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Re: Space terrain and anomalies

#16
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Fri Apr 05, 2019 1:50 pm
well, i'd have imagined that theres more than one system aboard using a specific type of particle.
so there'd often be multiple systems affected by a specific influence.

alternatively if the interaction matrix is dense enough any shielding effects would be interfering with other systems aboard.

or am i misunderstanding your paraghaph?

You've pretty much got it.

The idea is that when multiple system are affected by multiple phenomena to varying degrees, and maximally protecting one system has negative side effects on other systems, it gets harder to find the One Optimal Setting that reduces interesting choices down to one obvious best option.
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Re: Space terrain and anomalies

#17
what would lead to interesting second order interactions would be if side effect particle emissions wluld be part of the interaction matrix.
like when your reactor is hit with surge-inducing antithorons its side effect triolic radiation also spikes and can have detrimental effects on other equipment on board (or can be used for something else)
making cascading side effects a possibility
("Sir! our shields got overloaded from the tachyon burst from our overloaded sensor array!")

the whole radiation influence mechanic may also mesh well with my thoughts on malfunctions.
with progressive damage shifting the tresholds of effect resistances and making radiation induced malfunctions likelier
may making usually safe radiation levels interfere with system functionality.
would be something new if your shields started to stutter and fail from your sensor's radiation output because you took a hit :D
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Re: Space terrain and anomalies

#18
I like this concept more and more as you throw out these ideas.

Since we are doing this in a PURELY fictional Physics environment.
Why not also make our sensors work PURELY on these particles?

When you get a new unknown contact, be it an asteroid, a ship, or a hunk of space cheese, it throws out particles of different types, in different amounts.

Using this you can either wait until you are close enough for Low Range scanners to get an effective scan (LIDAR high res scans for instance), or you can categorize it yourself. (potentially by eyeball)
This gives us SpaceSonar™.

We can use it to look for a particular material in an asteroid cluster, maybe the Torqium ore we are after has a high output of anti-Rhonium particles, maybe a pirate has a generator that provides a high anti-Rhonium particle output, but it's slightly off.
The Pirate is sitting there with all other systems offline or in low-power mode.

We have a look at our long distance scanners, because asteroids are spread out a good few kilometers. And all our other scanning tools are basically VFR, all requiring visual range (because combat is boring at artillery ranges)

We have a look, and as a newbie we see that there is a slightly higher than normal output, clearly thats a big score. We head over there, the pirate turns on his systems, causing a burst of static on our scanners, and then Boom, we are dead.
Now, if we were a bit more experienced, that slightly higher than normal value might make us check the other ranges, and spot a set of radiation thats normally associated with Life Support systems. Deciding that discretion is the better part of valor, we go after another chunk of rock, and the pirate goes hungry.

Basically imagine the thermal signature system of Elite Dangerous, crossed with the sonar systems of 90's Cold War Submarine Simulators. (eg Seawolf)
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WebGL Spaceships and Trails
<Cuisinart8> apparently without the demon driving him around Silver has the intelligence of a botched lobotomy patient ~ Mar 04 2020
console.log(`What's all ${this} ${Date.now()}`);
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Re: Space terrain and anomalies

#19
soooo... like what we kinda got confirmed with the sensor readouts mk2 anno backthen? :V
you dont need especially interacting particles to do identification based on readouts.

also, if we PCG particles and their interactions, how would you put a potentially infinite amount of particles into limited graph space?
dynamic arrangement removes a lot of the recognition value a readout graph provides, but would work.


another thought that occured to me was that wormhole charge could also be coupled into the particle radiation system.
with the charge just being another kind of particle following the same basic rules and just activating the jump "device"
which also suggests that particke influences could generally exhibit capacitive behaviours.
with effects not just dependent on the instantaneous particle flux but on the flux over time.
with particles accumulating over time with the flux rate and dissipating over time (or not at all?)
and the effects only ceasing once the accumulated particle amount gets below a treshold again.

this would also cover any boot-up sequences of equipment, with particle accumulation time until it gets into the functional regime
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Re: Space terrain and anomalies

#20
Limited PCG,
Generate a hundred particles or so, their generation order defines where on the graph they turn up.

If you generate an infinite number, it becomes impossible to manage and remember anyway.
So you want a reasonably small, finite number. Large enough to be fun, small enough to be remembered (even if you have to check notes).
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WebGL Spaceships and Trails
<Cuisinart8> apparently without the demon driving him around Silver has the intelligence of a botched lobotomy patient ~ Mar 04 2020
console.log(`What's all ${this} ${Date.now()}`);
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Re: Space terrain and anomalies

#21
"Fun with sensors" really was one of the things I was looking forward to as a possibility in Limit Theory, as a more deliberately-paced supplement to the fast-paced dogfighting game.

In particular, I thought there was a good opportunity to include the process of correlating physical objects with energy emissions seen on sensors as one of the early-to-mid-game kinds of fun we could have. You could tool around space, looking for new emissions that show up as "UNKNOWN" in your database and connecting them to the physical object at the emission source's location -- which could prove dangerous at times. Or you could do something else to make money and then just buy the emissions correlation data you wanted -- if it's available at a price you can afford. (Hacking it might have been another option.)

Note that "object" would usually mean a physical source at the center of a spherical volume within which the frequency of the characteristic particles and energies would occur according to the inverse-square law. And fields should be able to overlap, so that (as noted up-thread) some effects might increase or (oddly) decrease the local amplitude where they intersect. So you'd usually need to fly around and get readings from different locations to be able to construct an accurate 3D map of local emission source locations and types... and of course some of these sources might be able to move around themselves. ;)

I imagined this constantly shifting, overlapping mass of sensor information connecting to space "terrain" in that there'd be physical objects and fields that you'd have to detect and characterize. Then you'd have to decide how you want to deal with them: go around them (might be time-consuming), go through them (might have negative effects on ship systems), or try to deflect or negate or destroy or hide from them (might work, might have side effects).

One thing I to which I hadn't given a lot of thought -- yet -- was exactly how this "space contains terrain" structure, which could be a pretty slow and cautious sort of fun, would connect to the much faster-paced dogfighting. I do think these things, at least in some cases ought to go together. Without some kind of terrain, "tactics" devolves into who can put more/bigger weapon effects on the enemy faster. Tighter turning and more guns = win button. That might be fun for a while, but I think it would get old pretty quickly for a meaningful number of players.

So that leads to trying to work out smart ways to (at least sometimes) blend dogfighting with areas of space that have active effects on ships. What kinds of effects on ship systems would be fun to deal with -- or exploit against the enemy! -- without starting to feel like they're getting in the way of enjoyable action? Alternately, how can you ensure exciting dogfighting action modified by field effects that still lets you enjoy careful space-mapping-with-sensors gameplay?
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Re: Space terrain and anomalies

#22
Silverware wrote:
Tue Apr 09, 2019 9:00 pm
Limited PCG,
Generate a hundred particles or so, their generation order defines where on the graph they turn up.

If you generate an infinite number, it becomes impossible to manage and remember anyway.
So you want a reasonably small, finite number. Large enough to be fun, small enough to be remembered (even if you have to check notes).
i'd limit the amount of types geographically, not overall.
you can get to know your stuff but when you go out and explore you can still find new stuff.
Flatfingers wrote:
Tue Apr 09, 2019 9:05 pm
Note that "object" would usually mean a physical source at the center of a spherical volume within which the frequency of the characteristic particles and energies would occur according to the inverse-square law. And fields should be able to overlap, so that (as noted up-thread) some effects might increase or (oddly) decrease the local amplitude where they intersect. So you'd usually need to fly around and get readings from different locations to be able to construct an accurate 3D map of local emission source locations and types... and of course some of these sources might be able to move around themselves. ;)

I imagined this constantly shifting, overlapping mass of sensor information connecting to space "terrain" in that there'd be physical objects and fields that you'd have to detect and characterize. Then you'd have to decide how you want to deal with them: go around them (might be time-consuming), go through them (might have negative effects on ship systems), or try to deflect or negate or destroy or hide from them (might work, might have side effects).
if we allow particles to interact in free space we could make anomalies (those that arent just radiation fields) arise from the effects of the interacting particles.
with an NxN matrix for N-1 interactions between particles (N effects and one for no effect on the particle) for the kinds of anomaly that can be created.

for example if gravitons would cause surges when affecting nadions, the anomaly could shoot out nadion bursts (with nice lightning effects).
alongside whatever graviton-typeed effect caused by the influence of nadions on the gravitons (which doesnt have to be symmetric)

anomaly fields would then just be areas filled with radiation sources, creating a complicated web of effects where the fields intersect with enough intensity to create effects.
dependent on the intensities and positioning of the radiation sources anomaly fields can be anything from solid roaring death zones down to wispy filaments of interference.

edit: would make close approaches of power-dense ships interesting as well... lets hope their power systems arent overly incompatible! else the space between the ships is going to be ... interesting :twisted:

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