I've always thought that a 3D starmap would be a great feature for a space 4X game. The trouble seems to be with how to present it (i.e. the user interface). Sword of the Stars has been (in)famously criticized for its implementation. Most other space 4X games have used 2D starmaps. What I'm wondering is what UI features would make a 3D starmap (relatively) easy to navigate -- if there are any such features! Otherwise, is this feature a good idea at all? Looking for some feedback here. :)

clearly defined cells for each layer. and the ability to lock in a layer so you get the 3D map with a 2D map practicality. I can't say much beyond that...

Consider weighing the coolness factor of a 3D starmap (from your perspective) against the pain of navigating it (from the Average-Joe-Who-Just-Wants-To-Have-Fun's perspective), and the complexity of implementing an acceptable navigation scheme.

Personally, I'm perfectly fine with 2D starmaps.

I think that if you really need to make it 3D, you might as well just have navigation from 'first person perspective' rather than some super-zoomed-out overview showing the entire galaxy at once.

Another thing is, even from a realism perspective, galaxies are pretty 2-dimensional anyway. For example, the Milky Way is around 100,000 light years in diameter, but only 2,000 light years thick -- that's a ratio of 50:1.

First of all, thanks for an interesting thread subject!

I believe more game-specific context is needed to answer the question.

Is the movement of fleets restricted to on a specific star system or en route to a specific star system (e.g. Master of Orion)? I'm not sure what "real" 3D would accomplish here that would not work better in 2D. If so desired, the map can appear 3D and even be 3D (albeit with shallow depth), while UI control and interaction remains strictly 2D. Appropriate visual cuing, both static and dynamic, can be used to show depth and distances.

If you want fleets to be able to occupy space for maneuvers such as blockades, intercepts and scouting, you need to consider whether you want a continuous space, fleet location and a sphere of influence around a fleet, or if you instead divide the space in discrete volume nodes in which fleets reside. This is something where 3D gameplay will really make a difference to 2D gameplay strategically and tactically, as it's much harder to block the opponent's movement in a 3D space. I believe both will have relatively different UI challenges.

Now that we are on the subject, can anyone come up with examples of a strategy title trying to use either - continuous 3D space or 3D volume nodes? Next to all 4X titles seem to use area nodes. Continuous 2D space is now commonplace in RTS games, but the only 4X I remember doing it is VGA Planets, and I can't think of too many strategy titles overall to use continuous space.

One of the best suggestions I have seen on this topic was to have two layers. The main layer, which would act as your standard 2D star map, and then a layer above which certain ships could "dodge" into. You could even introduce different levels with different advantages and disadvantages, but the thing that I would recommend is, have multiple 2D maps rather than one 3D one.

The monitor is 2D, navigating in 3D is inherently difficult. I have spent a little time doing 3D modelling and navigating the space is the hardest part of it. I am sure if I wanted to be a 3D artist I could overcome it, but your player might not want to bother for the sake of a game.

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Original post by Nypyren Consider weighing the coolness factor of a 3D starmap (from your perspective) against the pain of navigating it (from the Average-Joe-Who-Just-Wants-To-Have-Fun's perspective), and the complexity of implementing an acceptable navigation scheme.

My question is, what do people (such as yourself) think is the complexity with a 3D starmap over a 2D starmap, what causes it, and how can it be mitigated (if at all)?

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Personally, I'm perfectly fine with 2D starmaps. I think that if you really need to make it 3D, you might as well just have navigation from 'first person perspective' rather than some super-zoomed-out overview showing the entire galaxy at once.

Or you could make the map zoomable to effectively give you both options. :)

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Original post by Codeka Another thing is, even from a realism perspective, galaxies are pretty 2-dimensional anyway. For example, the Milky Way is around 100,000 light years in diameter, but only 2,000 light years thick -- that's a ratio of 50:1.

Not all galaxies are spirals like the Milky Way. Many are elliptical or even (nearly) spherical in shape. Besides, there's the question of whether a space 4X game really represents an entire galaxy. :P

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Original post by Stroppy Katamari First of all, thanks for an interesting thread subject!

You're welcome!

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I believe more game-specific context is needed to answer the question. Is the movement of fleets restricted to on a specific star system or en route to a specific star system (e.g. Master of Orion)? I'm not sure what "real" 3D would accomplish here that would not work better in 2D. If so desired, the map can appear 3D and even be 3D (albeit with shallow depth), while UI control and interaction remains strictly 2D. Appropriate visual cuing, both static and dynamic, can be used to show depth and distances.

Sword of the Stars restricts fleet movement in that way. The interesting thing with a 3D starmap is it allows for the same amount of "stuff" (e.g. star systems) in the same amount of (cross-sectional) area. As a result, more emphasis is placed on movement and defense, as all parts of your civilization are more vulnerable to attack.

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If you want fleets to be able to occupy space for maneuvers such as blockades, intercepts and scouting, you need to consider whether you want a continuous space, fleet location and a sphere of influence around a fleet, or if you instead divide the space in discrete volume nodes in which fleets reside. This is something where 3D gameplay will really make a difference to 2D gameplay strategically and tactically, as it's much harder to block the opponent's movement in a 3D space. I believe both will have relatively different UI challenges.

Either way, though, the player will need to navigate through a 3D cluster (or "galaxy") of stars. What do you think can be done to make this navigation as easy and intuitive as possible for him? I guess that's my real question. :P

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Now that we are on the subject, can anyone come up with examples of a strategy title trying to use either - continuous 3D space or 3D volume nodes? Next to all 4X titles seem to use area nodes. Continuous 2D space is now commonplace in RTS games, but the only 4X I remember doing it is VGA Planets, and I can't think of too many strategy titles overall to use continuous space.

Again, Sword of the Stars uses 3D volume nodes. Ascendancy was another, older game which did so. Stars! is only 2D, but with continuous space.

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Original post by thk123 One of the best suggestions I have seen on this topic was to have two layers. The main layer, which would act as your standard 2D star map, and then a layer above which certain ships could "dodge" into. You could even introduce different levels with different advantages and disadvantages, but the thing that I would recommend is, have multiple 2D maps rather than one 3D one. The monitor is 2D, navigating in 3D is inherently difficult. I have spent a little time doing 3D modelling and navigating the space is the hardest part of it. I am sure if I wanted to be a 3D artist I could overcome it, but your player might not want to bother for the sake of a game.

What do you think makes navigating in 3D so inherently difficult? Perhaps it's based on a lack of a common point of reference? From my experience with Sword of the Stars, this seems to be the biggest sticking-point. There's no default orientation that you can always go back to. Ascendancy, on the other hand, did have this feature, which made navigating easier.

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Original post by RobAU78 Quote: Original post by thk123 One of the best suggestions I have seen on this topic was to have two layers. The main layer, which would act as your standard 2D star map, and then a layer above which certain ships could "dodge" into. You could even introduce different levels with different advantages and disadvantages, but the thing that I would recommend is, have multiple 2D maps rather than one 3D one. The monitor is 2D, navigating in 3D is inherently difficult. I have spent a little time doing 3D modelling and navigating the space is the hardest part of it. I am sure if I wanted to be a 3D artist I could overcome it, but your player might not want to bother for the sake of a game. What do you think makes navigating in 3D so inherently difficult? Perhaps it's based on a lack of a common point of reference? From my experience with Sword of the Stars, this seems to be the biggest sticking-point. There's no default orientation that you can always go back to. Ascendancy, on the other hand, did have this feature, which made navigating easier.

Like I said, partly due to the monitor being 2D, but yes the reference thing probably also contributes it. I think the problem is, in 2d, if you see an object, you know where it is, in 3D, there are more places it can be (could be further back and higher, for example, it all depends on the angle of viewing) To actually fix the location, you must view the same unit from two different points of view. Obviously, scale can mitigate this problem, but it can still be confusing. What might work, and certainly helps in Blender, is having multiple view points up at once. If they all showed the same thing, but from different angles, you could cross reference the position much more easily.

The disadvantage of this is 2 or 4 screens could be very overwhelming for new player!

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Original post by RobAU78 Quote: Is the movement of fleets restricted to on a specific star system or en route to a specific star system (e.g. Master of Orion)? I'm not sure what "real" 3D would accomplish here that would not work better in 2D. If so desired, the map can appear 3D and even be 3D (albeit with shallow depth), while UI control and interaction remains strictly 2D. Appropriate visual cuing, both static and dynamic, can be used to show depth and distances. Sword of the Stars restricts fleet movement in that way. The interesting thing with a 3D starmap is it allows for the same amount of "stuff" (e.g. star systems) in the same amount of (cross-sectional) area. As a result, more emphasis is placed on movement and defense, as all parts of your civilization are more vulnerable to attack.

Gameplay-wise, you can accomplish pretty much the same thing with a 2D presentation by
- wormholes between systems
- letting the 2D universe wrap around so there are no "corners"
and I'm sure there are more ways. This avoids the UI headache.

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Quote: If you want fleets to be able to occupy space for maneuvers such as blockades, intercepts and scouting, you need to consider whether you want a continuous space, fleet location and a sphere of influence around a fleet, or if you instead divide the space in discrete volume nodes in which fleets reside. This is something where 3D gameplay will really make a difference to 2D gameplay strategically and tactically, as it's much harder to block the opponent's movement in a 3D space. I believe both will have relatively different UI challenges. Either way, though, the player will need to navigate through a 3D cluster (or "galaxy") of stars. What do you think can be done to make this navigation as easy and intuitive as possible for him? I guess that's my real question. :P

The real challenge in these two approaches is being able to give fleet orders relating to empty space. No matter which way you spin the camera in a 3D space, the mouse cursor (being a 2D point) covers a either a line (if the space is continous) or a large amount of volume nodes.

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Quote: Now that we are on the subject, can anyone come up with examples of a strategy title trying to use either - continuous 3D space or 3D volume nodes? Next to all 4X titles seem to use area nodes. Continuous 2D space is now commonplace in RTS games, but the only 4X I remember doing it is VGA Planets, and I can't think of too many strategy titles overall to use continuous space. Again, Sword of the Stars uses 3D volume nodes. Ascendancy was another, older game which did so. Stars! is only 2D, but with continuous space.

No, by "volume nodes", I mean volumes of space that may or may not contain a star system or a fleet. Like a Rubik's Cube. A network of star systems is a piece of cake compared to the other two, "true 3D" approaches. Which is probably why I don't know of any strategy games attempting to use these things.

Well, there are a few solutions I can think of that would not be particularly bothersome. They depend on how you want the game space to work though. If you want what could be continuous 3D space (even if you subdivide it) you can do this: make the map 2D overhead and pan around on it, organize the locations into layers that are approximately even with each other and order the layers. Show the player the labels and allow interaction with the layer he has selected and allow a 'zoom' function to move up or down through the layers with the appropriate 3D visualization. the layers 'below' the current one can be shown behind it faintly. You could even allow the player to flip the map and look at it bottom up if he wanted to see the layers above his faintly behind his current one. This gives you a 2D representation that is in 3D space and doesn't restrict how the 3D space actually is organized. With a ratio like 50:1 you could have 4 layers of 1 unit height to 200 units wide.

Otherwise, I would recommend wormhole/warp/etc routes from are to area and present a 2D representational topographic map of the layout.


You could also combine these, having locations being a 2D topographic representation but sub maps for each location made in the first method.