Adding a "Neutered" Marker to the Galaxy Map

[Wingflier]

The "Neutered" Marker would work just like a Priority Marker, except it would be an "N", or something similar.

The Neutered Marker could be placed by the player onto any planet, and would serve two purposes:

1. To let you and all your allies know which planets have been neutered, and are therefore safe to travel through.

2. Neutered planets would automatically be chosen FIRST for allied pathing, instead of simply choosing the FASTEST path, which may lead your forces through MKIV AI Worlds, Raid Engine zones, or worse.

A simple and elegant solution to the long-time AI War pathing problem, which also has the additional value of making the galaxy map more accessible.

Please vote.  http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=10901

[Winge]

The "Neutered" Marker would work just like a Priority Marker, except it would be an "N", or something similar.

The Neutered Marker could be placed by the player onto any planet, and would serve two purposes:

1. To let you and all your allies know which planets have been neutered, and are therefore safe to travel through.

2. Neutered planets would automatically be chosen FIRST for allied pathing, instead of simply choosing the FASTEST path, which may lead your forces through MKIV AI Worlds, Raid Engine zones, or worse.

A simple and elegant solution to the long-time AI War pathing problem, which also has the additional value of making the galaxy map more accessible.

Please vote.  http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=10901

I normally use P0 for neutered (or minimal threat), but I really like the automatic pathing idea.  +1

[Diazo]

Rather then this, I'd like to see a "Do Not Enter" marker so that unless you directly right-click that system, your ships will not path to it.

2. Neutered planets would automatically be chosen FIRST for allied pathing, instead of simply choosing the FASTEST path, which may lead your forces through MKIV AI Worlds, Raid Engine zones, or worse.

What does 'first' for pathing mean? Counts as a half a planet? So they'll take a one hop longer path to use a 'Neutered' planet. Two hops longer? Three hops longer?

Much simpler to have a "Do Not Path Here" flag.

Actually, how is pathing done? It does not seem to be random which route is chosen when the number of hops is the same.

To kind of simulate this, you can use shift-click to queue move orders on the galaxy map to control the path your units take.

D.

[Wingflier]

Rather then this, I'd like to see a "Do Not Enter" marker so that unless you directly right-click that system, your ships will not path to it.

2. Neutered planets would automatically be chosen FIRST for allied pathing, instead of simply choosing the FASTEST path, which may lead your forces through MKIV AI Worlds, Raid Engine zones, or worse.

What does 'first' for pathing mean? Counts as a half a planet? So they'll take a one hop longer path to use a 'Neutered' planet. Two hops longer? Three hops longer?

Much simpler to have a "Do Not Path Here" flag.

Actually, how is pathing done? It does not seem to be random which route is chosen when the number of hops is the same.

To kind of simulate this, you can use shift-click to queue move orders on the galaxy map to control the path your units take.

D.

I believe that your units choose a path based on a value system, it will always choose the most valuable option if possible.

1.  Allied planets
2.  Neutral planets (destroyed comm station)
3.  Fastest route

So if there are no allied planets, they will attempt to steer through neutral planets.  If there are no neutral planets, they will just take the fastest route (in physical distance).

So if the fastest route to the destination is through 4 MKIV Planets, and there are no Allied or Neutral planets along the way, that's where your units will go.

The problem with your suggestion, Diazo, is that it still leaves the pathing very ambiguous.  Just because you've marked 1 planet as "Do Not Enter", does not mean the second closest path through enemy planets isn't just as bad. 

With your method, the player would actually have to do quite a bit of experimenting before finding out which planets they had to mark as "Do Not Enter" finally gave them the path they wanted.  Even then, if they were to choose a new destination, they may have to completely redo the "Do Not Enter" route, or significantly change it, to give them the path they want.  In the end, you may have to "Do Not Enter" every planet except for a bee-line of planets to your destination, which is a lot more work, and a lot less practical, than just marking the planets you've neutered.

[Cyborg]

I agree with enhanced pathfinding mechanics.

[Dichotomy]

It's not like "Do Not Enter" and "Neutered" are mutually exclusive. Both would have their uses. I would support both.

[Wingflier]

It's not like "Do Not Enter" and "Neutered" are mutually exclusive. Both would have their uses. I would support both.

Both is fine

[Diazo]

It actually sounds like you want "routes" setup where you can define highways between planets several hops apart.

Part of my issue comes from trying to define the values in my head. Okay, I've marked this planet neutered. My ships are down here. I want to go to a planet 40° off from the neutered planet.

How does the pathing work? (Both in-game and from a programming stand point?)

Remember I'm used to lattice maps here, there are usually several ways to get to a planet that is several hops out and I can't picture how this neutered marker would work.

Having said that, I think having a "routes" rally post might be the way to go. Similar to the rally post, but it only gives orders to ships that you have selected when you right-click on it and you can give it shift-click move order.

Actually, I think you can do this with the existing rally post, we just need some way to trigger the redirect logic manually rather then automatically so we can group up ships before sending them out.

Much cleaner and simpler from a programming perspective so more likely to get implemented.

D.

[Wingflier]

Part of my issue comes from trying to define the values in my head. Okay, I've marked this planet neutered. My ships are down here. I want to go to a planet 40° off from the neutered planet.

Well, if you're trying to get to a planet several hops away, chances are you're only doing it one time.

The whole point of the neutered planets marker is for convenience and practicality.  If I spent time neutering a planet, I'll probably be using it as a path for the rest of the game.  If I'm traveling to a planet 3 hops away that hasn't had any of the planets on the way neutered, it's probably for a raid, in which case I won't need to go back.

I don't mind manually giving my guys order if I only have to do it one time.  It's when I have to do it all game, on routes that I'm using over and over, that I start to get extremely frustrated.

[Diazo]

But how does it work?

Okay, the pathfinding prioritizes neutered planets, I get that.

How do you change that into a black/white number that the game can use to modify the pathfinding logic it currently uses? And can you get everyone to agree on how strictly your ships stay to the neutered planets?

That's why what I really think you are asking for is a "Route" function. A rally post was my first thought, but even better would be the ability on the galaxy map to say "If my ships are in this system, and I give them the move order to that system, use this specific path."

I do understand what you are trying to do, I just can't see how you could program the game to use a neutered flag to do so in a reasonable fashion. (I suppose Keith has the final say but I personally can't see how.)

D.

[Wingflier]

Well like I said, I think the game already does pathing in a value system:

1. Allied planets
2. Neutral planets
3. Fastest path (in distance traveled)

All you're doing is adding another value:

1. Allied planets
2. Neutral planets
3. Neutered planets
4. Fastest path

It chooses the path in that order.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Why don't we just have some kind of marker system where you just mark a 'safe' planet. The safe planet is treated as an owned planet (or maybe not if that would cause serious problems) for pathfinding reasons. Then the game tries to draw a line between all of your owned planets and marked safe planets. This effectively gives you a way to build a highway system, which will tell your fleet what the ideal paths of travel are. If you never do this, the logic works as it normally would; treating player owned planets as safe planets.

Is that basically what you mean? The planets you mark could just be treated as if they were allied planets for the purpose of pathfinding.

[Wingflier]

Basically yeah.  It just gives the "neutered"/"safe"/"whatever" planets priority on the pathfinding, while also letting all the players know, at a glance, which planets are safe to travel through.

I wouldn't think it would be that hard to implement...allied planets already have a flag which designates them as first priority for pathfinding, all you're doing is applying that same flag to the "neutered" or "safe" planets, giving them a higher priority than "the fastest route possible".

[Diazo]

Erm, I'm thinking the current path finding system needs testing then because I disagree with you at the moment (at am work so I can't test) because I believe that fastest path always has priority.

If it's 3 hops through friendly planets and 2 hops through AI planets, I'm sure I've had my ship default to the 2 hop AI planet route.

That is not from my current game but from a previous on so no guarantees, but I'm sure I remember having to fiddle with pathing a lot due to that.

D.