Faster Travel Suggestion: Jumpgate cores

[TheGamingWyvern]

Despite being an amazing game, one thing Starmade does not have is a way to travel long distances effieciently. I have read the "Hyper-Realm" thread (as well as a very quick google search to see if anyone else had a similar idea to mine), and while I do think it is a cool idea, I thought I would through mine into the mix.



I think that there should be a new type of entity, a jumpgate (warpgate, whatever), that would allow instantaneous travel from its location to somewhere else, but at the cost of a lot of energy (similar to the graviton catapult from the star trek voyager episode). To simplify it, I will put my concept into points.

1. You purchase a "Jumpgate Core" that is placed the same as a ship core.

2. This new core acts very similar to a ship core (can attach shields, thrusters, etc), except that no weapon modules can be placed on it.

3. A new module, usable only by this entity, would be the "Jumpgate Computer"

4. Attach many "Jump Blocks" to the Jumpgate Computer, same as attaching weapons to weapon computers.

5. By activating the Jump Blocks (tractor beam,similar to activating plexdoors) and then flying through them, you would be able to jump to (only to, not from) a set location X number of sectors away. This would be limited in several of ways.

When I say a set location away, I mean you can go down to the core, press r, then enter the 3 coordinates for the sector before going back to your ship to activating it.

5.1. First, the size of the entity that can use the Jumpgate is directly based on the number of Jump blocks attach to the Jumpgate. A ship that is only a core could use any jumpgate, but a massive titan-class ship would need an equally massive jumpgate.

5.2. Second, the distance traveled consumes a porportional amount of energy, to the point where moving anything beyond, say, 1 sector would be impossible without more energy storage because you wouldn't have enough energy stockpiled to even begin the process.

5.3. Third, the jump could be prevented if it would land you directly inside a sector with a faction base to avoid surprise attacks (don't know if this is a good idea, don't do much pvp, maybe people would like the idea of jumping in directly in the middle of their enemies)

5.4 Fourth, the jumps would have to be spaced out. Maybe set the jumpcore to recharge energy at a slower rate, maybe make the energy requirements so high that you have to wait 10 minutes before it has enough power for another jump.

6. An interesting concept would be to build a giant jumpgate, and build a slightly smaller one. Send the smaller jumpgate through the larger one to allow 2-way travel without having to construct a new jumpgate wherever you land.

I have absolutely no idea how difficult this is to code (I do a bit of coding, but nothing near a real game yet), so I hope it is possible to impliment (as well as being a fun idea). I really hope that people in the community will leave suggestions, because I really want to know what people think of this.



Edit: After reading some comments on other threads, I feel like this warp/jumpgate idea may have already been discussed. Since I can't find any thread that details a complete design of a jumpgate, I hope that I am not just repeating something that already exists, but I might be, so sorry if I am just rehashing an old arguement.

 

[Mcc83]

I have to say, I like both of the ideas (This thread and the other whatever jumping thing :l) but this I believe is more understandable, and compared to the other idea, this could easily be implimented. Also if you CANT jump into a sector with a faction, people will know there is a faction there and so forth. Some people like to remain hidden At all times, like me :3 So great Idea

 

[TheGamingWyvern]

One thing I do want to say on the faction front is that it wouldn\'t just say \"You cannot jump here\" when you try to select a sector as your predefined warp, it would only happen when you actually try to activate/fly through it and find out you just pass through it. The way I see it, if the jump did complete, they would know you are there anyway (although might not be prepared for an ambush), whereas with my concept they would just be alerted without the chance of beign jumped on by members of another faction.



Like I said, I have no idea which people would prefer, I am just putting out the pros and cons of both sides.

 

[Comr4de]

If there were other environmental hazards that prevented a jump (suns, black holes, nebulae) then it\'s not neccesarily a confirmed fact that a faction base is there.



Also, would it not be easier to put the jump blocks on the ship itself or a station? If it\'s on a station there\'s no way the gate will ever be accidentally knocked out of position, and for a ship it would obviate the need for a gate entirely.

 

[TheGamingWyvern]

Actually, I was thinking that those wree perfect reasons to put it as its own entity. A jump core on your ship would be too easy. You just hit the button and *pop*, your there. If you have to build a gate, it would make the travel harder to achieve, and also limit the travel from the locations you build your gate (I am assuming that gates large enough to move a decently size ship through would be extremely slow to move, maybe even limit them to something like 5 km/h max no matter how many thrusters). Even if you could dock your gates to a ship (and again, I imagine a gigantic docking area), you would still have to leave the gate behind when you do jump somewhere, preventing you from just using it whenever.

As for attaching it to a station, as I said as one of my points, I like the concept of flying a smaller gate through a larger one. Also, I would want people to set this up more or less anywhere, and be able to move it if the area they are jumping from becomes obsolete, without having to dismantle it.

 

[Visitor]

I am not fond of buildable gates. In short, I wouldn\'t mind some sort of environmental ones - maybe indestructible remnants of ancient technology that only ships equipped with proper module can use - that are somewhat rare and when used throw one either to some place many, many sectors away or otherwise unenterable location/world altogether. In time and with progress of enriching the world, they would be either used for transport or sealed and guarded if they lead to places from which all kinds of nasty stuff teleport to this side.

I must say though tha for me it would be very important for conventional drive to remain main mode of traveling. Especially that going even considerable distances (span of a few sectors) takes very short time in comparison to what one would expect. That on top of how common jumping would actually destroy lot of game\'s potential - no escorts, trade convoys, lone explorers slowly but carefully traversing unpopulated sectors without making them silly.

 

[Jason]

This would be nice, but instead of buying it the gate should have to be found/built. This way there wont be tons of them, but also make it were depending on the gates size, and size of the ship more power is needed. So take a 1m-15m block ship it would take a planet size energy unit just to transport it, and even more power just to keep the Jump Gate open, it would balance the gate, but also keep people from messing with them to much causing issues.

 

[Danzarlo]

I believe it can be regulated by making them use loads of power what pretty much makes titans and capital ships impossible to jump unless your good as building efficent power matrixs well thats my idea :3

 

[TheGamingWyvern]

I honestly think that the gates could be limited to prevent them becoming a major mode of travel. If you make the power requirements ludicrious, you would need a mass of power tanks to even be able to store enough power to activate it for a smaller ship, and then recharging the power would take ages.

If that can\'t be achieved (maybe because it would just require too many power tanks/people could get around it with enough power blocks, etc) then just hard code in a cooldown timer to the core. Say, half an hour between jumps, maybe?

Besides, this would be static jump points. I imagine gates maybe half the size of stations (remember, the \'jump\' area has to be big enough for the ship to fly through, as well as having the power tanks and other modules located elsewhere.)

Then again, as I type this, I realize that in heavily populated sectors everywhere you would want to jump to would probably have its own jumpgate, so maybe it would overshadow regular travel in highly populated areas. I still think the time/energy limit could be properly implimented to balance it though.

 

[TheGamingWyvern]

@ Jason

I did mention that the gates would be built (you would just buy the core the same way you buy a ship core), and that the size of the gates (and therefore energy consumed) is going to have to be proportional to the size of the ship jumping.

Also, I wasn\'t thinking about keeping the gates open (I originally thought a giant burst of energy just to get one ship through), but I suppose that if the energy supply was enough (and that would be a giant block of power tanks/ power blocks) you could keep it open for several ships.



Finally, I really like the concept of having to find the jumpcores instead of buying them. Maybe give them a 1/100 chance to be buried in the heart of an asteroid?

 

[Lord_Sauron]

Just an idea for the jump gates why not have it where you have to have two jump gates then you cant just jump to a new faction base and kill them before they actualy have more then 2 members so if there are more gates more places to go. and also why not have a jump gate sector where the jump gate is in the centre of X amount of sectors then you will still have to travel to a sector. One more thing how about to jump to another factions gate how about a faction ID so that only faction members may only jump here. Just thought this would be a good add on

Lord_Sauron Anyone got my Ring

 

[phenomenalx]

Well, reading some comments about being ambushed by using the jumpgate cores, why not add a jumpgate alert/warning block for your factions.As obvious as it is, it can detect incoming jumps and you can be prepared for the ambush.

 

[MrFURB]

One of the things that must be considered when suggesting new content is \'How can I ass this without a major footprint?\' If something that origionally used 1-2 blocks requires the addition of five block and a bunch of code in order to be balanced, there are better ways to get the same results. Keep that in mind.



I believe that gates are the best solution to our fast travel woes, but to impliment them in such a way that faction territory, natural hazards, and any future area-specific economic resources are all respected is going to be a challenge.

 

[MrNo]

I agree with most of this, it\'s a good idea. In the way of limiting this, as it should be, so that it won\'t be too powerful:

Energy: Yes, energy is a good way to limit it. Large increases in energy required with larger ships would prevent them from jumping easily. As an alternative to requiring the gate to have all of the energy stored at once: It can collect it over time from any connected power sources (perhaps allow the ship in question to power it as well, if they have the power-send beams), but only starts collecting when a ship is attempting to jump OR can store some of it, and must collect the rest. During that collection period the ship is locked in place (other alternatives are to disable weapons or shields). This would mean that jumping a massive ship, though possible, is extremely dangerous in unprotected space as it would be left almost defenseless during the time. This would require 1 new block to work: A core



Shape/Size: You could just make it so that the ship has to be able to fit within a certain area, which can be expanded similar to docking as it currently works. Still require energy to jump, of course, and that requirement would still be high. This method would require 2 blocks to work: A core, an enhancer.



Second jumpgate: There MUST be a jumpgate at your destination. Means that this is only going to be used between important sectors, where something like this could be set up. Would stop you from simply jumping right next to an enemy faction base constantly (unless you managed to be sneaky and set one up on the back of an asteroid... Hehehe).

Combined with previous two suggestions: With energy requirements, only requires full energy at starting jump core/beacon/gate (because you need to accelerate the ship), and a fraction at arrival location (Hope you can get back!). With Shape/Size requirements, the arrival gate would need to fit the incoming ship, and would not allow arrival otherwise.

Overall, this is the solution to fast travel. Increasing maximum speed has tons of problems with it (though it is fun) but an instant/near-insant jump across large space, for a large cost, is a good idea. I hope it doesn\'t become easy to use, and I\'d like it to remain limited, but it would work.

As an addition: Add a UI to select jumpgates.

I\'ll spare you and myself the time of reading/writing the numerous other ideas I have with a quick summary:

• Faction blocks can be used to make a gate faction specific
• Gates must be built on immobile structures, not ships (Moving jumpgates? Gah... My head...)
• Increased energy requirements based on distance traveled.

 

[noonegame]

This is a great idea but why not just make the gates similar to those in the game Freelancer (i\'m sure most of you have played it if not, look it up). To use a gate there must be another one in a different sector that is connected with the one you are trying to use. My idea is instead of building the gate on a station just create it as if you are making a ship. First you have to find a jumpgate core then press a button and let\'s say you need 100m credits to put it down. After that you just build the gate arround the core and mounting thrusters on it should be disabled like stations so that they can\'t be moved like MrNo said. Plus only the person who plased the gate can retrieve the core that way there won\'t be people trying to steal it. You could make a few types of cores with different range:

? small: the 2 gates must be at max 3 sectors apart

? medium: 7 sectors

? large: 13 sectors

? hyper: unlimited

The bigger the range the rarer the core is with the hypergate core extremely rare and found in the center of 1 out of 100 planets and some of them can be broken and unusable so that there won\'t be too many. The use of faction blocks on them is good too.

The idea of bigger ship=more energy needed is great too but there should still be a limit to the ship size on the small, medium and large jumpgate cores, only hypergates dont need the limit.

 

[KuramaFox]

Basically, to use it, you need to input a destination. You must then wait a short time for the drive to charge before you teleport. During this charging period, your thrusters, weapons, and shields all go offline, making you very vulnerable if someone were to attack you (or if they already were attacking you, in particular). Shields would have to recharge from zero as well upon entering the destination sector.

How far you can jump is based upon how many jumpdrive blocks you have, with diminishing returns but NOT weighted against your ship size. So larger jumpdrives always can jump farther (and thus larger vessels will tend to be able to as well). And can still do so with vessels docked to them.

How long the charging period is is based on the jumpdrive block number, but IS weighted against your ship size and has mild dimishing returns as well. So larger ships with 5% of their blocks dedicated to jump drive will always take longer then smaller ships with 5% of their blocks in a jump drive, for instance.

So a small fighter may only take 5 seconds or so to jump. Maybe even less if its designed specifically for jumping. A frigate may take 10-15 though, and a larger ship may take a good 20-30 seconds to charge (a REALLY REALLY big one may take up to 60). In other words, you do not want to be using it near enemies unless someone is either covering you or unless you know you are dead if you stay regardless.



There, a teleporting idea that doesn\'t interfere with combat or place irksome limits on ease of movement. That said, jumpdrives would be good for moving 5-10 sectors, but limit their max range to around 20-30ish and you can allow a jump gate or something like that to be the long range means of movement.

 

[Tomino_sama]

just a note about \"if FACTION no jump\"



if you have a mechanic which says, the enemy can jump in on your Faction Base. Players will construct defenses on the bases in a way to exploit this.



If you do not allow it, the fleet will simply take a few seconds longer to reach those defences.



so i don\'t think it matters too much. If a \"Blob\" of large numbers of Ships attacks then the station is invulnerable. If the doors are open and ships are outside, they will get Whomped.



Other than Turrets all getting popped, the fleet will move on as nothing left to do.



Unless they didn\'t use a Faction Block than the whole place will be Dust in the solar Winds in Minutes.



OP I like the idea of your Jumpgate Cores, we should take all the best ideas from all these Jump gate threads and merge them together for Schema, there are a couple of great one now. Maybe if we find a cracker they will think about including the idea in future.



I like the idea of a system that catapaults you X sectors based on Gate Diameter. Use of docking beam to activate etc. Encouraging the building of a network, in place of a Gate that takes you anywhere is good as you create \"trade routes\".



If you created a gate that could only take you say 20 sectors in the direction you travel through it, that could be a great tool for deep space exploration. Bigger gates = longer jumps. it means that smaller ships could use any gate, but bigger ships could only use the largest ones. This means bigger ships would more likely fly short distances.



The question is, would these networks become private? The Factions will attach Faction block of course to prevent Greifing. I guess War can change that, but maybe all gate travel should be allowed to all players regardless of Faction.



No Lock to using Gates when owned by a Faction. I agree they should not be able to remove any block etc, but it would be a pity if all these gates started spamming servers as everyone had to create their own network.



Gate Networks should be Shared

 

[spf9000]

This idea has quite literally evolved into stargates it literally just needs the word jump replaced with star and there is next to no difference.

though I do love the idea of stargates in this game