Could someone explain:

[Askan Nightbringer]

The Elite guys did randomly create their map. But they stored the 'seed' used to randomly create the map so when you loaded up a game you always got the same result.

This is because random numbers on computers aren't really random. There is just a huge lookup table full of numbers and each one comes out in order. The 'seed' is what is used to work out where you start in that table.

If you use the same 'seed' you'll always get the same numbers in the same order.

ie. If seed = 24
First 5 random numbers is
4 11 3 6 3

So I don't have to store 4,11,3,6,3 all I have to store is the seed (24 in this case).

The original Elite universe was stored in something like 4 bytes of data (which is 32 1's or 0's ). They just had table to look up desriptions based on verbs and nouns. (I guess its the lookup tables that took up all the space)

ie. The Gelbars are known for their fanatical love of sitcoms.

Well thats my bit of completely useless trivia for the week.

Askan

[DirectorTsaarx]

quote:

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Originally posted by zenbudo:
Either way, thinking about it, I have enough problems securing 250 systems as is. Try conquering without glassing worlds...it rilly drags it out and forces you to keep supply lines!

zen

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Or you at least end up with the same "problem" they had in Ender's Game: the ships available to destroy/take over the enemy homeworld were old, obsolete ships that had been launched decades earlier. I'm having a similar problem in my current game (which I may abandon since it's v1.30 & I'm skirting the boundary of MEE). I've stopped colonizing outside my current boundaries; now I just cruise around and destroy the enemy. Fortunately, I have Quantum Reactors now, so supply is less of an issue; but I still have obsolete ships trying to take on the enemy...

[Omega]

quote:

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Originally posted by dogscoff:
Interesting. Not much good for SE though, sinc once the map is generated you *still* have the problem of how to manipulate it all in memory.

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You don't store anything in memory. You store everything in a database. Your only limits are the limits of the database system. My unfinished 4X space game uses a database to allow thousands of systems and dozens of AI players. Alpha Centauri is supposed to be a database based game. The technology has existed for years.

Also, a short is always 16-bits in C. The size of an int is dependent on the compiler.

[jc173]

Even if all the galaxy data is stored in a database, isn't it still going to be slow? The game engine will have to load up relevant data from disk\database to main memory for the AI's so they can run whatever their various strategy algorithms are.

[Suicide Junkie]

The database will only speed up searching for data and retrieving it.

If your AI is scanning through the list of known planets, deciding where to attack, you still have to look at every one.
That's what is gonna take a long time. When the AI gets star maps from an ancient race, trouble brews.

[Taqwus]

It wouldn't necessarily take a full sequential scan for determining attack locations, since the plausible attack range is usually small.

Supplies are a concern, at least until solar collectors or the QR. A fleet *could* be launched beyond resupply range, but it would need to either rendezvous with a supply source along the way (which might be beyond the AI); bring a colonizer to create a resupply colony (which would be a nifty tactic to see it use -- but it would have to defend it well, or risk stranding the fleet); or capture a resupply colony (which takes intel, to figure out where one is, *plus* the WPs and so forth may be a problem).

So if it's limited to resupply range, that's basically a series of range Queries, which won't need to touch many disk pages that only deal with far-away systems -- at least with a decent spatial indexing method.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[jc173]

Wouldn't you have to create a new set of indices or pointers for each race with that method? Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean by spatial index