Territory numbering scheme

[Dakanmer]

Short version: the territory numbering scheme is hard to follow and should be replaced by something that players can use to actually find territories by number easily.

Long version:

The way that territories are numbered should follow a predictable and reasonable sequence. Currently, sequentially numbered territories are placed anywhere from 2 tiles (shorthand for territories) away in a diagonal, or even much farther as the sequence stops and is taken up somewhere else across the map. This makes it hard to find a territory unless you have a scan result or a bookmark/position for it already, which then necessitates having lots of bookmarks or lots of scan results, or both.

Instead of the current numbering scheme, and due to the spherical nature of each planet, a more appropriate method would be to start at the north pole as tile #1, then each succeeding row going southward would have an unbroken numbering scheme. For example of a small sphere:

North pole = 1

Row 1 (right below the north pole) = 2-10

Row 2 = 11-24

Row 3 = 25-40

Row 4 = 41-58

Row 5 (equator) = 59-80

Rows 6-8 continue as the reverse of 2-4 (because "sphere"), leaving the south pole as tile #138.

This would make each tile easy to find (with the added benefit of probably being less complicated to code than the current system), as one would only need to check the value of a given tile before determining if their target is in that row.

A second option, which could be used in conjunction with the above scheme, or as a stand-alone, would be to create a search function in the map so that players can search by tile number for their destination. Either method would make it easier to justify getting rid of scan results (I have a spreadsheet full of data, including tile #, so keeping scan results is purely about being able to find the tile again), which can clutter boxes fast.

[Lethys]

Google Goldberg polyhedron - the tiling makes very much sense and is NOT random, by any means

[Dakanmer]

2 hours ago, Lethys said:

Google Goldberg polyhedron - the tiling makes very much sense and is NOT random, by any means

I never said it was random. It follows a pattern, but it isn't a good one. When searching for a tile, you can more or less predict where the next in the number sequence will be, but I've ended up seeing the pattern end and pick up somewhere entirely different. It's not random, but it is much harder to find tiles than it should be, if all you have is the tile number, even if you find a number close to it, or know the general section it's found in.

[Lethys]

It IS a good pattern tho, and easy to understand once you know how it's done. I instantly find tiles I look for because it's really simple to do once you understood how it works.

 

A search Bar for quickly searching stuff is mandatory tho and would be a nice addition 

[Dakanmer]

On 10/16/2020 at 11:44 PM, Lethys said:

It IS a good pattern tho, and easy to understand once you know how it's done. I instantly find tiles I look for because it's really simple to do once you understood how it works.

Here is an example of what I mean. If you can find tile 3894, anywhere nearby, then you're better at finding them than I am.

::pos{0,120,8.4724,91.5964,-0.0001}

It is easy to find tiles up to a point. It's at that point that you have to search an entirely different part of the planet to find the next one in the sequence. I've run into this issue many times when trying to find a territory someone tells me about. I ask for the tile # near where we are, I can't find it easily because the tiles are not consecutive and sequential, and because sometimes the tile numbers don't follow the simple "down 1 over 1" pattern seen here.

 

[Lethys]

Thing is, you have a variation of the goldberg polyhedron with pentagons. in between those pentagons you have straight connections where the annotation starts. 3 such pentagons form a triangle, within which the annotation is always the same.

So without knowing where you are there and without checking myself (wasn't ingame for some weeks) I'd say you cross the "pentagon meridian" there and that's why tile 3894 isn't where you suspect it to be.

just to get you in the right direction, search for conway notation

 

[Dakanmer]

On 10/18/2020 at 11:17 PM, Lethys said:

Thing is, you have a variation of the goldberg polyhedron with pentagons. in between those pentagons you have straight connections where the annotation starts. 3 such pentagons form a triangle, within which the annotation is always the same.

So without knowing where you are there and without checking myself (wasn't ingame for some weeks) I'd say you cross the "pentagon meridian" there and that's why tile 3894 isn't where you suspect it to be.

just to get you in the right direction, search for conway notation

 

Which brings us back to the point of the issue: finding tiles by number is not 

 

On 10/16/2020 at 1:21 PM, Dakanmer said:

Short version: the territory numbering scheme is hard to follow and should be replaced by something that players can use to actually find territories by number easily.

If you have to look up or understand stuff like goldberg polyhedrons or conway rotations in order to do something as simple as find the next tile in a sequence, then it already fails the "easy to follow/find" condition. That's why I provided the 2 suggestions I did. Both would make finding tiles by number far easier than the system they have, even if it ruffles the feathers of people who think that cool geometry tricks are better than simpler solutions that a monkey could understand, because I can guarantee that the vast majority of players are not mathemagicians. They're monkeys, like me.