Warp Gates 2.0

[MacThule]

I have been testing warp gates and just reported a minor bug relating to them, but wanted to celebrate the change to Warp Gates and see if anyone else has been playing with these under the new system.

With the new chambers you can free-jump to anywhere within the gate's range by just setting the coordinates - a change long-recommended by players. This includes jumping directly into stars (tested) and directly into wormholes (tested). I am loving it.

This is potentially a big game-changer, and may make gates actually useful now. I can now jump a battleship right onto an enemy location within range (which I can foresee potentially being abused, but... ). Also, this creates an element of area control; Now if I have a large warp gate at my home base, I can quickly respond to hostile signals anywhere within my territory.

The base gate range is 64 sectors, and with the level 1 distance buff (level 2 is not possible for a free-target gate because these buffs (rightly) demand a massive reactor percentage) I can't see the max range (current bug) but I can jump from 2 2 2 to 85 85 85 - a fairly large jump with free target assignment. In terms of mining, this massively opens the gates to exploiting large areas of dozens of star systems from a single gate (which can be long-distance network connection from your main base using a disposable mining hub station).

The ability to target a distance-buffed gate directly into a wormhole also means that now gate networks can tie directly into the wormhole networks (at least outbound), which is fantastic.

Anyone else noticed cool potentials for the new gate system?
[doublepost=1529648698,1529648464][/doublepost]Also, warping directly into a wormhole allows you to spawn a station there and enter the build block... which is probably a bug and potential exploit to blockade wormholes by spawning battlestations on them... I reported this as a bug as well, because you can warp back to the station and once you align to station you are apparently immune from the heat damage, which seems broken. Probably stations and station crew need to be affected by heat damage from stars/wormholes.

 

[Coyote27]

and once you align to station you are apparently immune from the heat damage, which seems broken. Probably stations and station crew need to be affected by heat damage from stars/wormholes.

As far as I understand it, wormholes do not deal heat damage and aren't supposed to; the heat warning is a bug that happens because they still count as stars in that respect.

 

[MacThule]

As far as I understand it, wormholes do not deal heat damage and aren't supposed to; the heat warning is a bug that happens because they still count as stars in that respect.

They do kill you though. Tested. Repeatedly.

If you aren't aligned to an entity, you die.

 

[PromisedPossum]

I currently have the open-ended gate setup and I still have issues with ships over a certain size, though I should have enough "E" it will not power them through the gate. One improvement I would like to see is the ability to dial/set the coords, on the open-ended gate, from inside the ship. It's a pain to jump out of the core, exit the ship, change them, re-enter the ship, hop back into the core and fly through. It would be nice if it used your ship nav to set the coords then you would not have to use another UI or exit the entity.

 

[Cluwne]

Being able to connect gates into a semi-automatic network a-la Stargate so you can pick the gate you want to go to would be nice.
Getting rid of marker beam to connect the gates would be very nice as well. I'd rather pick a sector and choose a "gate station" from the list.

Anyone else noticed cool potentials for the new gate system?

Well, it sure allows a rapid construction of gate network, namely speeds up the deployment of "return gate".
Also doubles as unusual and quite effective defense mechanism that throws people into the sun.

 

[MacThule]

It would be nice if it used your ship nav to set the coords then you would not have to use another UI or exit the entity.

If this is reasonably possible it would be ideal. It would really make the gates easy to use. Maybe it being the way it is helps balance to its superior capabilities? Who knows - it should be relatively viable to implement.

I was just hoping that they'd make the destination interface for free-jump gates remember their currently engaged destination... instead of always reverting to 15 15 16 or whatever that default coordinate is.

Allowing ships to set destinations though... even if it took a minute for the gate to "configure" or whatever, would be much smoother than the current system.

Also doubles as unusual and quite effective defense mechanism that throws people into the sun.

Yeah... hmm... I wonder if you could situate a tractor beam on one side of it to pull people through into a star several systems away... a series of push-traps nearby to batter it into range of the beam turret... probably not, but if someone came up with such a pinball trap and ever managed to effectively use it against an enemy, it would be fantastically hilarious.

 

[PromisedPossum]

"... instead of always reverting to 15 15 16 or whatever that default coordinate is..

The trick is not to open the UI again, then the destination stays static till you open it again. You cannot "check" it without resetting it.

 

[MacThule]

You can even close out the dialogue and it keeps its current destination, but it would be sensible if the dialogue just read whatever the current coordinates were.

 

[PromisedPossum]

Good to know it's just a UI issue. I have not played with the pre-release, did they fix the power issue?

 

[MacThule]

Good to know it's just a UI issue. I have not played with the pre-release, did they fix the power issue?

Which one, the thing with not being able to power jumps for very large ships? I've read about that, but not tested it yet. Should hit it soon though - just finished a 2oom radius gate that I can try to shove some pretty large ships through.