Is it Possible to have Teleportation Tiles?

[Joij21]

I was wondering if it's possible to make teleportation tiles that are disguised as ocean that would allow a ship to teleport from teleportation tile A to B? The reason I'm asking is because I was thinking of making a perfectly spherical Earth map that's not exactly spherical in the traditional sense. Its basically an Earth map based on the Dymaxion Projection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map. As you can see by the pictures on the wiki the only problem would be to get ships to teleport from one edge to the next corresponding edge once they travel to it. It would be made on a flat map with a black impassible feature barrier like the one in Pie's Ancient Europe past the edges, with the last ocean tiles along the edges being the teleportation ones. I would assume an Irregular Map shape such as the Dymaxion Projection would not be able to be wrapped by the game's engine hence the need for such teleportation tiles. The only problem is are such tiles possible?

 

[Thunderbrd]

I was wondering if it's possible to make teleportation tiles that are disguised as ocean that would allow a ship to teleport from teleportation tile A to B? The reason I'm asking is because I was thinking of making a perfectly spherical Earth map that's not exactly spherical in the traditional sense. Its basically an Earth map based on the Dymaxion Projection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map. As you can see by the pictures on the wiki the only problem would be to get ships to teleport from one edge to the next corresponding edge once they travel to it. It would be made on a flat map with a black impassible feature barrier like the one in Pie's Ancient Europe past the edges, with the last ocean tiles along the edges being the teleportation ones. I would assume an Irregular Map shape such as the Dymaxion Projection would not be able to be wrapped by the game's engine hence the need for such teleportation tiles. The only problem is are such tiles possible?

It would be possible with some extensive programming. PROBABLY fairly easy programming from what I could think to do, until you try to apply it to WB where I'd be completely lost as to how to work with it to set it to being able to set up a tile with that 'ability'. I suppose if it was made as a feature or something it could be easier BUT then you have a whole strip of the map that can't have any features since it's just a transitional region. Further, it really shouldn't be the tile but the moving beyond it ... the AI would be hopeless with this entirely and would never see it without a huge project to get it to - it already has a hard time (almost impossible) with tunnels due to the area restrictions to keep units from overconsidering their operational reach and slow things down as a result.

Tough project my friend but a good idea. Maybe we can consider that further when working with or approaching Multimaps. It's certainly another way to achieve some MM effects.

 

[Raven Destroyer]

probably you could use the Rebase Mechanic from the Aircraft to get that working, because it's Basically the same thing you're want to have happen

 

[Thunderbrd]

probably you could use the Rebase Mechanic from the Aircraft to get that working, because it's Basically the same thing you're want to have happen

It's too city based.

The question I have when thinking about this... is one plot a replica of another so that if you are at plot A you are also at plot B? This is the complicated part of it if you aren't doing the portal down the edge of a plot for when you move through that edge rather than at the plot itself.

 

[Joij21]

The best way to explain it is that tile A has a Counterpart called tile B. If you land on tile A you intantly get teleported to tile B if you finish your turn on that tile. Likewise if you end your turn on tile B you get teleported to tile A.

A good anology would be Rey and Kylo Ren from Star Wars. Both are dualities in the force and are linked to one another, yet are separate individual beings. Same goes with the tiles. To create a teleportation link two must exist no more no less.

With that said a pair of tiles must be created for every tile that lies along the edge of the map for two different edges in order to connect them. So if edge one is ten tiles long but you want to connect it to edge two which is also ten tiles long, twenty tiles consisting of ten A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, and A10 tiles would corespond to tiles B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, B8, B9, and B10.

So A1 would create a link to B1, A2 would be linked to B2, and so on. That's essentially how teleportation tiles would work mind you that all of them would be disquised as ocean tiles.

 

[Thunderbrd]

The best way to explain it is that tile A has a Counterpart called tile B. If you land on tile A you intantly get teleported to tile B if you finish your turn on that tile. Likewise if you end your turn on tile B you get teleported to tile A.

A good anology would be Rey and Kylo Ren from Star Wars. Both are dualities in the force and are linked to one another, yet are separate individual beings. Same goes with the tiles. To create a teleportation link two must exist no more no less.

With that said a pair of tiles must be created for every tile that lies along the edge of the map for two different edges in order to connect them. So if edge one is ten tiles long but you want to connect it to edge two which is also ten tiles long, twenty tiles consisting of ten A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, and A10 tiles would corespond to tiles B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, B8, B9, and B10.

So A1 would create a link to B1, A2 would be linked to B2, and so on. That's essentially how teleportation tiles would work mind you that all of them would be disquised as ocean tiles.

The AI would be very difficult to get to understand this and the strategic implications would be rough as well. Basically it would have to be that the entire strip of tiles be mirrored identically elsewhere and therefore units and improvements and so on would have to be able to exist in two tiles at once and I think that's too much for this game engine. I know it seems simpler if it's all just ocean but this all sounds like a hornets nest of crash issues and game engine confusion.

 

[raxo2222]

The AI would be very difficult to get to understand this and the strategic implications would be rough as well. Basically it would have to be that the entire strip of tiles be mirrored identically elsewhere and therefore units and improvements and so on would have to be able to exist in two tiles at once and I think that's too much for this game engine. I know it seems simpler if it's all just ocean but this all sounds like a hornets nest of crash issues and game engine confusion.

Technically one could use Null terrain and hyperspace terrain interlaced.
Null terrain would have aspatial (or jumplane) route for extra fast movement.
Null terrain has all mapcategories.

On other hand settlers could settle here..

Tunnels could be placed on ocean tiles too (or make copy of them for that stuff).
Just change copy of tunnels so they have very low cost. They wouldn't be buildable.
Of course they can't be next to each other - there would have to be lines of terrain without those tunnels.

 

[Joij21]

The AI would be very difficult to get to understand this and the strategic implications would be rough as well. Basically it would have to be that the entire strip of tiles be mirrored identically elsewhere and therefore units and improvements and so on would have to be able to exist in two tiles at once and I think that's too much for this game engine. I know it seems simpler if it's all just ocean but this all sounds like a hornets nest of crash issues and game engine confusion.

I don't think you quite understand. The tiles wouldn't require copies of units or improvements because they are normal individual tiles. The tiles only effect units so I don't exactly get what your saying about improvements needing copies. The teleportation of the units would be the same mechanic of units being teleported out of a nation like when you declare war or the teleportation that's used in colonization.

I believe what you're thinking is that tile A and B have the same coordinates on the map which is not the case. Tile A and B if there was no split in the map would be East West of one another according to the dymaxion map.

 

[Toffer90]

Shouldn't be too hard to add a new type of improvement that allows units to teleport to a different tile with the same improvement if the destination is owned by you or someone you have open border with.
And yes, it would function very much like the unit rebase mechanic between cities with airports.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I don't think you quite understand. The tiles wouldn't require copies of units or improvements because they are normal individual tiles. The tiles only effect units so I don't exactly get what your saying about improvements needing copies. The teleportation of the units would be the same mechanic of units being teleported out of a nation like when you declare war or the teleportation that's used in colonization.

I believe what you're thinking is that tile A and B have the same coordinates on the map which is not the case. Tile A and B if there was no split in the map would be East West of one another according to the dymaxion map.

If I was understanding the point to this discussion, you're wanting to be able to draw a line down a coordinate and call that the edge of the map where it would wrap to the next edge when you move forward and you were thinking about how it could work if you moved onto a tile and then the tile would transport the unit to the wrapping point, however, is that tile a coordinate, or not? And if it is, then is it shared with the tile that you'd be moving to/from, or would you simply have to make it so further movement in that farther direction be considered moving to the next coordinate line? I'm saying that based on your description of your request as you just gave it before this post, where A and B are the same actual point in space, it would never work. And if you're being transported at the end of the round from a to b, is a OR b even a point in space exactly? The mapping aspects of wrapping a to b would be a nightmare to sort out if moving from a to b was just like moving x3 to x4 - the AI implications would be ... beyond me to try to sort out I think.

Shouldn't be too hard to add a new type of improvement that allows units to teleport to a different tile with the same improvement if the destination is owned by you or someone you have open border with.
And yes, it would function very much like the unit rebase mechanic between cities with airports.

If we're talking about simple teleportation tiles, improvements and such, yeah certainly. It would be even better if it simply required a mission that only some units could perform if at the improvement or city with a building that makes it possible. It could even be established so that it could transport the unit from a to any range of acceptable target selected b tiles based on various filters, like visible, map category, terrain type etc... Much of that is how multimaps will be made to work, for map could then be established as one of those selection filters. I certainly have meant to build a fairly generically programmable method for establishing such missions. Then, AS a mission, the AI would be much easier to program.

But if you read the first post, he's hoping to redefine how map wrapping works and that's a very different kind of system.

 

[Toffer90]

But if you read the first post, he's hoping to redefine how map wrapping works and that's a very different kind of system.

Ok, didn't read the first post.

 

[Joij21]

If I was understanding the point to this discussion, you're wanting to be able to draw a line down a coordinate and call that the edge of the map where it would wrap to the next edge when you move forward and you were thinking about how it could work if you moved onto a tile and then the tile would transport the unit to the wrapping point, however, is that tile a coordinate, or not? And if it is, then is it shared with the tile that you'd be moving to/from, or would you simply have to make it so further movement in that farther direction be considered moving to the next coordinate line? I'm saying that based on your description of your request as you just gave it before this post, where A and B are the same actual point in space, it would never work. And if you're being transported at the end of the round from a to b, is a OR b even a point in space exactly? The mapping aspects of wrapping a to b would be a nightmare to sort out if moving from a to b was just like moving x3 to x4 - the AI implications would be ... beyond me to try to sort out I think.

Land wrapping does not exist on the map, it's flat so all of what you said above does not apply. You simply move onto the tile and teleport. That's it.

To make it more simple let's take a normal flat map. It is a flat earth map. You land on the tile where London is. London is a magical tile that as soon as you land on it you are sent to the tile where Boston would be. Boston too is magical in that when you land there you end up in London. See no land wrap required you go from A to B like that. You don't have to be moving in a direction on any of those tiles, you just land on them, stay put (remain stationary) for one turn, and teleport. Like going through a black hole and out a white hole.

Shouldn't be too hard to add a new type of improvement that allows units to teleport to a different tile with the same improvement if the destination is owned by you or someone you have open border with.
And yes, it would function very much like the unit rebase mechanic between cities with airports.

That's exactly what it would be except it would work in neutral territory and it would be terrain not an improvement. Although if it were an improvement it would be invisible and be there at the start of the map. After all this would only be a tile/improvement for map making and not an actual game feature you can build. The goal is to simulate wrapping without actually wrapping.

If we're talking about simple teleportation tiles, improvements and such, yeah certainly.

That's exactly it just a teleportation tile.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Land wrapping does not exist on the map, it's flat so all of what you said above does not apply. You simply move onto the tile and teleport. That's it.

To make it more simple let's take a normal flat map. It is a flat earth map. You land on the tile where London is. London is a magical tile that as soon as you land on it you are sent to the tile where Boston would be. Boston too is magical in that when you land there you end up in London. See no land wrap required you go from A to B like that. You don't have to be moving in a direction on any of those tiles, you just land on them, stay put (remain stationary) for one turn, and teleport. Like going through a black hole and out a white hole.



That's exactly what it would be except it would work in neutral territory and it would be terrain not an improvement. Although if it were an improvement it would be invisible and be there at the start of the map. After all this would only be a tile/improvement for map making and not an actual game feature you can build. The goal is to simulate wrapping without actually wrapping.



That's exactly it just a teleportation tile.

You were trying to:

The reason I'm asking is because I was thinking of making a perfectly spherical Earth map that's not exactly spherical in the traditional sense. Its basically an Earth map based on the Dymaxion Projection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map. As you can see by the pictures on the wiki the only problem would be to get ships to teleport from one edge to the next corresponding edge once they travel to it. It would be made on a flat map with a black impassible feature barrier like the one in Pie's Ancient Europe past the edges, with the last ocean tiles along the edges being the teleportation ones. I would assume an Irregular Map shape such as the Dymaxion Projection would not be able to be wrapped by the game's engine hence the need for such teleportation tiles.

So you're talking about map wrapping. A teleport tile should be easy enough but which tile is your unit actually on, coordinate-wise? If x 3 y 4 would teleport you to x 43 y 4 and vice versa, which tile is the actual tile that represents that stretch of space? Is this a strange zone where no units can attack one another before being ferried to the other side of the planet? Am I caring too much about the strategic significance here? It'd still not be something the AI would easily understand at a very fundamental level, that to get from x 5 to x 41 would be possible to go through x 3. The pathing engine would have to be reworked significantly.

 

[Toffer90]

@Joij21: Are you thinking about something like:

... ?
Where the white areas consist of plots where units may never ever get to because they teleport from one edge to the other when trying to enter the white areas.
Illustration with green squares are plots units can be in and red squares where units cannot be, and when a unit tries to enter the adjacent red plot it gets teleported to the green one on the other side of the white seam.
The red plots inside the white areas can be seen in-game graphically like any other plot, but units always teleport through them when moving into one.

 

[Joij21]

@Joij21: Are you thinking about something like:
View attachment 555073
... ?
Where the white areas consist of plots where units may never ever get to because they teleport from one edge to the other when trying to enter the white areas.
Illustration with green squares are plots units can be in and red squares where units cannot be, and when a unit tries to enter the adjacent red plot it gets teleported to the green one on the other side of the white seam.
The red plots inside the white areas can be seen in-game graphically like any other plot, but units always teleport through them.

Pretty much. Though the white area would have a black colored ice feature to make that area inaccessible (like in Pies Ancient Europe). Also since it would be impossible to enter the white zone the green tiles on the edge would be the red tiles.

 

[Toffer90]

Pretty much. Though the white area would have a black colored ice feature to make that area inaccessible (like in Pies Ancient Europe). Also since it would be impossible to enter the white zone the green tiles on the edge would be the red tiles.

Yeah, the plots inside the white area could have any graphical terrain the mapmaker or mapscript author want them to have, black space terrain would probably look best though.
So a unique invisible feature could be on those red tile plots that are simply called SpecialWrap. Whenever a unit moves to a plot with a SpecialWrap feature the code would look at what plot the unit came from and teleport it to the correct plot on the map. Or it could be only a unique terrain and thus take away the map makers ability to choose how the terrain there should look like visually.

Also since it would be impossible to enter the white zone the green tiles on the edge would be the red tiles.

Red tiles in that illustration are meant to represent the inaccessible plots, when the unit wants to enter the red tile from a green tile it gets teleported to the green tile on the other side of the seam.
The unit can enter the green tiles without triggering any teleportation.

 

[Joij21]

This is basically what it would look like with all the tiles on those two edges having a corresponding tile on either edge. Each tile is represented by a color with it's partner on the other side with the same color. Only tiles with the same color can have units teleport back and from.

Red tiles in that illustration are meant to represent the inaccessible plots, when the unit wants to enter the red tile from a green tile it gets teleported to the green tile on the other side of the seam.
The unit can enter the green tiles without triggering any teleportation.

Wouldn't it be easier if you had the teleportation tiles on the end where you just wait one turn on them and are teleported to the other? It looks much harder if you have to move over the edge.

 

[Toffer90]

Wouldn't it be easier if you had the teleportation tiles on the end where you just wait one turn on them and are teleported to the other? It looks much harder if you have to move over the edge.

Would be pretty strange if you fortify the unit on the edge tile and it pops forth and back every other turn, and what if an enemy comes to the tile on the other side while your unit is fortified there, would both teleport past each other and swap plots the next end turn, or would they do a fight at the start of player 0's turn or at the end of player 50's turn?

Technically far easier to have an area that if you move into it then you get moved through it and end up on the other side right away. Pathfinding code pretty much tries every directional move from every plot on the way disqualifying obviously bad choices along the way, and it would not appreciate calculating in a full stop at a plot before using all moves to wait for a teleport at "end turn" as a potentially faster way to reach the destination than if it spent all movement points each turn along the path it is calculating. Still there would have to be some interesting solutions for the go-to arrow to function properly when placed on the other side of such an area or if placed in the middle of such an area.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Would be pretty strange if you fortify the unit on the edge tile and it pops forth and back every other turn, and what if an enemy comes to the tile on the other side while your unit is fortified there, would both teleport past each other and swap plots the next end turn, or would they do a fight at the start of player 0's turn or at the end of player 50's turn?

Technically far easier to have an area that if you move into it then you get moved through it and end up on the other side right away. Pathfinding code pretty much tries every directional move from every plot on the way disqualifying obviously bad choices along the way, and it would not appreciate calculating in a full stop at a plot before using all moves to wait for a teleport at "end turn" as a potentially faster way to reach the destination than if it spent all movement points each turn along the path it is calculating. Still there would have to be some interesting solutions for the go-to arrow to function properly when placed on the other side of such an area or if placed in the middle of such an area.

Yeah you're getting what I mean. And since the plots beyond that point aren't actually valid plots to be on, the AI would not even consider it as a destination for any reason, nor understand where it would end up, without some very interesting stuff I don't know how to do.

 

[Toffer90]

Yeah you're getting what I mean. And since the plots beyond that point aren't actually valid plots to be on, the AI would not even consider it as a destination for any reason, nor understand where it would end up, without some very interesting stuff I don't know how to do.

I don't think it would be too hard to program into our current pathfinding code a special consideration for plots that are marked as special wrap area in some way, they wouldn't be impassable, but any units trying to move there would skip past it in a straight line until it reach a normal plot.

I'm not saying I want to work on this personally though, not my cup of tea at the moment, but this discussion could inspire someone else to make it his/her project which is why I focus on the possibilities rather than the difficulties it may involve for posterity reasons.