Cornflakes_91 wrote:lol, almost.
im not perfectly sure about all of the modules, but the cargo transfer module is one i could agree on ^^
data: why should it be different than either cargo (one module) or basic function (no module) of the rail?
the rail stations already have to communicate to synchronise the gigawatts of energy pumped into the rails, why should they need another module to communicate?
or if data is physical, why should it require something different than just generic cargo?
lane allocation:
i guess the current implementation doesnt really agree with you that there is no allocation or all allocation possible
maybe the rail has a basic organisational capacity (X ships or whatever) and you can increase its total organisational capacity (increasing the amount of lanes available)
"one for ships":
what should the basic functionality be if its not carrying ships around?
using "addons" to increase functionality of something is fine.
but an expensive, big, energy hungry module that simply does nothing without extras? err...
analoge situation:
"yaay! i bought a new laser!"
"you need the laser collimator module installed to get it working"
that would certainly be a non-fun experience
We will have to see what josh's tests in just throwing objects on the rail does, but lets assume that any non-static physical object in the game and move on warp rails as they are currently defined. That is perfectly fine if we just gave dumb travelers (cargo/data pods, or anything that lacks pathfinding or autonomous movement) a lane of their own on any generic rail. However my idea here is that if we impose object classes to how the nodes handle travelers, we can create specialized rails that handle only a single object class, which is then balanced by a lower energy requirement. One thing about this is that a warp node isn't a single energy-collector & energy-utilizer, that the power-source is separate from the rail node.
So for example, you want to create a cargo rail from a zone of asteroids to a station. You don't have to build a large rail which can handle ships, but a small one, each warp node then consists of only a small power source and a cargo-only node. It can move cargo quickly from end to end, but ships are too large and too complicated for it to handle, so they will have to fly slowly. The warp rail essentially becomes a conveyor belt. All objects going one way stay on one side, all objects going the other stay on the bottom, and all contents are auto ejected at the end.
But lets say you just need a telegraph wire from one station out to a semi-intelligent immobile platform that is scanning for invaders. You lay out a line which does the same thing as a cargo conveyor belt, but exclusively with data pods.
But lets say you want to actually carry ships, that's fine you can lay out a stronger but still simple line of ship capacity nodes with higher capacity power sources. These simple ones aren't the safest rails, as you could very well have a collision, but in sparsely populated regions where this would be used, the chances are pretty low (driving is dangerous man), maybe just have some oncoming traffic alert in the HUD that shows you their range and the section of the cylinder they are taking up in a warning color so you can move out of the way. If you want to move cargo and date on this, you can't just dump it on the rail, you have to carry it in ships.
But, now you want an expanded, safer rail, with no collisions. You add in a lane allocation module to every node (or maybe at intervals), poof, lanes are locked in, no more accidents. Such a module would require more energy, so you will either need an additional power source or a bigger power source. In the code behind the scenes, the lane allocation script is just being called for this particular stretch of rail, I would imagine the simpler code could be called independently.
But now you want a heavy duty rail which can handle everything, well first you either need a power source for every module on every node, or you need a scalable power solution where you can just upgrade the power as needed. And now, with all the bells and whistles, data and cargo have their own single-direction lanes, ships each have their own lanes, and so on.
Splits and merges with dumb cargo would be tricky though, they have no pathfinding so which way do they go down?
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what should the basic functionality be if its not carrying ships around?