Asteroid Clusters

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Hawbs
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2014 2:36 pm

Asteroid Clusters

Post by Hawbs »

I haven't thought it out completely yet. Just popped into my head as a "That would be cool if.." idea. Suggestions welcome!

Asteroid Cluster
A special sector that gives anybody who enters it the ability to stealth.
Takes more turns to enter.
Only a small amount of forces can be deployed in these sectors.

Maybe a whole bunch of them exist at the beginning of the game?
They can be cleared by attacking them?
Spawn randomly at a slow rate throughout the game?
Perhaps scans work differently?
Freon22
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Re: Asteroid Clusters

Post by Freon22 »

I was waiting to see if some others like maybe someone from Admin to welcome you to the SMR web board. But I guess I will be the first to say Welcome Hawbs I see this is your first post and you are the newest member.

I was thinking how a Asteroid Cluster sector would work. I believe you mean for someone to be able to hide in the sector. I think it would help hunters and traders alike. If you are in a sector with a large amount of asteroid I would think you would get hit every so offend. So it should not take more turns to enter this sector but it should cost you damage. Like maybe 50 damage because you are bound to hit one or two entering the sector. Then it should cost you maybe 5 damage for each hour because asteroid do not stand still they move around so you are going to be hit every so offend why you sit in the sector.

Just bouncing some ideas.
Hawbs
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2014 2:36 pm

Re: Asteroid Clusters

Post by Hawbs »

Thanks! :D

The goal is to offer traders new ways to escape and hunters more gank tactics. I imagined it kind of acting like a bush in League of Legends (for any of you that play).

I like the damage idea. Maybe you can have the option of "hurrying" and taking a small amount of damage. The alternative would be to take more turns and navigate the asteroids.
seldum
Beta Tester
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Re: Asteroid Clusters

Post by seldum »

I didnt notice it was his first post, but thought the idea had some legs so I approved it. Was waiting for him to gather his thoughts on it a bit more before discussing it further
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Astax
SMR Coder
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Joined: Thu Aug 15, 2002 9:55 pm

Re: Asteroid Clusters

Post by Astax »

Possible you can cloak and can only be seen by players with XP > you, just like cloaking.

As far as it costing different amount of turns to traverse it is possible but it would be a lot of coding. I thought about doing something similar for various terrain but you have to modify the part of the engine that calculates distances. And I haven't looked into it, but I assume it uses some sort of A* algorithm with Manhattan distance heuristic, or maybe a different one since not all sectors are connected. Regardless it is much more involved change than you imagine. I'm not saying it wouldn't be good for the game, probably would be fine, but it would be a lot of work :)
Page
SMR Coder
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Joined: Sat Dec 07, 2002 9:17 pm

Re: Asteroid Clusters

Post by Page »

I can't remember precisely what algorithm the pathfinder uses any more, however it is one of the ones derived from Dijkstra's, and I believe it's one derived from A* as well (ie A* but with some extra optimisations). Changing it to be aware of variable cost sector connections wouldn't actually be all that hard (since it already has some awareness due to the cost difference between normal connections and warp connections - albeit it's not generic atm), so I could actually do that fairly easily, I think the harder part would actually changing the uni gen to make it viable for a map maker to actually design variable cost sector maps.
Lord_Luc
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Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2014 8:36 pm

Re: Asteroid Clusters

Post by Lord_Luc »

What if the asteroid clusters were space debris that got deposited on the map after a number of ships have died in a sector and then made that sector cost more turns to enter/leave. A result of war ruining space and making more careful navigation required.

Maybe just one additional turn per every 5 ships destroyed that increase Space Debris or some similar scaling system.
jouldax
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Re: Asteroid Clusters

Post by jouldax »

I love the idea of "event squares" or sectors that have different properties that might change the battle outcome, for example, but all of that requires a massive amount of coding. Interesting thought on the space debris idea tho...
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