Spark Invention!

Out-of-character discussion forum for players of Cantr II to discuss new ideas for the development of the Cantr II game.

Moderators: Public Relations Department, Players Department, Programming Department, Game Mechanics (RD)

User avatar
Stan
Posts: 894
Joined: Fri Mar 26, 2004 3:29 pm
Location: KENTUCKY, USA

Spark Invention!

Postby Stan » Sat Mar 11, 2006 1:56 pm

Instead of predefining Applications such as cars, radios, etc. Give all the resources "Properties". Find a way for us to be able to combine ANY resource with any other resource to produce something tangible and useful.

This could give incentive for people to develop things that would help them defeat the neighboring dictator or to get around the world in 80 days...something to set them apart from all other Catrarians.
Stan wrote:I've never said anything worth quoting.
tiddy ogg
Posts: 1402
Joined: Sun Oct 02, 2005 8:53 pm
Location: Southampton, England
Contact:

Postby tiddy ogg » Sat Mar 11, 2006 2:23 pm

This subject of inventions has been brought up before. Admittedly you are one step further, but II, as a layman, can't see how it can be implenented. This is the big difference between Cantr and RL. Inventions are the source of RL success, but in Cantr you can only make what is specified.
User avatar
formerly known as hf
Posts: 4120
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 2:58 pm
Location: UK

Postby formerly known as hf » Sat Mar 11, 2006 2:23 pm

There have been numerous discussions about ways of implementing a break from the rigid 'manufacturing list' and allow individualised 'inventions' to be developed.

For it to be implemented (well) it would need such an extensive change to the way Cantr works, no less than a complete re-write would imagine. Secondly, it's a nigh-impossible goal.

Even professional games developers have tried and failed to implement something like this. The closest people get is to allow 'modualr' inventions - i.e: There's a set list of 'modules' which can be put together to create an individual item, which has the properties specific to the modules that were used to make it (Alpha Centauri is one example that comes to mind, there are more)

But 'modular' invention only works if there's a very large number of possible combinations, a large number of unique modules. Cantrian technology is so limited, that such a variety is not possible.

The 'accepted' suggestion, for food at least, is to provide a way of giving them 'properites' of fruit or vegetable, and allow people to make soups, stews and other foods using whatever fruit / vegetables they have available (which is close to what you asked in the other thread).

A computer program will always need some form of pre-definition for the items in a game. Even if it's in the form of modules which can be combined. Hence, there will always be a 'pre-defined' list, even if it's not visible as such.

What sort of things do you imagine being 'invented'?
Whoever you vote for.

The government wins.
User avatar
Stan
Posts: 894
Joined: Fri Mar 26, 2004 3:29 pm
Location: KENTUCKY, USA

Postby Stan » Sat Mar 11, 2006 2:59 pm

I hear what you're saying, but I also think that if Jos, as a kid, said he was going to invent a game that would be played by people from all over the world with different backgrounds and different political philosophies and religions people would have told him he was nuts.

I never fall for the "it's too hard" argument. I never fall for it. If someone else has never been able to do it, all the more reason to make it work. It could give Cantr the competitive advantage just as I'm proposing for characters in the game. If it just isn't possible, like you say, then perhaps this game is doomed to failure by boredom. Or, maybe there's another idea about what can be done to make things interesting again. This one in my idea. Does someone else have another?

As far as "somebody thought of it already"...I don't care. Jos has admitted himself on another thread that things are getting a bit boring. that means something BIG needs to change. This is something BIG. Perhaps the past was not the right time for this idea. But now it is.

A good starting point on what I would allow to be "invented" would be foods. Start with Stew.

If I can dig it up, pick it, or kill it, I should be able to put it into a pot, cook it and eat it. Perhaps it will kill me, perhaps I'll only need to eat 5g a day to survive. Give each item a nutritional property. Something with a positive number is nutritional, something with a negative is poisonous, etc.

I would then start to consider transportation.

I realize there have to pre-determined elements in programming. But what is pre-determined is up to the programmer. Today, we define the properties of the application. I'm suggesting define properties of elements.

It could start with very simple properties: Density (relative to air), conductivity, nutrition, hardness, reactivity, shape capabilities.

With my transportation idea I'm thinking of a hot air balloon for example.

If you combined, leather bags, propane, rope or some other gas, and a chair (just as example), then you have created a balloon. This is a very simplistic example and needs to be fleshed out by a group of people.

Maybe you define the type of object you are trying to build. In the Balloon example you would choose "Vehicle". Then you select 1 of 100 different semi finished items...Leather Bag (15 items), rope (15 pieces), gas (150g), chair (1 pc), then you start to "Build" the balloon.

Specific "laws of physics" would have to exist behind the scenes. For instance, vehicles with a combined density less than air would float. Vehicles with a density less than water would float. Those heavier than both would sink.

To me, the Vehicle is probably the most difficult to achieve. Weapons would be simpler. Make weapons with different materials. For example, a stone sword. Stone is very hard, therefore, it is easy to break. With the degradation of our items, "reliability" is already defined as a "property" of applications.
Stan wrote:I've never said anything worth quoting.
User avatar
Hellzon
Posts: 437
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2005 11:35 pm
Location: Sweden, 12 points

Postby Hellzon » Sat Mar 11, 2006 3:26 pm

Actually, vehicles wouldn't be that hard, but my version might be a bit more simplistic than Stan's.

Basically, split the vehicle up in different parts, that determine one property each. Say, engines (determines speed), tires (better tires require a less advanced road), and chassis (determine capacity). (Those are the variables we can play with currently.) Locks are more of a binary variable - a vehicle either has or doesn't have it.

So instead of choosing what is closest to what you actually want, you build a car out of four "large studded tires", a "small engine" (supposedly cheap) and a "large chassis" and get a vehicle that runs on any road, is a bit slow but can hold lots of things. You know, instead of building a jeep. ;)

Or two "small plain tires" (placeholder, needs an expressroad or something), a "pair of pedals" (the slowest "engine") and a "bicycle frame" (placeholder if you don't want improved capacity) and get a bike that basically just improves speed.

Not sure what these modular vehicles would be called. Either they're all "land vehicle" or someone would have to come up with names for all the possible combinations. (Say 4 different tires, 4 different chassis and 4 engines. That would be 4^3 = 64 different vehicles. Doable, but hardly fun for that person. ;) )

Then one does the same for ships (the variables here would be capacity (amount of wood to build the ship, basically), speed ("oars" for mere proportionality with ship size, like it is now, "sails" for faster ships, and motors for friggin' fast boats.) and what it can dock to (not sure here, iron for anchors and fanciness with the hulls, I guess). Like locks, the capacity to sail on seas is a binary property, and if some dork wants to sail a galleon on a lake, let him.

/Hellzon - [/blather]
[21:35] Sunni: no peeing on people in chat!
User avatar
formerly known as hf
Posts: 4120
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 2:58 pm
Location: UK

Postby formerly known as hf » Sat Mar 11, 2006 3:48 pm

Hellzon's idea is exactly the 'modular' style I was talking about.

It can and has been done, but it hardly provides the free-form invention Stan is looking for.
Whoever you vote for.



The government wins.
User avatar
Pie
Posts: 3256
Joined: Sun Jun 19, 2005 3:30 am
Location: the headquarters of P.I.E.

Postby Pie » Sat Mar 11, 2006 4:31 pm

actually, i have an idea of how to improve on yous guises ideasssesss......

you have to have an imagination though, and of course jos will have to make a time frame for everything, so cantarians don't get to ahead of themselves...

so my idea is thus. We should change the grams option to a different unit of measurment, perefurabaly somthing involving amount of space, such as square inch. and then, acording to this, you have to add a variable to each indivitual resourse giving it a waight to it, and this could either be a hidden or non hidden variable, but it would come into the fact of how much somone could carry.

all of this would be (mainly)for flying devices, and it would account for that and only that. Of course, i see this as optional, becous it's gonna take a long time before we get flying devices ready for cantr.

as for any other vehikle, you have an engin, and with that engin have a sertain amount of pistons should be a variable in invinton, thus giving the engin more hors power, or some other unit of measuring velosity, and this amount of horse power can carry this amount of wait, so lets say i have an engin of 3 pistons, each piston with 10 horse power, and 10 horse power can carry 50 pounds/kilograms of stuff. then we take the wait of the car... lets say 100 pounds/kilo. minus the total vilosity of the engin, wich is 30 horse power, giving it 150 pounds, and thus, this car can carry 50 pounds of wait. and then, each pound of wait it can carry would be converted into distance.. lets say 50 extra pounds can carry a car for 1000 units per tern, so this car, unladen, can go 1000 units per tern. Also, if you have an airoplane with a waight of 100 pounds, a volosity of 200 pounds, than that means that if you are 50 pounds, and you go into your plane and fly, than your plane will be able to only do a sertain amount of speed, and olny go a sertain amount of hight, as a direct result of the wait of the plane and the velocity of the engen when subtracting them. and a balloon, in place of the ingin, there would be a balloon(duh) with each square inch of the propane equalling a sertain amount of pounds in velosaty, but of course, that is just the vertical lift. you would also need another engen to go anywere really... since wind hasn't been implumented yet. and also, in a flying thingy, you should be able to see farther than usual and dropp things on peoples heads('oh no!! the sky is falling!!!!"said chiken little as somone dropped a bowl on his head.

ok, as for tires and traction we should have sertain levles of intricatsy of the grooves inside of the tires, added with the ectra pownds of the engin. such as, if a tire has a heck lot of groves, and it has alot of horse power,(lets say, levle 5 intricatsy and 100 extra p/k) then it can go on any road that is either a sand path or above.

also, sertain extra things could be added into this project, and then it would give you a question of were to put it, in the engin, seating, tires, ext... and then you give a choice, and then it either helps your car or dosent. such as, with a bike, if you put a basket on it, but you put it in the tires, it's not going to help that much.... you prog dep just have to make it all.

that goes for vehikles only, wich is verry easy to implement. as fore weapons, it should go like this.

you have a sword, now there should be implumented of different tipes of attacks, such as slising, stabbing, and were to aim, of course. Ok, now this sword can be changed by the maker,(you will meat your maker!!! sorry, i just had to say that) of this sword, and he can change the wait balance, but he has to have pw3125 to do that. so, if somone is a novic at making swords, he couls be right on, or he could be so off that he has to destroy the sword. So... you can either change the sword to be balanced with all the waight at the handle, or at the the blad, such as, 0 is balanced so that you have a 50 pound/kilo handle and a 1 pound blade, or 100, a 50 pound blade and a 1 pound handle, or somthing, and that would make the sword attake better for either slashing or stabbing. that is all that(in real life) you can really do with a sword. Ecept that in cantr, you should also be able to blend a few things together, such as an axe head with the blade of a sword, and then the prog d. has to make another thing telling the game wich thing will help the sword, such as, putting anything on the blade of a sword will make the sword more of a sliser than a stabber, and putting somthing on the hilt(as long as it isn't sharp....) will make it a stabber.

ok, as for sheilds... these really... you cant really do anything for them, besides change the shape of them, or make them heavyer or lighter. if you make a sheild heavyer, you will have a stronger sheid, resulting in the fact that it is more durable, and attaking it will do less damage to the sheild, but it will take more tierdness, and if you make it lighter, than there whould be less tierdness taken, and there should be a slight(just a slight) increasi the chance of bloking an attak, but of course, the sheild is less durable now.(damage/durability in being the repare system, witch needs to have a hidden number system witch should define the damage of an object, so that this can be inplumented) if you make the sheild bigger, than there is a better chance of blocking an attak, but it will take more tierdness, and there should be a limit to how big a sheild can be before it becomes a movable wall(seriously, like, in what the romans did withe there sheilds, if you get bigger than that, than you will have to put up and take doun your 'wall' thingy)

alrignt.... thats all i can think of... and i think i have just put the nail to the paper that is going on a buletten board saying"PIE IS SO SMART AND HE HAS JUST MADE HIS POINT CLEAR THAT HE WANTS invention NOW!!!"

as you can see, i have made it compleatly posible for invinton to be posible, but of course, if you are making one of these "special new divices" if you are changing one or more thing on a car, sword, or somthing, than it should take like, a year to make, and then once made, you get a new thing in a new place in your making anything thingy named whatever you made(basicly, you know how to make that thing now, and now you can make it whenenver you want) and also, if somone wants to make a plane, and dosent know how, but then somone who knows how starts to help him on his project, than the project will go much faster, even faster than with just two people who don know notin bout plains.
Pnumerical Intuitiong Engyn
Paranormal Investigation Exorsism
Porcupine Interspecies Extra_poison
Pick In Enter

... The headquarters of P.I.E.!!!
User avatar
Stan
Posts: 894
Joined: Fri Mar 26, 2004 3:29 pm
Location: KENTUCKY, USA

Postby Stan » Sat Mar 11, 2006 5:39 pm

Hellzon's idea is a bit more simple than my idea but it may also be more simple to implement, and that is a good thing.

He is talking about the same "spirit" of the idea that I'm talking about. How I might modify his idea closer to my original thought might be this:

Instead of predefining a name for all 64 combinations in his example I would let the developer of the vehicle give it a name. I would also give each component properties that would behave independently and synergystically with other components and properties. I would also, not define the material an item could be made from. So, for example, the wheels wouldn't be defined as large or small rubber tires. You would have to create a wheel, but you could apply "many or any" resource to a wheel project and the wheel would have properties dependent upon the material you applied. Or if it is supposed to be a flying vehicle you wouldn't apply wheels at all, but you had better make the rest of the vehicle lighter than air.

So, the make up of ANY vehicle could be based on "Modules". Here might be an example of the modules:

Chassis - Could be made of logs, or some type of prefinished item that is made out of any resource
Power source - Could be motor, peddle, wind, whatever
Cab - Could be building or a hut, or a tent, whatever.

There may be other modules as well. So, assume you build a vehicle similar to what is a sportscar today but you don't put wheels on it, well you have a building with a motor in it. Not sure why you would want one, but you could if you want.

The KEY to this idea would be to define the Laws that govern Cantr physics and then define the properties materials should have.
Stan wrote:I've never said anything worth quoting.
User avatar
Mafia Salad
Posts: 832
Joined: Mon Nov 07, 2005 12:53 am

Postby Mafia Salad » Sat Mar 11, 2006 6:59 pm

Eventually people will figure out what the best thing/combination for every purpose is and we'll be back here again. Although it could change society drastically while people explore new options. And for this to work, you would have to get rid of the wiki and shroud the technological part of Cantr in secrecy again.
Fortune Cookie Says:
You should consider a career change, you'd make an excellent doormat.

[quote]1441-7: You skillfully kill a racoon using a broom.[/quote]
AzzY
Posts: 26
Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2004 4:05 pm

Postby AzzY » Sat Mar 11, 2006 7:04 pm

I am very much for licensing the Havoc engine.

And Pie...I can only begin to imagine how much effort and though you put into your post but I have no idea what you really wanted to say.

Invention all in all is, of course, something that would really help make Cantr awesome. But it is something that, as stated above, is not even implemented in commercial games because it is simply to hard to get together.
User avatar
Pie
Posts: 3256
Joined: Sun Jun 19, 2005 3:30 am
Location: the headquarters of P.I.E.

Postby Pie » Sun Mar 12, 2006 3:00 am

........ you couldn't read it cous it has bad spelling or IME SO DARN SMART!!!!!!!!!!?

but serioulsy, i have a REALLY AWESOME BRAIN!!!!
Pnumerical Intuitiong Engyn

Paranormal Investigation Exorsism

Porcupine Interspecies Extra_poison

Pick In Enter



... The headquarters of P.I.E.!!!
User avatar
Pie
Posts: 3256
Joined: Sun Jun 19, 2005 3:30 am
Location: the headquarters of P.I.E.

Postby Pie » Sun Mar 12, 2006 3:47 pm

BUMp!!!! comon peoples, SAY SOMTHING!! CALL ME AN IDIOT!! or better yet.... CALL STAN AN IDIOT!!!!!!
Pnumerical Intuitiong Engyn

Paranormal Investigation Exorsism

Porcupine Interspecies Extra_poison

Pick In Enter



... The headquarters of P.I.E.!!!
User avatar
notsure
Posts: 1062
Joined: Mon Dec 19, 2005 5:54 pm

Postby notsure » Sun Mar 12, 2006 3:53 pm

Ok, here's a reply from the "common peoples". My guy in a non-Enlgish area has enough to do fighting off animals and gathering enough healing food to heal himself between animal attacks. He doesn't have time to think beyond bone weapons and may never in his lifetime be able to implement tools, such as a shovel. That's what's happening to some of the "common" non-English "peoples".

notsure :?
User avatar
Pie
Posts: 3256
Joined: Sun Jun 19, 2005 3:30 am
Location: the headquarters of P.I.E.

Postby Pie » Sun Mar 12, 2006 3:58 pm

and that is exactlty why we NEED THIS TO Be IMPLUMENTED!!! SO THAT SOON, MY CARACTERS WILL BE ABLE TO MAKE AN ROCKIN AWESOME BOAT AND COME DOUN TO YOUR PRIMITIVE ISLANDS AND SAVE YOUR BUTS FROME ETERNAL DOOM AND BOARDOM!!! of course.... you guys will think my caracter is evil and you will sacrifice him to watever freeky religion you'v made in your little part of cantr.....
Pnumerical Intuitiong Engyn

Paranormal Investigation Exorsism

Porcupine Interspecies Extra_poison

Pick In Enter



... The headquarters of P.I.E.!!!
User avatar
notsure
Posts: 1062
Joined: Mon Dec 19, 2005 5:54 pm

Postby notsure » Sun Mar 12, 2006 4:00 pm

Sorry, Pie, we don't have time for religion, either.
If we stop to sacrifice you, 3 of us are killed by animals.

But if you can find us, bring a shovel. That will keep us occupied for years.

notsure :?

Return to “Suggestions”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest