Re: Galaxy: Yet another idea to change a perfectly good game

From: bruneau@griffin.emba.uvm.edu (Mark L Bruneau)

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1993 21:28:02 +0000

David desJardins writes:
>There are a lot of things that would "make sense."  It would make
>sense for a ship not to fire at a target it has no chance of
>hitting, for example.  However that isn't how the combat system
>works.

It actually does work this way, after the initial round.  All ships
fire, if none has a chance to kill any ship, they don't fire again.
You and I are particularly familiar with this I believe..  :)

I guess I should have defined a problem, then proposed the solution.

I think it's silly sometimes, to have to build a couple of hundred
ships, with no guns, just to satisfy tactics under the present battle
algorithm.  Pardon me if I'm not using exact fleet examples.  I think
it's more fun for people to "learn by experience" or "the hard way".

If it makes little sense for a ship with a gun to fire at a ship it
can't possibly kill, then it makes even less sense for a ship with a
gun, to fire at a ship without a gun...except under the present
algorithm of course.

David write again:
>One comment on the specific proposal: it seems to me to be a bad idea
>to introduce artificial "breakpoints" into the combat system.  Under
>Mark's >scheme, changing a ship design from slightly less than a
>multiple of ten in mass to slightly more would significantly affect
>its combat results.  Galaxy currently doesn't have such eccentricities
>and I think it is better off without them.

I thought about this, and it would be hard not to have such
breakpoints.  Even taking the ln(mass), (and truncate the result to
obtain only the integer) would still introduce the breakpoints,
although they would be more gradual.

Brian Sutin writes:
>I agree with your title.  Why arbitrarily fix an unbroken game?  I
>can think of thousands of changes, but do any of them fix something
>actually wrong with galaxy, or do they just result in a different game?

I picked the title quite on purpose, thank you.  I've seen lots of
silly proposals to change this game.  I might number some of yours among
them, although a disk-shaped galaxy is interesting (it wouldn't be
nearly as easy to code I'll bet).

I like Galaxy just fine the way it is, but on the off chance the game
has not yet reached perfection, I like to see discussion of ideas
anyways.  And should everyone discover the optimal fleet design that
David desJardins mentioned, changes to the battle algorithm might be
welcome.

Mark

--
---------------------------------------
Mark L. Bruneau    bruneau@emba.uvm.edu
Speaking my own mind, and nobody else's
---------------------------------------

References

Galaxy: Yet another idea to change a perfectly good game
bruneau@griffin.emba.uvm.edu (Mark L Bruneau)
Sat, 20 Mar 1993 06:50:05 +0000
Re: Galaxy: Yet another idea to change a perfectly good game
haines@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au (Andrew Haines, Civil, 1/113)
Mon, 22 Mar 1993 07:46:16 +0000

Referenced By

Galaxy: Yet another idea to change a perfectly good game
bruneau@griffin.emba.uvm.edu (Mark L Bruneau)
Sat, 20 Mar 1993 06:50:05 +0000
Re: Galaxy: Yet another idea to change a perfectly good game
haines@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au (Andrew Haines, Civil, 1/113)
Mon, 22 Mar 1993 07:46:16 +0000