more often.

Survey ships and scouts have only small crews and do not have to stop as often for food and R&R
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Citizen,

problem is ranges are so fundimental (in or out) all the gameplay will be balanced for it so if u turn it off the game will be unbalanced. I tend to agree with much that you say, but ranges can work - but only with major 'gamey' crutches added to 'bounce' ships around

The point of ranges was to slow down the early/mid game rush so that people can develop more interesting games. Is this working?

perhaps simply slowing ships down would do it? - it always feels strange to me that they can move from planet A to planet B so quick - wheres the sense of the 'vastness of space'? or teh sense of exploration - where's the excitment of "land Ho!" (in other words theres another planet up ahead - I wonder whats there...?)

Yes that may be what i thought felt not quite right - the killer feature? - why do i feel like i am pushing corks arond on a small pond rather than starships through billions of miles of space.....

yes I have had a glass of wine or two...
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
The old verision of GC I think they called it Galatic Civilization Gold or II had ranges which could be turned off.

You see with game play I like to whimp out, if I want a chalenge I go to work so I tend to back my first couple games a easy a possible.

As you stated above the first betas was a free for all to grab planets. I see nothing wrong with that I just think that Aliens started with too great of an advantage. They had a better home world, and as the still do seem to get better technology than us poor Humans. Now if they just leveled the playing field then I mad dash to grab planets everybody would have the same advantage. Instead everybody is handycapped to level the playing field. The only problem is when you meet you first Alien civilization they still have better ships etc...
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
"At the moment the colony ship is allowed to reach its destination (if you get there in short hops) but wont take the planet when it gets there - I don't know yet what happens with warships. I really don't like this, if its out of range how can it get there? It is certainly not right that it is allowed to sit off an 'out of range target' but not take it."

Were you zoomed in at all when you lost your cursor? (Ie, do I have to look at code other than the zooming code?)

Umm...I don't know how this could have happened unless the planet was just outside the range, so it looked like you would be able to get there on the minimap, when you actually couldn't...I'll check into it, though.

Starbases will make ranges a lot better.

Can you tell me what was going on when the game crashed?


Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Ranges on the OS/2 version also got a lot of debate which seemed to be very dipolar, that is, one either loved it or hated it. I wondered immediately when I started my first game on 1z wiere the ranges on/off option was.

Cheers,
Jack
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
I believe ranges are vital but it does need work,i propose the range system that BOTF had where you needed to build outpost's to expand the range your ships can go.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
It's better to just have everyone working on games with the ranges so that we can balance out that part of the game quicker........

But my thinking was always that come 'warp drive' techlology that the limitations would be lifted......but that was my own idea...........
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes you need some common borders to develop early game,i really hate it when you have bits of empire all over the place and it puts me off playing.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Cari

what shall i send- the saved game? let meeno and i will email it. The boys on this forum make a lot of sense. without a doubt.

off to play RRT while the missus is in bed!

s

Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
we have to get away from the 'warmonger' type strategy and put a few hurdles in place for those who tend to lean toward that type of strategy.

Putting some technology advances in place to extend the range and eventually eliminate them would force the warmongers to put their resources to technology and other things instead of just purely putting all their resources to war-based techs and designing their planets as purely war based producing machines. The real goal is forcing a balanced resource distribution(esp. to the computer ai's).

Unless there is a way to force people(and ai's) to distribute their resources, especially technology-wise, to other things the warmonger strategy will be a far better choice than anything.

That is what drives me nuts, I just don't want to play another warmonger game that is 95% battleships and cruisers and big weapons with a few major social projects thrown in. I don't care how it is done but the war strategy needs some major discouragement.

Leave ranges in, fade them out early, even extend them over the course of the game with an advance every so often to extend them....that's fine with me. Just throw enough decent well thought out obstacles that people who decide to go to war better have a HUGE advantage because it is going to cost them plenty, and they better not have to fight more than one empire at once or they are toast!

anyway that is my thoughts on the matter.......
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
well said Tylan

promote that guy.

What about SPEED??? just slow down the ships - think about it!

then perhaps reject it - but think first.
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
Steevo,

I like speed where it is. Think about how much longer it would take getting a game to where anything interesting was happening. Brad wanted a fast starting game and reducing speed would do just the opposite.

Cheers,
Jack
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
Regarding ranges:

You shoudln't be able to go into a sector beyond your rnage. It's sector based.

Range IS adjusted slightly for when you play in larger galaxies (+1 for every 6 sectors in size).

Justification of ranges:
I don't believe fuel is a good justifier. The justification that we're using includes:

1) Food. How much food you can take into space.
2) Psychological - having lots and lots of people in space at once over a long distance can be difficult.
3) Other consumables like water and other things you can run out of (which hopefully you can imagine without me having to spell it out).

That's why range on colony ships and transports is so low compared to other ships. They have millions of people on them whereas other ships can go much further.

Ranges will be able to be increased through the use of star bases and to a lesser extent technologies (which will be very expensive - right now they're relatively cheap for testing).

I personally haven't seen ranges really affect human play as much as it affects the computer players. It seems to give the game a real sense of geography.

But it will require al ot more tweaking.

BTW, the AI is pretty leveled now. If you play on average, they're pretty much on par with you.
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
I like ranges. Currently you get more range too quickly but this is to test it.
Steevo, Titan, go back to other treads about ranges and see why I support ranges.

Brad, just one "bug". I've traded ships and got them out of my range. At first I couldn't move them. Then I autorouted in range and it worked. Don't know the logical solution... :( think about it ;)

Also, what are the techs to increase ranges?
No text added for it.
Why not to include added ranges in the startup bonus screen?
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
Hmm

I ame definately able to move a colony ship a little bit at a time to a planet that is identified as out of range from the planet i built it on if i click on the destination direct
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
I think the core idea for ranges/starbases is teriffic.....it will really make the game revolutionary instead of evolutionary. The battles will be fewer, but bigger and more complex and that is what I am looking for. Just throw in a really cool galaxy clumping option to mess with people's heads and you have yourself a good strategy game!