Entire Galaxy for Single Player » Forum Post by Kronos7

GoaFan77

Join Date 10/2008

+629

Um, I really have no idea what you are trying to say here. In terms of content single player and multiplayer are the exact same. Also the only thing limiting the size of the map is your computer, not the game engine. I know of a 400 planet map that would certainly take days to conquer the entire thing.

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Quoting GoaFan77,

reply 1

Um, I really have no idea what you are trying to say here. In terms of content single player and multiplayer are the exact same. Also the only thing limiting the size of the map is your computer, not the game engine. I know of a 400 planet map that would certainly take days to conquer the entire thing.

So your saying a game rendering a room behind the room your in on an FPS game is your computers fault if its running bad? No that's poor optimization, there is no reason to render a room your not currently in or able to see.

Of course performance is based on your computer, but that does not rule out that the game engine cant do something about it. 400 planets is hardly a problem, 100 opponents is.

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GoaFan77

Join Date 10/2008

+629

See I'm still not understanding what you mean by "Galaxy". What the heck do you want 100 opponents for, unless its some sort of campaign mode (is that what you mean by single player) that you are asking for. In which case you will be disappointed, as a campaign is not on the to do list for Rebellion.

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Nothing really story driven, but a campaign mode with an entire galaxy available to you would be nice.

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What is your definition of a galaxy? Currently, the singleplayer and multiplayer experience is centered around either a single solar system or a collection of solar systems, with the ability to jump between them. A collection of solar systems is a also known as... a galaxy.

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Sure if you want to consider having collection of 4 stars a galaxy with nothing else around them be my guest, until then how about something with a little more of a realistic scope in size. Not necessarily billions of stars but 100s of stars would be fine for a fictional galaxy like in Sins.

I don't see where all this negative feed back is coming from, nothing but smart ass remarks back at my face.

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In Sins you can have unlimited size maps (or limited only by the performance of your computer). Hundred of stars is not a problem, if you dont include too many objects per star.

As far as more opponents go, that I agree with. More opponents, or at least addition of dynamic minor races system like in GalCiv 2 would be cool.

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Or just have more militia colonies, which fortify their own planet. You can set militia colony likelihood for custom maps, but they don't generate their own forces beyond what is initially set. Imagine if they did? Now you have microfactions spread out across the galaxy. So you come to a terran planet and it might have 25 tactical structures along with 125 fleet supply worth of ships. And, if you left without killing them, they'd construct more. That might be a fun addition to mix up larger games, especially for the singleplayer-oriented purchasing majority for Sins.

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Quoting Kronos7,

reply 2

So your saying a game rendering a room behind the room your in on an FPS game is your computers fault if its running bad? No that's poor optimization, there is no reason to render a room your not currently in or able to see.

Of course performance is based on your computer, but that does not rule out that the game engine cant do something about it. 400 planets is hardly a problem, 100 opponents is.

No, what he's saying is that:

1. I doesn't understand what you mean by "galaxy.

2. Your computer's specs are the limiting factor for map side, because to much "stuff" in the map means to much memory taken up, and either a minidump on start, or simply "faster" than would usually happen.

3. Your example is exceedingly poor. This is because Sins isn't Halo, or any other FPS game out there. Sins doesn't have "rooms", it has "gravity wells". And rendering isn't the performance bottleneck GoaFan77 was thinking of. RAM is. Consider that when you zoom out, at a certain point everything is icons.

Which means that none of those units' meshes and textures are being rendered. It even happens to planets; it's all replaced by icons at a certain zoom level.

Quoting Kronos7,

reply 4

Nothing really story driven, but a campaign mode with an entire galaxy available to you would be nice.

This won't happen; it's simply too drastic a change for the devs to consider.

Quoting Kronos7,

reply 6

Sure if you want to consider having collection of 4 stars a galaxy with nothing else around them be my guest, until then how about something with a little more of a realistic scope in size. Not necessarily billions of stars but 100s of stars would be fine for a fictional galaxy like in Sins.

I don't see where all this negative feed back is coming from, nothing but smart ass remarks back at my face.

A group of "100s of stars" cannot be a galaxy. They would be a star cluster. Furthermore, perhaps he was simply noting that the term "galaxy" is a rather loose one.

Of course, negative feedback might be popping up, because, I don't know, your idea's not particularly good for Sins?

I mean, just maybe that's the case.

Quoting 1Tiberius1,

reply 8

Or just have more militia colonies, which fortify their own planet. You can set militia colony likelihood for custom maps, but they don't generate their own forces beyond what is initially set. Imagine if they did? Now you have microfactions spread out across the galaxy. So you come to a terran planet and it might have 25 tactical structures along with 125 fleet supply worth of ships. And, if you left without killing them, they'd construct more. That might be a fun addition to mix up larger games, especially for the singleplayer-oriented purchasing majority for Sins.

This idea I like. In fact, IIRC, the Distant Stars mod has something similar to this. I'm not sure though, so I'd have to go back and play it to check. But this is a very interesting idea, and would also serve pretty well as a way to show off the militia as a bigger part of the game.

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Quoting Whiskey144,

reply 9

No, what he's saying is that:

1. I doesn't understand what you mean by "galaxy.

2. Your computer's specs are the limiting factor for map side, because to much "stuff" in the map means to much memory taken up, and either a minidump on start, or simply "faster" than would usually happen.

3. Your example is exceedingly poor. This is because Sins isn't Halo, or any other FPS game out there. Sins doesn't have "rooms", it has "gravity wells". And rendering isn't the performance bottleneck GoaFan77 was thinking of. RAM is. Consider that when you zoom out, at a certain point everything is icons.

Which means that none of those units' meshes and textures are being rendered. It even happens to planets; it's all replaced by icons at a certain zoom level.

1. Check

2. By saying it has nothing to do with the engines fault and my computers fault if the game were running slow means he was suggesting engine optimization means nothing to the matter and that it was entirely my computers fault.

3. Possibly or possibly just exceedingly poor understanding of the example, optimization can be compared to any game no matter the genre, sins doesn't need rooms for the comparison to still be valid, objects don't have to be rendered if they don't need to, which was entirely my point. Although it seems you already know this when stating that the planets become icons after a certain distance, which makes me wonder why you even bothered to question it when you already had an answer for it.

Quoting Whiskey144,

reply 9

A group of "100s of stars" cannot be a galaxy. They would be a star cluster. Furthermore, perhaps he was simply noting that the term "galaxy" is a rather loose one.

Of course, negative feedback might be popping up, because, I don't know, your idea's not particularly good for Sins?

I mean, just maybe that's the case.

No but it can in a "fictional setting", if you want to be technical then talk to GoFan as he's the one who brought up a "collection of solar systems is a galaxy", unless he meant 1 billion of them, I could of figured he meant any number of them though.

I'm perfectly fine with people not actually liking the idea, but that's a little different then having some pointless technical excuse for it not being the best idea for Sins.

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Alright, let me break this down for you:

A comparison between an FPS game and Sins is completely irrelevant, not because of genre or design differences, but because of basic differences in how the engine works. For example, Sins loads everything into the RAM when you start a game. Everything. Even if you play a 2 player map, it loads all three races' data into memory.

I doubt there's an FPS around that does that. There's also the fact that Sins is actually pretty well optimized anyway, because it's designed to run on fairly low-end or mid-range computers.

Secondly, it did not seem Goa was suggesting that engine optimization was irrelevant. Rather, it seemed he was pointing out that too much stuff in a map will overwhelm the computers that most of Sins target audience has. Remember, this game was designed to be easily playable on low-to-mid range computer systems.

Third, I was simply pointing out that a group of 100+ stars would not be called a galaxy. Furthermore, GoaFan (with an "A") did not even touch on 2+ solar systems=galaxy. I refer you to the quote below; pay attention to who I am quoting:

Quoting TheOtherRook,

reply 5

What is your definition of a galaxy? Currently, the singleplayer and multiplayer experience is centered around either a single solar system or a collection of solar systems, with the ability to jump between them.

A collection of solar systems is a also known as... a galaxy.

So you see that you have incorrectly attributed that comment to Goa, and not TheOtherRook.

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Miss placing an "A" in his name is nothing to comment about, stop wasting your time with pointless technical replies. However I am sorry I miss read who posted the comment.

He could of also fooled me with the 2+Solar System = Galaxy with this, "A collection of solar systems is a also known as... a galaxy." Repeating what I already said.

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How about a Galactic Conquest type of campaign, in which there is a Galaxy map that details clusters of stars in sectors, and you gain control of the sectors by invading/defending each sector. you can make a small fleet of whatever you want to use as an invasion fleet to a new sector (while the remaining fleet stays in that sector as defense), and capital ships keep their rank status in different fields of battle so long as they stay alive. You can set as many AI enemies/allies as you want for the overall map, and neutral 'militia controlled' sectors you may have to take for bonus resources. Artifacts would be scarce, and they can affect your overall game. In a sense, it would be like Empire at War's Galactic Conquest, but with customizable AI numbers and randomly generated maps, while keeping it all in real time and being unable to change settings in star clusters unless you are attacking/defending in a certain sector. Obviously this wouldnt work with more than two players in MP or a two teams of players so they get into the same battles, but in single player there could be any number of enemies. It would make for an incredibly long campaign (days, maybe weeks depending on numbers of sectors/difficulty), and being randomized it could be infinitely replayable.

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WHIPperSNAPper2008

Join Date 03/2008

+126

I really don't think the OP is missing out on all that much by being limited to 300 planet maps. Once you've beaten down a couple empires and conquered 100 planets how much different could the game play be for conquering the next 200 planets or 2000 planets?

The OP sounds like a bored guy who needs to discover the joys of playing human opponents in online multiplayer. That's where the real challenge is.

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What is your definition of galaxy, it would really help us figure out what your trying to say.

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A Random Huge Multi map with a 10 way FFA is pretty much a galaxy. Or as close to one as you're going to get. It would likely take 30 hours to conquer such a map, especially if you're playing against Unfair AI.

My thought though is that he's referring to stringing dozens of the Random Huge Multi maps together into one mega map. One that would take 1,000 hours to completely conquer.

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GoaFan77

Join Date 10/2008

+629

Quoting Kronos7,

reply 10

2. By saying it has nothing to do with the engines fault and my computers fault if the game were running slow means he was suggesting engine optimization means nothing to the matter and that it was entirely my computers fault.

I never said that. I just meant there is no hard coded limit for map size, unlike many other games. The limit is when your game comes to a halt after your RAM can no longer handle any more objects.

And no one was giving you smart ass remarks at the time you said that, were are just genuinely confused because your idea is not described well (perhaps because I have never played spore).

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Sorry I was not descriptive enough about the size of the galaxy, but I did atleast give some sort of scale in later post by suggesting 100 or so stars would be a decent amount for a fictional galaxy.

Quoting GoaFan77,

reply 17

I never said that. I just meant there is no hard coded limit for map size, unlike many other games. The limit is when your game comes to a halt after your RAM can no longer handle any more objects.

And no one was giving you smart ass remarks at the time you said that, were are just genuinely confused because your idea is not described well (perhaps because I have never played spore).

Fair enough but you did insist that it was my computers fault and not the engines fault for map size, this gave me the impression that you meant nothing could be done to help the performance engine wise.

For the record though, Sins happens to run perfectly fine on my machine maxed out with a full room of players on a large map. I mentioned performance for the sake of describing a galaxy size map as I would imagine this could bring even the strongest computers down to their knees without some interesting optimization.

Quoting DirtySanchezz,

reply 14

I really don't think the OP is missing out on all that much by being limited to 300 planet maps. Once you've beaten down a couple empires and conquered 100 planets how much different could the game play be for conquering the next 200 planets or 2000 planets?

The OP sounds like a bored guy who needs to discover the joys of playing human opponents in online multiplayer. That's where the real challenge is.

Same could be said for a normal typical Sins match lasting an hour or more, no reason for a match to last that long if the experience of the game pretty much stays the same mid game in.

Truth be told I would actually prefer players over human opponents in a large persistent galaxy world but I figured it would stand more of a chance if it were a single player only thing. I love a challenge, and I especially love playing against other players for the sake of unpredictability. Please don't try to break me down into what I do or do not like, in the end it's just a waste of time because more then half the time people attempt to do this they are 90 percent wrong.

Quoting 1Tiberius1,

reply 8

Or just have more militia colonies, which fortify their own planet. You can set militia colony likelihood for custom maps, but they don't generate their own forces beyond what is initially set. Imagine if they did? Now you have microfactions spread out across the galaxy. So you come to a terran planet and it might have 25 tactical structures along with 125 fleet supply worth of ships. And, if you left without killing them, they'd construct more. That might be a fun addition to mix up larger games, especially for the singleplayer-oriented purchasing majority for Sins.

That's a wonderful idea I would love to see in every match of Sins, with the possibility of turning it on or off just like the pirates. Absolutely brilliant!

Quoting NHD-151,

reply 13

How about a Galactic Conquest type of campaign, in which there is a Galaxy map that details clusters of stars in sectors, and you gain control of the sectors by invading/defending each sector. you can make a small fleet of whatever you want to use as an invasion fleet to a new sector (while the remaining fleet stays in that sector as defense), and capital ships keep their rank status in different fields of battle so long as they stay alive. You can set as many AI enemies/allies as you want for the overall map, and neutral 'militia controlled' sectors you may have to take for bonus resources. Artifacts would be scarce, and they can affect your overall game. In a sense, it would be like Empire at War's Galactic Conquest, but with customizable AI numbers and randomly generated maps, while keeping it all in real time and being unable to change settings in star clusters unless you are attacking/defending in a certain sector. Obviously this wouldnt work with more than two players in MP or a two teams of players so they get into the same battles, but in single player there could be any number of enemies. It would make for an incredibly long campaign (days, maybe weeks depending on numbers of sectors/difficulty), and being randomized it could be infinitely replayable.

This would definitely solve some performance troubles if the actual galaxy on its own wasn't seamless like the rest of the game but more of an overall campaign map where you only ever have to fight for star clusters at one time.

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This, quite simply, isn't going to happen. You'd literally need a supercomputer to run it.

Unless you want to wait a decade or two for hardware capable of running it to become available.

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WHIPperSNAPper2008

Join Date 03/2008

+126

Quoting Kronos7,

reply 18

Same could be said for a normal typical Sins match lasting an hour or more, no reason for a match to last that long if the experience of the game pretty much stays the same mid game in.

I don't think the experience stays the same throughout the game. It hadn't occurred to me until your post, but the online games really do offer fluidity in the area of the game play. The game play of each ten minute segment of the game is a bit different from the previous ten minutes.

Truth be told I would actually prefer players over human opponents in a large persistent galaxy world but I figured it would stand more of a chance if it were a single player only thing. I love a challenge, and I especially love playing against other players for the sake of unpredictability. Please don't try to break me down into what I do or do not like, in the end it's just a waste of time because more then half the time people attempt to do this they are 90 percent wrong.

In that case, if you want a challenge and unpredictability, I hope you'll give online multiplayer a try. Come try a 5v5 sometime this weekend. Who knows? You might like it.

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Quoting DirtySanchezz,

reply 20

In that case, if you want a challenge and unpredictability, I hope you'll give online multiplayer a try. Come try a 5v5 sometime this weekend. Who knows? You might like it.

Thanks but that's all I do on Sins is play 5v5 multiplayer. When enough are around for it anyway.

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If you want to play on huge maps that feel like a galaxy then just download this mod....

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/375952

Maps with multiple systems, connected systems, minor factions (very close to the militia concept being thrown around) and various other goodies.

Why bother complaining to get something that already exists?

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Quoting Banthracis,

reply 22

If you want to play on huge maps that feel like a galaxy then just download this mod....

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/375952

Maps with multiple systems, connected systems, minor factions (very close to the militia concept being thrown around) and various other goodies.

Why bother complaining to get something that already exists?

It's not complaining, it's asking, and wishing.

It's a nice mod but it is indeed still a mod, would be awesome if something like this already existed in Sins with even more added to it.

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If Sins 2 releases someday with 64-bit programming and support for quad cores and the like, maybe then you'll see an expansive 'galaxy'.

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Frankly, it'd be way too resource intensive. A 5v5 huge map is already intensive, an even bigger map, with bigger fleet caps, more mines, more defensive structures, etc would make it even more intensive.

Now, if that mod is what you're looking for, then I'd suggest going and using that. There is nothing wrong with it being a mod, and being a mod does not somehow make it inferior to a system they put into the game. They are not going to spend a large amount of time coding in this new concept unless it was already in their plan to do so, regardless of everything else.

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