Fully Connected Maps

would you like tea and crumpets with that, my liege?

Oh? Could you please? That would be so nice.

Here you go.

This is the only way to make a fully connected map right now.

It's a bit of a pain to make all connections, but with a small script it goes easily.

Thanks Van! I'll give it a test, and see what i can do with it.

Thanks Vandenburg, as I didn't want to go through all the work of connecting every plant!

yeah, that would require a ! higher ammount of effort for every planet (factorial, not a surprising ammount, although it becomes a surprising ammount rather quickly)

(p-1)! lines, where p is the number of stellar objects, ick. lots o' work.

I just played and looked over the map. I truly appreciate the effort you put in to this Van. Doing something like this on a larger scale (like a multi star map) could get tedious really quick.

The reason i wanted to try this was to test, and see how well the AI played on it. There were no pirate raids at all. The AI went straight for my capitol, but was easily repelled. I let the AI build up, and keep on attacking. It was the 1st time i saw the AI split its fleets up, and attack more than 1 world at once. I can now see the "whack-a-mole" the dev's were talking about. This would be a very annoying multiplayer map.

But, that is exactly what the devs PRAISED in the start! Multiple battles happening, multiple fleets flying around, no time to oversee all the battles so you need to choose which ones to lead pesonally, the need for planetary defences building!!!

Suddenly it became known as "whack-a-mole" as some want to be present at all the battles and are unable to accept the fact it is impossible to have that in real life. This is for turn-based games! Now Sins has been degraded for those people!

You get this now.  

What the "whack-a-mole" did was destroy the game and make it not fun.  The folks who want this just don't understand why the open system fails miserably. You can't conquer another world because as soon as your fleet leaves, your world is attacked and destroyed. You can't ever build up enough defenses because in order to get enough money/resources, you have to colonize other planets.  Eventually the AI obliterates you because as a pitiful human who can't calculate billions of operations per second, you're overwhelmed by a massive enemy fleet every time. It's masochistic and not fun.

I played around with that map, and managed to make something of it. I call it "Whack a Mole". It is the exact same map that van posted, but i relocated, and changed some of the planets. I also added a pir8 base I intentionally made the jump distances very long so you can somewhat prepare for the mayhem to come If someone is willing to host this ill send it. I still dont reccomend this for Multiplayer. Its just a for fun map.

In the one game i tested. The Medium AI did pretty much as i predicted, and went straight for my capitol. The pir8's attacked right about at the same time, but their base is off to a distance so it took them a while to reach me. After the AI's initial attack it will split up its forces, and attack multiple worlds. Watch your bounty. There are no choke points here to save you I took over 1/2 of a "spiral", and let the AI keep attacking. Planetary defenses, and garrison fleets are a must have for this map. You can see the pirates coming from a mile away (this is intentional). They will hit you pretty steadily, but you will have time to prepare for them.

Heres a screen of the layout (not that the layout matters) Credit to Vandenburg for original map

Yes, THIS is what seems RIGHT for a space strategy game. The need for static defenses and (a need for) a fleet of ships AT EVERY PLANET. And a possibility to send reinforcements (for both sides) so some battles could go on throughout the game! I may be exaggerating here, but LONG battles with no need for constant supervision... Yummy.

No choke points gives no excuses for the lack of defenses behind the lines, since there are no lines. But the longer the jump (the deeper the incursion) the longer time the defender has to prepare.

Anyway, I know I can't be the deciding factor here, fun is the most important. It's a game anyway. I can just tell that the frustration is just as important factor as fun in strategy games. Some of the best strategy games I played were the ones I was able to loose. Unintentionally.

Ah, but being able to lose and being unable to do anything *but* are two different matters.