And a very good thought, too. VERY interesting application. Liek, for instance, using it to send your mini freighters safely to their destination(s).

Bill
~SDC~
[Message Edited]

The expense of activating the stargate would negate the profit you would get from the trade.

Sorry but according to todays definition Space is the third dimension.
Actually: all objects are four-dimensional, cause without time, no existance!
So one may even say: Space is the fourth dimmension. But it cant be the fifth.

I thought that space occupied the first three physical dimensions (height, width, depth), and time occupies the fourth. One theory dictates that you can move along three axes, while being dragged along by one. In this case, we get dragged along the time axis, while being free to move about in the other three. That is why people speculate that you may be able to move freely through the time axis when falling into a black hole; the dominating direction would eventually become "towards the black hole," even overpowering the drag of time. You may then move freely through the time axis.

Of course, acoording to some of the latest theories, there could be as many as 11 or even 16 dimensions.

Bill

~SDC~

But those dimensions were tapped after the stargates were scrapped. Therefore the stargates must effect only effect the four dimensional universe. There is no way that a jump could be anything but instantanious (but requiring a recharge time) because there are no other dimensions/universes of which to enter. As I said earlier unless you're going to enter another universe with a common time dimension to ours stargate travel must be instantanious. Not instantanious to charge up but to actually use. As for the cost I'm pretty sure that you could invent an improved version of the stargate that is cheaper.

Goblin Cookie, you can build an improved version of the original stargates. That is the direction controllable, faster travel that your ships start with. So says the guru of Galactic Civilization... Brad.

I do think that the Tech Tree suggests that instantaneous portals/gates are possible, in the lines of the extra dimensional items. Maybe GC2 or GC3 will allow that. But its not in the code at this time.

Now, just because the races don't understand advanced dimensionatiy doesn't mean that they didn't make use of it. Remember, when man first lined to fly, most "aeronautical engineers" didn't understand aerodynamics. So they often got the physics wrong, and the planes didn't work, or didn't work well. But that didn't prevent people from making airplanes that were capable of flying. That merely required that man have a small enough Internal Combustion engine to generate the thrust needed to produce sufficent lift on the aero lifting surfaces.

There are plenty of things where an accidental discover enabled us to make us of some new material, or to practice a new way of doing things. But that didn't mean that we understand the processes or physics behind it. It can take a lot of study to truly understand what is going on, to be able to better it. Want another example? We don't really understand how "glue" works. Something man has had since, oh, approxiametely having fire. A very basic item. We have several theories on how "glue" works. If we haven't figure out "glue" after several (hundred/tens of) thousand years, why presume anything about what races did or didn't know, could or couldn't do?

Now, a better line of tact would be: it would make the game more fun, IF...
[Message Edited]

In this game universe instant transmission of matter is plainly possible, after all there are the wormhole anomalies dotted about.

What would interesting as a possible option is that these anomalies should be persistant, and once a survey ship has been through, any ship should be able to use the wormhole (with a very small chance of loosing the ship).

Actually, I just finished a game where I was only 1 research away from Final Frontier. I mention that because it allowed me to refresh myself on the higher techs. The descriptions clearly report you mastering opening up portals and passages through the extra 4 dimentions, and being able to travel faster. The problem is that you cannot properly determine/anchor the WHEN of the far side. This prevents you from travelling BACK in time (have to reload a saved game of turn X for that, and replay from then on, only with the new "SUPER" ship popping up for orders), or travelling INSTANTLY between any 2 points on the map.

Apparently, there is some more research to go to figuring out how to "instantly" teleport between 2 points on the game map.

I don't think there should be any natural wormholes on the map. And this is why... it wouldn't be fun. Just another thing to worry about. Wormholes are one of the "new" additions in MoO2 that I really dislike. They make another vulnerability point. The AI doesn't use/target/defend them adequately though, so they become purely Player exploit points. And they are just there so you get the speed of contact up on larger maps. This just means you can exploit the AI in Diplo faster in most games.

I don't see permanent "wild" wormholes adding to the fun. I know Brad and his people can make a decent AI (compared to other games, anyways). But I don't see them being able to easily "teach" the AI how to exploit wormholes like players can. Also, wormholes would become "passes". Your distant enemies, if programmed to use the Wormhole to get to you quickly, would then be easily ambushed at the "pass" (wormhole). All you would have to do to defend is to stack up your fleet at the wormhole, and destroy the AI as it comes through. That would take away from what little tactical options we have in the basic 2D tile "galactic" map already.

If you are going to do that, then just simplify the system even further. Say that stars are only reachable via a limited number of hyper-passages (whether freestanding or self generating). You know... star lanes. Then the AI will really be able to figure out to stack up its defenses at its vulnerable ends, and the average drunk player will still be able to stack up his ships at his ready points to attack the computer in his vulnerable end points!

If you want faster wars, faster communication, and more quickly travelling from one end of the galaxy to the other, please just play on smaller maps with more worlds. If Abundant worlds isn't enough for you, then get AP and drop in 25 stars into each sector, each with 5 45PQ worlds each. That should give you more then enough worlds on medium or smaller maps. Or mod a political party to have +100 Speed and +10 Range, and poof, you can cross the gigantic galaxy in just 2 turns. If that is what you enjoy, have at it and have fun.

Just consider all the games where you have free standing warp points. I haven't played one yet where they aren't just human exploits. Do you really want that in GC? There are enough of those, by design, in the game. Why do you think you need more? Or do you think the AI should really use them, and turn the game into one of just "defending the pass"? How do you envision this working, if that isn't it? How does that make the game more fun to play?
[Message Edited]

It's easier to make time the 0th or 1st dimension, so you can tack on additional space dimensions without this difficulty.

er??, I don't want to appear rude, but do you have the faintest idea what you are talking about?

4 Dimensions: Space-Time
3 Dimensions: Space
2 Dimensions: A Plane
1 Dimension: A Line
0 Dimensions: A Point (of zero size)

Another way of looking at it:

Dimensions 1 to 3: Width, depth & height
Dimension 4: Time
Dimensions 5 to 13 (probably): This is where it gets really interesting, but these dimensions have sort of collapsed into each other and anyway are tiny, I suggest you read as much Steven Hawkins as you can manage, then read Flatland by Irwin Abbot
[Message Edited]

To submit time to the scientific "surgeons knife" is like trying to submit god to the knife. Time is something that all humans can sense but nobody can analyse. Science and mathamatics cannot provide answers beacause the question of the nature of time is theological in nature. Science and mathematics deal with the world not with time beacause time cannot be sensed except in our minds. We know what time is but we cannot understand what we know instinctivly. To understand time, is to be God. Stevin Hawkins is not God.
[Message Edited]

Now this is deep!

I'll tell that to my wife when I play GC all day and forget what time it is. I'm not God, right? That's why I can't understand where the time went.

Bill

~SDC~

There is so much I could say to that, but it would only degenerate into a slanging match, so let's agree to differ on that one!



How? This would only be the case if you accept the creationist world view. Which frankly is more full of holes that a planet made of swiss cheese.

Have a happy Easter

Strek, why would you say that? After all, we create whole galaxies in mere few minutes. All you have to do is hit Control+N to see what I'm talkin about.

When people start challenging each other on matters beyond science, I tend to wonder... why? People believe the empirical evidence (existance/reality) to be proof of what they believe. It's all opinion based and will remain that way for longer then we will be alive, that's for certain.

With all the latest wierdness with strings and such I feel that psysics and theology are close to becoming unified anyway.
We're beginning to ask how the universe ultimitly works at the most basic level and are trying to develop a unified theory of everything, whatever the hell that means. How much longer until we reach the end of the road and can actually understand god or whatever else created time. Or perhaps we will just spend an eternity not knowing.

God = the laws of physics. Anything beyond that is wishful thikning.

I wonder how many times that was done before we got into the state we are in now?



Which pre-supposes the existance of God, something which by definition cannot be proven, the whole point of God/religion is that its existance or otherwise is dependant on the faith of the individual.

Of course this modern (re-born) christian attitude that claims true believers will rise up to heaven (just send $50 to Pat Robertson/Jim Swaggart)while everybody else rots in hell is morally dubious and goes completly against the inclusiveness and forgiveness preached by Jesus. I wonder if it is the same religion?

Surely by now, we've been to space, we can see almost right back to the big-bang (which in itself dis-proves Genesis as a literal account) we now know that: All there is on the other side of the sky is more sky
(Thanks to Douglas Adams for that little gem).



I don't see why time needed to be 'created', it is a function of existance itself, a product of entropy, it and its direction are explicit. Time itself came into existance with the big bang, as such it is nonsense to talk of "before the big bang" because there wasn't one. (Suggested reading: Times Arrow by Martin Amis)

[Message Edited]

I am not a creationist in the sense that I believe in Genesis. I am not even a christian for that matter.

The Big Bang was the beginning of time, at least in this universe and gave rise to everything else. It is a thiests dream beacause it leaves plenty of room for god and an athiests dream also beacause is disproves Genesis.

What happened before is unprovable until somehow we can leave this universe and study the beginning and possibly death of universes for ourselve (assuming that's possible!!!).

The Big Bang theory can easily replace Genesis without making god look any less involved in the ultimate creation of the universe.

Hawkins claims that the theory of everything would allow us to know the mind of god.
Together with the unprovable string theory that smacks of a universal network and possibly a universal mind ie god I can see just the direction that pysics is heading.
[Message Edited]

I think that by using sigs we could improve the way of recruiting without spamming.


***********************************************************

Come and Join the GROSS Empire, we are the best, or something like that

Join us http://www.galciv.com/metaverse/empires.asp?id=272

I agree, and I think one recruit sig per thread is sufficeint.

Gee, Never-Never... you only posted to say you think it is alright to spam threads with sig recruitment? This issue has been discussed numerous times, in and out of the Empire forum.

Sig recruitment is fine and welcome. Just next time, please try posting something on topic, so it doesn't look like you are only concerned with recruiting. Threads where someone starts recruiting for their empire tend to get cheesed with lots of other bump posts begging for new recruits from other empire concerned recruiters.

Thanks and have fun with GC!

or Douglas Adams' joking theory of the dimension of Probability, where planets like earth usually lie upon faults in Probablity

I thought that was what was agreed upon.

Bill

~SDC~