welcome back spiky one.

awwww, its nice to feel welcome, thanks

Mind Candy! I created this to get an Idea of how big a map would be. Numbers are one thing, seeing is believing!



http://n.1asphost.com/Mykuss/MAP%20250%20Squared.xls

To get a closer look click this link and download the file!
This Link is Tested and works! I would suggest that you Save the File instead of opening itl!!
This is a Excel Program. Press the Control key and scroll with the wheel on your mouse to zoom in and out. I think this is what someome was talking about.

I broke the map down into 5 sector square squares!
So each square is 5 Sectors across or one hundred light years. The Distance a Federation Sovereign could travel at Speed 5 in one turn!

Each Quadrant is 125 sectors by a 125 sectors. So here's your Big Map with Real Quadrants!

BTW the green area in the upper left area, what is that you might say? Well, that is the area from the map of BOTF! 22 x 18 sectors.

Oh! Did I tell you it's 5000 Light Years across! 8O

You still want a large Map???

yes i still want a large map. i want the cardassina union to own it all

LOL, you boney-headed people will never beat my elves.... Errr i mean Romulans, yea. ROMULANS!

You Shall Never Again Doubt The Power Of The Romulan Star Empire.

im a klingon player myself.... :p

Greetings....
long time no see and all.

I see the map idea got a bit of a work over.
How's that going? Last time I was here and we talked about a biger map the main problem was the game slowing down cause of having to process every sector. Has that been avoided (by processing only sectors with activity as suggested)?

wow, that must have been a long time ago, because i can't remember really. Gavin didn't posted any slow down problems with botfii, so i don't know what he is intending. But first of all Gavin will make a better and faster game, so that there will be less slow downs. If you refer to the slow downs seen in botf, these were actually memory leaks, but this is something we don't intend on having in botfii, although you can never keep it 100% clear.

nah, I know full well those were memory leaks. I'm talking about slow down problems with the big map meant for this project...I'll try to find that post tonight and put the quote here....

Remember, the point was that there's only a max of 50 star systems (well, that's what it said at the time, did we get pass that point?) cause, in gturfreys words, otherwise the game will take a long time to process every turn.

yes we will indeed have more then 50 star systems, i'm not sure but the max map at the moment in the game is 75x75 or something? that would already be enormous with about 600 star systems, the smallest map at the moment is going to be 4 times as big as the biggest in botf1. Bu tindeed i will ask him again when i see him on msn.

that sounds cool! one thing i didnt liek about BOTF sometime is that u always really early ran into someone, i also would have liekd to build up a fairbit first.

Ya we'll have huge maps and huge games that you can spend hours upon hours upon hours on!
-Jega

i read the whole thread now and what should i say, i don't agree with "the all"

reason is simple: think about gameplay, maybe in single player it would be funny to play over 4 quadrants. but in network sessions? think about 200+ systems for free... would be easy to colonize them fast but terrible to manage and click through all bulding lists. automode would be intresting but my opinion is that it would be better to plan for multi player, less is more. a few ships in battle can better be handled and each ship is more personal, as the systems are.
dont plan for the biggest possible universe, it would take just more time to play and longer is not = better

Ukulele you should also know, that races like the Andorians, Vulcan, Breen, etc.. can expand. This means that the galaxy will fill itselve faster then botf1. More races more differences, this could mean a really great multiplayer game. You are not anymore surrounded by four empires, but now by small and big once in numbers like 50, plus we still have lots of minor races that don't have ships. So the galaxy will ot be empty, but perhaps a idea of a small map for people that want a fast game could be implemented? Because the smallest map will be 4x the size of the largest in botf. We will just have to wait for the Beta and see how it plays.

There could be an option to have a "botf1 size map". Just for the sentimental ones

Seriusly I agree, there should be an option to have a smaller map.

Why wont u give the player the option to exactly chose the size of the map?

u know like in Civ2

Well one thing when this started that EVERYONE agreed on was the need for a larger map and it just came out that no one cared about the smaller maps. Personally I wouldn't be against putting on a smaller map option (i'd never use it) but it's up to those who program the game.
-Jega

the idea of traveling through a big galaxy with a lot of small races is really nice, but expansion till everything is mine was always the best option

and fighting is really cool with a small fleet were tactics matter

Why would you want small fleets? I mean you are running an empire like in StarTrek, you just have to build large fleets to protect yourselve. Perhaps Chaos will rule this game. Anyway tactics can be really intresting with large groups also, but it's different then with small fleets.

Maybe on some slower PCs its better to give the option 4 a smaller map? I got 900 Mhz and dont think 1000x1000 will work on my comp

Who said the max size would be 1000x1000, this would mean 1.000.000. hexes with a 10% for stars, would mean 100.000. starsystems = impossible at the moment.

Theirs Big and then their BIG! I'd go with the biggest possible but theirs a limit to possible. Some people have slower comps which is fine but I vote for the big map
-Jega

i like big because i like big multiplayer games that last ages. I think it would be nice to have 3 diff sizes at start of game for those who prefer different.

I like games that last for ages too, and your thinking of having 3 sizes like in botf1 which i'd say is fine but it's a programing decision so ask gturfrey
-Jega

yes different size like done in botf will be optional. Small medium large or something. I can't remember the exact sizes of them.

Well thier we go, all's well that ends well
-Jega