Game play suggestion ‘Limitations of light speed detection and implications in tactical combat’

IMO it's another of those things that, while it might be realistic (the gravity wells are most likely in the light-seconds range, so it could happen but any effect would be miniscule), it'd really just complicate things so much that it'd make it much less fun, and increase the processing load considerably.

Thanks for the reply Kryo, I can understand that reasoning. It probably has limited appeal to anybody except ‘space nuts’ like me. The same goes for complexity and micro management, I really like those. But I’m aware I’m a tiny minority in the gaming community. It was more of a brain sneeze than any real applicable idea.

I don’t agree on the scale problem, but that’s just how I interpret the scale SOASE systems. I like to think there’s a fairly large amount of space around each planet, but that’s just to get into the proper ‘space opera’ mood. ( I was slightly disappointed that there weren’t any real solar systems just planets and a central star. Seems a bit crowed & weird if 10+ races/factions are crammed onto 60 planets orbiting 3 stars)

Regarding processing power, how are battles calculated in systems that aren’t zoomed in?
1: Is every possible step processed ( Ship X move to coordinates, fire weapon at ship y, damage = Z) –or-
2: Is it just simple arithmetic’s (10 frigates + 2 battle cruisers = 125 health * random value, 140 damage * random value ) versus (6 frigates + 3 dreadnaugts = 100 health * random value, 160 damage * random value) {subtract numbers} = win for team 2.

I’m guessing it’s 1 because when you zoom in on a battle that’s already in progress most ships will be placed somewhere in the system. But what happens if two AI players meet way on the other side of the galaxy. Is it moving all ships individually, even though I can’t see them.

If so writing AI for this game must be pure hell. You literally have to calculate thousands of move simultaneously. This only gets worse and worse as the game progresses. Not to mention all the diplomatic and economical, decisions that have to be made.

I can't remember if it was a game or some obscure TV show I was watching but they made mention of HADES (Hyperluminal Aquisition of Distance and Extrapolation of Speed) which is a sensor system that detects targets using waves travelling at Faster than light speeds.

Just thought I'd throw that in there and see what you make of it, maybe SOASE could incorporate something similar.

One assumption that you are making is that returning from "phase space" wouldn't cause a 'ripple' that well may be propagated at FTL speed, or that whatever sublight propulsion system in use isn't based on a deriviative of the "phase" drive with similar detection potential. (Or vice versa - the sublight drive could have come 1st   ) (Needless to say, this is an alternate assumption   )

A second is, as Kyro pointed out, that the volume of the 'gravity well' is sufficiently large as to make the lightspeed delay significant.

Other than these, you have a point. Now, as in any tactical scenario where an attacker could get an overwhelming advantage, standard doctrines would be developed to prevent or mitigate these. In this case, since there are identified specific jump entry locations, having a fleet on station nearby to handle hostile vessels as they arrive could be one doctrine. Another could be to seed a reasonable volume of the system with detectors/scanners to broadcast data (computers would shift through & consolidate the multiple data points - just like your GPS does now with data from the various satellites it hears from.)(This one would not negate the lightspeed issue, but the multiple 'viewpoints' would give you a whole lot better 3D motion info and the closer detectors would give you much better opponent composition info.)

This of course begs the question - How tactical and detail oriented do you want to get?

To answer your question above, I would prefer to not get that far into the weeds.
I suspect the AI might have issues handling it as well. In a strictly person-to-person tactical battle sim though, this should definitely be a component of the "fog of war."

beat me to the bullet.
after all, light from the moon only takes a second (1) to reach us here on earth.
the only real thing this does would be a causality issue for phasespace. instead of detecting your enemy approaching you would see them when they reached your gravity well, and a visual duplicate of them would retreat at or around light speed to the origin of their jump.
it would look cool, but its not particularly useful for defending your empire.

well... say there was a time lapse of 10 seconds between detection at far range of the planet
3x10^8 m/s (approx) x 10s x 1km/1000m x .62137mi/km
thats 1864110 mi
in comparison Earth's, (our solar system's largest terrestrial planet) reference sphere is about 7913 mi in diameter. thats 235.6x larger as Earth is, in diameter.
if thats still what you had in mind. fine by me, but thats only 10 light-seconds...
and, my second favorite excuse; murder on my processor.

That's not really what I had in mind, on any solar scale all the distances on earth or the distance between earth and Luna are totally insignificant, in fact is totally negligible. The closest distance between Earth and Sol is roughly 1.46*10^8 km. Light speed is roughly 3*10^5 km/s. At that distance it still take 8 minutes before light would reach us.

The average distance between Earth and Mars is 2.25 ^8 at that distance somebody could fire a missile at Earth and we would still be blissfully unaware for the next 13 minutes. Luckily the missile is also limited by the speed of light so it’s actually arrival is probably a lot longer. But it does have certain implications. We could fire a laser at the missile but it still more than 10 light minutes removed, so it’s going to take at least 10 minutes for the laser to hit it. But what if the missile has moved after 2 minutes in flight, we won’t know it moved until the light reflected of the moving missile reaches us, dependant on it’s speed that’s probably still going to be 12 or 13 minutes.

So any actual combat Is probably going to be a fairly close range affair, a couple of light seconds out max. But battle positioning and movement are heavily influenced by light delay and it could open a lot of possibilities. It could also be insanely frustrating. Especially if you’re going to communications delay between the ships and fleet command. Again light speed, but I’m not that hardcore.

Well these calculations aren’t al that complex, it’s rather dependant on the amount of calculations being crunched at any given time, and that is rather dependant on the amount of battles moves being processed in any given tick. If the entire galaxy is processed real-time than it’s going to be very difficult on any given processor. But then again you could wonder if it’s a good idea to processes the entire galaxy simultaneously in the first place. Because all the other calculations being run are also severely taxing your processor and limiting a lot of other applications. It’s a simple matter of quantity over quality, you can have simple battles being fought over the entire galaxy or you can have complex battles being fought at a limited number of locations, I severely doubt you can have both with the current level of technology.

But like I said I’m not trying to get this into the game, I just think it’s an interesting mechanic that I would like to see implemented in a game at some point, but I’m not holding my breath.

There are probably lots of reasons why this shouldn't be in the game. Realism just isn't one of them.
But then again realism depends on what you precieve as the gravity well area. If it's just the rest of the planet, what happend to all the other solar objects? Where are the stars, moons, planets.
If they're all outside of the screen why aren't they infucing the gravity well. Our sun alone is roughly 332.870 times heavier than earth you would expect it to have some sort of effect.

And like I said the idea of 10+ races and factions being crammed around 3 stars a bit hard to swallow. I like to think the star at the center is some sort of hypermass which makes it possible to jump to another hypermass at the other and of the galaxy and all the planets within a system do indeed have a solar system that just isn't show. But to each his own, I really love slow complex games like Europa Universalis but I am aware that not everyones cup of tea.

More importantly it's not the way IC designed this game, i'm fairly certain they have a good idea in which direction they want this game to move and I have faith that they're makeing the right desicions in order to produce a fun game and above all profitable game.

@Blarko
IMO this might be an interesting addition to an "ultra realism" mod but doesn't seem to have a place in vanilla SoaSE (such as we've seen it). I have to agree with Kryo and the others who point to the gravity well size as a being a major issue. I really don't understand how you interpret the well size to be bigger than what they are (variable scale, maybe?). The beta 1 already seems to have some elements that would totally negate or marginalize the attacking fleets' earlier targeting advantage. For example inbound ships in phase space can be detected so I presume that with a healthy dose of technobabble something could be conjured up that relays data through phase space so that that whole annoying maxing out at light speed thing could be bypassed. Another problem that could be annoying to deal with is how to handle ship acceleration/deceleration when within the confines of a gravity well =\ Also, can ships even maneuver at speeds close to c? And wouldn't projectile weapons become insanely powerful when fired from a ship approaching anything near the speed of light?

As mentioned I think it's an interesting idea that might be a great addition to a realism mod...depending on what changes are made to "phase highways" and gravity wells. A bit of a tangent here but does anyone else get the impression that the gameplay feels more like you are controlling a naval fleet rather than spaceships? Think big black ocean with clusters of round islands...the spaceships even make wide arcing turns and they certainly don't worry about anything inertial =\

even a few light seconds is way out beyond the moon, and that isnt really the range of the grav wells IMO.

not to mention; who's to say when you see the fleet ariving? what if you have a unit right there? what if your planet is the closest object? what if you have a unit somewhere in between those maximums?
thats too much.

what you dont seem to see here is that the light comes so quickly that it really has no effect on combat, at best you have to use calculations to re-aim your shots, but the time it takes you to see a fleet is almost as long as it takes you to hear your echo when you are standing 100ft from a wall. not that long.

but its notrealistic. not unless if your battles are taking place at the range of several times the distance from the moon to the Earth!
and at those battles it would take you weeks to get your bullets to the enemy. thats not the range of SoaSE. if you want to do that you would have to make the grav wells insanely larger and make the ranges of the ships several times larger to. and at that point the 3 second benefit you get would be canceled out by the freaking HUGE amount of area you would have to traverse to get to your targets!



these are realism issues, the relativistic complications of combat are negligble, so they really aren't.

yeah... but my issue is the lack of the usage of the third dimension. something (I pray) the devs plan to put in later.

The main reason why imagine te gravity well area size being different is the number of stars and planets in the galaxy.

The way it's depicted now is 1 to 4 stars depending on galaxy size and up to 100 planets.
If there are really only 4 stars that means all the factions and all the planets are crammed around these 4 systems. That seriously brakes the mood and flow of the game for me. So I imagine the gravity well area as being a system (with planets and a star) and the planet just a graphical representation of the only thing interessting in the system.

But like I said that's the way I shape the game to fit my idea of a space strategy game. It's probably not how it's designed or intendend. It's a personal thing, if I don't try to stir up my own imagination I just see the same round map with the one strategic object deadcenter in the middle over and over again and then the game would be really reppetitive and boring after a while. There is basically just one map with a different textured planet in the middle.

If I where involved in the design of the game I would have made a differen decision. Meaning every system would be a solar system with multiple planets / points of intrest in a random patteren.

Instead of the same planet in the middel you would get a system with for example 3 planets spread out and an astroid belt. Maybe only one planet is habitable, maybe all three. It changes the strategic and tactical part of the game immensely. No longer will you jump out exactly as far from you objective from all sides. Mayby it's smarter to mover through 2 other systems to jump out next to that jucy outer ring planet. Maybe it's a good idea to draw of the fleet by attacking the outer astroids and then jump in from the other side to bust the planet. Lots of possibilities.

As it is now, the game feels a bit to simplistic for my tastes. But and this is a very, very big but, It's only beta one and who knows what might change. I'm hoping some of the mechanics get tweaked, more races and ships arn't going to do if for me if the mechanics don't change. Attacking the same damned map over and over again with different ships will sill get stale.

So at the moment i'm not entirely sure if I made the right choice preordering this game, but then again there is always the challenge of collecting all 4x games ever made for the pc.

Erm... you really don't have to make the same point multiple times in the same posts.

You could have just said "the arena (gravitywell area) isn't that big so your argument doenst fly. Economy of language it's a good thing.

I'm not trying to argue that this is the way SOASE is supposed to be or that this is the way things should be interpreted. It's just a concept. I think it's interessting, I was wondering what other people thought of it.

Ok, maybe there was a slight hope of somebody saying, 'that's already in game X and it didn't work.' But that was it. I'm aware that it's not in SOASE at the moment and it's won't be in the final version.

Reminds me of the TV show Andromeda. That was all based around light seconds, etc.

>shudder<   

Anywayhere is a handy dandy to scale diagram of light moving between the Earth and the moon, it is just over one light second away.

I do not believe a gravity well would be anything less than two or three light seconds, for an Earth sized planet seeing as langrangian points have been proven to exist beyond the moon (interplay between Earth and Venus gravity) which means our gravitational field must extend the majority of the way to Venus (because we have the stronger pull) and still be strong enough to create a sizeable langrangian point.

EDIT: THe langrangian point exists approx. 2/3 of the distance between Earth and Venus or 1.086 light minutes away meaning a grav well remains effective at a much further distance than a few light seconds.

(Note gravitational fields are infinite, but Earths would be of infinitesimal strength at about Jupiter, so I use the term langrangian point loosely to describe
only major points of null gravity)

This scale would be impossible to represent fully in Sins, unless you happen to have access to IBM's server farms to run the game.

Plus, if the speed of light is represented accurately in the game, how fast are the ships gonna need to go in Phase Space to keep the scale accurate?

keep in mind that lagrance points are not the origin of FTS travel in Sins. otherwise, well...
thats one massive-ass lagrange point. (seeing as it takes up 95% of the solar system)

depends how much faster than light they are going.

otherwise every trip would take a few minutes.

blurg.
I really like to. if you see something repeated, just ignore it.

I wont argue with you there.
I definately could.

unfortunately, the economy of language is the only one where I spend wildly

it would be interesting, but not accurate. thats the only part I'm arguing here.

From the internet gossip I've seen I thought it was actually based around Kevin Sorbo and his ego.

There are a number of book which describe the inherent possibilities of space travel + space combat, with fleets being very far apart and limited by the speed of light.

Larry Niven’s Protector, has a good bit about combat several light month’s out.
And John (or Jack) Campbell’s ‘lost fleet series’ of book which mostly deals with large battle fleets separated by huge distances.

Both are quite good and rate an 8 and a 7 on my science fiction scale of literature. (Ranging from a 10 for the original Dune and a 1 for anything touched by Kevin J Anderson)

I’ve never seen Andromeda because like a lot of other people I’ve had the supreme misfortune of zapping into a Hercules rerun whilst not completely drunk. And I still shudder at the thought of kevin Sorbo. Other that it’s wasn’t aired where I live and I certainly wasn’t planning on buying boxed sets.

the thing about science fiction...
its fiction. I doubt any of these men have any idea what relativistic consequences come out of distance. and it still has no real affect unless your weaponry shoot at near c.

Actually, the thing about quality science fiction (as opposed to fantasy) is that the authors use current knowledge and extrapolate from there. A fair number of authors are scientists in their own right, or make sure they consult with them. If you read some of the classic science fiction from several decades ago you'd be surprised how many of the concepts there are now science fact.

Either you are still not getting it or you posted that last sentence backwards. It has a most profound influence unless you find a way to fire you’re weaponry at or near C. Relativistic effects are going to influence you long before your reach C.

Regarding science fiction and reality, a lot of sci-fi or at least hard sci-fi is firmly based on our current understanding of physics. This current knowledge creates a framework of limits in which sc-fi is written. This is the science part, the fiction part comes in when writers find ways to make their stories happen and thus create technical gimmicks to avoid these limits. But in order to create these gimmicks they do need to have a firm understanding of what limit/problem they’re trying to avoid.

At least they do if they intend to write halfway believable science fiction. It’s not a high priority, but there are enough writers out there who are educated in the necessary mathematics and physics.

first of all, its "c", not "C", and while relativistic influences are always at work, they do not work as your author described them.
just because your several light-minutes away from your enemy doesnt mean that you wont be able to see the bullets coming, in fact it would be supurbly easy just to move your ship around to dodge any kinetic weaponry, regardless of how freaking huge your ship is.
I've taken a course on this, I know the basics of relativity, and it wont detriment you at ranges unless you are dealing with an enemy who can fire his weapons at an amazing speed, at which point fighting at range is pointless because any hit will become akin to a nuclear explosion.

its usually based on the basics so that it doesnt throw people off, however I've rarely seen a TV show that regards relativistic influences in the way they actualy work (actually, I've only seen one; stargate)

yes, but the problem is that the writers with pHDs in math and physics usually write either educational/theoretical material or (if they branch out into scifi) write pretty complex books.

First of good point about c, but then again I'm a molecular biologist and not a physicist. But nevertheless good call. Inconsequential but technically correct. (The best kind of correct, a free cookie for who names the character I’m quoting)

But regarding the way you see incoming projectiles, that may be a slight communication problem, because you are basically repeating what I said. English isn’t my native tongue so I might have been unclear.

We do have a different opinion about the fighting at range becoming pointless part. Any party that’s capable of firing and hitting at range is most definitely going to hold an advantage in any conflict. Speed isn’t necessarily a giving, it’s more about the ability to predict future positions or development weaponry that’s capable of higher acceleration, turning rate and top speed than it’s prey.

On the sci-fi side, First of they’re not my author’s, I don’t own them. I might have referred to them but to my knowledge they are not my legal property.

I’ve indeed never seen a tv-show of portraying accurate physics. Tv-shows = mass media = KIS(s) (keep it simple, not necessarily stupid). As a rule I generally avoid sc-fi tv-shows.

I never said there where tons of PhD educated writers who branch-out into sci-fi but there are quite a lot of them, and most of them write good books. Asimov, Anderson, Baxter, Benford, Brin, Niven, etc.. All hold at least a B.S. in a related field and many of them also carry a P.H.D. And that’s just naming a few of them there are a lot more. Let’s not pretend al these writers haven’t a clue about what they’re writing about.

Personally, I think light delay would just make things to complicated in an RTS game. That said, I've always thought it would neat to have a turn-based game that took communication time into account, not just in detecting enemy ships, but also in giving orders to and knowing the location of your own ships the further away they are from your headquarters. Say your homeworld in under attack; when you recall all your fleets for defense, you'd have to keep in mind that they won't get the orders for a few turns, or even that the fleet might have been destroyed already and you just haven't found out about it yet. Conversely, when attacking you opponent you'd have to plan everything out before hand unless you want to wait several turns when telling a fleet to move from one planet to another.

unless if your range is so huge that your enemy is capable of changing direction and dodging your shots.
this, of course, will only exempt missiles if they are on a delay-launch mode (only firing their engines when near the enemy, drifting before then) and at that point the ships might very well be way out of the range of the missiles

at such a distance that we're talking about (a few light seconds, even) by the time your physical weaponry arrive, any calculations you could have made would be moot as I could simply change my direction by the time they come.

that could easily get messy. first of all the games would be much longer, and they wouldnt nescessarily work in an RTS (TBS maybe). also you would have to make combat much much slower so that you dont have your combat system outrun your fleet management.

hm, yes, that would sound interesting.



good point. and also make the planets' size variability greater. a gas giant could be up to 10 times as large as an earth style planet (in reality the are 100+ times as large) and also make the systems sun a lot larger. shouldn't be a huge problem considering the sheer amount of space the star systems now have. with accompanying gravity wells it could also influence phase lines, say difficult navigation in the system's core because of the suns gravitational influence.