The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary?

[Lucian]

ORIGINAL: DeadlyShoe

MOO3 was unpolished and unfinished and that's what killed it, didn't have anything to do with its racial selection

It's actually pretty fun today if you slap a bunch of bugfix patches and mods on it.

Er..... no actually, its a massive steaming pile of crap no matter whether player patches have made it technically "playable" or not.

[Spidey]

@ PE

Which of those things are fully possible and even likely?

Space combat has a bunch of issues, such as how the weapons work, cooling issues, relativistic distortion, the effect of space debris, and how the exhaust torch, roughly speaking a continuous nuclear explosion, is somehow not doing any damage ever.

Planetary invasions using a handful of troops is ridiculous. The US sent a hundred thousand well-trained troops into Iraq and couldn't hold it. Now imagine trying to hold the entire freaking world. That's going to take a huge amount of manpower and we're only seven billion people or so.

Faster than light travel is what it is. Unless something has changed recently, it's not going to happen without the use of wormholes, warp drives, or some fancy quantum mechanics, which is to say that we can't do it by simply putting great big engines on ships and pushing really hard. I don't see how FTL is any more probable than intelligent cat-people.

Final thing, if you have a station in space and an asteroid with significant mass hammers into it at anything approaching comet velocity, a mere 40 km per second, then that station is gone. You saw what some snail pace planes did back on 9/11. Now imagine that mass travelling at 144000 km/h. There's just no realistic way to build anything that withstands that sort of energy release.

[eyegore]

- If popularity was the sole determinator of anything, the X4 genre would not even exist

- You are talking about novels, these are games, entirely different formats

- Honor Harrington and Known Space, if you want feline aliens, infact the Kzinti are likely the inspiration for the Kilrathi, Mrrshan, and all the other warlike felines that were popular in X4s for awile.

- Ender's Game and Starship Troopers has insect aliens

- A vast majority has no aliens at all, bringing back my previous point "As for needing talking cats, that is true, you do not need talking cats, but we can take that a step further and say that we do not need aliens entirely"

- The aliens novels never took off, to my knowlege, so to call them 'popular' is completely incorrect


This is your example of popular? The Kilrathi from Wing Commander or the awful B-movie Starship Troopers? this brings back to square one of my comment. I wish they'd get serious with the lore because it does not get anymore shallow than the examples you list- while i got another fanboiy here telling me map scripting should handle the churches in an emperor of the Fading Suns mod, apparantly not ever playing the buggy imcomplete game of 1996 nor for that matter knowing anything about the Fading Suns Universe from the books. Read dune, and yes read Alien...and as far as i know there was no book series...there was just a book called alien written and released before the movie--which goes far more indepth than the movie ever did. There was likely a marketing scheme for a series of books based on the movies as a cash grab but that is not of what i speak about here.

Lore wise DW is as shallow as Starship troopers and if that is your depth then we will never agree on what makes good sci-fi. I find including talking mice, bugs, cats and all of it a kirt to avoid really doing the work on the Lore in the first place. It's B-movie Level shallow- and seeing the game is built around that it is no wonder one cannot mod something in with more flavor or depth.

The church from EOFS is mostly a matter of map setup and scripting, which is actually fairly capable in DWU. I don't know if you can set up triggers based off techs and the AI certainly wouldn't care about tech restrictions but you could set up NPCs that get angry at you for reaching for forbidden fruit.


Power is administered by noble houses, guilds, and a monolithic Holy Church. Psionic powers exist but psionicists are often hunted down and killed by the Church (or led back to orthodoxy and enrolled in the Church's ranks). The Church is also capable of producing miracles through Theurgic rites, a kind of divine sorcery. the churches;Urth Orthodox: The largest sect, Sanctuary Aeon (Amaltheans): Also known as the Order of Saint Amalthea the Compassionate. Healers and compassionate mystics, Brother Battle: This order of monk knights is the most elite fighting unit in the Known Worlds, surpassing even the Emperor's Phoenix Guard in martial prowess, Temple Avesti: Dreaded inquisitors. The Avestites long ago seized most of the seats on the Inquisitorial Synod, and have since then made it their duty to search the Known Worlds for signs of heresy, demonism and any other threat to the faithful, Eskatonic Order: These hermetic sages are often thought of as wizards by the common folk, but the nobles and guildsmen know them for the kooks they often are, Mendicant Monks (Hesychasts): Humble monks who seek to master and fully understand the teachings of the Gospel by mastering their minds, their bodies and their souls, and the Chorali: Blessed singers, whose very words hold something of the Pancreator's blessing.

on the flip side is Heretics, Incarnates: This heavily persecuted church sect believs that the holy words of Zebulon was corrupted by the first church fathers to suit political needs. Incarnates believe in the Incarnate Spirit contained in every sentient being created by the Pancreator, Gjarti: Forbidden belief in the Universal Mother and the various nature spirits that reside and rule her realms. Attunement to nature and the natural balance of things are important to this Gaia cult, El-Diin (Kurgan): The structured and colourful religion of the Kurgan Caliphate. The All-Maker, the maker of Stars is resposnible for creation of all things, Erdgheist (Vuldrok): The religion of the Vuldrok Star-Nations is as diversified as the various tribal nations that make up the Star-Nations, Zuranists: A animistic worship of spirits and master/maturity of ones spiritual self. The religion is popular among gypsie-like people travelling the wilds and Known Worlds, Manja: Ancestral worship originally found among the Li Halan before their Elevation to Grace. It still survives and is held a careful secret. Worship includes summoning and communing with dead ancestors in secret crypts holding their remains, Antinomists: A collective name for all those foul and fallen humans and aliens that worship the dark entities from the Qlippoth (Hell) and the Darkness Between the Stars. Always seeking ways to taint or entrap the souls of men and to destroy the worlds and humanity as we know it today.

To invade a world, gaining space superiority wasn’t enough – you had to land troops to establish a beachhead and fight your way across the surface, all the while keeping up a flow of new ground units from your homeworlds. As a result, EFS, better than any other game I’ve played, captures just how colossal an undertaking a planetary invasion would be. EFS’ uniqueness extended to its victory conditions. To start with, players could trade favors to win control of what was left of the Imperial ministries (space fleets, spies, border garrisons) – every 10 turns, the players would elect one of their number to be the regent, the one in charge of handing out these offices. To win the game, you had to first be voted regent, then declare yourself emperor. Instead of putting you through the tedium of steamrolling every other claimant to the throne, EFS “just” required you to be confirmed by a final vote after another 10 turns.

And this was when the game was at its most exciting. To vote for regent or emperor, you needed two things. First, each player’s voting rights were represented by five sceptres – actual units on the map – and these could be stolen from one another (or from certain NPC factions). More sceptres, more votes. Second, you needed a noble in the capital to cast your vote. You started with five nobles – four on your homeworld, one in the capital – and if they all died, it was game over. Rival armies would converge on the capital to slaughter each other’s nobles while safeguarding their own. Battle fleets would take up position to stop the armies arriving. Blood would run in the streets, as neglected garrisons were overrun by their more prepared rivals. And hanging over your head was the looming deadline of that second vote. That was how a race for the imperial throne should feel. And that was how a strategy endgame should play.

Buggy and incomplete-Vestigial, unimplemented features remain to tantalise the player – for example, you could throw your weight behind one Church sect or another, which had absolutely no effect but implies that the designers intended players to stack papal elections in their favor.
you simply are not going to get the flavor and feel of the houses, sects nor world in the narrow confines of government and racial tweaks that is in DW and no amount of map scripting is going to replace it.Such a mod just cannot be made because the basis of what defines races and the complete lack of support for idealogical leanings is not there.

EOFS is often coined as a cross between Dune and WH40k- and likewise mods based on either would equally not be possible.

You could possibly pull off a Battlestar Galatica mod except the moving fleet of humans would probably not be feasible as was in the series, and Starship troopers-- about the depth level the game actually supports Lore wise- and is the area a DW2 could open up-- by expanding racial abilities as also idealogical and religous- and a diplomancy system alone the same lines to support it.

[ParagonExile]

ORIGINAL: Spidey

@ PE

Which of those things are fully possible and even likely?

EFFECTIVE (not 'actual') FTL travel

Aliens that resembled Earth animals

Battles in space

Massive space stations capable of withstanding bombardment.

Sapient/sentient synthetic machines.

Space combat has a bunch of issues, such as how the weapons work

Recoil-less rifles, and various forms of railgun. Also if they can be miniaturized and improved significantly to run longer, lasers.

cooling issues

Radiation cooling and superconductors would reduce heat output enormously.

relativistic distortion,

Only matters at speed at 90%+ of c. Space vessels will almost never have a reason to go at these speeds while in a solar system, where nearly every engagement would be.

the effect of space debris

If current theories about warp bubbles are correct, then impacts by space debris could very easily be mitigated by the drive system of a hypothetical starship.

and how the exhaust torch, roughly speaking a continuous nuclear explosion, is somehow not doing any damage ever.

Most engines and motivators in the pipe for future spacecraft do not use massive, expensive nuclear exhausts

Planetary invasions using a handful of troops is ridiculous. The US sent a hundred thousand well-trained troops into Iraq and couldn't hold it. Now imagine trying to hold the entire freaking world. That's going to take a huge amount of manpower and we're only seven billion people or so.

The difference being that the invading force could threaten the populace with massive destruction by virtue of them controlling space (orbital bombardment), while the US was not allowed to do that with its nuclear weapons. It would be a trivial effort by any aliens today to cripple humanity; all it would take would be a few shots from orbit into a few key locations to effectively devastate the world's military forces through resource starvation. I highly doubt there would ever be the need for fighting on the ground.

Faster than light travel is what it is. Unless something has changed recently, it's not going to happen without the use of wormholes, warp drives, or some fancy quantum mechanics, which is to say that we can't do it by simply putting great big engines on ships and pushing really hard. I don't see how FTL is any more probable than intelligent cat-people.

Didn't you see NASA's plans for a Warp-capable ship? It requires quite a bit of negative energy, but we know how to make it in small amounts already.

Final thing, if you have a station in space and an asteroid with significant mass hammers into it at anything approaching comet velocity, a mere 40 km per second, then that station is gone. You saw what some snail pace planes did back on 9/11. Now imagine that mass travelling at 144000 km/h. There's just no realistic way to build anything that withstands that sort of energy release.

The chances of a large object in space hitting another large object in space are virtually zero on the timescales safety concerns would be an issue. While there are trillions of asteroids and comets in the solar system that could potentially ravage the Earth or any spacecraft, we don't plan around it because it's so astronomically unlikely you can ignore it (almost). The real concern would be accumulated wear and tear caused by micrometeorite impacts, but that is relatively easy to fix.

While obviously many things in science fiction and fantasy are obviously wrong or done for convenience, many subjects they cover are indeed quite possible, if not feasible for us because of our limited resources and technology.

[DeadlyShoe]

Ugnari also use robotic troops.

It's really not hard to handwave: ugnari/zenox normal troops could be waldo'd or possess independent action capability, while robotic foundry troops are standardized and remotely operated (like Trade Federation droids.)

(On the topic of rock bombardment: most satellites today have maneuvering capability, and it takes only the most limited maneuvering to dodge a dumb rock.) Even before magical handwavium shields enter the picture.

[Nanaki]

ORIGINAL: eyegore

This is your example of popular? The Kilrathi from Wing Commander or the awful B-movie Starship Troopers?

Wait. Movies?

You cannot be serious.

Movies are probably the least serious medium that exists in regards to sci-fi, and your much-beloved Aliens and 2001 do not even register as a blip in terms of popularity. Do you really want to take up the blue space elves set in a pocahontas in space as your model alien?

If you want to talk about serious sci-fi, than turn off the TV and pick up a book, because you wont find it where you are looking now, I even consider certain Animes to be far more serious than anything that has ever come from the West. Finally, Aliens is not serious sci-fi. It is just another horror flick whos only distinguished feature is that James Cameron laid his hands on it.

Space combat has a bunch of issues, such as how the weapons work, cooling issues, relativistic distortion, the effect of space debris, and how the exhaust torch,

Space combat is an inevitability, it just wont look anything like the popular perception. Engagement distances will be well beyond visual range, possibly even as far as a hundred thousand kilometers. Ship movement will be abysmally slow in that enviornment given current drive technology. Engagement ranges mean that using anything other than lasers will require a significant amount of movement prediction, and most 'evasion' will likely consist of just burning the thrusters in a different direction for half a minute which would throw off weapons immeasurably due to the massive trajectory changes. Oh, and space fighters? Not going to happen.

Yeah, the end result is a lot less interesting than most people imagined. Two ships pummeling eachother at extreme distances until one stops shooting back.

Also, relativistic distortion? Personally, I have my doubts as to weither safe relativistic travel will even be possible. There is too much space debris that the probability of smacking into something is just too high. I can see it used possibly by unmanned ships.

As for the exhaust torch causing damage... you should read up on the Kzinti Lesson. The effectiveness of a space drive is directly proportional to its effectiveness as a weapon. Still, what your talking about only applies to Orion-derived tech, most drive designs out there do not have to worry about exhaust damage.

But interstellar travel is still a long, long time away. We likely will expand slowly. First starting with the Moon, than Mars, then the asteroid belt, Jupiter's moons. Baby steps. Expecting the human race to be able to travel interstellar without first having colonized its own home system is akin to expecting an infant to run a marathon when it has not even learned to walk yet.

[eyegore]

Wait. Movies?

You cannot be serious.

Movies are probably the least serious medium that exists in regards to sci-fi, and your much-beloved Aliens and 2001 do not even register as a blip in terms of popularity. Do you really want to take up the blue space elves set in a pocahontas in space as your model alien?

If you want to talk about serious sci-fi, than turn off the TV and pick up a book, because you wont find it where you are looking now, I even consider certain Animes to be far more serious than anything that has ever come from the West. Finally, Aliens is not serious sci-fi. It is just another horror flick whos only distinguished feature is that James Cameron laid his hands on it.

I agree about that- I used aliens as an example in terms of it being the first movie hollywood made that had serious effort behind it-- in terms of visuals, money etc. Up to then all we ever got was low budget B-movies--done so badly one watches them for thier comic value. And the later sequels were just that bad- even with the bigger budget.

Space combat is an inevitability, it just wont look anything like the popular perception. Engagement distances will be well beyond visual range, possibly even as far as a hundred thousand kilometers. Ship movement will be abysmally slow in that enviornment given current drive technology. Engagement ranges mean that using anything other than lasers will require a significant amount of movement prediction, and most 'evasion' will likely consist of just burning the thrusters in a different direction for half a minute which would throw off weapons immeasurably due to the massive trajectory changes. Oh, and space fighters? Not going to happen.

Yeah, the end result is a lot less interesting than most people imagined. Two ships pummeling eachother at extreme distances until one stops shooting back.

Also, relativistic distortion? Personally, I have my doubts as to weither safe relativistic travel will even be possible. There is too much space debris that the probability of smacking into something is just too high. I can see it used possibly by unmanned ships.

As for the exhaust torch causing damage... you should read up on the Kzinti Lesson. The effectiveness of a space drive is directly proportional to its effectiveness as a weapon. Still, what your talking about only applies to Orion-derived tech, most drive designs out there do not have to worry about exhaust damage.

But interstellar travel is still a long, long time away. We likely will expand slowly. First starting with the Moon, than Mars, then the asteroid belt, Jupiter's moons. Baby steps. Expecting the human race to be able to travel interstellar without first having colonized its own home system is akin to expecting an infant to run a marathon when it has not even learned to walk yet.



I doubt very much it'll look like that. Your problem, as well as a huge bulk of sci-fi- is injecting our technology today into the technology that would exist centuries from now when this all comes to pass. In 1960 it might have been alright to strap a captule onto a refitted balistic missle to send a man around the planet- but if your traveling light years through space the intire idea of a ship using any fuel for a term "thrusters" as we envision them in movies and books or games just is not possible. We are not likely going to bending Space either--what is far more likely is such ships will be using tech that require no fuel at all---gravatational perhaps--using planatary and star gravitational fields to slingshot across the cosmos akin to the effects of a magnet--which also requires no fuel.

This likely would also mean the journey begins in actual space from a space station rather than trying to reach space from land that requires massive amounts of thrust-- as gravitational engines would have intial slow speed, building their speed over time -- seeing the loss of resistance that is space--the same way apollo coasted most of the way to the moon- but in this case the moon pulling the ship via it's engines, then sling shoting around and hooking onto to the next gravitational body.

An 'evasive' action probably would be almost nil--you could shift the field but it's movement would be as slow as when the ship starts out. If a weapon approached you it would likely have a homing devise fully capable--you'd have to take it out rather than avoid I'd think--if it was physical in nature at all--but it may not be ...it may be a wave of some sort.

I do not invision space combat at all- if man's natures remain what it is today-- where our willingness to go to war is heavily weighted by our superior tech advantage and the odds of winning. It will probably be us waring with a race not even capable of space---seeing we're war with 3rd world countries but not ones on equal footing--like Russia or China. Those wars will be cold wars- full of spying and Espianoge-- there will be no space battlefields. Or our foe waging war on us-having the technological advantage. Other than covert- any engagments would be massively lop-sided.

If it did happen it would probably be akin to a submarine--going in stealthed -- taking the shot...with a weapon not resembling anything today...especially like a laser or missle-- and escaping.

Yet again the last time I put forth that idea I was plummeted with a lot of logical arguments that stealth would not be possible at all against any other race within our technology range.

In either case a Luke going in to destroy a death star will always remain a story of fiction- battles in the future will likely always be on the ground--and space being the transport of troops and equipment. akin to merchant ships in WWII- traveling in convoys hoping enough get through to reach their target.

[ldog]

ORIGINAL: Lucian

ORIGINAL: DeadlyShoe

MOO3 was unpolished and unfinished and that's what killed it, didn't have anything to do with its racial selection

It's actually pretty fun today if you slap a bunch of bugfix patches and mods on it.

Er..... no actually, its a massive steaming pile of crap no matter whether player patches have made it technically "playable" or not.

Can't we just forget it ever existed? I think I poured gasoline on my disc.

[Nanaki]

I doubt very much it'll look like that. Your problem, as well as a huge bulk of sci-fi- is injecting our technology today into the technology that would exist centuries from now when this all comes to pass. In 1960 it might have been alright to strap a captule onto a refitted balistic missle to send a man around the planet- but if your traveling light years through space the intire idea of a ship using any fuel for a term "thrusters" as we envision them in movies and books or games just is not possible. We are not likely going to bending Space either--what is far more likely is such ships will be using tech that require no fuel at all---gravatational perhaps--using planatary and star gravitational fields to slingshot across the cosmos akin to the effects of a magnet--which also requires no fuel.

Not really sure what your talking about... but generally theres only three reactionless ways of getting around the solar system, and none of them completely eliminate the usage of propellant (FYI, fuel =/= propellant). The first is the Interplanetary Transport Network which is space travel 101 used by every space agency to move their probes around and generally a good way of getting around the solar system without expending a whole lot of propellant. The second is magnetic propulsion based on massive ground stations, where all the energy is expended at the start and the ship 'coasts' the rest of the way to the target. The third is 'sail' type devices which use either the sun's energy or lasers fired from ground stations to move a ship about and are generally only seriously considered for unmanned probes simply because of how slowly they work. None of these are suitable for warships for many, many reasons.

If a weapon approached you it would likely have a homing devise fully capable--you'd have to take it out rather than avoid I'd think--if it was physical in nature at all--but it may not be ...it may be a wave of some sort.

Evasive manuvers would be entirely determined by the weapon systems used, light-speed weapons like lasers would be almost impossible to evade, wheras missiles, slow-moving objects with a limited amount of propellant and using the same drive systems used by spacecraft, would be almost comically easy to avoid. Depending on range, even railgun-launched ferrous projectiles would be rather easy to avoid considering trajectories and time to impact.

I do not invision space combat at all- if man's natures remain what it is today-- where our willingness to go to war is heavily weighted by our superior tech advantage and the odds of winning. It will probably be us waring with a race not even capable of space---seeing we're war with 3rd world countries but not ones on equal footing--like Russia or China. Those wars will be cold wars- full of spying and Espianoge-- there will be no space battlefields. Or our foe waging war on us-having the technological advantage. Other than covert- any engagments would be massively lop-sided.

Human willingness to go to war has a huge number of variables beyond simple military superiority, the willingness of a country to go to war has a dizzying number of factors and not all of them are rational. Infact, your assumption falls flat considering that the post-WW2 era is among the most peaceful in human history despite the power differences between the largest and smallest countries being greater than they ever were since the fall of the Roman Empire.

If it did happen it would probably be akin to a submarine--going in stealthed -- taking the shot...with a weapon not resembling anything today...especially like a laser or missle-- and escaping.

There is no stealth in space.

Yet again the last time I put forth that idea I was plummeted with a lot of logical arguments that stealth would not be possible at all against any other race within our technology range.

The difference between hard sci-fi and soft sci-fi is that hard sci-fi actually looks at the laws of physics and what is possible using today's technology, wheras soft sci-fi says "fuck it" and makes up whatever it wants for what it wants to do. Gravity drives? Stealth? FTL? None of that is possible in hard scifi. Hard sci-fi is harsh and unforgiving mistress and as a result it is not for most people.

[FingNewGuy]

ORIGINAL: eyegore

I think Carl Sagan (yeah I'm a terrible speller) was a product of his time. The nuclear age. Like me remembering those drills in school where somehow hiding under a desk or going to the basement saved us children (rather than impact horrible phobeas) from a nuclear attack. Today the idea of any nuclear attack, however likely or widespread, would completely wipe us off the planet probably is a bit too paranoid after having them around 60 plus years and seeing us still standing. Oh, they might be used again, and they might be devasting, but they will not wipe us off the planet. Not all of us.

Yes, unless your doing 2001 (book or Movie) true good hard sci-fi is rare and hard to find.And i will note they did not kill the idea of God here either in 2001...I think it is used often in good sci-fi. But I can suspend my disbelief in a game if the races I choose don't reflect a Raid commercial or Daffy Duck. I was reading an article on how good old Stardock's Howard didn't want to mess up the LORE too much in Cal Civ3 but rather wanted to flesh it out. Inside i was laughing, and I'm still laughing. I can't take that lore seriously anymore than the lore in Wizard of Oz. If Howard really wants me to take his game serious he should take the LORE seriously. It doesn't have to be Kubrick's 2001, but it certainly should be better than talking hampsters. Wether a hampster could ever EVOLVE...or a roach...to have lungs, vocal cords or telephic means of comunication...or thumbs...a basic requirement...I'd say by that stage it stops being a roach or hampter and starts being pretty huminoid in nature.

Dophins are only another example. As intelligent as we think they are, along with Killer Whales I might add...ALL ATTEMPTS to form any communication or understanding in this matter have pretty much been total failures. It takes huge leaps of Assumptions where there are no real world facts-

Humanoid you can sell me. Even an intelligent underwater breathing type of humanoid looking race, or ones perferring swamps, desert, or whatnot...but by no stretch can I buy a talking roach zipping across the milky way. If you want those characteristics in a race make them zealous nymphmaniacs that can't stop having sex at every turn with a religion that forbids birth control. Even the race pictures would be more pleasing to the eye.

I am sorry, but that is just such an excellent point it sparked this screed. That is why I do not take SETI seriously AT ALL. (And coincidentally why I completely discount the objection that since SETI has produced no positive result, it means there is no intelligent life "out there". That is utter rubbish thinking). The very idea that we humans could possibly recognize, let alone understand extraterrestrial communication is completely laughable to me, based solely on our historical inability to comprehend and communicate well with terrestrial intelligences. Don't misunderstand- the motivation is admirable, but the concept is flawed from the very beginning, because too many arbitrary assumptions are driving the process. There is absolutely NO logical reason to assume that extraterrestrial intelligences would select the 21-cm band to communicate at all, and even less reason to logically conclude that any extraterrestrial intelligence would beam anything deliberately into space. In fact, logically it is inherently dangerous to advertise your existence as a civilization into an environment chock full of unknowns. Nature thrives either by virtue of overwhelming force or camouflage or other forms of deception (or the ability to run away, to make one's self useful, or simply by virtue of numbers). Not a single one of those elements apply to a nascent sub-light civilization like ours.

[eyegore]

That is an excellent post FingNewGuy--and one I cannot argue against. My comment on dophins however was really fueled by a docu-whatever I viewed on Netflix , and if memory serves right was one of those History Channel offerrings labeled "what if Aliens attacked" or some such thing like that. Being what it was it was somewhat dumbed down and heavily commercialized to tantalize the viewer-- but it did have a few interviews with NASA, Pentagon and UN people---basically saying the governments to have a myraid of plans and scenerios in place policy wise to respond to such an attack---and one point driven was it was pretty much a given communication between us and them would almost certainly be impossible- and to prove the point they used all the research results involving dophins.

The whole thing though was generally alone the lines of most things on the channel now from ghost busting to zombies---it was so glossed over with that trible one could hardly take it seriously.

[Tormodino]

Stop shitting on Moo3
I was so disappointed by it when it came out, but I have suffered through that horrendous UI to actually see what they attempted to do. It was far too ambitious, but it introduced a lot of ideas that could have been explored at great benefit. The planetary model, where your colonies grew organically region by region was a fantastic concept. The fleet model, flawed as it was, could theoretically allow you to
The final product, even with mods, is not a fun experience, but it is still the most intriguing take on the 4x genre that has ever been made. IMO and YMMV, ofc!

In DW terms, I am onboard with the people who want an improved UI, and expanded tools to changes the functions of components, buildings etc.
I'm not against a new and improved sequel to the current game, but like many others have pointed out I would love to see the current game expanded upon if this is possible, rather than taking years out to remake the whole thing from the bottom up.

The point made by Spidey about the private sector being basically the same for all the races, no matter how alien they are supposed to be, is a great one, and illustrates this well. This is one area where the game as it is now could be greatly enhanced without massively changing the current mechanics.

On the subject of what is realistic in scifi, I would have to say that our aggressive nature contradicts the idea that we would not advertise our position in space. We are putting out feelers and forming an idea of what to expect. You could go so far as to say that SETI and similar projects are scouting missions feeling the waters to see if there is danger and opportunity "out there". We consider it naive because it has not proven its value. The moment, if that ever occurs, these projects yield something that non-scientists can relate to it will be hailed as one of humanities great watershed moments.

Being invaded by bugs piloting asteroid hives, or encountering gas giant dwelling photon-based lifeforms... Not immediately rational, but currently we only have this locally limited frame of reference. It is not helpful to dismiss the potential to expand our concepts beyond what is currently know simply because we do not know better.
We are in fact quite justified in deluding ourselves into thinking that we could, given foreknowledge, be able to deal with any potential new situation. Our historical narrative and our continual expansion confirms that the gathering of intel allows our future plans to proceed far more reliably and with much greater impact. Forewarned is forearmed, even when the scenario is a peaceful one.

On the other hand, the fact that we would not be able to understand and interact with something completely different from ourselves is a given. There are probably an infinity of things going on right here, right now, that we have no way of even acknowledging. Not in a mystical sense, but in a tangible and utilitarian sense.

Cat people might be a fact, or not. We could make them, or meet them. It still wouldn't be a proven fact until it is. Any claims about impossibilites in a universe assumed to be effectively infinite is inherently flawed.
This does not exclude the possibility that the whole of reality might in fact be very limited, and a great many things might be in fact impossible, but I would hold off on concluding that. Limiting theorizing and imagination seems, at best, counterproductive.

It makes sense to work with the tools we have available, while at the same time pushing the boundaries of our dogmaticsm. This is obviously apparent in fantasy science fiction.

[Rahal]

ORIGINAL: Max 86
My biggest concern is that it becomes unplayable after updates to PC operating systems in the future. It would be sad to let this game fade away because of incompatibility with future PCs.

[/quote]

With how aggravating it is to get win95/98 games working today, this is my worry too.

How realistic is this? Will needing XNA & .NET be like trying to wrangle IntelIndeo & WinG in 10 years time?

[Nanaki]

ORIGINAL: Tormodino
Stop shitting on Moo3
I was so disappointed by it when it came out, but I have suffered through that horrendous UI to actually see what they attempted to do. It was far too ambitious, but it introduced a lot of ideas that could have been explored at great benefit. The planetary model, where your colonies grew organically region by region was a fantastic concept. The fleet model, flawed as it was, could theoretically allow you to
The final product, even with mods, is not a fun experience, but it is still the most intriguing take on the 4x genre that has ever been made. IMO and YMMV, ofc!

I frequented the MOO3 forums before it came out and bought it at full retail price, I have every right to crap all over it. Especially when I see someone advocating to repeat some of the same mistakes MOO3 did.

On the subject of what is realistic in scifi

I get very, very wary when someone uses the realism argument because it is extremely common in the sci-fi fandom for people to think that their favorite sci-fis are 'realistic' while the sci-fis they dislike are 'not realistic' and therefore bad. Not only is there absolutly nothing wrong with soft sci-fi, but chances are the sci-fi they prefer is just as soft as the sci-fi they are complaining about. Real hard sci-fi is extremely rare and only a very, very small niche compared to most sci-fi out there.

[ldog]

ORIGINAL: Nanaki

ORIGINAL: Tormodino
Stop shitting on Moo3
I was so disappointed by it when it came out, but I have suffered through that horrendous UI to actually see what they attempted to do. It was far too ambitious, but it introduced a lot of ideas that could have been explored at great benefit. The planetary model, where your colonies grew organically region by region was a fantastic concept. The fleet model, flawed as it was, could theoretically allow you to
The final product, even with mods, is not a fun experience, but it is still the most intriguing take on the 4x genre that has ever been made. IMO and YMMV, ofc!

I frequented the MOO3 forums before it came out and bought it at full retail price, I have every right to crap all over it. Especially when I see someone advocating to repeat some of the same mistakes MOO3 did.

On the subject of what is realistic in scifi

I get very, very wary when someone uses the realism argument because it is extremely common in the sci-fi fandom for people to think that their favorite sci-fis are 'realistic' while the sci-fis they dislike are 'not realistic' and therefore bad. Not only is there absolutly nothing wrong with soft sci-fi, but chances are the sci-fi they prefer is just as soft as the sci-fi they are complaining about. Real hard sci-fi is extremely rare and only a very, very small niche compared to most sci-fi out there.

All too true. The people screaming for more realism generally don't realize what they are asking for. Hard sci-fi doesn't make for a very fun game. I enjoy the space-operaishness that DW captures.

And +1 for money wasted on MOO3, yes Tormodino it was overly ambitious and a ton of unrealized potential, I don't know about you, but I don't like handing over money I worked for for unrealized potential. I may bitch as much about things I don't like in DW as much as the next person, but at least I don't feel like I was ripped off.

ORIGINAL: eyegore
one of those History Channel offerings---dumbed down and heavily commercialized to tantalize the viewer---generally along the lines of the channel---one could hardly take it seriously.

Edited to highlight just the relevant points.

[eyegore]

With how aggravating it is to get win95/98 games working today, this is my worry too.

How realistic is this? Will needing XNA & .NET be like trying to wrangle IntelIndeo & WinG in 10 years time?

Being a former Microsoft Engineer..working through all 3 releases of Windows 95...a, b and c, Windows 98, Windows 98 se, Mill and leaving during the XP release the answer is highly dependant on the dev team that made the game...and not so much the OS's ability to be backwards compatable.

Many here will remember the often times pain in the butt process of wiping hard drives and reinstalling windows to get speed and stability back. What caused that is exactly why many games of the period are a pain to get running today. Developers, for a varity of reason, mostly ingnorance- would routinely rewrite system .dlls of the OS. Strickly against the SDK BTW naturally, how can you have a stable OS if everyone and his uncle is replacing it's system files? Yet it was a common routine, and often times troublshooting windows came right down to finding that rogue .dll and the program that replaced it that was leading to problems in all other programs requiring the .dll.

Had developers READ and followed the SDK there games would work today and in the future--but few did, and often many arrogantly ignored them even when they knew better--often times it was a move to be priotority as well, replacing codecs so you'd be tied into Napster, I-tunes or whatnot- again breaking just about everything else that depended on those files.

AOL was a top culprit and there was times in my memory I can recall well over 50 percent of all call volumes being, fix my AOL. AOL was not a windows issue, but their support was so terrible people would , out of frustration call us to repair it, which back then was a $35 call. I could fix any "page cannot be displayed" within 18 minutes garanteed, staying with the caller and seeing the expected messages on reboot. An AOL tech would not. They weren't allowed to spend more than 6 minutes on a call, and half of that was getting your information and the other half trying to sell you something, then ending with, "try this and call back." And none of it involved going into the registry- a step that is absolutely necessary to garantee old settings don't stick as you replace the networking components.

In truth the typical AOL tech knew absolutely nothing about networking- and only knew the script he was ordered to read from. By the time I picked up-the customer was usually in tears.

The problem was AOL threw out all Windows networking components and replaced them with thiers. Imagine the cost to Microsoft in having to deal with all of this. In Windows there was no Engineer tools- you had to manually fix everything via dos- and version control was not in place--thus the most common problem was someone reinstalling windows from thier windows a disk overtop an updated Windows c on the computer- breaking the OS to a state it was a 6 hour phone call replacing well over a 100 system files manually in dos using dos commands.

Windows 98 came out with SFC system (System file checker) but it was unrealiable unless it was immediately run on intitial install- and it still had nothing to prevent some developer of replacing .dlls. It did have version control so nobody could install an older IE overtop a newer one and well over 100 built in tools that for the most part got us away from doing all repairs in Dos.

The answer to this first came in Windows 2000. It's SFC system worked. If a dev was trying to place a .dll the OS would let the install procede to not hang in setup- but once installed immediately moved that .dll to a side database and replaced the orginal back in. When the user ran the program, the OS then would install that specific .dll for that one program and at closedown again replace the original system .dll.

Windows ME, often concidered a horrible OS, really got that name because it too used a simuliar SFC system. Except it did not store rogue .dlls to be swapped out--it simply let the program install, and once that was done, put the original .dlls back in. So that program would not run, but it wouldn't be breaking Windows and other programs and MS had the legal edge as well to do it. THIS was exactly why AOL6 would not work on Windows ME-- because for the first time the OS was inforcing it's SDK rules, and if a program did not work that was the devs fault in the first place and it was up to them to fix their pile of crap. And AOL scrambled to get AOL7 out--using of course, Windows networking components and not their own.

This is why those annual or bi-annual reinstalls of Windows is no longer necessary. in fact if you go in a delete .dlls windows will automatically replace them. And this is why a great deal of games written before WindowsME do not work, because the devs never went back and fixed their games--usually due to it's market had already run out, and a few devs actually charged users for the patch they themselves were the cause of...and we know who they are without mentioning names. But you now know what's likely happening when you install that old game, Windows is tossing out those rogue .dlls not letting it run, but also not letting it break windows.

And is why often getting a game to run is installing some .dll someone made to place the one not compatable--but in a few cases, especially during early directX days MS itself screwed up with version control and some DX .dll needs replaced--but overall about 99 percent of the time- it was a dev not following the SDK.

XNA was discontinued. always buggy and never fully fixed to a state I'd want to use it. Much better and more stable development kits are available today--

the .net's on the other hand are here to stay- but their use, at least the OFFICIAL ONES, and there are some 28 different unofficial ones as well, are for cross platform ability- using mono- so someone who devs a game in Unity 3d for windows can easily release for Mac, Xbox or whatnot with mono autoconverting all that code. Their are a few, usually a handful-- commands just for that device--that are easily added in.

For the most part although .net languages are not compiled like a C++ they do internally compile within the game and run at just about the same speed in most cases.

Compatability really is moreso centered around input/output, visuals be it DirectX or OpenGL or something controlling memory and/or CPU usage-

In the older OS's-that is all of them that ran on top of DOS- compatability was an act of a database we internally called "shims"--if the program was in the list- it would run. These shims tricked the program that it thought it was using the correct OS.

Windows XP- finally, with well over a decade in attempts to get Windows on the NT Kernel- did it differently. Instead of shims it actually ran the Kernel your compatability mod called for- and that is still in use today. So when you choose "Windows 98 compatability" that is exactly what your getting, the Windows 98 Kernel- tied into the more modern OS.

Edit: actually my memory is getting foggy- Window7 uses the Kernels and XP still uses the shims. I concider Win 7 for that reason to be about the most friendly OS for games- I hate Win8...and the phone GUI crammed down our throats most of us do not want on our PCs.

[Unforeseen]

@Nanaki It really pisses me off when people call MOO3 a bad sequel. It had alot of bugs, that's pretty much it. It was EXTREMELY moddable, and ever bug could be fixed and was fixed by the flavor mods. I liked it ALOT better than Moo2. Only reason i quit playing was because this game is alot more advanced and has a larger galaxy. 14OO stars as opposed to a max of like 25O won me over instantly.

[Nanaki]

Except it was not just the bugs that killed MOO3, it was also the aesthetics and design decisions, topped off by a rather arrogant and smug lead dev whom simply laughed at the community's concerns. So, be pissed off all you want, I really do not care, MOO3 was, is, and will always be a terrible sequel that killed the most popular 4X franchise at the time.

[Unforeseen]

Oh? So what was bad about the design 'IN YOUR OPINION'. Remember after you condemned the game a large community of players lived on, enjoying the way the game was designed. I for one found the game to be refreshing, i had zero complaints other than it was too small and the bugs which were fixed.

[Tormodino]

ORIGINAL: Nanaki

ORIGINAL: Tormodino
Stop shitting on Moo3
I was so disappointed by it when it came out, but I have suffered through that horrendous UI to actually see what they attempted to do. It was far too ambitious, but it introduced a lot of ideas that could have been explored at great benefit. The planetary model, where your colonies grew organically region by region was a fantastic concept. The fleet model, flawed as it was, could theoretically allow you to
The final product, even with mods, is not a fun experience, but it is still the most intriguing take on the 4x genre that has ever been made. IMO and YMMV, ofc!

I frequented the MOO3 forums before it came out and bought it at full retail price, I have every right to crap all over it. Especially when I see someone advocating to repeat some of the same mistakes MOO3 did.

On the subject of what is realistic in scifi

I get very, very wary when someone uses the realism argument because it is extremely common in the sci-fi fandom for people to think that their favorite sci-fis are 'realistic' while the sci-fis they dislike are 'not realistic' and therefore bad. Not only is there absolutly nothing wrong with soft sci-fi, but chances are the sci-fi they prefer is just as soft as the sci-fi they are complaining about. Real hard sci-fi is extremely rare and only a very, very small niche compared to most sci-fi out there.

I wasn't saying that you are not allowed to crap on it. I just made a light hearted request for everyone not to
It was not a serious request, btw. You hate it. I grew to respect it. I don't play it any more, but at the end of the day I certainly got my moneys worth just diving into the masses of intricate and, in my opinion, interesting descisions they made.

To the realism part I hope that my post didn't seem to promote a view that what I like in sci-fi is de facto realism.
I attempted to present a case for the fact that what we perceive as realism shouldn't be used as an argument in favour of what can and should be done in sci-fi. We live in a certain reality and operate by certain rules.
There are strong indicators that certain things fall within the categories of possible and impossible, but we have no actual way of establishing this as fact before we have excluded all other possibilites.
For example, I'm more than happy to accept that faster than light travel is not possible at the moment. I would be extremely surprised if it is not possible under any circumstances. Like the fun theory that there is a single electron existing everywhere simultaneously. This might be a gross oversimplification, but not actually moving would allow you to break the speed of light with reckless abandon.
For that matter, there could be three-story tall clown crab analogues flying medieval castles through the heart of stars for the sheer pleasure of it. The absurdity of this does not make it impossible, simply spectacularly unlikely.

At any rate, this is a game we are talking about. Nothing about this is even remotely realistic outside of the closed loop of our souped up calculators. Inside the simulation, though, I can accept anything. It is in fact completely unrestricted, except by design actions.