Give exploration some reason ~ Jump Beacons ~

[taisong]

I have been playing FTL recently and I thought having a jump beacon would make interstellar travel much more restrictive and give exploration a reason.
It also gives you a tactical reason to place and destroy beacons, to restrict enemy fleet movements.

Now, I will explain how this beacon works.
Whenever you make a station, you will be able to add a jump beacon block. This block will make the station into a jump beacon, which will give a considerable buff to jump drives.

When you are near a jump beacon;
・Your jump drive will charge faster, and will take up less energy

When you select the sector with a jump beacon as your jump destination;
・The station name will be shown
・You will be able to jump to that beacon from a farther place than usual

Now, most of you would probably feel the similarity of warp gates to this proposal. Yes, It is a similar thing, but a beacon cannot take your ship to somewhere really far away. You also do not need much power for having a beacon, which makes beacons a more affordable and compact version of warp gates.
It also lets massive titans to travel considerably faster, which might help when you need to deal with enemies messing with your station.

This is one of that low-priority updates that should come later in game, but I would really hope to see some discussion here about beacons.

 

[KaRe]

So, either restrict jump travel to certain points or make overall speed a whole lot less? Seems like something we wouldn't need at all, especially if the most powerful ships in the game would go from 1-10 on travel ratings. I think it would be much better to make station jump inhibitors more effective rather than making it so if you destroy a beacon they just travel at the same pace as usual- which kinda counters that whole redirect enemy fleets thing.

 

[taisong]

I did think about nerfing the chaindrive and the jump drive itself. It is just a raw, unrefined proposal, so I thought not to give out details.

 

[Gasboy]

I have been playing FTL recently and I thought having a jump beacon would make interstellar travel much more restrictive and give exploration a reason.
It also gives you a tactical reason to place and destroy beacons, to restrict enemy fleet movements.

Now, I will explain how this beacon works.
Whenever you make a station, you will be able to add a jump beacon block. This block will make the station into a jump beacon, which will give a considerable buff to jump drives.

When you are near a jump beacon;
・Your jump drive will charge faster, and will take up less energy

When you select the sector with a jump beacon as your jump destination;
・The station name will be shown
・You will be able to jump to that beacon from a farther place than usual

Now, most of you would probably feel the similarity of warp gates to this proposal. Yes, It is a similar thing, but a beacon cannot take your ship to somewhere really far away. You also do not need much power for having a beacon, which makes beacons a more affordable and compact version of warp gates.
It also lets massive titans to travel considerably faster, which might help when you need to deal with enemies messing with your station.

This is one of that low-priority updates that should come later in game, but I would really hope to see some discussion here about beacons.

So we may as well ditch the warp gates then?

 

[NeonSturm]

So we may as well ditch the warp gates then?

Why?

Warp Gates are Highways and Jump Becons are a cities street network.

 

[Gasboy]

Why?

Warp Gates are Highways and Jump Becons are a cities street network.

As long as there are chain jump drives, there's no point to jump beacons (or warp gates for that matter).

You could, instead of adding jump beacons, simply give warp gates some of the suggested powers. (boosting jump drives, reducing power costs, etc). Make warp gates great again.

 

[taisong]

My guess is that the chain drive is not how the devs wanted us to use jump drives. So, this "Beacon" is for the starmade galaxy without Chain drives.

 

[kulbolen]

well, i dont think its up to your opinion, but theirs... but i think youre probably correct in your guess, and ideas like this would be pretty cool in a worls where travel was a commodity

 

[nightrune]

This has been one of my favorite ways to accomplish this.

Jump Drives and... Stars?: A proposal to expand the effective size of the universe.

 

[taisong]

Yes, I have once read this thread. Seems like the star is equivalent to my "beacons".
While it is appealing, you really cannot destroy or create a star right now. So, I thought of "beacons" would be a more flexible version of the star-jump.

 

[terra mining corp.]

As long as there are chain jump drives, there's no point to jump beacons (or warp gates for that matter).

You could, instead of adding jump beacons, simply give warp gates some of the suggested powers. (boosting jump drives, reducing power costs, etc). Make warp gates great again.

You could set up a "curtain" of jump inhibiters to shut down chain drives in your sector and charge gate fees to use your warp gate.

 

[Gasboy]

You could set up a "curtain" of jump inhibiters to shut down chain drives in your sector and charge gate fees to use your warp gate.

A curtain could easily be pierced, you'd have to basically seed the whole system. Also, logic unloads when the sector is empty. Are chain drives fast enough to jump through before the sector loads fully?

 

[terra mining corp.]

Good points to test Gasboy,could add more rp elements.taisong : do we want the ability to have titans jump onto our doorstep with little cost? at least with warpgates they can be blocked to traffic.

 

[Gasboy]

Good points to test Gasboy,could add more rp elements.taisong : do we want the ability to have titans jump onto our doorstep with little cost? at least with warpgates they can be blocked to traffic.

The thing is though, not everyone who jumps into your system is your enemy. However, if you make it impossible/difficult to cross your space without having to pay a "toll", you might end up making more enemies than friends. :P

I do think that the OP's idea would work better if they just added extra functionality to warp gates. Give more reason to build them and defend them.

 

[taisong]

I think it is a good idea to make these beacons claim-able. If you set them to faction use only, enemies will be able to jump to it, but the recharge bonus will be only given to your faction's ships.
You may also get a warning that a foreign ship is using your beacon.

In FTL, we have normal beacons and long-range beacons. I wanted the beacons to be the "normal" ones and warp gates to be "long-range" beacons.

You might even be able to hide these beacons from plain view, with certain blocks. Secret beacons only your faction ships use.

For those of you who want people to visit your shop, placing a few public beacons around your station might be a good idea.
For those of you who want to hide, a hidden beacon might be a good idea.