How do you build a jump ship to permit fast galactic travel, without chain drives?

[Panpiper]

it takes me about 5 minutes to get across a galaxy, about to go from the center of one to the center of another. If it takes you more than that, you aren't building very well.

I take it that you are 'not' referring to the use of a chain drive?

I am not certain how you could do this. The fastest jump ship I have ever built recharges it's jump drive in the time it take for the jump animation to finish. This requires that almost half the mass of the ship be jump modules. It does make for very fast travel, but even this ship could not get from one galaxy to another in the space of five minutes. It takes about 10 to 15 seconds for this ship to clear a star system given normal jump ranges.

I tend to build my battleminers and such with greater than 10% in jump modules, making it able to recharge in about ten seconds. This permits me to move fairly quickly between star systems, allowing me to traverse maybe a quarter of a galaxy in five minutes.

Just what are you doing differently to permit you vastly greater speeds than this?

 

[DrTarDIS]

apologies, apparently my keyboard numpad is dieing faster than expected and I didn't proofread. It SHOULD have read.

"it takes me about 5 minutes to get across a galaxy, about 15-20 to go from the center of one to the center of another. If it takes you more than that, you aren't building very well."

EG, very quickly slapped together fast-travel vehicle I usually keep a few copies of in my inventory.(attached)
Or by using "disposable jumpers", a small ship with X many already charged jump drives in it's blueprint. You just abandon them once they run out, spawning a new one to continue on(or full symmetry "eat" them and fill an empty blueprint).

 

[Winterhome]

Just what are you doing differently to permit you vastly greater speeds than this?

Playing on a server with larger jumpdrive ranges. Or not telling the truth.

The only way to go faster than jumpdrives that charge faster than their animations end without using chaindrives is to combine them with wormhole slingshotting or to use wormholes and warpgates.

 

[splatthecat]

My stealth scouts can recharge their jump drives in about 6-8 seconds but use between 700 and 950 modules or roughly 4-5 times what it says it should have.

From memory, I believe that any of my standard jump capable ships that are either 100% efficient or better can charge in about 15 seconds or so.

I feel that this is quite reasonable and I draw this conclusion from actual performance of the game when using these drives. If for example there are only few people on the server it can be 6 seconds, jump, 6 seconds, jump, etc but once you start adding more people online the game is having to do so much more and obviously not only the sector you are in but every sector adjacent to it is loaded and then eventually unloaded, times the number of players online, results in a lag spike. In practice, jump times increase so that a 100% efficient drive is only slightly slower. Even if I am alone on a server, after a few jumps things start to slow down as the previous batch of sectors (over 150 in around 30 seconds) is unloaded.

If you want to cover great distance in short space of time, build a network of warp gates.

 

[MgnfcntBstrd]

I'd recommend using a logic-driven auto-jump-drive. Instead of a couple of jump computers with masses of jump modules, I use something like 120 jump computers with just one or two modules each. I have three rail clocks with buttons on every rail surface, feeding all of those inputs into a single button which is then linked to all of the jump computers.

My setup takes about two minutes to charge up all of the computers from empty on my 321K mass ship. Once they are charged, the ship begins to jump over and over until you turn off the logic. (For this reason, I recommend having both an inner ship remote with activation and another with a button, so you can get just a single jump.) By the time you've fired off the last jump computer, the first have charged back up, so the jumping never stops.

Starmade doesn't allow more than one jump computer to execute at a time, so you don't have to worry about timing them. The only problems I've ever had with them working involved lag on a server when I was still using logic clocks instead of rails. In that situation, making them STOP is the hard part.

Be very careful to stay in your ship when you are jumping. If you do not, your ship has no qualms about jumping without you.

Also, do not run the auto jump drive while docked to another ship or station. It will give you an error about not being able to jump, but the moment you undock, it will immediately execute the jumps you ran while you were docked.

 

[Jojomo]

I'd recommend using a logic-driven auto-jump-drive. Instead of a couple of jump computers with masses of jump modules, I use something like 120 jump computers with just one or two modules each. I have three rail clocks with buttons on every rail surface, feeding all of those inputs into a single button which is then linked to all of the jump computers.

My setup takes about two minutes to charge up all of the computers from empty on my 321K mass ship. Once they are charged, the ship begins to jump over and over until you turn off the logic. (For this reason, I recommend having both an inner ship remote with activation and another with a button, so you can get just a single jump.) By the time you've fired off the last jump computer, the first have charged back up, so the jumping never stops.

Starmade doesn't allow more than one jump computer to execute at a time, so you don't have to worry about timing them. The only problems I've ever had with them working involved lag on a server when I was still using logic clocks instead of rails. In that situation, making them STOP is the hard part.

Be very careful to stay in your ship when you are jumping. If you do not, your ship has no qualms about jumping without you.

I may be getting the wrong idea, but isn't this a chain jumpdrive by another name?

Also, do not run the auto jump drive while docked to another ship or station. It will give you an error about not being able to jump, but the moment you undock, it will immediately execute the jumps you ran while you were docked.

This is interesting. I wonder if it would work as a light-weight way of jumping away damage-undocked entities from a multi-entity ship to prevent collision lag?

 

[nightrune]

I may be getting the wrong idea, but isn't this a chain jumpdrive by another name?
This is interesting. I wonder if it would work as a light-weight way of jumping away damage-undocked entities from a multi-entity ship to prevent collision lag?

This was quite common on the old docked reactors, but it creates a ton of entities in the database that no one ever runs across.

 

[Jojomo]

This was quite common on the old docked reactors, but it creates a ton of entities in the database that no one ever runs across.

Yes, I heard of people using logic to check for undocking, but I wondered if this was simpler, using less fewer blocks? (And less network traffic/cpu server time??)

EDIT: It looks like this was exactly the same method used then too...

 

[MgnfcntBstrd]

I may be getting the wrong idea, but isn't this a chain jumpdrive by another name?

Sorry, I had to do a search on "chain drive." It looks like they picked up that name this last year; we were just calling them logic-driven or auto jump drives the last time I played on a public server in 2015.

Honestly, it never occurred to me to put one on my reactors in the event of undocking; that was always a server-crashing event.

 

[Edymnion]

It depends entirely on how you define "fast".

For me, "fast" is "how much time do I have to spend actively travelling". So the fastest way for me to get to the other side of the galaxy or to another galaxy is to use the Move Fleet command.

Put your ship into a fleet, give it the move command to the other side of the galaxy, and log out. The ships will keep moving with you logged out, and once they hit the sector boundary will unload. They won't re-load into actual space until there is someone there to force the sector to load.

Which means as long as you don't run into a star or get attacked within that first initial sector or two, you'll be 100% safe getting to your destination and will be safe at last until you log back in aboard the ship.

Its very slow in the "time between pushing the button and getting there" aspect, since the ship only moves at the server speed limit while unloaded, but its very fast in the "hit the button, then go do the laundry or go to bed, and you'll be there when you log back in" aspect.

Note: This only works on online servers.

 

[Stormraven]

Personally, I cannot fathom why you'd want to avoid a chain drive. Chain drives can accomplish some truly impressive things if you tinker with them a bit. I have a programmable chain drive which can be set to full blast or programmed to perform a set number of jumps. From pre-charged warp cells.
What's not to love about that? XD

 

[Panpiper]

Personally, I cannot fathom why you'd want to avoid a chain drive. Chain drives can accomplish some truly impressive things if you tinker with them a bit. I have a programmable chain drive which can be set to full blast or programmed to perform a set number of jumps. From pre-charged warp cells.
What's not to love about that? XD

There are two essential problems with chain drives. One is that they are clearly a MASSIVE exploit that the developers did not foresee and that completely break the basic balance they were trying to achieve with the existing jump system. The exploit is so vastly more effective than normal jump that they make anyone still using such normal jump systems (such as myself) an idiot for doing so. They also make distance in the game a virtually trivial thing to traverse, something no game would contemplate because it removes one of the fundamental challenges in a space game.

The other problem is that due to the way they work, the use of chain drives is ENORMOUSLY taxing upon a server and can easily bring a server to it's knees if more than one person is using one at the same time or something else is happening on the server at that moment that requires server resources. Chain drives are in fact SO destructive to a stable server, that any server admin is likely a fool to not outright ban them. The problem with that of course is that it is very difficult to enforce, and if it is not enforced, someone willing to skirt the rules can gain a massive advantage over everyone else.

What I would like to see as an interim, stop gap fix to chain drives, is to make a ship unable to engage a jump drive until any existing jump animation has finished it's cycle. This will break all existing chain drives (sorry for the lack of heart bleeding) and force any reconstructed chain drives to at the very least, slow down so that they only jump every six or seven seconds. That still breaks the balance of the existing jump system. If I were the developers, I would also institute a jump range variation based on the jump module to mass ratio. The larger the percentage of the mass devoted to a jump drive, the longer the jump range. The smaller the ratio, the shorter the range. Those two things together would fix the problem completely I expect.

 

[Nickizzy]

There are two essential problems with chain drives. One is that they are clearly a MASSIVE exploit that the developers did not foresee and that completely break the basic balance they were trying to achieve with the existing jump system. The exploit is so vastly more effective than normal jump that they make anyone still using such normal jump systems (such as myself) an idiot for doing so. They also make distance in the game a virtually trivial thing to traverse, something no game would contemplate because it removes one of the fundamental challenges in a space game.

The other problem is that due to the way they work, the use of chain drives is ENORMOUSLY taxing upon a server and can easily bring a server to it's knees if more than one person is using one at the same time or something else is happening on the server at that moment that requires server resources. Chain drives are in fact SO destructive to a stable server, that any server admin is likely a fool to not outright ban them. The problem with that of course is that it is very difficult to enforce, and if it is not enforced, someone willing to skirt the rules can gain a massive advantage over everyone else.

What I would like to see as an interim, stop gap fix to chain drives, is to make a ship unable to engage a jump drive until any existing jump animation has finished it's cycle. This will break all existing chain drives (sorry for the lack of heart bleeding) and force any reconstructed chain drives to at the very least, slow down so that they only jump every six or seven seconds. That still breaks the balance of the existing jump system. If I were the developers, I would also institute a jump range variation based on the jump module to mass ratio. The larger the percentage of the mass devoted to a jump drive, the longer the jump range. The smaller the ratio, the shorter the range. Those two things together would fix the problem completely I expect.

Shouldn't chain drives and regular maxed jump drives have the same effect on the server? It's not like modules affect jump range.

 

[Stormraven]

These changes would make me exceptionally sad.
(Because I've invested an inordinate amount of time into tinkering with chain warp technology.)
It would also probably be a good move on the dev's part, much as I hate to admit it.

There is one more factor you should take into account though. Cost.
Chaindrives are EXPONENTIALLY more expensive than large single computer warp drives.

 

[Edymnion]

Shouldn't chain drives and regular maxed jump drives have the same effect on the server? It's not like modules affect jump range.

The problem with most of the chain drives isn't that its multiple drives together, its the fact that they require docked entities whipping back and forth on rails in confined areas in order to spam logic signals to make them charge/jump correctly.

Fast moving docked parts inside of ships spamming multiple logic pulses per second inside a massive ship = bad for server.

 

[splatthecat]

My Dimension 2 Stealth Ship has lots of power and 990 jump drive modules. It is also a permanent cloak ship. I can charge my jump drive in about 6 seconds.

**Ignore this repeated message, I didn't realise I had already replied to this thread!*&

 

[Sachys]

The problem with most of the chain drives isn't that its multiple drives together, its the fact that they require docked entities whipping back and forth on rails in confined areas in order to spam logic signals to make them charge/jump correctly.

Fast moving docked parts inside of ships spamming multiple logic pulses per second inside a massive ship = bad for server.

Chain drives dont require docked entities - though many people favour them.
Chain drives do require a clock though - a simple OR/NOT/DELAY will do the job.

 

[Stormraven]

The problem with most of the chain drives isn't that its multiple drives together, its the fact that they require docked entities whipping back and forth on rails in confined areas in order to spam logic signals to make them charge/jump correctly.

Fast moving docked parts inside of ships spamming multiple logic pulses per second inside a massive ship = bad for server.

Well, you COULD build a low lag (or lowER lag) chain drive simply by avoiding rail clocks. Your drive will be slower, but it won't pound the bandwidth as badly.

EDIT:
Sorry Sachys, didn't see your post before I hit send. LoL
[doublepost=1486672566,1486672333][/doublepost]You can also shave down the server load by not charging and firing at the same time.
Load up your drives. Zoom across space. Start charging drives again.
It's slower, but it can be done in a server friendly fashion.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

There are two essential problems with chain drives. One is that they are clearly a MASSIVE exploit that the developers did not foresee and that completely break the basic balance they were trying to achieve with the existing jump system. The exploit is so vastly more effective than normal jump that they make anyone still using such normal jump systems (such as myself) an idiot for doing so. They also make distance in the game a virtually trivial thing to traverse, something no game would contemplate because it removes one of the fundamental challenges in a space game.

The other problem is that due to the way they work, the use of chain drives is ENORMOUSLY taxing upon a server and can easily bring a server to it's knees if more than one person is using one at the same time or something else is happening on the server at that moment that requires server resources. Chain drives are in fact SO destructive to a stable server, that any server admin is likely a fool to not outright ban them. The problem with that of course is that it is very difficult to enforce, and if it is not enforced, someone willing to skirt the rules can gain a massive advantage over everyone else.

What I would like to see as an interim, stop gap fix to chain drives, is to make a ship unable to engage a jump drive until any existing jump animation has finished it's cycle. This will break all existing chain drives (sorry for the lack of heart bleeding) and force any reconstructed chain drives to at the very least, slow down so that they only jump every six or seven seconds. That still breaks the balance of the existing jump system. If I were the developers, I would also institute a jump range variation based on the jump module to mass ratio. The larger the percentage of the mass devoted to a jump drive, the longer the jump range. The smaller the ratio, the shorter the range. Those two things together would fix the problem completely I expect.

this is why i tend to stay away from chain drives. I have logic chargers in my ships but they only charge 1-3 jump drives. The simple fact alone that you can stack so many drives and use them in quick succession with little to no consequence was always an exploit ready to happen.

I fully expect some kind of nerf in the future for jump drives. not a out right removal of them but something that caps the distance they travel in order to still make them useful. if I had to guess it would be something like 25-30% of a warp gates distance per jump maybe more.

 

[DrTarDIS]

The problem with most of the chain drives isn't that its multiple drives together, its the fact that they require docked entities whipping back and forth on rails in confined areas in order to spam logic signals to make them charge/jump correctly.

Fast moving docked parts inside of ships spamming multiple logic pulses per second inside a massive ship = bad for server.

AFAIK the real problem is the read/write speed of the server hardware once the sectors reah the "unload and save" part of the cooldown. Every time you "dip back" into normal space, all 27 sectors around the point you jumped to load in. I think the default "unload" lifetime of sectors is 40 seconds? So if you chain-jump for more than 40 seconds at a time, you're causing simultaneous loading(read from disk) of one 27 sector chunk, and unloading(write to disk, even if nothing changed) of the "oldest" 27 sector chunk. Meanwhile, 40 seconds/~4 sec between jumps*27 sectors = ~270 loaded sectors checking simulation. All that added onto everything every other person is doing in just memory read/write cycles....

That's one of those "optimizations" the core game has to get a handle on by the beta version; not writing if nothing changed.