Portal/Slipspace/Warp-drive

[Wolfiy]

Warp-drive; Costs energy, creates a scaled (depends on number of blocks on ship/structure) portal.
Portal is an entity that sends you to a space-area with a weird animated effect for a Skybox
(Look for slipspace images from Halo and images of warp-space from Star trek for ideas)
Has the sun-damage effect on ships, forcing shields to be needed for use.
Larger portals need more shields to safely traverse.
Uses coordinate data from the Navigation waypoint feature to set destination,
otherwise you'll be stuck in 'slipspace' till you can make a new portal.

*New!*
Mass; The more mass a ship has, the quicker the portal/breach will close, any ships near the portal
when it opens or closes will end up being hit with a 'space-distortion' field, that rends through hull.
When a portal opens or closes, it will generate a explosion (electric blue for example) where another
entity is detected, this explosion should bypass shields and be very damaging. However, this will effect the stability and take a toll on the threshold of the portal for each explosion generated, possibly closing it before it can fully open.

Can be placed on a planet/asteroid (when we can BUILD ON asteroids again) to generate a more stable portal IE; greatly reduced damage to ships due to more 'stable' portal.

Addendum:

If placed on a planet/asteroid, it can ONLY go to another planet/asteroid based portal

Three options for the block, in the weapon tab;
Stability (Higher value, less damaging)
Threshold (Higher value, more ships can go through without causing portal to collapse)
Charge-rate (Higher value, quicker charge)

I'm not talking about Portal style portals. i'm talking an entity that upon a ship comes in contact with it, it checks its own size vs the ship's mass/number of blocks and if the portal entity is big enough to take the ship, a portal graphic opens at the destination, and the ship is sent using a command function to the destination

Let me know what you guys and gals think! :3

 

[andbruu]

I think the game would improve from a way to fast-travel, and I like the concept of requiring shields, as ships cannot run from combat, if they have taken to much damage. Im a bit on the no-side for planet based portals, but then again I have never made a base on a planet.

 

[Elit3]

Warp-drive; Costs energy, creates a scaled (depends on number of blocks on ship/structure) portal.
Portal is an entity that sends you to a space-area with a weird animated effect for a skybox
(Look for slipspace images from Halo and images of warp-space from Startrek for ideas)
Has the sun-damage effect on ships, forcing shields to be needed for use.
Larger portals need more sheilds to safely traverse.
Uses coordinate data from the Navigation waypoint feature to set destination,
otherwise you'll be stuck in 'slipspace' till you can make a new portal.

Can be placed on a planet/asteroid (when we can BUILD ON asteroids again) to generate a more stable portal IE; greatly reduced damage to ships due to more 'stable' portal.

Let me know what you guys and gals think! :3

I'm going to include this in my ideas post.

 

[Reilly Reese]

This is a desired feature as told in a NEWS post however they have not decided on how they want to implement it

 

[Wolfiy]

This is a desired feature as told in a NEWS post however they have not decided on how they want to implement it

Hopefully, they'll take the 'need shields to use' approach, as it is good for not only balancing but also to stop people suddenly jumping

 

[rece ktore leczo]

I'm sorry for the lack of cohesion in my post.

Portals in my opinion should allow the travel only to another portals, and we should decide whether players could connect only 2 portals to each other or many of them, creating some sort of web. Also there is a matter of working range. 40 km should do the work, so it won't be OP. Or maybe pretty lower range, can't decide.

Travelling via portals would be quick, but they would require power from station for each jump, more mass = more energy needed.
Portal blocks would be expensive, and to make a portal, the sector where players want to build a portal, would needed to be claimed for at least few days. Just so the neighbors have the time to react and destroy station/unclaim the sector.


Of course there is also a need for a FTL, but without using portals. So the ships could have a new system, like hyperdrive or whatever, but not working like current stealth system (having 1 block of system is enough) but like "more blocks = better stats".
So the better our FTL is, the further and faster (but with more power cost) we could jump.

I think the good idea for ship based FTL drive is charging system, which would involve mass of the ship, distance the player would like to travel and stats of the FTL system. I won't give math equation, sorry
But to prevent jumping for 100s of kms there should be a limit for possible FTL charging time, i.e. 5 mins, so each ship would have it's range limit for jumping.

It would be great if this system could be balanced, so small ships could only jump at low ranges, so there would be a reason to have carriers filled with FTL blocks.


Also important things:

- during charging the FTL the shields of the ship would be down, thrusters and weapons unresponsive, power store depleted, and power regen down to 10%, just so the turrets could defend the ship from Isanths, but not from more demanding opponent

- after jumping, whether by FTL drive or the portal, the shields would be down, power store depleted and shields reg and power reg down to 0%, but increasing the reg over the time. This would prevent jumping in with capital ship and destroying everything in sight without hesitation

- jumping using portals could bring lesser drawbacks, i.e. after the jump ship would have 50% of the shields. This way camping at portals for vulnerable opponents wouldn't be so easy (Especially if we had a station with turrets nearby)

- there should be a min time for charging the FTL regardless of distance for jump. 1 min IMO should be fine.
(preventing fast jumping from combat)

- portals regardless of used energy, would also need some time to recharge. But the advantage of using them is so they could let small ships to jump further than if they used ship's FTL drive. Also the charging could be done faster comparing to ship's hyperdrive and when the portal would be lurking. This way, if the portal was unused for some time, players could jump straight away, but if next person would like to use it immediately after, he would need to wait for some time (but still less waiting then using ship's FTL)

- Portals would have different sizes. Some of them could be made by NPCs and have pretty the same size, but portals made by players could vary in size. Basically the bigger the portal = the faster it recharges (and/or i.e. can be connected to more portals) but it also consume more energy. If the energy supply wouldn't be sufficient, then the portal wouldn't work.

- Entering too small portal would be impossible, but exiting too small portal would be possible. But with the ship lacking layers which couldn't be enfolded by the exit portal.

- Another ship systems could be implemented. One allowing group of ships for simultaneous jumping (via portals and by FTL drives) and another one slowing/preventing enemy ships to jump. Mechanics for this system could be discussed at the time we get the FTL

- If there would be an option to connect different portals, then portal owners could decide whether to make their portal usable by other players, or not. So the factions, as they make alliances, could connect portals with each others, making a web of portals. Generally NPCs portals won't be made public (with some exceptions like portals at trading centres) but could be accessed if the player have positive opinion in specific NPC faction (gained by running missions, etc.)

- Maintaining the portal, as it would require claimed sector, would cost faction points. If the faction couldn't maintain their portal then it'll go to sleep mode and couldn't be used.

- There could be a limit for portals in nearby sectors, i.e. only 1 portal for 5 or 10 nearby sectors. So the portals could be a target for other factions as they would like to grow and build their own portals.

- FTL made this way would create many Points Of Interest (for pirating / attacking / defending purposes). Also it gives a quite reason for factions to claim sectors, defend them, and if lucky, build and maintain portals.


All the values of time/distances/etc could be changed for balance purpose as i haven't made any calculations

This overall idea is based on previous suggestions (from the old forum), my observations of different mechanics in other games, and my personal feel of this game as i tried to take all the best insights and combine them together. I'd really really love to see this type of FTL in Starmade.


I think i wrote all of the specifics for this idea, if i see i've forgot about anything i'll edit this post.

And forgive me for different type of explaining mechanics, maybe later i'll edit it so it'll look better and be more lucid.

To the OP:

- damaging the ships which are using portals/FTL is IMO bad idea. I think better one is that ship jumping/charging for jump would be really vulnerable.
- also building portals on planets isn't greatest idea as this will:
1) produce a big lag as capital ships would jump (due to gravity)
2) i don't see good explanation for advantages of planet-built portal
- making a huge explosion at collapsing warp bubble could lead for exploit of this feature, i.e. jumping in with many little ships and making superfluous damage to everything nearby

 

[Elit3]

I also think this should be a large block, or a series of blocks, so only large ships can jump and all hanger pets need to return so they can jump with it.

 

[Vyor]

Portals in my opinion should allow the travel only to another portals, and we should decide whether players could connect only 2 portals to each other or many of them, creating some sort of web.

We've gone over this how many times now? Here is a short list of why no one wants this:

The shapes for ships aren't exact.
The ships could be able to go through one portal and get stuck in the other.
It would be awkward to make both portals the exact same.
What happens if 2 ships try to go through opposite ends? Lag is what.
Same as above, but 1 ship could just be standing still.

There are probably many others that I can't remember...

 

[rece ktore leczo]

Sorry, but i can't see real problems with portals in Your post.

And i don't know why You are saying that no one wants this as I haven't seen many posts against portals (and/or FTL)

 

[Wolfiy]

We've gone over this how many times now? Here is a short list of why no one wants this:


There are probably many others that I can't remember...

I'm not talking about Portal style portals. i'm talking an entity that upon a ship comes in contact with it, it checks its own size vs the ship's mass/number of blocks and if the portal entity is big enough to take the ship, a portal graphic opens at the destination, and the ship is sent using a command function to the destination
Adding this to main post

 

[ltmauve]

I'm not a fan of "hyperspace/slipspace" mechanics. You get this weird delay where you can't interact with other ships/players as well. I'm more a fan of just jumping to the target, provided every ship has a charge-up time.

 

[Vyor]

I'm not talking about Portal style portals. i'm talking an entity that upon a ship comes in contact with it, it checks its own size vs the ship's mass/number of blocks and if the portal entity is big enough to take the ship, a portal graphic opens at the destination, and the ship is sent using a command function to the destination
Adding this to main post

That would lag like hell...

 

[Wolfiy]

That would lag like hell...

No it wouldn't, because the server keeps track of every ships block number, mass, ECT as long as they exist.

 

[Vyor]

And when there are a lot of ships in the sector you are going to? What if the ship is being fired at when it tries to go through? Many factors make that kind of FTL unfeasible.

 

[NeonSturm]

Please stop trying to unlike this topic by throwing in random semi-problem-clutter!

• In 3D space you can avoid all usual choke-points.
• You can build your faction home at the end of the universe (+1234 +0 +0 for example) and nobody ever will be able to scout you and attack you before you move to some sector like (+1324 +0 +0) - at this distance it is impossible to find your enemy.

Because of this, infrastructure (to establish territories) is a major improvement of StarMade.

• StarGate has star-gates (obvious, or not?)
• Andromeda has a slipstream web.
• Star-Trek has wormholes and uses M-class planets as choke-points (crew wants holidays on a planet)

3D space is not an open 3D space in these films. It is a web in 3D space.



Portal sizes are not problematic. Just make them for community-standards 4 blocks, 8 blocks, 16 blocks - powers of 2 - in their diameter.
Most ships - 50 width (vs 64), 100 width (vs 128) will fit into them.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

I really like the idea of gates myself. They would probably function similar to /change_sector but with limitations. Gates should require a lot of power, and should only be able to connect to gates of identical size. If we ever get a station blueprint system you could easily place identical gates anywhere. It should also be a simple matter of making sure the gate on the other side is unblocked before even allowing a ship through and they could have a cooldown to prevent collisions as well. An "unstable vortex" type method could also be used, warn players a gate is activating and if you don't get clear before it does well kiss your ship good bye.

Gates are of strategic importance and factions will have to protect them
Gates can force players to enter common systems where they may interact instead of drifting in space forever.
Pirates and Raiders can hang out near gates in hopes of easy prey

 

[Vyor]

Please stop trying to unlike this topic by throwing in random semi-problems!

no

 

[testkil]

WHY SO MANY GUYS ASK THIS AND THEY KNOW THIS IS ASKED OVER 5 TIMES

 

[NeonSturm]

Because they want their way implemented.

We not gonna get less clutter if we don't give penalties and admins does not make a new thread a new post in existing threads...

Good example of why we need to highlight everybody's last opinion (opinion, not reply) in a thread on some topic to reduce the need for more threads.

 

[Vyor]

Because they want their way implemented.

We not gonna get less clutter if we don't give penalties and admins does not make a new thread a new post in existing threads...

Good example of why we need to highlight everybody's last opinion (opinion, not reply) in a thread on some topic to reduce the need for more threads.

They need something like this:
http://board.spaceinvasion.info/index.php?page=Thread&postID=262#post262