Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Veers

*shakes head*
That's so wrong on so many levels....


and yet still funny....

quote:

ORIGINAL: Veers

*shakes head*
That's so wrong on so many levels....


and yet still funny....

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

quote:

ORIGINAL: Veers

*shakes head*
That's so wrong on so many levels....


and yet still funny....

Don't fret.

Those automated internet scanners at the FBI have probably already picked his post out. Lizard could already be regretting his post.

To repeat history in a game is to be predictable.
If you wish to learn more about EA, feel free to pop over to the EA forums Europe Aflame Forums.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MarGol
I was merely thinking of an alternative to plane maps to be implemented in the game engine itself. By having a spheroid grid mapping the earth's surface, map projection will not be an issue. The hard bit is setting up the hex relations (which hexes are considered adjacent to a particular hex). This is non-trivial, but is done on a regular basis when generating grids e.g. for fluid-dynamical computations (I believe triangular grids are often used, which could be useful here since hex centres form a grid of equilateral triangles).

For example, if we arbitrarily choose the North Pole to be hex (0,0), it would be surrounded by hexes (0,1) through (5,1), and so on going southwards. Down at the equator, hex (0,100) would be adjacent to (399,100) or so @ 100 km/hex. Finally, the South Pole would be hex (0,200) or something, surrounded by (0,199) through (5,199). Scrolling around in your map window would be like Google Earth, but since you have such a small patch of the map visible, the curvature would not be a big issue (at the normal zoom level for game play, my [admittedly low] screen resolution usually lets me see 20 hexes width at a time, which would be 2000 km @ 100 km/hex). Hence, the map window could probably look and feel as usual (however, I guess the minimap would be something else!).

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

I think it's far more complicated than what you've indicated. The number of hexes per latitude row would have to be specifically correct to get a sphere. Otherwise, you could end up with, for example, two cones butted together instead - or any other variation on a top. I'm not sure that hexagonals fit together on a sphere at any hex count, much less an arbitrary one. I also don't think the hexes would be displayed in the nice neat rows and columns we have hard-coded in now. They would have more and more curvature to them the closer to the poles one got - ending in a circle right at the pole. Plus, the hexagonals used now aren't regular - they have extra width.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
For what? What topic requires the entire world including the poles?

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay


For what? What topic requires the entire world including the poles?

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ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
Buckyballs and Fullerenes.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick

http://www.neubert.net/BUCKmins.html

Buckyballs and Fullerenes.

Honycombs looks like a good start. I suspect that if we ignore the area right around the pole, that might be good enough.

I think it limits it to specific radii, though. It probably makes more sense to just have different number of hexes in each row, but that would make rotating difficult, I'm not sure how you could rotate without somehow adding an extra row of offsets somehow, maybe in the oceans. <scratches head> It might look strange though on the seam. It's a 2D projection which makes things much more difficult.

I think that a cylnder may end up having to be good enough if it ever comes to that. I'm not sure who would play such a monster, though.

Ralph

quote:

All of World War Two at squad level! Is it going to work to have 50 meter hexes and 250,000 fifteen minute turns?

...we'll need more unit slots, too.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
http://www.neubert.net/BUCKmins.html

Buckyballs and Fullerenes.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
It probably makes more sense to just have different number of hexes in each row, but that would make rotating difficult, I'm not sure how you could rotate without somehow adding an extra row of offsets somehow, maybe in the oceans. <scratches head> It might look strange though on the seam. It's a 2D projection which makes things much more difficult.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MarGol
(Sorry for not letting go of this - I sort of got hooked on the problem as such )

quote:

ORIGINAL: MarGol

quote:

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
http://www.neubert.net/BUCKmins.html

Buckyballs and Fullerenes.

If I understood it correctly, the buckyball and other fullerene structures all have the problem that a few pentagons are mixed in with the hexagons. The last item (from Deutscher Wetterdienst) was amazing, though: a grid covering the earth @ 60 km, consisting of 163830 hexagons and 12 pentagons!

quote:

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
It probably makes more sense to just have different number of hexes in each row, but that would make rotating difficult, I'm not sure how you could rotate without somehow adding an extra row of offsets somehow, maybe in the oceans. <scratches head> It might look strange though on the seam. It's a 2D projection which makes things much more difficult.

If one can construct a grid consisting of (slightly distorted) hexagons (as opposed to the prefect hexagons + a few pentagons), I guess we are almost there. Maps (and screens) are flat, but the grid specifies a curved surface in 3D. It does not need to have hexes in neat rows at all - I suppose that, as far as the game engine is concerned, the grid is just a specification of which are the six neighbours of a given hex.

quote:



The 2D projection does not need to show any distortions of the grid: starting from a hex in the center of view, draw it as a perfect hexagon; draw its neighbours as prefect hexagons; and so on until you have covered the whole view. Provided that this view is small compared to the earth, map distortions due to drawing "hexes" as perfect hexagons will be mild. (Zooming out, they will be not-so-mild!)

quote:


In the end, it all boils down to whether it is at all possible to cover a sphere with such a grid (each point having exactly six neighbours). I asked a couple of guys at work doing grid generation for "number crunching" applications, but off the top of their heads, they could not give a straight answer - "Interesting problem" and "might work provided that the number of grid points is large enough" was all I got .

(Sorry for not letting go of this - I sort of got hooked on the problem as such )

quote:

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
I think if I can find the time, I'm going to have to try it out and see if it works.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MarGol
The 2D projection does not need to show any distortions of the grid: starting from a hex in the center of view, draw it as a perfect hexagon; draw its neighbours as prefect hexagons; and so on until you have covered the whole view. Provided that this view is small compared to the earth, map distortions due to drawing "hexes" as perfect hexagons will be mild. (Zooming out, they will be not-so-mild!)

quote:

ORIGINAL: MarGol
The last item (from Deutscher Wetterdienst) was amazing, though: a grid covering the earth @ 60 km, consisting of 163830 hexagons and 12 pentagons!

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

One option would be to dispense with hexes altogether and switch to rectangles in a brick pattern. Then, the flat projection could show greater and greater length to the rectangles the closer to the poles one got. There might be unintended consequences to that that I can't envision now, though.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
The other option would be to dispense with basing the flat projection on the above cylindrical transformation and go with a planar projection over whatever was the center hex. But, in that case, as I've said before, the hexes aren't in neat rows and columns like now - they will have all sorts of patterns. It will be incredibly complex.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
Either way, a complete revision of how the map is displayed, including vast graphical work, would be required.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: MarGol
The last item (from Deutscher Wetterdienst) was amazing, though: a grid covering the earth @ 60 km, consisting of 163830 hexagons and 12 pentagons!

Of assorted sizes.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MarGol

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: MarGol
The last item (from Deutscher Wetterdienst) was amazing, though: a grid covering the earth @ 60 km, consisting of 163830 hexagons and 12 pentagons!

Of assorted sizes.

Surprisingly, the hexes are all of the same size, see this link.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
I can't find anything on that link. I was relying on Ralph's original link which had this comment:

"... The coordinate system is based on the icosaeder, which is subdivided into triangles, which are of nearly equal size and therefore ..."

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
I also doubt the thing has them arranged in latitute rows either.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MarGol

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
I can't find anything on that link. I was relying on Ralph's original link which had this comment:

"... The coordinate system is based on the icosaeder, which is subdivided into triangles, which are of nearly equal size and therefore ..."

Sorry, I should have been more specific. See, e.g., this table. The models only come in specific resolutions (apparently, the weather model uses #9). I got the impression that the hexes all are true hexagons (all sides equal length).

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
I also doubt the thing has them arranged in latitute rows either.

There definitely does not seem to be any nice latitude rows in these models. For instance, look at the foldable models. And then there are the twelve pentagon anomalies to take into account...

quote:

ORIGINAL: rhinobones

Would like to see the occupation of a “Zone” (entry into a “Zone”) equivalent to the existing occupation event trigger where “Force A - Occupies X,Y - Radius Z” triggers event ABC. The new event would be where “Force A - Occupies Zone X - Radius 0” triggers event ABC”. Think this would be very good for defining boundaries and national boarders. Of course we would need a few extra Zones to make it really effective.

The current method of using a radius to define the trigger has excellent applications, but sometimes an irregular trigger is required.

Regards, RhinoBones

quote:

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

We definitely want to include definable zones in TOAW IV. There are a host of uses, beyond simply being efficient, for zone-based events.

quote:

ORIGINAL: rhinobones

The proposal is all about efficiency.

Of course the same effect can be made using the existing event structure. Each individual hex in a 2000 Kilometer front can have its very own event trigger. Not a problem if the designer feels like key padding all those entries. The purpose of this proposal is to make the event design and entry process more efficient.

Say you stray into a small country with only 50 hexes of national boundary. My proposal would make a trigger using one event plus any flow down events. In the existing system (that you indicate as being adequate) how many of the 50 boarder hexes require occupation events (plus flow down) for the same trigger event effect?

quote:

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

We definitely want to include definable zones in TOAW IV. There are a host of uses, beyond simply being efficient, for zone-based events.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Legun

quote:

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

We definitely want to include definable zones in TOAW IV. There are a host of uses, beyond simply being efficient, for zone-based events.

I really like the idea. Correct me, if I'm wrong:
A designer can define a number of zones. Each of them can be used to get some defined effects:
- be excluded zone,
- trigger an event if occupied or attacked,
- one of hexes of the zone can be selected at random as enter hex of reinforcements, etc.

My suggestion - there is an option "show the zone in the info bar" - in the case a designer can rename the zone f.e. "Belgium".