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Re: Is this the right room for a jump gate?

#61
JabbleWok wrote:
Katorone wrote:Ideally, a passage to hyperspace. What I wanted to enforce was the "approximate" part. In X3 it happens way to often that ships jump in on top of each other, with a lot of chaos and explosions as a result.
I suppose there could be an algorithm that ensures there's a certain separation even if two ships were to jump simultaneously. However, what are the chances of simultaneous jumps? How much jump traffic in/out of one system are we talking?
No idea... But big ships are hard to get moving (I guess), so another big ship jumping in might collide.
Depending on what there's to do in a system, gates might be very busy. It depends on so many factors... Will transporters/miners use the gate, or unload at a capship/huge transporter which will transport the goods. Is there a lot to mine or trade with? etc :)
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
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Re: Is this the right room for a jump gate?

#62
Katorone wrote:No idea... But big ships are hard to get moving (I guess), so another big ship jumping in might collide.
Depending on what there's to do in a system, gates might be very busy. It depends on so many factors... Will transporters/miners use the gate, or unload at a capship/huge transporter which will transport the goods. Is there a lot to mine or trade with? etc :)
Well, if we make JGs behave like railways, then there can be no collisions. The ships travel together as a package or in a container. So the only collision danger is of JD-equipped ships happening to jump at the same time and ending up in the same place, though it should be possible to avoid that. If they're handled sequentially, each will claim a location, checking if it's already claimed and repositioning by a random separation if so. Easy!
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Re: Is this the right room for a jump gate?

#65
Well, isn't it all about safe and convenient vs. flexible?

JGs and ferries would be safe and convenient. You pay, you enter/board, you wait, you arrive.

JDs would give you the flexibility to go anywhere your ship can carry you, including risky and isolated places.

Don't we want both approaches to exist? Don't we want some places to be well-connected and others not? For me part of the attraction is being able to experience the buzz of busy systems with a lot of activity, and part is to boldly go where no pilot has gone before. Well, apart from a few redshirts who never made it back. :twisted:
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Re: Is this the right room for a jump gate?

#67
DWMagus wrote:When I say fixed point, I mean within a relative distance to the actual 'point'. This could be beacons, gates, or 'zones' even. Just something other than "I can pop out anywhere in the system I want".
Ah, I see what you mean.

Bear in mind we want to be able to mount blockades, and part of that would be the ability to jump from one side of a system to the other so as to react quickly to blockade runners. This would mean jumping to hyperspace and jumping in again, and being able to choose at least an approximate destination.

This is where I think the beacon should be able to act as an ATC system, allowing you to steer to particular parts of the system (all far from the centre). Even if it's, say, one of 8 quadrants it would still be useful. It should be possible to implement collision avoidance just in case 50 ships all want to jump to that quadrant simultaneously, and beacon ATC is the lore 'excuse' for that.

Edit===
The beacon ATC should also be capable of saying "hold for 2 minutes" or whatever, so as to avoid collisions or give priority to military ships. It may also prevent you from choosing some of the destinations quadrants for particular reasons. Indeed, it may be normal for it to guide you to whatever quadrant is most convenient for it.
Last edited by JabbleWok on Mon Jan 21, 2013 4:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is this the right room for a jump gate?

#68
JabbleWok wrote:Well, isn't it all about safe and convenient vs. flexible?

JGs and ferries would be safe and convenient. You pay, you enter/board, you wait, you arrive.

JDs would give you the flexibility to go anywhere your ship can carry you, including risky and isolated places.

Don't we want both approaches to exist? Don't we want some places to be well-connected and others not? For me part of the attraction is being able to experience the buzz of busy systems with a lot of activity, and part is to boldly go where no pilot has gone before. Well, apart from a few redshirts who never made it back. :twisted:
I agree with this! There can be multiple ways to travel. Perhaps the main difference is how well the sector is established?
New sectors could be reached by FTL (unfocussed).
Established sectors could be reached through a jump gate (with or without a hyperspace in between)
The FTL technology can be used together with beacons to create your own shortcuts between two points.

This last option should be the most expensive as it allows you to skip some gameplay and save on time.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
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Re: Is this the right room for a jump gate?

#69
Katorone wrote:New sectors could be reached by FTL (unfocussed).
Yep! Exploration with its risks.
Established sectors could be reached through a jump gate (with or without a hyperspace in between)
Yep, though I suggest the JG is like a "railway" through hyperspace. To the player, it's completely automatic from start to finish. It takes game time, but the player can accelerate that so play time is short.
The FTL technology can be used together with beacons to create your own shortcuts between two points.
This last option should be the most expensive as it allows you to skip some gameplay and save on time.
Ah, yes - you could buy an autopilot which can steer you from start system, through hyperspace, right to the destination system. Same ability to accelerate game time. If you are richer, establish your own JG route!
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Re: Is this the right room for a jump gate?

#71
Stealing many good ideas from the thread, here is my humble vision for the "hyperspace" system.

Wormholes
There is a network of wormholes. This network allow instant travel from a given location within a system to another given location in another system. The use is "free", i.e. does not require special items or fuel. One Wormhole is a 1:1 connection.
Systems have 0, 1, 2 or more wormholes, that are "randomly" distributed at the edge of the system. There are systems with many wormholes (8 or 9) that are important hubs, and the network forms therefore clusters around one or more of those hubs with systems 2-3 jumps away, and those clusters are linked to each other with few (usually, one) connections passing possibly through several systems.

The consequences are the following:
  • Wormholes are at a given location in-system, thus making blocade or asking payment for jumps possible (pay or be shot), and making logical location for space stations where people meet,
  • Not all system have the same trategic importance. A system with many wormholes is strategically very important. But also a system with only 2 wormholes, but linking 2 big hubs may become strategically significant, as it "controls" trade routes between two clusters of well connected systems.
  • Clusters of well connected systems are natural and logical boundaries for factions.
  • Systems can be "far away" from any significant hub, thus making them somewhat backwards. This explains why prices differences (enabling commerce) exist even with a good transport technology.
  • Due to the travel in normal space between wormholes, there is a gameplay potential (attack by ennemy factions, encounters) in the travels.
  • Due to the "fixed" location of wormholes in systems, when the locations are known (either by having visited them, or by buying "local cluster maps"), an auto-pilot can bring your ship automatically to any location connected - even with many stops inbetween. Combined with the time acceleration and an option to "pause" game (or at least stop time acceleration) if getting attacked during normal space trips, this remove the "chore" that could represent a long trips with many stops.
  • It is possible to discover new natural wormholes (the probability is lower the more "central" a system is). There is a risk involved (e.g. jumping in a system with a supernova that fries your ship on arrival) but the rewards and impact on the universe would be great.
Jumpdrives
I mentioned systems with zero wormholes... those systems can be joined using artificial and unstable wormholes generated by jumpdrives - an expensive outfit not present on every ship. You need to go far from the star's gravity well and then use high amount of energy to generate the jump (hence a duration to "charge" and the diffiulty to use this "in combat"). The jump leads you to a random location in the target system (albight far from the gravity well, significantly further away then the normal "natural" wormholes).
The target system must be "close" in real space, you cannot jump directly to the other side of the galaxy.
Such artificial wormholes do leave a trace for a certain time and act as magnets for further artifical wormholes. In other words, if a ship jumps this way, it is easy to "follow it" and arrive in a close location in the target system, provided you have the outfit and the energy.
The opening of the artifical wormhole in the desitionation system is a burst of energy, thus readily visible on every scanner/radar.

The consequences are the following:
  • There are backdrop systems not connected to clusters. Those may not be inhabited or have lower technology level. There is a possibility that they are linked themselves to an unkown cluster (which is not connected to the other ones).
  • The distance from the star and energy signature of artificial jumpholes allow to organise defense when prople jump in at unexpected locations (not in the natural wormhole network). BUT that could be only a ruse to make you send ships to the other side of the system while preparing a massive attack through a natural wormhole (where ships without special engines - so more place for weapons - can join the fray).
  • You cannot jump out easily to flee. Because of the energy loading you would have to count with limited acceleration / shield / offensive options for same time. And good equiped pirates could follow you anyway.
  • A ferry service (with carriers) as proposed higher may "formalize" such jumpdrive-only connection and allow unequiped ships to make the jump.

It is important to see that this leads to two definition of being "close". Real space, and through the network.
Cluster A and Cluster B may have only a network connection through Clusters C and D (that levies huge taxes for commerce), but have systems that are relatively close in real space, thus allowing direct contact with jumpdrives (within those systems only, thus making those systems "important" even if they are at the edge of their respective clusters) for important goods:
Network_Example.png
Network_Example.png (15.98 KiB) Viewed 2778 times
On the other hand Cluster E and F may have a direct connection within the network (which is heavily guarded because they are at war), and be so far away in real space that the cost and complexity of using jumpdrives to make an attack is prohibitively high.


This dual system offers the simple way of organised universe and wormholes for beginners and to build effective "empires" (commercial or military), while leaving a room for explorers and going outside and giving a good physical explanation for having low tech (or unvisited) locations "close" to civilized clusters - it's not worth the effort as a connection though jumpdrives does not allow for "bulk" commerce (only niche) due to costs.

[edit]added ferrying to the jumpdrive.[/edit]
Last edited by CSE on Tue Jan 22, 2013 4:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is this the right room for a jump gate?

#72
Nice!

The only thing I'd like to add to your post is that cluster A might very well be spread across the entire universe. There's no way of knowing where a wormhole takes you exactly. There's a huge chance that a wormhole leads to empty space. Let's assume we actually want a fun game and let all wormholes connect to a system with planets or other interesting activity. Then a sector in cluster A could be actually very close to a sector of cluster B.
So in reality the orbs on your picture are on random places and the connections to them are criss cross to seemingly other random locations.

i'd love to hear from Josh if these kinds of connections are possible with his engine. Can it handle to be in one sector at one time, and then be in a sector 100000000 lightyears away?
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
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Re: Is this the right room for a jump gate?

#73
Katorone wrote:Nice!

The only thing I'd like to add to your post is that cluster A might very well be spread across the entire universe. There's no way of knowing where a wormhole takes you exactly. There's a huge chance that a wormhole leads to empty space. Let's assume we actually want a fun game and let all wormholes connect to a system with planets or other interesting activity. Then a sector in cluster A could be actually very close to a sector of cluster B.
So in reality the orbs on your picture are on random places and the connections to them are criss cross to seemingly other random locations.

i'd love to hear from Josh if these kinds of connections are possible with his engine. Can it handle to be in one sector at one time, and then be in a sector 100000000 lightyears away?
Agree. But it may make it very difficult to generate such a universe on the fly. So I would keep the wormhole as a connection distance 1-5 times as long as a practical jumpdrive distance, for example. Then you can procedurally generate a new part of the main network as soon as the player is connected to it (cluster-wise), and set random physical locations (within boundaries) for those systems, adding a couple of non connected stars close to the new system you jump in.
When you jump with a jumpdrive to one of those "non connected" star, there is a random chance that it actually is connected to another cluster which gets generated on arrival as well as further "non connected" neighbors in real space. Newly generated networks can link so far unvisited but already generated "non connected stars", thus allowing to generate sequentially interwinded clusters.

I hope this is understandable. Difficult to explain an algorithm in words. It means that a star is generated in two steps. First it is only a dot on the map (with nothing else defined) and only on effective visit it gets fully generated with its own neighbors, connections, factions, etc... this is required to allow backtracking, and not having the impression of a "1D" space getting generated on the fly.
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Re: Is this the right room for a jump gate?

#74
CSE wrote: Agree. But it may make it very difficult to generate such a universe on the fly. So I would keep the wormhole as a connection distance 1-5 times as long as a practical jumpdrive distance, for example. Then you can procedurally generate a new part of the main network as soon as the player is connected to it (cluster-wise), and set random physical locations (within boundaries) for those systems, adding a couple of non connected stars close to the new system you jump in.
I get the feeling that it wouldn't be hard to generate the system itself. For instance, minecraft can easily generate the landscape when you teleport to a far away undiscovered location. But making the details fit is harder. For instance it would make sense for a faction to try and control as much as a cluster as possible, as to have a limited amount of borders. So populating seemingly random parts of the universe need to make sense.

If the range of the wormhole is limited, I'd rather call the wormhole man made and put a jump gate on it. Or create a space lane ramp on each end and use that to get around. I know, it's just a detail really, a different name for the same mechanic. It's just that wormhole, to me, means a huge distance in spacetime can be traveled with it. This way you'd leave the wormhole mechanic open to actually transport you to a random location in the entire galaxy. (Now I'm wondering how the galaxy map will look like)
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
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Re: Is this the right room for a jump gate?

#75
Katorone wrote:If the range of the wormhole is limited, I'd rather call the wormhole man made and put a jump gate on it.
If the name does not fit, we can change it.
BUT making it a man-made gate completely change the dynamics, as new ones can be made and the cluster are not remaining "natural borders". In the picture abovem Cluster A and B could built a new gate and hence remove the twist of having a costly connection via jumpdrive for key items, while being "forced" to trade with Clusters C and D for bulk material as the trade tax is compensated by a cheap transportation.
The whole rests on the fact that wormholes are a given by nature, where new one can be discovered, and hence force to work with them (within their limitations), while man-made systems are expensive but can be used with total freedom.
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