Jumpdrive rework.

[Winterhome]

Perhaps JDs could, instead of being an instant teleport, be a moderately high speed transportation method. You get into the jump tunnel, you stop being rendered or rendering other things. You don't load anything. You start moving extremely quickly. You can't change direction. The speed you move at is based on your jumpdrive setup.

The *only* thing that you can render are, if they're added, interdiction bubbles, wormholes, and stars.

Unlike EVE, we have full choice of movement. We don't warp in reference to other objects, and in EVE, you could always find out where someone was warping to by paying attention to their ship alignment. It might be a bit too much, but we could potentially draw a "rip in space" or something in a line behind the warping ship for everyone else to see and, perhaps, follow.

If your ship is specialized for jumping, you outrun them. If their ship is specialized for intercepting, they fly past you.

 

[Zaphord]

Perhaps JDs could, instead of being an instant teleport, be a moderately high speed transportation method. You get into the jump tunnel, you stop being rendered or rendering other things. You don't load anything. You start moving extremely quickly. You can't change direction. The speed you move at is based on your jumpdrive setup.

The *only* thing that you can render are, if they're added, interdiction bubbles, wormholes, and stars.

Unlike EVE, we have full choice of movement. We don't warp in reference to other objects, and in EVE, you could always find out where someone was warping to by paying attention to their ship alignment. It might be a bit too much, but we could potentially draw a "rip in space" or something in a line behind the warping ship for everyone else to see and, perhaps, follow.

If your ship is specialized for jumping, you outrun them. If their ship is specialized for intercepting, they fly past you.

The current way jump drives work is like a space fold system, the ship essentially folds space between two points and passes through them. Works great for warp gates, but should a small ship really have the power to alter the laws of physics to get from a to b?

The trouble with FTL is that sci-fi has so many ways of achieving it. Thrusters are fine IMO for sub light travel at short ranges or manuvering in battle, but maybe what Starmade needs is an intermediary means of propulsion between thrusters and FTL. First thing that comes to mind is Impulse engines from Star Trek, which could propel you forward faster than thrusters but can't get you past light speed. You could still manuver somewhat using thrusters while under impulse power, but only enough to make course corrections.

 

[ltmauve]

but should a small ship really have the power to alter the laws of physics to get from a to b?

This is not the question you should be asking. You should be asking "How does this teleport affect the game? What kind of meta does it lead to?"

 

[lilFishy]

i am up for a hyperspace, enter it, manouver in it, see other ships in the same hyperspace too, run from them or chase them....
Baicly, cover 1 km in hyperspace means IDK something like 25 km?

 

[Zaphord]

True, if this game cared that much about physics it would be a sim and not a sandbox.

Though I do think some more variety in means of propulsion would do the game some good. It would change the ways ships behave while in moving around, and how other external factors could affect them while in transit.

 

[nightwalker_007]

This would kill the server. Each time a ship passes through a sector, the server has to load or generate a sector. Even when jumping from one sector to another, the jump delay isn't quite long enough for the server and client to load all of the block data. If you've ever used a large warp gate, you'll notice it sometimes takes awhile for it to finish loading even after the jump has been completed.

 

[kiraen]

i am up for a hyperspace, enter it, manouver in it, see other ships in the same hyperspace too, run from them or chase them....
Baicly, cover 1 km in hyperspace means IDK something like 25 km?

Kind of like the Overworld and Nether in minecraft.

This would kill the server.

Once in hyper-space, nothing has to be rendered in N-space. Just make Hyper a big empty nothing. Of course, you'll have to be careful returning to N-space, keep track of where those stars are...

 

[Winterhome]

This would kill the server. Each time a ship passes through a sector, the server has to load or generate a sector. Even when jumping from one sector to another, the jump delay isn't quite long enough for the server and client to load all of the block data. If you've ever used a large warp gate, you'll notice it sometimes takes awhile for it to finish loading even after the jump has been completed.

I already mentioned that in the main post. It was in the main paragraph, even.

When in this proposed hyperspace, you don't load sectors. At all. You're not loaded into sectors, either. Rather, you just have a visible trail strapped to your ingame position.

 

[DivineEvil]

It is easier to prevent Jump-Drives for being abused by myriads of possible ways that were already suggested. Overshooting with these infinitely uneffective mechanics is obviously unnecessary.

The best balance between complexity and result is:
- Simply making the jump itself being preventable by hostile fire.
- Increasing the time for jump to actually occur.
- Increasing the jump range based on ship's present velocity multiplicatively.
- Disabling energy regeneration during jump sequence, which will require a certain amount of power capacity to perform a jump.
- Automatic Drive charging, with Left-Click working as toggle to turn the charging on/off.

Additionaly, I've considered the undirectional waypoint based jumping completely ridiculous from the start. People should just use waypoints to jump towards where they need. If they can potentially overshoot, then maybe they should use cruising engines to cover the few remaining kilometers instead. Finally, instead of using sector-corner destinations, Starmade might have worked with the same no-collision placement, which is currently used for creating ships out of Blueprints.

 

[kookster]

I think the idea of having a different space like area that you are travelling in when in jump is a really cool idea. Maybe make it constantly consuming power as well while your in it or something. I think this is something that should really be looked into.

 

[DivineEvil]

I think the idea of having a different space like area that you are travelling in when in jump is a really cool idea. Maybe make it constantly consuming power as well while your in it or something. I think this is something that should really be looked into.

The problem with it, is that 'cool' is not a single definition of a good feature. There's dozens of 'cool' ideas and features, which would break the balance, gameplay, performance or game's general concept.

For this instance, it would basically increase the world potential size by two and would require a lot of supplementary content to populate such spaces with, requiring a very considerable efforts from developers with close to nothing being brough into the game. It would not be about warp and travel mechanics to begin with, but a completely unrelated part of the game. Cool? Sure. Needed? No.

 

[titanicOxide]

I like this idea. Although it technically adds nothing, FTL as it is is very incremental and boring. Having an alternate dimension for FTL cruising can be both cool and practical. What if instead of just entering hyperspace, the ship opens a portal that persists for a short while, allowing other ships to give chase? Dropping out can be an ability for the ship core. Maybe even disable shields in hyperspace, Freespace-style. This can keep it viable for utility but not in combat. We don't even need to have an entire separate world: the server can just keep track of position and whether or not it's in hyperspace--it won't interact with normal space.

 

[Lecic]

Thrusters are fine IMO for sub light travel at short ranges or manuvering in battle, but maybe what Starmade needs is an intermediary means of propulsion between thrusters and FTL. First thing that comes to mind is Impulse engines from Star Trek, which could propel you forward faster than thrusters but can't get you past light speed. You could still manuver somewhat using thrusters while under impulse power, but only enough to make course corrections.

So... overdrive?

Finally, instead of using sector-corner destinations, Starmade might have worked with the same no-collision placement, which is currently used for creating ships out of Blueprints.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it already do this? It moves you into the same position between sectors. That's how you can do things like jump inside the core of a planet.

 

[Zaphord]

So... overdrive?

If you can set a speed, like cruise control, the that could work. Don't like holding the W key for 15 mins to get somewhere.

 

[DivineEvil]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it already do this? It moves you into the same position between sectors. That's how you can do things like jump inside the core of a planet.

It does that between sectors, but on a direct jump it always places you in the closest corner of the sector, which is especially weird when you're using Warp-Gates.

 

[psteiner]

If you can set a speed, like cruise control, the that could work. Don't like holding the W key for 15 mins to get somewhere.

Two things:

1: You can make a cruise control with logic and push modules set on defensive

2: Starmade is still a bit too glitchy to allow for that... you accidentally press r, and you now lost your ship, hurtling away from you forever...

 

[srs008]

kinda like the "n-space" idea... travelling through "nothingness"...
but why KILL the shields? instead penalise the ship to 20% effectiveness (ALL systems)
this way, any WEAPONS fire that manages to come through from the "normal" side, is not subject to
the penalty...
by having more (let's call them rift generators for this), it makes the portal bigger, if your ship is too large to enter,
it takes damage relative to the blocks exposed...
because the generator activates and transports the host ship into "n-space",
this prevents players from simply activating the drive multiple times to attack TITANS...

this does not prevent SWARMS of fighters however from entering "n-space" en masse to create a short term minefield.

when activated, the portal creates a "bubble", your ship will NOT take damage as long as it's dimensions will pass through the bubble,
this check is rather simple, the game says the bubble is 30 blocks by 20 blocks...
it checks your ship's dimensions, and then finds the point where your ship exceeds the bubbles area (at current heading)
(most of this, either the damage pulse, or HOMING missiles do anyway...)
if the majority of the ship enters the bubble (say within 1-2 blocks in any direction out)
damage is bypassed, and it's a "clean" pass into N space...
let's for arguments sake, say that the ship surface then had a 95% coverage...
the closer to 80% coverage you get, the more damage you take, but you still enter N-space...
below that, the ship fails to enter, and that is when the rift generators become dangerous,
at 79% coverage, your ship is almost completely exposed to the rift, meaning damage is rather large,
the larger your ship is, the longer it's exposed to damage. this effectively means that a Planet sized ship exposed to
a Isanth portal, will take very little damage. but a isanth exposed to the planet sized portal will pass easily and cleanly
into N-space.
as the portal "closes" it begins to do damage to objects that are not passing at a certain velocity, basically at the height
of it's power, a object can enter at a mere .1m/s... (is that the correct speed notation for starmade?)
but at it's worst, a object that is not passing at server MAX speed, will take considerable damage.

the idea is that a LONG narrow ship could enter a corridor made by a much smaller ship, so long as it's height and width
are not larger then the vessel that created the portal. until a ship has left contact with the portal, DAMAGE is not done
from the PORTAL.
meaning that so long as the ship maintained sufficient velocity to beat the portal's closing... it can also pass through.

as you noticed, I created a serious drawback in the design, a vessel can sit in N-space for ever, but it is also at a mere 20% efficiency,
meaning that even though relative to the "real world" it's going INCREDIBLY fast, any object that is NOT affected... (like say a swarm of heat seekers fired through in pursuit) are going to be MANY times faster then the ship could probably manage.
since the 20% efficiency INCLUDES power... shield regen, shield CAP, WEAPONS, THRUST and ARMOR/HULL...
that makes N-space the WORST place to flee if your need to retreat.
as for rendering a ship in "n-space"... why not TINT them with a alternating glow? like Red, green, Blue...
the server merely tracks them whilst in range of other players, and "imprints" the effect on the "real" world.
unless you fire through a EXISTING portal, or enter N-space, a vessel in N-space is untouchable from the "real world".
while in "n-space" you can see lots and lots of BLACK...
or other ships also in N-space...
there are no "sectors" in N-space... (well not that a player is to be made aware of)
without having a WAYPOINT set on the galactic map, blind navigation is impossible, as there is simply no reference points...
are you in friendly territory? or overshot.
basically, a ship that is in N-space, is totally blind to anything NOT in N-space.
although easy to plot a N-space course from the "real world" the galactic map should be "relative" in N-space.
as in, off by as much as 10 sectors, or as little as three. but a course plotted BEFORE a N-space jump, should be accurate.

in short, we have a long range travel system, that can be affected by the "real world" galaxy, that is fantastic for moving fleets in precision
strikes, and is also able to be used to damage significantly larger vessels if used with some cunning.
by making it have a large charge up time, to ENTER, or EXIT N-space (it should charge in N-space regardless of power)
it'll be almost impossible to re-enter normal space within a minute. stopping player from diving in and out.

 

[Battle]

I think it would be quite nice if just warp would be activatable or deactivatable, and the amount of warp modules determines the distance travelled also. Greater ships should also travel much further with higher activation times, however with net efficiency (distance / downtime) going upwards. This way in order to reach other galaxies, you would need much larger ships with much more investation.

If necessary, the charging could also work that way: Energy consumption increases as the power is more filled, getting to a point where it stagnates at around 25-30% power if power generation is too low to maintain charging.

Maybe the idea of having to make a break after doing a warp jump (having a larger cooldown) would also be nice... which should be compensated by having much longer jump distances generally. Maybe connecting weapon systems with warp drive could accomplish such a thing:
Cannons: Shorter jump, lower cooldown. Maybe some kind of high speed (but server & loading sectors might be an issue). Maybe getting a speed of 4-6 times the regular, but not usable in combat and charge up just before activation, and very low maneuverability while active.
Beam: Longer jump, higher cooldown.
Missile: More randomized jump distances and slightly randomized direction, also higher cooldown, but overall more effective. Would only be accurate on very short distances, but an ideal choice for explorers who don't fear some danger from warping into suns.
Pulse: Huge jumps with very high charge-up, resulting in the most distance / downtime efficiency, but also passively reducing energy generation of the ship by ~50%. Perfect for long distance travelers... but not so nice for explorers, as they would skip quite a lot of systems. Also not nice for any ships made for combat.

 

[shadowulf]

I like warp as it is now: instant transport. However, I believe Jump drives should also be variable distance, not have a max range, to let someone jump a long ways, at the cost of a lot of their ship being jump drive modules.

OP, the idea of an "alternate space" to me is interesting, but I don't know if that's something I'd like, as I use jump drives a lot, and it seems if anything, it would just have to double the size of the universe

 

[srs008]

that's what i'm saying, i love the idea of having a NEW form of transport, with advantages and disadvantages...
the advantage being that it can be used as a weapon... or to move FLEETS in synchronized attack patterns...
don't forget that ship engaging the drive is instantly "transported" into N-space, or out... meaning that a ship LEAVING N-space creates a portal it's own size for other ships to fly through... once it leave N-space, the reduction to 20% efficiency stops.
so suddenly the big fleet leader ship has it's full functionality back. the only downside is that the portal is merely a opening, as in it's two ways. that means if fleet leader does not intercept a weapon shot, then that shot is basically going to do the equivalent damage of a weapon 5X more powerful to the ship it hits in N-space.
this is not "the new form of movement" in the galaxy, it's ANOTHER form of movement, since a ship in N-space can be SEEN but not touched, it allows players to commit distraction tactics... lead false invasions. redirect a station or planets defense from a real assault.

the idea is to make a whole new means of attack, and defence... a whole new means of transport. PROBABLY cheaper then jump drives... but also obviously less efficient.

i'm not saying I want this IN place of jump drives... jump drives are damn fantastic.
and they quickly become VERY expensive.
this is as much the poor man's jumpdrive, as a new means of attack or defence.
it has it's own advantages, and weaknesses, like a jump drive takes you to the point you select (or as close as it can)...
the N-space drive is simply a "shortcut"... instead of taking 15 or 20 minutes to travel a distance, the n-space drive could cut it down to like 2...

of course, it's disadvantage is that it it can ONLY be as fast as your ship. you have no "inertia" (forgot to mention that) so you'll drift to your destination at whatever speed you enter.
but it's totally manual... you have to line up your destination before the jump...
YOU have to achieve the speed necessary to make the trip...
and since N-space is visible to the outside, a ship that can barely enter N-space, is also at risk of being "easy prey" while IN n-space.

of course, i mentioned a "charge up time"... while in N-space, it should simply charge no matter what. perhaps to enter or leave "n-space" the generator has to MAKE a N-space energy burst... (or some lame excuse to why a ship without any shields or thrust can still "leave" N-space of it's own accord)


that's the main point though, for "N-space" to be useful for fleet work, or distractions and such, a vessel NEEDS to be able to stay indefinitely in N-space.
another point to mention... a vessel in N-space "appears" in normal space, as a VISUAL only, it has no mass, no blocks to collide... it's systems are not seen by "standard" radar equipment (should be unmasked by a SCANNER though)
and of course... N-space disrupts cloaks... so cloak generators can't function.
that means that although you can hide your radar signal... if an enemy SEES you, your still a target.

the best thing about "N-space" is that to implement it is probably far easier then it sounds. really you copy the code for the "damage pulse" and anything that passes through it is transported, unless it's a part of a ship, in which case, it get's "charged"...
once a ship loses contact with the "portal", it checks the blocks "charged" vs the ship block count...
if the ship falls below 80%... it takes damage in relation to the charge percent...
and fails the jump.
if it 's charge is 95% or more, then it succeeds without damage...
if it's charge is between 80% and 95%... then damage is applied in relation to how far it missed.. E.g the two worst scenarios is 79% and 80% as 79% is barely failed, and 80% is barely succeeded.
basically, the game fires a weapon that is the same size as the ship that made it (as a bubble) and the damage area is calculated. when the damage is "applied", is when the game "shifts" them between N-space and "real" space.
a ship TRAVELLING in N-space, could simply be a fast moving "streak" similar to that used by the jumpdrive. at least when viewed by the "galaxy".
this means that a player is no longer rendering a "ship" but a generic image...
if it passes close enough to you, then and only then does it render the "ship"
(or rather, if the game thinks the ship will pass close, it sends the relevant data for the client to cache).

maybe a "20%" efficiency nerf is too much... but the point is that N-space is a bad place for a ship to exist. not bad for motion... or mass. just bad for advanced technology that comprises a ship's systems...