Diaspora Campaign

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

This is really an experiment rather than a serious campaign but I'll keep everyone posted on how it progresses. I am starting on Earth with four NPRs. Someone posted this idea a few hours ago so I thought I would give it a go to see if it was a viable idea for a campaign. The five Empires, including my own, are as follows:

Neo-Roman Republic (North America/Europe/ Australia/NZ/Israel) - player race
Chinese Empire (China, Japan, South-East Asia, Indonesia, Korea)
Indo-Russian Alliance (India, Russia, Central Asia)
South American Federation (Central and South America)
Islamic Union (Middle-East / Africa)

I didn't want to get into a lot of background for a campaign that might implode within hours so I am assuming some type of inconclusive non-nuclear world war, or severe cold war, that resulted in the five factions above

Here is a screenshot of Earth ten seconds after campaign start (thermal sensors only)

[attachment=0:29gi5tf8]10seconds.GIF[/attachment:29gi5tf8]

I am starting with one billion pop. The other Empires have between 600m and 2000m, although a lower industrial percentage for the larger populations means their wealth and industry will be similar to mine. Here are my starting designs for grav survey ship, DD and DE.

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Draco class Gravitational Survey Vessel    3750 tons     358 Crew     677.6 BP      TCS 75  TH 300  EM 0
4000 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1-21     Shields 0-0     Sensors 12/12/2/0     Damage Control Rating 3     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 37%    IFR: 0.5%    Maintenance Capacity 339 MSP    Max Repair 100 MSP

Apollo XV Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 3750 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
Neptune-60 Ion Engine (5)    Power 60    Fuel Use 80%    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 460,000 Litres    Range 276.0 billion km   (798 days at full power)

SPS-II Active Search Sensor (1)     GPS 6300     Range 63.0m km    Resolution 100
SQR-IX Thermal Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 12     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  12m km
SLR-VII EM Detection Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 12     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  12m km
Gravitational Survey Sensors (2)   2 Survey Points Per Hour Leonis class Geosurvey ships are identical except for geo sensors.

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Avenger class Destroyer    6000 tons     639 Crew     841.48 BP      TCS 120  TH 480  EM 0
4000 km/s     Armour 3-29     Shields 0-0     Sensors 6/6/0/0     Damage Control Rating 3     PPV 32
Annual Failure Rate: 96%    IFR: 1.3%    Maintenance Capacity 263 MSP    Max Repair 63 MSP
Magazine 382    

Neptune-60 Ion Engine (8)    Power 60    Fuel Use 80%    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 37.5 billion km   (108 days at full power)

Aeolus IV Missile Launcher (8)    Missile Size 4    Rate of Fire 40
SPG-III Missile Fire Control (1)     Range 63.0m km    Resolution 100
Spiculum Anti-Ship Missile (96)  Speed: 20,000 km/s   End: 50.5m    Range: 60.6m km   WH: 6    Size: 4    TH: 66 / 40 / 20

SPS-II Active Search Sensor (1)     GPS 6300     Range 63.0m km    Resolution 100
SQR-VIII Thermal Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km
SLR-V EM Detection Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km

Code: [Select]

Eternal Guardian class Destroyer Escort    6000 tons     519 Crew     970.96 BP      TCS 120  TH 480  EM 0
4000 km/s     Armour 3-29     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 3     PPV 15
Annual Failure Rate: 96%    IFR: 1.3%    Maintenance Capacity 303 MSP    Max Repair 126 MSP
Magazine 525    

Neptune-60 Ion Engine (8)    Power 60    Fuel Use 80%    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 37.5 billion km   (108 days at full power)

Aeolus I Missile Launcher (15)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 10
SPG-IV Missile Fire Control (3)     Range 1.3m km    Resolution 1
Gladius Anti-missile Missile (525)  Speed: 26,400 km/s   End: 1.4m    Range: 2.2m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 158 / 95 / 47

SPS-I Navigation Sensor (1)     GPS 2100     Range 21.0m km    Resolution 100
SPS-VI Missile Detection Sensor (1)     GPS 126     Range 1.3m km    Resolution 1
Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Five seconds later with an Avenger class DD using active sensors

[attachment=0:1qj5u4x6]15seconds.GIF[/attachment:1qj5u4x6]
Steve

[waresky]

Asd..75000tons..what?..

Am curious to show when all Nations fall into "all out War"..

[Beersatron]

I notice that all of the other NPR nations are designated with [SOL] in the System Map. Could you make that a bit 'smarter' and have them display the actual Empire name instead of the original system name that they are detected in?

I think somebody mentioned before that it would be cool if the name of the Empire updated to what they call themselves after communication has been established.

[Erik L]

I notice that all of the other NPR nations are designated with [SOL] in the System Map. Could you make that a bit 'smarter' and have them display the actual Empire name instead of the original system name that they are detected in?

I think somebody mentioned before that it would be cool if the name of the Empire updated to what they call themselves after communication has been established.

Or at least have it display an abbreviation of what the player names the race.

[SteveAlt]

I notice that all of the other NPR nations are designated with [SOL] in the System Map. Could you make that a bit 'smarter' and have them display the actual Empire name instead of the original system name that they are detected in?

I think somebody mentioned before that it would be cool if the name of the Empire updated to what they call themselves after communication has been established.

The SOL was because the aliens were initially called Sol Aliens #1, Sol Aliens #2, etc. I changed the abbreviations once I spotted that. It would be cool if the Empire name was updated correctly and I would do it now if I wasn't so tired after a losing night . I'll tackle it after I get some sleep.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I don't think this campaign is going to be a goer due to the high number of interrupts. However, I have had a couple of ideas with regard to reducing the total interrupts caused by NPRs. Bear in mind btw that interrupts for NPRs are different from short increments set by the program due to imminent combat or interceptions.

The first idea is that NPRs don't need to interrupt for as many events as the player race. For example, if you build a new shipyard you want the game to stop while you decide what to build in it. An NPR doesn't need to stop time because the AI code will decide what it needs to build. Similarly, if a system is surveyed you will want time to stop so you can perhaps re-order your survey ships. An NPR doesn't need to stop as it will decide during the NPR movement section of the next increment. Which means that I can create two sets of interrupts flags. One for player races and a smaller subset for NPRs. However, NPRs will still need to cause interrupts for new contacts so they can react and that is the most common cause of interrupts.

The second idea is linked to the suggestion by a few people that there shouldn't be interrupts unless the player is directly affected. While that won't work in general terms because NPRs still need to move in small increment during combat, it might be worth reducing the amount of interrupts by not interrupting for non-hostile contacts or lost contacts for NPRs unless those contacts involve a player race. Against other NPRs the only interrupt contact event would be for new hostile contacts.

The downside of this is a lot more checking each time an event is generated (is this an NPR? is the player race involved? etc.) but the negative impact on performance should be offset by fewer interrupts and therefore fewer truncated increments. Of course, none of the above would affect actual NPR combat but automated turns should take care of that in most cases. The other drawback is this would involve a DB change which means a v4.9 rather than v4.83.

Comments welcome

Steve

[sloanjh]

Sounds like the right direction - I've felt for a while now that Aurora over-interrupts for neutral/non-hostile contacts.  In addition, flushing the class objects and reloading them has got to be a huge time burden - I suspect that the added checks in looking at the type of interrupt will be negligle in comparison.  Look at it this way:  the proposal is to do an additional check before an interrupt that says "hey, I don't need to interrupt after all".  This check will almost certainly require a small fraction of the time wasted by dumping the object model and reloading.  In addition, if it doesn't knock out a large percentage of interrupts, then it's a worthless change.  So you're almost certain to win big - how big depends on what percentage of the interrupts you can get rid of.

John

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Sounds like the right direction - I've felt for a while now that Aurora over-interrupts for neutral/non-hostile contacts.  In addition, flushing the class objects and reloading them has got to be a huge time burden - I suspect that the added checks in looking at the type of interrupt will be negligle in comparison.  Look at it this way:  the proposal is to do an additional check before an interrupt that says "hey, I don't need to interrupt after all".  This check will almost certainly require a small fraction of the time wasted by dumping the object model and reloading.  In addition, if it doesn't knock out a large percentage of interrupts, then it's a worthless change.  So you're almost certain to win big - how big depends on what percentage of the interrupts you can get rid of.

I have been thinking further on this and might go for something a little more radical. I might set things up so that there are no interrupts except for events directly involving for the current default race (which is almost certainly the player race) or if the default race is indirectly involved by being the target of a contact event by an NPR. This might mean some weird behaviour in terms of initial NPR vs NPR contacts but if a tree falls in the forest... . There would still be some shortened increments though once NPR vs NPR combat began as the program itself would be setting those, not the NPR. How does that sound?

Steve

[ShadoCat]

I have been thinking further on this and might go for something a little more radical. I might set things up so that there are no interrupts except for events directly involving for the current default race (which is almost certainly the player race) or if the default race is indirectly involved by being the target of a contact event by an NPR. This might mean some weird behaviour in terms of initial NPR vs NPR contacts but if a tree falls in the forest... . There would still be some shortened increments though once NPR vs NPR combat began as the program itself would be setting those, not the NPR. How does that sound?

This would be perfect.

You could do this by having racial interrupts.  Each race would have it's own interrupt code.   The program would check the interrupt to see which race needs to handle it.  If it is a player race, then the game pauses, otherwise, it just runs code.

This would also be one step onto making Aurora a multi player game.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I have been thinking further on this and might go for something a little more radical. I might set things up so that there are no interrupts except for events directly involving for the current default race (which is almost certainly the player race) or if the default race is indirectly involved by being the target of a contact event by an NPR. This might mean some weird behaviour in terms of initial NPR vs NPR contacts but if a tree falls in the forest...

The main problem I can think of is if there are multiple player races but as you mentioned I could probably change the above to a check against all non-NPRs, rather than just the default race.

Steve

[sloanjh]

Two comments:

1)  As was already observed, it should stop for any player race, not just the default.

2)  You should have some sort of progress indicator (maybe by updating the "current date/time" in the window) so people know that time is progressing, how fast it's progressing, and when they can expect it to "come up for air".  Otherwise we won't be able to tell if it's hung or not.

3)  There should be some way of interruptting, (similar to turning off automated turns now) that allows the player to tell Aurora to stop at the next convenient spot.

John

PS - Ok, so I can't count

[Andrew]

Two comments:

1)  As was already observed, it should stop for any player race, not just the default.

2)  You should have some sort of progress indicator (maybe by updating the "current date/time" in the window) so people know that time is progressing, how fast it's progressing, and when they can expect it to "come up for air".  Otherwise we won't be able to tell if it's hung or not.

3)  There should be some way of interruptting, (similar to turning off automated turns now) that allows the player to tell Aurora to stop at the next convenient spot.

John

PS - Ok, so I can't count

It would be useful for autoturns to be be able to set a time increment for them to run.
Also and related during a battle there are often periods where I am manuallyusing 5 second increments , but could happily autorun 5 second icnrements but every time my point defense missile launchers cycle and try to fire or an antimissile hits a target the game pauses. It woudl be nice to be able to autorun through this until a missile hits a ship or something similar as when I have set up the missile defenses there is not much else I can do so being able to autorun for a few minutes would be helpful

[ShadoCat]

Two comments:

2)  You should have some sort of progress indicator (maybe by updating the "current date/time" in the window) so people know that time is progressing, how fast it's progressing, and when they can expect it to "come up for air".  Otherwise we won't be able to tell if it's hung or not.

3)  There should be some way of interruptting, (similar to turning off automated turns now) that allows the player to tell Aurora to stop at the next convenient spot.

John

PS - Ok, so I can't count

[welchbloke]

Two comments:

2)  You should have some sort of progress indicator (maybe by updating the "current date/time" in the window) so people know that time is progressing, how fast it's progressing, and when they can expect it to "come up for air".  Otherwise we won't be able to tell if it's hung or not.

3)  There should be some way of interruptting, (similar to turning off automated turns now) that allows the player to tell Aurora to stop at the next convenient spot.

John

PS - Ok, so I can't count

I know this should be in the suggestion thread (can you move it Erik?) but I would agree that the 2 ideas above (would it be 1 idea if we were using base John instead of base10?) are good.