I will now put my 2 cents in on this subject.

1. Making the universe in the ordered, or serial, manner you have stated. With out any one way warps, bubbles, tunnels, etc.. Would be a major rewrite of the BigBang code. And that is just to add in the option to create such a type of universe. Yet to still have one way warps, bubbles, tunnels, etc.. Would increase the rewrite of bigbang to such a point. That it would not be worth it. It would be best that you ask someone to create a utility program to rebang the universe to what you want.

2. Using your examples, with no one way warps or other space objects. If you were to create a universe in a 100 by 100 sector grid. You are looking at having 10,000 sectors in the universe. If you were to go in a straight line from sector 1 to sector 100. It would only cost you 100 turns in a 1 turn per warp ship. And going from sector 100 to 10,000 would only cost you 100 turns. But, it you were able to go in a straight line from sector 1 to 10,000. It will cost you 100 turns. But, there is no way to go in a straight line diagonally. In a universe that only allows 6 warp leading out of a sector. (In order to do this, the universe would have to allow a sector to have 8 warps out. And that atleast the 4 corner warps have to linked.) As such you have to travel twice the distance to get from sector 1 to sector 100. There is no way around this. Even if you reduce the layout to a 50 by 50 sectors. You are still looking at 2,500 sectors in the universe.

3. Once you add in the one way warps, sectors with mass figs in them, sectors currently under control of other players/aliens, black holes, etc.. This would effectively, on average, double the number of sectors you have to go through to get from point A to point B. Which of course doubles the amount of turns needed to get from point A to point B.

4. Yes, using Wormholes would help in cutting down on the amount of travel time and amount of turns used. But, first you have to find them. Then you need to control it, and keep that control. Otherwise you are going to be wasting turns like nothing. Second it would be a pain in the Butt to create the code to produce the wormhole effect. Even with using a 50/50 for oneway warps.

5. If you were to add in layers. Of somenumber by somenumber sector grids, for your universe You are still looking a large amount of turns used. 2 layers of 50 by 50 sector grids, is 5000 sectors. And it is still has the same limitations as a single layer 50 by 50 universe. But, it had the additional factor of going from layer 1 to layer 2. Again, if you go from sector 1 in layer 1. To sector 1 of layer 2. It will only cost you 2 turns. You can not go from sector 1 of layer 1. To sector 50 of layer 2 in a straight line. As this would require to go in a straight diagonal. And it would require that the universe allowed 16 warps out of a sector. 8 of them would be for all the corner warps. To and from sectors on the same layer and between layers. And those 8 warps would have to be linked. Again you are still looking at the exact same number with regards to warps taken, and turns used. With or without one way warps, bubbles, tunnels, etc..

6. Even if you waped the outer sectors warps to the sectors at the opposite in. You would still have a large amount of turns used.

7. The way I see the current way of universe creation. Is this:

A. The universe is setup as a network of warp points, or wormholes. The warp points were created by either an ancient Alien race. (That has long ago disapeared, or died out.) Or buy some unlucky fool in a space ship. Travelling at sub-light speeds. That place such warp points at any interesting areas of space. This way they can find their way back to it. Or to help navigate back to home. If a human created the warp points. Then it would be human nature for the captain of the ship to place warp points were it would of interest, or best value, to him/her. If it was some ancient alien race that created the warp points. Who knows why they did it the way they did. And who'd care, since all anyone has to do. Is to find them and use them.

B. Each warp point, or wormhole, leads to someplace in the universe. Many times it is to another part of a nebula, or section of space very close to you. Other times it does not. Some times it may even take you to the other end of the universe.

8. It is human nature to only remember information that is very inportant to them. And to rely on technology to handle the rest of the information, that they may need in the future. Such as maps, paper and pencil, computers, etc..

9. If you are so confused on how the universe is. (Based on the current universe creation scheme.) Then use a freakin' helper. As most of the helpers out there. Will help you to store all of the information you need, or would ever want. And you can retrieve this information with minimum of fuss. Plus a few of the helpers. Can actually give you a graphical view of the universe. This is usually a small section of the universe. But, it is still a visualization of the universe. Yes.... Most, if not all, of the helpers do allow, or help, you to use scripts/macros to play the game. But, it is up to the individual player wether they wish to use any scripts/macros. And if so, how much of their game play is based on scripts/macros. You will find some of the elite players. Will use automatic scrips, also known as bots. And that these scripts are used for 90% of the game play.

I have been working on creating a Java Application. That will create a universe that is different from that of the BigBang. And so far I have a universe scheme that is similar to your request. But, it is broken down like this:

The universe is made up of sections, or galaxies. Each section, or galaxy, is made of of 99 sectors each. And each section, or galaxy, has 4 tunnles leading in and out of it. Complete nebula sectors are place within a single section, or galaxy. With 1 nebula per section, or galaxy. This has taken me quite a long time. To get it to work the way I want it to. But, it can only save the information to a text file. For entry into the game through tedit. As I have not worked out how to get it to telnet directly to TWGS. To enter the information through tedit it's self.

With my current universe scheme. It uses a 20K sector universe. And it creates 204 galaxies. Arranged in 1 of 2 unique grids. One is 15 by 21, and the other is 15 by 14. With this scheme, it takes over 40 thousand turns. To get from sector 1 in galaxy 1. To sector 20,000 in galaxy 204. With both galaxies, and sectors, diagonal to each other. And that is without creating a single oneway warp.

An no, this app is not complete yet. And I will not release it. No until I can work out the telnet portion. I do have plans to add other universe creation schems. But, those will come much later. If anyone has suggestions on how I can implement the telnet portion. Please email me. If you have suggestions on possible universe schems. Email me and I will look them over. There is no guarantee that I'll implement your idea. But, I'll will look at it.

If you have a suggestion on a telent library for java. Then send them to me. But, at the moment I don't have the funds for a commercial telnet library. Or if MH can email me with the file specs. I might be able to have it edit the files directly.

wow wabbit. your 2 cents is alot larger then one would think 2 cents would be[:P]Some of your replies ill have to reread a few dozen times and sort out what your saying because the first time i read it i thought my head would explode[xx(]. But i shall try and get back to you.

(doesnt help that ive been on the phone for hours talking with dsl tech support sorting out some modem issues)

To reply to your first point
quote:1. Making the universe in the ordered, or serial, manner you have stated. With out any one way warps, bubbles, tunnels, etc.. Would be a major rewrite of the BigBang code. And that is just to add in the option to create such a type of universe. Yet to still have one way warps, bubbles, tunnels, etc.. Would increase the rewrite of bigbang to such a point. That it would not be worth it. It would be best that you ask someone to create a utility program to rebang the universe to what you want.


Creating a rule that says sectors could only connect if within plus or minus 99,100,101 or 1 of each other shouldn't cause any issues with one way warp. Might cause issue with bubble and tunnel creation but thats not such a big deal. especially if space object creation could be possible.

quote:
In a universe that only allows 6 warp leading out of a sector. (In order to do this, the universe would have to allow a sector to have 8 warps out.


*scratches head* my plan does allow for 8 warps out of a sector. 24 if you account for height. +1 -1 +99 -99 +100 -100 +101 -101
then all those for the layer above and again for the layer below plus up and down. Which is 26 possible warps out of every sector thats not next to the edge of the map. One could create clear lans of travel by figuring it out mathematically which sectors would need to be connected. put that in a file and when it bangs those sectors would already be connected in the right way.

With said clear lanes a 100 by 100 map(10,000 sectors of course) could always be traveled from on corner of the map to another in 100 turns or less assuming your on a travel lane not using a worm hole. Even with height taken into account assuming you have a 100 by 100 by 100 universe (1 million sectors!) you could still travel from the very far corner of one sector of the cube shaped universe to the other in 100 turns or less.

Anyways with the kind of game I'm thinking of you shouldn't need to to be going back and fourth from one side of the universe to another much. You should be able to make a profit in your little corner of the universe. Stumbling upon a wormhole would be a extra bonus that would allow for much profit making.

Especially if random planets/ports cluster together.

Anyways nothing says the worm holes couldn't be semi common.

[|)] Well what do you know.. I was able to deal with some of it. But thats it for now. Much Appreciate the well thought out feedback wrabbit[:)]

P.S. I see I've misunderstood you a couple places. My brains still numb. So please forgive me for this rambling post. Ill work on a better one latter.

Since when is 2 cents in this country worth all of that Wabbit, for 2 cents all I can buy is a ?
Sounds like you have one hell of a universe creation tool goin on there Wabbit, sounds like that type of universe would be great for unlimited turn games, where the untalented play because they cant handle turn limits. Would be nice to check it out when its done. Wish I knew more about Java and Telnet so I could help you out with it. Let everyone know when you get it done or if you get a game set up with it even if you dont release a copy of it. Would be interresting to play.

Ah shorty. I wish i had gotten such a reply for my idea[:P]
Guess you like wrabbits idea of a universe bang alot better then mine [:(]

Dont take it personal Mo, you have some interresting ideas its just that most would call them not very feasable. Altho had Wabbit told me he was writing something to do what he is doing I would have told him the same thing at the time. Goes to prove if you want it bad enough you will find a way to do it.

It did throw out some ideas of wormholes which I think would be cool. As for the earlier post about different rules with different games that shouldnt apply if the games were set up to be played togeather in that manner, they should all be the same just linked by 1 or 2 wormholes from game to game. For instance game A would have 1 or 2 wormholes to B, C, D games. Game B would have the same to A, C, D games, etc. Then you could in theory actually have a 80k sector universe with 4 stardocks, 8 class 0 ports, maybe a different group of aliens controlling each game or a couple per game. That would also defeat, for the most part, the ZTM and would force people to actually explore manually. I think its a cool concept but weather or not it is possible is a whole other story. Prolly take some major rewrites for that as well but hey, we can dream.

I am interrested in the ports only with planets part of the post, seems to me it would make for a pretty difficult game for anyone to dominate or overpower another player. A person would have to build up using their own planet and ports in order to be able to afford to take on another. The problem I see is what happens if someone gets taken over and are not able to create another planet and the ports in the game are controlled by someone else. That effectively leaves that player to sit at SD and watch everyone else play because they have no way of gaining resources to be able to take their planet and ports back. I might try and artificially set one up similar to that on my server and play with it a little and see what happens. I guess if you had them randomly generated in a game in that configuration and not necessarily done just for the player when they enter, like the new player planets option then you would just have to put enough of them out there so everyone at least has a chance to get one. It would make deciding the victor pretty easy tho.

Keep thinking Mo, fresh ideas are what is needed to enable further development.

quote:Originally posted by Molean

Anyways with the kind of game I'm thinking of you shouldn't need to to be going back and fourth from one side of the universe to another much. You should be able to make a profit in your little corner of the universe. Stumbling upon a wormhole would be a extra bonus that would allow for much profit making.


Just going to respond to this part. While you may not need to move around a lot to make profit, there is a lot more involved in a game than just making money. You need to move about in the universe in order to find other people and kill them. You can't win a game with any sort of competition by just hiding in a corner and cashing.

Right. My point is there wouldnt be need to be going back and forth from one end to another over and over. So exploring finding and coming back to elimate enemies will take more turns. This is a good thing [^]

I think a great idea would be to make the "systems" (the sectors with the names) into bubbles that were pretty big.. so maybe 1000 sectors in a 20k game would be the "crab nebula" or something like that.. So you can really get a feel of which sectors are close to what.. so you would no if your still in the same system, or passed into another one.. Then the stardock would logically be in the convergence of all the large systems.
CopperLeaf

I'm not about to read that huge post, but I do have my own 2 cents to add...

I have written a few TWX scripts to "re-order" a universe, and I believe Jerry from Coastgames has done something similar.

I'm happy to send the scripts to whoever wants them. I have 3 so far.

One creates a square, based on whatever dimensions you feed it. If you specify a dimension of 100, you get 100x100 = 10,000 sectors. The maximum dimension is 141.

Another creates a cube, with a maximum dimension of 27x27x27 = 19,683 sectors.

The last one creates a 1,000 sector spiral arm galaxy.

If you want less scripts then don't use scripts and do it the old fashioned way pen paper and alot of typing....Some of the scripts yes are too much in my opinion so i don't use them but now a days you have to use some scripts because everyone else does...And about this world thing being like it is now makes for more exploration if you went out in this universe looking around you would have no clue where the hell you were going what makes tw any different....I think the way it is is more realistic then it would be the other way that you explained but that is just my opinion.
STRIDER

The spiral arm would be interesting at best, A uniform universe doesn't seem as fun but I do think the sectors should be named, instead of unexplored space just my penny...

Molean and others - This may be the kind of game you'd be interested in playing...

My Paradise game has ended, Congrats to corp 1, Doctor Who, the reverend, Big12ozhog, and Didaskalos for winning the first game.

Rebang will be this Friday night, 10pm eastern, and will feature a 10k sector 100x100 square map.

Cherokee
The Lost Traders Tavern
http://tavern.homeip.net

I do like the idea of ordering it a little more, however I don't think this way would be helpful to gameplay. The Universe would have a rectangular structure, sort of like a long red carpet rolling out to sector 10k or 20k or whatever. I like to picture the amorphus blob universes that are generated randomly as roughly spherical in shape.

I just thought of something, is there a centerpoint to these universes, the ones in the game now? Like one sector from which the average length of a path to every other sector is the shortest?

Bah humbug. This is for something different. CK is trying to make the game interesting for those that are losing interest. I see you are just entering back into tradewars so the standard universe will still hold that appeal to you, but its nice to see something different tried out once in awhile.
I give CK two thumbs up for his efforts to instill some variety into the game.

Thanks Grave, that's exactly what I'm trying to do.

Robes, the 100x100 map is not like a long red carpet. It's like a big checkerboard.

Universes generated by TWGS bigbangs are certainly not spherical. THey are... ohh what's that mathematical term for a shape that cannot exist in nature... someone help me out here...

Oh well, I can't remember it. Basically, the only explanation for bigbang universes is that warps between sectors are of varying distances. As far as a centerpoint, bigbang universes don't have one, but the Stardock sector is probably the most central spot you will find. in the 100x100 square, sector 5050 or thereabouts would be the center.

One of my goals with this 100x100 square was to make a large universe in which it would be impossible to move a ship from one extreme to the other. I like to think of the universe as a vast expanse of territory, and this type of structure really makes it seem that way. If there is enough interest this time, the next one might be 125x125, resulting in a maximum distance of 250 hops. Beyond that, TWGS can't calculate paths, so it's probably not feasible.

Sometime soon, I'll also be running a 1,000 sector universe with the spiral arm configuration I've described elsewhere. This would likely be a 250 turn game, possibly even with a time limit.