another hyperspace idea

[vernes]

It's been mentioned that the hyperspace idea is not popular with the devs due to the fact it introduces large area's of empty (and uninteresting) space to the game.
http://starmadedock.net/threads/starmade-devs-q-a-notes-re-post-on-new-forum.225/#post-1146

So why not add outer-dimensional horrors to this realm?
Make hyperspace top-tier transportation tech. It eats power non-stop, keeps trying to damage you and drain your shields, and if you stay too long, 'things' start to get attracted from the deeper layers of hyperspace.
Things that are not made from blocks but like the recently added spiders. And they are HUGE.
They don't shoot you, they EAT you.

Upper-tier players who build planetsize (larger) ships go into hyperspace to shoot these horrors.
Mid-tier players go here to reach other galaxies while trying not to get noticed by the 'things'.

Add some more deep-rooted fears, like being able to 'drown' in hyperspace by running out of power without exiting hyperspace (experience the slow descent into the deeper hyperspace as your hull slowly gets eaten away by entropic pressure and the client plays the sound of groaning steel and shadows stir outside in the hyperspace realm, circling ever closer to you), or script some monsters to go chase you, so when you do happen to look behind you you crap your pants and exit hyperspace in a fit of panic.

So, this is my idea for hyperspace.
It's a horrible place.
It should increase the sales of clean underwear.

EDIT:
So I've been thinking. There has been reluctance towards adding a scary element as hyperspace filler.
How about a more geological astronomical danger?
Throughout the hyperspace are some exotic type of crystal growth that discharge large plasma arcs that you need to avoid.
The longer you spend in hyperspace, the deeper you go but also the more densely populated the crystals appear and the more powerful the discharge.

 

[Crusade]

Came here expecting bad suggestion, was pleasantly surprised!

+1

I would suggest wrecked ships and stations existing in hyperspace too, with very valuable things on them as an incentive to explore and linger in the ruined-pants relm.

 

[vernes]

Came here expecting bad suggestion, was pleasantly surprised!

+1

I would suggest wrecked ships and stations existing in hyperspace too, with very valuable things on them as an incentive to explore and linger in the ruined-pants relm.

But you'll need to explain why these things managed to enter hyperspace.
Getting into hyperspace should be bullshit hard, not something that accidentally happen.
Catastrophic explosions of very specific nature should allow this.
... or...
The THINGS can sense hyperspace tech and see it as food and... BREAK the surface of hyperspace and pull something into hyperspace.
Just when you think you're safe in normal space, a giant ring opens up underneath your ship or station and a weird jawlike structure emerges from it and clamps down on the station/ship and drags in downwards and the giant ring dissapears.
...
I guess I answered my own question.

EDIT: I am overthinking this, you can just have them generated in hyperspace.

 

[Magrim]

Event Horizon but without the space ship possession. You could experience hallucinations and/or distorted vision the longer you remain. I like the idea of having a reason to explore the hyperspace realm, whether through loot, resources or faction points from killing monsters.

 

[ltmauve]

Some people have already suggested mobs for a horror mod. Please go discuss the best way to increase sales of clean pants and underwear with them. Having hyperspace be a) a scary place that eats you without warning and b) pulls you in if you mount a hyperdrive is moving the game closer to horror than sandbox. And if you want that, that's perfectly fine. I don't. I would like to be able to travel hundred of kilometers without having to worry about constantly charging the jump drive or being eaten.

 

[vernes]

Some people have already suggested mobs for a horror mod. Please go discuss the best way to increase sales of clean pants and underwear with them. Having hyperspace be a) a scary place that eats you without warning and b) pulls you in if you mount a hyperdrive is moving the game closer to horror than sandbox. And if you want that, that's perfectly fine. I don't. I would like to be able to travel hundred of kilometers without having to worry about constantly charging the jump drive or being eaten.

But following that chain of thought, jumpgates should not drop you near a star.

 

[ltmauve]

But following that chain of thought, jumpgates should not drop you near a star.

Jumpgates only do that if the person who set them up is a troll. And I don't know how they would do that these days, what with the sun being a few sectors of instant death, including for players.

 

[vernes]

Jumpgates only do that if the person who set them up is a troll. And I don't know how they would do that these days, what with the sun being a few sectors of instant death, including for players.

My mistake, I meant jumpDRIVES.

 

[Magrim]

I was under the impression the op wanted this to be another dimension instead of just being about getting from a to b, and that if you want to use this dangerous method of travel you have that option. I'm also not too keen on the idea of being sucked in either

 

[ltmauve]

Yeah, well you do your horror thing. The difference between a jump drive dropping you somewhere that you die is that it isn't scary. It's frustratng, but if you jump into a sector with a pirate base and they all shoot you, then of course you're going to die. If you can't die in-game, there's little conflict. However, all deaths should make sense in the context of a sandbox. Eldritch abominations eating you in hyperspace does not follow from a block-based spaceship game. I know a lot of people like WH40K, but please don't ruin hyperspace for the rest of us.

 

[vernes]

I was under the impression the op wanted this to be another dimension instead of just being about getting from a to b, and that if you want to use this dangerous method of travel you have that option.

I would be happy if this would be an empty space to travel through, but as you saw in the OP, devs expressed dislike to add an empty space to the game.
So I thought since this hyperspace cannot remain empty, let's fill it up with something worthwhile.
The rest is flavour.
I just happen to like outer-dimensional horrors in my hyperspace.

I'm also not too keen on the idea of being sucked in either

You'd have to try very hard in my opinion.
You'd actually would need to explicitly set up the situation to have this happen.
This is a brainstorm thread, I suggest you imagine additional requirements to make this as unlikely as you'd like it to be.

The only hostiles in the game currently are:
Pirates
Pissed of traders
Spiders

I for one would like to see something else.
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However, all deaths should make sense in the context of a sandbox. Eldritch abominations eating you in hyperspace does not follow from a block-based spaceship game. I know a lot of people like WH40K, but please don't ruin hyperspace for the rest of us.

Two thing, which I hope you'll tackle both:
I don't see how creatures living in hyperspace don't fit in a block-based spaceship game. Specially in a game that is still being reshaped on a monthly base (killed by the spiders yet?)

I am discussing this idea with you and you alone. Do not attempt to add merit to your opinion by assuming you represent a large group. This is not how this discussion started and it is not how this discussion is won.

 

[vernes]

Changed monsters in hyperspace to zapping crystals in hyperspace.
Perhaps this idea is more palatable for everybody.

The primary goal is to think of a hyperspace with content so that the dislike devs have no longer applies, and is also fun.
I thought monsters are fun, but I guess zigzagging around giant arcs of energy is fun too.

 

[Magrim]

Changed monsters in hyperspace to zapping crystals in hyperspace.
Perhaps this idea is more palatable for everybody.

The primary goal is to think of a hyperspace with content so that the dislike devs have no longer applies, and is also fun.
I thought monsters are fun, but I guess zigzagging around giant arcs of energy is fun too.

I think you're misunderstanding me. You get a +1 from me on the idea of another realm to explore along with monsters to shoot and crystals to avoid. Maybe horror monsters would be tough to swallow for some but at the very least this place should be more dangerous than the normal universe.

 

[ltmauve]

Rules for hyperspace/drive:
1: charge time is proportional to the size of the drive. You need to charge up your hyperdrive to max level before you can enter hyperdrive. Once you leave hyperdrive all your charge is gone.
2: power drains in hyperspace at a constant rate, inversely proportional to the size of the drive. All normal regen is disabled. In other words, a ship with a large power pool and or a large hyperdrive can stay in hyper for longer.
3: The max speed in hyperdrive is 1 sector every 3 seconds. You can go slower as you approach your target if you don't want to miss it.
4: Now comes the "hyperspace is dangerous" part. Vortexes. These randomly appear about every hour (or rather, once you've mapped the vortexes, the data is obsolete in an hour.) These will spit your ship out into realspace. These are common around stars and pirate bases, and inside the territories of highly destructive factions. Sometimes, you will be shot out with no harmful effects. Sometimes, you will be spat out with no power, or shields, or with your hyperdrive and jump drive at negative charge, or with negative power or something else that is in itself not harmful but leaves you extremely vulnerable to getting destroyed.
5: Also, rifts/crystals/whatevers that snag your ship and force you to go out on the hull to clean it off with a rocket launcher or something before your power runs out and you drop into realspace with your ship completely offline. Did I mention that rifts form around areas where you are likely to die after popping back into realspace?
6: You know what, let's put in the eldritch abominations. "Wraiths" or something like that. Large mobs that try to chase down players and eat their ships. Can be destroyed with dakka, though sometimes you will need to use more dakka. Can be outrun, but then you're more likely to run into rifts and vortexes and/or an area of realspace DOOM. Drops tons of loot of all sorts that you can pick up, if you can kill it. If it can kill you, it will grow larger, stronger, and more aggressive. A galaxy where no one kills any wraiths will have 3-4 of them. Once you start killing them, the spawn rate increases until wraiths everywhere.

Basically, if you aren't going into hyperspace to kill wraiths, you'll either be fine or you'll get into a spot of realspace DOOM. I want the mechanics to make going into hyperspace possible with caution, even though it should still be dangerous.

 

[GaeasSon]

I like the idea of hyperspace as an analog to the nether from Minecraft. And I like ALL the suggestions above. I can see hyperspace as having a direct correspondence to the main space, but maybe (like the nether) having movement there correspond to 8x movement in the main universe. My thoughts on the potential costs for that speed...

• Elder god creatures coming to eat your ship, and potentially your soul.... like
• Halucinations. (elder gods, wreckage versions of other ships and stations. wreckage versions of YOUR ship. Mayday messages in the comm. Offers of untold wealth and power in the comm. Maydays from yourself in the comm. Suddenly you are driving a different ship from the catalog, red enemy blips ghosting on radar.
  
• Maybe you could use jump gates to get in and out.... but if you aren't driving a ship that can jump back independently... that next gate could look very far away.
• Potential for random block substitution (suddenly all your shield blocks have become y-holes)
• Following on itmauve's suggestion... what if players could deploy hyperspace beacons to stabilize space in a hyperspace sector to repel wraiths, etc?

OH! HEY! This could almost be a suggestion unto itself!

What if hyperspace was mapped against normal-space in a wildly irrational manner? If you go into hyperspace, travel 1 sector, and exit you could exit anywhere within 50 (or so) sectors in any direction. This makes hyperspace almost totally unusable for navigation... UNLESS you explore and plant hyperspace beacons and gates. (yes I'm borrowing from Babylon 5 here). A beacon or a gate is built in normal-space, but shows up on your navigation screen while in hyperspace. Sectors are still mapped irrationally, but at least you can FIND the hyperspace sector that maps to the real-space you want. A gate is just like a jump gate, it allows ships to pass into and out of hyperspace without a hyperspacial drive, so long as the ship is small enough to pass through the gate. Gates and Beacons can be open (visible to all) or encoded(visible only to faction) Pirates might use unencoded beacons and gates to snag unwary travelers.

So to build a beacon network around your faction space wouldn't be too brutal... but to really explore, to build a gate to another galaxy for instance, you've ether got to have someone take the slow-way there, or someone brave enough to take a couple blind jumps to see if they wind up somewhere interesting...or fatal.

 

[ltmauve]

What if hyperspace was mapped against normal-space in a wildly irrational manner?

I'm not sure I want it that irrational? Perhaps when you travel through hyperspace, you build up an "exit offset" basically you'll wind up a few sectors from where you think you'd be. So with going from the core to the edge of a galaxy, you'd be off by maybe a system, but when you go intergalatic, you wind up with plenty of error.
I'm also not sure how fast hyperspace should be. Obviously you want a point beyond which hyperspace is useful than jump drive, and with the charge times that's going to drastically affect the speed of hyperspace.

• Elder god creatures coming to eat your ship, and potentially your soul.... like

• Halucinations. (elder gods, wreckage versions of other ships and stations. wreckage versions of YOUR ship. Mayday messages in the comm. Offers of untold wealth and power in the comm. Maydays from yourself in the comm. Suddenly you are driving a different ship from the catalog, red enemy blips ghosting on radar.
• Maybe you could use jump gates to get in and out.... but if you aren't driving a ship that can jump back independently... that next gate could look very far away.
• Potential for random block substitution (suddenly all your shield blocks have become y-holes)
• Following on itmauve's suggestion... what if players could deploy hyperspace beacons to stabilize space in a hyperspace sector to repel wraiths, etc?

let me see:
-I'm not fond of things in hyperspace killing you. I'm more fond of them pushing you into realspace in the worst possible spot. Also not sure how something would "eat your soul" in a game. And if it's permadeath, that's right out.
I suggested my "wraiths" as a way of moving the dicussion away from "elder gods," since unless an actual Chtuthulu is going to show up in game I don't think that's the right term. If a rookie hears "If you go into hyperspace chtuthulu eats you" they'll avoid it and never use it. It'll make the mechanic a lot less used than it should be.
Anyway, here's the thing about hyperspace: a skilled pilot should be able to go across the universe in hyperspace without losing a block.

-ohhh. Ships popping onto your radar, activating your automatic defenses and causing you to waste your precious power reserves. Laybrinths of tubes that randomly teleport you while within, and your HUD goes wonky. I feel like there should actually be rewards for following the stuff sometimes, because otherwise players are going to just ignore those messages

-Here's the thing: having hyperspace require infrastructure I feel goes against the point of hyperspace: able to travel long distances with only your ship, easily. However, infrastructure to make hyperspace travel safer and more reliable sounds fun. Not sure about gates though. After all, it's a similar mechanic to jump gates, which would be faster and safer by far.

-Do you know how long it took me to collect the materials for those shields? Do you? Do you know how much blood, sweat, and tears dripped onto my keyboard while I was salvaging those asteroids? Do you honestly want me this angry, server, DO YOU?!?!?

-Hmmmm... beacons that could do all sorts of things... reduce the odds of hallucinations, votexes, and rifts, or possibly attract wraiths. Either for hunting them, or for denying your enemy hyperspace use. Come in and kill one once in a while to keep up the spawn rate.

 

[shadowulf]

now this is a new take on an old, planned feature. i like very much. +1

 

[ltmauve]

Yeah, it's a shame that this will probably be mod-only stuff.

 

[Kingpin]

I know that this was supposed to be for travel but i thought it could be a cool idea as a replacement for the cloaking system. What if when your in hyperspace you can still attack things in realspace, but you cant be seen or attacked yourself by things in realspace, but only by other players, etc. in hyperspace. As stated above there would be other dangers of some sort in hyperspace and hallucinations but also it could be more dangerous for large ships to go there simply because they would be more likely to be hit by crystal discharge, and/or pulled into vortexes, and then having your ship disabled, etc. This doesnt mean that it cant be use for travel and looting, but it would be more accessible by smaller ships than larger ones

 

[ltmauve]

I know that this was supposed to be for travel but i thought it could be a cool idea as a replacement for the cloaking system. What if when your in hyperspace you can still attack things in realspace, but you cant be seen or attacked yourself by things in realspace, but only by other players, etc. in hyperspace. As stated above there would be other dangers of some sort in hyperspace and hallucinations but also it could be more dangerous for large ships to go there simply because they would be more likely to be hit by crystal discharge, and/or pulled into vortexes, and then having your ship disabled, etc. This doesnt mean that it cant be use for travel and looting, but it would be more accessible by smaller ships than larger ones

Seems very OP, as a good pilot could avoid all of those, unless hyperspace was filled with enough of those to be almost unflyable.