Thanksgiving Update Gobble! Gobble!

Give thanks for there is yet another weekly update! I Bryon Karger, after a long hiatus have finally returned (to raucous applause I am sure). This week saw a bunch of tech work and rewriting. For Kepler, a lot of work is being done to insure the efficiency and efficacy of our implementation of solar system and celestial objects. The work continues, but Kepler should be finished either by the end of the month or the first week of next month which makes me incredibly excited. Can't wait for all of you to take a crack at our work these many weeks.

Now a message from Ben covering some of the work he has been doing on glyph and language tech.

Glyph Tech - Connect the DOTS

Hello, everyone! It is I, again, here to give a bit of an update on the progress with the language generation. Some good news: what we have kind of sort of looks like letters now!

With due credit to a friend of the team for the suggestion, this time around the letters follow a connect-the-dots structure, where the glyph will have key points that are connected together with markings, such as lines or curves. This brings to (my mind, at least) the handwriting exercises from grade school, which really break down a letter into their component parts.

Here are some initial results, which already look far better than the noisy things from the last couple weeks:

As before, these are made to be more dynamic, so they can be created in different resolutions, the first being just 16x16, with the second being 64x64.

Continuing forward, the second picture might make clear that a weakness right now is the algorithm’s strong preference for ‘L’ shapes. The plan is, when connecting two key points or dots together, whether a mark travels in a given direction will be based on a series of weights, and additional weights will be given to motifs such as strong horizontal lines or vertical lines. This should help to create more ‘flowing’ shapes like the curves seen in many written languages. Additionally, I want to have certain key features that would be shared between letters, like keeping key points attached near an axis vertically or horizontally, as well as making key points more likely to be placed on existing marks (since characters in languages like English or Arabic are frequently multiple marks connected together).

I think at this point with how the letters look, I’ll also start the beginning of displaying these procgen languages as text and making a more comprehensive translation system.

Actors - Why are the important?

Why are actors important to our vision for Glorious Dawn? What purpose do they server that could not be filled by some nameless and faceless AI in the background?

We are trying to create a Space Opera simulator remember. Space Opera's are full of memorable characters doing memorable things that result in memorable outcomes. This could hardly be said to be possible if we were not to in some way focus on creating a believable simulation for the player to immerse themselves in. This is why the actors are important.

An actor can most easily be compared to a character from Crusader Kings 2. An entity that can have every ability that the player has and will use them as they are dictated by their personality traits, life experiences, etc. Nothing will happen in the game without the influence or direct involvement of an actor. Command a fleet to fly to another system: The admiral that commands that fleet is an actor and will actually be the one that navigates the fleet to that designated point. Command a planet to construct an industrial sector, the planet's governor or most relevant representative will oversee the construction, and so on.

Actors can be in positions of power and authority within governments, corporations, organizations, religions, etc. Or they can be legendary characters with important destinies, have their own goals and loyalties. If you are their best bet at fulfilling these goals you can earn their loyalty and they can serve you for a time. These legends will have impressive stats allowing them to achieve things that would be outside the realm of possibility for the ordinary person, such as launching a missile into a certain thermal exhaust port thus obliterating a deadly battle station.

Conclusion

Thanks again for joining us for this weeks update 8. Progress on Kepler is going along well and we hope to have it out either by the end of the month or by the first week of December. Have a good week and thanksgiving, and remember that a still more glorious dawn awaits.