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[SafariJohn]

To remove corners from the battle map and the problems they cause, I suggest that the map be made toroidal - i.e. go off any side, come back on the opposite side.

[Amazigh]

The first immediate issue that springs to mind: How would this interact with retreating / reinforcements.
Re: with no definite "top/bottom" of the map you could have your retreat position be somewhere in the middle of the enemy fleet if pushed back enough.
Or enemy reinforcements could spawn in the middle of/behind your fleet if you've pushed too far forwards.

And: What's to stop you instantly turning around on spawn an flying into the rear of the enemy formation.

[Grievous69]

Isn't it like 100 times simpler to just make it a circle if you want corners removed? That's the obvious solution to me instead of being impossible to track ships since they now teleport from side to side.

[LinWasTaken]

To remove corners from the battle map and the problems they cause, I suggest that the map be made toroidal - i.e. go off any side, come back on the opposite side.

maps like that *** with my brain. (especially when they are a circle)

[Alex]

Isn't it like 100 times simpler to just make it a circle if you want corners removed? That's the obvious solution to me instead of being impossible to track ships since they now teleport from side to side.

... hmm.

[Vanshilar]

It might have been useful in a game like Star Control where it's one vs one, so looping around enforces a maximum distance between the ships. But Starsector is about fleet vs fleet combat, so looping around to the other side would mess up the fleet formation aspect of the fight.

[Shinr]

Isn't it like 100 times simpler to just make it a circle if you want corners removed? That's the obvious solution to me instead of being impossible to track ships since they now teleport from side to side.

I'm not a programmer, but I what heard over the years of various gamedev trivia is that it is hard to both work with anything that is not a straight line and to use said straight lines to imitate not-straight lines.

[Brainwright]

Isn't it like 100 times simpler to just make it a circle if you want corners removed? That's the obvious solution to me instead of being impossible to track ships since they now teleport from side to side.

Given the way the current map pushes ships away from the edge of the map, an ellipse with the long axis oriented to the sides of the map would simulate ships approaching the side as being extremely far away from the initial starting point while still preventing them from being cornered by anything less than a full encirclement.  Ships being pursued would naturally slide down the longer slope of the ellipse, giving much more time to pursue and encircle said ship.  It more closely simulates open space without being actually infinite.

I think it would work out better than the current model, which is a bit wonky.

[SafariJohn]

TBH, I was about 60% trolling when I posted this. That ellipse idea sounds interesting.

[Brainwright]

Yeah, if you accept there is no absolute frame of reference, then you can get rid of the third person observer, and achieve a finer resolution in simulation.

If you imagine that fleets coming into combat are more or less matching velocity, then you can posit that maneuverability is more important as fleets close.  Why?  Because... um... they fire volleys at standoff ranges!  Yeah!  They crank up those nanofabs and pump out the shells and missiles or focus the laser arrays from several ships like magnifying glass against an ant... yeah!  So you have to redirect power to maneuvering thrusters as you close range to make those kinds of volleys less effective!

So getting to the bottom of the map is essentially building up comparative velocity to the point where the enemy can't really focus on you... and then you can go full thrust while evading any counterfire.

At least it explains how harassing works... they're firing volleys into the path of your ships.  It makes you burn harder to change course and evade, but they also give up achieving the acceleration necessary to actually catch you...

So you would have a less broad area of retreat if you had the ellipse, because you would be retreating toward a much smaller arc at the bottom of the ellipse, but your ships would be gathering together instead of splitting apart like in the current map that makes retreating so disastrous.  Because they're aligning to an escape vector.  They would technically be closer to each other than the enemy as they built up speed.