Sensor Boosting - Path to Omniscience

from GalCiv3 Forums

Take a look at the galactic map in this GalCiv3 game I've been playing:

 

 

Note how I have vision on nearly the entire map.  That's because of the Panoptic Eye, a cargo hull with 136 space, equipped with 10 Field Detectors (and 1 Navigational Sensor to fill up any remaining space).  It has a Sensor Range of 77.  The current cost is just 181 production, though that's after a bunch of manufacturing cost reduction modifiers have been applied.

This design is fairly lategame (though with a Hyperion Shrinker and final-tier sensors it would get even crazier), but you can start getting benefits from heavy sensor boosting with just the Field Detectors tech and the sensor mass-reduction tech.  And the thing is, due to how sensor range works, the game heavily encourages you to take one ship and boost its sensor range up as high as you can go.

 

Consider the formula for the number of hexes your sensors reveal.  Starting from the base range of 2, going to range 3 adds 18 visible hexes.  Going from range 3 to 4 adds 24 visible hexes.  By extrapolation, going from range 59 to range 60 adds 360 visible hexes.  Clearly, this is a case of exponential returns on a linear investment.

GalCiv2 avoided this problem by placing a hard cap on sensor range (I think it was 13 or so).  That felt a little inelegant for me - honestly, I would prefer some kind of stacking penalty (i.e. every sensor you add multiplies the effectiveness of all sensors by 0.9).  However, this would take a bit of programming work to implement.

What are your thoughts?

6,609 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Well, not quite: it's only quadratic, being simply proportional to the area of a circle of the same radius :fuzzy:

This is one of the weirder ways in which GC*'s abstractions leak.  GC* components give linear increases in effect, with no per-ship component limits.  Obviously, we all do this with weapons.  You can also do the same with engines (and speed-boosting starbase effects) to create slingshot zones in your backfield, where your rally-pointed doom stacks therein can get a (one-time) speed of 50+ ... which behaves as a stargate or Teleport spell in other games.  (Ergo, there is no separate "stargate" tech, even though a B5-like jump gate is shown in the pre-game cut scene.)

Some other games (e.g. SE*) add more tiers of sensor/anti-sensor duels, e.g. cloaking beats normal sensors, tachyon sensors (shorter range) reveal cloaking, ...

Extreme sensor capability is -- cute, but how do you actually use that to (help) win?  Does it mostly help you to not-lose, cf. Battle of Britain?  (That requires an enemy who's actively attacking you.)  Have you been building new sensor wagons throughout the game, e.g. whenever you get a larger hull or new sensor tech?  I assume you didn't just go from sensor range 6 to 77 in one jump.

This would be a hoot to do in a 100-AI game, just to watch them war upon each other while you stand on the sidelines and cheer both sides.  I wonder: would your game turns bog down in wall clock time, as the poor GC3 graphics engine is forced to render more stuff?

 

A good AI will, of course, do this to you.  Then your Eyes see each other at range 75 ... and you can read each others' Details k6

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I did this to my survey ship midgame after all anomolies are discovered i could get about 46 sensor range by upgradeing it to and with all the anomolie bonus's it had that bumped it to about 92-96 tiles all but the last two tiles on each edge

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I just dredged up an exemplar where "sensor range" (ahem) did help me "win".  It was ... utterly vile in dastardly ways.  istillbragaboutit

  • Unix Empire: multiplayer, brutally realtime (1 update every 6 hours x 2-4 months), no graphics, all alphanumeric.  Played on terminals.
  • Map of squares.  You designate sector types (one per square).  Civ and mil are numeric attributes within a square (no units).  Sectors grow from 0% to 100% based on civ and wall clock time: roughly 2 real days to reach 100%.
  • Your capital generates Bureaucratic Time Units (BTUs) in wall clock time.  Query commands are free, state-changing actions consume BTUs.  Ground combat losses cost BTUs proportional to your casualties: one nasty 4-on-1 fight vs. a 100% fortress (which gives +300% defender bonus) can drive you to negative BTUs, which wipes you out for 36 real hours.  (Better have your delivery routes humming on autopilot.)
  • Guns, planes, and shells (bombs) are also numeric attributes.  During an interactive "fly" command, your planes are a quasi-unit (subject to database racing, ahem).  Landing on a 100% runway or highway is safe.  Landing anywhere else is highly likely to fail, causing any undropped bombs to blow up.  (Ahem!)
  • Every nation has local coordinates, with (0, 0) being your own capital.  Every attack is implemented as a separate Unix process, which shows the attack parameters in the attacker's coordinates.  Unix is Unix, ps -al shows the process list.  (ahem!)

So ... in the first evening of reading the rules, I saw this in a flash.  It finally (clock)worked, like this ...

  • A bigger nation attacks me.  He's a novice (several games), this is my 1st game ever.
  • I know he's to my "north".  I have this peninsula disjoint from the border (roughly Maine, and he's Canada).  I surreptitiously build an airfield at my northernmost extreme, and move some planes and shells in.  (I am totally gambling that the default plane range will suffice.)
  • I set a strong flank and weak center (cf. the Greeks at Marathon, although I didn't know that then).  I know he usually logs on in the afternoons.  I lurk online and wait for the telegram ...
  • ... that says: You are being attacked at (your x, y).
  • Ctrl-Z (suspend), at Unix prompt: type ps -al, command-line repeat it for 5 seconds ... until Unix reveals, in clear print, thatguy | empire att(ack) his-i, his-j
  • Ergo, (x+i, y+j) is ... the location of his capital.  I have never seen that far (and never do, until I stroll adjacent to it later).
  • I sacrifice some defenders, just to maximize his BTUs lost in combat.  He obliges, and whoops my buttocks in the north.  His final attack must have driven him to negative BTUs.  He's done for at least a few hours.
  • fly, from my airfield, all of my planes, with 1 bomb (shell) each.  They do not have the range for a round-trip, so ... I guess they will be landing somewhere in between.  Ahem!
  • At (x+i, y+j), observe.  The sector below my cockpit is ... capital.
  • Land.  Two planes actually succeed (goshdurnit).  Nine planes fail, and blow up.  Nine bombs blow up with them.

Now my opponent (wiser, larger, stronger) ... is at negative BTUs from combat, and his capital is at 2%, with most of his civs dead.  With 2 planes and 2 shells (formerly mine) sitting intact amidst the rubble.  They belong to him now.  (Later I recapture them!)

At real-time rebuild and regeneration rate ... he will issue no commands for about three weeks.  Win.  (I told him, no it's in the man pages, here here and here ... he quit)

 

Man, that game was ba-roken in such fun ways.  I loved the emergent tactics that lurked like gems within the rules, requiring only some spelunking gnome to burrow that deep and construct the perfect cascade of harmless elements.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Gilmoy, reply 1

Extreme sensor capability is -- cute, but how do you actually use that to (help) win?  Does it mostly help you to not-lose, cf. Battle of Britain?  (That requires an enemy who's actively attacking you.)  Have you been building new sensor wagons throughout the game, e.g. whenever you get a larger hull or new sensor tech?  I assume you didn't just go from sensor range 6 to 77 in one jump.
End of Gilmoy's quote

 

The ship was initially build as a 61 sensor range ship, then upgraded to the current 77 range model for 1000 credits.  I suppose it would be a good idea to upgrade a survey ship instead, to take advantage of the vision bonuses it recieves.

As for how you would use this vision, it lets you see everything an opponent is building, it lets you automatically spot any weak points in your opponent's defenses (if there's an opening for a fast raider to run in and pick off a constructor or a shipyard, you will always know about it), and it makes you completely invulnerable to any sneak attack tactics.  It also means that all your other ships can completely ignore sensors, and you will never have to build another scout.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Tohron, reply 4


Quoting Gilmoy,
reply 1

Extreme sensor capability is -- cute, but how do you actually use that to (help) win?  Does it mostly help you to not-lose, cf. Battle of Britain?  (That requires an enemy who's actively attacking you.)  Have you been building new sensor wagons throughout the game, e.g. whenever you get a larger hull or new sensor tech?  I assume you didn't just go from sensor range 6 to 77 in one jump.



 

The ship was initially build as a 61 sensor range ship, then upgraded to the current 77 range model for 1000 credits.  I suppose it would be a good idea to upgrade a survey ship instead, to take advantage of the vision bonuses it recieves.

As for how you would use this vision, it lets you see everything an opponent is building, it lets you automatically spot any weak points in your opponent's defenses (if there's an opening for a fast raider to run in and pick off a constructor or a shipyard, you will always know about it), and it makes you completely invulnerable to any sneak attack tactics.  It also means that all your other ships can completely ignore sensors, and you will never have to build another scout.

End of Tohron's quote

 

I never considered not using sensors on other ships. Late game I always do this but on large+ hull, survey ship would make more sense, especially since I buy other races' ships for 200 bc the instant I make contact ensuring I get all anomalies :)