Warp Module

[Flashburn283]

I think we should have warp gates and jump drives in this way. you have a jump drive and are in 0,0,0, the drive can move 5 sectors, so you can go to 5,0,0 or -5,0,0 or 1,4,0 etc, giving you travel in a sphere shape, upon arrival eveyrthing is offline for 2 full recharge, cooldown cycles, making hotjumping into combat a bad idea, and if there are any enemies alog the path yo uare pulled out in that sector like gravitywells from starwars. when you jump you physicaly travel through the sectors just a ta high speed, no teleporting instantly. the cooldown should also be quite long for balance, and im thinking it should have a high initial power cost like shields, but the cost increases based on ship mass. Gates i think would be like portals from the portal series, you go through one you keep speed heading etc, to build one you build the bridge and emitters, but not a full fram so ships of any size can go through, gates can link to any other gate owned by you or an ally, no range limit, and after a ship passes through both gates have to recharge based on the mass of the ship, as well as any gates or warp drives in the sector will not be able to activate for a time \"like the quantum wake effect from supcom.\"

 

[MrFURB]

Okay, let me try my hand at this discussion.
We all hate travelling more than a few sectors. As of now, there\'s not enough anamolies or suprises to make just plain traveling something that is \'fun\'. When the game has more content in it, I expect wandering from place to place to be much less of a \'watch the planets slowly sink by\' type of activity. Having a warp drive would definitely fix this. Just *Poof* and you\'re right where you want to be...WIth some drawbacks for balancing purposes of course.

But then again, if you could just poof from place to place, a host of gameplay and mechanics issues must be dealt with. Warp drives would allow players to go farther and farther from the galactic core, and this is a major problem. As it is, the population of the official U.S. server is pretty spread out. Now, there\'s not a lot of people on, usually (Maybe up to 15 on a good night), but people find their own territory seperate from other\'s and create their faction base or whatnot so other folks will leave them alone. This means less players interacting with eachother actively.
Adding a warp drive will further this by allowing travel to farther and farther bases without having to worry about the time you sink into it.

Warp drives will probably:
Eliminate travel times to previously explored sectors
Eliminate the threat of pirates to freighters or other such craft
Expand the colume of area players are willing to use
Expand the empty spaces seperating players or factions

I love the gates idea personally. It fits Starmade\'s theme of build-it-yourself sci-fi, and I can see some crazy gate designs coming out of this. Gates would give build blocks more of a purpose, and would expand the uses of stations. It would mark them as chokepoints and hotspots for pirates, other factions, and folks hoping for the establishment of a trade route.
I also vouch for a faction capital-ship that is able to warp to nearby sectors (If they have the space to fit it) at the cost of 100% of it\'s power.

 

[MichaelSeph]

The warp drives are already in plans, for certain big size ships which are capable of having such drives on them (so you won\'t see fighters, or even battlecruisers warping around, the battleship could be the biggest ship class without a core, or maybe with one, not sure about the details).

The gates are a good idea though, for ever ship that can\'t hold a warp drive, where they would have to be built by adding some gate drive on a blocks structure of an exact ammount of blocks, not too small (so ppl don\'t build a gate with a line and the gate drive), not too big (so people can\'t just place that drive block on a random station or asteroid/planet).

 

[Criss]

Even though the idea of using both of these stems from eve online, using warp cores or something as well as a warp gate are equally good solutions. Large ships that have the power could use warp drives and small ships would be forced to use a warp gate. Hell if they get player ran shops running then you could enact tolls on people traveling through warp gates. Or people with capital ships could taxi smaller ones with their warp cores. Thatd be legit. The more diversity there is in a game like this the better imo.

 

[Wrathserker]

Just a little train of thought:



Warp Cores needing way more energy than even cloaks , making Long distance jumps impossible or if a ship is tuned for jumps it needs to sacrifice other systems.

warp gates, with enough energy equipped can however, reduce that cost significantly and grant other bonuses, in turn they can only warp to another pre built gate, so theyll work like a \"highway\"

 

[Zannie]

i think its exally good but it needs one or two downsides so it cost 2M and isnt steady, also you would lose your ship if you hit an asteroid and if you get shot youll lose power and health and if you have ships docked theyll explode and ....it will stop the warp



i hope this is crappy enough for you!

;p

 

[HJK148]

I have an idea, it probably isn\'t that good though.

If you tried to make a long range jump and didn\'t have enough power, you\'d be dropped off at a random location between the point you started at and the point you were going to, and the warp core (Or whatever it\'ll be called) would burn out and need to be repaired by using a 1 use item that can only be crafted, so you\'d have to think very carefully before jumping, and if not you\'d rin the risk of being stuck until you could get a factory up and running.

 

[Newt24]

So everyone in here seems to be describing a warp \"jump\" as it were, as in, I \"spool up\" or initiate my warp drive in the game, click the button to jump, and then the game loads me into that sector. But I think it would be nicer if we thought of the warp drive as more of a new type of propulsion, not just a block to jump from sector to sector. IMO, it would be really cool to be able to just point your ship in a direction, and accelerate to warp speeds, then simply travel at a MUCH higher speed than whatever the speed cap ends up being. As for balance, I would suggest that this drive uses certain minerals as fuel, and they could either just be raw or refined for more efficiency. Another good balance point would be to reduce steering of crafts at warp velocities.

A couple problems I could see with this is that the game may not be able to load sectors/asteroids/etc. fast enough at extremely high velocities, and that just pointing the ship and going you very well would hit an asteroid/station/planet at some point, so perhaps a build in \"guidance computer\" would be able to avoid such obstacles?

I just think that having the ability to jump from one sector to another regardless of cooldowns or price, seems like once you get to that stage it gets much easier. Having a fuel system would still add some requirements to this warp drive. If you wanted to get more hardcore you could add a certain amount of time the drive can be active before needing maintenance (you could also have several blocks needing to be connected to create better/more efficient warp drives, such as cooling blocks, fuel injectors, etc.)

What we\'ve been describing here seems more of a \"Jump\" drive than a \"warp\" drive. But, I\'m am just one player full of opinions.

 

[buya]

It would be cool and all to have a module that can take you any where thus adding another adventure element but even with giving penilties to a player i still think it would be unbalanced. with gates you would have a limited size, have to have been both places, and make shure it was secure enough that other people do not abuse the use of it/ blow it up.maby a short jump warp module would be a idea thoe...small evasive manuveres and penelties there might not be so bad. thoughts?

 

[Saint Squireen]

I\'m not sure if anybody has come across this realization yet, but if not, then here it is.



Just like in star wars (kinda):

~Warp Cores: Gigantic Ships (and/or anything that was built and is gigantic)

~Warp Gates: Comes in different sizes and looks like a golden marriage ring. The idea wuld be that it attaches to a ship with the ring around the outside and the ship in the center. Just like star wars (kinda). This would enable small ships to be able to warp but at the cost of having to need a build of one at the ready to use.



Just like star wars (kinda :P) hahaha

 

[Ansambel]

first, warp or gates? why not both?

WARP

warp however should be very expensive (mby only craftable) and for energy i would take into consideration size of a ship (each block increses power required)

warp is basicly a jump however:

-it takes time to load

-it takes another time to fly

-u must power it all before jump

-longer u go higher the cost

-there is a info for players in sector to wchich u\'re travelling and through which u\'re travelling

- you appear on radar as soon an u start your jump

-the number of warp core blocks influence the speed of charging up the warp (1 bloack is 1000e/s for example and u need a 60 000 for medium sized ship (lets say 200 blocks))

- there is a info that u\'re jumping in the sector u are

-u cant be cloaked/ jamming radar

this would enable warp for smaller ships (which life is already bit harsh as u cant do anything to giants), and balance thing a lot

GATES

-gates can be build on stations and planets

-they require a lot of power not only when ship is passing through

- ships pass instantly

- ships lose all energy when transfered

- gates need many blocks to be build (ring of some thickness)

- thicker ring longer maximum range



also i would increase the speed cap ingame and decrease the thruster power adding manuvers engines increasing meaning of smaller vessels

 

[Greiger]

I love the idea of jump gates, not only does somebody still need to explore the places to build a receiving gate, it gives more purpose to stations.

My own idea of warp gates goes as so,

• 2 kinds of gates, launch gates and receiving gates. Launch gates can send and receive. Receiving gates can only receive ships and cannot launch them. But receiving gates only require 4 jump gate blocks to determine gate dimensions, while launch gates require a complete circle (or square) of the gate blocks to function.
• When a launch gate is built it creates a subspace flux block in the center of the gate. This block does not collide with objects or weapons. It is important for later.
• The range a gate can send is dependent on how long the gate is, with every additional full ring of blocks increasing range by 5 sectors. The max length of the ship is determined by the power capabilities of the station. Each block of ship length drains the gate\'s power system by 1000, regardless of ship width and height. Width and height limits are handled by gate dimensions. So yes, to handle even a 1x1 ship more than 20 blocks long, power tanks will be needed at the gate.
• The Size of the surrounding jump gate blocks determines the max size ship that can go through, if a ship too large attempts to enter, nothing happens, if a ship is too long for the gate\'s power system, the station is drained, but otherwise nothing happens to the ship. Maybe some sparkles could fly indicating the power system is overloaded to both the ship, station, and people viewing.
• Charging: To use the gate it must be charged. To charge a gate a ship (not necessarily the traveling ship, it can even be a turret on the gate itself if it can spare the power) needs to use either their core beam or a power supply beam on the Subspace flux block in the middle of the gate. The beam slowly opens the gate, a core beam drains 1k power a second from the ship, while a power supply beam supplies 2k power as base(additional beams do not add to that value) + the strength of the power supply beams. For every 20k power supplied to the Subspace flux block the gate opens 1 block in all directions until at max size of the gate (or the gate on the other end if smaller) or the power stops. Once the power stops the gate stays open at that size for 15 seconds. After 15 seconds the gate loses 1 block of size every 2 seconds until closed.
• The gate being opened is visible at both the source and the destination, and if the destination gate is a full launch gate, a ship could even come in from the other side while being charged. If no-one is in the destination sector, the sector is loaded when charging begins.

 

[Tezumina]

I agree

 

[alexsanderr]

I\'m not sure if it has been mentioned but adding a warp inhibitor structure to a faction\'s home base would balance out the individual ship warp drive. I love games like SOASE and shows like Star Trek, we have to be able to jump atleast frigate sized ships. The warp inhibitor could either work like it does in SOASE and slow or stop enemy ships from jumping out of a sector, making far more risky to blind jump into a faction\'s, likely well defended, home base. Or the inhibitor could just out right stop any ship without permission,(faction module matching or some actual request and permission granted type system) from entering the sector that it resides in.

 

[MadMike]

Why dont we have both?

I have read manny good ideas from both sides here, and this proposal is a combo of all of the good ideas for warp and gate travel that would allow for both to exist and make it fair.

Warp core

Make it use a LOT of power, not only that make the distance it can warp be dertermined by they way the warp core is constructed, much like how power generation works. Plus make it so that it has to charge up as well. You input cord\'s and the core draws all power to its storage (which could be displayed in a another HUD bar) and once the bar is full (size of the warp storage depends on the size of the jump, and the maximum storage ammount being dependant on size/shape of the warp core. This would limit warp to only large vessels.

Gates

Gates would be constructable objects allowing for near instant travle between 2 points. This would also require loads of power, but distance these can send you wont depend on the size of the gate its self. Gates would be linked by a teleport core ( or something allong these lines) that would have to have the same number frequency programed into them. That would require you or an ally to physically travel between these 2 points at least once, and would have a physical item at each place that the faction or person will need to invest in defending. Down side of the gate would be only one ship can go through at a time in any direction, so 2 objects cant go opposite directions through the gate at the same time. This way gates while allowing for small ships to travel instantly, gates would require protection if used in an invasion because it will become a choke point.

 

[Radzaarty]

I would like to see a thing where the ship has to slowly move into the warp gate, and if the power supply is interupted halfway through entering the gate, (like an attack on the base) that the ship would be cut in half, leaving the front half of the ship floating dead in space, and potentially unpowered like what happened to the Forward Unto Dawn in Halo.

 

[toastergod227]

My idea for jumps is to have it use a massive amount of power making it so usually only really big ships can manage to do it. What would also be very interesting is if you could use the massive ships core to jump you and an entire fleet at the same time, much like EVE with Titans. However it would require a LONG time of investment, as in EVE it takes a very long time to gather resources and money, and even just to build a titan.

 

[Proically]

I personally think that the best solution is sort of what \'S-Guy\" said, and very similar to the series \"The Lost Fleet\". The gates would function as major, important pieces of the Galactic \'market\'. The warp feature should be enabled on every ship, but have minimum requirements, such that there is an unofficial minimum ship size (therefore rewarding players that are clever enough to compact the systems onto an even smaller ship).

In more depth:

---WARP JUMP---

There should be a maximum distance that you can travel with these (such as maybe 5 sectors, like someone already mentioned?). In order to encourage more professions, one can also make it so that more advanced warp drives are craftable, but cannot be sold to shops, nor can they be bought from shops. These \'newer\' cores would also have the ability to be \'enhanced\' so that they are slightly more energy efficient, or have a slightly shorter cooldown, or activation time, etc. The drawback to these is that ONLY players can craft them (they would be expensive to craft), and, since they cannot be acquired from shops, ships that have them as part of their blueprint would not recieve them. In effect, this makes it so that if someone had a powerful warp core, they would think VERY carefully before doing anything silly with it, for fear of losing it. (Of course, once the economy becomes more fleshed out, losing a ship in general would be very expensive, and not something anyone would take lightly).



---GATES---

Before I say anything here, I want to point out a MAJOR issue that no one here has yet addressed. Say I have a gate of a certain size at my faction base, and want to transport a large ship to another gate, say near a marketplace. Although this situation may be somewhat unlikely, it can definitely happen unless more constraints are applied. If I pilot my ship through my large gate, but the recieving gate is too small, what happens?



The best solution I can come up with for that problem is to force all gates to have set dimensions, (like 5x5, 7x7, 9x9 etc). Another solution, although I don\'t know if it is any better, would be to inform the player, prior to your own gate\'s activation, the size of the recieving gate (thus forcing players to know the size of their ships :P ) and to let the player suffer any consequences with their choice.



As for gates in general, I think that they should be a lot faster (ie. instant) compared to the warp drives, and at least slightly more efficient (because they are stationary). However, you MUST have a \'key\' (be it a password or a physical item) for both the starting gate, and the destination gate. This enables both a form of protection so that people don\'t use gates they aren\'t supposed to, and can be VERY interesting for PvP. Imagine if the keys could not be reset once a gate was made....in faction warfare, if a spy ship could somehow sneak in and steal the key, it would be a vey valuable asset (This is the plot of \"The Lost Fleet\" series I previously mentioned). This would then force the \'defending\' faction to either: remake the gate, and redistribute the key to all of its subsiduaries (a large hassle), or catch that ship (a potentially dangerous scenario for all involved). Now if that ship can only go so fast, is unarmed, and can only jump so far/after a certain delay, the task is not nearly as difficult. But imagine the adventures one could have if that ship wasn\'t just a ship, but it was a small, stealthy, state-of-the-art fleet.



I know already that a large amount of people will be opposed to this idea, but I think that it is the \'best\' way of going about this, placing importance on both the warp drive as something not to be underestimated, but not something to be easily abused either, as well as making the gates a more \'dynamic\' issue. One does not simply place a gate at their base, and walk away, leaving it completely undefended.



Just something for everyone to ponder on,

-Proically

 

[The Great Chilli Pepper]

Personally I would prefer a warp system that works on sector designation and have the ship target and warp directly to that sector. My reasoning, a gate restriction system goes in essence against the freedom of a space based game of exploring, simply because it restricts to a network. Space is a large place and should be very open for people to claim not to be limited by. I think you should be able to travel anywhere without exploring the sectors in between as suggested previously as that would just be silly, you can go where you please in space, this is space for crying out loud, much of it is empty and would make the game boring if you had to go to a void sector first in order to go home or a friend\'s station. Also for warp drives the distance shouldn\'t be limited, I think the only limitation should be the maximum speed which should only rely on your power resource. Distance must be covered over time otherwise you are violating physics (for those of you who say that the idea of warp in itself will do just this, you are correct, however the concept of distance over time is in essence maintained to a degree rather than instantaneous teleportation, remember we don\'t entirely know if FTL is possible although most are highly doubtful, teleporting instantly is even more doubtful besides we have admin commands for this :D ). PS sorry for an exceedingly long post.

 

[Criss]

The issue I see here with gates is that everyone says that they need to be a certain size determined by blocks. It should be a combination of blocks as well as the volume it occupies. It chould be a massive cube or a line of blocks but nobody wants that for a cool gate. You can solve it by making the gate long, tall and wide enough determined by the game developer. EX: It should be 100 blocks long, 75 tall and 75 wide. It should require x number of power in order to transport the smallest of ships and it should get bulkier as the need for more power grows. I dont think there should be a limit to the size of a gate as long as it can still function properly if its massive. If warp drives are made then I dont believe gates would be used for their own star systems. Its more likely they would be used to transport a player much much further away. I also think that in order to warp to any other location, a gate must be built there as well. Two or more gates would allow them to show up on a screen similar to the shop screen. I think if the gate was owned by a faction they could enact a toll on people using it for each place they wanted to go.
I dont think players should have to build their ships with a gate design in mind. Rings and stuff that attach to ships or allow a ship to fit inside is much more complicated for developers to code. It should be similar to the shop where you can drive up, open a menu and click where you want to go. You SHOULD NOT be forced to use a ship that will fit inside of it. That being said, if they do need to force themselves inside of a gate because of the way the devloper deemed it, then that ship is big enough for a warp core anyway.