Post by NewtonPulsifer in Request for closer to circular rather than square tile ranging

Viewing post in Request for closer to circular rather than square tile ranging

NewtonPulsifer62 days ago (6 edits) (-2)

Not a little funky IMO. Very funky. I don't think I'm in the minority in believing that.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LancerRPG/comments/mactxi/hex_or_grid/

15.5% prefer Grids over Hexes. And I wouldn't be surprised if only 15.5% of that 15.5% range with diagonals as 1:1. So your decision is aligned with like 2.4% of Lancer players. The rest use D&D style diagonals cost 1.5, round down. One, two-three, four, five-six etc.

EDIT: Repeating my comment above because I don't agree with your interpretation of the game rules. They only allow diagonal distortion on movement, not attack range.

-Pg 64 RAW, range is range. So get out your ruler. Diagonals are only mentioned in regards to *movement* pg 62.-

EDIT2: Also, you don't need to use hexagons. You can use the Midpoint Circle Algorithm and keep a grid. Here's godot-rgmap on github looks to have already implemented what you'll need so you can crib the code (MIT license) https://github.com/alex-karev/godot-rgmap and a youtube link

Olive62 days ago(+1)

Having sloppy significant digit hygiene makes me less likely to listen to what you’re saying here - you can’t be pulling percentages out of thin air (“15.5% of 15.5%”) and still be including decimal places as a way to sound authoritative.
It’s not about player preference for the TTRPG. I use hexes in my own game too. They’re fun. Nobody is arguing they’re not. It’s about what is feasible to do for a indie video game adaptation.
Are you suggesting use near-circles for range but 1:1 for movement? So like diagonally 10 spaces is out of range of an assault rifle but within range for a speed 5 move+boost? I don’t think that’s a game that would be good. And if we tried doing circular square movement, we’d have to start answering questions like “what if they do it as a series of 1-step moves?” The edge cases are not trivial. The only other realistic alternative is no-diagonals like in the original web demo or Icon. I’m more open to that but I would need a UX reason eg making it easier to learn for me players.

NewtonPulsifer59 days ago(-2)

1. I linked to a Reddit poll that 89/574 (so 15.5%) preferred grids over hexes. I'm guessing there might be a misunderstanding because you didn't click through that link and I didn't clearly reference it as my source?

2. I hear you on cost/benefit and agree. I'd recommend a poll or something to see what people think. In my opinion if the game is rated zero to 10, this is a hard -1 to the final score. My opinion might be off in the weeds. Or it might be mainstream. It's possible you're applying resources to something you believe is more important, but that people who play the game disagree. I think I'm up to 32 in terms of successful missions in my latest saved game so be assured that my opinion on this has been refined; diagonals=non-diagonals is bad. Any improvement is welcome.

3. I vote yes near circles for ranging and sensors is a better game even if movement is not. The game is noticeably distorted around diagonals as it is right now. Your comment of "I don’t think that’s a game that would be good" in regards to diagonals=non-diagonals on movement only....I'm not sure how to respond to. From my perspective it would be an improvement. I take it you're disagreeing?

shykta40 days ago

You've probably already thought of this, but the "movement budget" could maintain a residue - e.g. your first diagonal would take 1.4 or 1.5 "moves" (so you'd need speed 2+), your second diagonal in a turn would use the leftover (so you'd only need speed 3+), etc.

There'd still be edge cases around e.g. difficult terrain or talents that consider "standard move" and "boost" movement differently, I admit, but those ought to be pretty minor?

NewtonPulsifer39 days ago (1 edit)

It does create complexity and additional calculation at the very least. That's assuming you're past the conceptual stage that is generic enough not to create a ton of corner cases. The pathfinding phase is already the most heavy loop in the game as far as I can tell, and going with alternate calculations can push that calc time up significantly. Which means that it would need to be optimized, which requires a higher skill floor and possibly delving chunks of the game out of the core scripting functions into custom C++ code. Donald Knuth says premature optimization is the root of all evil, but also that you DO need to optimize that critical 3% of the code that really needs it. I think it isn't clear yet that my pet peeve here should be part of that 3%, or that even if is, if the time is ripe for the optimization pass. EDIT: Forgot C# is also a choice in Godot. And probably a better one in a turn based game.

itch.io

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