Oolite Bulletins

Commander McLane wrote:

I was more thinking along the lines of you seeing an NPC entering the gate and then taking it with him. But of course you could get around that by not allowing NPCs to use the gates in the first place.

However, the problem of creating a wormhole inside (or very close to) the gate would remain. One possible solution could be like this: a wormhole (or more precisely: an immediately jumping dummy entity which is then immediately removed in the next system) is created in non-blocked distance behind the gate only when the player gets into a certain radius in front of the gate. Then he has to fly through the gate and into the wormhole before it collapses.

Alternatively it could be scripted like a jump-gate: entering into the gate moves your ship to a distant part of system first, and then makes you jump out from there. You probably wouldn't notice the one frame where your position changes.

For my Null Gates OXP (not that they fully work right), I just had the whole thing hyperspace out if you get too near them. I didn't even bother removing them at the other side, so it was pretty messy in appearance.

The alternate possibility of "instantly" moving the player's ship when very near the warp ring/gate/station to a distant location in-system and then creating another NPC ship that hyperspaces out practically on top of the player's ship would work. If you use a missile as the wormole-making NPC ship, it even removes itself on the other side automatically. Okti's 1-way-ticket-to Oresrati does close to this as does his LongRangeScanner OXP.

As for NPC traffic, they could just dock with the warp ring/gate/station or be treated the same as the player's ship.

Commander McLane wrote:

I once observed a Generation Ship being sucked into another ship's wormhole. The resulting wormhole was huge! And lasted practically forever.

As a "cheaper" huge wormhole maker, use an added Coriolis Station as the jumper -- it makes a wormhole that lasts for 1800 minutes (about 1.25 days).

Mauiby de Fug wrote:

Wow! I'm sad to say I've never yet seen a generation ship. At some point I might just spawn one with the console just to have a look!

Just do some misjumping and take the time to look around. If a Generation Ship is flying by, it will usually do that in a distance, and not necessarily just in front of your ship.

Of course, before you can go GenShip-spotting you have to somehow deal with the Thargoids. (Oh, and having the OXP installed in the first place helps too! )

Why do pre-jump drive Gen ships jump out of interstellar space?

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Why do pre-jump drive Gen ships jump out of interstellar space?

They don't.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

SO would these warp gates guarantee transit between systems? Fuel free? For a fee? Comes with an insurance policy that if a misjump occurs and you are a) damaged by Thargoids your repair bill is covered b) killed - your family gets a lump sum in recompense?

Just some thoughts...

I'd like some more thoughts to be spent here.

All scripting issues aside, what would warp gates be good for in the first place? Who would need them, and what for? Due to how the game works, they can do nothing a jump-capable ship can't do without them. So why do we need them at all?

Would they offer jumps without using fuel, therefore at no cost? I'd be opposed to that.

Would they offer jump capability to ships that are not jump-capable? That seems like an idea at first, but—let's face it—how many player ships are around which are not jump-capable? And how many of us are flying such a ship? And if somebody is flying such a ship, don't they do that deliberately in order to make the game more challenging; creating a story line in which they are escort pilots, depending on other ships? Would warp gates fit into such a story line? Or would they on the contrary negate that story line? It's just a guess, but I guess someone who deliberately makes himself dependent on NPC-ships for jumping wouldn't install an OXP whose whole purpose it is to remove this dependancy.

So what would warp gates be good for, and for whom?

I have no real answer to this, therefore—while the scripting side of it seems at least a little exciting and rewarding—I am quite skeptical as far as the idea as such is concerned. To be honest, I'm not seeing it as something that makes much sense in the Ooniverse.

Commander McLane wrote:

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Why do pre-jump drive Gen ships jump out of interstellar space?

They don't.

Good - but then, I'm not sure I understand this statement:

Just do some misjumping and take the time to look around. If a Generation Ship is flying by, it will usually do that in a distance, and not necessarily just in front of your ship.

Apologies for my confusion - what jumps?

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Why do pre-jump drive Gen ships jump out of interstellar space?

They don't.

Good - but then, I'm not sure I understand this statement:

Just do some misjumping and take the time to look around. If a Generation Ship is flying by, it will usually do that in a distance, and not necessarily just in front of your ship.

Apologies for my confusion - what jumps?

Let me rephrase: if you find yourself in interstellar space and want to see a Generation Ship, it's a good idea to scan the whole sky (all directions) visually, because Generation Ships are usually created (a) way out of scanner range and (b) in any random direction. Therefore, if a Generation Ship is present, you cannot expect to see it first thing on your screen in your normal (forward) view direction. In fact, that you don't see a Generation Ship immediately after finding yourself in interstellar space is no indication whatsoever as to whether a Generation Ship is present or not. I assume that many times there is a Generation Ship somewhere around the player, but he is just too busy with the Thargoids to ever notice it.

(I am a little confused myself about your confusion. The highlighted passage doesn't mention jumps, and doesn't refer to jumps. It refers to the fact that in the vast majority of cases the Generation Ship is not located within your field of view. So I'm asking, too - what jumps?)

Thanks for the clarification.

I think that's this thread (already had one split I think) decoyed as far as tenable!

Commander McLane wrote:

All scripting issues aside, what would warp gates be good for in the first place? Who would need them, and what for? Due to how the game works, they can do nothing a jump-capable ship can't do without them. So why do we need them at all?

Warp Gates might be a means of reaching "unreachable" systems such as Oresrati in Galaxy 8 (lower left), though in that case only in 1 direction. They could also be used to cross the Great Rift in Galaxy 7. While both instances can in theory be done with a single ship (using jump-fuel-extending OXPs), the warp gate/s could be there for regular heavy traffic through these routes.

Thanks to NPC ship-created wormholes, wormhole "chains" can be made allowing the player's ship to cross more than 7 LY distances while seeming to be the result of entering a warp gate. Game time would increase from all the semi-hidden jumps and the destination may be somewhere easily reachable by the player's ship...but it could still be unexpected. Better yet, on arrival at the final destination system, the player's ship could be moved far away from the witchspace beacon and placed so it appears to have just emerged from a "destination" warp gate.

Warp gates could exist even if they were not terribly practical, as a holdover of earlier space travel. If they're still in service, they could offer 1-way jumps to nearby (<7 LY) systems for a price similar to (but probably greater than) normal hyperspace jumps.

They could even be leftovers from earlier and possibly unknown civilizations...and either not work or deliver ships to random/unlikely/unwanted places. These would definitely be part of a mission or campaign, with complexity bordering on breaking the game engine. Thargoids may be using them, even if they weren't their creators.

Similarly, a stable "bare" very large wormhole could exist somewhere that acts much like warp gates. A single "fake" Coriolis Station could be used to make it and then removed after it emerges on the other side. It could be maintained by constant traffic into it or just dumping "extra" Coriolis Stations into it at regular intervals.

I am not so obsessed with crossing the rifts. Besides, isn't there already a one-way-ticket-to-Oresrati OXP which does exactly the same? I don't really see why we need two OXPs with the exact same internal workings, but only a different-looking front-end attached to them (warp-gate instead of equipment-item).

If we see the warp gates as relics of a previous interstellar transport system, putting some of them into some systems would be sufficient. They wouldn't need to be functional, because they would be out-of-service since portable jump drives became standard. I can imagine that perhaps not all of them would have been completely scrapped, but they certainly would not have been maintained for centuries. So I can imagine an OXP which adds warp gates in different states of deterioration in some systems, but purely as eye candy, without any scripting behind them.

Commander McLane wrote:

I am not so obsessed with crossing the rifts. Besides, isn't there already a one-way-ticket-to-Oresrati OXP which does exactly the same? I don't really see why we need two OXPs with the exact same internal workings, but only a different-looking front-end attached to them (warp-gate instead of equipment-item).

I do welcome variety

Commander McLane wrote:

I am not so obsessed with crossing the rifts. Besides, isn't there already a one-way-ticket-to-Oresrati OXP which does exactly the same? I don't really see why we need two OXPs with the exact same internal workings, but only a different-looking front-end attached to them (warp-gate instead of equipment-item).

The OneWayTicket2Oresrati OXP by Okti to me seems far more contrived than a warp gate. Compact equipment that allows the "violation" of the usual 7 LY max jump limit seems incredibly overpowered compared to a very massive warp gate that isn't going anywhere. So for game balance reasons, if I had to choose between one of the 2 as more "believable" in Oolite's universe, I pick the warp gate. OneWayTicket2Oresrati OXP was also a proof-of-concept OXP without a proper mission attached to it when it was first released.

As for crossing the Great Rift in Galaxy 7, it's there...why do you need an additional reason?
LinkG7 OXP also by Okti uses an almost identical method as OneWayTicket2Oresrati OXP to cross the Great Rift, but feels very "incomplete" and way-too-generous in payout as a mission.
Unlike the dead-end Oresrati, there is enough systems on the other side to somewhat justify making the trip...even for simple trade reasons if you have a large enough cargo bay. That's one of the few places where maintaining ancient warp gates make some sense.

Scatter these warp gates around the eight charts - ignored and unloved, decayed and decaying.

Then have them burst into life and an ancient alien race explodes into the Ooniverse - mean and nasty and intent on setting up more gates or fully reactivating the most decayed gates which don't yet work. Perhaps an ancient foe of the Thargoids, long thought vanquished (by the Thargoids) who had a superior ship carried Wormhole Generating Trans-Dimensional Engine.

For those who are bored of just fighting the Thargoids...

...an uneasy alliance between Thargoids and the Navy where the new arrivals have spawned?

[Think of it as an amalgamation of the final series of Star Gate, Star Trek Voyager (Borg/Species 8???) and the reimagined Battlestar Galactica]

Commander McLane wrote:

All scripting issues aside, what would warp gates be good for in the first place? Who would need them, and what for? Due to how the game works, they can do nothing a jump-capable ship can't do without them. So why do we need them at all?

Good question, and some suggestions are given above.
How about this being ultra expensive technology allowing jumps straight from within the main station aegis to, within the main station aegis in another system. A way for really rich system to protect their trade from pirates and it's like. Now, in "RL" terms that makes sense. In gaming terms, that beats the purpose of the game. The warp gates would have to be rare and reserved to places where rich systems are within jumping distance.