Jump Drive suggestion: Continuous drives

[TheKingOfSpace]

I had this idea saved for a while, seemed a good time to post it:

TL;DR version:​

• Press jump once to go anywhere instead of pressing jump a lot
• Takes a while but you can chill in a warp tunnel
• Jump interdiction should be less all-or-nothing

Make warping one continuous journey instead of a series of 'hops'.

Rather than repeatedly tapping the jump charge and fire buttons, have the player's ship go through a single, long jump that takes 1-5 minutes, or perhaps longer, depending on distance.

Instead of jump drives causing the ship to instantly vanish and appear in another sector, they'd hang around 'Warpspace' first.
Warpspace would simply be a personal sector (like the shipyard test sectors) wherein the warp tunnel effect is applied, and the player can wander about his ship freely while he waits for his jump to complete. (This also gives players an excuse to actually make use of their interiors, organize inventories, chat with other players, etc, which is nice)

Players could add chambers to their FTL chamber that decrease the amount of time spent in warpspace (and thus the speed of the drive)

Interdiction

I'm not sure how interdiction is going to work post-update, but I had imagined interdiction being able to pull ships out of warp earlier along their path, depending on a strength metric for both the drive and interdictor, having had the game calculate what interdictors it might hit along it's flight path before it jumps.

I.E, if you hit an interdictor 5 sectors into your 10 sector jump, but it's weaker than your jumpdrive, you might end up 7 of 10 sectors away from your start point, making the whole affair a less binary thing.

Perhaps interdiction could be partly a station thing; only stations could pull ships out of an active warp tunnel, while ships could still stop a ship in nearby sectors from leaving.
Could give a good reason to build outposts.

 

[Dire Venom]

Some really good ideas here imo. I'm all for improving the warp drive to make it more exciting, interactive and less 'teleport' like.
Potientialy there could be two different warp chambers you could upgrade.

1> Warp Drive (e.g what OP has proposed).

Entery should be noticeble by all nearby ships, even just causing some distorion and particle effects around the ship when it engage it's warp jump would be awesome imo. Idealy entery (after activation) should take a number of seconds (possibly dependent on the drive).


Exit from the warp should also be a noticeble to all those in the sector, with even just some basic effects playing for a few seconds after jump would make a world of difference with game immersion. Even players getting a notification a ship has warped in nearby might be nice.

2> Blink/Warp Jump: Essientialy what we have atm, except more specialised and devloped. Fast teleport between two nearby sectors, or potientialy able to warp you near a selected structure/ship in the same sector.

 

[TheKingOfSpace]

[40K intensifies]

 

[Dire Venom]

[40K intensifies]

There is a gif for everything : ) In fact, I think starmade should be made from gifs imo.

 

[alij331]

Potientialy there could be two different warp chambers you could upgrade.

1> Warp Drive (e.g what OP has proposed).
Entry should be noticeable by all nearby ships, even just causing some distortion and particle effects around the ship when it engage it's warp jump would be awesome imo. Ideally entry (after activation) should take a number of seconds (possibly dependent on the drive).

Exit from the warp should also be a noticeble to all those in the sector, with even just some basic effects playing for a few seconds after jump would make a world of difference with game immersion. Even players getting a notification a ship has warped in nearby might be nice.


2> Blink/Warp Jump: Essientialy what we have atm, except more specialised and devloped. Fast teleport between two nearby sectors, or potientialy able to warp you near a selected structure/ship in the same sector.

I know this is a bit necro posting, but i like whats going on here - perhaps it would be easier to have one scaleable effect than two separate ones.

it could be that the bigger the jump, the bigger the bang: if youre jumping a long way, then it consumes a huge amount of power and creates a bigger visual ordeal.

also, the transition to warp space could create a hole big enough for the ship to fit through in any direction (equivalent to longest point-to-point of its bounding box), which then closes after it - but the bigger the ship, the slower the hole closes (so that a ship can be chased through warp inside its stream). this however, would mean that the portal would open at the position of the first block on the ship (in whichever direction it is travelling) and the ship's speed would then be locked for the rest of the transition, and continued on the way out of the portal until the last block had cleared. (if the ship was stationary at the moment of initiation, then the jump could force the thrusters to 100% forwards, and lock out control until the last block exits the wormhole).

the way that this could be done is when a ship finishes its jump, the wormhole closes at the same speed as its did when they left the start point, and the chasing ship(s) pop out at the same time+position relative to the opening, so that their trips are identical length, but delayed by entry time.

i also think that as you enter, it should distort the view in some way, like if the whole 360 view was stretched into a flat circle at the end of the wormhole, and wraps around you as you exit - would also do the opposite as you entered so if you are looking backwards, a keen eye can give you a 'heads up' that youre being piggybacked, and thus you can prepare.

the pursuing ships would not see you in warp though... they would still be in separate warp spaces, but their coordinates would be locked in relation to the first ship's destination and they would use its animation.

as a final note, it would be cool if trying to enter a wormhole exit the wrong way would take you back along the path in the opposite direction - at the same speed - but only as long as the portal is open - as soon as it is closed, the tunnel collapses and spits you into the sector that you would be in at that point in time, using a different exit animation that drops you out through a wibbly-wobbly effect that is a sphere the size of your ship (similar to this) with some foggy, sparky effects whilst throwing your ship into a bit of a crazy spin, turning off auto-dampers, resetting your shields start recharging from 0%, and doing a random (but fairly minor) amount of damage to your ship (this animation, spin, and auto-dampers-off could also be used for interdiction, but no damage to ship or shields).

this is very complicated to read, but in short, if someone warps into your vicinity and you are losing a fight, you might be able to dive through their portal in the hopes of losing your foes, and if they follow, they will be dropped a reasonable way away from you, as they will have entered the wormhole later, but will be dropped at the same moment (and therefore further back along the line).

also, any ship/other entity that is straddling the portal border and does not fit as it closes gets cut up... this could be a special cutting where the block occupying the same space as the edge of the portal is destroyed, so if you are stationary, a flat cut goes through (or as flat as can be if youre at an angle) but if youre moving as it closes, the cut is conical - it would be pretty cool, as the hole gets smaller, more of the ship is left behind (any blocks behind the ones that are destroyed). the ship inside the portal is deposited - along with any debris - in the same manner as previously stated, but as the travel would then only be the time it takes for the portal to close from 1m wide, you would not travel far at all, but it would make for some epic destruction if you got caught in it.

*and, breathe...*

WOW that is a lot of text...

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

There was supposed to be a third warp option. Jump drives, Warpgates and a continuous warp travel system. I'm not sure if it is still a planned feature or not.

 

[Dire Venom]

There was supposed to be a third warp option. Jump drives, Warpgates and a continuous warp travel system. I'm not sure if it is still a planned feature or not.

The end goals seems loose and flavour of the month atm, with mostly fluff and little concrete.
Hopefully Schema will watch a Scfi show and then become fixed on warpdrives sometime :3
There is however a Tello board for planned and inwork features:
Trello

 

[alij331]

There is however a Tello board for planned and inwork features:
Trello

yeah... sadly its not kept hugely up to date, as there havent been any changes for quite a while on it... hopefully they'll get back to it soon - i usually check it every week or two