An alternative FTL System - WarpSpace

[IR0NSIGHT]

What if, instead of having the warpspace having a 1:10 ratio to real space, we just have a space where the speed limit is alot higher, with higher acceleration and deceleration, not based off of thrusters, but by the warp drive design itself? Maybe a specific block to add on to warp cores to make them accelerate faster or have a higher speed? Using conventional thrusters in ftl simply doesnt make sense.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- why raising the speed limit isnt possible
I agree with brokengauge on this on. I dont know exacty how the SM engine handles movement on a physix level, but generally physic in games is limited by the number data type it uses, 16(?) bit floats mostly. They have a limited amount of digits, and the comma/point moves based on the number (-> "floating point number"). For small numbers, this is fine as you have lots of digits behind the comma. if you reach big numbers, digits behind the comma start to be less and less, until the engine has none left and basically doesnt know exactly where your object is or how fast it is. There is no reason to believe SM doesnt suffer from the same problem as it uses a much older and less advanced physics library than unity.

This happens usually at numbers bigger than 6000m from (0,0,0)-in-sector-coordinate (for the unity floats im familiar with).
Chunk systems like in starmade (sectors) fix the positioning problem by reloading a different chunk around you where you never leave the 6k radius.

Its much harder for velocity as you cant use a chunk system. I know KSP somehow managed a way to fix it (they built their own physix data sytem on top of the existining unity one) but you would need substanial engine level tweak to achieve it and it would not be guaranteed to work, might also impact performance.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- what i do instead to make warpthrust more interesting.
Long story short:
"FTL shouldnt use normal thrusters"
agreed. for now i will (ab)use the FTL distance chamber and will set the ships thrust strength according to it in warp.
so level 0 gives you 25% max speed, 1 = 50%,2 = 75%, 3 = 100%.
Its a compromise for not making the chamber obsolete and also add another layer of mechanic to the warp.
So your ships speed in warp is only dependent on how "good" your warpdrive is. Which makes sense i think.

I will eventually have to add custom chambers, but thats a problem for future me.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- more brainstorming on warp mechanics
i tried changing the skybox (= background) in the past in warp, to a very limited success, might be able to expand on that. particle effects is something on my personal wishlist but they are a very new (and therefore untested/unstable) feature in starloader, so it might take some time to become usable

Theres no way to inhibit a warpjump at the moment, but the framework is set so i will try to add inhibition (maybe also pulling entities out of warp) in the next update (no promise)

Also i want (for no good reason) to be able to warp with asteroids. They already drop out automatically, bc they have no speed.
I think it would be cool to be able to transport them. Idea was to draw a box (or sphere) around the ship, and anything in the box will be taken to warp when you jump.
So if your ship can engulf the roid, it can jump with it.

 

[IR0NSIGHT]

Quick update for anyone wondering why WarpSpace has dissapeared from the downloadable mods:
It has come to my attention (through random chance) that i compiled warpspace using java 1.8, which is incompatible with the vanilla launcher.
This leads to a crash without an error message (which is an unpleasant scenario for players) so i have deactivated the download option until i have resolved the issue.

Interestingly i somehow managed to use the vanilla launcher with warpspace (shouldnt be possible) on my main computer without issues, which is the reason i didnt find the bug earlier.

 

[DrTarDIS]

Interestingly i somehow managed to use the vanilla launcher with warpspace (shouldnt be possible) on my main computer without issues, which is the reason i didnt find the bug earlier.

You probably have the install on your main computer using the java installed in windows, not the java bundled with the launcher. That would be my guess.

 

[Deleted member 678402]

What if we went with RSRampage01's idea with some aspects of the original?

When you'd engage the jump drive on your hotbar, the game would stop rendering everything except sprites and waypoints, and your ship would automatically accelerate to, say 5000m/s. Stations and planets and stars would just be sprites/floating 2D symbols as you'd look around as if you were in the galaxy map tab but you're not, so you can still generally tell where stuff is so you don't drop into a planet core or star. The ship would move around regularly as it does with thrusters but if you slow down at all you drop out of "warp" which means your ship comes to a complete stop where ever you are and then the game starts rendering everything again. This eliminates the extra sector travel and entry point problems and there's no strain on the engine to load things at such a high speed.

 

[IR0NSIGHT]

you cant exceed a certain maximum speed because of technical limitations. its not about performance having to load in more, its an engine limitation. No matter if you draw things or not.
Loading in an empty sector isnt performance heavy, and you dont gain anything by staying in realspace with disabled rendering. it only complicates things. I like the entry point phenomenon so i wont get rid it.

If you dont have extra sector travel, you would have to build in the same mechanics while disabling normal ones which just waits for huge bugs or exploits.

Maybe ill move the extra sector level up by some hundred sectors, so that the neighbouring galaxies can still be travelled by warpspace, we ll see if theres need for it. That would loose the fun phenomenon that you can see the spawn spiral galaxy if you look down, which looks kinda cool imo.
-------------------------------------------------------------
For now im working on inhibition, trying to incorporate what i learned with the anchor stations mod.
Its kinda working but not release ready yet, bc i overengineered it (of course) so that unloaded ships/sources can have running inhibition which extends the range of inhibitors from 3 sectors to infinity (in theory) and across server restarts.
I have built a small framework for natural inhibtion, that allows natural sources to have inhibition effects. These include blocking entry, blocking exit and pulling from warp.
The idea is to add more fun mechanics to travelling like planets pulling out ships or similar.

I will likely have to do a heavy refactor on that inhibition framework because i want to save the source of the inhibtion as well, to display it to players. You can already see that you are inhibited in the HUD, but i want to show WHAT is inhibiting you as well.
That way you dont start blowing ships up thinking you are being pirate-attacked and it turns out a nearby planet inhibits you.
Or you can directly attack the inhibiting ship in the enemys fleet instead of having to guess.

 

[nulitor]

As much cool warp is I do not really like taking a lot of time to travel.
So I think the multilayered warp would probably be my favourite option for warping.

 

[IR0NSIGHT]

Built in a reverse engineered version of vanilla inhibition.
range 0 = sector the inhibitor is in, range 1 = 1 sector distance (excludes diagonal), range 2 = 2 sectors distance in all directions.
Also inhibitors catch much much larger ships now, level 0 inh: lvl 300 ship, level 9 inh: level 9000 ship. each inhibitor level adds 300 lvls of reactor it can catch.
The only big remaining problem now is that you manually have to change power consumption in the config for inhibitors otherwise they are super overpowered. I used 300 as the value, that way a specialized ship investing 30% of its energy can catch ships 3 times its own weight. Thought thats a neat number and it feels balanced.

inhibitors work just as normal, you cant warp out of a sector if an inhibitor is nearby. It does not prevent warpdrops (at least shouldnt)

This is a bridging solution until someone else or myself builds a better inhibiton framework.
Also i added a fun gif i made professionally with powerpoint some time ago that illustrates how warpspace works:

https://starmadedock.net/content/warpspace.8166/

 

[IR0NSIGHT]

WarpSpace is now playable on the Skies of Eden server, along with other cool mods. (The automatic drop from warp is broken, but everything else works nicely)
Check it out if you feel like it.

Also i build a cool GUI advancement that shows you who is inhibiting you, but thats not quite release ready yet and i got a ton of exams very soon, so it might take another month for that.

 

[Tsnonak]

tbh: I think it's great that the modding community is working hard on making/modding SM better!
... on the flipside, great: more broken/half implemented stuff, (that may never progress likely due to SM-catcode™ itself).
if SM is going opensource... how about helping to fix the actual problems with the game (first*)?
(not trying to be negative, really is a serious question, curious minds would like to know*).
because... as long as itis the way itis, well...

 

[IR0NSIGHT]

This mod fixes admin teleport and broken inhibitors.
There is no one main problem which holds starmade back, its a collection of many plus a shitload of bugs.
Every person has their own opinion about whats important, some say PVE environment, some say fix PvP mechanics, some say add exploration mechanics, some say we want more advanced trading, some dream of Starmade being a Real time stragety game where you command huge navies. None of that is easy, if it was, we would have implemented it half a year ago.

Im not the Jesus of starmade (thats Jake), i saw something in my scope of ability and made it happen. Im quite content of how far its come, and how well it works.
Also if you want to see a specific thing happen, start learning java and mod it. Its no miracle work, it just takes time. i say 1 week java basics, 1 week starmade basics and you have your own small mod.

Im not able to code Starmade 2.0 - "the great fix" and i dont want to. My mods aim to make certain aspects more interesting in starmade, and not overhaul the complete game by themselves.

Edit: I sound quite a bit passive agressive here, sorry bout that :D

 

[Tsnonak]

Thanks for the honest answer.
I get the feeling, you seem to think I am jabbing at you with a stick.
It was just a spontanious question that popped into my head, and considering your post today, you seemed like a good person to ask...
after all... I thought we were friends!
No I am not looking to you as the Jesus fixall for StarMade, sorry if you got that impression.

Yes of course, I could look into Java more, I have looked into the unobfuscated SM code.
I understand a little about programming, and could likely get a mod of my own working with a little effort.
That's not why I asked.

It was idle curiosity seeing all the new mods lately and wondering...
like why doesn't somebody look into some of the broken stuff, thats all.
Thanks again!

P.S sorry for poor formulation above.

 

[IR0NSIGHT]

Alright, i have been getting help on WarpSpace lately by Taswin!
In the past, you could see that warp is just a couple hundred sectors upwards, in the void between two galaxys, and that seemed to confuse a lot of people, who didnt know its intended behaviour. Gotten a couple "help its broken" issues, and it always turned out people just didnt know about this mechanic, and thought warpspace had teleported them randomly.

Taswin managed to obscure that with his work.
Now you will not be shown the actual vanilla position in warp by your radar, but your correlating realspace position, also you map now shows you the downscaled universe in warp.
This means that its not obvious that you have been teleported far away, and it feels more like you actually entered a parellel dimension.

You can still tell the actual vanilla position bc its written on the map selection buttons, but we ll figure that out soon.

Also, the latest update brings real time information about being interdicted, not just when you try to jump, a slightly smaller HUD (derp complained its to big) and i disabled the annoying dropping sound.
Ill build a better soundsystem soon, ideally with player configuration, so you can just turn it off if you dont like it.

0.9 also fixes the fast-flashing HUD and the easily broken speeddrop and stationdrop.
I had actually fixed this in febuary already but never released the update, whoops.

I have been getting "complaints" that the Warp HUD style doesnt match starmade, if anyone has a suggestion on what it should look like, im always open for improvement.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stay tuned for new stuff!
Quick hint to avoid dissapointment:
Starloader received a new mechanic that will try to match your mod version with the server version, but (my fault) warpspace might not work with that pre-0.9.0 bc i didnt label the updates correctly and SMD doesnt let me change it in hindsight.

This means, you can not play on a server pre-0.9 (as far as i know).
Not a big deal, bc Skies of Eden is the only modded, permanent public server atm anyways, and i already asked derp to update.

 

[JinM]

My suggestion would be that you make the warp space 1:100 or even higher, and each sector is only 1km big, representing a whole system in Starmade.
If you are in sector 1x1x1 you get teleported randomly into the system 1x1x1.

Second suggestion is, that you can install a warp computer that lessens the dropout randomness ( but never be zero).

All in all the idea of replacing the classic ftl with a minecraft nether would require obstacles and all that jazz to make sense. But then you cant fly a straight line anymore if you implement a second unique universe. So making a "nether" in Starmade does not work if the intention is that the player can travel the distance in a reasonable amount of time without alot of manouvering. I suggest to completely throw away the nether idea and find other unique aspects that make this new game mechanic compelling and interesting.

Other ideas:

• Explore beacons in the real universe that lessen your dropout randomness as suggested above.
• If you are too long in warpspace you get dropped out randomly anywhere in the universe after 30 seconds of random lingering where you cant control your ship in warpspce.
• Damage to the ship if you dropout before or behind the intended warp location.
• Make the speed in warpspace dependend on the travel destination distance - if its a long distance the player gets maximum speed and only need 5 minutes - if its a short distance the player gets a slower speed that requires him 30 seconds of flying even for a small distance because he is so slow.

 

[IR0NSIGHT]

Ah well the "nether concept" refers more to it being a parallel dimension where distances are shorter, and not about the actual look of the nether with its cavelike lava theme. Also starmade sadly doesnt have any zombie pigmen so thats not possible :D

With taswins work it is moving more and more into being a true parallel dimension right ontop of realspace, pretty much like the starwars hyperspace, or startrek warp(?) behaves (i think).

Warp itself doesnt really have any features planned (which are possible in the near future) in terms of making it super different from realspace, apart from having a different coloured background.

I dont like the random dropout idea, because that makes planning impossible, but i do like the beacon idea, which would allow you to shift one or more entry points around to your liking.

Speed in warpspace was originally intended to be defined by your jump distance chamber level, so you dont have to refit your ships to much. But that proved difficult bc starmade didnt like me overwriting speed values. Still on the list tho.

I do want to have a more interesting dropout mechanic than just "go slow and drop", like you suggested, but thats for a later point in time. for now ill focus to make navigation in the warp smoother and integrate it seamlessly into realspace.

 

[IR0NSIGHT]

Also (i forgot to mention this) taswins update shift warpspace very far away, so all surrounding galaxies can be used again with no issues. You could probably use 50 galaxies in all directions? More than enough :P

 

[JinM]

Speed in warpspace was originally intended to be defined by your jump distance chamber level, so you dont have to refit your ships to much. But that proved difficult bc starmade didnt like me overwriting speed values. Still on the list tho.

That's quite a bummer. Speed is important in Starmade. For all other mods it will be hard to tinker with the speed as well, so yeah. Add to the list of issues that SM has.

 

[IR0NSIGHT]

I made navigation quite a bit more comfortable with 0.9.3 and 0.9.4.
Your neighbour sector HUD indicators now show their warp position, and your waypoint tells you its warp position, the game tells you when you ve reached your dropout point, and the waypoint persists on target, even after being translated to and from warp, so after dropping out, it still points where you originally wanted to go.

This makes setting targets from any plane now as easy as one is used to from the vanilla mechanic.

Also, warpspace recolors the procedural background to be bright pink with gold artifacts, but that only applies if the game decided that systems seed draws a background.