🔒 Locked

Critique space travel system (interstellar)?

Started by Wavinator Jun 30, 2004 at 9:56 PM 18 replies 4.3k views

Original Post

Jun 30, 2004 at 9:56 PM

Okay, here's part two of the space movement / travel system for the RPG / empire hybrid I've talked about. Sorry it's long, but I'd appreciate whatever you can comment on: Basics In the beginning, when you have a shuttle or fighter, you're restricted to a small part of a solar system. The game world expands when you get the ability to travel quickly through a single system. Then you go interstellar. By then, you've bought the skills to travel through wormholes, got enough cash to pay exorbitant jumpgate tolls, or have the moxy to deal with microverse travel. First, A Word About The Galaxy For those who don't know, it's monster plagued, ruins filled, with empires struggling to rise from the ashes. "Islands" of linked star clusters connected by jumpgate "bridges" form civilized space, and the rest is wild. "Islands" are created by a web of points called cosmodetic nodes (after geodetics, or geodesy). Cosmodetics are the backstory explanation for what you may have seen in games like I-War or Escape Velocity: A pattern of connected stars you have to jump through. (More below) Jumpgates - Rob You Blind, Keep You Safe Jumpgates cap wormholes and make them safe. For this service governments charge anywhere from 5k to 20k in tolls, the average being 10k. One gate can link one star, many stars, or even points in deep space. Whereas cosmodetics connect nearby stars, jumpgates leap hundreds of light years to connect places within a single "island." Gameplay-wise, jumpgates are supposed to ease you into the middle phase of the game. As you go form shuttle / fighter to better ships, this gives a a way of getting around an island quickly, without the normal jump dangers. Gateways are expensive in order to create a strategic money sink as the you move to different mission or trade areas. Missions can earn you "tokens" to pass, NPCs you meet can help you alter the price, you can forge corporate registries, or you can hack their way through a gate after docking with it. Wormholes - For The Truly Adventurous Wild wormholes, which cross anywhere from a few hundred kilometers to hundreds of light years, present a "free" way to travel the galaxy. All a pilot has to do is survive the gravitational twists and turns and they emerge instantly on the other side. Scanning a wormhole or sending a probe reveals the number of skill checks required and potential risks. Probes can tell what's on the other side, and are more likley to uncover hidden risks, such as the chance that the wormhole is unstable, constricted, or has a space-time topology which will cause stat loss or status effects (like dementia or quantum level nerve damage). You gain money for mapping wormholes, especially for finding components of the Mobius Strip, a nearly half a million light year pre-collapse ring around the galaxy. You can also "mine" rare particles by passing through them with special equipment. Jump Travel About 50% of the stars in the galaxy are connected by cosmodetics, the rest are "hinterland". A jumpdrive with a cosmodetic tunneler add-on gets you to the connected parts, and a (more expensive) freejump add-on lets you go anywhere. The advantage of cosmodetics is that the trip costs the same in fuel and time no matter the distance. The drawback is that you have to follow the lines of the web they form. Freejumping allows you to go where you like and find hidden locations, but is limited by a lightyear range of between 2 and 50 LY per jump. Pre-Jump Gameplay Ships jump by dropping into a pocket universe. You can jump at any cosmodetic (often found around L4 or L5 points) if tunneling, or at the system's edge if free jumping. Jumps elsewhere risks a misjump and damage to the drive. Ships jump by priming their drive with exotic fuel. This gives you a view of how rough the ride will be, and allows you to abort (wasting the fuel, though). Different islands offer different challenges, and if known are so labeled on the map. In The Bubble - Monsters, Explosions, And Danger Once you jump, it's nothing but you, your ship and any crew. You can't get out except by rare engineering miracle, taking a jump-drive equipped ship or using an escape pod. The latter two randomly place you along the route. Here you face three major dangers: Particle Incursions, Equipment Failure, and Crew Mutiny / Mayhem. Particle Incursions The bubble you ride in isn't 100% sealed. Ships are exposed to primordial particles from the big bang, anomalies, ancient wormholes, and even Sieger (monster) attacks. A particle incursion is dispelled by having an engineer study it and "cast" a field which removes it. They come in three flavors: Light, medium and severe.

Lights cause a minor status effect like KO or immobilization or minor damage at a single point. You get a long delay before they occur.
Mediums cover anything from a point to a room with an effect, such as radiation, paranoia-inducing effects or gravity inversion.
Severes can cover anything from a point to an entire ship section, can migrate, and have the shortest warning time.

Security sweeps and constant scans help you detect them, but these require crew, equipment and energy. You may also need special resources, which a good engineer can often synthesize or you can carry. Some examples:

A thermal point is discovered to be forming in a cargo bay, giving you the choice of moving things and allowing some fire damage, erecting a force field, devising an emitter which "casts" cold by slowing molecules, or trying to dispel it.
A crewmember goes missing, and a wormhole is discovered in her quarters. It leads to a planet, possibly filled with xenomorphs and will dissipate in 3 days. You can risk a rescue, or seal it.

Incursions can occur anywhere, even inside of equipment or ship systems (the worst being the reactor). Wormholes can link your ship to random locations in the galaxy, allowing decompression, wildlife invasions, contamination or even Siegers to come onboard. You can minimize the trouble, however, by spending less time in jump (faster ship or shorter freejumps), choosing safer routes or eliminating risk altogether by sticking to jumpgates. For balance, incursions never occur more than 3 to 4 game days at a time, and there are never more than 7 points at any one time. Mechanical Failure Along with incursion damage, jumps normally stress systems of a ship. A player who is on top of maintence sweeps will be fine, but this costs extra labor and equipment. If systems break down, this creates more environmental challenges, such as radiation leaks, fuel spills or non-functional atmosphere processors. Mutiny / Mayhem Jumps are prime time for murders, hijacking attempts by passengers, assassination attempts by stowaway enemies and the dreaded mutiny. In the bubble a captain has no recourse but to beat back insurgents or get to an escape pod. The chance for personnel problems is based on the quality of your crew, your own interactions with them, who you place in charge, and who you've associated with or pissed off back in the real world. You counter it by arranging good defenses and failsafes, getting crew loyal, and skipping the seedy or revolution prone ports in space. You can avoid personnel problems by using bots or coldsleep, but bots can't perform the engineering miracles to solve incursions, and if everyone's asleep... what's crawling around your ship waiting for you to wake up? :) Comments?

ToohrVyk

Jul 1, 2004 at 9:19 AM

Jumpgates

You describe these as "tamed" wormholes. So the following questions arise:

- What happens if the control devices are damaged? Does the wormhole return to its natural state? Is it possible to even disrupt the wormhole in such a way that it becomes deadly?
- Is there a legal monopoly on jumpgates, or can anyone set up his own wormhole business (including the player) by either exploring and building around a wormhole, or taking control of a preexistent jumpgate and defending it? (This might be because the jumpgate was lost to monsters or criminals, and you take it back, or because YOU are the criminals).
- What is the chance of a jumpgate being actually used as a weapon (by crashing it into a ship, station or planet, or simply by setting its exit to a faraway, dangerous location)?

Wormholes

- Some NPCs might be tempted to hide near a wormhole, send out distress signals through it, and attack whoever comes out of the wormhole to the rescue.

Pre-jumping

- Is it possible to detect (maybe using ad hoc sensors) when a ship is initiating a jump?
- A given point might be connected to several other cosmodetics, so the helmsman needs a way to select the correct one. Does this require a map? Would it be possible that certain stellar systems try to keep themselves off the map in order to stay hidden?
- In the same fashion, would it be possible to disrupt a jump, either physically (weapon impact changing the course) or through computers (hacking into the map system and swapping the courses)?

Jumping

- While jumping, it seems that the ship enters a pocket universe, only to leave upon arrival. Is it possible for several ships to enter the same pocket universe?
- If that's the case, this would for instance promote the development of jump-environment weapons and fighters, that could exploit the properties of the pocket universe (probes that attract particles or siegers, disrupt the ship's detection until it's too late, or cause the ship to miss its target by maintaining the pocket for too long, or by prematurely disrupting it), or suicide drones that would follow a jumping opponent and detonate while in the pocket universe.
- Also, you could have NPCs offering their protection to anyone jumping: they stay with you in the bubble and take care of any threat to you and your ship. Unless, of course, they're pirates.
- People could build Jumpstations instead: huge space stations the only purpose of which is serving as a harbour for ships during a jump. In the same way as Jumpgates, users would pay a fee, and have their fleet transported through a jump (although they would be free to use the cosmodetic on their own). Decreasing the number of jumps to only one also decreases the risk, and besides, should something happen you'd have your entire fleet on board of the station.
- Pirates could of course board Jumpstations as clients, along with other clients, then attack the other ships while inside the Jumpstation.
- Of course, Jumpstations would be entirely modular, and should one of the ships being transported have a problem (such as the ones you described), and there is a risk that the problem might spread, the associated module is abandoned along with the ship (after a small time allowed for survivors to board the station quarantine HUB).

Cannibal_Coder

Jul 1, 2004 at 9:52 AM

Im sorry I missed the first part of this so if I ask questions you've already answered I appologize in advance...

Is this an MMORPG? or just a single player RPG your thinking of?

Maybe something along the lines of a Freelancer meets Star Treck meets EverQuest love child?

Have you ever heard of the game "JumpGate" by Netdevil? Your idea sounds very similar to that. Jumping from gate to gate to gate to gate to gate got VERY tiresome VERY fast. Hence why, even as a published MMO, they only have around 15 people playing at any given time.

check it out for yourself though if you like (http://www.jossh.com/terminal_IE.html)

Wavinator

Jul 1, 2004 at 3:28 PM

Hey ToohrVyk, thanks for the detailed reply.

Quote:
Original post by ToohrVyk
- What happens if the control devices are damaged? Does the wormhole return to its natural state? Is it possible to even disrupt the wormhole in such a way that it becomes deadly?

If the control device is damaged then the wormhole begins to do damage to the gate, until it eventually digests the entire superstructure. Then the wormhole returns back to being "wild."

I haven't thought of ways to disrupt the wormhole, but it makes sense that if you use anything that can significantly alter gravity, you could change the inner topology. Maybe using a singularity weapon, which you should be able to acquire if you work hard for it.

Quote:

- Is there a legal monopoly on jumpgates, or can anyone set up his own wormhole business (including the player) by either exploring and building around a wormhole, or taking control of a preexistent jumpgate and defending it? (This might be because the jumpgate was lost to monsters or criminals, and you take it back, or because YOU are the criminals).

This answer depends on the empire. You can drop property ranging from satellites to bases anywhere, but whether or not its defended or confiscated depends on your ability to buy a license, which in turn is based on NPCs you meet and your reputation. Jumpgates are in the ten billion credit range to build, though, because of their massive size and advanced tech (if they were cheap, they should be everywhere). But you can capture them, destroy them, or liberate them, yes, and as you play some will fall into the hands of monsters or pirate cartels.

Quote:

- What is the chance of a jumpgate being actually used as a weapon (by crashing it into a ship, station or planet, or simply by setting its exit to a faraway, dangerous location)?

The wormholes are such a formidable phenomenon that you don't get to set their exit, you just choose to use them as is. They're like the Amazon or Nile-- you use them, but you don't make them (super advanced cultures are a different story, they go around building Panama Canals, but compared to them the player is a spear chucker).

Quote:

- Some NPCs might be tempted to hide near a wormhole, send out distress signals through it, and attack whoever comes out of the wormhole to the rescue.

Nice. I'll make sure this scenario goes in.

Quote:

- Is it possible to detect (maybe using ad hoc sensors) when a ship is initiating a jump?

Yes, a deep scan of the drives (which takes power & time) tells where the ship might have been, and when it charges up, the same can tell where its going. This ties in with stealth and trade as well as combat, because it determines if you can be tracked, which alters semi-random stats on the other side.

Quote:

- A given point might be connected to several other cosmodetics, so the helmsman needs a way to select the correct one. Does this require a map? Would it be possible that certain stellar systems try to keep themselves off the map in order to stay hidden?

Yes and yes. The map should be very clear to help you choose. As to the hidden systems: IRL, stars are visible, so it doesn't make much sense that they'd be hidden. However, there are so many stars that only the relevant ones are on the player's map, and that map is spotty and filled with gaps, and this makes for hidden trade, mission or expansion opportunities.

Quote:

- In the same fashion, would it be possible to disrupt a jump, either physically (weapon impact changing the course) or through computers (hacking into the map system and swapping the courses)?

There's a couple of scenarios here: The quality of the jump drive determines how dangerous the jump is, so you can directly target it and give a captain the choice of facing down an enemy or risking the elements.

Nominally, if a ship is trying to escape, it has to deal with blockades around the jump points. But a captain can risk a misjump and drive damage by jumping anywhere in system.

As for hacking, because this is so powerful, you have either an agent onboard or something planted on the ship (a possibility when you pay for drydock repairs). Ship systems aren't exposed to the outside world, they're more like self-contained military networks IRL where you have to tap the lines themselves.

Quote:

- While jumping, it seems that the ship enters a pocket universe, only to leave upon arrival. Is it possible for several ships to enter the same pocket universe?

Yes, fighters and shuttles can piggyback on capital ships, and there are ferries and jump carriers as well. However, because this mode is designed solely for you to deal with your crew and environmental challenges, and this has to be managable, ships you carry with you are in their own inaccessible parts of the microverse (think a soap bubble with smaller bubbles within).

This is for gameplay balance: I think it's important to stick to the idea that there are only so many problems every few days when you jump. Later in the game, you'll have a bigger ship with more decks and more crew, so you'll have your hands full. Making other ships accessible means you multiply the amount of management the player has to do. Instead, I'd rather this fall to the NPC captain the player hires for other vessels and the resources they give.

Quote:

- If that's the case, this would for instance promote the development of jump-environment weapons and fighters, that could exploit the properties of the pocket universe (probes that attract particles or siegers, disrupt the ship's detection until it's too late, or cause the ship to miss its target by maintaining the pocket for too long, or by prematurely disrupting it), or suicide drones that would follow a jumping opponent and detonate while in the pocket universe.

These are all great ideas, but they'll just need to be things that have to get planted on the ship, rather than that come from the outside. Rather than probes, they'd be bombs, and you'd be vulnerable when docking for any reason. The counter to this would be paying and outfitting good security personnel, and toggling certain protocols / policies onboard your ship (such as lockdown).

Quote:

- Also, you could have NPCs offering their protection to anyone jumping: they stay with you in the bubble and take care of any threat to you and your ship. Unless, of course, they're pirates.

Yes, I think there should be commercial ferry services, some with not so good reputations. Finding out that a shady, cutrate service actually delivers you to slavers would be a surprise. :)

Quote:

- People could build Jumpstations instead: huge space stations the only purpose of which is serving as a harbour for ships during a jump. In the same way as Jumpgates, users would pay a fee, and have their fleet transported through a jump (although they would be free to use the cosmodetic on their own).

I like this idea because I've been looking for a way to enhance space station ownership in the game (which is the same as a ship that doesn't move, with the mechanism that you've got to attract business to you).

Storywise, though, the more mass, the more expensive the jump. However, there are artifacts you can discover that will lower the price. I think I'll definitely add a few roving space stations with one of these artifacts (stealable, of course); and sprinkle a couple more in dangerous, monster infested ruins.

Quote:

Decreasing the number of jumps to only one also decreases the risk, and besides, should something happen you'd have your entire fleet on board of the station.

You'd have an impressive amount of territory to deal with, but again, no more than a few problem spots throughout. And the idea that the ships that pay to dock might be filled with raiders is very cool.

Quote:

- Of course, Jumpstations would be entirely modular, and should one of the ships being transported have a problem (such as the ones you described), and there is a risk that the problem might spread, the associated module is abandoned along with the ship (after a small time allowed for survivors to board the station quarantine HUB).

Since I'm going for giving you the ability to build ships out of LEGO-like modules anyway, this fits perfectly!

[Edited by - Wavinator on July 1, 2004 3:28:17 PM]

Wavinator

Jul 1, 2004 at 3:45 PM

Quote:
Original post by Cannibal_Coder
Im sorry I missed the first part of this so if I ask questions you've already answered I appologize in advance...

No worries, it's right here if you're interested.

Quote:

Is this an MMORPG? or just a single player RPG your thinking of?

Single player primarily, but I'm shooting for multiplayer co-op if I have the resources.

Quote:

Have you ever heard of the game "JumpGate" by Netdevil? Your idea sounds very similar to that.

Yes, I'm mining well established sci-fi tropes, but putting my own spin on them, so I expect there to be many out there. (It's the sci-fi equivalent of elves and goblins) :)

Quote:

Jumping from gate to gate to gate to gate to gate got VERY tiresome VERY fast.

This is invaluable feedback, thanks. A few questions, since you've played it:

Was there any type of time acceleration or quick map travel to speed up getting from place to place?

Was there any character interaction onboard ships while they were travelling? Morale, loyalty, intrigue, mutiny, environmental puzzles, etc.? IOW, what was there to do while going from gate to gate (There was nothing in X2 and I-War but to drive from one trade / combat site to another, though lots of dead space-- I got so sick of that that I quit).

Did you have to follow the gates, or were there the risk of wormholes and the ability to jump where you want, as I'm proposing?

Quote:

Hence why, even as a published MMO, they only have around 15 people playing at any given time.

Haha, this is why I avoid MMO's like the plague. A single player or co-op game is much more selfish and caters directly to you.

Fruny

Jul 1, 2004 at 4:28 PM

How accurate are tunnelling jumps? Wormholes? Jumpgates?

Even a 1% scatter on exit could have consequences (not to mention your run-off-the-mill blind jump). Make sure your navigator/computer is up to the task (and not dead or damaged).

What is a Jumpgate's throughput? Bandwidth?
Is it one-way, half-duplex or full-duplex?
How big is it physically? (limit on max ship size)
How are they powered? Maintained?

Do you have to build those attributes up from the basic Wormhole? Or down for national security? Power budgeting? Or as a trade-off.

Nancy Kress' "Probability trilogy" had gates with an interesting property: their destination is not just associated with the gate, but with the pair ship/gate. That is, the first time a ship goes through a given get, its destination becomes set to that of the last ship to go through that gate.

Ship 1's gate A destination is gate B.
Ship 2's gate A destination is gate C.
Ship 3 and 4 have never been through gate A.

1 goes through A and reaches B
3 goes through A and reaches B - and is now set A->B
2 goes through A and reaches C
4 goes through A and reaches C - and is now set A->C

Applied to the game, a second-hand ship's value might be dependent on its gate associations. It might also be useful to 'force' the player to switch ships for a mission, or to maintain several ships. It can be also used as a plot device to separate groups (1,3 to B, 2,4 to C), or to open new areas (alien ship 5 comes D->A, then back A->D, a virgin ship immediately following would discover D).

Wavinator

Jul 1, 2004 at 7:09 PM

Quote:
Original post by Fruny
How accurate are tunnelling jumps? Wormholes? Jumpgates?

Even a 1% scatter on exit could have consequences (not to mention your run-off-the-mill blind jump). Make sure your navigator/computer is up to the task (and not dead or damaged).

Good question. The answer is that they're only as inaccurate as it would make for interesting gameplay. ;)

Jumpgates are flawless because they're the only fallback you have if you're sick of mutinies, monsters and mechanical breakdowns, and they allow you to get a taste of the universe at the sub 500,000 credit range. Generally, that will be what it would take to fully outfit a middle of the road ship to travel off the main jumpgate path.

There are two RPG dynamics for jumping, the skills of the crew and health of the ship. Both of these act as modifiers when jumping, but they either make the ride rougher or possible / not possible.

I had thought about things like obstructed exit points in areas where there is war or disaster, but I'm not sure what fun gameplay would be dealing with it. You could play a minigame to pick an exit point away from debris, or to correct your course on exit, but does that add anything?

Quote:

What is a Jumpgate's throughput? Bandwidth?
Is it one-way, half-duplex or full-duplex?

:) I'm glad you asked. Some wormholes are massively contorted in one direction, making them one way only. The amount of material they can accept is unlimited, however some are rated only for smaller ships due to constricted topology.

Quote:

How big is it physically? (limit on max ship size)

They vary in size, and this contributes to the expense of caping them. Some are only a few centimeters across and therefore only good for FTL communication or microprobes. Others can be kilometers across. The average is between 10 and 1000 meters.

Quote:

How are they powered? Maintained?

Fusion or antimatter, depending on the tech level, primary satisfies gate power requirements, but they need exotic material known as "strangematter" to keep running (this stuff can be found in highly dangerous anomalies in space.

Quote:

Do you have to build those attributes up from the basic Wormhole?

Hmmm... I hadn't thought about upgrading a jumpgate. Kind of cool. Also, this might fit with the whole "field emitting" gameplay that engineers can do.

Quote:

Or down for national security?

I like this. Constricting a gateway would be a perfect way of locking down a system. But it should cost resources, and be a rare event.

Quote:

Power budgeting? Or as a trade-off.

As something the player could get into (like canal speculation in the 1800s) tradeoffs would be a pretty neat idea. Maybe the smaller gates are powered by fusion, which is cheap and unlimited. But the big cap-ship gates require antimatter, which must be collected and refined.

Quote:

Nancy Kress' "Probability trilogy" had gates with an interesting property:

Yikes! How would you as a player manage such a concept. The map would change based on what ship you had. You would then have to check across different ships to see what map they were configured for!

Quote:

It might also be useful to 'force' the player to switch ships for a mission, or to maintain several ships. It can be also used as a plot device to separate groups (1,3 to B, 2,4 to C), or to open new areas (alien ship 5 comes D->A, then back A->D, a virgin ship immediately following would discover D).

I think I've got a few more intuitive mechanisms for causing you to switch ships. Stealth, for one, and interstellar FTL speed for another. (The concept you mention sounds cool, though, I'll have to pick up Kriess, I've never read her-- I just don't see it being playable unless there were only a few ships).

Spoonbender

Jul 1, 2004 at 7:11 PM

Hehe, I love the stuff during a jump. You'll have to be careful not to throw too many problems on the player every time he makes a jump though. I think when you do a jump, those dangers should be unusual events. If you have to sort through 3 accidents every time you make a jump, you'd most likely get very tired of jumping very soon.

But if it *usually* goes without incident (and without you having to sit and wait for hours. There had better be some time acceleration during this ;)), but occasionally you run into one or two of these accidents, it could be very interesting to play through. I just think you should be careful not to make them happen on every jump. There's nothing worse than being forced through the same repetetive actions over and over.

Quote:
- A given point might be connected to several other cosmodetics, so the helmsman needs a way to select the correct one. Does this require a map?

How about making this an active skill somehow? If you enter a point that's connected to multiple others, you'd have to manually navigate towards the right exit when you enter. Assuming that when entering a cosmodetic node, you wouldn't find normal empty space, but rather some freaky place tossing your ship here and there, and with various debris and odd lightning, stuff pulling your ship towards it, and, well, all sorts of weird anomalies making it difficult to navigate. Then just when you enter, you'd have to try to get through this, and into the correct cosmodetic "link". If you get sucked into another exit, tough luck... You're going to have to take a bit of a detour then... :)

Wavinator

Jul 1, 2004 at 9:15 PM

Quote:
Original post by Spoonster
Hehe, I love the stuff during a jump. You'll have to be careful not to throw too many problems on the player every time he makes a jump though. I think when you do a jump, those dangers should be unusual events. If you have to sort through 3 accidents every time you make a jump, you'd most likely get very tired of jumping very soon.

I think this point you make is crucial. It really needs, as much as possible, to be up to you how many problems there are.

Let's say you don't want to deal with problems at all: You stick to jumpgates and go with a robotic crew.

If you can tolerate a little more risk, you get bots and stick to safe patches of space, taking care not to cross regions that are marked on the map as problem prone.

Now, if, on every jump, you like NPC social interaction, then you get a crew but still stay in relatively safe regions.

Finally, if you want environmental puzzles AND social interaction, you go wherever on the map you like.

Quote:

But if it *usually* goes without incident (and without you having to sit and wait for hours. There had better be some time acceleration during this ;)), but occasionally you run into one or two of these accidents, it could be very interesting to play through.

It sounds like what you'd probably want is a ship with a small crew and automation to fill out any larger crew requirements (so you could level up to a battleship), and maybe a mix of jumpgate travel and moderately difficult regions.

However, this would imply (in this example of how you might play) that you could not get into the more difficult "storm tossed" regions of the galaxy. Would that be unacceptable?

Quote:

I just think you should be careful not to make them happen on every jump. There's nothing worse than being forced through the same repetetive actions over and over.

I'm looking at this like combat, which people accept as repeating again and again: If the situations have different challenge levels, different strategic tradeoffs, and a wide variety of results, don't people forget about repetition?

Quote:

Quote:
- A given point might be connected to several other cosmodetics, so the helmsman needs a way to select the correct one. Does this require a map?

How about making this an active skill somehow? If you enter a point that's connected to multiple others, you'd have to manually navigate towards the right exit when you enter. Assuming that when entering a cosmodetic node, you wouldn't find normal empty space, but rather some freaky place tossing your ship here and there, and with various debris and odd lightning, stuff pulling your ship towards it, and, well, all sorts of weird anomalies making it difficult to navigate. Then just when you enter, you'd have to try to get through this, and into the correct cosmodetic "link". If you get sucked into another exit, tough luck... You're going to have to take a bit of a detour then... :)

What you describe is actually what I'm going to do for a "subspace," which I haven't posted about yet. It's basically the same as flying in normal space, but has different, much brighter backgrounds and strange glowing shapes.

Getting from cosmodetic to cosmodetic is actually going to be easy, but it's surviving the trip that matters.

Since you have the ability to customize the interior of your ship, build your ship out of parts and pick your crew, and these crew have different personalities which control how they interact with each other, it seems you should get a "sailing voyage" mode where the rest of the universe temporarily goes away. Otherwise, you're overwhelmed.

Mayrel

Jul 1, 2004 at 10:00 PM

Are all wormholes naturally occuring, or are they constructed? Or are they be both?

If both, are there any interesting differences between the two varieties?

Can one construct 'mini-wormholes'? Perhaps small interplanetary ones. Without such, it seems there'd be a lower limit on how large and integrated a solar system's economic structure could become.

Are constructed wormholes less permanent than natural wormholes? Can you widen the aperture?

Are the ends of wormholes movable? If not, is the wormhole network absolutely unmoving, or does it move along with the stars as they orbit the galaxy? If they are, perhaps the energy required to move a wormhole is proportional to its length.

Do wormholes represent a Galactic Standard Time, or is the time different at each end of wormhole? Can it be yesterday at the other end of a wormhole? If it can, what happens if you try to double-back via another route in less than a day?

If wormholes can be time machines and if the ends are T seconds apart, then they can't be closer to each other than T light-seconds. Hawkings suggests that such a wormhole would close itself automatically. If wormholes move along with stars, then the fact that a wormhole between two stars moving towards each other would collapse at a known point in time could be a useful plot device for some kind of quest.

Quote:

Jump TravelAbout 50% of the stars in the galaxy are connected by cosmodetics, the rest are "hinterland".

Is that just a nice even number, or is there an in-game reason why it's 50%?

Quote:

In The Bubble - Monsters, Explosions, And Danger
Once you jump, it's nothing but you, your ship and any crew. You can't get out except by rare engineering miracle, taking a jump-drive equipped ship or using an escape pod. The latter two randomly place you along the route.

Is the escape pod magical out of compassion for the player, or is there some in-game reason for why it can leave in the middle of a jump?

Later you say wormholes can link your ship to random locations in the galaxy. Is it possible, by accident or design, to have your ship leave a jump at a random location in the galaxy? Are the 'advanced civilisations' able to do such?

Quote:

You can avoid personnel problems by using bots or coldsleep, but bots can't perform the engineering miracles to solve incursions, and if everyone's asleep... what's crawling around your ship waiting for you to wake up? :)

My missing socks? They've gotta be somewhere. [wink]

Quote:

Comments?

How do jumpgates inure wormholes against particles and monsters?

Did you make a post that gives a general overview of the whole game? Or a site that collates everything? *hint hint*

Quote:
Original post by Fruny
Nancy Kress' "Probability trilogy" had gates with an interesting property: their destination is not just associated with the gate, but with the pair ship/gate. That is, the first time a ship goes through a given get, its destination becomes set to that of the last ship to go through that gate.

I've got to wonder: how did the wormhole get it's original destination?

Quote:

It can be also used as a plot device to separate groups (1,3 to B, 2,4 to C), or to open new areas (alien ship 5 comes D->A, then back A->D, a virgin ship immediately following would discover D).

Since each 'jump point' can be connected to several cosmodetics, perhaps each cosmodetic should have a certain visibility rating.

With a high rating, it's easy to see it. With a medium rating, only a skilled navigator would be able to detect it. With a low rating, it's completely invisible unless you already know it's there.

When somebody uses a medium or low visibility cosmodetic, it would temporarily become high or medium visibility, respectively. Then you get something like this feature, whereby you can follow a ship that uses a hard-to-find cosmodetic to a new area, or an old area that had a longer route.

Edit: Ouch! Mismatching quote-tag badness.

Wavinator

Jul 1, 2004 at 11:01 PM

Quote:
Original post by Mayrel
Are all wormholes naturally occuring, or are they constructed? Or are they be both?

99% are natural, but the ones that make up the Mobius Strip that lets you circle the galaxy in a lifetime were manufactured by a cooperative of elder civilizations (now devoured by Siegers).

Quote:

If both, are there any interesting differences between the two varieties?

:) Yup. The parts of the Mobius Strip you find earn you more the farther they are away, admit any ship type, have no problems, and act like jumpgates even though there is none (this is why they're tricky to find).

Quote:

Can one construct 'mini-wormholes'?

Not with the tech available. However, I'd be happy to consider a limited charge alien artifact.

Quote:

Perhaps small interplanetary ones. Without such, it seems there'd be a lower limit on how large and integrated a solar system's economic structure could become.

Modern cultures use the next best thing, interplanetary FTL drives and "syscats" (system catapults). I've posted about that here if you're interested.

Quote:

Are constructed wormholes less permanent than natural wormholes? Can you widen the aperture?

I don't mind gateways being able to be constricted. But I'm thinking that widening should be extremely difficult to do simply because it gives the galaxy a bit of strategic shape in terms of war and trade. By limiting it even for the NPCs and AI empires, this means that there are regions which could logically accomodate smaller ships over capital-class ships in terms of combat, stealth and trade.

The analogy would be shark infested waters around an island. There could be monsters around a region and only one safe way in: Via wormhole. If it's a small aperature, then at least its a region where the fighting / trading / stealthing is different.

Quote:

Are the ends of wormholes movable?

Not by the player. Unstable ones move randomly, though.

Quote:

If not, is the wormhole network absolutely unmoving, or does it move along with the stars as they orbit the galaxy? If they are, perhaps the energy required to move a wormhole is proportional to its length.

Interesting question. I'd say that the wormholes obey massive gravity, and as such can be disturbed by passing stars and such, even changing their own interior topography to reflect changes in the space it is in and tunnels through.

So over millenia, the network would have reorganized itself, some wormholes drifting away from systems, others drifting in, still others collapsing or reforming.

Quote:

Do wormholes represent a Galactic Standard Time, or is the time different at each end of wormhole? Can it be yesterday at the other end of a wormhole? If it can, what happens if you try to double-back via another route in less than a day?

The way the AI generated empires work ACTUALLY would support time travel, but I'm leaving that one alone for right now. If I have the resources later on to consider it, I'd probably be strictly an accident where the wormhole collapses, leaving you in the future or past. I'm not sure most players are ready for causality violations! :D

Quote:

If wormholes can be time machines and if the ends are T seconds apart, then they can't be closer to each other than T light-seconds. Hawkings suggests that such a wormhole would close itself automatically. If wormholes move along with stars, then the fact that a wormhole between two stars moving towards each other would collapse at a known point in time could be a useful plot device for some kind of quest.

Very nice, I'll find room for this at the very least in some scientist you meet, if not a full-on mission. It adds atmosphere!

Quote:

Quote:

Jump TravelAbout 50% of the stars in the galaxy are connected by cosmodetics, the rest are "hinterland".

Is that just a nice even number, or is there an in-game reason why it's 50%?

No, that's strictly gameplay balance so that 1/2 is potentially civilizable, and the other is wilds. But for story's sake I could say that the center of the spiral arms are more likely to form cosmodetics than the gravitationally chaotic interior or "infertile" rim.

Quote:

Is the escape pod magical out of compassion for the player, or is there some in-game reason for why it can leave in the middle of a jump?

LOL! :) I love that question. To tell the truth, it's strictly so that the player always has an out if they have a pod. In a larger ship, it sort-of makes sense if they're carrying a jumpdrive equipped ship-- but what's a small ship to do?

Storywise, I think I'll pull out my infamous Larry Niven can of baloneyium and say that the escape pods have a jump drive core which consumes itself to escape the bubble, making it a one time use object.

Quote:

Later you say wormholes can link your ship to random locations in the galaxy. Is it possible, by accident or design, to have your ship leave a jump at a random location in the galaxy? Are the 'advanced civilisations' able to do such?

The wormholes that form inside the microverse are small aperature, conveniently say deck height or smaller. The ship itself can't leave, but if a large enough one formed in a shuttle bay, you theoretically could fly through it or send a terrain vehicle through it.

(I shouldn't have said that last part, now I've got to think about the effect of wormholes on vehicles and people... maybe the Stargate SG-1 approach is best... it just happens).

Quote:

My missing socks? They've gotta be somewhere. [wink]

LOL! That should be an easter egg text. "Aha! After all these centuries, you have answered the question that has plagued mankind forever..." and then [You find a wormhole in this sock drawer.]

Quote:

How do jumpgates inure wormholes against particles and monsters?

They pass right through (think "under") the problem spots. Traveling by microverse is wholely different than by wormhole: Storywise, you're said to be both inside and outside the universe.

Quote:

Did you make a post that gives a general overview of the whole game? Or a site that collates everything? *hint hint*

:P Sorry, I'm working on that part. I've been posting about this full on for a number of months. The synopsis, though, is that it's a role playing game with combat, stealth, trade and crew interaction as the main focus. The highlights are a universe that changes and that you can change; gameplay as both a ship or a person; and different playable races who each have a unique play style. I'm going full bore on design before I try to pull people together, and should have a website up in the next couple of months.

Quote:
Original post by Fruny
Since each 'jump point' can be connected to several cosmodetics, perhaps each cosmodetic should have a certain visibility rating.

With a high rating, it's easy to see it. With a medium rating, only a skilled navigator would be able to detect it. With a low rating, it's completely invisible unless you already know it's there.

I'm not against adding such a dynamic, it would give more meaning to leveling up your navigator and ship's sensors. It would also improve the Sims like gameplay of assigning your crew to different tasks.

Quote:

When somebody uses a medium or low visibility cosmodetic, it would temporarily become high or medium visibility, respectively. Then you get something like this feature, whereby you can follow a ship that uses a hard-to-find cosmodetic to a new area, or an old area that had a longer route.

Yes, I don't see any drawback to this, as it provides a mechanism for secret areas.

Here's what I'll do: The closer you are to civilization, the more likely the nodes will be visible or marked with beacons (people before you would have found them). Farther out, however, it's a different story.

And you should get rewards for mapping them as well.

Now, storywise, mose cosmodetics are supposed to be in gravitationally balanced areas (L4 and L5 points). But since they're not in all, it would be plausible that a new point would appear in a place you've already been, simply because you've gotten scanners or it's been announced as a semi-random event.

Kars

Jul 2, 2004 at 9:53 AM

Worm holes: natural vs. created
I personally think it would be better if all wormholes were naturally occurring. Jump gates are created by constructing the gate on one end then sending the material through to the other end to create the other half of the gate. Once you have "tamed" the worm hole you then have to move each end to what ever place you like.

You could also add additional limitations to worm hole placement like if you move the gates too far away the worm hole snaps destroying both gates and maybe doing some other fun stuff like collapsing into black holes, turning into starts, etc. Something very problematic if it happens in an inhabited start system.

You might even be able to work in worm hold age and/or intensity rating:
baby - can stretch to medium distances and have high "turbulence".
young - can stretch to long distances and have high "turbulence"
mature - can stretch to long distances and have medium "turbulence"
old - can stretch to medium distances and have low "turbulence"
ancient - can stretch to short distances and have low "turbulence"

This could potentially lead to missions:

Client wants install a jump gate to his newly acquired resort system. Find the worm hole, build the gates, protect the gates, etc.
Worm hole is about to go from mature to old and needs to be moved before it snaps.

In The Bubble question:
Are the bubbles created at the time the ship enters? Or are they like train cars where you have to hop on an existing bubble?
If created, do you have to maintain them once inside with special drives?

Which is moving, the bubble or the ships through the bubble?
i.e. do you hop on and enjoy the ride or do you have to actually move like you would in normal space?

Spoonbender

Jul 2, 2004 at 10:36 AM

Quote:

I'm looking at this like combat, which people accept as repeating again and again: If the situations have different challenge levels, different strategic tradeoffs, and a wide variety of results, don't people forget about repetition?

I don't think so. Combat can get old too.
Think of random encounters in various RPG games. That's basically what this is. When you play a RPG where you can't go *anywhere* without having to fight through 2 or 3 encounters, it does get very repetetive. Most people I've heard of were close to going mad because of that in FF7, and that game wasn't even all that bad, compared to others.
When you just wanted to walk from town a to town b, which would normally require 3 minutes, and then end up having to fight through 40 minutes worth of combat, it does get a bit frustrating... ;)
At least if you have to do it *every* time you travel. If it happens sometimes only, it can be a fun break off from the usual travel.
If you know that sometimes you can get there undisturbed, but occasionally you'll run into problems that'll take more time, then there's a bit of variety. An element of risk, I suppose. Either you get to move on with your game almost immediately, or you'll have to spend time in some minigame, fighting off these hazards.
Then you can travel and hope to be able to get to your destination soon, instead of fearing travel because it *always* means an hour wasted fighting the usual hazards.

Guess that's just something you'll have to figure out later on, when playtesting. But my guess is that you'd go nuts if you had to do this every time you jump anywhere.

Wavinator

Jul 2, 2004 at 12:21 PM

Quote:
Original post by Spoonster
Think of random encounters in various RPG games. That's basically what this is. When you play a RPG where you can't go *anywhere* without having to fight through 2 or 3 encounters, it does get very repetetive.

You're right. I was thinking that this was like the tasks in the Sims, and it seems that people never got tired of doing that. My thought was that instead of dealing with status bars for a person, you'd be dealing with timer situations onboard a ship.

But in rethinking this, maybe the challenges should happen only about 1/3 of the time in most cases, then maybe 1/2 the time in dangerous areas.

For the balance of the time, you can either hit the "quickly pass time" button or walk your character around your ships training, playing a few mini-games or building up loyalty via interacting with NPCs.

OTOH, if you've made a big trade or are on a mission or just want to explore, you can be left alone to do that.

Quote:

When you just wanted to walk from town a to town b, which would normally require 3 minutes, and then end up having to fight through 40 minutes worth of combat, it does get a bit frustrating... ;)

Shame on me, I actually saw this happen to a friend, and didn't make the connection! :)

Quote:

Guess that's just something you'll have to figure out later on, when playtesting. But my guess is that you'd go nuts if you had to do this every time you jump anywhere.

I was beginning to question what happens to the pace of the game if you're on a string of missions, so thanks for helping me to decide.

Of course it's tough to estimate without playtesting, but what do you think about it happening once in every 3 or 4 trips? Should it be even less?

[Edited by - Wavinator on July 2, 2004 12:21:10 PM]

Wavinator

Jul 2, 2004 at 12:39 PM

Quote:
Original post by Kars
Worm holes: natural vs. created
I personally think it would be better if all wormholes were naturally occurring. Jump gates are created by constructing the gate on one end then sending the material through to the other end to create the other half of the gate. Once you have "tamed" the worm hole you then have to move each end to what ever place you like.

It looks like there's some interest in wormholes here! :) I'd better put some more work into them!

Quote:

You could also add additional limitations to worm hole placement like if you move the gates too far away the worm hole snaps destroying both gates and maybe doing some other fun stuff like collapsing into black holes, turning into starts, etc.

Initially, my thought was that wormholes were just there, and nobody would be interested in them. But it sounds like there should be some mining gameplay, as well as "road building," and missions.

Quote:

You might even be able to work in worm hold age and/or intensity rating:
baby - can stretch to medium distances and have high "turbulence".
young - can stretch to long distances and have high "turbulence"
mature - can stretch to long distances and have medium "turbulence"
old - can stretch to medium distances and have low "turbulence"
ancient - can stretch to short distances and have low "turbulence"

I like this system, because it makes the older wormholes more valuable but less movable. It might be pretty freaky to be transporting around some sort of wormhole container which has to be delivered in a certain amount of time.

Quote:

In The Bubble question:
Are the bubbles created at the time the ship enters? Or are they like train cars where you have to hop on an existing bubble?
If created, do you have to maintain them once inside with special drives?

You generate a microverse around your ship, then its properties cause it to translate at FTL speeds while you enjoy the ride. You have to keep power going to the jump drive, or the bubble will "detach" from the universe and go floating on forever. But otherwise, you just enjoy the ride and deal with any challenges from particles, malfunctions or crew.

TechnoGoth

Jul 2, 2004 at 10:36 PM

Quote:
Original post by Wavinator
Okay, here's part two of the space movement / travel system for the RPG / empire hybrid I've talked about. Sorry it's long, but I'd appreciate whatever you can comment on:

That's okay, posts have to be along to portray an entire idea.

Quote:

Basics
In the beginning, when you have a shuttle or fighter, you're restricted to a small part of a solar system. The game world expands when you get the ability to travel quickly through a single system. Then you go interstellar. By then, you've bought the skills to travel through wormholes, got enough cash to pay exorbitant jumpgate tolls, or have the moxy to deal with microverse travel.

You mention skills for intersetllar travel, what sort of skills effect this, if there a number of diffrent skills such as wormhole charting, wormhole navigation, Microverse mental conditioning and such? One skill I'd like to see if its not there is backwater navigation, which planning a travel route through seldom used and potentially hazordous areas to arrive at a destination undetected and unexpected.

Quote:

Jumpgates - Rob You Blind, Keep You Safe
Jumpgates cap wormholes and make them safe. For this service governments charge anywhere from 5k to 20k in tolls, the average being 10k. One gate can link one star, many stars, or even points in deep space. Whereas cosmodetics connect nearby stars, jumpgates leap hundreds of light years to connect places within a single "island."

Gameplay-wise, jumpgates are supposed to ease you into the middle phase of the game. As you go form shuttle / fighter to better ships, this gives a a way of getting around an island quickly, without the normal jump dangers.

Gateways are expensive in order to create a strategic money sink as the you move to different mission or trade areas. Missions can earn you "tokens" to pass, NPCs you meet can help you alter the price, you can forge corporate registries, or you can hack their way through a gate after docking with it.

Is there any kind of passport or visa system in place? Can freely enter or exit any jumpgate connected system? Or would I have to contact an empire's embassy for premission to travel into there territory. If so what can measures due the jump gates use to enforce this? You also mention that jumpgates can connect to multiple destinations, is this connection simultanious or does the wormhole connect to diffrent destination base on a fixed rotation? Meaning that the wormhole only leads form A to B on Thursdays, Monday to wednesday it connects to C and the rest of the week it leads to D.

Quote:

Wormholes - For The Truly Adventurous
Wild wormholes, which cross anywhere from a few hundred kilometers to hundreds of light years, present a "free" way to travel the galaxy. All a pilot has to do is survive the gravitational twists and turns and they emerge instantly on the other side.

Scanning a wormhole or sending a probe reveals the number of skill checks required and potential risks. Probes can tell what's on the other side, and are more likley to uncover hidden risks, such as the chance that the wormhole is unstable, constricted, or has a space-time topology which will cause stat loss or status effects (like dementia or quantum level nerve damage).

You gain money for mapping wormholes, especially for finding components of the Mobius Strip, a nearly half a million light year pre-collapse ring around the galaxy. You can also "mine" rare particles by passing through them with special equipment.

Due I need special sensors to detect wormholes? Is it possible to temporarily tame a wormhole? Perhaps by sending a guided probe carrying heavy mass packets or a singurlarity through the wormhole to a destination, in order make the journy for my vessel safer?

Also if possible to encounter other objects in worm holes or even jumpgates? Such as ships, asteroids or even rouge moons?

Quote:

Jump Travel
About 50% of the stars in the galaxy are connected by cosmodetics, the rest are "hinterland". A jumpdrive with a cosmodetic tunneler add-on gets you to the connected parts, and a (more expensive) freejump add-on lets you go anywhere.

The advantage of cosmodetics is that the trip costs the same in fuel and time no matter the distance. The drawback is that you have to follow the lines of the web they form. Freejumping allows you to go where you like and find hidden locations, but is limited by a lightyear range of between 2 and 50 LY per jump.

Can a jump be initied anywhere? Or do ship have to be certain distance away from any large gravity wells, such as outside of a solar system. If they have to be a certain distance from gravity wells then that could add another strategic area to battle. In which pirates and law enforcement release gravity nets inorder to prevent ships from escaping by jumping.

Quote:

Pre-Jump Gameplay
Ships jump by dropping into a pocket universe. You can jump at any cosmodetic (often found around L4 or L5 points) if tunneling, or at the system's edge if free jumping. Jumps elsewhere risks a misjump and damage to the drive.

Ships jump by priming their drive with exotic fuel. This gives you a view of how rough the ride will be, and allows you to abort (wasting the fuel, though). Different islands offer different challenges, and if known are so labeled on the map.

In The Bubble - Monsters, Explosions, And Danger
Once you jump, it's nothing but you, your ship and any crew. You can't get out except by rare engineering miracle, taking a jump-drive equipped ship or using an escape pod. The latter two randomly place you along the route.

Here you face three major dangers: Particle Incursions, Equipment Failure, and Crew Mutiny / Mayhem.

It might be a good idea to include an expensive disposable device called an interdimensional anchor that can be actived in case of an emercany to drag a vessel back to normal space.

Also there comes the matter of traveling, it sounds as if it is a fixed destination trip? Meaning that one you determine the destination and active the jumpdrive you can't alter the path or destination, all you can do is wait till you return to normal space. That brings in the matter of miscalucated destinations, it would be funny at least the first time to initiate a jump and then halfway there get a message from the nav officer saying "Sorry, sir it looks like I forgot to carry the one, instead of arrive at the planet of the fuzzy bunies, where going to arrive in the middle of a system undergoing a massive seiger upwelling."

Lastly would I be right in assuming that jump travel is leaves a vessle blind, deaf and dumb will in the bubble? Meaning that they can't detect, or communicate anything outside the bubble.

Quote:

Particle Incursions
The bubble you ride in isn't 100% sealed. Ships are exposed to primordial particles from the big bang, anomalies, ancient wormholes, and even Sieger (monster) attacks.

It might be good if the bubble's effectiveness is determined by a component that is part of the engine. So depending on that component will determine how effective the bubble is, a cheap shield might get you jump traveling sooner but your face a higher risk of particle incursion.

Wavinator

Jul 3, 2004 at 4:42 AM

Quote:
Original post by TechnoGoth
You mention skills for intersetllar travel, what sort of skills effect this, if there a number of diffrent skills such as wormhole charting, wormhole navigation, Microverse mental conditioning and such?

This falls mainly under the Starship Navigation skill, but the subskills of Gravigation, Manuever, and Stellar Cartography apply here. If you plan ahead, you can also assign navigation tasks to crew to boost speed, time and safety of the jump, which effectively raises your skills (for that jump only).

Quote:

One skill I'd like to see if its not there is backwater navigation, which planning a travel route through seldom used and potentially hazordous areas to arrive at a destination undetected and unexpected.

Nice. Consider it added! Now, you'd only really want this if you were using freejump, though. If you use a cosmodetic, you'll appear likely near an L4 or L5 point, which only works if they're not monitored. But with a freejump, you can appear anywhere in deep space you want.

Quote:

Is there any kind of passport or visa system in place?

This would add alot of character, I'll put this in, and simply make it an item you have to buy.

Quote:

Can freely enter or exit any jumpgate connected system? Or would I have to contact an empire's embassy for premission to travel into there territory.

I think the jumpgate travel should be relatively easy, so I don't want to put too many roadblocks. So maybe once you've got the visa, you can just go through. (And maybe if you commit enough crimes, its revoked.)

Quote:

If so what can measures due the jump gates use to enforce this?

The more well-heeled the system, the more you should see clusters of gun, laser and missile sats, patrolling ships and (in the far distance) anti-cap ship railgun stations with nearly kilometer long barrels. :P

Gates can otherwise be only quaranteened by restricting the aperature of the wormhole.

Quote:

You also mention that jumpgates can connect to multiple destinations, is this connection simultanious or does the wormhole connect to diffrent destination base on a fixed rotation? Meaning that the wormhole only leads form A to B on Thursdays, Monday to wednesday it connects to C and the rest of the week it leads to D.

I had though simultaneous, but adding variability to some might be an interesting change. It might make the player race to a wormhole before it changes, or leave just in time to ditch pursuers.

Quote:

Due I need special sensors to detect wormholes?

Not special, but the better they are, the longer range wormholes you'll be able to find. I'm also going to integrate the idea Kars had about different wormhole ages, and tie discovering the more lucrative ones into better sensors.

Quote:

Is it possible to temporarily tame a wormhole? Perhaps by sending a guided probe carrying heavy mass packets or a singurlarity through the wormhole to a destination, in order make the journy for my vessel safer?

My gut feeling says no, only to give strategic value to jumpgates and to enhance the microverse travel as an alternative. So you make it safer by either getting an empire to tame it (via a series of missions), or by buying a gate to cap it.

Quote:

Also if possible to encounter other objects in worm holes or even jumpgates? Such as ships, asteroids or even rouge moons?

Now THAT is definitely going in the encounter table! :)

Quote:

Can a jump be initied anywhere? Or do ship have to be certain distance away from any large gravity wells, such as outside of a solar system. If they have to be a certain distance from gravity wells then that could add another strategic area to battle.

Jumping outside of specific areas increases the chance of misjump and damage the drive. For the cosmodetic mode, you have to jump where the nodes are for it to even work, so that's not an issue. But if you freejump, it should be at system's edge. However, you can risk it if you're in a jam and jump anywhere, with the effects being worse the closer you are to a gravity well.

Quote:

In which pirates and law enforcement release gravity nets inorder to prevent ships from escaping by jumping.

Yes, the way you would do it is to interdict the ship as it tried to move into position using interplanetary FTL, then disable the drive.

Quote:

It might be a good idea to include an expensive disposable device called an interdimensional anchor that can be actived in case of an emercany to drag a vessel back to normal space.

How about this as an entire subcomponent, so you have to trade a weapon, capacitor, engine, or internal facility in exchange for this single use item? It would really encourage you to tough out any problem, and make you think hard about how many you wanted to carry.

Quote:

Also there comes the matter of traveling, it sounds as if it is a fixed destination trip? Meaning that one you determine the destination and active the jumpdrive you can't alter the path or destination, all you can do is wait till you return to normal space.

Right. Once you're in, you're in, and you can't be interdicted or even detected for that matter in normal space, you simply emerge as a bright energy flash at the location (with slower ships taking longer to emerge, and therefore giving systems time to prepare).

Quote:

That brings in the matter of miscalucated destinations, it would be funny at least the first time to initiate a jump and then halfway there get a message from the nav officer saying "Sorry, sir it looks like I forgot to carry the one, instead of arrive at the planet of the fuzzy bunies, where going to arrive in the middle of a system undergoing a massive seiger upwelling."

Yes, well, that's the thing: When you emerge, you don't know where you are until you get a feed from local traffic sats or fix your position with Stellar Cartography. So you could be in the midst of one system and not know it until the data came back. I'm doing this so that travel in the outback is more suspenseful, and to also give more weight to the Sims-like gameplay of assigning crew to precalculate the jump and get it right.

Quote:

Lastly would I be right in assuming that jump travel is leaves a vessle blind, deaf and dumb will in the bubble? Meaning that they can't detect, or communicate anything outside the bubble.

Yes, to them the whole universe is gone. (It's scary enough to require a special breed of spacer.)

Quote:

It might be good if the bubble's effectiveness is determined by a component that is part of the engine. So depending on that component will determine how effective the bubble is, a cheap shield might get you jump traveling sooner but your face a higher risk of particle incursion.

You know, this is not a bad idea. In fact, to further break it down, what if some bubbles were better at hedging out some incursions, but automatically worse at others. This could be based on manufacturing location, species and tech level.

Wavinator

Jul 5, 2004 at 6:39 PM

Quote:
Original post by Anonymous Poster
Sounds like theres going to be alot with jut dealing with travel. The shear amount of what i've been reading has piqued my curiosity.

Glad to hear it!

Quote:

How much of this game is done. Is there any webpage to see the progress?

It's very early still, sorry to say. I've finally solved some serious design problems relating to scope and reusability, and will have it nailed probably by the end of this month. Other than that, I've got a ton of models and some infrastructure and proof of concept code.

The website should be up in a few months, and in the meantime I'm trying to pull together a small team. So it will be awhile before it's soup yet.

Quote:

In the MP Co-Op if there is one. Will it be that each player will have a individual ship or can there be Ship player crew?

Tentatively, the goal is for either teams of ships or teams of crew, up to perhaps 16 players. Several issues both technical and gameplay remain around partitioning the world and allowing players to seperate.

I'm still undecided as to whether or not p vs. p fits in the scheme of an open-ended game, but my gut says no.

Mike29936

Jul 5, 2004 at 7:17 PM

It sounds interesting.

Where can I find more information about the game?

(edit) Took me 20 minutes to read the thread, and you replied before.

Quote:
It's very early still, sorry to say. I've finally solved some serious design problems relating to scope and reusability, and will have it nailed probably by the end of this month. Other than that, I've got a ton of models and some infrastructure and proof of concept code.

So that confirms the game is actually being worked on, rather than being entirely design like some other threads. Good to hear.

Topic Locked

This topic has been locked by a moderator. New replies are not allowed.