Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: JasmoVT

I think if we ignore realism and simply look at game play there is an issue here. Every other time I have played I have averaged over one potential colony per system. I just started a new game that I have explored 50 systems and only found 4 colony locations and from the ones I have looked at, most have nothing in them (although I have about a dozen bonus research locations).

quote:

ORIGINAL: Fishman

Completely worthless systems seem to be a waste of the game's RAM, which is already experiencing issues. Perhaps the generator should decide "Why is this system even in the game?" before generating it, so that there aren't any purposeless systems that serve to simply waste space on the map and your RAM. After all, you've already pruned a galaxy down to about 700 stars (is 1000 and 1400 even playable to completion without the game dying horribly halfway through?), so clearly you're already aiming to discard the chaff. Most stars don't have anything around them in real life, but we can already tell this with current technology, and would thus not consider them interesting enough to ever visit if we could.

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ORIGINAL: Krelos

When it comes to DW, I think of it as the game omitting the 99% of useless solar systems and only showing the ones that matter.
As a  way to rationalize there being only 1400 stars.

But yeah, if there's only 1/7th of the systems that have habitable planets... that's just not a good thing any way you look at it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Krelos

quote:

ORIGINAL: Fishman

Completely worthless systems seem to be a waste of the game's RAM, which is already experiencing issues. Perhaps the generator should decide "Why is this system even in the game?" before generating it, so that there aren't any purposeless systems that serve to simply waste space on the map and your RAM. After all, you've already pruned a galaxy down to about 700 stars (is 1000 and 1400 even playable to completion without the game dying horribly halfway through?), so clearly you're already aiming to discard the chaff. Most stars don't have anything around them in real life, but we can already tell this with current technology, and would thus not consider them interesting enough to ever visit if we could.

Precisely, if a system has no usable planets it shouldn't even exist in-game. There's a reason there are different galaxy sizes available. Having the majority of systems useless makes the 1400 size 700 in practice, at best, but still uses the memory of the 1400.

And yes, it is. My system can handle a 1400 galaxy with minimal problems.

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ORIGINAL: Krelos

And yes, it is. My system can handle a 1400 galaxy with minimal problems.

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ORIGINAL: Fishman

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ORIGINAL: Krelos

And yes, it is. My system can handle a 1400 galaxy with minimal problems.

You playing the 1.04? And how far? In 1.03, the game will eventually choke and die as it hits the 1 GB-ish RAM cap, even though even win32 lets you use 2. Did this get fixed in 1.04?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alex Gilbert

I think there are 2 related issues here:

1. Systems totally devoid of planets/asteroids- I personally like them--it makes efficient exploration important since you may have to hit several stars to find one that you want, but if they can be removed to streamline performance, I think that outweighs the "I like it" argument.  However, I wonder if these stars are there for possible future expansions-- note that clicking on the stars gives a whole bunch of information about energy output that currently is of no importance in the game-- perhaps this is being worked into future expansions where a high energy star provides some value even in the absence of planets....

2. Systems without immediately colonizable planets-- I would argue more strongly to keep these.  I like the expansion dynamic of a first wave of expansion to just a single type of planet leaving "holes" in the territory.  It puts a premium on incorporating independent colonies to gain their ability to colonize other types of planets.  I know I have burned 5-6 colony ships trying to get some independent desert world (with a hostile population) to join the empire because once I have them, I crank out colony ships from there than can colonize all the desert worlds I could not get to before this.  It also increases intermixing of the empires as they settle in the "holes" in my territory.  Frustrating? A bit, but it also guides my strategy over who to ally with and who to kick out of "my" space.

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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

In the long run, we are planning to put some of this on a slider and also provide 64-bit support to allow huge and densely colonized galaxies.

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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

For now, what we did was decrease density a bit at the largest levels, not much on the smaller galaxies, to make sure that folks would not hit the limit on 32-bit systems.

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ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

But it still raises the question of: what would be a good balance and range of variation in proportion of systems that are colonizable?

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ORIGINAL: Mus

quote:

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

But it still raises the question of: what would be a good balance and range of variation in proportion of systems that are colonizable?

IMO only very colonizable systems with good resources should be represented in game, the millions/billions of other systems should be abstracted.

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ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

No the exploration part of the game should not be predictable.Master Of Orion and all other 4X games agree with my view.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

In the long run, we are planning to put some of this on a slider and also provide 64-bit support to allow huge and densely colonized galaxies. For now, what we did was decrease density a bit at the largest levels, not much on the smaller galaxies, to make sure that folks would not hit the limit on 32-bit systems.