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A few ideas on Navigation and Exploration

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Now that i am not on my Nexus I can type out my ideas properly, well as best that I can at 1 in the morning :p

First off thanks for the game and I am glad I found you on Kickstart before the end of the drive : )

NAVIGATION

So anyway on point, I have a few questions and ideas that i wanted to float out there regarding exploration and navigation.

So first off I am curious on how we will navigate in-system, is it all going to be sub-light/slow boating? Or will there be FTL travel (like warp)?

I think this is very important to have some sort of pilot controlled FTL for in system, and not like EvE where it is only between spots known/bookmarked. I think that it would be a good idea to have a warp type drive to move about the system freely. Here are my thoughts to make it balanced:
  • Straight line travel only
  • Uses power and/or fuel
  • Warm up and cool down timers
In addition to Warp drives I think a Jump drive would also be a good idea for capital class ships, or even just the largest of ships (think like Titans from EvE but bigger) like a true mother-ship. Of course this would not be a cheap item, it would cost as much if not more then the ship it's self and to top it off can only jump to one location (The Beacon).
  • Very expensive to purchase or manufacture
  • Very high power/fuel usage
  • Can only fit on the largest of ships
  • Very long warm up/cool down
  • Can only jump to "The Beacon"
  • % Chance to take you to the wrong Beacon(???)
The Beacon would be the required other half of a Jump Drive. Without it you are stuck traveling the slow way. The Beacon would require constant power to generate the depression in Space Time that the Jump Drive connects to to bring you home.
  • High Cost
  • High Power Needs
  • Must be paired with a station
  • Constantly on
Lastly on the navigation front, maps. I am sure you have thought of this, but I think it is something that should have a decent amount of time put towards it. A bad mapping system in a game can really bring the entire thing crashing down, because honestly who wants to navigate in a universe as big as this one can be without a map of where you have been?

I dont know how you are planning on positing systems relative to each other but I hope it is like galaxies and what not, I think it would be very sad if it was just an endless blob of stars...(added after brain fail listed below)

EXPLORATION

Anyway, on to Exploration! To me navigation is a very important part of exploration, hence the reason I have shoved them into the same post. Now exploration is really tied into a back story of the world that you are making, now the main idea floating in my brain on how to tier exploration in LT is as follows:

First off looking at what you have said the back-story is, it sounds like the human race has gotten somewhere in space. So you are guaranteed to have at least:
  • Heavily Settled Systems(H-Class Systems)
  • Moderately Settled System (M-Class System)
  • Lightly Settled System(L-Class System)
  • Uninhabited/known/linked systems(K-Class System)
But I don't think that is going to cut it for the exploration types that want to go where no man has gone before! You need one more: unlinked/unknown(Unlisted System)

This would add in a whole new level of exploration into the LT universe, and a truly great one at that! Just think, spending time and energy to search, find, and link to a whole new system, and selling it to the highest bidder! Of course this would not be an easy thing to do, and here is why.

(P.S. I think I have hit my mental wall since it is now 1:30am but I will try and get the rest of my idea out there... honestly the important part is done, the following is just how you would find/get to new systems)

You would have to track down new systems using a exploration station (a small specialized space station), basically it would be a bunch of telescopes looking for star systems that could hold resources. Now all systems do of course but it would give you an estimate, and you have to gamble on what system to go to, it isn't cheap to go to a new system.

After that what you would do is make a specialized ship that would end up consuming most of it's self to make a stargate (or what ever links systems together) and then fling it towards the star (with a one way acceleration gate or something). Now of course you have to have one at the system you want to link back to.

Yeah okay my brain is fired so I will try to add to this tomorrow, but I do think that there should be unlinked system. So it would be like: "Yeah it is an infinite universe, and there are TONS of systems/galaxies that are linked to and ready to be truly searched. But there is still more out there, unseen by man (NPC's). Go find them!"

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