Wormholes vs Warp/Hyperdrives

[Yenzen]

Hyperdrives have been nerfed into oblivion, now that they also need to move to the edge of the systems. Warp has the same problems its always had, since the after-warp stun also affects regular movement, which makes you a sitting duck.

Now, how are Wormholes weak? Arguably they depend upon infrastructure, but wormholes come so cheap that you can have one in every system and when at war, can be built a virtually endless amount making your enemy unable to take them all down. Just queue up 30 with 4 builders plus the long range of your existing stations and the weakness that is supposed to be there simply does not exist.

I simply cannot imagine wormhole players ever really being at a disadvantage vs warp or hyperlane players. They move many times faster, their 30% slowdown does not scale across long distances (unlike warp and hyperlanes), they have no game-ending stun period...

I don't want to hammer down wormholes, but I really think that that weaknesses of warp and hyperdrives are really pronounced, while wormholes are *not*. I don't know if the solution is to weaken wormholes somehow or power up hyperdrives (multiple jumps at once?) or warp (cooldown only applies to FTL?)

 

[Incompetent]

Warp drive does at least get some range, speed and cooldown upgrades to make it less awful later in the game; maybe they could be made a bit stronger (especially the cooldown, which is still pretty horrible on a maximum-range jump). Thematically speaking though I feel like warp should be a real 'off-road'/'guerilla' movement type, with some kind of ability to hide in interstellar space for a certain amount of time for the more advanced versions (not sure how it would be implemented, but 'free movement' ought to allow this in principle).

Hyperdrive is fine in the early game, but it suffers from the basic flaw that the hyperlane network doesn't get any more connected over time. It gets reduced warm-up time from tech, but I'm not sure that's enough to make it viable later on when the galaxy gets crowded. Perhaps a really late-game tech (basically Fallen Empire level) should allow the construction of new hyperlanes. Before that point, maybe add some mid-game tech that lets you do a 'double jump' or something, so it isn't quite as trivial to choke a hyperdrive empire.

 

[Yenzen]

I don't know about the guerilla warfare principle, since warp is essentially supposed to be the "basic, reliable" but I feel like the Warp cooldown is better used as a restriction on FTL jumping, not regular movement (different engines entirely).

I'm joining an MP game tomorrow and I *want* to use hyperdrives or warp, but I feel like I would be willfully handicapping myself. The drives are supposed to be different, but equal - not different, but pick wormholes or be a moron.

 

[SolarGuy]

Hyperdrive is fine in the early game, but it suffers from the basic flaw that the hyperlane network doesn't get any more connected over time. It gets reduced warm-up time from tech, but I'm not sure that's enough to make it viable later on when the galaxy gets crowded. Perhaps a really late-game tech (basically Fallen Empire level) should allow the construction of new hyperlanes. Before that point, maybe add some mid-game tech that lets you do a 'double jump' or something, so it isn't quite as trivial to choke a hyperdrive empire.

Hyperdrive also takes ages to actually get anywhere outside of your empire with the changes to warm-up time (more distance to friendly territory = MUCH longer warm-up).
And because it needs to travel (at sublight speeds!) outside of the gravity well it's basically a much more restricted warp drive right now.

 

[Cakeathon]

I tried the newly buffed warp in my first game after heinlein, it's still bad, real bad, I wouldn't mind the cooldown phase if it allowed me to travel long distances faster. I also just don't get the logic behind the hyperlane nerf, wormhole was already the best FTL and now they nerf it's closest competitor ?

 

[SolarGuy]

I also just don't get the logic behind the hyperlane nerf, wormhole was already the best FTL by a mile and now they nerf it's closest competitor ?

Yeah, hyperdrive has always been really good because the travel times were so fast (you could start from anywhere, travel on the galaxy map is super-fast, cooldowns almost didn't exist). But now...

 

[King Lemming]

I tried the newly buffed warp in my first game after heinlein, it's still bad, real bad, I wouldn't mind the cooldown phase if it allowed me to travel long distances faster. I also just don't get the logic behind the hyperlane nerf, wormhole was already the best FTL and now they nerf it's closest competitor ?

Warp wasn't buffed. The "scale with distance from friendly territory" is only penalty scaling - the base cooldown is the same that it ever was.

To be clear, all 3 FTL types got nerfed, but Wormhole got nerfed the least.

 

[jordarkelf]

There's still no reason to ever not use wormhole. Even though it's arguably the most micro of the three methods in that you need to be aware of energy costs and can risk getting a fleet stranded if a wormhole station is destroyed, the advantages of it are extreme.

Not to mention it's still the only way to get access to Jump Drives reliably. I have never not gotten Jump Drives as a wormholer, while Psionics are too luck based. In five games as a non-wormhole spiritualist I have only gotten the tech once.
Totally missed in the changelog that others now finally can also get Yump.

I still think Wormhole has major advantages, though. Hyperlane was good because of its speed but now you need to go to the system edge and lane traversal is almost as slow as warp, warp is still slow and limited in range, but wormhole allows you to jump to any system in range, easily bypassing bottlenecks.

 

[Cakeathon]

Warp wasn't buffed. The "scale with distance from friendly territory" is only penalty scaling - the base cooldown is the same that it ever was.

To be clear, all 3 FTL types got nerfed, but Wormhole got nerfed the least.

They said it was buffed in the october 6 stream.

 

[domein]

Now everyone gets jump drives about 100 years in...

 

[makapse]

Wormholes do have a drawback too. The larger your fleet size is, the more time it needs to open the hole. As a result, its hard to move around DOOM stacks of 1000 ships very quickly unless you have multiple stations in the system.

 

[King Lemming]

They said it was buffed in the october 6 stream.

Just checked the files. It is indeed a bit faster. However, the cooldown time, by far the worst part of Warp, is higher due to that penalty scaling.

Guess I'll be bringing back my FTL mod after all.

If anything, the real buff is that they have access to Jump Drives later.

 

[Yenzen]

Just checked the files. It is indeed a bit faster. However, the cooldown time, by far the worst part of Warp, is higher due to that penalty scaling.

Guess I'll be bringing back my FTL mod after all.

If anything, the real buff is that they have access to Jump Drives later.

How do the new jump drives work?

 

[King Lemming]

How do the new jump drives work?

Same as the old ones, it's not a new drive. They just have access to Jump Drive tech, just like Wormhole users always have. However, the tech has a 50% lower weight if you're Hyperdrive or Warp.

 

[Yenzen]

Same as the old ones, it's not a new drive. They just have access to Jump Drive tech, just like Wormhole users always have. However, the tech has a 50% lower weight if you're Hyperdrive or Warp.

And PSI jump drives are still much, much better?

 

[Cakeathon]

Wormholes do have a drawback too. The larger your fleet size is, the more time it needs to open the hole. As a result, its hard to move around DOOM stacks of 1000 ships very quickly unless you have multiple stations in the system.

It's only true for short distances. wormhole can move a doomstack across the galaxy faster than the other FTL except jump drive.

 

[Shadow of Babylon]

Basically, this is why I argued that a refactor of the FTL code into a series of properties to allow for a vast diversity of FTL tech. There are just too few parameters. There are no good ways to handle FTL progression. The simple reduction of certain parameters is simply not enough. That and wormhole is to OP at this point. There are advantages to warp or HD for exploration early game, but wormholes are still very viable.

 

[King Lemming]

And PSI jump drives are still much, much better?

They have 50% more range, yes.

Basically, this is why I argued that a refactor of the FTL code into a series of properties to allow for a vast diversity of FTL tech. There are just too few parameters. There are no good ways to handle FTL progression. The simple reduction of certain parameters is simply not enough. That and wormhole is to OP at this point. There are advantages to warp or HD for exploration early game, but wormholes are still very viable.

Agreed. It's something I was doing in Stellar Expansion in 1.2. I've temporarily removed the techs and modules while I get a feel for the new stuff, but I will definitely be creating an FTL-focused addon now.

 

[Shadow of Babylon]

Aren't there very limited options for FTL modding?

 

[King Lemming]

There were, yes. But basically I had treated it as each FTL type had some sort of focus and unique tech. Also Hyperdrive and Warp had some repeatable techs to make it more competitive in general.

Hyperdrive received an additional -25% Windup time (5x -5%).
Warp received an additional 100% range, speed, and -50% Cooldown time (5x 20%/20%/-10%). They've buffed Warp's speed by 75% in the new patch, but having Zro is an additional 50% now instead of 20% in 1.2 (and only if you built the ship at a Navigator's Guild). So Warp is potentially 75 or 125% faster in the base game. So it seems like they agreed with my assessment.

The themed focus I went for was this:
Hyperdrive = Sensors - Sensor tech is necessary to find breach points and do effective Hypernavigation
Wormhole = Hull - Structural integrity fields are required to keep ships stable when traveling through the exotic space of a wormhole.
Warp = Speed / Evasion - Warp is the most conventional, so it receives some sub-light boosts given their mastery of FTL speed.

So there's the rational, which translated into a Hyper Sensor for Hyperdrive users (highest accuracy/range), MicroWarp Thrusters for Warp users (highest speed/evasion), and two new levels of Wormhole Modulators, which added 5 and 10% hull, respectively, although with a power requirement. The Sensor and Thrusters actually had *lower* power requirements than the level IV versions, which helped to offset the power advantage that Wormholes held.

I also added Auras along the same theme - Hyperdrive users got a Sensor Locus (+accuracy), Warp users got a MicroWarp field (+speed/evasion), and Wormhole users got a Projected Integrity Matrix (+hull).

Anyways, if you're interested, here's the mod: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=718529178. Note that at the moment I don't have any of those FTL things in, but I will likely be making an FTL addon.

I had also brought back Embassies and had advanced terraforming techs, but they have since removed Embassy code entirely in 1.3 and now since the base game is doing advanced Terraforming, I've also pulled that, for the moment.