Veblen

Join Date 03/2006

Eyes of the Universe broken

The Eyes of the Universe wonder appears to set the sensor range of all ships to 15 ps--even dedicated sensor ships that would otherwise have sensor ranges greater than 15.

Adding a certain amount of sensor range, or improving the effectiveness of the sensor components, would seem to be a better way. (In fact, I believe the declared behavior is +10 ps to sensor range, but like I said, it just sets everything to 15).

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sensor range is capped at 15...

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Man, the editing feature on this forum is so broken.

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Capped at 15? Ok... I suppose that explains the behavior I'm seeing.

But... it seems odd that the final wonder at the end of the sensor tech branch has the effect of making the sensor components useless.

And it seems rather arbitrary that sensor range is capped at 15, especially since 15 means something very different on a small, dense map and a gigantic, sparse map.

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Its capped for technical reasons, not gameplay ones. Though the 15 is somewhat arbitrary (a sector is 15 squares wide), anything much beyond that caused the game to have serious performance issues so they capped it in the first update.

I'm hoping they'll fix the performance issues and increase the sensor range again, but I'm not holding my breath. and a sensor range beyond 30 probably does need to be reduced for gameplay reasons, but on a gigantic map, I'd really like something beyond 15.

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It technical issues, because lower end systems start to get buggy beyond a certain detection range on a ship probably higher than 15 parsec(one mouvement unit), but 15 is about the size of a sector.

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Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

Could they make this an option in a future patch?

By end game most ships move 15-20, especially if the Ultradrive event occurs.

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Would be nice to get a more in-depth explanation as to what sort of "performance issues" actually occur, you know, to understand if it's really worth the 15-parsec limit.

I mean otherwise it sounds like it was capped at 15 for game balance purposes.

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It was capped because with Eyes of the Universe and a sensor event you could get massive sensor ranges that would bring the game to a halt performance wise. I've read that if they can manage to fix the performance issues the cap level could be raised to a higher value.

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Slightly off topic, but is a Parsec a "real World" unit of measurement?
If so, exactly how big is one and where does it's name come from (PARts of a SECtor?)?

It's so widely used & yet I've never actually wondered about this before now. I may need to get a life!

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Play in strategic mode

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Slightly off topic, but is a Parsec a "real World" unit of measurement?

A Parsec is a real world unit of measurement. If I remember correctly, it's equal to about 3.26 Light Years, or a little under twenty trillion miles.

It's so widely used & yet I've never actually wondered about this before now. I may need to get a life!

And I knew this off the top of my head. I suppose that means that I need a life even more!

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Cheers James!

If I do happen to find a couple of spare lives lying about I'll be sure to send one your way!

Express post of course!!

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Slightly off topic, but is a Parsec a "real World" unit of measurement?

Parsec is a real distance measurement. 1 parsec = 3.26 lightyears. It stands for "parallax of one arc second".

If you look around the room, keep one eye open and then switch eyes, you'll see that things appear to move. Nearby things move further than far away things. This is the parallax effect between your two eyes (the basis for stereo depth perception).

Now imagine you had a very big head, so that the distance between your two eyes was one astronomical unit (the distance between the earth and the sun) and you did the same trick of looking with one eye and then the other, only this time you were looking at stars. Since your eyes are so far apart, relatively nearby stars will appear to jump. That jump can be measured as an angle. Each degree of arc can be divided into 60 arc-minutes and each arc-minute can be divided into 60 arc-seconds. So an arc-second is a very small angle, less than the size of a penny when viewed from a mile away.

Remember that stars that are further away jump less when you switch 'eyes'. A star that is one parsec away jumps only one arc-second. A star that is 5 parsecs away jumps only about 1/5th of an arc-second.

So... yeah. It is a real measurement, and one parsec per week is pretty speedy.

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Slightly off topic, but is a Parsec a "real World" unit of measurement?
If so, exactly how big is one and where does it's name come from (PARts of a SECtor?)?

It's so widely used & yet I've never actually wondered about this before now. I may need to get a life!

par·sec Pronunciation Key (pärsk)
n.

A unit of astronomical length based on the distance from Earth at which stellar parallax is one second of arc and equal to 3.258 light-years, 3.086 × 1013 kilometers, or 1.918 × 1013 miles.

[par(allax) + sec(ond)1.]

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

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before they capped the sensor range, I had no problems playing on a gigantic map, so my hope is that they make it an option that the player can tweak to optimize their performance. I had ships with sensors that could see an entire gigantic map, and didnt notice any problems on my higher end system. so while I feel the pain of those without a super computer on their desk, I also hope that SD allows us that have such a thing, to use it properly. the 15 limit isnt so bad, if you have a bajillion scouts, but personally, having that many ships slowed me down more than the extended sensor range. I guess we'll find out in the beta soon to be released.

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I'm in favor of the Eyes of the Universe adding +5 to the max sensor range, Though that may unbalance things..

15 Parsecs is pretty reasonable, Considering you can squeeze enough sensory equipment on a tiny hull to see that far, It means that using a 2-6 meter long hull you can pretty much see the nearest 5 or so star systems.

Now, Imagine how happy present day astronomers would be to get their hands on one of those...

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Now imagine you had a very big head

Not so difficult....

so that the distance between your two eyes was one astronomical unit (the distance between the earth and the sun)

Whoa!! You said "very big head", not unimaginably humongous head!! I suffer from Migraines & that would make for one hell of a headache indeed!!!

and you did the same trick of looking with one eye and then the other, only this time you were looking at stars. Since your eyes are so far apart, relatively nearby stars will appear to jump. That jump can be measured as an angle. Each degree of arc can be divided into 60 arc-minutes and each arc-minute can be divided into 60 arc-seconds. So an arc-second is a very small angle, less than the size of a penny when viewed from a mile away.

Good grief! that makes for another one!
So the angle is measured from one of my eyes to the star & then from the same eye to where it jumps to with the other eye? Then the distance between jumping stars points is calculated with basic trig & divided into 60 sections/minutes & then again into seconds to find the distance in parsecs between the two points. Once I have that I can calculate the distance between me & the star?
Yes?

Mate, that was a seriously good answer!! I can picture in my head what you describe far more easily than I can rationalize it in words, which makes the ease with which you describe it that much more impressive!

You if achieve nothing else today, you may at least rest comfortably knowing you've enlightened one poor ignorant soul.
Thank you very much!

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