Infinite Space Theories: How Much Damage can a Limited Vacuum Collapser Do?

Infinite Space Theories: How Much Damage can a Limited Vacuum Collapser Do?

Happy Halloween everyone! In keeping with the spooky theme of this post, I'll discuss how scary one of the artifacts in the Infinite Space universe can really be under the right circumstances.

The Limited Vacuum Collapser is, without a doubt, the most powerful (and dangerous) item in the entire Infinite Space trilogy. So much so, in fact, that in Sea of Stars, collecting one from a star system that isn't a home system of any faction will spawn a Yellow Kawangi Dreadnought on the opposite side of the map from the Glory system (where your home base is located), forcing you to destroy the Dreadnought before it annihilates Glory, except in games where other quest-triggering items, fleets, or discoveries are spawned at the start (in which case the Dreadnought will not spawn at all). We have already discussed that particular scenario before, but this time, we will answer another question: Just how much damage can you do by detonating a Limited Vacuum Collapser?

Before we begin, we'll talk about the size of the map in Sea of Stars. Whereas in previous games, maps were usually smaller (and therefore contained fewer star systems), every map in Sea of Stars is quite large and, on top of that, is always the same size - faction strength and nebular area can be adjusted, but map size cannot, unlike in the previous game, Weird Worlds. Every time you start a game in Sea of Stars, there are usually 30 or so star systems (including 8 home systems, one each of which will always be under Terran and Klakar control), plus five black holes. If you count black holes as star systems, that makes for a total of 35 systems on the map in most cases. However, as far as I am aware, no star system can have more than seven other systems (including black holes) within five light-years of it. As we shall soon see, this is very important for what I'm about to demonstrate.

An example of a map in Sea of Stars in which a single star system has seven other star systems (including a black hole) within five light-years of it.

We'll use the map above as an example. Here, the Altair system, almost directly opposite Glory (the Terran home system) on the farthest part of this map, is within five light-years of seven other star systems: Hellion, Theta, Achernar, Wolf, Penumbra, Sanguine, and Limbo, the last of which is a black hole. If I were to detonate a Limited Vacuum Collapser at Altair (which I sadly couldn't do on this occasion, due to the lack of an LVC, or anything that can be turned into an LVC, for that matter), all of those systems would completely and permanently disappear from the map, along with every fleet within the blast radius (including my own, unless it were far enough away). Two of those systems are, in fact, the home systems of two hostile NPC factions; Theta and Sanguine are where the homeworlds of the Urluquai and Tan Ru, respectively, are located. As such, detonating an LVC at Altair would have permanently removed both factions from the map, in addition to effectively reducing the size of the map by just over 20%. And because the LVC detonation wipes out a whole cluster when used in this way, I would like to call this the "cluster wipe" trick

However, it is worth noting that such a tightly packed "star cluster" of six or more star systems within five light-years of each other rarely, if ever, appears more than once on any given map, due to how the game handles the placement of each star system at the start of a game. On the other hand, with the dual LVC trick we've discussed earlier in this series, combining it with the cluster wipe trick will allow you to destroy even more star systems - it's especially satisfying if one of those systems is the homeworld of a hostile faction. Just make sure that Glory isn't engulfed in either explosion, or your adventure among the Sea of Stars will come to a premature end. Finally, on a map with two star clusters with eight star systems and is less than five light-years across each, destroying both clusters with LVCs will effectively destroy nearly half of the map.

Whatever the placement of star systems a the start of a game, one thing remains clear: If you obtain a Limited Vacuum Collapser in Sea of Stars, make sure to either use it wisely, or not at all - in the latter case, either by keeping it in your cargo bay, or by selling it off at Glory for a sizable sum.

A Lifer's Diary, Part 10: Six into Four Won't Go... Or Does It?

A Lifer's Diary, Part 10: Six into Four Won't Go... Or Does It?

When the Game of Life went from being a six-player game to a four-player one for Generation IV, not everyone approved of the change. While this made sets cheaper, simpler, and quicker to produce, it also removed the possibility of playing the game as a larger group (5 people or more). To this day, I am still conflicted about Hasbro's decision to make it this way. So let's take a look at how this situation came to be.

As originally designed, Milton Bradley's Checkered Game of Life (the predecessor to the modern Game of Life) originally supported four players. This seems perfectly adequate given that the rule set was drastically different from those used in its successors. However, when Generation I of the Game of Life debuted, it became a six-player game for the first time ever, to emphasize the fact that this was now a true family game. In particular, large families and groups of friends found this change to be especially popular.

When Generation II debuted in the early 1990s, six-player support was retained, because the new rule set was equally conducive to large-scale games (i.e. those with at least four players), if not more so. This was still true after Generation 2.5 rolled around a decade or so later. However, Generation III was the last version of the Game of Life ever to honor this tradition, and in retrospect, it's easy to see why. 

Under the new rule set, Spin to Win was effectively treated as an extension of a turn, wherein players could choose whether or not to wager any of their cash (and if so, decide exactly how much they would bet) on the number to be spun, and this process took some time. In particular, when four or more players participated, this could potentially make Spin to Win take longer than anticipated. Moreover, players who retired still had to spin for Long-Term Investments until every player had retired. All this meant that the six-player setup present since Generation I had to be abandoned after Generation III.

Generations IV and V reverted to a four-player setup, as the original 1860 Checkered Game Of Life had used. Despite a mixed reaction from fans and players alike, the game still sold well, mainly because games now tended to be shorter than before. One of the reasons for this is that players are no longer required to spin at all after retiring. In addition, the College Path at the start of the game is even shorter than it had been in previous versions, thus allowing players to graduate sooner.

In short, turning the Game of Life from a six-player game to a four-player one from Generation IV onward may have been one of the most controversial changes in its history, but one that players have generally embraced. Even I am no longer as skeptical of this decision, and have accepted that this reduced limit is here to stay for at least the current version, and possibly beyond.

A Lifer's Diary, Part 9: Blue Space Blues

A Lifer's Diary, Part 9: Blue Space Blues

Blue Spaces were introduced in Generation I and have been present through much of the history of the Game of Life. Their function has always been to provide any player to perform an optional action upon landing on them, with their exact purpose(s) differing between versions. Originally, in Generation 1, you could purchase stocks or insurance when passing or landing on blue spaces, or choose not to do so. However, it was generally advisable to buy a stock, since they were essential for Playing the Market (highly recommended due to there being a 40% chance of winning, and the $50,000 payout for doing so much higher than the price of a Stock Card) or collecting payouts (including some of large ones) from certain spaces. Finally, insurance policies purchased from Blue Spaces can be lost upon landing on certain spaces; the exact type depends on the space landed on.

Blue Spaces were reworked for Generation II, and there were now two different types. The first of these was the Salary Trade space (of which there were six, and two of those were on optional paths), which allowed players to trade their Salary Cards with one currently in another player's possession, and the last of these was the Night School space, which gave players the ability to voluntarily replace their current Career and Salary Cards with one each of any unused type of card for a small, fixed fee. However, unlike in Generation I, players could only perform these operations upon landing exactly on the corresponding type of Blue Space, and never when passing over them.

In Generation II, any (and every) Blue Space that wasn't a Night School Space had text that read "Trade Salary Card with any player" on it. Any player who landed on a Blue Space of this particular type could give their Salary Card to another player of their choice, and that player would give that player their current Salary Card in return. Such a trade could potentially change the outcome of a game, especially if the two players' salaries differed by $50,000 or more. However, given that the player with the highest-paying salary was the one most likely to have their salary traded away, it was often better to have the second most lucrative salary among all players, so that opponents will cannibalize each other's chances of winning just to have the largest salary.

Night School spaces (of which there were only two in Generation II) have a similar function to Lose Your Job spaces, but with a few key differences. Upon landing on them, a player may pay the bank (or, if there is one, the opponent with the Teacher Career Card) $20,000 to change careers and/or salaries. They must then draw two random Career Cards (either or both of which may require a degree), and then take either or neither of those cards (but not both), before doing the same with the Salary Cards, and returning any unwanted cards to their respective decks. Changing salaries via Night School is generally recommended if your current salary is too low and at least one higher-paying salary is available. It's also a great way to replace your current Career Card with a more lucrative one, if possible. In fact, most players use the Night School space to do both at once whenever they can.

For Generation III, Night School would be discarded, although the Return to School space serves a similar function; however, upon reaching this space, you needed to pay $50,000 to even be able to change careers (which also puts you on an alternate path), although if you made the payment, you had two options upon reaching the Change Career/Get $20,000 Pay Raise space: choose two College Career Cards (except when only one such card is available, in which case you will automatically receive that card in place of your current Career Card), or retain your current Career Card and receive two $10,000 Pay Raises (this option will be chosen automatically if no other College Career Cards are available). In either case, after reaching the Change Career space, you must spin again.

In fact, there was only one type of Blue Space in Generation III: the Lawsuit Space. Anyone who landed on it could take $100,000 from any opponent of their choice. However, if the player being sued has at least one Exemption Card, that player pays nothing, and must instead return the Exemption Card they just used to the Share the Wealth Card deck. There are seven Lawsuit Spaces on the board, so in theory, a player could gain (or lose) up to $700,000 from these spaces. Even so, a single successful Lawsuit may be enough to significantly affect the outcome of a game.

Generation IV was the first version not to have any Blue Spaces at all, but this is justifiable given that two of the Action Cards that could be randomly drawn served the same purpose as the Lawsuit did in Generation III. However, these Lawsuit Cards (as players often called them) were considered less effective, since there were only a few of these cards in the Action Card deck, and the maximum amount of money that could be gained from drawing a Lawsuit Card was not only reduced, but also variable (from as little as $20,000 to as much $80,000). On the other hand, if a player drew a Lawsuit Card, there was no defense against it, due to Share the Wealth Cards also being removed from this version.

Generation V has many different types of Option Spaces, but they no longer have exclusively blue backgrounds, although their purpose is still to provide anyone who lands on them an opportunity to make a choice that could change the course of their Life. Nevertheless, throughout the history of the Game of Life, Option Spaces have provided players with countless memorable moments, and continue to do so to this day.

A Lifer's Diary, Part 8: The Agony of Lost Jobs and Skipped Turns

A Lifer's Diary, Part 8: The Agony of Lost Jobs and Skipped Turns

Of all the types of spaces that have been featured in The Game of Life, few are more feared than the Lose Your Job space. Introduced in Generation II, there were originally only two of these spaces on the board, but their effect was the same: anyone who landed on them had to swap their current Career and Salary cards for unused ones. If their new salary paid less than their previous one, that player would find it harder to amass a sizable fortune by the end of the game, especially if they also ended up with a less lucrative Career Card. However, if they received a higher-paying salary compared to the one they once had, their chance of winning would increase, especially if their new career was also more lucrative than the one they lost. In fact, if the difference in value between the old and new salaries was greater than $50,000, it could significantly alter the result of a game. Moreover, the first of these two Lose Your Job spaces (located two spaces after the Buy a House space) had a greater effect on players' net worth if landed on due to being closer to the starting space.

The only problem with this was that in a six-player game, if everyone chose the Start Career option at the beginning, and one of them landed on a Lose Your Job space, the game would lock up due to there only being six Career Cards (out of nine) that did not require a degree. To get around this, a house rule was created in which the Teacher Career Card no longer required a degree at all - this became an official rule change for Generation 2.5.

Less detrimental, but no less annoying, were the "Skip Next Turn" spaces located before the Get Married space. Anyone who landed on these spaces would be forced to skip their next turn. Generation II originally had four such spaces (including two on the Start College path, located before the Career Choice space, and one immediately before the Get Married space), but two of these spaces were changed to Pay Spaces in Generation 2.5 (although you could only lose money by landing on these revised spaces if you did not have Car Insurance). Apart from forcing you to skip your next turn, however, there are no penalties that can result from landing on these spaces.

Lose Your Job and Skip Next Turn spaces were carried over for Generation III, but this time, there would be only one of the latter type of space. More significantly, however, there were now four Lose Your Job spaces instead of two, and the penalty for landing on one of those was far more severe: regardless of the type of Career Card they currently had, any player who landed on such a space must take a random regular Career Card (not a College Career Card) from the deck, and return all of their Pay Raises to the bank. As with Generation II, this was especially devastating if their previous career (with Pay Raises) paid out $50,000 more than their new one. Worse still, if they lost a College Career after passing the Return to School space (or lost it before reaching said space, only to not pay $50,000 to return to school), they would never be able to obtain one again.

However, as in Generation II, there was another problem with the implementation of Lose Your Job spaces: If a player reaches such a space during a six-player game, and all six players have regular Career Cards, the game will lock up due to there only being six regular Career Cards in total. Once again, a workaround was devised: under such circumstances, they would retain their current Career Card, but they would still have to return their Pay Raises.

These types of spaces would be removed altogether from Generation IV onwards, and for good reason: few people liked them (or even the idea of landing on them, for that matter). However, Generation IV did have two Action Cards which, if drawn, would force the player who drew them to replace their current Career Card with an unused one from the same deck (i.e. they could not swap a regular Career Card for a College Career Card, and vice versa). At least these two cards are worth the same $100,000 each as any other Action Card by the end of the game. Finally, Generation V no longer forces the player to change careers; instead, all career changes are done voluntarily, but only when a player lands on a Career Space.

In short, adding spaces that could force players to skip their next turn or swap their careers and salaries for new ones added unpredictability to Generations II and III, which seemed like a good idea on paper, but was generally disliked among players (especially on the very rare occasions where they could break the game), and few people were sad to see them go when these types of spaces were dropped in Generation IV.

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 162: Pain in the Tail Spoiler

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 162: Pain in the Tail Spoiler

After building, testing, and submitting my entries for the Powerful American Insanity Nationals described in the previous post in this series, I waited for another similar time trial challenge to be announced on the Automation Forums. Unsurprisingly, it would not be long before such a competition would be announced, so I decided to repurpose both of my PAIN entries for this one. However, whereas one of them lost power and weight, the other one gained power, but not weight. So here they are.

The first entry was a revised version of the original TSC Thunderwolf, with a lightweight interior, a track-friendly suspension tune, and a far more powerful flat-crank version of the standard car's V8 engine. It also came with a more aggressive aero kit, but to keep the file size low, I only included the textures, paints, and materials that had actually been fitted to it.

The modified TSC Thunderwolf (left) compared to the original version (right).

In addition to this, I also cloned the LVC LS40 to create a lighter, if slower, version that would meet all the rules of this new challenge. The resulting car, the LS20, had a 2.0-liter straight-four in place of a flat-crank V8, and fiberglass bodywork instead of aluminum. Most of its creature comforts were removed to save weight and cost.

The LVC LS20 - a lighter, four-cylinder relative of the LS40.

Both of these entries represent two very different approaches to the same problem. The Thunderwolf is heavier, but has a lot of power to compensate. The LS20, on the other hand, is nowhere near as powerful, but is much lighter. In fact, it doesn't even have an in-car entertainment system, but it doesn't need one for the purpose of time trials. With their immense potential, I expect these cars to do as well on the tight, winding road this challenge takes place on as their derivatives did on the more open route used for the earlier PAIN time trial.

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 161: Properly Awesome Insanity Nationals

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 161: Properly Awesome Insanity Nationals

I've been much more involved in Automation forum challenges over the past three months, but among those, there is one that stood out: PAIN (Powerful American Insanity National). With hindsight, however, the first two letters could (and should) have stood for Properly Awesome, because that's exactly what this challenge was. The rule set was quite liberal (especially with the maximum price set at $40,000 AMU), so I set to work on two submissions (the maximum allowed for any entrant). One of these was the LVC LS40 - the LS60's V8-powered little brother. The other, the TSC Thunderwolf 5.0, was repurposed from an earlier submission from another challenge, but was given more power, less weight, and a more luxurious interior (the last of which ensured that it would attempt its run sooner) - in fact, it and its engine were cloned to avoid overwriting the original version.

Above and below: Both of my PAIN entries, the TSC Thunderwolf 5.0 (blue) and LVC LS40 (red), are V8-powered, with similar outputs, but the latter is lighter and smaller, in addition to being mid-engined.

Both of these cars had fully detailed interiors - something the Thunderwolf originally lacked, but I added this feature for my PAIN submission, and copied the fixtures to the original version. However, this version of the Thunderwolf has a full luxury interior and CD player in place of the cheaper premium items that were originally fitted. Moreover, in place of the (corrosion-resistant) steel chassis with partial aluminum bodywork, it now has a glued aluminum chassis with fully aluminum panels, as does the LS40. Finally, its engine is in a more aggressive state of tune, developing 440 horsepower instead of 380.

As for the LS40, its engine is a smaller 4.0-liter flat-crank (instead of cross-plane) V8 delivering 450 horsepower (10 more than the Thunderwolf), and here, it is mid-mounted rather than front-mounted. However, the LS40 is not only lighter, but also has a shorter wheelbase, which should theoretically make it even faster along the time trial route - more on that later.

The actual time trial portion of the challenge went smoothly, to say the least. The Thunderwolf was quite fun to drive, with excellent handling to match its straight-line pace. The LS40 was more challenging, but was lighter and hence quicker, as I had suspected. To be fair, neither of them was going to be in contention for the fastest overall time, but this was expected given that many of the cars entered were more powerful than these two. It should be noted, however, that both of my entries could have gone even faster still had they not spun out at least once during their timed runs.

At the time of initial posting, many of the cars submitted have not yet had their timed runs, but regardless of who comes out on top, I definitely had a lot of fun building and entering the two cars I chose for this challenge. Here's hoping that something similar to it takes place in the future.

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 160: If In Doubt, Flat Out

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 160: If In Doubt, Flat Out

Here's another Automation build I made recently, again not part of a competition, but with a fully detailed interior:

The car shown in these pictures is the 1987 LVC LF2 - a small, light, and affordable sports coupe powered by a 2.0-liter 150bhp all-alloy flat-four driving the rear wheels via a five-speed manual gearbox and limited-slip differential.

To keep costs down, it has a standard interior and sound system, with anti-lock brakes and power steering omitted; however, it still seats four, and has fully independent suspension (struts up front and semi-trailing arms at the rear) tuned for sporty yet stable handling.

All told, this trim level costs just $12,500 AMU (as shown on the detailed stats section of the in-game overview tab) - a bargain for the era. In short, this would have been one of the best value-for-money affordable sports cars of its time, if not all time.