Re: Random non sequitur posts thread

[Flying Dice]

It's more along the lines of 'do what you want, just don't be a dick and try to follow the rules of the host, even though we're probably not going to get called out on it.' Not that we're terribly limited since the only major limit is pornography and most of us don't care for that anyway.

...

~{ }~

Oh you!

You guys have your own section for that!

If I could remember how to get zalgo text to work properly, I'd post an appropriate response.

A̸̶̫̫̹̥ͮ͗̌̔̉̏̉͒͌̚͟͡ḩ̜͉̟͙̱͈̇̂̆̽̿̅ͤ͐̽̈́̊ͩ̓̓̚͠,̧̢̢̜͙͈̬̮͚̘̘̮̻̻͕̃ͦͤͥ̄ͯ̈́̅̾̾ͧ̅̍͌̎͐̈́̇̊͗ͬ̈́̌̾̌͐̍͡͠͞t̨̰̯̝͔͉̝̩̹̯̹̙̼̪͇̘̻̝̮̾̓̋͋͛̉̉ͨ̀̃͂̆̅ͫ̆́̀h̷̢̛͖̺̣͎͇̞͉̜̯͔ͭ̀̌̿ͤ͛̉̇͑̇͆ͮ̍̄́̋̎ę̶͉͖̳̖̤̣͔̙̺̜͍̰͚̞̤̱̖̙ͦͫͩ͒̅͞ͅr̵͒͗ͪ̄͘҉͏̛̱̦̤̗̻̦̺̼͔̱̥͚̮͙̞ͅe̶̸̻̘̦̲̦͙̰͔̮̹̠͗̅̂͗́̚ ͔̠̙̦̠̻͇̠̺ͬͤ̄͠͡ͅw̶̯̙̮͇͕̗̤̺̰̥̞̟ͣͪ͌ͮ̌ͬ͒̏̅ͯͫ̎̈ͯ̀͞e̷̛̗̗͔̬̞̦͔̠͈ͯͭ͊́̅ͪͧ̎ͧ͌ͪ͆͛͘͡ ̸̥̭͎̲͇̣̖̦͙͉̯͇̪ͮͧ̎̔̍ͨ̍͒̎͌ͫ̽̓̽̎̚͢͟ͅg̢̧̝͖͓̭͖̥̟̞̞͍̜̟̪̗̍ͥ͋ͥͩͦ́͜͝ͅö̈́͐̓͌̊̑̌͊̇́͛̈́̂ͩ́̈́̚͜҉̧̨̘̣̘͕͢.̷̢̭͖̳̰̬̩͉̳͊̌͌ͦ̑͒̑̑ͯ̔́͑͑͊͆̆͆̚̚͘͡ͅ

[Necro910]

Fucking Zalgo text how do they work

[Slag]

Special 'text' made up of little size-0 particles that cover the hell out of everything and are a pain in the ass to erase.

[MC Dirty]

Zalgo never works for me because this is how it looks.

[Johuotar]

Need link to this forum? Go to the last page of the Aurora topic. Always there.

>Check Aurora thread
>Understand joke
>Seems pretty cool game
>Read more
>Think of downloading
>See installation guide
>F*** this Im out of here.

[Flying Dice]

Need link to this forum? Go to the last page of the Aurora topic. Always there.

>Check Aurora thread
>Understand joke
>Seems pretty cool game
>Read more
>Think of downloading
>See installation guide
>F*** this Im out of here.

Don't, it really isn't difficult. And the game is well worth it.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Need link to this forum? Go to the last page of the Aurora topic. Always there.

>Check Aurora thread
>Understand joke
>Seems pretty cool game
>Read more
>Think of downloading
>See installation guide
>F*** this Im out of here.

Don't, it really isn't difficult. And the game is well worth it.

I'll wait until the game's creator discovers the existence of vertical scrollbars. Any game that can't run in a 768-high monitor window goes out my 8th floor apartment window. Literally, if need be.

Seriously, the interface is ridiculous, plus the ship design is far too simplistic for the kind of complexity the game otherwise touts. If I ever conceive a game of this sort, I will begin with proper ship customization. Deck-by-deck and section-by-section breakdown for parts placement at the very least. Preset or randomly generated hulls and parts auto-fill-in for impatient players. Call me crazy, but this, plus a decent combat simulation, is what I want to see in a space strategy game first and foremost.

[Flying Dice]

Need link to this forum? Go to the last page of the Aurora topic. Always there.

>Check Aurora thread
>Understand joke
>Seems pretty cool game
>Read more
>Think of downloading
>See installation guide
>F*** this Im out of here.

Don't, it really isn't difficult. And the game is well worth it.

I'll wait until the game's creator discovers the existence of vertical scrollbars. Any game that can't run in a 768-high monitor window goes out my 8th floor apartment window. Literally, if need be.

Seriously, the interface is ridiculous, plus the ship design is far too simplistic for the kind of complexity the game otherwise touts. If I ever conceive a game of this sort, I will begin with proper ship customization. Deck-by-deck and section-by-section breakdown for parts placement at the very least. Preset or randomly generated hulls and parts auto-fill-in for impatient players. Call me crazy, but this, plus a decent combat simulation, is what I want to see in a space strategy game first and foremost.

1. Then you're going to be waiting an awful long time. The creator has already said that he is making the game for his own enjoyment and doesn't particularly care if other people play it (and has already made one concession with an option that slightly reduces the vertical height of the windows). That said, it takes about fifteen seconds to set things up properly, depending on how quickly you can download ResizeEnable. Though reportedly Aurora 2/Newtonian Aurora is going to have resizeable windows, which eliminates that particular problem.

2. I personally prefer the ship design system; as it stands, it is far more complex and involved than any other space 4X I've played, and still avoids getting bogged down in pointless detail. This is a wargame first and foremost, not an engineering simulation. And given that the way the combat system works, the actual positioning of parts on a hull is irrelevant, and doesn't need to be modelled. The combat itself is the heart of the game (Aurora was originally created to help people keep track of their Starfire campaigns, and is again far more complex than any other space 4X I've played, in which combat typically consistes of moving your fleet onto the same map square as an enemy fleet after making sure that you have a higher "weapons" tech level than them.)

[Sean Mirrsen]

2. I personally prefer the ship design system; as it stands, it is far more complex and involved than any other space 4X I've played, and still avoids getting bogged down in pointless detail. This is a wargame first and foremost, not an engineering simulation. And given that the way the combat system works, the actual positioning of parts on a hull is irrelevant, and doesn't need to be modelled. The combat itself is the heart of the game (Aurora was originally created to help people keep track of their Starfire campaigns, and is again far more complex than any other space 4X I've played, in which combat typically consistes of moving your fleet onto the same map square as an enemy fleet after making sure that you have a higher "weapons" tech level than them.)

There's no such thing as pointless detail in ship-to-ship combat. Whether your antimatter containment units (or whatever passes for "fuel tanks") are clumped together under five inches of chromed ceramic armor, or split into sections by double bulkheads and separated from outer space by a three-layer reactive armor sandwich and crew recreation quarters, can and should mean the difference between a stray missile hit leaving your crew without a pool table and having your ship blown in half. It should also mean that if you get a megawatt laser pulse into the same spot, you'll either get a bad scorchmark on the hull or get your crew's pool table catapulted into next week by the explosion that consumes half your ship's fuel stores. I just like this kind of meaningful design. Aurora comes somewhat close, but it's still just treating a ship like an empty box that you toss components into. GalCiv V is great on the visual design, but the placement of components does not matter at all, just the number and stats, again. Sword of the Stars is perfect in combat structure and the way design and placement of components matters, but its customization options are constrained. If there were a game where you design a ship as in GalCiv V, and then have it fight like in SotS, that'd be very close to a perfect space strategy game for me.

[MC Dirty]

There's no such thing as pointless detail in ship-to-ship combat. Whether your antimatter containment units (or whatever passes for "fuel tanks") are clumped together under five inches of chromed ceramic armor, or split into sections by double bulkheads and separated from outer space by a three-layer reactive armor sandwich and crew recreation quarters, can and should mean the difference between a stray missile hit leaving your crew without a pool table and having your ship blown in half. It should also mean that if you get a megawatt laser pulse into the same spot, you'll either get a bad scorchmark on the hull or get your crew's pool table catapulted into next week by the explosion that consumes half your ship's fuel stores. I just like this kind of meaningful design. Aurora comes somewhat close, but it's still just treating a ship like an empty box that you toss components into. GalCiv V is great on the visual design, but the placement of components does not matter at all, just the number and stats, again. Sword of the Stars is perfect in combat structure and the way design and placement of components matters, but its customization options are constrained. If there were a game where you design a ship as in GalCiv V, and then have it fight like in SotS, that'd be very close to a perfect space strategy game for me.

Ouh, then you'd probably like Star Ruler.
Not only can you make ships as big as a freaking star system and literally destroy planets or stars, but the ship editor is very interesting and in-depth. All ship parts can be scaled from size 0.25 to, I think, 5.00 (those scales are not absolute, but relative to the ship size) and the placement of parts really does matter. You can specify which layer of armor is outermost, you can add extra armor to specific ship parts and depending on where the ship is hit, it can just damage one layer of armor or destroy the thrusters, the weapons, the fuel cell, the crew quarters, life support or what-have-you. If you want to have multiple fuel cells, you can do that and if one gets hit, you still have the other ones. You can even put parts outside the ship; it won't be protected by the armor and it'll be hit rather easily, but it doesn't take up any space.
It's a really good game! Really complex, but a lot can be automated ("can", not "is") and it's just so, so very good.

For people who don't want to bother with designing ships, there are many pre-made designs and you can easily download more from the website uploaded by people who did want to bother with that.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Ouh, then you'd probably like Star Ruler.
Not only can you make ships as big as a freaking star system and literally destroy planets or stars, but the ship editor is very interesting and in-depth. All ship parts can be scaled from size 0.25 to, I think, 5.00 (those scales are not absolute, but relative to the ship size) and the placement of parts really does matter. You can specify which layer of armor is outermost, you can add extra armor to specific ship parts and depending on where the ship is hit, it can just damage one layer of armor or destroy the thrusters, the weapons, the fuel cell, the crew quarters, life support or what-have-you. If you want to have multiple fuel cells, you can do that and if one gets hit, you still have the other ones. You can even put parts outside the ship; it won't be protected by the armor and it'll be hit rather easily, but it doesn't take up any space.
It's a really good game! Really complex, but a lot can be automated ("can", not "is") and it's just so, so very good.

For people who don't want to bother with designing ships, there are many pre-made designs and you can easily download more from the website uploaded by people who did want to bother with that.

Ah yes, that one. Seen it before, looked good. I'm not sure what drove me away last time I tried it, but something did. Might as well try it again if I ever feel in need of a new timewaster.

On that note, does anyone know any good games where you dynamically improve on whatever mode of transportation you use as you explore/survive whatever it is you're traveling through? Off the top of my head, I know Blockade Runner (Minecraft-like, far from finished) and Captain Forever (2D, Flash, no way to get a "free" version, and rather too much combat-filled). Anything else?

[Flying Dice]

There's no such thing as pointless detail in ship-to-ship combat. Whether your antimatter containment units (or whatever passes for "fuel tanks") are clumped together under five inches of chromed ceramic armor, or split into sections by double bulkheads and separated from outer space by a three-layer reactive armor sandwich and crew recreation quarters, can and should mean the difference between a stray missile hit leaving your crew without a pool table and having your ship blown in half. It should also mean that if you get a megawatt laser pulse into the same spot, you'll either get a bad scorchmark on the hull or get your crew's pool table catapulted into next week by the explosion that consumes half your ship's fuel stores. I just like this kind of meaningful design. Aurora comes somewhat close, but it's still just treating a ship like an empty box that you toss components into. GalCiv V is great on the visual design, but the placement of components does not matter at all, just the number and stats, again. Sword of the Stars is perfect in combat structure and the way design and placement of components matters, but its customization options are constrained. If there were a game where you design a ship as in GalCiv V, and then have it fight like in SotS, that'd be very close to a perfect space strategy game for me.

Ouh, then you'd probably like Star Ruler.
Not only can you make ships as big as a freaking star system and literally destroy planets or stars, but the ship editor is very interesting and in-depth. All ship parts can be scaled from size 0.25 to, I think, 5.00 (those scales are not absolute, but relative to the ship size) and the placement of parts really does matter. You can specify which layer of armor is outermost, you can add extra armor to specific ship parts and depending on where the ship is hit, it can just damage one layer of armor or destroy the thrusters, the weapons, the fuel cell, the crew quarters, life support or what-have-you. If you want to have multiple fuel cells, you can do that and if one gets hit, you still have the other ones. You can even put parts outside the ship; it won't be protected by the armor and it'll be hit rather easily, but it doesn't take up any space.
It's a really good game! Really complex, but a lot can be automated ("can", not "is") and it's just so, so very good.

For people who don't want to bother with designing ships, there are many pre-made designs and you can easily download more from the website uploaded by people who did want to bother with that.

Actually, Aurora does all of that, with a greater depth of detail in terms of scaling (Do you want your active sensors to be able to detect a 800 ton ship at 12 million kilometers? Okay, you can do that? A 2500 ton ship at 108 million kilometers? That too. Do you want to overengineer your missile fire control to compensate for enemy ECM? You can do that. Do you want to use drives that give you a 10% power boost but are less fuel efficient and more likely to explode if hit? That too. What about drives for a survey ship that are 80% more efficient but less powerful? That as well. Etc., etc.), except for where exactly on your ship the parts go. That is not least because of the fact that there is no visual representation of your ships beyond their dot of light on the system map, and thus no reason to care where you put each component. You won't be seeing it, so the components are put together logically: Everything is inside the armor, and any hits that penetrate the armor deal their remaining damage to a random component. Drives, reactors, and magazines have a chance of causing secondary explosions if hit; the former two can be built with a lower chance of explosion on hit, and the latter can be built with a greater chance of ejecting ordinance on hit to prevent an explosion, as well as extra armor. Electronic components can be built with additional protection from microwave weapons. All of that is improved as you research technologies in the specific field.

So for example, for missile weapons, you can research increased reload rate for launchers, reduced-size (but with increased reload speed) launchers (0.75, 0.5, 0.25, and 0.15[box launchers/XO racks]), increased missile warhead strength per MSP, increased missile agility per MSP, better missile drive power per MSP, increased fuel efficiency, high-radiation warheads of increasing strength, laser warheads, multistage missiles, missle ECM, etc.

So yes, in Aurora, increased design detail would be pointless, because there isn't any eye candy to stare at, and because the design system is already incredibly in depth for everything that matters. Component placement doesn't matter, because any hit that penetrates your armor and shields is going to hit something, so the focus is put on preventing secondary explosions, because whatever is between the inside of the armor and your important components isn't enough to stop damage. If a ship from a certain perspective is an armored shell full of components, so what? I'd rather have the depth of design Aurora provides than a less-detailed system that lets me look at a shiny visual display.

[Johuotar]

Well that does sound good enough for me, Ill give it a try when I get home.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Actually, Aurora does all of that, with a greater depth of detail in terms of scaling (Do you want your active sensors to be able to detect a 800 ton ship at 12 million kilometers? Okay, you can do that? A 2500 ton ship at 108 million kilometers? That too. Do you want to overengineer your missile fire control to compensate for enemy ECM? You can do that. Do you want to use drives that give you a 10% power boost but are less fuel efficient and more likely to explode if hit? That too. What about drives for a survey ship that are 80% more efficient but less powerful? That as well. Etc., etc.), except for where exactly on your ship the parts go. That is not least because of the fact that there is no visual representation of your ships beyond their dot of light on the system map, and thus no reason to care where you put each component. You won't be seeing it, so the components are put together logically: Everything is inside the armor, and any hits that penetrate the armor deal their remaining damage to a random component. Drives, reactors, and magazines have a chance of causing secondary explosions if hit; the former two can be built with a lower chance of explosion on hit, and the latter can be built with a greater chance of ejecting ordinance on hit to prevent an explosion, as well as extra armor. Electronic components can be built with additional protection from microwave weapons. All of that is improved as you research technologies in the specific field.

So for example, for missile weapons, you can research increased reload rate for launchers, reduced-size (but with increased reload speed) launchers (0.75, 0.5, 0.25, and 0.15[box launchers/XO racks]), increased missile warhead strength per MSP, increased missile agility per MSP, better missile drive power per MSP, increased fuel efficiency, high-radiation warheads of increasing strength, laser warheads, multistage missiles, missle ECM, etc.

So yes, in Aurora, increased design detail would be pointless, because there isn't any eye candy to stare at, and because the design system is already incredibly in depth for everything that matters. Component placement doesn't matter, because any hit that penetrates your armor and shields is going to hit something, so the focus is put on preventing secondary explosions, because whatever is between the inside of the armor and your important components isn't enough to stop damage. If a ship from a certain perspective is an armored shell full of components, so what? I'd rather have the depth of design Aurora provides than a less-detailed system that lets me look at a shiny visual display.

Note, please, not anywhere have I said anything about shiny visual displays. I like the way SotS handles combat, not necessarily the way it looks. Take DF, for instance. Not quite there now, but as planned it'll have the best CRPG combat system ever made. It won't look any shinier for it.

Thing is, Aurora already goes into a ridiculous amount of detail. Compared to what it already does and allows, the simplistic ship design principle of Aurora is seriously underwhelming. Implementing a deck/section system would be easy compared to what's already done, and things like approximated attack vectors and penetration simulation are already being done, as far as I could gather. It'd bring the ship design component of the game up to the same level of sophistication the rest of it has, which, in my opinion, would only improve it. Imagine new layers of strategy, having subsystem scanners to identify vulnerable parts of enemy ships, and giving ship captains priorities for attacking specific kinds of components (i.e. you could have a heavy fighter squadron dedicated to shooting out the engines of enemy ships), designing ships for maximum cost efficiency versus the enemies faced (thin, narrow ships to minimize chance of being hit by long-range, slow firing weapons; large bulky ships to weather the onslaught of rapid-firing popgun fighter swarms, etc), all kinds of things. The design of every ship would be like a self-composing puzzle, a minigame within the game. I sorely miss being able to do stuff like that.

[Johuotar]

Well I quess you cant have everything, some game does something right and something wrong. Some other makes something else better. We always dream of combining best parts of our favourite games but game "done right" in every way so it suits our tastes will probably stay forever as a dream for most of us.


Unless we make the game ourselves.

[Zangi]

Even then, your coding knowledge/skill and dedication to the cause will be the main determining factor behind actually doing it.

[Necro910]

Even then, your coding knowledge/skill and dedication to the cause will be the main determining factor behind actually doing it.

Unless you want a modified version of pong

EDIT: HAPPY PI DAY

[Johuotar]

Hah checked aurora thread again, Dice hadnt posted on the latest page yet, and someone was: "Where's Flying Dice's signature when you need it?" referencing to the window resizing guide he has as sig.

[Flying Dice]

Hah checked aurora thread again, Dice hadnt posted on the latest page yet, and someone was: "Where's Flying Dice's signature when you need it?" referencing to the window resizing guide he has as sig.

Well that problem was quickly addressed.


But regarding design: Eh, to each their own. Regardless of whatever flaws it may have, I still enjoy Aurora far more than any other 4X.


(Regarding reshaping ships: The way Aurora weapons function, a shot will either be a clean miss, will hit the shields [if the ship is shielded] or will crater the armor in one way or another [depending on its damage profile], or will pierce the armor and destroy whatever is rolled as 'beneath' that section of the armor belt. My point was that weapons are sufficiently accurate and destructive that putting an additional 10-20m of whatever between the armor and an important component wouldn't make any appreciable difference, and that altering the profile of the ship wouldn't affect enemy accuracy to any useful degree.)

[Sean Mirrsen]

Ah yes, that one. Seen it before, looked good. I'm not sure what drove me away last time I tried it, but something did. Might as well try it again if I ever feel in need of a new timewaster.

Tried it (Star Ruler) again. Now I remember what caused me to get frustrated with it. So much realtime, so little real time. I mean, research happening by itself I can live with, ships moving between stars in seconds I can live with, but götterdämmerung, keeping track of everything at once is frustrating. I can probably live with a lot of it if/when I find the autopause settings (there are autopause settings, right?), but seriously, realtime combat in- and out-system, coupled with mad research trees and colony management... when is there going to be time to design something? The design system itself is pretty nice, even if it's still just a different take on the same "box of stuff" method (and it could use actual turret mounts, what with the greatly varied ship size... on a ship 20 AU long, the position of a laser with a 5 AU range is going to matter very, very much), but the game design itself leaves almost no time for using it properly. Oh well. *goes off to look for autopause settings*

[Flying Dice]

See, that's why you play Aurora. Entirely turn based, and you choose turn length, anywhere from 5 seconds to 30 days, with the ability to set the number of ticks you want in a turn, so the game will still check for hostile contacts, etc. every 30 second or whatever and pause to let you know.

[MC Dirty]

Pretty sure Star Ruler pauses when you're designing ships.
Don't know about autopause, but you can pause it anytime you want. Also, yes, keeping track of everything is difficult, but that's why you have the option to automate a lot of stuff. Hell, you can automate building factories or ships if you so desire. If you want to keep track of everything, you can do that, but it doesn't force you to.

[acidbomb113]

Why is Easytoons so awesome?!?!

[Jacob/Lee]

New avatar get.

[Flying Dice]

Student falls to death (pretty sure I know exactly which old, untrustworthy stairwell it was, too), classes cancelled for today and tomorrow. Shame about that. Not sure exactly what degree of bad taste a joke about the relative value of human life when the individual falls outside Dunbar's number would be.

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