Realism/Logistics for GCIII

As I understand, tiles on GalCiv maps represent time, not distance; the idea being hyperdrive is magnitudes more effective when farther away from gravity sources.

It's a game, not a model. The point is to be fun, not accurate.

It used to represent one parse and still should.

I also don't like this idea as it would dramatically slow down the game to a point of not being fun. IMHO

DARCA.

Yup, especially since whatever Hyperdrive is, we have no idea how it works, or any energy efficiency thereof. So there's no "realism" to model.

I'm perfectly fine with the current systems for speed.

For DISTANCE, however, I'm definitely in favor of having the various lifesupport modules provide a fixed distance (hexes) away from the nearest supply post (starbase/planet).   And that distance SHOULD NOT SCALE with the size of the map, nor should you get any inherent range bonus FOR EXISTING SHIPS simply by researching new Life Support tech. If you want more range, re-equip the ships with new LS modules.

Thus, for those of us who want to play on huge maps, we should have to send out long-range constructors to make starbases, and should have to equip ships with lots of LS modules.

In the current game and GC2, only in the begining do I ever have to equip my ships with more than one LS module. After about 100 turns, I *never* need to do that, and, in fact, the large majority of my ships never need ANY LS module.  That's wrong, and I definitely think we should be paying more attention to range and LS in ship designs.

Parsecs are a unit of distance (3.26 light years to be exact), so yes, the tiles on the map represent distance and not time. Habitable planets are generally not located 6.5 light years or more from their host stars.

I recall that the hyperdrive is supposed to warp space, but to a lesser extent than the Warp Drive or HyperWarp. Therefore, the same constraints that apply to warping space in real life should apply to warping space in GCIII. We cannot make a game totally divorced from reality.

Regarding life support: it might do us well to have a "soft life support" range within which ships can gain speed bonuses from starbase modules (maximum, about 5 parsecs in all directions from a starbase, 10 parsecs from an inhabited, friendly star system) and a "hard life support" range which represents the absolute maximum distance that a ship can travel. And again, remember the concern I am discussing about these distances has nothing to do with life support ability per se, but with the ability to create large-enough warp bubbles to travel at any speed.

Someone will likely make a mod to do this, so how about we don't handicap the players that would not like this insanity? Sorry, but I like not having to build a starbase every 15 spaces just to get from one system to another.

while i don't have access to the relevant quotes atm. I believe it has been stated several times that yes you travel more slowly when close to large masses (sun's/planet's) that's why planets are spaced so far it takes approximately the same amount of time to move 1 tile in a solar system as it does to move 1 tile outside of a solar system even though the two tiles are not technically the same size

so in game they are treated as the same distance for simplicity of mechanics while lore wise they are not the same

thus since they don't represent distance it is more appropriate to measure them in time

edit

i found one quote that hints at speeds relating to (suns/planets)

this is from a galciv 2 tech description impulse drive

and i also found this and thought it was humorous although not related

from the tech new propulsion

one light year is equal to just under 10 trillion kilometres (or about 6 trillion miles)

making a trip seem to take 600,000 times longer doesn't sound like a good idea to me

i would definitely be downloading such a mod

Here you are:

"The unit of measurement used to describe space travel is the adjusted parsec or just “parsec”.  The term parsec we know in the 20^th century is called a “true parsec”.  But a true parsec has no concept of how folded space operates. 

A true parsec is 3.26 light years. An adjusted parsec varies from 1.9 x 10^6  (million) miles to 1.9 x 10^14 miles depending on how much mass is in the area.

Simply put, a GalCiv ship that moves 1 move per turn is moving 1pc (adjusted parsec) per turn.  Going from Earth to Jupiter might take 2 moves.  Going from Earth to Sirius 8 moves or 8pc. Sirus is 0.8 true parsecs away in the real universe."

I've already made similar changes in my mod for GalCiv 2. No idea, if I'm going to make another one for GalCiv 3.

The issue with your description of folded space is that it assumes space to be pre-folded. At least for Alcubierre drives, this is not the case: a warp bubble surrounds the spacecraft, and then adds space behind the spacecraft and removes it behind in order to move the craft at faster-than-light speed. The actual distance between stars does not change at all at any time. There is no such thing as an "adjusted parsec".

This is the lore in the game Galactic Civilizations. If we are going down this rabbit hole you might as well say there is no such thing as a Drengin or Altarian. The term "adjusted parsec" arises in Galactic Civilization because they discovered a new way to fold space and travel (unknown to us at the moment). In fact, part of the problem with this new way of folding space actually prevents this technology from working at a great distance (hence the artificial border on the galaxy maps). While your description of warp drive can be used to travel anywhere in the unknown universe. The hyper drive technology in Galactic Civilization actually prevents one from travelling the entire universe due to technical limitations.

So, the scientists in Galactic Civilizations invented the term adjusted parsec, since no one tile is actually the same size and any other tile in the universe. They are derived and adjusted to represent how long it would take to travel that particular distance (hence the comment of the first person suggesting it was a time derivative not a distance) The map is warped together and space travel in this universe is actually not a constant speed and consistently speeds up and slows down depending on the surroundings. Hence, the reason why the stars all look closer than they actually physically are in this game grid.

A similar thing to do would be to draw a map of the US representing distance via travel time, utilizing the best travel. For example, to travel to New York from LA would take roughly 4 hours by plane. But to travel from Downtown Los Angeles to Riverside would be roughly 2 hours (by best transportation). Hence the map would make Newyork appear to be only twice the distance from LA to Riverside. This is the map that you are seeing in Galactic Civilizations, This becomes impossible to show unless you limit your view to the important items. Hence why we only show a few planets in our own solar system as opposed to all the planets that exist there.

I'm not saying it is the best scenario nor would I like to see some realism, but to change this would be to actually change Galactic Civilizations core mechanics. So this would only be seen in a mod.

It doesn't matter if space is pre-folded or not, the map displays the relative locations of objects as seen by a ship which is folding space. It's kind of like a subway map - it shows you where the stops are relative to the other stops; this one additionally scales it so that you have an idea of the time between the stops.

According to the linked quote, there is in GCII. That there isn't an 'adjusted parsec' in reality really doesn't matter, as the 'adjusted parsec' was created to explain how the hyperdrive of GCII - which, I might add, is itself a fictitious device which does not necessarily have any real relationship to the theoretical Alcubierre drive - works, as far as travel time goes (and therefore why the maps of GCII work the way that they do). A map displaying absolute distances would only have the stars on it, and with the way that hyperdrives in GCII/III appear to work, there would not be a clear relationship between the absolute distances between stars and the travel time between them.

Nor does the actual distance between stars in GCII/III change at any time (I would additionally dispute that the actual distance between stars is fixed in the real world, but it's not important for the discussion of the in-game representation). The map in GCII/III represents the distance covered by one move action. It doesn't matter whether this is one real-world parsec or one so-called 'adjusted parsec'. What matters is whether or not the map scale is appropriate given the manner in which the drive operates (if we're looking at it from an in-universe perspective) or that the map scale works for the game (if we're looking at it from the 'do the game mechanics work' perspective). Reality need not come into play here.

There is nevertheless a real-world analogy which can be drawn - that of maps which are scaled by travel time rather than absolute distance. Let's say, for example, that we have three cities A, B, and C, and that A is 30 miles from B and 50 miles from C, and that B is 40 miles from C. Let's further assume that there's a mountain between cities A and B, and that therefore the route A-B takes 2 hours to traverse, while the route A-C takes 1 hour to traverse and the route B-C takes 40 minutes to traverse (first letter is the point of origin, the second letter is the destination, and you can assume that reversing the travel direction does not impact the travel time). On an absolute distance map, you'd see that A is physically closer to C than it is to B, yet this is not valuable in terms of planning travel routes because the shortest-distance route takes the most time of the two given routes from A to B. If you were to redraw the map based on travel time, then you'd see that A is closer (in terms of travel time) to C than it is to B, and that the travel time A-C-B is actually less than the travel time A-B. This map and the absolute distance map are both valid ways of displaying the relative locations of A, B, and C; however, the travel time map is more useful when planning routes than the absolute distance map despite being a nonlinear representation of the absolute distances between the various locations. The GCII/III maps are analogous to the travel-time map, not the absolute distance map.

You're going overboard. I'm saying that the current situation, where a ship can effectively transit the entire map (or, 80%+ of a very large map) with only a SINGLE LS MODULE installed removes a very significant tactical aspect of the game.

How about something like a Basic LS module provides 15 spaces of range, and subsequent techs provide +5 distance for each module.  So, if you've got to go 100 spaces away from a planet/starbase, you'd have to install 7 of the Basic LS modules on your ship (or maybe 4 of an Advanced module).  That would reduce it's carrying capacity for weapons and other modules, JUST LIKE IT SHOULD - if you're traveling long distances, you should have to take up more space for LS. That's neither insane, or an unreasonable "handicap".

The point is to require people to take distance more into account, and force them to put more LS modules on ships that plan to travel those extra-long distances.  It makes invasions more challenging, in that I'm going to have to show up with either ships which have had to sacrifice weapons/defenses for range, or a super-long-range constructor to make a starbase, then defend the heck out of that starbase while invading.

The current case is that Range/LS is really only ever thought about during the very first portion of the "colonization rush" phase, then (for all practical purposes) ignored thereafter.

If you want, there might be a checkbox that says "ignore range" during game creation, to get pretty much what the game does now.

Do any of the Founders know of a way to mod multi-maps into GCIII or even GCII? I believe that many people would like it as a mod (the starbase part could be done easily with data modding).

Another idea would be that the influence range of starbases and planets would only extend a few parsecs away from the starbase itself. One cannot have a significant influence over deep space, and the game should reflect that reality. Rather, influence should be spread by trade, both passively and with an ability of players to subsidize trade routes to specifically spread the cultural influence of the chartering player.

This part I do agree with. If range is going to be a factor in the game then it should be an important one, and generally I do agree that range in Gal Civ II wasn't a major factor.

If they don't want to go that route than I say drop range all together, no need for it if its not going to be a significant part of the gameplay.

My issue with logistics from two is the AI would and could stack several fleets in the same tile.  It got annoying and spammy.

The downside is you might Civ V-style AI movement issues if you do this.

Logistics is something I'd like to see impact maintenance costs for ships- kinda like how forcelimits work in the EU series.  This would hopefully make fleets more fluid.  Garrison ships/planetary defenses would need to be exempt- maybe allow ships to be moved to planetary defense, where they wouldn't count for maintenance or limits, but because static (only defending a planet).  Would fulfill a militia role similar to Elemental games.

Range was occasionally a factor in II, but it was more due to bad luck.  I do think constructors shouldn't provide range without modules so it takes more of an investment to expand range- it was too low-cost before.

I see where Wer900 is coming from. As a mod for Gal Civ 3 I think his suggestion would be really fun!

As for the standard game I think sticking to the current lore makes the most sense.

One thing I do kind of like about his idea is the whole multi-map feature. I think there's something to be said about that which could really add a whole level of smooth functionality while also expanding the game.

For instance, on the current map we see massive objects of appropriate scale. Stars, planets. However we all know that the full version of Gal Civ 3 (not counting expansion packs) is going to include even more massive objects like black holes.

So why not make a different layer of the map that shows significant objects on a different scale? Planets, asteroid belts, and other similar things.

Of course it probably won't happen, but that's certainly a thought that has potential.

Most people are just going to spam constructors to get around it. Or use the upgrade glitch, if it's repeated in GC3.

I think we're just looking at two very different game philosophies. You want to use range to slow the entire game down, but the GC2 range system was designed to slow only the colony phase down. Range was very much an issue in GC2, but only in the early phases. That was intentional.

I look at it this way: my mid-to-end game ships can often go 20+ spaces per turn; why should they be limited to a one or two turn range? Life support should be based on how long your ship has to be out. Your ships might take 20 turns to cover the distance mine can in 5 - yours would *need* life support to stay out that long, mine would not.

There is no way to do it in GalCiv 2. Same for GalCiv 3, as far as I can see. Maybe someone else can find a way.

As I mentioned in my last post, I implemented similar, but much more radical, changes in my GalCiv 2 mod. The only slow-down I've noticed is during the colony-rush, because I've removed the Basic Life Support module. Once you research your first LS module, things are, more or less, back to normal. Granted, the LS modules in my mod are weaker (and slightly bigger) than the ones in the vanilla game (the Ultimate LS module, for example, increases range by 10 tiles, instead of 14), but that only means, that you have to install one or two more of them.

So, if my changes don't slow down the game outside of the beginning, then I really can't see how trims2u's could. Especially considering that his Basic LS module has a bigger range-increase than my Ultimate one.

Unless my math is badly off, he's removed the base life support from the basic hull entirely (or set it to 9 or lower). That's the only way a ship needing to go 100 spaces would require 7 modules giving 15 space range each. That means *everything* is going to need life support; every ship is going to be less capable or need to be bigger than it would otherwise need to be. In GC2 terms, that means we wouldn't be able to use the classic tiny hull colony or constructor ships until deep into the miniaturization techs, rather than just the two we need now, or use small hulls to fit the life support module in. Either way the ship is more expensive and slower to build than it otherwise needs to be.

Removing the Basic Life Support module doesn't set the range of ships to zero. Ship hulls have a base-range, which is hardcoded (at least in GalCiv 2). He probably didn't take that into account when he made the calculation.

I don't see what's so bad about that. If you want to increase the range of your ship, you need to add more LS modules. Makes only sense to me, that you have to make some sacrifices when designing your ships.

Except its bad for new players, mainly because there are attributes associated to it, techs associated to it, and special events that give you bonuses to it.

Most of those are effectively "wasted" after the early phase of the game.

That's why I'm still in favor of just removing range entirely, or simply make it a tech that gives your ships +X% range...maybe in that 2nd era of the new tech tree. But no reason to make it a core attribute imo

I'm not convinced he made an error in calculation.

I don't see what's so *good* about it, either. It's not a huge game changing decision, it's just one more way noobs and the AI will be able to screw up their ships - either forgetting it or adding way too much and handicapping their ships (in comparison to ships with less range).

That's why I see it as more mod-fodder than a viable base game design. Maps are supposed to be MUCH bigger this time around, so making it more difficult to get from one side to the other seems counterproductive.

Range is great because it regulates the game flow and how far you go to war.

without it some realism goes away and Si-Fi's beloved life support. It would make a poor game IMHO.

I thought range was fine in galciv2 very fine actually, as I am playing in a modd with techs that give bigger bonuses and it still feels pretty balanced. In galciv3 it feels harder to go just a bit further on small maps with two life support techs fully specialized. Maybe its because we can't design our ships, but hey its a alpha.

DARCA  

Well, we'll see, once he replies.

How about making it so, that this game-mechanic actually has a purpose after the early game? As you said yourself, range was only an issue during the early phase of GalCiv 2. What's the point of having it then, if it is entirely useless for most of the game?

Based on my experience with my mod, here are a few things this change can lead to:

If range is more limited you have to make compromises with your ship-designs, instead of simply going for the one with the highest speed, the highest defence, and just enough damage to destroy the enemy, while relying on your Range-ability to provide your ships with the necessary life support.

The colony-rush takes longer, giving all races more time to build up their empires and fleets. Starbases are very important during that phase, because they are necessary to increase your range. They still retain some of that necessity in the mid- and late-game, but not quite to the same extent.

How is this not already the case with GalCiv 2?

  I seem to recall it was easy in the last GalCiv to change the range parameter yourself.  In the XML files.  I did do that, and had an enjoyable game where bases/planets were needed to extend my range..

However, I see no reason to inflict my idea of fun on others....let them be free to change the parameters themselves.