Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #4

[ClassicAz]

And it's sadly for this reason that I think we won't ever detect interstellar empires greater than a few parsecs. While time dilation allows you to travel great distances personally in a fairly small amount of time, the two way communication time is still limited by the speed of light itself. The send and receive latency to Alpha Centuari is 8 years!

Rather I hope we never detect an advanced interstellar race. They will have the materials engineering to overcome micro asteroid impacts at very high sub-luminal speeds, they are likely migrating and they are likely desperate.

[SirHoraceHarkness]

Using sub light propulsion to colonize other star systems would depend on the race I would imagine as to whether it would ultimately survive or not. I think humans could do it as long as they took along as much hard tech as they could and archives to rebuild the rest once a high enough tech base was established. However some races might excel at such things and spread far faster than I think humans could do. They might have a unified culture unlike humans who have almost as many different cultures and religions as there are stars in the sky and the competition between them once you start expanding into space would be fairly fierce.

In the case of a unified homogenous culture then expansion would be much easier due to each colony being more or less a clone of the other and self sufficient and able to stay cohesive even with decades of delay between sending a message and getting a reply. However you could set up a constant stream of communication always updating tech and culture and such so that even if its decades late you are still only decades behind the homeworld and might even make some breakthroughs of their own to send back.

But the trick to it all is being able to get to another star system in a viable amount of time with enough cargo to ensure that they get a solid start with enough reserves to get though an emergency or three. That would mean a fleet of colony ships but hey as they say in for a penny in for a pound and there isn't any reason that couldn't be a constant stream either.

[HeinzHarald]

While I do like the sound of this solution, it's honestly sounds just as contrived as star-lanes. Real nebulae aren't far off of a perfect vacuum. Luckily this is a game, not a real world simulator.

I'm curious if the increase in time also means an increase in fuel consumption, so going around or traveling through a nebula may end up costing you about the same amount of fuel, depending on the size of the nebula? Or do you always consume less fuel going straight, so you may be tempted to do so in order to reach a place you otherwise couldn't with your current fuel?

[Jorgen_CAB]

To be honest the effect of the nebula are as unrealistic as faster than light travel to begin with so whatever effect it has on FTL drives are as plausible from an in game technobabble solution as anything.

If you can't imagine the effect of Nebula that is probably more on you than anything else as allot of things in a game like this are quite unrealistic to begin with.

The important thing is that stuff are internally consistent in terms of technology and the effect it has on the world.

Foremost it is a game mechanic to make the game more fun and challenging, finding a technobabble solution is not harder than using your imagination.

[Hazard151]

ORIGINAL: HeinzHarald

While I do like the sound of this solution, it's honestly sounds just as contrived as star-lanes. Real nebulae aren't far off of a perfect vacuum. Luckily this is a game, not a real world simulator.

But this one you can technobabble your way out of, let me provide an example: The power draw for the warp bubble FTL as used in Distant Worlds is partially dependent on the density of the medium you are traveling through, but the relation is not linear with the speed. Rather, it appears to be exponential to both the speed and density of the medium, so higher density mediums are disproportionately demanding, and it only gets worse as you try to go faster.

As the warp drives have a set power draw when at warp you cannot simply overpower this effect without blowing your warp drive, and even if you could overpower it without blowing your warp drives you only have so much energy stored in your batteries and so much power production in your reactors, so when you do you end up burning quadruple or more fuel than normal to achieve not even half the normal interstellar medium speeds. It's just not worth it all around without refining your understanding of warp physics and redesigning your warp drive to account for greater warp bubble real space interface reactions.

ORIGINAL: HeinzHarald

I'm curious if the increase in time also means an increase in fuel consumption, so going around or traveling through a nebula may end up costing you about the same amount of fuel, depending on the size of the nebula? Or do you always consume less fuel going straight, so you may be tempted to do so in order to reach a place you otherwise couldn't with your current fuel?

It probably costs more fuel due to it simply taking longer to cover the same distance.

[ncc1701e]

Next dev diary please [&o]

[HeinzHarald]

ORIGINAL: Jorgen_CAB
To be honest the effect of the nebula are as unrealistic as faster than light travel to begin with so whatever effect it has on FTL drives are as plausible from an in game technobabble solution as anything.

For sure, as would star-lanes had been if they had gone that route. It's all the same technobabble.

What makes this solution interesting to me are the additional gameplay elements it could offer. Meaningful planning of movements in deep space could be awesome.

[Webbco]

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

Next dev diary please [&o]

Yes please!

[Galaxy227]

I'm excited to see what the next diary is about. So far the topics have been really interesting, and they're all very well written & presented.

Now... what to do with myself until October 6th?

[TorenAltair]

Dev diary #5 - How to release a game
just fighting with myself if I start another DWU game or if the release is soon(tm) enough

[Webbco]

ORIGINAL: Galaxy227

I'm excited to see what the next diary is about. So far the topics have been really interesting, and they're all very well written & presented.

Now... what to do with myself until October 6th?

What happens on 6 October?

[Erik Rutins]

The next Dev Diary is on Exploration and should be out around the middle of next week.

[SirHoraceHarkness]

Ah exploration. Hopefully that got a nice revamp too. The old system was basically scout finds ruins and you may or may not get a reward or text blurb about something or another and a new set of coordinates is found for scout to fly to. All mainly automatic and hands free for the most part. Something a bit more hands on would be nice like a scout reports that at these coordinates a huge pirate force is protecting something valuable and you would need to mount a fleet action to get it etc. Or maybe a dedicated archeology ship has to be sent and it takes some time to find the goodies.

[Erik Rutins]

Hey everyone,

I'm told the next Dev Diary will be posted this Wednesday. In the meantime, please enjoy this Gravillex.

[Dd_01]

I'm told the next Dev Diary will be posted this Wednesday

Hoorray! Thanks Erik.
Gravillex looks impressive!

[Galaxy227]

TODAY IS THE DAY

[Sild]

Gravillex looks disgusting. Impressive, but disgusting. Like the Shadows from B5 but on steroids and meth.

[zgrssd]

Distant Worlds 2: Galactic Terrain without star-lanes

In Distant Worlds 2 we wanted to preserve the open travel mode of DW1. But we also wanted to add better galactic terrain: natural barriers that added interest and function to different parts of the galaxy.

The answer to this was to use nebula clouds as the natural barriers to travel. In DW2 nebula clouds dramatically slow hyperspace travel. The impact on travel time is so significant that it is usually faster to travel around the nebulae rather than through it. Thus nebulae effectively become the ‘mountain range’ analog of a terrestrial map.

In addition hyperdrive components work slightly differently in DW2. All hyperdrives have a defined jump range. This jump range limits how far a ship can travel in a single jump. Ships can still travel as far as their fuel allows them, but usually their fuel range exceeds their jump range.

The effect of these 2 new features (nebulae that slow hyperspace travel, limited jump ranges) is that ships often have to plot a path of multiple jumps between star systems to reach a destination. The precise path they choose is not fixed. It depends on their current location, their chosen destination, and their jump range.

I have some questions on that:
1. Humanity eventually figured out how to put tunnels through mountain ranges. Will there be anything like that? A "nebula tunnel"? A "Hyperspace Bypass"?

2. How are you dealing with Pathfinding in that galaxy and with changing jump ranges?
My best guess would be to have one Pathfinding map for each and every possible Jump Range.
Or is the main limiter fuel range?

3. Will Ships given a long distance order automatically refuel along the way? Or will travel be split into segments of maximum fuel range?

4. Will the AI be able to understand that a sneak-attack through a neubla can be desireable, even if it is slower?

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

Distant Worlds 2: Galactic Terrain without star-lanes

In Distant Worlds 2 we wanted to preserve the open travel mode of DW1. But we also wanted to add better galactic terrain: natural barriers that added interest and function to different parts of the galaxy.

The answer to this was to use nebula clouds as the natural barriers to travel. In DW2 nebula clouds dramatically slow hyperspace travel. The impact on travel time is so significant that it is usually faster to travel around the nebulae rather than through it. Thus nebulae effectively become the ‘mountain range’ analog of a terrestrial map.

In addition hyperdrive components work slightly differently in DW2. All hyperdrives have a defined jump range. This jump range limits how far a ship can travel in a single jump. Ships can still travel as far as their fuel allows them, but usually their fuel range exceeds their jump range.

The effect of these 2 new features (nebulae that slow hyperspace travel, limited jump ranges) is that ships often have to plot a path of multiple jumps between star systems to reach a destination. The precise path they choose is not fixed. It depends on their current location, their chosen destination, and their jump range.

I have some questions on that:
1. Humanity eventually figured out how to put tunnels through mountain ranges. Will there be anything like that? A "nebula tunnel"? A "Hyperspace Bypass"?

For the initial release hyperdrives do not have that capability, but that is possible in the future.

2. How are you dealing with Pathfinding in that galaxy and with changing jump ranges?
My best guess would be to have one Pathfinding map for each and every possible Jump Range.
Or is the main limiter fuel range?

This is a complex area, but yes we have to handle all jump ranges. Both jump range and fuel range are important. At lower tech levels, hyperdrive jump range can limit available routes, whereas higher jump ranges open up more routes.

3. Will Ships given a long distance order automatically refuel along the way? Or will travel be split into segments of maximum fuel range?

When you manually assign missions to ships and fleets then you are responsible for refuelling.

Fuel range considers the location of refuelling points relevant to a destination, so automated missions take this into account when determining whether they can reach a destination and then refuel, i.e. when they reach the destination will they be able to refuel there, or will they have enough fuel range to reach another nearby refuelling point.

4. Will the AI be able to understand that a sneak-attack through a neubla can be desireable, even if it is slower?

The strategic locations are the star systems that allow passage around nebulae, and especially the refuelling points for those routes.

However if that route really was quicker, or the only route available (e.g. system inside nebula) then a fleet will travel through the nebula.

[Hazard151]

Sounds to me like shorter jump range hyperdrives would be more likely to make use of nebula routes, than longer jump range drives, because the slowdown of nebulae on their jump speeds is less impactful on their average speed.