GenCon

[RTGPete]

8:00pm Saturday at the Alcatraz Brewing Co. sounds fine by me!

 

I'll be around the convention from Thursday (actually, leaving tomorrow) until Sunday. Staying at the University Place Hotel - room's in another name but I'll ask the hotel if they can list me as well, in case you want to leave a message.

 

[Lord Xaar]

8:00pm Saturday at the Alcatraz Brewing Co. sounds fine by me!

 

I'll be around the convention from Thursday (actually, leaving tomorrow) until Sunday. Staying at the University Place Hotel - room's in another name but I'll ask the hotel if they can list me as well, in case you want to leave a message.

 

Everyone going to this realizes that the rest of us (well, me at least) expects that one drink will be had in honor of each player not in attendence.

 

 

"Sir, they won't be able to think straight for weeks. The universe will be ours!"

 

 

Enjoy the gathering. Sorry to miss it. Tokyo to Indy is just a wee bit pricey.

 

 

-LX

[Kurassier]

Several shipments from the HBOB arrived at Alcatraz today!!!

[RTGPete]

At GenCon and having a great time

 

Will see everybody Saturday night at the Alcatraz It's been great seeing some of you already.

 

It looks like I'll be playing some Diplomacy....Friday 8:00am and Saturday 8:00am in the wargaming ballroom. Feel free to stop by and heckle me :lol:

[EternusIV]

SNROTECon-

 

Had a GREAT time seeing everybody at the Con.

 

It was great to get to know you guys much better and put faces to some of the board handles...and see some faces I hadn't seen in a great while.

 

I eagerly await another SNROTE gathering of some type.

 

Brad

[RTGPete]

Back from GenCon - I had a wonderful trip. It was great to see old faces and new. Some stuff was revealed there, and I'll share for all to see:

• We're working on making the game easier to play from a time perspective. A player is working on finishing up a parsing and data entry program that takes into account your stockpiles and even creates the necessary BI orders for new builds. I haven't seen it in action, but it sounds very impressive. We discussed the possibility of an addition to the entry program to make BI's easier to deal with - I'll hold off on that as the parsing program has considerable potential to be superior in just about every respect to a simple entry program change.
   
  
• Fleets fire weapons in globs, the number of which is determined by your fleet's bridge rating (leaders also being factored in to bridge rating). Those globs are then distributed over enemy targets - an enemy ship is picked, and then the system tries to find another enemy ship that is closer to the front (deploy location 1). It doesn't always find a closer ship even if there is one, but if there are a decent number of enemy screening (closer) vessels, the odds are decent that it will find one. If it does, that ship is targeted. If not, the first ship is targeted. This could be a rear area ship, but the system weighs against that possibility if you have a good ratio of screening vessels set in lower deploy locations.
   
  
• Ships in deploy location 1 dish out maximum damage from their weapons that care about range. They receive no defensive adjustments because of their location. As ships are deployed more toward deploc 12, incoming enemy fire is reduced in effectiveness. Their weapons also reduce in firepower depending on the kind of weapon. Plasma Torpedos, for instance, are classified as "point blank range". They do a lot of damage when placed in very low deploy locations such as 1 or 2. Their damage drops off very fast after that. Missiles often have longer ranges, and do not begin dropping off in effectiveness for many deploy locations. As it happens, those kinds of weapons are much easier to defend against (maneuverability is something that many good ships have, and point defenses show up early in the tech tree and are thus more prevalent). Some other systems such as fighters also add to point defense.
   
  
• Fighters and drones dish out more damage per ton than other weapons. Thus 20,000 tons of fighters (10,000 of bay and 10,000 tons of fighters carried in that bay) is more efficient than 20,000 tons of an equivalent similar shipboard weapon, everything else (such as tech generation) being equal. However, fighters and drones are a pain to carry around, and can be lost piecemeal. When lost, they are lost forever (destroyed). Unless a vessel with conventional (lasers, missile launchers etc) is utterly destroyed, it could be repaired, resulting in no long-term loss of material.
   
  
• A ship will self-repair over time using damage control parties, but it is slow. A ship can be dropped into a shipyard to be repaired (this was mentioned on the turn results a couple of turns ago). A new series of items, Repair Bays (name not finalized) will be introduced to speed up in-space repair over time. Dropping ships into shipyards for the build-repair will still be the most efficient and potentially speedy way to repair, but Repair Bays or standard self-repair will eventually repair a ship.
   
  
• If you gain a new Emperor as a result of a REVO order, and the new Emperor happened to be a Scientist or Explorer (perhaps on a fleet somewhere), he like all new REVO Emperors retains his old character class of Scientist or Explorer. In this case he will be treated as if he were the maximum rank (speculated to be 7 by the players at GenCon) for SURV missions. This is true even if was a lower rank (like rank 3 or 4, say) before the sudden promotion to Emperor.
   
  
• Much speculation about research costs among the GenCon players seemed to settle at 12 points for a typical 2nd generation item, 26 to 28 points for a typical 3rd generation item, and probably 40-something for 4th generation items. Some said 51, others 48, some in the lower 40's. Research and exploration hits made this one more of a speculative guess. 5th generation items seemed to be unknown, with less data to go on. Research cost does plateau out, so it doesn't keep rising forever.
   
  
• We found a very impressive mapping program at GenCon called AstroSynthesis which might be of great use for mapping your star systems. It is a 3-dimensional mapping program with considerable capabilities. I am in discussions with the developer to add importing warp points (called trade routes in their program). It already imports star system data and can do a lot more. If you are interested, head to www.nbos.com and check out the program. If enough guys want it, I can probably arrange for a mass purchase discount. It's pretty inexpensive already at $35.00, and sure looks impressive.
   
  
• Much concern about being allowed to repair damaged installations - if left wide open, some lucky players would have gained some pretty powerful installations. They could also be scrapped for large Improved or even Advanced Construction Material stockpiles and used for other things. A balance issue there.
   
  
• Univeral agreement that PAP colocation is a terrible idea (I actually agree that it's silly). Remember that PAP's are all always one-way agreements. They are used only for your own ROE settings. The player on the other end of your PAP can have any agreement back toward you that he wants. You could consider him an Ally while you just think of him as Trade Pact material. Why do we care about colocation?
   
  
• Special agents to receive attention soon.
   
  
• Surprise, it's been 2 years since the game began! Thanks go out to all of you bloodthirsty Emperors for supporting the game, even if you only do it to keep open the possibility of tearing each other into a thousand pieces Research bonus in saved research points for the 2nd Anniversary is likely very soon
  

[Steve_Kort]

It was great meeting everyone and actually knowing a bit more about everyone. I had a great time Saturday night and look forward to it happening again sometime. Only bad thing is Pete let out all that valuable info that pulled out of him. :lol:

 

Steve

[Gary Carpenter]

How drunk did you have to get Pete to get this info? :lol:

[Lord Uriel]

[*]We found a very impressive mapping program at GenCon called AstroSynthesis which might be of great use for mapping your star systems. It is a 3-dimensional mapping program with considerable capabilities. I am in discussions with the developer to add importing warp points (called trade routes in their program). It already imports star system data and can do a lot more. If you are interested, head to www.nbos.com and check out the program. If enough guys want it, I can probably arrange for a mass purchase discount. It's pretty inexpensive already at $35.00, and sure looks impressive.

Checked out the site, looks pretty cool.

 

If you secure a bulk discount, count me in.

[Sakarissa]

Checked it out as well. Looks pretty spiffy. If the can integrate warp point import then it would be a viable option. If not, I prolly won't buy it.

 

Sakarissa

[crossroads]

That program looked great. But does that mean that we get the 3d coördinates of the warp points/systems? Otherwise: how to map them?

[RTGPete]

Yes, warp point import is a biggie. I talked to the programmer at GenCon and it looks to be certain that such a feature will be added - I just don't know when it will make it in (hopefully soon!).

 

Regarding star locations, I'd write a little program that you could run on the stars that you've surveyed (it would pull them from your data file, which already knows which systems you've scanned). That program would assign random XYZ locations to your stars and create a file that AstroSynthesis could import. Once imported, you could then drag your stars around to make them look like a real map instead of at random locations. Warp point import is big - once that's in you could drag a star around and the warp points stay connected, like rubber bands stretching. Then it's just a matter of moving your stars around to get rid of the weird crossover warp lines. AstroSynthesis was written with gamers solidly in mind, and has a lot of very cool features....it just needs that warp point import

[EternusIV]

I've used Astrosynthesis since release and I recommend it.

 

 

You visually connect sytems using something the program calls "trade routes" - which you can customize by color, dashed, dotted etc. The simplest method I've found is to use one color for 2-way WPs and a separate color for 1-way warp points. You can label these trade routes in such a way that you know which warp class goes where (on a strategic view)

 

There is a slight learning curve in maneuvering the mouse view. The only major drawback I've encountered (which I'm told they will patch soon) is when you place stars near either of the poles of a spherical layout.

 

You can easily layout several empries on one map A cool trick is that you can select multiple stars at once and drag an entire cluster across the map....say...after you bump into an empire you thought might be in your neighborhood? You can just drag the whole system next to it ( a little bit of a pain -- but better than assigning brand new coordinates for each and every system)

 

There are several layers you can view things:

 

1) An overall view of the galaxy

2) An overhead system view

3) A planetary surface view

 

Your planetary surface map will generate according to the data you feed it (RTG provides most of this) and this feature really adds a nice immersion factor to the game expereince.

 

The overhead system view is fun to assemble for kicks...its neat to know where the warp points are in relation to the orbits of your planets.

 

Star types are customizeable - if you bump into a Class K in the game, then the program will generate a star with appropriate color (and sometimes mass)

 

Another really slick feature is that you can record little movies....zooming in and out of key systems and rotating the map....save them as little files and hand them to your allies.

 

The Star Maps export into files that ay other person with Astrosynth can read. You can save them as JPEGS but believe me -- it will be easier to swap the underlying files...plus its a 3-d map and a 2-d rendering of your system can look confusing especially if you are zoomed out.

 

The Sphere of Influence feature is handy too: it creates a little colored shaded area around a cluster of stars.

 

You can label and filter systems....example....you create a system and label it as belonging to "The Everlasting Spawn" and filter from there.

 

The only issue I will forewarn ---- turn your hardware acceleration WAY down if you have NVIDIA cards. (In fact turn it way down anyway...it makes things render smoothly) I spoke to the designer about this at the booth and they are still looking for a patch solution.

 

I think its worth the price of $30.00....I've saved tons of time from drawing and redrawing 2-D maps through Visio....my wall-system is completely shot because I simply have too many systems that loop back at each other..total pain to reconfigure.

 

With a 3-D mapping system you get a feel for the pattern of how systems are laid out.

 

On a five star scale, I give the program a strong 4.

[crossroads]

If you take random xyz and you adjust that in the program would that not mean that the next time you import the warp points that they are overwrittten or added or reset?

 

I rather have the real xyz coördinates with your homeworld as 0,0,0. I always wondered why they are not there. I.o.w. why it should be a problem to know them? If you are in a star system in, lets say the Milkyway, and you jump to another star system you can know where you are just by looking and comparing of locations of known stars. In the television serie Stargate it is never a problem. If coördinates are available i would also like an order to pick another point of origin in the case that two players want to connect their maps in the case they have a common star system.

[RTGPete]

If you take random xyz and you adjust that in the program would that not mean that the next time you import the warp points that they are overwrittten or added or reset?

 

I rather have the real xyz coördinates with your homeworld as 0,0,0. I always wondered why they are not there. I.o.w. why it should be a problem to know them? If you are in a star system in, lets say the Milkyway, and you jump to another star system you can know where you are just by looking and comparing of locations of known stars. In the television serie Stargate it is never a problem. If coördinates are available i would also like an order to pick another point of origin in the case that two players want to connect their maps in the case they have a common star system.

We will not be giving out the real XYZ coordinates of the actual star systems. A significant portion of the fun of mapping is to figure out where your stars are in relation to each other by using the warp connections. This is especially true when you run into another player - you might have laid out some of your contact stars on the "left" side of your map, but run into him on your left and right. At that point you would have to consider the possibility that you've laid your map out in a funny way and need to rearrange some stars to get them on the same side. It's also possible that he got some ships around you and your map is fine. Real XYZ's would eliminate this aspect of the game.

 

If you like, I can forget about random XYZ's and just leave them blank in your data file - you could then assign your own, export the data (I can create a small program that will export it to AstroSynthesis' requirements) and then import into AstroSynthesis. You can change the locations from within AstroSynthesis simply by dragging the stars around.

 

In any event it's easy to add new stars from within AstroSynthesis as you scan new ones - you can add them anywhere and connect warp lines as desired.