Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => Development Discussions => Topic started by: Hazard on May 05, 2018, 12:27:13 PM
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[EDIT BY SLOANJH - I split this sub-thread off the main V0 suggestion thread because I could tell it was going to go long, and don't know how to insert a post at the beginning of a thread so I'm doing it here :)]
Even easier solution; the ability to shoot at Jump Gates.
This would require a reconsideration of how to build Jump Gates though, especially if it leaves a salvageable wreckage.
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How about removing Jump Gates altogether?
This way people and NPRs will have to construct Jump Tenders/Mobile Jump Gates and place them.
Those can be shot at without trouble and also be withdrawn, when necessary.
Maybe with some tweaks to the AI so they board Jump Tenders instead of blowing them up.
Edit:
If I recall correctly the main advantage of Jump Gates are the cheap price compared to Jump Tenders and that ships of any size can pass them.
How about turning Jump Gates into a ship component which retains the ability to send off any ship no matter the size but makes the ship it is attached to completely immobile once it is affixed to a jump point.
This way Jump Gates can be designed as the player wishes, including weapons and other goodies.
You would also be able to destroy or board them.
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I think it would be cool if jump gates were perhaps a station you had to construct, and they require a certain degree of engineered capacity in order to admit a certain amount of tonnage per month.
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Another option; Jumpgate construction requires a module (like now) that consumes a resource (Maintenance Supply Points is fine) and in return it constructs a set size capacity per month measured in some number of tons, probably hundreds but balancing required. A Jumpgate can only be constructed on explored jump points and is bidirectional and present on both sides. You can select a jump point or gate and note down a required capacity limit, which means that any jump gate construction ship that has spend a full construction cycle on the point will add to the size of the jump gate up to that limit. It is possible to shrink gates down in size by either firing at it (similar to shipyards IIRC) or by having it deconstructed. Shooting at it runs the risk of destroying it entirely as it's prone to exploding if it takes damage, deconstructing it takes time and money and you lose the MSP invested anyway but it keeps the gate from being blown up by accident.
The big difference between a gate and a fleet of jump tenders would be maintenance (gates just require less, but should probably eat Wealth of the species that build the gate) and the fact that it's much easier to create a large enough gate to send huge ships through. However, gates are immobile, offer access to everyone and take a lot of time compared to moving in a jump tender.
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I'm happy with any solution that allows jump gates to be destroyed, but I do like the capacity expansion idea there.
As it stands, I usually avoid building jumpgates in my RP games because they tend to stand as an invasion liability for both parties. My few games that I played to large sizes, the factions were careful to only build gates in core systems and not to the edge of their territories. But if we could engage in scorched earth defenses, tearing down our own gates, that would be excellent. Similarly, being able to raid the enemy infrastructure by tearing down their gates with a nimble fleet and crippling civil transport in the process would be quite fun.
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I'll bring this up here, steve mentioned in the mechanics thread that perhaps he would change it to 'stabalized jump point' which I think would be a vastly superior description of how jump gates are now, if he wants to keep them that way. In general that makes more sense as to why you cant tear them down.
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I don't know about that. Why can't I destabilize it? If I have the tech to manipulate it and make it stable, why not manipulate it and make it unstable? You can use a crane to build a building, and you can also use one to tear it down.
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It could be shifting the jump point into a local equilibrium that is much more stable than its natural state, for instance. Hence, possibly prohibitive amounts of energy required to put it back to its starting condition.
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I agree with Barkhorn.
In the real world every change is reversible.
If you can't you simply don't know how yet.
Not being able to artificially destabilize a jump point is weird in my subjective opinion.
Is there a compelling reason for gameplay to prohibit it?
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Am really HATE JumpGate system..i like ONLY that : "Megatraveller" (Mar W.Miller@ Copyright) System. The Best from 1979 (oh my god..my 15th years...am old..damn).
Only.
And ONLY Traveller/Megatraveller Universe its the best sci-fi (yeah..probably better than 2300AD)
So pls..stop waste time in jumpgate effort.
My 2 cent and apologize ma english.:)
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A few points of history [EDIT - which morphed into a more detailed version of Seolferwolf's suggestion for getting rid of jump gates completely AND a suggestion for solving the superluminal communication between systems technobabble problem]:
1) Jump gates went through a LOT of gyrations in mechanics over the years. I don't remember the details, but I think a major early phase involved manufacturing (5 mines of cargo space's worth IIRC of) "Jump Gate Components" (i.e. prefab) and hauling them out to a jump point on freighters where the construction module would put them together. There was a general consensus that this was too much micromanagement
2) There was lots of back and forth on whether or not they should be destroyable.
3) IIRC, the original vision was that they were like the Babylon 5 jump gates, i.e. both the mechanic of having jump engines on big ships to create a temporary wormhole AND the mechanic of having a permanent structure to create the wormhole (for small ships) worked in Aurora physics. This migrated into the (what I think is current canon) "open a permanent stable wormhole" idea when (IIRC) people started to argue that anything physical should be destroyable.
4) Jump gates were introduced before the current non-assault "jump bridge" (I forget the real name) mode of jump ships, where the player doesn't have to worry about micromanaging the ferrying back and forth in a non-combat situation. This mode was originally suggested as a level-of-detail abstraction (similar to e.g. not tracking the shuttle trips used to resupply a ship), but IIRC this offended Steve's sense of consistency :) and so he changed canon to the "temporarily stabilized wormhole" idea.
5) For a long time (I'm not sure if it's still true), Steve needed jump gates for civilian trade route planning. He was worried that a civvie would load cargo at system A to go to system B, only to have a jump gate between the systems vanish. The discussion/model at the time was very much that jump gates were permanent infrastructure that an empire would construct to facilitate communication between the core systems, analogous to bridge building in land empires.
So I see the following ways to go:
A) Steve figures out how to manage civvie path planning, so jump gates can be eliminated altogether in favor of jump ships in "bridge" mode. This would be a full 360 back to wormholes requiring physical equipment to keep them open, except that physical equipment would just be the jump engines. Players would probably end up making "jump bridge" ships (similar to fuel processors) with small or no "commercial" engines that would be towed to a jump gate, i.e. the original idea would have been implemented in the smaller set of ship mechanics rules. I can see Steve liking this idea a lot :) both from coding and technobabble minimization points of view - it's basically the same pattern we just went through where PDFs got folded into ground unit mechanics (except probably a LOT less coding & detailed nuance).
IDEA FOR SOLVING THE CIVVIE PROBLEM - [EDIT post-posting - This is essentially Seolferwolf's suggestion upthread] just add a "permanent jump bridge" checkbox to the ship's (not class's) or TG's info (same coding pattern as active sensors on/off). If the player checks the box, that signals intent to the civvies that he won't move the bridge and that the civvies can rely on it. [EDIT - should be a 3 state selector: "off", "temporary bridge", "permanent bridge" - see inner/outer empire discussion below] If a civvie gets to a system where the bridge is gone (either destroyed or moved), then the civvie tries to path plan to the destination using a detour route. If the destination is unreachable, it goes back to the original system or the nearest reachable system. If there's no route, then it gives up. [EDIT - thinking about "how does the ship know if the new destination is currently reachable given comm lag" led me to the following]
EVEN BIGGER IDEA FOR SOLVING THE SUPERLUMINAL COMMUNICATION PROBLEM - I would code all this up using instantaneous knowledge of the jump bridge network by technobabbling that jump ships in bridge mode can get signals from both sides of the wormhole and act as a rely - that means (if you assume super luminal communication within a system) that the "inner empire" becomes a very strong concept - it's all the systems connected by permanent jump bridges; these are the systems civvies will take contracts to. There's also an "outer empire" which includes ships providing temporary jump bridges. The two things the outer empire contributes to the game are that gives a mechanism for instantaneous communications everywhere in the outer empire and it can be used by the orders screen code to warn TGs without jump engines that they won't be able to make a transit they're putting in. Finally, there's the "fringe"/"rim" systems for which one has a jump that either doesn't have a jump ship or the jump ship is in "off" mode. And yes, I realize this is just putting the ICN from StarFire back in, except it uses the fact that superluminal sensing is possible within a system to technobabble away the need to track/lay individual repeater buoys.
The reason I made the edit above to generalize the temporary vs. permanent checkbox into a 3-state off/temp/perm selector has to do with enemy action. If you have an enemy sitting on the far side of a JP (where you have a jump ship) you don't want to leave it open (or the enemy will use it). So your ship would shut the wormhole to keep the enemy from using it, BUT that also knocks out communication through the wormhole. So adding the communication technobabble added this complexity. One way to get around it would be to introduce the idea of a "periscope" mode (like was introduced in the later Kris Longknife books IIRC) that lets a jump ship peek through a wormhole to see if there's anyone nasty on the other side. Then the enemy would have to park a ship on the wormhole in order to break it and the user wouldn't have to worry about micromanaging off vs. on based on enemy presence. I think it's a lot simpler and more interesting game play to be "blind" to what's going on on the other side of a JP unless you open a gate that the enemy can use. BTW, this probably means there should be a minimum time (e.g. 10 minutes) between opening and closing a bridge wormhole to give the enemy an opportunity to use it to pour through going the other direction.
B) I was going to list things like making jump gates two-way, keeping them as-is, etc., but I like what I came up with during the discussion above so I think that's the way to go (and suspect Steve will too).
NOTE - As you can probably tell, this post was stream-of-consciousness. I've marked changes upstream that occurred while thinking it through with "EDIT".
OBSERVATION - I think this is another example of parallel evolution of fictional universes (referring to the fighter/LAC thread a week or two ago) - I was simply trying to recapitulate the history of the jump gate discussion in the context of a re-think/removal being reasonable, and ended up with the ICN (with zero time lag).
John
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I think we could merge the jump gate system and the orbital habitat system. Instead of having habitats built from factories, maybe they should be built like prefab PDC's used to be, and assembled on-site by construction ships. Then your jump gate could just be an orbital habitat with a giant jump engine. And it makes construction ships less one-dimensional.
This could be combined with your ideas, sloanjh.
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The big issues are the cost of a sufficiently massive jump engine (partially solved by being able to haul prefabbed components) and the question of how often and how large a fleet such an engine can jump. The biggest advantages of the current jump gate system are that they do not discriminate between Civilian and Military ships, that they can take ships of any size and that they don't have a cooldown or max fleet size.
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The big issues are the cost of a sufficiently massive jump engine (partially solved by being able to haul prefabbed components) and the question of how often and how large a fleet such an engine can jump. The biggest advantages of the current jump gate system are that they do not discriminate between Civilian and Military ships, that they can take ships of any size and that they don't have a cooldown or max fleet size.
That's what I'm worried about, too.
Which is why I'd prefer Jump Gates as a ship component, which would keep its advantages from the current version but also comes with its own shortcomings.
In the current version replacing all Jump Gates with Jump Tenders would waste too much time and resources.
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I agree with Barkhorn.
In the real world every change is reversible.
How does one "unburn" something?
If you can't you simply don't know how yet
Well yes, that's the point, maybe noone knows how to destabilise the jump point.
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How does one "unburn" something?
Barring unique things that can't be recreated, like works of art or relics, you just remake it.
A better comparison is a bridge. Sure, if a bridge collapses I might not be able to put it back together; some pieces would have been pulverized, others lost. But I certainly can just build another one in its place. Who cares if it's the same exact bridge if the new one works just as well?
Further, we're going the other direction. "unburning" something is more like building the jump gate than destroying it. "Unburning" is going from less ordered to more ordered. Building a jump gate or stabilizing a jump point is going from less ordered to more ordered. Knocking a jump gate down or destabilizing a jump point would be going from more ordered to less ordered.
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There are a few reasons for the current situation
1) As noted above, originally there was a requirement for about five cargo holds' worth of components to build a jump gate. It was generally agreed that this was tedious and unnecessary micromanagement.
2) Building a gate should be a consequential decision, rather than automatic. Currently, if you build one, you have to accept the downside that aliens can also use it. If you can easily remove it, there isn't really a downside to building it
3) Equally, if an alien jump ship starts building a gate in a location that could cause you problems, you have another consequential decision. Destroy it and start a war, or accept the risk. If you can just remove it, there isn't a significant decision.
4) It can be a significant undertaking to build a gate you need in the face of hostile aliens (especially in their home system). If you can just move in a ship and have an instant jump gate for all traffic, that makes life too easy.
5) Having 'jump gates' that can be absent due to players moving them or through enemy action is going to play havoc with path finding, civilians and the NPR AI.
6) I just finishing designing an AI race that only uses jump gates :)
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Making gates take a long time to build and logistically expensive would already cover most of the 'consequentiality' problem. Even if destruction is easy, that's only good if you are the defender or if you want to lock down escape options as an attacker, because your non-jump capable logistics just went dead unless you rush a sufficiently large jump ship in place. You can also greatly decrease logistical complexity by not making it require specific 'jump gate components' and instead make it use a more abstracted material you'll be hauling around anyway, like MSP.
Finally, you can already do the whole 'instant gate' for jump travel thing with a sufficiently large jump engine shoved into an armoured brick and hauled around by a massive thug. It's an end tier tech if you want to actually use it, but it's possible.
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I've built mobile jump gates myself in my last campaign and they are something that races can already choose to use. In C#, you can even tell ships using automated path finding to expect such ships to be in place. I just don't want them to replace the existing jump gate mechanics.
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I've built mobile jump gates myself in my last campaign and they are something that races can already choose to use. In C#, you can even tell ships using automated path finding to expect such ships to be in place. I just don't want them to replace the existing jump gate mechanics.
Have you thought about ways to reduce/eliminate the "NPR jump point spam" issue, especially for conventional starts? From my point of view that's the only big downside with the current mechanism if you like it. I have a vague recollection that you said you're limiting the NPRs to not spamming the jump gates; if so that solves the issue from my point of view.
Thanks,
John
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Have you thought about ways to reduce/eliminate the "NPR jump point spam" issue, especially for conventional starts? From my point of view that's the only big downside with the current mechanism if you like it. I have a vague recollection that you said you're limiting the NPRs to not spamming the jump gates; if so that solves the issue from my point of view.
Thanks,
John
Agreed. That's my main problem as well. When playing conventional start, I might end up in a situation where NPRs gate out the entire neighborhood, and I obviously can't do anything about it.
Of course it is one of the downsides of playing conventional start. But still Steve, the points you listed above do become a problem if they morph to:
Reach the stars and find that EVERYTHING is connected by jump gates.
If it can be limited or such, I'm fine with it.
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Given how much easier jump gates are compared to jump stations? That's not a problem Steve. With a jump gate all you need is a jump gate constructor and queue up the jump points. Jump stations need constant management unless you decide to just build a dozen of them, and it constrains your max ship size unless you rework the network.
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Barring unique things that can't be recreated, like works of art or relics, you just remake it.
That has literally nothing to do with the topic at hand, but ok.
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That has literally nothing to do with the topic at hand, but ok.
Yes, it does. Someone implied that destroying and remaking jump gates should not both be possible by asking how you "unburn" something. My point is that you don't, you just make another one. Who cares if it's not the same exact jump gate if the new one works just as well?
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Have you thought about ways to reduce/eliminate the "NPR jump point spam" issue, especially for conventional starts? From my point of view that's the only big downside with the current mechanism if you like it. I have a vague recollection that you said you're limiting the NPRs to not spamming the jump gates; if so that solves the issue from my point of view.
Thanks,
John
NPRs will be quite different in C# Aurora. I'll post more details in the rules sections, but they will now have varied fleet design themes (they will now design a coordinated fleet in the same way as a player, not a bunch of individual designs) and different motivations. For example, they will class some systems as their own and some as neutral. You will be able to tell them which systems you claim and believe are neutral. Jump gates may be restricted to their own systems, or they may not build any jump gates at all, depending on their theme.
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Yes, it does. Someone implied that destroying and remaking jump gates should not both be possible by asking how you "unburn" something. My point is that you don't, you just make another one. Who cares if it's not the same exact jump gate if the new one works just as well?
No. The point was that if we can do a process, we can undo it. Specifically it was in reference to the idea that "jumpgates" represent stabilised wormholes. So "building a new one" isn't applicable. You could make a new unstabilised wormhole, perhaps, but that doesn't get rid of the old one. The analogy was that just because we can burn something (stabilise the wormhole) doesn't mean we can reverse the process and unburn it (destabilise it again). So talking about "making a new one" is not only missing the point of reversing the process, your whole argument is in the wrong direction and you're suggesting rebuilding something that was never destroyed within the hypothetical.
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To "unburn" something you first make a snapshot of an object.
Meaning you record the position of every atom composing it (maybe something like a 3D topology map).
After burning the object you collect all the dispersed particles and reassemble it again, using the previously made record.
You'd probably want to use nanomachines for this task, because you ain't gonna be happy doing this by hand.
Done.
Easy enough, right? :)
The point being as long as you understand a process you can - with sufficiently developed technology backing you - undo it.
And this is slowly going off topic.
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I get the feeling that what people are asking for as far as temporary jump gates is something that's doable in current aurora, and to a greater extent in C#. C# aurora will already have armorless space stations that have a variety of uses (refuleing, maintenance, etc), is anything stopping you from slapping a jump engine on that bad boy and calling it a jump gate? It will have to be able to jump to its position anyway.
I think there's room for both styles in Aurora. producing a stable jump point with a construction ship (with some text changes to better describe the concept of a stable jump point vs. the ambiguous jump gate that people seem to be picturing incorrectly) has use in that there's no maintenance involved, no size restrictions, etc.
If you can build a space station (and the corresponding jump engine required) using construction facilities, that also means you don't have to worry about having a huge shipyard to handle it, then tow it to its destination (like every other deep space station).
I don't know if its possible, but can you include both a military and commercial jump drive on a ship? If not, I think it should.
And if your opponent has a jump station on a point, why not send in Our Valiant Marine Corps to capture the facility and make use of it for our navy?
I just think people are latching onto the words "Jump Gate" too hard as a physical construct rather than metaphysical TN technobabble.
Correct me if I got any of that wrong, but I'm under the impression that this is all already possible.
Edit: If people are super set on the idea of destroying stable jump points, maybe it can be some kind of very late game, hyper expensive, one use "Space Time Destabilization Vortex Bomb," That basically is the equivalent of detonating a fusion bomb directly in the fluid dimension, with prohibitive costs and unintended consequences that make it a last resort option rather than as a standard practice when encountering alien Jump gates. Maybe the jump point closes for 5 years? Either way.
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I get the feeling that what people are asking for as far as temporary jump gates is something that's doable in current aurora, and to a greater extent in C#. C# aurora will already have armorless space stations that have a variety of uses (refuleing, maintenance, etc), is anything stopping you from slapping a jump engine on that bad boy and calling it a jump gate? It will have to be able to jump to its position anyway.
Mass is stopping you from doing so.
The jump ship can't move more mass per ship than it weighs itself, which means that even if your jump gate ship is using the lowest mass efficiency jump drive possible to open a gate and it doesn't have extra mass to fill in capacity you essentially are using a jump gate at half of its mass capacity. And IIRC military drives start at a multiplier of 3, so for military ships that's 1/3rd of the capacity the ship has.
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Mass is stopping you from doing so.
The jump ship can't move more mass per ship than it weighs itself, which means that even if your jump gate ship is using the lowest mass efficiency jump drive possible to open a gate and it doesn't have extra mass to fill in capacity you essentially are using a jump gate at half of its mass capacity. And IIRC military drives start at a multiplier of 3, so for military ships that's 1/3rd of the capacity the ship has.
The fatal flaw in my plan :-X
And I guess throwing 20 cargo holds on it to get the weight up probably isn't going to satisfy anyone...
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The fatal flaw in my plan :-X
And I guess throwing 20 cargo holds on it to get the weight up probably isn't going to satisfy anyone...
Adding cargo holds to fill the mass is exactly what I do to make large commercial jump tenders :)
Your space station idea should also work, although you will need separate stations for commercial and military.
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To "unburn" something you first make a snapshot of an object.
Meaning you record the position of every atom composing it (maybe something like a 3D topology map).
After burning the object you collect all the dispersed particles and reassemble it again, using the previously made record.
You'd probably want to use nanomachines for this task, because you ain't gonna be happy doing this by hand.
Done.
Easy enough, right? :)
The point being as long as you understand a process you can - with sufficiently developed technology backing you - undo it.
And this is slowly going off topic.
(https://puu.sh/AiLhE.png)
1.
Well yes, that's the point, maybe noone knows how to destabilise the jump point.
Please read the argument in question guys. Idon't know why this point has turned into "maybe it could theoretically somehowbe possible" when the point is about whether it should be doable ingame. It is possible for something to be theoretically possible with certain knowledge but not actually practically achievable.
2. It's also possible for some things to be impossible and irreversible. As far as we know to this point, reversing entropy is physically impossible. It's quite a bold claim that you are sure that it is possible to reverse the heat-death of the universe because if humanity somehow lasted long enough, that would become quite a pressing concern. It's simply not true to say that just because we understand and can apply something in one direction, that we necessarily can do it in reverse.
But yes, this is somewhat off topic I think. My point boils down to, just ebcause we know how to stabilise a wormhole ingame, doesn't inherently mean we know how to destabilise it again. Those are two different processes and the current system makes some sense in that regard.
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No. The point was that if we can do a process, we can undo it. Specifically it was in reference to the idea that "jumpgates" represent stabilised wormholes. So "building a new one" isn't applicable. You could make a new unstabilised wormhole, perhaps, but that doesn't get rid of the old one. The analogy was that just because we can burn something (stabilise the wormhole) doesn't mean we can reverse the process and unburn it (destabilise it again). So talking about "making a new one" is not only missing the point of reversing the process, your whole argument is in the wrong direction and you're suggesting rebuilding something that was never destroyed within the hypothetical.
Can you think of any other system in which it is easier to remove entropy than add it? If transitable jump points are more stable than untransitable jump points, they would end up that way naturally. Nature tends towards stability, and it's had 13.7 billion years to work on it.
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Can you think of any other system in which it is easier to remove entropy than add it? If transitable jump points are more stable than untransitable jump points, they would end up that way naturally. Nature tends towards stability, and it's had 13.7 billion years to work on it.
This has nothing to do with entropy. If it weren't for the "13.7 billion years" it'd almost sound like something that came out of a creationist textbook. "Stability" is a human construct defined by human viewpoints. The universe doesn't care about your perception of stability and entropy is a thermodynamic principle. A star can be as "stable" as you like, it will eventually become unstable and then cease to be a star. Ultimately entropy will create a state of supreme "stability" but that has little to do with the life cycles of objects or their stability as percieved by a human being.
But I won't continue arguing the finer points of entropy, I'll just reiterate:
But yes, this is somewhat off topic I think. My point boils down to, just ebcause we know how to stabilise a wormhole ingame, doesn't inherently mean we know how to destabilise it again. Those are two different processes and the current system makes some sense in that regard.
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I don't think everyone understood my point so I will mention it again.
(https://i.imgur.com/q80xx7c.png)
You could imagine the unstable jump node is position D, and a jump gated or stabalized one is position A. Assuming the R axis represents some energy level of the jump node, it costs far more to move the jump point from equilibrium A to equilibrium D than vice versa. You could make this as extreme as you like and apply it to jump points, such that its potentially viable to go around stabalizing every jump point you see, but it is in the very least extremely difficult to reverse the process, if not effectively impossible.
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I feel like this game tends to attract an above average of fairly intelligent people, are you all seriously saying that you can think of no conceivable reason a jump gate could be stabilized but not destabilized?
Argue all we want from an in game perspective, I personally favor being able to destroy jump gates because anything that gives more choice to the player is a good thing in my view, but I think it's a bit disingenuous to argue absolutes about the realism of it when literally none of what we are talking about has any scientific basis at all.
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Maybe a good compromise is to have it as a setup option?
"Allow deconstruction/destabilization of Jump Gates/Points" yes/no.
If allowed any construction ship can reverse the process in same time it takes to get one in place.
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Currently I believe that jump gates (or stabilized jump points) should be permanent, for the reasons I listed earlier. The only way I would change that belief is if someone convinced me that an ability to remove jump gates would provide a 'game play' benefit.
An argument for whether the unspecified stabilization process for a fictitious object can be reversed is going to have less influence on that decision.
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Currently I believe that jump gates (or stabilized jump points) should be permanent, for the reasons I listed earlier. The only way I would change that belief is if someone convinced me that an ability to remove jump gates would provide a 'game play' benefit.
An argument for whether the unspecified stabilization process for a fictitious object can be reversed is going to have less influence on that decision.
Personally, it's just a flavor thing. But one that I feel very strongly about BECAUSE it ruins my immersion in the game.
I'd be totally fine with things as they are right now, IF they were just called "Stabilized Jump Points" instead of Jump Gates.
I am irked by the idea of an indestructible space structure. Because every space structure should be destroyable, as is realistic.
I have no problem instead with the idea of a stable jump point, one that has been stabilized and thus can be used by any ship even without a specific jump engine.
An option to have the name changed would be great :P
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Personally, it's just a flavor thing. But one that I feel very strongly about BECAUSE it ruins my immersion in the game.
I'd be totally fine with things as they are right now, IF they were just called "Stabilized Jump Points" instead of Jump Gates.
I am irked by the idea of an indestructible space structure. Because every space structure should be destroyable, as is realistic.
I have no problem instead with the idea of a stable jump point, one that has been stabilized and thus can be used by any ship even without a specific jump engine.
An option to have the name changed would be great :P
I will almost certainly change the name for C#.
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Currently I believe that jump gates (or stabilized jump points) should be permanent, for the reasons I listed earlier. The only way I would change that belief is if someone convinced me that an ability to remove jump gates would provide a 'game play' benefit.
An argument for whether the unspecified stabilization process for a fictitious object can be reversed is going to have less influence on that decision.
I would have thought that having the ability to destabilise jump points would add quite a lot of flavour to the game. Given the improved pathing for merchants I’m expecting stabilised points to be more important to the economy for players and NPRs.
At the moment you can leave invaders sat on a jump point and just turtle up as you know it’s hard for them to stay there (assuming playing with maintenance on). I would have thought the ability to destabilise jumps would force more challenges on splitting forces to defend multiple points or enable an attacker to more readily force an engagement (assuming the cost of re-stabilising the jump point is high enough or takes long enough to make it an issue).
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I would have thought that having the ability to destabilise jump points would add quite a lot of flavour to the game. Given the improved pathing for merchants I’m expecting stabilised points to be more important to the economy for players and NPRs.
At the moment you can leave invaders sat on a jump point and just turtle up as you know it’s hard for them to stay there (assuming playing with maintenance on). I would have thought the ability to destabilise jumps would force more challenges on splitting forces to defend multiple points or enable an attacker to more readily force an engagement (assuming the cost of re-stabilising the jump point is high enough or takes long enough to make it an issue).
You could even have raiders purposely destabilize your opponent's jump points to break his jump point network. Like destroying the locks in a canal.
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You could have jump points destabilize on its own over time and revert to its previous state, while moving mass through it will add to its stability.
The time it takes for it to completely destabilize could be 5 or 10 years, or variable.
This way you will have to blockade the jump point and prevent ships from going through, if you want to close it down.
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Jump Gates are super convenient, no argument there. What I hate is finding ancient ones in an otherwise empty system - if they cannot be destroyed, then what happened to all those Precursor jump gates, few of which can still be found? That's a minor detail that has irked me over the years. If a JG is more of a stabilized worm hole, and the Precursors created them, should't literally every jump point in the galaxy have one. If they can despawn/destabilize/get destroyed, then why can't I do it? Or Invaders?
If players can destroy/destabilize/despawn worm holes, what about the Invader inter-galactic one?
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Jump Gates are super convenient, no argument there. What I hate is finding ancient ones in an otherwise empty system - if they cannot be destroyed, then what happened to all those Precursor jump gates, few of which can still be found? That's a minor detail that has irked me over the years. If a JG is more of a stabilized worm hole, and the Precursors created them, should't literally every jump point in the galaxy have one. If they can despawn/destabilize/get destroyed, then why can't I do it? Or Invaders?
If players can destroy/destabilize/despawn worm holes, what about the Invader inter-galactic one?
-Lore-
Oh that's easy enough. They DO destabilize... with a half-life of roughly 146,000 years. Of being unused, since mass passing through causes restabilization. So to answer your question, yes they do 'despawn' the same way the sun 'despawns' but you don't see any tech for accelerating the process.
If fact, if you really want to go that far, why do all jumpgates have to have an artificial origin? Couldn't some of them simply have natural origins? Like a jump point that via natural processes over its many many millenia of 'lifespan' has drifted randomly into a stable configuration and will in time drift out of it again. It would certainly explain some of the weird positionings of them (into dead end systems with no planets).
Invader wormholes are something different entirely, they are completely artificial and require active energy expenditure to keep open. Based on Jump Points, to be sure, but with the conditions for their formation artificially generated (via unknown means) and tweaked to make them strictly one way (like jump points that are closed on one side).
-/Lore-
From a gameplay perspective, destabilizing wormholes do make sense in my opinion. If every jumpgate is an irreversable change to the galaxy, consider the situation of 2 large empires fighting. One side gets a decisive advantage, breaking the outer defences of the other, reaching its jumpgate network. In order to take advantage of this, it has to extend its own network until it touches the other's. Now the two empires are eternally locked into a jumpdriveless struggle until one side is victorious and the other dead. Even if peace is made some years down the line, there will always exist this highway from one's space to the other, with no way to break it or impede it. No clear border between the empires will ever exist again.
Essentially, jumpgates ARE your projection of power. Connecting jumpgates to a system is a way of saying "this space is mine, I feel I can defend it from aggression". But there is no way to reverse that decision. Every war becomes all or nothing. You cant just capture territory, since you can't connect your own power projection to the system without opening your ENTIRE territory to massive counterinvasion. At the same time, the enemy cant allow you to keep his captured territory since it presents a foothold into the soft underbelly of his jumpbridge network.
For Aurora as it is right now, that is actually fine. The game takes the form of fighting numerous AI opponents sequentially, since no AI opponent can give a human a challenge in the long term. But what about human v human games? Or multi-faction starts?
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Currently I believe that jump gates (or stabilized jump points) should be permanent, for the reasons I listed earlier. The only way I would change that belief is if someone convinced me that an ability to remove jump gates would provide a 'game play' benefit.
An argument for whether the unspecified stabilization process for a fictitious object can be reversed is going to have less influence on that decision.
I would like to be able to un-build jump points for the following game play reasons:
- RP: perhaps a terrorist organisation disrupt the jump point to a recent colony
- to slow down an invasion
- to disrupt trade and logistic lines of enemies
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The biggest issue with losing jump gates is the civilian logistics problem which now either has to recalculate a route to the intended destination and/or cancel a delivery. The player logistics issue solves itself; there's an 'insufficient jump drive capacity' message that also kills time progression.
Frankly, I think there's a fairly simple way to handle the problem. If a civilian ship is confronted with not having a gate at a jump point it triggers the routing code for a new route that follows the rules. If there is a route, it now starts following it. If there isn't, check cargo, and check for a place that wants that cargo. If it exists and is in range of the routing code limits, calculate a new route and go, if there's no place willing to receive the cargo, dump the cargo. Yes, this means that hundreds of thousands of colonists can disappear from your nation, unless you want to just dump them on a colony regardless of capacity.
An exception to this would be buildings, which can be hauled with civilian contracts. All buildings except Infrastructure (because those are a trade good) get routed to the nearest colony, even if that colony is uninhabited. If you don't dump colonies out into space but instead want to also bring them somewhere they get dropped off at the nearest already inhabited colony instead.
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If it exists and is in range of the routing code limits, calculate a new route and go, if there's no place willing to receive the cargo, dump the cargo. Yes, this means that hundreds of thousands of colonists can disappear from your nation, unless you want to just dump them on a colony regardless of capacity.
I think it would be better to leave civilians at colonies regardless of capacity.
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The means to remove Jump Gates already exists. It's called SM Mode. Therefore, what we are arguing about is whether NPRs should be able to destroy Jump Gates.
Ever since their invention I have been strongly in the "Jump Gates are forever" camp. I found them to be a compelling strategic dilemma -- build a "superhighway for invasion" or complicate my logistics? I found them so dangerous, I hardly ever built one and I have started countless wars over my refusal to let NPRs -- any NPRs -- build them anywhere I considered dangerous.
Personally, my first choice would be for Jump Gates to not be buildable by players / NPRs. The random scattering of Precursor jump gates throughout the universe then becomes interesting terrain. "Ooh, a Col Cost 0.4 world with lots of 0.7 Duranium, but there's a Jump Gate leading right into the system from Unknown Space!"
It also means if you want to build quarter-million-ton orbital habitats, you need to build quarter-million-ton jump ships if you want to move them to another system.
My second choice is for player/NPR-built Jump Gates to be instantly and easily destroyable -- guaranteed BOOM from even a single point of damage! I would also make Jump Gate Construction Ships consume wealth & minerals every Construction Cycle they're building a gate. (It has been so long since I built a Jump Gate I can't remember if this is the way it currently works or not.)
Whatever Steve decides for Jump Gates, I will continue to hardly ever build them. If I am able (other than SM Mode), I will probably destroy any I find leading towards my territory.
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Wait wait what? How do I remove Jump Gates in SM mode?
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Could have sworn I responded to this earlier but I'm not seeing it. Oh well.
Personally, my first choice would be for Jump Gates to not be buildable by players / NPRs. The random scattering of Precursor jump gates throughout the universe then becomes interesting terrain. "Ooh, a Col Cost 0.4 world with lots of 0.7 Duranium, but there's a Jump Gate leading right into the system from Unknown Space!"
I think it would be far better to have that be an option you could choose at the start of the game. Alternatively, iirc we might be able to determine how much RP is needed for any particular tech, and you could simply lock jump gates behind absurdly high numbers.
It also means if you want to build quarter-million-ton orbital habitats, you need to build quarter-million-ton jump ships if you want to move them to another system.
I'd argue that this is a very good reason for why jump gates shouldn't be removed.
My second choice is for player/NPR-built Jump Gates to be instantly and easily destroyable -- guaranteed BOOM from even a single point of damage! I would also make Jump Gate Construction Ships consume wealth & minerals every Construction Cycle they're building a gate. (It has been so long since I built a Jump Gate I can't remember if this is the way it currently works or not.)
I'd be interested in turning jump gates into a type of station with a special component that gives it its properties, and having construction ships be capable of creating them in space using minerals and/or parts.
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Wait wait what? How do I remove Jump Gates in SM mode?
In the System Information window, there's a tab for Jump Points. If you switch to it and are in SM mode, it gives you all kinds of options having to do with jump points, including moving them, unlinking and re-linking them, deleting them, generating new ones, and whether or not they have jump gates.
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I'd be interested in turning jump gates into a type of station with a special component that gives it its properties, and having construction ships be capable of creating them in space using minerals and/or parts.
That would certainly be much neater than a dedicated jump point constructor ship. Also with a special component you can customize your jump gate to your needs, the maximum ship size your gates are laid out for, should the stations be able to move under own power, do they need PD systems, are they equipped with maintenance facilities...
I would not let the argument count that removing jump gate messes up civilian transports. If you voluntarily remove jump stations from critical junctions, you obviously are creating a mess. If an enemy manages to get deep in and destroy critical jump stations, you are deep in trouble anyway.
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I don't understand some of this discussion.
I think Steve basically said that in C# Aurora jump gates will be renamed to stabilized jump points.
There is no station whatsoever. No structure. Nothing to build. Just a jump point that is stable, and so can be used by anyone even without jump engine.
Sure, a case can be made that it can be destabilized. But why there's so many posts about "stations"? There are no stations....
For the record, I am not against the possibility of destabilizing jump points. But then again, I'm not really for it. Maybe if it was a really BIG undertaking. Something that costs you a LOT to do.
Lorewise it could be said that it is somethign that happens naturally over tens of thousands of years or more...
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The discussion is about how to frame it in universe as something that can be targeted and destroyed/destabilized. Having it be some distinct station seems to be the popular approach at the moment.
I'm still preferential to being able to undo these permanent jump points, however they're set up in the first place, but being able to do so via SM will have to suffice, seems Steve's made his mind up about this. As long as the ability to delete them via SM remains in the C# version, I'll be content enough.
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What I don't really understand is why people think removing jumpgates will slow down an invasion? All the NPR needs is a single jump ship and they can move their whole fleet through, surely? And you can defend a jump gate just as easily as a jump point. What am I missing?
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I think all y'all talking about how to destroy jump gates/destabilize jump points/whatever are going about it wrong.
Steve has already said he doesn't care about plausibility, since plausibility can be supplied with a technobabble explanation regardless of whether jump gates are permanent or not. Rather, if you want jump gates to be destructible, you need to demonstrate how that will enrich the strategic layer of the game, rather than diminish it.
Right now, setting aside NPR silliness that will change in C#, the creation of a jump gate is a real strategic decision. On the one hand you immensely simplify your internal logistics. On the other hand, you make yourself more vulnerable to strategic outflanking and enemy attack. Each jump gate you make is a decision that should be carefully considered.
If jump gates can be destroyed, that changes. Can we change it for the better instead of just taking away player agency? If so, then maybe jump gates should be destructible. Otherwise, they should stay permanent.
Don't worry about the how; focus on the why.
Myself, I think a cool system might be required jump-gate maintenance. Each jump gate you construct requires both an initial mineral investment and some small but not inconsiderable annual upkeep. Further, jump gates come in different sizes, with larger sizes being unlocked by research and requiring correspondingly higher maintenance. You can choose to forego maintenance, but the gate will degrade and eventually cease to function on some time-scale to be determined, possibly with chance for bad effects if someone tries to transit a partially functional but unmaintained gate.
This opens the strategic decision to use jump gates from being a one-time thing to being ongoing, and still definitiely involves strategic trade-offs for simplified logistics, as well as not simply allowing the player to remove inconvenient jump-gates immediately (but nevertheless involving risk to invading forces using an empire's jump gates). Alternatively, you could be able to blow up or deconstruct jump gates instead of just waiting for them to decay, if that's desired. In either case, if you desired a jump-gate on that point again, you'd have to pay the initial construction cost again.
If this idea were implemented, I'd like for minerals to be magically removed from stockpiles for maintenance, much like ships that are in orbit and using maintenance facilities. Colonies could have a toggle called something like "Maintain in-system jump gates", and then the capital colony (or, perhaps, a player-designated colony) would be responsible for maintenance on all other jump-gates. Any gate maintained by a given colony should be togglable so that maintenance can be abandoned, much like how we can stop and restart a colony's industries.This would vastly simplify the logistical overhead of jump gate maintenance - otherwise I'd probably just deploy mobile gates aka commercial jump tenders instead of bothering with all the faff.
NPRs would use the same system. In event that multiple empires have colonies in the same system, you'd be able to see which jump gates some other empire is maintaining before choosing which you will maintain, with priority being given to whoever decided to maintain it first. This way you could mooch off another empire, at the expense of not controlling maintenance. Or, simpler, jump gates could track whoever built them, and the only empire capable of maintenance on that gate is the empire which originally built it. If you want to maintain it yourself, you have to wait for it to degrade (or destroy it, if that's an option) and build one yourself.
Precursor gates, on the other hand, should not be subject to maintenance and should probably be permanent - they're made of super-hard unobtanium-neutronium alloys and partially sunk into the liquid dimension, or something.
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I think all y'all talking about how to destroy jump gates/destabilize jump points/whatever are going about it wrong.
Steve has already said he doesn't care about plausibility, since plausibility can be supplied with a technobabble explanation regardless of whether jump gates are permanent or not. Rather, if you want jump gates to be destructible, you need to demonstrate how that will enrich the strategic layer of the game, rather than diminish it.
Right now, setting aside NPR silliness that will change in C#, the creation of a jump gate is a real strategic decision. On the one hand you immensely simplify your internal logistics. On the other hand, you make yourself more vulnerable to strategic outflanking and enemy attack. Each jump gate you make is a decision that should be carefully considered.
If jump gates can be destroyed, that changes. Can we change it for the better instead of just taking away player agency? If so, then maybe jump gates should be destructible. Otherwise, they should stay permanent.
Don't worry about the how; focus on the why.
I'd flip the argument on its head. Since civilian ships and the pathfinder can use jump tenders now, why do we still need jump gates? Jump tenders (or stations, if you want to permanently emplace them) use upkeep already, and give some planning on what size of ships you are planning on building. If you have them large enough for your largest freighters, your logistics are identical for path finding. It is mechanically more elegant, and makes enormous jump drives useful, if you really want to move that 500kt station to another system.
The only rule change we would need is some jump drive tender that can handle both your largest freighters and your warships without getting prohibitively expensive, so you don't need two tenders/stations at each WP.
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I'd flip the argument on its head. Since civilian ships and the pathfinder can use jump tenders now, why do we still need jump gates?
Sure, that's another way to go, especially since the changes to the strategic situation have already been made in allowing civilian traffic to use 'mobile jump gates'. I'd be fine with that, too. Then, when you run across precursor jump gates, they're truly special.
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That would certainly be much neater than a dedicated jump point constructor ship. Also with a special component you can customize your jump gate to your needs, the maximum ship size your gates are laid out for, should the stations be able to move under own power, do they need PD systems, are they equipped with maintenance facilities...
When I said specialized component, I meant one that results in the station functioning exactly as jump gates do now, ie no size or engine type restrictions, and it doesn't travel when something else makes a jump. Thinking about it, though, it would be odd to treat the jump gate as a station you own, in terms of considering how NPRs will interact with it, but it would also be kind of weird to build a station that exists as some kind of neutral entity.
I'd flip the argument on its head. Since civilian ships and the pathfinder can use jump tenders now, why do we still need jump gates? Jump tenders (or stations, if you want to permanently emplace them) use upkeep already, and give some planning on what size of ships you are planning on building. If you have them large enough for your largest freighters, your logistics are identical for path finding. It is mechanically more elegant, and makes enormous jump drives useful, if you really want to move that 500kt station to another system.
Gates are not jump tenders. They don't work the same way. If you need more gates, you build them with a construction ship. If you need more tenders, you build them with shipyards. Even if without considering the fact that gates ignore size and engine type, and don't make the jump themselves, the difference in how you acquire the two things is incredibly significant.
This difference, by the way, is a reason why, regardless of how the jump gate/jump point thing is done, I'd like to see us being able to use ships to construct stations in space, given that stations look like they'll be quite a bit more important in C#. Should be fine to call them construction ships no matter how the jump point thing plays out, because if Steve does just rename jump gates to stabilized jump points, I imagine that what we currently call construction ships will be renamed as well, since they wouldn't be building anything.
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This difference, by the way, is a reason why, regardless of how the jump gate/jump point thing is done, I'd like to see us being able to use ships to construct stations in space, given that stations look like they'll be quite a bit more important in C#. Should be fine to call them construction ships no matter how the jump point thing plays out, because if Steve does just rename jump gates to stabilized jump points, I imagine that what we currently call construction ships will be renamed as well, since they wouldn't be building anything.
While I like the idea of construction ships a lot, there are also a lot of practical problems in how to deal with the under-construction stations/ships. Do they physically exist while under construction, and if so can they be targeted? If they can, then how is damage applied. At what point is the armor belt built etc?
The other question is minerals, presumably you'll need a situation where the construction ship has these in cargo bays, but you'd also need to be able to resupply during construction or your construction ships would need to be massive for any large project. So what happens when you run out of minerals part way through construction? Is it just halted indefinitely? Does a halted project consume MSPs, or does the construction progress decrease over time to prevent abuse?
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While I like the idea of construction ships a lot, there are also a lot of practical problems in how to deal with the under-construction stations/ships. Do they physically exist while under construction, and if so can they be targeted? If they can, then how is damage applied. At what point is the armor belt built etc?
That's a really good question, and I hadn't thought of that. I think that ideally, it would be built component by component, probably starting with the armor, but I don't know how feasibly that would be to program. Maybe if the building process is interrupted, a wreck is spawned in? I'm not familiar enough with the mechanics of how wrecks work to know how well that could work in relation to the ship being incomplete. If how damaged a ship is before it's destroyed affects the wreck it leaves behind then maybe it could work? Again, though, I don't really know how feasible that is.
The other question is minerals, presumably you'll need a situation where the construction ship has these in cargo bays, but you'd also need to be able to resupply during construction or your construction ships would need to be massive for any large project. So what happens when you run out of minerals part way through construction? Is it just halted indefinitely? Does a halted project consume MSPs, or does the construction progress decrease over time to prevent abuse?
I imagine there's a combination of things that could be done here. Unless I'm mistaken, it seems like it should be possible to have construction ships use minerals from any cargo hold in the task group, so you could just send cargo ships along for the project. The construction modules used for this might simply be smaller than they are now, with the intention of having your construction ships use cargo bays. A 180-day Construction module is twice as big as a standard cargo hold, after all, and you can fit a significant amount of minerals into a standard cargo hold. Also, if you're using the construction ship at a colony with minerals (whether it's a system body or another station), I imagine the ship could use those minerals as well. Could make setting up terraforming stations a bit easier, since you could just build them on site rather than waiting for what is probably a limited number of tugs to haul them around.
If projects can be halted part way through, then I'd imagine having it consume MSP if it's available, and losing progress if it's not, is a good way to handle it, but I'm no expert at balancing things.
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That's a really good question, and I hadn't thought of that. I think that ideally, it would be built component by component, probably starting with the armor, but I don't know how feasibly that would be to program. Maybe if the building process is interrupted, a wreck is spawned in? I'm not familiar enough with the mechanics of how wrecks work to know how well that could work in relation to the ship being incomplete. If how damaged a ship is before it's destroyed affects the wreck it leaves behind then maybe it could work? Again, though, I don't really know how feasible that is.
I guess you could do that, feels odd that some massive 99% complete death star would be wrecked by a single shot, but maybe no other approach is feasible.
I imagine there's a combination of things that could be done here. Unless I'm mistaken, it seems like it should be possible to have construction ships use minerals from any cargo hold in the task group, so you could just send cargo ships along for the project. The construction modules used for this might simply be smaller than they are now, with the intention of having your construction ships use cargo bays. A 180-day Construction module is twice as big as a standard cargo hold, after all, and you can fit a significant amount of minerals into a standard cargo hold. Also, if you're using the construction ship at a colony with minerals (whether it's a system body or another station), I imagine the ship could use those minerals as well. Could make setting up terraforming stations a bit easier, since you could just build them on site rather than waiting for what is probably a limited number of tugs to haul them around.
You'd have to be very careful that construction modules don't become cheaper to produce than shipyards, or that would be an obvious exploit.
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I guess you could do that, feels odd that some massive 99% complete death star would be wrecked by a single shot, but maybe no other approach is feasible.
I imagine the ship being built isn't being manned during the process. Undermanning is a thing, so is it possible for a ship to completely run out of crew without being destroyed? If it is, what happens? That's probably the best way to figure out what should happen to a partially built station.
You'd have to be very careful that construction modules don't become cheaper to produce than shipyards, or that would be an obvious exploit.
Hadn't thought of that either. The size limits on shipyards, and potential lack of one for construction ships, presents a bit of a problem. Solutions I can think of would be 1)make construction ships take significantly longer to build things than shipyards, 2) make construction modules work like maintenance facilities and modules, in that you need a certain amount present to build something based on its size, or 3) make it so that construction ships can't build/refit/repair ships with engines, but instead can only work on engineless stations. 3 seems best to me, because with 1) and 2), the construction ships would still have an advantage in one area due to things like not having to worry about retooling, and with 2 specifically, the fact that construction ships then basically become mobile, modular shipyards. The lack of retooling could maybe be handled by requiring every single part be prefabbed, but that still leaves the second issue.
EDIT: If this conversation keeps going we should probably split it off into it's own thread, since it's really not about jump gates at this point.
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A fourth option for balance would be that construction ships (or whatever they're to be called) would require more resources to build something than a shipyard would. That way you pay for your flexibility in mobility and not needing to retool with a resource surtax.
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How about just don't allow construction ships to build engines? That way they can't build ships, and you'll still need shipyards.
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Perhaps construction ships could be handled like combat engineers assembling PDCs? The components for the construction would need to be built planet-side, and a construction ship could only assemble them in space?
Conversely(or additionally), perhaps construction ships should need to be tooled at shipyards for specific projects? And that the project they're tooled for has to be done at a shipyard that could have done the construction itself(that way you can't have a 500 ton shipyard tool a construction ship for a 100k ton project). It makes them more of an extension of a shipyard in that sense: a mobile slipway with the same costs and limits associated with the shipyard, but the advantage of being able to lay down construction at a specific location.
Though maybe with a construction speed penalty added, to represent a lack of easy access to experts and specialized equipment if(when) problems during construction come up? That way there's at least some incentive to still use shipyards most of the time, and make construction ships only appealing for projects that simply can't be done at a colony.
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With the AI now being able to handle jump tenders, there is no real need anymore for an infinite capacity jump gate anymore.
Similarly, with space stations now having "structural shell" as defining characteristic, any options for deep space construction should apply to all space stations, not just exclusively jump gates.
Jump gate then can be a module, designed and researched as part of the jump drive technology branch, with a few changes:
-Jump drive and gate capacity should stack. This allows to build gates and drives for arbitrarily large ships.
- Gates should be cheaper than drives, but can only be used on space stations. Also, the gate does not need to be large enough to jump itself to be operable.
-Larger drives get a capacity bonus, to incentive building large drives instead of many small ones.
- Drives and Gates are no longer purely commercial or military, instead you can trade off capacity, gaining for example +50/+100% civ capacity while loosing -10/-20% mil capacity. That way you can tweak your tenders and gates, either getting a 10k/10k jump drive, or getting a 30k/6k, or a 50k/2k split in capacity.
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An interesting suggestion Whitecold. The main question would be how do we build them. Yard capacity is a precious resource in Aurora.
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An interesting suggestion Whitecold. The main question would be how do we build them. Yard capacity is a precious resource in Aurora.
Construction facilities, just like orbital habitats, and then move them using tugs.
Or add a new order for construction ships "construct at point X" with a submenu with all the space stations you have designed.
This would probably need another order to deliver resources to a construction ship.
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An interesting suggestion Whitecold. The main question would be how do we build them. Yard capacity is a precious resource in Aurora.
Construction facilities, just like orbital habitats, and then move them using tugs.
Or add a new order for construction ships "construct at point X" with a submenu with all the space stations you have designed.
This would probably need another order to deliver resources to a construction ship.
Easy enough to say that but I'll refer you to my posts up thread asking all sorts of follow up questions about the practicalities and balance of this. Basically "What do you do with half finished stations?" and "How do you stop players making all their military ships as stations (to avoid construction yard restraints), then tugging them into battle?"
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Easy enough to say that but I'll refer you to my posts up thread asking all sorts of follow up questions about the practicalities and balance of this. Basically "What do you do with half finished stations?" and "How do you stop players making all their military ships as stations (to avoid construction yard restraints), then tugging them into battle?"
Structural shells being required for it to count as a proper space station seems like it would limit usability in combat pretty hard. While I'm not a fan of that myself, even if that were to be changed (for example, having anything without engines be a station, with structural shells being a station-only option), it seems like you'd have to make some pretty hefty tugs to be able to move a station around at anything approaching the speed military ships are generally supposed to be moving at, especially at higher tech levels.
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An interesting suggestion Whitecold. The main question would be how do we build them. Yard capacity is a precious resource in Aurora.
Construction facilities, just like orbital habitats, and then move them using tugs.
Or add a new order for construction ships "construct at point X" with a submenu with all the space stations you have designed.
This would probably need another order to deliver resources to a construction ship.
Easy enough to say that but I'll refer you to my posts up thread asking all sorts of follow up questions about the practicalities and balance of this. Basically "What do you do with half finished stations?" and "How do you stop players making all their military ships as stations (to avoid construction yard restraints), then tugging them into battle?"
I guess the part about 'half finished stations' is about construction ships construction something in space.
Until it is done it would be a sitting duck and easy to kill.
All its systems and functions would only go online once the construction is done and until then a skeleton crew would be on board supervising the progress.
As the construction advances the stations HTK goes up until it reaches its finished state or turns into firework once it reaches zero (in case someone is firing at it).
Since the station is just a giant construction site it should be easy enough to hit its components so you can assume every hit reduces the HTK.
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What to do with construction ships had been split off: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10082.0
My idea would be to make Jump gates more of a decision you take for high traffic routes. Right now for me pretty much any amount of civilian traffic justifies putting a gate there, as they are free once you have the constructor. I hardly build jump tenders for civilian ships, never mind jump capable freighters, so the only ships with jumpdrives are for combat ships, their fleet train, surveyors
When paying for each gate, and having to emplace them, you would have to think twice if you build gates down a 4-long dead end WP chain for a few miners, or simple equip the freighters with jump drives. Civilians could build a few jump capable colonizers/freighters, leading convoys.
Similarly your initial choice of jump gate capacity is an early decision that will be expensive to change later on. The player then has to deal with his earlier decisions, which I also consider interesting. Do you build extra jump ships to accompany your outsized battleships that no longer fit your gates, or do you refit the gates? Do you refit all of them? You thought you would never need to pass them through that gate and you could save the refit, and now you suddenly do?
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I really, REALLY dislike the idea of jump gates having a size restriction.
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Maybe a mass limit that destabilizes WH for some time like in Honor Harington books? Only JG construction increases / removes these restrictions
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Maybe a mass limit that destabilizes WH for some time like in Honor Harington books? Only JG construction increases / removes these restrictions
I am not sure what you mean. Currently JG provides infinite capacity, without a gate or a drive you can't transit at all.
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Combined system with EvE-Online and Honor Harrington.
"WH" without "JG" has a limited weight limit that can be transferred at a given time (ships must have "JE"). Tyto construction JG abolishes this limit. The whole idea lies in the fact that it is not possible to transfer a huge fleet at a given moment when "WH" does not have "JG"
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Combined system with EvE-Online and Honor Harrington.
"WH" without "JG" has a limited weight limit that can be transferred at a given time (ships must have "JE"). Tyto construction JG abolishes this limit. The whole idea lies in the fact that it is not possible to transfer a huge fleet at a given moment when "WH" does not have "JG"
That would be a completely different system though. Currently the gates remove the requirement of having a Jump drive installed. The only point where you actually care about the speed at which you pass a wormhole is on assault, which is the one point where you will most likely not have time to set up jump gates
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Easy enough to say that but I'll refer you to my posts up thread asking all sorts of follow up questions about the practicalities and balance of this. Basically "What do you do with half finished stations?" and "How do you stop players making all their military ships as stations (to avoid construction yard restraints), then tugging them into battle?"
"What do you do with half finished stations?"
I make them easily destroyable. Like, 1 hit point per million tons easy.
"How do you stop players making all their military ships as stations (to avoid construction yard restraints), then tugging them into battle?"
I don't. I subscribe to the Number One Rule of Aurora: The software is not interested in preventing you from cheating at solitaire.
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Stations already have a limit to prevent military use: they have no armor (according to the new "structural shells" rules).
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The other limit is that as armed ships they'll be military ships, so they'll need maintenance.
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... uhm... This thread was supposed to discuss whether or not jump gates (which Steve himself has said will be renamed to stabilized jump points) should be destructible/ destabilizable. Now you're talking of... limited size transfers? Half finished stations? What?
Steve has said that unless someone convinces him that gameplay would be better if jump points can be destabilized, he is inclined to make them permanent.
I really don't think he is interested in making stations to increase jump capacity, or anything else that would completely change the current system...
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My own thoughts are that the current jump gates should be highly advanced spoiler tech, or really far down the tech tree, because they do allow significant savings on the logistical costs of running an empire, for a few cheap ships. Maybe rename them to stabilized wormhole to denote that they are permanent .
I would like if jump gates were designed like other stations, perhaps a jump gate module thats 1000 HS and has a 100,000 ton jump rating. Higher tech levels either being lighter or having better jump rating, multiple modules or stations would stack improving maximum jump size.
That basic module is heavier per ton of jump rating than a basic rating 4 commercial jump drive, but offers certain advantages.
Stacking a few modules doesn't require extra very expensive research, like larger standard jump engines would.
Gates allow military traffic as well as commercial (maybe they should have a tenth the tonnage rating for military traffic though)
No jump sickness, fleets are ready immediately after jumping through.
No squadron limit.
Gates could perhaps have a default high squadron radius (maybe double the equivalent level of jump drive tech) when combat jumps are made, but a 0 radius for standard jumps.
Gates are commercial systems, so the station can sit on a jump point much longer than a military jump tender could.
Disadvantages however are:
Gates would be one way, each jump point needs 2 to allow traffic.
But this is a also a good thing, if hostile enemies enter a system you can pull that systems gate back, and the corresponding gate in the other system will still allow unrestricted combat jumps in.
This could easily be argued to give you way too much power over jump points, just tug a gate into position and you can assault the next system without penalty, without the need for micromanaging jump escorts, without fear of stationed defense equipment tearing apart your forces while sensor blinded.
I argue that you should keep an eye on your borders and destroy hostile gate ships before they get deployed, if one is deployed what's stopping you from jumping in and taking it out? They're big and vulnerable unless heavily armoured, and then you're looking at a very costly military ship (assault gates? maintenence for a military ship with a gate should be quite high).
As a potential counter to this I would suggest that if another non friendly gate is on the other side you loose the perfect jump and get normal sensor blindness etc.
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@MarcAFK I still like the idea better of designing gate components as a variant of jump drive components, but overall I see the same issue that jump gates as they are now are just too cheap and too good.
If Steve does not want to change anything about the gates, I would very much like to see an option to ban all JGs and associated constructors, and using only jump tenders (which you can call gates if you like)
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I would welcome that kind of customization.
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... uhm... This thread was supposed to discuss ...
The longer a thread grows, the higher the chance of discussion venturing into hitherto unknown lands. It is known.
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... uhm... This thread was supposed to discuss ...
The longer a thread grows, the higher the chance of discussion venturing into hitherto unknown lands. It is known.
Also, making gates a ship component automatically makes them destructible. So I would consider it still on track.
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In earlier versions, you needed five jump gate components to build a jump gate. They were built in factories, moved to the jump gate by freighter and assembled by construction ship.
The component requirement was removed with general player consensus that it was tedious and didn't add to game play. What remained was the construction ship and the current system. I don't want to go down a similar path to one that was already tested and rejected.
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If there was some way to do it without the implied level of micromanagement that the game would require for that, I would be in favor of adding it back in. As it is, the content from that isn't worth the hassle probably.
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The general complaint seems to be "Jump gates are too cheap and easy, while jump engines are expensive and fat".
Isn't the simplest solution just to address the balance between those previous two issues?
Make jump gates more expensive (flat value, not micromanagement) and/or make jump engines cheaper/smaller perhaps?
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The general complaint seems to be "Jump gates are too cheap and easy, while jump engines are expensive and fat".
Isn't the simplest solution just to address the balance between those previous two issues?
Make jump gates more expensive (flat value, not micromanagement) and/or make jump engines cheaper/smaller perhaps?
Seems to me that the people talking about jump gate micromanagement feel that having to worry about any transportation+usage of resources for creating a jump gate will be micromanagement. While I disagree, I can understand why they'd feel that way. I think the real issue (beyond the fact that this is Steve's game, and he'll make what he wants) is that there doesn't seem to be a community consensus about jump points. You've got people who don't want micro, people who see jump gates as being too cheap an alternative to jump tenders, people who don't like the AI building gates everywhere, etc. I personally agree that jump gates as they are, are in large part a cheap, upkeep free alternative to jump tenders, but at the same time I don't agree with people who want to just replace them with jump tenders, because jump gates work fundamentally differently than tenders, and not just in terms of capacity. A single tender can allow traffic to and from another system, where as gates are one way.
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@the obelisk I would very much prefer gates as an alternative to tenders, but as they are now, I'd rather have only jump tenders than the gates as they are now, because they pretty much always are the better option.
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A player in my game once told me something in relation to this and it has effected doctrine for both fleet deployment and expansion. The quote goes something like "You don't build an empire by paying the ferryman every time you want to cross a river, you build bridges" and that's how I treat gated JPs in my games. When planning expansion I will typically build a gate on both sides of every JP within what I consider within my borders and secure. Like bridges they provide ease of movement between colonies, even for commercial ships with no jump engines. For me jump gates have also had the added benefit of of allowing you to make your warships more efficient. Not requiring a jump drive on a military vessel allows more tonnage to be put towards either defensive systems, sensors, or offensive weapons. I prefer gates over tenders mainly for that reason. That doesn't mean jump tenders don't have their place or I don't design ships with jump drives for assaults across unstabilized/un-gated JPs or for exploration. Both have their pros and cons. This freedom of movement is also passed onto enemy forces (even though most NPR ships Ive seen have jump engines). Being able to remove/restrict strategic or economic freedom movement by reversing whatever process allowed it would add to gameplay and could be critical in some circumstances.
There has been mention of balance between gates and drives here as well. Tweaking the amount of time it takes to build/stabilize would be a better way to balance gates rather than adding a component cost or building a gate via factories or a shipyard (and also for the sake of micro). Falling back to my bridge analogy, these can be more investments in time rather than resources.
I think a lot of this also boils down to how the individual plays aurora. if you use a lot of jump tenders one may not put much value in gates/stabilized JPs as their style allows them to move more freely without them, they can almost become a second thought.
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@Darkminion Your analogy pretty much breaks down that a bridge is way, way more expensive than a ferry. I don't saw anyone arguing that JGs were underpowered.
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The fact that a fair number of people think JG are better and a fair number of people think tenders are better implies to me that they're already relatively well balanced. I tend to use JG's to save on time and resources (playing conventional starts) and maybe they could be nerfed a little in some terms, but from this thread it doesn't seem like they need a huge nerf (although with the coming changes in overall gameplay the balance might shift).
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The fact that a fair number of people think JG are better and a fair number of people think tenders are better implies to me that they're already relatively well balanced. I tend to use JG's to save on time and resources (playing conventional starts) and maybe they could be nerfed a little in some terms, but from this thread it doesn't seem like they need a huge nerf (although with the coming changes in overall gameplay the balance might shift).
Maybe I'm misremembering, but i don't think a single person in this thread has said that tenders are better. The people who exclusively use tenders are using them because they feel that JG's are too good.
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I mean, I'd prefer to use tenders if not for the micro. In general if the game had more automated logistics tools then a lot more cool stuff would be preferable and nice, but thats a legitimately difficult thing to do, so I don't really see the point in broaching the point at least until he has finally gotten a test campaign going. (i personally see that as the point where his progress starts feeding on itself since he is playing the game again)
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I mean, I'd prefer to use tenders if not for the micro. In general if the game had more automated logistics tools then a lot more cool stuff would be preferable and nice, but thats a legitimately difficult thing to do, so I don't really see the point in broaching the point at least until he has finally gotten a test campaign going. (i personally see that as the point where his progress starts feeding on itself since he is playing the game again)
What micro exactly are you talking about? You need to move the tender to the WP, and leave it there forever. If you make the gate a ship component, you build your gate, tow it to the WP and leave it there forever.
All you need to get rid of the micro of deployment times is introduce a reduced mil jump drive capacity on civ drives.
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Well, you can't leave it there forever. You need to keep it supplied with MSP and eventually it will need an overhaul. There is no way to automate any of that. Yes you can make super long maint life ships, but you will also need to periodically upgrade the things as you get bigger ships and shipyards, so I would argue that point is moot. If you have like sixty jump points then the overhead of continually doing that can get kindof tedious.
e: I suppose you might generally play with all the maintenance stuff turned off, generally I don't because that removes a gigantic aspect of warfare that is trying to supply your ships. That is by far the main limiting factor preventing someone from just churning out a potentially infinitely large fleet, and supply lines are also a huge potential warfare mechanic.
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@Darkminion Your analogy pretty much breaks down that a bridge is way, way more expensive than a ferry. I don't saw anyone arguing that JGs were underpowered.
I apologize if my post was construed in that manner, it was not my intention. Gates were compared to bridges as they are static infrastructure that allow movement across JPs without anything additional being required. They are good for established routes and take time to build. I do not believe adding a component cost to these would improve anything for the player. I personally feel they should take a longer investment of time to complete as they stand right now. I also feel that they should be destructible/removable as they are an invulnerable strategic object in their current VB6 form and adding this would provide a simple addition to gameplay which can have far reaching effects. Again the bridge analogy comes into play here as they are similar in a few regards and how I view/use them personally. They are strategic objects which facilitate movement, their construction or de(con)struction effects the freedom of that movement.
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I'd think bridges would be more along the lines of whole new jump points, this is more like paving a road.
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@QuakeIV Only military ships need to be maintained. Civilian ships are fine, so by making gates civilian components you should be all good.
The main point that irks me is when would you decide not to build a bunch of gates. As they are right now, you basically keep your constructors running, building gates pretty much whether they are really needed or not. I'd like to have a reasonable choice between using gates and using jump drives.
Right now even if you only ever need to visit a system once you just dump a gate there instead of bothering with jump drives.
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Part of the issue is that there is no cost to having your constructors building gates 100% of the time. I would love to see an associated wealth cost as well as an increased construction time. In my opinion this would at least mitigate most current concerns while keeping the mechanics basically the same.
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@QuakeIV Only military ships need to be maintained. Civilian ships are fine, so by making gates civilian components you should be all good.
Except that then you couldn't send military ships through them.
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@QuakeIV Only military ships need to be maintained. Civilian ships are fine, so by making gates civilian components you should be all good.
Except that then you couldn't send military ships through them.
That's how jump drives work. The jump gate component wouldn't need to work that way.
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@QuakeIV Only military ships need to be maintained. Civilian ships are fine, so by making gates civilian components you should be all good.
Except that then you couldn't send military ships through them.
That's how jump drives work. The jump gate component wouldn't need to work that way.
And of course you could also modify civilian jump drives to have a smaller military capacity.
You might keep your proper military jump ships with your fleets, being maintained along with them, or fit a jump drive to a ship that is designed to operate as a singleton.
It is the freighters that move back and forth all the time where that is really impractical. I would like for these kinds of trade-offs to exist, having different options to explore.