Why are star maps flat? And other star travel topics. - Endless Space

Why are star maps flat? And other star travel topics.

What a 3d star map

Like 2d star maps

Don't care

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chuckrman

Newcomer

chuckrman

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 25, 2012, 1:00:16 PM

I am torn on this issue. I played MOO3 for a little while and the 3D map made me think differently and took me some time to adjust it in each session. If you have a 3D map you need to be able to rotate the map in order to understand it. While I think it has strategic and replay value, it would also be very time consuming to play (good or bad depending on your desire at the time).My thought would be to add it as a map style. So maybe an expansion that took the existing maps and made them available as 3D options. I could also see this dragging out Multiplayer unless turns are timed or someother restriction to keep the game flowing.

As for trade, I completely don't understand it. I assume its because I always seem to be at war and really never get to use diplomacy to setup trade. The AI's seem too agressive and as soon as we have touching borders I know war is coming soon. So trade to me seems kind of pointless because of it. Granted a human player might be a little different but really this game seems to be all about aggression and little about diplomacy.

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KyleRees

Newcomer

KyleRees

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 25, 2012, 4:26:35 AM

planetcore wrote:
I know that 3d can become a headache and I would probably agree that ES will stay 2d i just think it could feel a lot less flat if the wormholes jumped further than a starlane, and you had a travel range to deal with.

I like 2d better as well, where a 3d map can be disorienting to me. This is a very challenging design decision, in how do you graphically represent a living and changing galaxy?

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rmule

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rmule

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 25, 2012, 5:04:52 AM

Sounds like a feature for Endless Space II.

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Rodomar705

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Rodomar705

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 25, 2012, 6:52:10 AM

I've noticed today a strange thing, that maybe can answer your question.

Y="0" Z="-20.4761">

In every single node, from the descriptor of the galaxy, system or planet, there is a Y variable,all set to 0 obiviously, but if you are not going to use it, why save it?

From my personal point of view, this is a feature that maybe will be implemented in the future, and i don't really think that is only for modding.

Obviously i can see all wrong, but who knows, if not the programmers

Sorry for my bad english,

Rodomar705

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Virus

Old

Virus

Old

13 years ago

May 25, 2012, 11:08:12 AM

Rodomar705 wrote:
I've noticed today a strange thing, that maybe can answer your question.

Y="0" Z="-20.4761">

In every single node, from the descriptor of the galaxy, system or planet, there is a Y variable,all set to 0 obiviously, but if you are not going to use it, why save it?

From my personal point of view, this is a feature that maybe will be implemented in the future, and i don't really think that is only for modding.

Obviously i can see all wrong, but who knows, if not the programmers

Sorry for my bad english,

Rodomar705

Hmm... strange to have variables for 3D and only use 2 of them.

But it could be part of the engine. I think it is part of the Unity 3D engine in wich this game

is developed.

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DonLepe

Enthusiast

DonLepe

Enthusiast

13 years ago

May 25, 2012, 12:19:20 PM

I would prefer 2D map. 3D map would be perhaps a little too complicated and messy to control. Trying to organize your defences in every direction would be a pain

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repbunny

Newcomer

repbunny

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 25, 2012, 12:37:37 PM

I remember looking at eve online. I freaked out about the infinite amount of emptiness. Have you've ever been on a boat? It's horrible.

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Rodomar705

Newcomer

Rodomar705

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 25, 2012, 12:40:38 PM

Virus wrote:
Hmm... strange to have variables for 3D and only use 2 of them.

But it could be part of the engine. I think it is part of the Unity 3D engine in wich this game

is developed.

Yes, you're right, the Unity 3D Engine is 3D only (used it in my spare time, so i know what i'm talking about), but they've can hardcoded the y to be always 0 inside the code, it's kinda nonsense for me (basic programmer

smiley: stickouttongue

) save an additional value, for both speed (XML Parsing) and saving memory (tecnically nothing, but useless anyway), if you are going to don't use it. The only think remained is that they have prepared that part of code for a future use. IMHO, obviously.

We need a programmer that explain that for us

smiley: stickouttongue

Rodomar705

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shandaril

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shandaril

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 25, 2012, 12:53:54 PM

personaly i dont care =X 3d might look nice but it doesnt really add anything in terms of gameplay ... but saying that for some ppl it just looking niice would be an improvement ... then again 2d has its own advantage being of being simple and easy to work with

as long as eaither doesnt ditract from the game or cause unnessasary lagging then really i dun care =3 the game would be good eaither way to me ,,, im just glad they didnt scimp on the back ground image of the map =3 lorez map would have sucked =X

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stevenmc409

Newcomer

stevenmc409

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 25, 2012, 1:30:01 AM

I put don't care since the current system is good but it would be nice if someone could do a 3D map well.

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supersoaker9

Newcomer

supersoaker9

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 25, 2012, 1:42:39 PM

Rodomar705 wrote:
... The only think remained is that they have prepared that part of code for a future use. IMHO, obviously.

We need a programmer that explain that for us ...

You are right on the money.

If you have a game design to be 3D, its always better to not hard code away any potentially useful variables.

In layman's terms, better to have it and not need it then to need it and not have it.

Through my experience with outsourced contracts, there are a good number businesses that don't know what they want for websites and applications. It is hell when the analysis and design have been agreed upon, only to have the client change their minds half-way through implementation. Altering any design elements at this point generally results in much trudging through code, or takes less time to just start from scratch.

So, I tend to code in generic features that are generally used in a specific industry--even if these features are not exposed in the final product.

Endless Space's development process is similar to doing contract work in that end user's are heavily involved in development. This means a generic in-game galaxy map is already well equiped resulting in reworking of just the generator to have non-flat galaxies.

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n18991c

Old

n18991c

Old

13 years ago

May 25, 2012, 3:39:31 PM

I think the 2d map is quite good. In real space stars are of course not quite flatly aligned next to one another but, when looking at real galaxies from afar they do look more or less flat, so bearing in mind that it should be both realistic and playable (I think 3d would confuse many people and cause some headaches across the board), it's probably best to stick to 2d...

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eaTae

Newcomer

eaTae

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 28, 2012, 1:03:07 PM

I prefer a 2D map because I don't want to spend endless amounts of time trying to get a good perspective on the map.. And I don't see a 2D-3D switch happening. While it's true what planetcore said (that pathfinding isn't anymore trouble as the algorithm works on a graph anyway) you will get into trouble with the warp tech since that gives you a fully-connected graph (every node is connected with every other node). You can image how you might have trouble not warping distance representation if you wanted to reduce the dimensionality from 3 to 2.

That would be very confusing. I'd rather the devs work on other issues.

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GC13

Old

I feel like I'm trying way too hard to pick a favorite faction...

GC13

Old

13 years ago

May 28, 2012, 3:30:37 PM

You can just view the 2d version of the map as being an approximation of a "top"-down view of the real 3d map without much fuss; the Milky Way is, what? About 1% as tall as it is wide? Sure makes a big difference on the local scale, true, but considering how few stars our "galaxies" have I think we can overlook the lack of realism. I do believe our heads and/or computers would explode if we tried to have anywhere near as many stars as a real galaxy, by the way.

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Ohma

Newcomer

Ohma

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 28, 2012, 5:32:29 PM

Yeah, I like Ascendancy too but god wrangling the map around was a pain. A fully 3D map would be kind of neat in ES, but I'm not sure that it'd add anything to the game that would be worth the headache of managing it.

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Watcher666

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Watcher666

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 28, 2012, 6:34:21 PM

Star Ruler has 3D Star maps and it can get horribly confusing, I don't like it.

planetcore wrote:
Galaxy dynamics and trade feel like they are missing from the game still to me. Hopefully they add better trade before release. And it would be sweet if major events like black holes, super nova, wondering stars, showed up on the map!

+1

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gmdoc1983

Newcomer

gmdoc1983

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 28, 2012, 9:18:56 PM

I voted 2d map for gameplay, makes it more simplisic and easier to manage, but giving the player the abiliity to possiblly see the map in a 3d way would be nice but not needed. Of course currently at the system level looks like just a star and planets list, not an actualy system, think MOO style would be more prefered at the system level to me.

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EndlessSpaceCraft

Newcomer

EndlessSpaceCraft

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 28, 2012, 9:23:41 PM

Yeah, i agree

Even though i like 3D starMaps

i dont like the Clutter Feeling

2D starMaps are much better to keep Clutters Away

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werewolf_nr

Adamantian

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

werewolf_nr

Adamantian

13 years ago

May 24, 2012, 10:34:03 PM

While depth on the galaxy map would be cool, it wouldn't realistically be that thick. The Milky Way is only 1k LYs thick and 100+k LY across.

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CogDissident

Newcomer

CogDissident

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 24, 2012, 10:07:26 PM

Rotating the map would be nice. But I do like the visual style of an all-flat-map. Sword of the stars did a fully 3d map, and it ended up being as much of a headache to players as it was ever tactically useful. Since Endless Space is trying to tread a middle-ground between accessibility and depth, I think flat-maps are fine.

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