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Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#1
small (ish) suggestion regarding mechanics of all interstellar movement.

Jumpdrive = Jumpgate = Wormhole

Wormholes, Jumpgates and Jumpdrives all use the same mechanic based around

Charge

Charge represents the current state of the wormhole as per Gazz' suggestion about Honor Harrington esque wormholes.

Charge directly correlates to the mass currently able to move though the wormhole.
when a ship travels trough a wormhole the currently stored charge decreases by an amount proportional to its mass
for ease of understanding i'd make it an 1:1 correlation.

both sides of an wormhole connection share a single charge.

Charging/Discharging

wormholes can be given charge by natural or technical means.

artificial means can be used for charging wormholes.
this is done by jumpdrive/jumpgate (wormhole) modules
they use energy and maybe some kind of special fuel to convert it into WH Charge.

natural wormholes have natural self-charging capabilities, so they recharge without external input.
artificially created wormholes have 0 self-charge.


wormholes have an self discharge proportional to their currently stored charge

self discharge = constant * current charge

this leads to an equilibrium state when self discharge = charge speed

the constant is derived from the distance the wormhole bridges and gets higher with the distance.


there should be some bonus when a wormhole gets charged from both sides (or a malus when not charged from both sides)
to make double-gate structures the most efficient setup.
and to prevent jumpgates being used as on-demand ways for capital ships.

Wormhole Modules

worm hole modules can open new wormholes and transfer energy to already existing wormholes

ship-based WHM and Stationary WHM are no different in principle, they differ only in stats.

Ship based ones are in general trimmed for small size and big burst output, but have big energy needs.
so they need burst capacitors bound to them to provide enough energy to open a wormhole large enough for the ship to pass through.
smaller wormholes can be maintained indefinitely, proportional to the ships generator capacity.
balancing should be choosen so that the "stational" state for WHM is never strong enough for a ship to move through itself.
but it can be used as mobile jumpgate for smaller ships.

stationary ones have in general less throughput (max charge / time) per unit size than mobile ones, but are in general much more efficient.
they use less energy/fuel to accomplish the same connection as an mobile unit, but are too unwieldy for mobile usage.


Edit 29.4.2014 16:20
it should also take a few seconds to minutes for a jumpdrive to charge the wormhole up to usable levels (for the wormhole creating ship).
to include gazz' thoughts about a visible mark that precludes the arrival of the jumping ship without trapping the player inside the jump and force him to do either nothing or play a minigame or such things

Edit 29.4.2014 15:40
recharge times for the jump-capacitors should be substantial, to avoid constantly jumping with a ship instead of actually flying it


Limitations
  • as per outlander4's suggestion

    wormhole connections can only be established without penalty if there is a "line of sight" between the source and target system.
    the blocking radius is determined by the mass of the star.
    if the line of sight is blocked by a stars mass the discharge-constant gets significantly larger proportionally to the distance inside the blocking field.
    so if the connection line does only skim the blocking radius you may still can establish the connection, but with a large penalty to its capacity and lifetime.
  • mass (gravity) near to the wormhole's mouth does increase the discharge constant.
    this causes wormholes opened up next to large masses (such as planets, stations, asteroid fields) to have much lower capacity than ones opened in empty space

    in this light calculating lagrange points in star systems could provide practical gameplay. wormholes opened there would be the most efficient
    this would also contribute to strategy
    you either can try to jump from/to an lagrange point for efficiency but predictable endpoints
    or you jump to somewhere else at the cost of efficiency and recharge time
Last edited by Cornflakes_91 on Tue Apr 29, 2014 9:36 am, edited 8 times in total.
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Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#2
Anachronic (Yay!):

Sounds all well and good. I have a slight suggestion for jumpdrives not related to this: the jump should need a running start. Think about it: ships first accelerate through conventional means, and then open a short-lived wormhole in front of them, barely getting through before the hole closes. It would look like a "jump".

Also, what if a wormhole runs out of charge before you are through? Giant ships being cut in half/locked between two systems because the charge is too low to transfer it (capasitor suggestion two posts below)?
Last edited by Behemoth on Thu Apr 24, 2014 10:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
In space, no one will hear you scream. #262626
I've never played a space sim. Ever.
Vos estis tan limes.
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Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#4
I agree but like I said in IRC, I'd prefer to model the charge/discharge characteristics of wormholes after capacitors, since that's essentially what they're like now:
Image Therefore the charge equation would be: Q = cPgen[1 - e-kt]

And the discharge equation would be: Q = cP0 e-kt

Where Q is the charge of the wormhole; c, k are positive real constants; Pgen is the constant power supplied by the WHM; P0 was the power supplied by the WHM just prior to the moment of deactivation; t is a positive real value representing the passage of time.

The player doesn't need to know or understand these equations - by modelling wormholes after capacitors, they should behave intuitively as you charge and discharge them, and that's what matters.
Post

Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#5
ThymineC wrote:
Spoiler:      SHOW
I agree but like I said in IRC, I'd prefer to model the charge/discharge characteristics of wormholes after capacitors, since that's essentially what they're like now:
Image Therefore the charge equation would be: Q = cPgen[1 - e-kt]

And the discharge equation would be: Q = cP0 e-kt

Where Q is the charge of the wormhole; c, k are positive real constants; Pgen is the constant power supplied by the WHM; P0 was the power supplied by the WHM at the moment of deactivation; t is a positive real value representing the passage of time.

The player doesn't need to know or understand these equations - by modelling wormholes after capacitors, they should behave intuitively as you charge and discharge them, and that's what matters.
it does not make much of an difference if they are using 1/t or e^-t.
but 1/t gives easier formulas for the player to gasp and make it easier to calculate inceases in the charging speed.
as increasing voltage on already charged capacitors give strange forms, which are harder to calculate than just iteratively adding charge.
Post

Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#6
Behemoth wrote:Anachronic (Yay!):

Sounds all well and good. I have a slight suggestion for jumpdrives not related to this: the jump should need a running start. Think about it: ships first accelerate through conventional means, and then open a short-lived wormhole in front of them, barely getting through before the hole closes. It would look like a "jump".

Also, what if a wormhole runs out of charge before you are through? Giant ships being cut in half/locked between two systems because the charge is too low to transfer it (capasitor suggestion two posts below)?
its just a binary yes-no question.

either there is enough charge at the moment you "jump" or not.

if the charge gets too low the frame before you jump, you dont jump.
if at the frame you jump is enough energy you get through


the running start does not interfere at all with my suggestion.
Post

Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#7
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Behemoth wrote:Anachronic (Yay!):

Sounds all well and good. I have a slight suggestion for jumpdrives not related to this: the jump should need a running start. Think about it: ships first accelerate through conventional means, and then open a short-lived wormhole in front of them, barely getting through before the hole closes. It would look like a "jump".

Also, what if a wormhole runs out of charge before you are through? Giant ships being cut in half/locked between two systems because the charge is too low to transfer it (capasitor suggestion two posts below)?
its just a binary yes-no question.

either there is enough charge at the moment you "jump" or not.

if the charge gets too low the frame before you jump, you dont jump.
if at the frame you jump is enough energy you get through


the running start does not interfere at all with my suggestion.
Should it cause structural damage to a vessel to be within a generated low-charge wormhole that collapses while the vessel is still inside?
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Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#9
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
ThymineC wrote: Should it cause structural damage to a vessel to be within a generated low-charge wormhole that collapses while the vessel is still inside?
i assume wormhole travel being instantaneous, so.... there is no "still inside"
Well what I mean is, if you generate a wormhole that's not got enough charge to jump you, you don't jump right? But you'd still be physically inside the mouth of the wormhole.
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Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#10
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Behemoth wrote:Anachronic (Yay!):

Sounds all well and good. I have a slight suggestion for jumpdrives not related to this: the jump should need a running start. Think about it: ships first accelerate through conventional means, and then open a short-lived wormhole in front of them, barely getting through before the hole closes. It would look like a "jump".

Also, what if a wormhole runs out of charge before you are through? Giant ships being cut in half/locked between two systems because the charge is too low to transfer it (capasitor suggestion two posts below)?
its just a binary yes-no question.

either there is enough charge at the moment you "jump" or not.
OK, so... What if there is something you jump "on top of"? Telefragging? Why? How does a wormhole know you are a single object?
In space, no one will hear you scream. #262626
I've never played a space sim. Ever.
Vos estis tan limes.
Post

Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#11
ThymineC wrote:
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
ThymineC wrote: Should it cause structural damage to a vessel to be within a generated low-charge wormhole that collapses while the vessel is still inside?
i assume wormhole travel being instantaneous, so.... there is no "still inside"
Well what I mean is, if you generate a wormhole that's not got enough charge to jump you, you don't jump right? But you'd still be physically inside the mouth of the wormhole.

referencing freelancer: you were able to physically fly through wormholes without interacting with them at all.
i assume a similar mechanism here.
if there is not enough charge in the WH you dont interact with it.

or dont interact with it until you activate the "use wormhole" function.
(which was in freelancer the "dock" function)
Post

Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#12
Behemoth wrote: OK, so... What if there is something you jump "on top of"? Telefragging? Why? How does a wormhole know you are a single object?
because gameplay it knows that you are a singular object

edit: or because you need an abstraced, as standard built-in device to use wormholes at all and its security protocols keep you from jumping if there is not enough charge
Last edited by Cornflakes_91 on Thu Apr 24, 2014 11:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
Post

Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#13
Cornflakes_91 wrote:referencing freelancer: you were able to physically fly through wormholes without interacting with them at all.
i assume a similar mechanism here.
if there is not enough charge in the WH you dont interact with it.
That still doesn't answer my question, though. If you're physically located inside the wormhole mouth without jumping through it - whether that's due to insufficient charge or just choosing not to interact with it - should your vessel sustain structural damage if it then collapses or not?
Post

Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#14
ThymineC wrote:
Cornflakes_91 wrote:referencing freelancer: you were able to physically fly through wormholes without interacting with them at all.
i assume a similar mechanism here.
if there is not enough charge in the WH you dont interact with it.
That still doesn't answer my question, though. If you're physically located inside the wormhole mouth without jumping through it - whether that's due to insufficient charge or just choosing not to interact with it - should your vessel sustain structural damage if it then collapses or not?
i think not
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Re: Jumpdrives, Jumpgates and Wormholes

#15
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
ThymineC wrote:
Cornflakes_91 wrote:referencing freelancer: you were able to physically fly through wormholes without interacting with them at all.
i assume a similar mechanism here.
if there is not enough charge in the WH you dont interact with it.
That still doesn't answer my question, though. If you're physically located inside the wormhole mouth without jumping through it - whether that's due to insufficient charge or just choosing not to interact with it - should your vessel sustain structural damage if it then collapses or not?
i think not
Okay fair play.

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