Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale

Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (Full Version)

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jscott991 -> Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/14/2010 1:20:37 AM)
Does it bother anyone else that the game's time scale seems off? For example, it seems to me that to be more "realistic", what is currently a day should be something like a week or even a month. It really makes no sense that a single planet with about 10 billion people (depending on your startup settings) could be a huge intergalactic empire with 1 trillion people within 100 years. If we lengthened the time frame to something like a week, that growth would happen over 700 years, which is a touch more believable (though maybe the month time frame is even more believable). This would have no effect on gameplay, but it would give the game a better sense of scale. GalCiv had this same problem. I remember posting about on Stardock when GalCiv 2 came out and the developers even said they agreed, but it was too low priority to worry about. Maybe I'll have more luck here.

Astorax -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/14/2010 1:32:54 AM)
Good idea, Jscott. I fully endorse this aesthetic enhancement!

EisenHammer -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/14/2010 3:33:50 AM)
Why not... sounds good to me, I'll go with a week. It would make it more realistic.

Dadekster -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/14/2010 3:40:32 AM)
I like that idea as well. This along with some other background information regarding the galaxy that is Distant Worlds would be nice and would help answer many other related questions. I am sure the biggest issue is that there are just two people working on this and they have bigger fish to fry but like I said before, it's wierd that we have content regarding what some species like to do in their spare time but we don't even have a standard name for the currency. [;)]

martok -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/14/2010 5:16:02 AM)
I'm pretty ambivalent. I don't see the need for changing it, but I've no particular objection either. However, I'd be mainly concerned with how it works from a gameplay perspective as compared to the standpoint of "realism". quote: ORIGINAL: jscott991 It really makes no sense that a single planet with about 10 billion people (depending on your startup settings) could be a huge intergalactic empire with 1 trillion people within 100 years. Why not? Your empire's population could reach that mark -- with about 5 years to spare -- with an average growth rate of 5% per year (although granted 5% would be pretty robust). Even with a 3% growth rate (which I believe is roughly Earth's population growth rate these days), you'd still have 192 billion people after 100 years, and you'd reach 1 trillion less than 60 years after that (so 160 years total). So perhaps a "day" in DW should be twice as long? I'm honestly not sure.

Jaimoe_MatrixForum -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/14/2010 5:40:36 AM)
This is something that has bothered me in most space colonization games. Two things tend to bother me a bit, actually. One is the fact that these games all seem to start in the relatively near future. Folks may disagree with me but I don't see humanity starting up an interstellar empire in the next 500 years or so. Plus a new galactic empire might want to start off with it's own calendar, at year one, on the founding day of the empire. The second thing is the time scales most of these games tend to operate under. Just as jscott says, a galactic empire consisting of up to hundreds of planets and trillions of people doesn't just pop up over a period of a few decades, or at least it doesn't seem like one would. Back in the day Civ2 let you modify the length of your turns, from a few decades per turn all the way down to a day, and it also let you choose your starting year. I wish more games since then would have allowed us to do that, but few if any games give you that option. The closest I've seen has been from Space Empires 5, where I was able to reset the starting date to zero but not alter the length of the turns(or was it the other way around? [sm=dizzy.gif]). I haven't played every space game out there though, so there may be some I missed. It seems like it would be something that would be relatively simple to implement, even in a real time game like Distant Worlds.

Keston -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/14/2010 5:47:36 AM)
100x in 100 years is just doubling population about every 15 years. Humans can do that in suitable regions (until they find more interesting things to do than have kids), and in space infant mortality is probably low. Other creatures - sure. Trim it down by half, fine too.

ceyan -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/14/2010 5:58:36 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: jscott991 Does it bother anyone else that the game's time scale seems off? For example, it seems to me that to be more "realistic", what is currently a day should be something like a week or even a month. It really makes no sense that a single planet with about 10 billion people (depending on your startup settings) could be a huge intergalactic empire with 1 trillion people within 100 years. If we lengthened the time frame to something like a week, that growth would happen over 700 years, which is a touch more believable (though maybe the month time frame is even more believable). This would have no effect on gameplay, but it would give the game a better sense of scale. GalCiv had this same problem. I remember posting about on Stardock when GalCiv 2 came out and the developers even said they agreed, but it was too low priority to worry about. Maybe I'll have more luck here. If they just played with the timescale would you be happy with the fact that everything else would be weird and make less sense than a enormous population explosion? A single small fight that lasts weeks? A race able to quickly transverse the universe takes a few weeks to cross from the right side of large planet to the left? Ships that can take more than two-three weeks to make a u-turn? (In retrospect its actually kind of weird in the day scale, but I don't care about the timescale so...) Or if you increase everything in sync, can you handle ships moving so fast you can barely make out the blur? Fights where you're lucky to see a single shot before its over?

Fishman -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/14/2010 7:32:54 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Keston 100x in 100 years is just doubling population about every 15 years. Humans can do that in suitable regions (until they find more interesting things to do than have kids), and in space infant mortality is probably low. Other creatures - sure. Trim it down by half, fine too. Rapidly increasing the population very quickly becomes less than unexpected if you factor in things like cloning and longevity that would be available to SPACE PEOPLE.

Bartje -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/14/2010 10:34:53 AM)
I agree with Fishman but I will say that the game should explain this better. It would make far more sense if you could have some growth enhancing improvements like Cloning & healtcare. Given ofcourse that starting healtcare should be relatively good compared to our systems currently anyway. Explanation & Visibility make immersion!

Canute0 -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/14/2010 10:57:44 AM)
You all are still thinking like normal humans from yesterday/today. But 1. are all races at DW are humans ? no some are insect other reptiles. Do you know how fast reproduce insect at last much more then 3-5%/year. Reptile are much faster then humans too. 2. do you know that humans at the future still reproduce at the same old natural way ? Maybe they got incubations plants ? Parents send in their DNA samples and get their Baby(s) next week. 3. when you change the time scale to fit the human reproduce curve, the time scale for the battles dont fit (ok they dont fit at moment anyway).

Bartje -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/14/2010 1:34:50 PM)
Battles take days & weeks in the DW universe. They do too in real time war although there is more direct action there. This is just indirect action & waiting to die from the impact of what's coming. Somehow you'd think our ships would have evasive abilities.

jscott991 -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/14/2010 1:45:22 PM)
This isn't Galactic Starfire. Most everything in DW is abstracted (at least I assume it is). The battles are representative of engagements, not literal presentations of them. I don't see any problem with an engagement between starships taking a week or two. It is also weird that the movement scale would bother people, but the current building scale and time scale doesn't. Building an advanced starship in a couple of days seems off to me (not even Star Trek can do this and they have replicators). This isn't worth a debate, but the growth and expansion rates in DW are way off for any species that is human-like. Just watch how quickly your population grows on a day to day basis. I used 100 years just because it was round, but you can actually get to 1 trillion people in around 50-60 years, without significant conquest (I never fight wars) or alien populations (I turn them down to rare).

ASHBERY76 -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/14/2010 7:12:58 PM)
I actually agree with the moaning man.The time scale is out.

Bartje -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/14/2010 7:18:11 PM)
It is somewhat funny yes. Growth should be slower. OR Time should be faster (weeks / days) (Cosmetic) I would prefer a slower pop growth & ship building solution.

Dadekster -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/15/2010 4:06:23 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Canute You all are still thinking like normal humans from yesterday/today. But 1. are all races at DW are humans ? no some are insect other reptiles. Do you know how fast reproduce insect at last much more then 3-5%/year. Reptile are much faster then humans too. 2. do you know that humans at the future still reproduce at the same old natural way ? Maybe they got incubations plants ? Parents send in their DNA samples and get their Baby(s) next week. 3. when you change the time scale to fit the human reproduce curve, the time scale for the battles dont fit (ok they dont fit at moment anyway). You are right we don't have any idea about many of those things so there are two solutions to this. 1. They explain what they have in mind regarding this world they have created in DW...when they get the chance at least. 2. I just make the stuff up myself and really stretch that immersion factor. Sort of takes the fun factor out though. I mean in most fictional universes many things are explained. What exactly is the 'Force' in Star Wars? What makes the Enterprises engines go or why are Vulcans so damn smart, etc.

Fishman -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/15/2010 5:45:32 AM)
Time scales in games never make all that much sense anyway. Look at the time scale in Civ. It can take a unit centuries just to cross a single city. CONTINENTS move faster than that, as seen in the Fast-Paced World of Continent Racing!

Astorax -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/15/2010 6:05:49 AM)
Dadekster, Metachlorians are responsible for the Force; Dilithium Crystals + the sweat off the brow of Scotty powers the Enterprise's engines and Vulcans have tri-lobed brains. Or something.

the1sean -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/15/2010 6:44:10 AM)
Maybe a Distant World "day" is actually not based on our solar reference, but on some solar system where their days are 5 times as long as ours are here in the Sol system. Then the calendar would be counting at a totally different pace. Thats gotta be what it is, :)

Dadekster -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/15/2010 9:17:18 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Astorax Dadekster, Metachlorians are responsible for the Force; Dilithium Crystals + the sweat off the brow of Scotty powers the Enterprise's engines and Vulcans have tri-lobed brains. Or something. Yes, thank you...that makes my point. We have answers to this because they have been provided. DW has a lot of question marks atm [:)] I agree scale is a difficult subject. I mean a lot of it does require a bit of imagination. I always hated having to remind myself that my nicely painted Panzer IV Ausf G actually represented more than one vehicle when wargaming, course then I discovered GHQ mini's and it was like omg game ON!! But I think you get my point. Scale can be stretched to make what you are trying to do to make a bit of sense, but there is a limit before it borders on wtf. In DW I don't know if one ship is supposed to represent a squadron or what. Seeing how they have individual names...I doubt it. But that sort of seems to fly in the face of commons sense when as someone pointed out, a U-turn takes two weeks. If that's the case then we should be looking at these as campaign events not 1 vs 1 battles. Everything just seems to be at odds with one another when taken as a whole.

shanicus -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/16/2010 1:09:16 PM)
I brought this up a while ago in a different thread. I think that it should be adjusted into weeks. Or something else. It just seems rather strange to colonize 100 worlds or grow 110x over a meagre 10-15 years! And fit in all the wars etc that constitute this fantastic game. But, I think that the1sean got it. The days and weeks and years are simply NOT based on the Sol/Earth timescale. Which is too bad IMO.

Fishman -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/16/2010 1:32:56 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Bartje I agree with Fishman but I will say that the game should explain this better. See, this is why most OTHER games don't actually have any attempt to tie things to real-months or real-years, they just use some kind of metric-based time: It is 2400.00. A turn is .01. We're not going to bother explaining .01 what. Because no one really cares.

Cindar -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/16/2010 3:59:52 PM)
Time scale for population growth isn't horribly off. If we had a world with no wars, no famine, and increased life span our population would grow exponentially until we started having those problems again. It certainly wouldn't be out of the question for the population to double or triple every 20-30 years. If we went back to the times when families had 10 kids each, the effect would be even more tremendous, and its not out of the question if in a futuristic society there are less problems with feeding and providing for children. Ship building can be decently explained by the fact that all the components are completely modular. Since all of our ships are using mostly the same components, we have production lines spitting out 1 hyperdrive every day or 1 reactor every day in just the same way all of the standard items we produce are made today. The only work left is putting the modular components together. Obviously this isn't really represented well if at all in the game, but I would say its simply an abstraction.

Roller -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/16/2010 5:33:01 PM)
IMO the population growth is well done in DW. Look at the growth rates for planets with large populations, in my current game a human planet with 5.2 billion has 3%, another planet with 2 billion has 5%. In real life we have 6.8 billion with 1%. DW is a high tech universe, where planets access a fully space based economy with endless resources, plenty of health care for everybody can be assumed. In smaller colonies growth breeding is the major colonial policy, and one can easily imagine that they can use medical tech to fill empty planets. Human beings can be very prolific, and 15% in a post scarcity economy is doable, if you somehow convince women to play along. With SF medical technology everything is possible, with perfect artificial (or natural) conception, effortless births, artificial wombs, cloning and so on. Remember you have unlimited resources and a hundred planets plus space stations. The timeframes are ok too, if days become weeks, refueling large fleets will take a year or longer if the rest of the game is unchanged. Then I would propose to make the game relativistic, that is sublight, no FTL drives.

Titanwarrior89 -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/17/2010 2:02:32 AM)
I disagree do not change the time....Leave as is.[:-]

jscott991 -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/17/2010 3:01:30 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Roller IMO the population growth is well done in DW. Look at the growth rates for planets with large populations, in my current game a human planet with 5.2 billion has 3%, another planet with 2 billion has 5%. In real life we have 6.8 billion with 1%. DW is a high tech universe, where planets access a fully space based economy with endless resources, plenty of health care for everybody can be assumed. In smaller colonies growth breeding is the major colonial policy, and one can easily imagine that they can use medical tech to fill empty planets. Human beings can be very prolific, and 15% in a post scarcity economy is doable, if you somehow convince women to play along. With SF medical technology everything is possible, with perfect artificial (or natural) conception, effortless births, artificial wombs, cloning and so on. Remember you have unlimited resources and a hundred planets plus space stations. The timeframes are ok too, if days become weeks, refueling large fleets will take a year or longer if the rest of the game is unchanged. Then I would propose to make the game relativistic, that is sublight, no FTL drives. Within the space of 10-20 years in DW, you can increase your population exponentially. GalCiv at least explained this as being "taxpayers". DW doesn't do that. It really makes no sense. The construction times are even worse, given that a colony ship holds millions of people, providing us with our only clue as to how big these ships are. It really isn't worth debating. The growth rates are off for an sense of realism (they aren't 5% annualized anyway; i have no idea what the percent means or what time frame its measuring). But if people don't care, they don't care.

Aurelian -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/17/2010 3:15:22 AM)
No need to fix it. I don't even look at it when playing.

Bartje -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/17/2010 9:51:09 AM)
It may not need to be fixed but it would help if it is expained! Just make it sound plausible in some way. Perhaps we've just misunderstood the intention / concept [;)]. That would help. [:)]

Astax -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/17/2010 3:05:42 PM)
Speaking of timescale: When do we get the taxes? And what is the Income meant to represent. Is it net per year or month or what? Im confused! Often the money comes like a floodgate at an odd time.I would rather it trickle in personally.

Krelos -> RE: Minor Request: Fix the Time Scale (5/17/2010 3:39:03 PM)
The massive population explosion is because of the huge population growth rate. Humans default rate is 14%, which is 7 times more than it has ever been in the real world and 10 times more than it currently is. Insectoid races could of course have very high rates of reproduction, but real insects are killed by the billions every day. If they became sentient they would overrun the earth and destroy their own food supply. No amount of intelligence could save a race from the rapid depletion of resources (food) caused by 20% population growth or even the 14% that humans have. They would starve themselves out of existence. Cloning is illogical and makes no sense. Why would any race clone themselves on such a scale that they could no longer sustain themselves? They can do it in a game because its a game. There is no real world rationale for doing so or being able to do so. Also, there is no mention or implication of cloning in the game and therefor no reason to suppose it is there. Solution! : Drop the reproduction rates by 5-7x by editing the race file in your install of DW. Works perfectly.

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