After four days of uninterrupted play: Essential Changes

[emeyer]

The arcs of SRBMs and MRBMs are entirely predictable, you just have to know how to predict them. If you could tell me exactly what you are having trouble with, perhaps it would allow me to enlighten you as to what you are doing wrong?

"Wrong", eh? I always love a commmunity where a lack of information equates to being in the wrong.

Basically, I have yet to understand what makes an SRBM curve right or left as compared to the flight path of its launching bomber. I've launched a series of SRBMs from a bomber swarm at the same target (or at two closely adjacent targets, like a silo and a city) and seen some go left, others right. What might cause that?

[xander]

Basically, I have yet to understand what makes an SRBM curve right or left as compared to the flight path of its launching bomber. I've launched a series of SRBMs from a bomber swarm at the same target (or at two closely adjacent targets, like a silo and a city) and seen some go left, others right. What might cause that?

I assume that you are talking about situations where the bombers are close to due north or south of the target? All nukes curve north. The only time that nuke curves will be a bit odd is if you are close to due north or south of the target.

The direction that a nuke curves (and this applies to all nukes, not just SRBMs) is a function of the position of the launching unit, and the position of the target. Those are the only two variables involved. If you launch from a position that is a bit west of the target, the nuke will curve first to the west, then back to the east to hit the target. If you launch from a position that is a bit east of the target, the nuke will curve first to the east, then back west to the target.

xander

[Testrie]

xander is a complete expert in all introversion games. how much do you play?

eyra

[xander]

xander is a complete expert in all introversion games.

No, I am not. I have played Darwinia to death, and feel safe in saying that I know it fairly well. It is possible that I am an expert on Darwinia, but I don't really think so.

I have played Uplink a fair amount, and know the missions reasonably well, but, being a Mac user, don't know anything about what has occurred since 1.3.4. I odn't know anything about the Game Bibles. I'm not even sure that they were included in the Mac distribution, and I don't have either a DevCD or the Bonus Disk.

I beta tested the Defcon demo, and am a member of the Mac Defcon beta group, but I am not an expert in the game. I know a few pieces of key strategy from people like Ace Rimmer and Radiant Caligula, but I am not very good at implementing them. I don't know the Windows version very well at all, and problems with the Linux version are well outside of my baliwick. In short, I am an average player, perhaps slightly below average, but, because I keep my eyes open, I know a bit about the game.

I am by no means an expert on all of IV's games. Just a loyal fanatic.

xander

[KingAl]

Shhhh. Don't ruin the facade.

[PSBirch]

But does it contribute to the overall fun, balance, and aesthetic of the game. You bet.

When firing a nuke North to South or South to North, the *RBMs will curve East or West depending on which is a "better" angle, but when firing East to West or West to East, the *RBM trajectory is *always* Northern (or, at best, starts due E or W and turns South). I would think some sort of discrimination as to "best" path would take into account the target being South of the launcher and/or the launcher being in the Southern hemisphere, and therefore a shorter distance if it began on a Southerly trajectory.

...And no, I have no idea why I capitalized all my cardinal directions.

[xander]

...*RBMs will curve East or West depending on which is a "better" angle...

No. They will curve east if the launching unit is east of the target. They will launch west if the launching unit is west of the target. I wrote a whole post about that recently, though I don't know where. It has nothing to do with what is "better", it has to be with creating an arc that is convex when seen from the North Pole.

xander

[tangostorm]

Montyphy,

Hey thanks for the Bering Strait tips. Okay. Tried it. Got 6 fleets through. 3 subs each. But it IS a task. I spent a lot of time in failed attempts...sailing back and forth...testing angles, etc. So I guess when I and other people say open the Bering Strait, make it less of a chore. Let the computer find its own way through. It really sucked up my time.
-Chris

Yeah this would be a great idea. I think there is some mod about this problem but, since no one uses them (setting up a 6 player game with a mod is impossible) it would be nice open the Bering Strait by default.

[Tucsoncoyote]

Now I don't know if this has been discussed but this would be an interesting idea for the game if it were to be used (I know that folks want the realism factor but i think this might be a good idea for maybe a future patch or release..)

Why not have or give the Silos a 3rd capability.. that of having the ability to launch space based weapons (A la the Star Wars theory...)

For Example A silo could in theory not only be used as Air Defense or to Launch ICBM's but could launch say a Space Based Weapon such as a Particle weapon or a Orbiting ICBM Platform..(and you could have this so that the player can set the orbit's Declination (So that it is a Sine wave or it can fly in any direction along a West to East Trajectory..(and Radars would be the only way to pick up these orbiting satellites of Doom. of course when Defcon 3 or 2 comes up, these devices can come into play.. and when Defcon 1 comes down, the Orbiting ICBM's can be launched... of course you will see them just appear from where ever..

might be a fun little mod if not a theoretical study in what "Star wars Could have been. But being that the game is already in a good situation right now, i'm just going to leave this one out there, for later reconsideration.. but as for now, the game is fairly well balanced and I think this doesn't need to included at this time.

Tucsoncoyote--

[KingAl]

It's highly unlikely it'll ever be possible to mod unit behaviours unless the source code is released, which is equally unlikely.

[PSBirch]

...*RBMs will curve East or West depending on which is a "better" angle...

No. They will curve east if the launching unit is east of the target. They will launch west if the launching unit is west of the target. I wrote a whole post about that recently, though I don't know where. It has nothing to do with what is "better" it has to be with creating an arc that is convex when seen from the North Pole.
xander

I was imprecise before; hopefully this post will clear things up.

And not to disagree with you lightly, Xander, I set up the following example:


larger
While your "curve east if the launching unit is east of the target. They will launch west if the launching unit is west of the target" is generally true, there are other variables at play, else these trajectories would be symmetrical. "Better" is not merely a convex arc, or if that was the intention then the generating algorithm needs to take into account certain acute situations, like those above. The behavior scales, which you can replicate yourself using North and South America and silos and bombers, or what you will -- the above example was simply the easiest example to generate and post.

And to be explicit, what I propose is having the North / South relation of target and orgin be given the appropriate weight when determining the trajectory, such that the shapes of the paths in the example above would be as symmetrical North / South as the relative angles between their origins and their targets East / West.