I'm thinking that the Wormhole Generator could gain a lot more interest if it wasn't such a ... toy.JoshParnell wrote:Wormhole Generator
An incredible device that requires enormous amounts of power to sustain, but, when activated, creates a wormhole at the chosen location in space. The destination of the wormhole is unknown: it may take you to a system that you've already found, it may loop back to the same system, or it may link to a system in a distant and completely new region of the universe. This will enable exciting possibilities for wealthy players, as you'll actually be able to modify the connectivity of space. You can, effectively, create permanent links to other systems (although you will not be able to choose the destination, so it's a bit of a grab-bag). Wormholes may well open up great new opportunities for trade and exploration!
Sure you can create a trade route - but only if you use "enormous amounts of power to sustain" which would make it enormously unprofitable!
Huge efforts are usually undertaken for exploitation, not for exploration which requires covering many systems and is better done with a fleet of small ships.
You also cannot create a useful trade route if it's random!
I'm assuming that you can't quickly reset the wormhole over and over because then you might as well make it targeted...
If there is activation time or resource gathering involved then all you achieve is that players use an entire fleet of wormhole generators or cargo ships until they get a "hit" to the right destination. It shouldn't require large scale micromanagement to make a feature useful.
Instead, wormholes could be a new twist.
Require a station / generator on both ends. High production cost, minimal if any upkeep. Could even charge a fee to AI ships that use it and increase your "business relation" with these factions.
Ships traveling through a wormhole have travel time - a min time plus something depending on distance. During that time they are incommunicado.
Due to the travel time, wormhole travel would be very inefficient over short distances.
The generator stations are vulnerable.
The more they are damaged, the greater the chance of ships in transit being... gone. Even slight damage should be dangerous so that these installations require serious protection.
Obviously, losing AI ships in "your" wormhole would get them mighty miffed at you.
This would be a great way for the player to "play" other factions through stealth missions or sabotage without requiring completely scripted missions or events. Just natural interaction with the objects in the game world...
A network of wormholes would be a strategic bonus but it would not be as exploity as the instant galaxy-wide transportation in MOO2.
Sure you could have a home system with wormholes to every single system you "own" and keep only one Stack Of Doom fleet in that system.
Except that you can't. With vulnerable generator stations you couldn't risk dropping your Stack Of Doom directly on an invading enemy.
Trading and strategic fleet movements would a lot easier but without a defense in depth, your wormhole network would be more liability than benefit.
Wormhole generators could be useful without becoming a 100x multiplier for force concentration.