Galaxy Generator explained

Abvex

Newcomer

20 900g2g pts

12 years ago

Dec 8, 2012, 11:01:41 PM

I wished the Devs of Endless space incorporated the works on "alternative galaxy generator" to the game itself. That and new galaxy shapes.

davea

Newcomer

davea

Newcomer

12 years ago

Dec 5, 2012, 9:12:12 PM

Please see the thread on the (dead) mod, alternative galaxy generator. There was a huge improvement, but it is no longer maintained. The thread contains a lot of interesting details.

Chrome

Newcomer

Chrome

Newcomer

300g2g pts

12 years ago

Dec 5, 2012, 6:26:58 PM

4 hours, no result. 256 may have been somewhat too ambitious i guess.

Dillonu

Newcomer

Dillonu

Newcomer

12 years ago

Dec 5, 2012, 3:56:35 PM

Chrome wrote:
Just a small question... How efficient is the generation process? I read that a 160 star galaxy can take up to 15 minutes on a relatively fast system, why does it take so long?

Currently trying to generate a 256 star galaxy, my core i5 2500k @ 4ghz has been at it for around 45 minutes now. I'm thinking that based on other accounts it should take around 60-90 minutes for it to finish...

The generation process takes a long time due to a process in the Warp Builder section of the generator according to Dagobert (the author of the 'alternativ Galaxy Generator thread').

The Warp Builder is the one in charge of creating the paths between star systems. After a bit of debugging myself, the part that takes the longest is when the Builder attempts to lower the average number of warps per star system.

To be more specific, it is when it tries to compute a list of "non-critical" warps. These warps are candidates for removal to lower the average connections. This process takes long because it must simulate removing the connection, and then see if each star system has a path to every other star system. However, this list only gives candidates for a single removal, so the list must be recalculated after each warp removal. This is done remove a glitch where you could have a galaxy where a group of stars could be disconnected from the rest if you remove a second candidate without recalculating.

This process could take several seconds, to minutes or hours depending on the size of the galaxy. It's exponential based on the number of star systems.

Chrome

Newcomer

Chrome

Newcomer

300g2g pts

12 years ago

Dec 5, 2012, 3:22:52 PM

Just a small question... How efficient is the generation process? I read that a 160 star galaxy can take up to 15 minutes on a relatively fast system, why does it take so long?

Currently trying to generate a 256 star galaxy, my core i5 2500k @ 4ghz has been at it for around 45 minutes now. I'm thinking that based on other accounts it should take around 60-90 minutes for it to finish...

Ravine

Newcomer

Ravine

Newcomer

200g2g pts

12 years ago

Aug 24, 2012, 8:40:15 AM

Yeah no git. I personnally really like git, but since we're using SVN here, we're sticking with our weapon of choice

. Feel free to fork it on your own repo though.

Dagobert

Newcomer

Dagobert

Newcomer

4 000g2g pts

12 years ago

Aug 24, 2012, 7:24:31 AM

just use subversion

what i don´t like of the license is 3.2.a but it´s your choice.

but since i have the old source i can bypass that license^^

But i can´t realy see a change in the interface.

Calavoow

Newcomer

Calavoow

Newcomer

12 years ago

Aug 23, 2012, 8:26:43 PM

Awh, not a git repo? Hmm how am I going to merge changes...

Anyway, thanks for the heads up.

Oh and you should update the first post to reflect this change too

davea

Newcomer

davea

Newcomer

12 years ago

Aug 23, 2012, 4:57:19 PM

BTW, the demo "king of the hill" is equally broken. Can you add that to the workspace? It may also reduce confusion to delete the obsolete, non-working archives from the OP of this thread and that thread.

Milaha

Newcomer

Milaha

Newcomer

12 years ago

Jul 27, 2012, 4:01:29 AM

davea wrote:
Not sure this is a modding question, it is a game design suggestion. If you created a random galaxy, you cannot see the seed. There is a seed field in the advanced options tab; but it is a write-only field. That is, you can write a seed value there and the game will use it.

Just wanted to correct this. You can find it by opening the save game and searching for "Seed". It will be the first hit you get. There is also a "GalaxyGenerationSeed" but that is not the value you want.

thashepherd

Newcomer

thashepherd

Newcomer

12 years ago

Aug 23, 2012, 3:23:06 PM

This is just the galaxy generator code, correct?

This is a major step. You guys rock!

davea

Newcomer

davea

Newcomer

12 years ago

Aug 23, 2012, 2:19:12 PM

Great! Thanks.

Ravine

Newcomer

Ravine

Newcomer

200g2g pts

12 years ago

Aug 23, 2012, 1:25:00 PM

Oh hai !

Remember when i said that we were considering open source, setting up a repository, and stuff ? Good news everyone ! It's done. The code has been licensed under Mozilla Public License 2.0, and the repository is on Assembla

I cleaned the source, put xmldocs on top of every field, getter, methods, to comply with StyleCop, a tool which gives strict rules for coding styles. The StyleCop configuration has been uploaded too if you want to continue that way. Also, every field, methods, and so on, is written in C# style. This will probably help you read the source easily.

You're encouraged to grab the source, put it on your own repository, and modify it like you did in the early days of modding. But now that we have a public repository for this, we'll provide directly every changes to the community. So, hopefully, no more surprise, no more "Darn it ! They changed everything again !".

You can find the Assembla workspace here https://www.assembla.com/code/amplitude-galaxygenerator/subversion/nodes

or just jump to the "GIEV THE SOURCE !" part directly, via https://subversion.assembla.com/svn/amplitude-galaxygenerator/

Lightart

Newcomer

Lightart

Newcomer

12 years ago

Aug 18, 2012, 5:33:13 PM

ohh what a pity.

Ok i will write him a message, thanks for your help

davea

Newcomer

davea

Newcomer

12 years ago

Aug 18, 2012, 12:31:14 AM

Unfortunately pimp my galaxy is nonfunctional with the current release, because the directory structure is completely changed. I don't believe there is any way to make it work. If we could break into the installer and get out the files, at least we could try to update it on our own. But without the original author, I think that mod is dead. Please do PM the author and see if you get any response.

Lightart

Newcomer

Lightart

Newcomer

12 years ago

Aug 17, 2012, 11:39:04 PM

i was tryin to install xiskios pimpmygalaxy mod, but i need a galaxySetting.xml file to launche the installation.

i thought i would get that file due to unzipping the galaxygenerator data.zip, because so far my asset ordner in the endless space installion is empty.

davea

Newcomer

davea

Newcomer

12 years ago

Aug 17, 2012, 6:23:08 PM

@ lightart, you don't need the zipfile to install mods. What are you trying to do, which seems to require that? When downloading, I assume you are having a login problem with the forum, is that correct? If so, then please logout/login to the forum; or try a different browser (IE vs firefox) or as a last resort, clear your browser cookies.

Lightart

Newcomer

Lightart

Newcomer

12 years ago

Aug 17, 2012, 6:15:00 PM

I am not able to download the GalaxyGenerator Data.Zip .. is there another way to get the GalaxySetting.xml?

Cant install any mods without that file.

davea

Newcomer

davea

Newcomer

12 years ago

Jul 4, 2012, 4:19:56 PM

This is great. I don't speak C# unfortunately, but several players have complained of unbalanced start positions:

/#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/11207-discussion-biggest-current-multiplayer-design-problem-galaxy-generation

/#/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/9059-evaluation-equalization-of-start-positions

Now I can point them here and say, "You don't like it, there is the source code. Fix it.". But nicely, of course

JLA

Newcomer

JLA

Newcomer

12 years ago

Jul 7, 2012, 3:29:07 PM

Hello everyone,

I am honoured to have been given the opportunity to contribute to the making of Endless Space. I will be here irregularly, but I can answer questions you might have about the galaxy generator, its code and the thinking behind it.

First of all, twiddling with the xml files mentioned by AmpliMath will modify the generator's behaviour, sometimes radically. Be advised that this is modding and changing the xml files without thinking will likely result in undesirable operation of the generator, not excluding crashing...

Modding the xml files (mostly GalaxySettings.xml) will allow modifying :

- galaxy sizes and number of stars

- probabilities of planet types and sizes

- home system custom settings (like star type and planet type overrides)

- connectivity values (warps and wormholes average quantities)

- and more...

This is before getting into the code itself.

Happy playing !

JL

PS : @ZeroSen -> il n'est pas anormal de finir une partie même sur une galaxie "large" ou "huge" en une journée non-stop. Les parties ne sont pas conçues pour durer des mois... Cela reste un jeu