Moar FTL!?

[EvilTom]

So, I was wondering. There's wormholes, warp and hyperspace (and also jump drives) but what other possible FTL methods could be used in the game?

Can civilisations use more than one form of FTL? I can imagine wormholes for long distance travel whilst warp for shorter distances being helpful and not requiring wormhole stations everywhere.

I personally like the idea of a "rip" drive... which cuts a swathe through the laws in the universe that stop normal FTL travel (think destroying the higgs field or some handwaving techno-babble like). This could be highly destructive and too much use will cause irreparable damage to sectors of space eventually making this form of travel slower or useless eventually or even opening rifts that cause trouble. There could be a policy to ban this drive (and any weapons from the technology) due to the inevitability of the damage it causes. It could also be mitigated by having a single ship at the front with the "rip" drive whilst other ships follow in its wake so the damage is limited. This could strand ships if the forerunning ships is destroyed.

I can think of another one with another "layer" of space that ships can slip into and out of... kind of like slipping under the sea on earth as a submarine. Time or distance might ebb and flow so sometimes travel will be quicker, but sometimes you might lose your ship in time if it gets lost or the navigation beacons in the real-world are destroyed.

 

[Dr_Creeptor]

It has been confirmed there are other types, and civs can use more than one type, they just have to research it.
Also I want the Infinite Improbability Drive from Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, where it finds a parallel universe where you are in that area at that time, then just puts you in that universe, however, sometimes you come out as a fish or a ladle, so you have to restore to normality.
Least I think that's how it works.

EDIT: Sorry, the drive works like this: As soon as the ship's drive reaches infinite Improbability, it passes through every conceivable point in every conceivable universe simultaneously. Just google the definitions of the words you don't know then just think about it for a seconds.

 

[corny.1234]

I personally like the idea of a "rip" drive... which cuts a swathe through the laws in the universe that stop normal FTL travel (think destroying the higgs field or some handwaving techno-babble like). This could be highly destructive and too much use will cause irreparable damage to sectors of space eventually making this form of travel slower or useless eventually or even opening rifts that cause trouble. There could be a policy to ban this drive (and any weapons from the technology) due to the inevitability of the damage it causes. It could also be mitigated by having a single ship at the front with the "rip" drive whilst other ships follow in its wake so the damage is limited. This could strand ships if the forerunning ships is destroyed.

This actually describes the jump drive and its end game disaster where you tear a hole in reality.

 

[EvilTom]

It has been confirmed there are other types, and civs can use more than one type, they just have to research it.
Also I want the Infinite Improbability Drive from Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, where it finds a parallel universe where you are in that area at that time, then just puts you in that universe, however, sometimes you come out as a fish or a ladle, so you have to restore to normality.
Least I think that's how it works.

Something like that might be interesting. There could be a kind of "slingshot" where you start at one point in the galaxy and it just fires you out with only a probability of you hitting your target... there is no way back and the accuracy (whilst determined by tech level) is reduced by distance, although it is infinite range. That's a bit like the wormholes, but with some differences.

 

[corny.1234]

I would like to have stations like in mass effect or stargates to travel without any range restriction, you just need to have a network. You will have to build them or find them abandonated from an ancient civilisation.

 

[EvilTom]

I would like to have stations like in mass effect or stargates to travel without any range restriction, you just need to have a network. You will have to build them or find them abandonated from an ancient civilisation.

that's kind cool. It could be a more advanced or a slightly different wormhole style. I would have thought that even if several races discovered wormhole technology they all wouldn't start addressing and using it in the same way. Some would have wormholes like in Stargate (with gates at either end) with near instantaneous travel whilst others would have to have wormholes with only one end in a station and the other end in space.

 

[[Q]uik]

It has been confirmed there are other types, and civs can use more than one type, they just have to research it.
Also I want the Infinite Improbability Drive from Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, where it finds a parallel universe where you are in that area at that time, then just puts you in that universe, however, sometimes you come out as a fish or a ladle, so you have to restore to normality.
Least I think that's how it works.

EDIT: Sorry, the drive works like this: As soon as the ship's drive reaches infinite Improbability, it passes through every conceivable point in every conceivable universe simultaneously. Just google the definitions of the words you don't know then just think about it for a seconds.

Never seen it being confirmed for multiple FTL and more FTL types - do you have any reference or source for this?

 

[garbud]

Never seen it being confirmed for multiple FTL and more FTL types - do you have any reference or source for this?

well considering the fallen empire on the stream had a different FTL type looks good that there be more

 

[ahhheygao]

well considering the fallen empire on the stream had a different FTL type looks good that there be more

I too believe there may be more FTL methods, but I don't agree with your extrapolation; Yump Drive has been confirmed for quite some time.

 

[chopak]

Never seen it being confirmed for multiple FTL and more FTL types - do you have any reference or source for this?

Both more FTL drives were confirmed (e.g. Fallen Empire's Jump Drive) and multiple FTL drives (but not in one fleet).

 

[Dr_Creeptor]

Never seen it being confirmed for multiple FTL and more FTL types - do you have any reference or source for this?

You can find confirmation at Dev Dairy #04, near the end. It doesn't say "Various Other Drives", but does say you can improve upon pre-existing ones. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[EvilTom]

You can find confirmation at Dev Dairy #04, near the end. It doesn't say "Various Other Drives", but does say you can improve upon pre-existing ones. Sorry for the confusion.

That's ok. I had assumed that there would be improvements and the semi randomness of the tech cards would make for some interesting variations across races.

Are there any other FTL methods which could be added (or voices here for people to see/discuss)?

 

[Dr_Creeptor]

That's ok. I had assumed that there would be improvements and the semi randomness of the tech cards would make for some interesting variations across races.

Are there any other FTL methods which could be added (or voices here for people to see/discuss)?

Those I know of came from books and random posts from the interent, but I know of 3.

The Cookie Drive: This drive represent a cookie. Why? Imagine the cookie is space, and the chocolate chips are points in the universe with "Tears". You can acces these chips in the cookie, and pop into any other chip. Like a Hyperlane or Wormhole, but not limited by distance, and it's instant.

The Infinite Loop: This drive duplicates you infinitely at every point in space, until you reach the area you want to be in.

The Pop: Basically a teleporter, this baby de-constructs your atoms, and puts your atoms back together in any space. It does this instantly, just like a pop. But, it can lead to slight dismemberment. Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory demonstrates this fairly well.

 

[Drow7]

Liir from SOTS had fascinating drive... (they had HEAVY ships)

The Liir use an inertia-less "stutter" drive, which creates movement through space by teleporting the entire ship in tiny spatial increments of a millimeter or so. The implications of this drive system are many: for example, a Liirian ship does not use thrust to accelerate or decelerate. It also allows for the mass of a Liirian ship to be a non-issue, as the ship never develops the inertia of a body in motion; it simply changes its space-time coordinates. The Liir DO use reaction thrusters for close maneuvers and rotation. So a Liir ship with a destroyed drive can still rotate. For combat maneuvers, they use both...their reaction thrusters are used as secondary systems.

The "speed" of a Liirian vessel is determined by the number of teleports per second that its engine can perform. It is not difficult for the Liir to achieve relativistic speeds in open space, but the stutter drive has a distinct disadvantage when operating near a gravity well. Any object massive enough to cause a large space-time distortion—be it a planet, star or black hole—can severely slow the movement of a Liirian ship.

But in Stellaris terms it would basically be faster warp with slower speed within systems. It could be something like alternative upgrade for warp with tradeoffs.

 

[[Q]uik]

You can find confirmation at Dev Dairy #04, near the end. It doesn't say "Various Other Drives", but does say you can improve upon pre-existing ones. Sorry for the confusion.

Well this we've seen in game already; Basically FTL 1, then you get a direct upgrade over that - so it basically goes faster or has longer range.

 

[EmperorZelos]

I'd like more FTL for variety.
Stutter Drive: Teleports the ship in microsteps many times to reach superluminal speeds, gravitational wells disrupts this
Slipstream Drive: Similar to warp drive except much more intense, it is faster and more direct but more energy consuming
Node drive: Similar to hyperdrive except it creates it's own node system, the lanes can be prone to destabilization if over used and initial energy cost is a lot
Void Drive: Creates temporary tunnels through "void", has the effect of it's speed cannot be increased by more power but numbers.
Hypergates: Similar to wormhole except you can't use it to travel TO a star that doesn't have it, you'll have to do subluminal travel first, but after that you can construct a hypergate there and have ships travel instantanously between systems.

 

[aitaituo]

I would like the Farnsworth Drive. It simply moves the universe around the ship at the desired speed.

Mechanically, this would allow in-system FTL, have no cool down, no charge up, and go faster than any other conventional FTL. To balance it, each ship requires dark matter, which would need to be a rare strategic resource.

 

[mrinku]

A gate network is probably the main missing form of FTL. Might be a development of Hyperlanes or Wormholes. Most FTL types from fiction are going to come out as some version of warp drive... maybe using a different technobabble, but same effect.

I'd like to see some slower than light options, myself. The game's scale would make near-lightspeed travel between systems possible... decades or centuries to colonise would still work.

Generation ships, ramships, solar sails, atomic drives etc.

Probably better left for a mod, though.

 

[Brian Bóroimhe]

I'd like to see some slower than light options, myself. The game's scale would make near-lightspeed travel between systems possible... decades or centuries to colonise would still work.

Generation ships, ramships, solar sails, atomic drives etc.

Probably better left for a mod, though.

Would definitely be better as a mod, one where there's only those various sublight ways of moving between systems could be kind of cool. Might need a lot of tweaking of some other things to keep it interesting though!

On the issue of using multiple FLT drives, I really like the idea for late game of having my main battle fleets being Warp or Hyperlane (maybe even one/some of each) and then having some smaller strike fleets using wormhole generators to wreak havoc behind enemy lines while they're distracted by the main force.

 

[EvilTom]

So I assume we can use Warp drive and then the end game Jump Drive, but is there confirmation we can use say wormholes and warp drive, perhaps not on the same ship or fleet though.

I assume it's the same that I heard them say on the quill18 stream that you're not bound by your starting weapons technology and that you can research others.