Server

Something like a ...Galactic war? :mrgreen:

Not sure if you can even run a 1v1 with that

Well I dont know about PA but I have tested 1 of them as a Privite WoW server host with 1000 on it and it ran fine. I dont for see any problem with PA for idk 10 ppl per server and all of them hosting a galaxy of emm 5k planets maby, maby more or less, frankly we dont realy have anything to go on at this point. If I had a T10 connection they probly could support 100 to 10k people maby. As of right now we cant even say if thell even beable to host a single small planet with 1v1 or 1vAI. We just dont know untill Alpha. And dude I cant wait for Alpha!

P.S.
There running opcic in my town so my internet is offline untill there finnished. Woot fiber Optic, awsome!

I am planning on hosting a "galactic war" server.

Oh the type of server Im hoping PA will be like is this: http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.osgrid.org/

No ideas of the CPU requirement for a WoW server, but these CPU are a little slower than a pentium 4 3.80 ghz.

Running a PA is like running the real game, but without any GPU requirement. You have to compute pathfinding, projectiles trajectories, ...

I would be very happy that the PA CPU requirements for a 5vs5 are a (dual) pentium 4, but I have some doubts

until we have something in hand that we can try out in different scenarios, the required server size for a specific scenario is more a guessing game than anything else.

But that's one reason, why I hope the alpha contains nicely configurable AI vs AI game settings so one could test arbitrarily large game sessions, to see what the hardware you have around can run.

Guessing game.. Yes and no.. Do you know any game out this year having "pentium 4" as minimal requirement ?

To put things in perspective : http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu ... +4+3.00GHz

The dual-core atom I have in my media center is faster than that.

Again, I would be happy than any game run on that, but it's very unlikely.

well, in his case it would depend on the question if you can run your dedicated server on a cluster, then there might be interesting combinations in it.

haven't read many minimal requirements lately, but they tend to concern the standard game mode not dedicated servers (which not many games have anyhow) and game play reqs are quite different from server reqs. ( in particular, because different reqs on CPU/GPU/RAM tend to reflect on each other( try running a modern GPU on old hardware (if they had compatible systems))

And there is the question on how complex computation/data-wise their client server model will be in the end (e.g. how much physics etc they choose to use); with not that many reference games in that context it's hard to make a good prognosis.

Currently, there are just too many unknown variables in this question to make a good guess.

Im definetly going to host a server for PA.

I have a server in germany.

With 32GB Ram

i72600 @ 3.4

And it has a 1gb up down connection.

What I really hope, is that the server structure, will allow jump ins. Cause as much as I love spending 15 hours a day on the computer. I think I would like to have more of a meta game as opposed to a quick game. But then I need to be able to leave the game at some point, to have a real life....

Looking forward to the community around this.

That's the plan. Jump in / Jump out. Rock n roll.

THIS IS ME JUMPING IN!




What are your plans in terms of offline players/ongoing game.

Will it be like your planet disappears or can we expect the need to ensure we dont get overrun due to our inactivity? Or will we in some way be able to "design" the AI that takes over?

Respect.

If you leave you better have a teammate playing with you. Maybe we'll get to the point of eventually trying to make it persistent and solve those problems but that's not a first level goal and frankly not something I'm trying to solve right now. I think we'll have to see how this kind of play evolves over time and then determine the best way to handle AFK at that point.

Do you think it would be possibal to design a learning AI that would try and learn the way you play based entirely on how you are playing and when you leave it takes over and than goes away when you come back?

With current technology I doubt that it's possible to do that. Making an AI play exactly like a human sounds like phd research project.

It would certainly be possible to have an AI take over but I'm not sure if that serves the needs of the game. Like I said before we really need to play these big games to get a feel for what the best decision is going to be.

Basically an AI that tries as hard as possible to keep everything like it was when you left. But allows defeat. But gives a stiff counter.

I would not mind it, really. Basically, the AI doesnt do anything, unless something changes or a unit is lost. If an asteroid hits the planet and blows up **** tons of stuff. Then the AI will start remaking your base.

Think of it like guilty robin, when you come back he wants to make it look like nothing happend. But infact he messed up big time.

I was thinking more of like. Having set "units" you know CTRL + 1. Placing a sort of simple area of operation. Where the units are supposed to ensure noone gets by without being engaged.

And if they lose any units, a factory will just create the unit that was lost and put it back to the place it was aswell as add it to CTRL+1. If a building is lost, same thing happens.

Should not be too hard? I mean its basically a simple adress system, and if any adress is missing when it compares it to the sav data, they replace it with the same missing adress.

the CTRL+1 will if any unit is engaged, group up on whatever it is being engaged with and kill it or be killed.

And when the TIC is over, they return to positions.

I dont know how hard that is to program, i just imagine it being simple

I am also wondering about CPU time, obviously you dont have this happening on games with 8vs8 or under.

But larger games, you might end up having that. So then we have to do the calculations for that in theory. Which is.

1 unit = it is loaded twice in the memory. If it is in a CTRL+1 it should be saved as one file/extension as opposed to a seperate one. So thats 1 loop, that runs per unit and is checked.

Maybe just have it so the whole "save" has one number. And if any unit is lost. Then the number does not add up, so then the computer locates the adress that is missing, which should be simple. However it runs the risk of having alot of computing power going away if alot of units are taken out. Perhaps a simple hex to signify what is missing in the total adress of the save file.

Like the first 3 digits are the number of buildings, noone has more than 999 buildings.. I hope. And then the next 4 digits are for units. So if the first 3 are off, then computer only does computing power for buildings. If the last 4 are missing, then obviously the same happens for the units.

God... I dont know what Im talking about.

Think Chinese Room but applied to playing games.

How about a Mechanical Turk?
On disconnect control is farmed out to an eagerly waiting Uber sub-contractor with a comparable skill rating.

A sentry AI? That could be really sexy for developing scenarios. Build a bunch of stuff, save it as the mission start, and then have player try to defeat it.

A quick AI quetion, are you making it possibal to have AI vs AI games so we can watch the AI fight its self? Only a few games seem to have AI vs AI battles and I hope this one will too.