Wormhole Drive Tests. 2.8.1. Proof Of concept.

[Pancakelord]

I'm pretty sure it works however it works for gates now, so if I'm not mistaken, you can go back to the system you came from. There will be no "sucking in".

Correct.

I could write an event that fires each time a ship enters/exits a system, computes the local stars, finds an inhibitor within range and translocates the fleet to that star system. But I like my game to run fluidly.

And it wouldn't be very interesting mechanically - so your star base sucked my doomstack in? oh no that's 5 seconds of lasers and we're back on our way. This was something they considered pre 2.0 and it didn't work well there either.

The wormhole is basically fully functional now. I'm debating whether to drop the custom civic and have it be a start-up event choice, paired with an initialiser that rips hyperdrives off starting ships, removes/bans the HL tech and gives you wormhole techs + a starting wormhole station instead, might be better for compatibility, too.

Event image would be something like this with "Choose Hyperlane" "Choose Wormhole" as two choices + some text.
Oh and getting the AI to use it - less of a priority until I can get the UI issues sorted out [and see next weeks 2.9 script changes], UI issues make it a hassle to play with.

What I would like to explore is modelling gravitational affects on FTL -

• I've had a few ideas for making hyperlane speeds vary if there is a blackhole adjacent to the lane (making FTL take longer from/near a black hole - but faster to it)and came up with a searching algorithm that's effectively a curved octahedron for it, but even that is a bit slow to run when you've got thousands of stars (pre-seeding black-hole-adjacent systems with Speed modifiers might get around all performance issues - more testing needed).
  • Though there is a far simpler measure I've also looked at that can apply this on the galactic stage - it would essentially slow FTL to a crawl near the core whilst make it super fast out near the Rim of the galaxy - emulating the denser stellar neighbourhood having a warping affect on hyperspace.
• Neutron stars could be the opposite to black holes, acting as natural "highways" and supercharging FTL cores and engines - movement would be faster away from neutron stars.
• I've also looked for ways to emulate Morrigi Flocking from SOTS - whereby fleets start off slow as shit but the bigger they get the faster they go. Might not bother with this as it's literally just going to cause doomstacking on steroids.
• Then there's SOTS Liir style FTL/STL - tweening ship movement speeds in between and in system based on how close they are to a star or planet (it's hard to get exact euclidian distances within a system though).
• Or computing a fleet's mass by using it fleet cap usage (big ships use more) as a proxy and manipulating jump charge up/down times on that basis - so big fleets - and big fleets on top of each other - take far longer to enter/exit FTL windows. (essentially the inverse of Morrigi flocking)
• And the idea of using more esoteric things like
  • Hyperlanes skipping systems (potentially doable by setting ship-speed to 99999 and wind up/cool down to 0 for 1 day via event if no hostiles present - or if in own borders)
  • psychics spawning in FTL superchargers from the void realm to give their ships faster movement speeds or evasion,
    • Maybe a machine equivalent version - computing Nth dimensional mathematics to punch holes through reality to create temporary wormholes (a la Commonwealth series subspace) lol.

This would all be predicated on me slowing down the base FTL speed somewhat, to force you to make use of these FTL-warping phenomena.

Something to think about another time.

 

[Colonizor48]

Correct.

I could write an event that fires each time a ship enters/exits a system, computes the local stars, finds an inhibitor within range and translocates the fleet to that star system. But I like my game to run fluidly.

And it wouldn't be very interesting mechanically - so your star base sucked my doomstack in? oh no that's 5 seconds of lasers and we're back on our way. This was something they considered pre 2.0 and it didn't work well there either.

The wormhole is basically fully functional now. I'm debating whether to drop the custom civic and have it be a start-up event choice, paired with an initialiser that rips hyperdrives off starting ships, removes/bans the HL tech and gives you wormhole techs + a starting wormhole station instead, might be better for compatibility, too.
View attachment 688719
Event image would be something like this with "Choose Hyperlane" "Choose Wormhole" as two choices + some text.
Oh and getting the AI to use it - less of a priority until I can get the UI issues sorted out [and see next weeks 2.9 script changes], UI issues make it a hassle to play with.

What I would like to explore is modelling gravitational affects on FTL -

• I've had a few ideas for making hyperlane speeds vary if there is a blackhole adjacent to the lane (making FTL take longer from/near a black hole - but faster to it)and came up with a searching algorithm that's effectively a curved octahedron for it, but even that is a bit slow to run when you've got thousands of stars (pre-seeding black-hole-adjacent systems with Speed modifiers might get around all performance issues - more testing needed).
  • Though there is a far simpler measure I've also looked at that can apply this on the galactic stage - it would essentially slow FTL to a crawl near the core whilst make it super fast out near the Rim of the galaxy - emulating the denser stellar neighbourhood having a warping affect on hyperspace.
• Neutron stars could be the opposite to black holes, acting as natural "highways" and supercharging FTL cores and engines - movement would be faster away from neutron stars.
• I've also looked for ways to emulate Morrigi Flocking from SOTS - whereby fleets start off slow as shit but the bigger they get the faster they go. Might not bother with this as it's literally just going to cause doomstacking on steroids.
• Then there's SOTS Liir style FTL/STL - tweening ship movement speeds in between and in system based on how close they are to a star or planet (it's hard to get exact euclidian distances within a system though).
• Or computing a fleet's mass by using it fleet cap usage (big ships use more) as a proxy and manipulating jump charge up/down times on that basis - so big fleets - and big fleets on top of each other - take far longer to enter/exit FTL windows. (essentially the inverse of Morrigi flocking)
• And the idea of using more esoteric things like
  • Hyperlanes skipping systems (potentially doable by setting ship-speed to 99999 and wind up/cool down to 0 for 1 day via event if no hostiles present - or if in own borders)
  • psychics spawning in FTL superchargers from the void realm to give their ships faster movement speeds or evasion,
    • Maybe a machine equivalent version - computing Nth dimensional mathematics to punch holes through reality to create temporary wormholes (a la Commonwealth series subspace) lol.

This would all be predicated on me slowing down the base FTL speed somewhat, to force you to make use of these FTL-warping phenomena.

Something to think about another time.

I do think there needs to be some way to intercept wormhole fleets though. To prevent them from just going around ftl inhibitors. Thats part of what made wormhole drives so op in 1.9. You could just go around ftl inhibitors which if i remember correctly would pull in ships with hyperdrives/warp drives. But im not 100% sure on that.

 

[Pancakelord]

I do think there needs to be some way to intercept wormhole fleets though. To prevent them from just going around ftl inhibitors. Thats part of what made wormhole drives so op in 1.9. You could just go around ftl inhibitors which if i remember correctly would pull in ships with hyperdrives/warp drives. But im not 100% sure on that.

The answer isn't to force you to fight a starbase - pointlessly, I might add, given they give little warscore and offer little challenge.

The answer is to make starbases actually deadly. A citadel is like a habitat-sized object plastered in guns. Yet it's got all the stopping power of an asthmatic blowing down a straw... into the wind.

And then if starbases are deadly you give them scaling warscore. Make wiping out an enemy's space infrastructure (e.g. their shipyards) actually profitable in a war. Each enemy station you hold increases enemy WE tick rate by 10%. Now you dont need to FTL inhibitor IM Going Starbase Hunting.

 

[MichaelJanuary]

No.

The point is not the starbase, nor is it to trap a fleet. The point of FTL inhibitors is to prevent fleets bypassing a system or penetrating past it, to offer a roadblock of some sorts to protect systems deeper inside your territory.

If the WH drive can be used to just skip the system, then it completely invalidates the whole point. And potentially without the downside of jump drive for whatever that's worth.

 

[Colonizor48]

The answer isn't to force you to fight a starbase - pointlessly, I might add, given they give little warscore and offer little challenge.

The answer is to make starbases actually deadly. A citadel is like a habitat-sized object plastered in guns. Yet it's got all the stopping power of an asthmatic blowing down a straw... into the wind.

And then if starbases are deadly you give them scaling warscore. Make wiping out an enemy's space infrastructure (e.g. their shipyards) actually profitable in a war. Each enemy station you hold increases enemy WE tick rate by 10%. Now you dont need to FTL inhibitor IM Going Starbase Hunting.

I Have an idea for a starbase rework but it needs fleshing out. Basicly for starbases we would just get rid of individual defense modules and replace them with 1 "weapon capasity module" Which would give 1 "weapon capasity." Basicly small weapons/pd would take up 0.25 weapon capasity, medium/missiles/strike craft would take up 0.5. Large would take up 1. and XL would take up 2. This needs fleshing aout and starbasses need an even bigger rework. Also we would incresse starbase module cap to like 10 for citidels. And we would add back defense stations and fortresses and make them and defense platforms work like they used to work in 1.9 and fortresses would be able to have ftl inhibitors. They could also defend unclaimed space and be instructed to keep neutral ships out. For when you dont quite have enough influence for a starbase. Defense platforms could also be built closer together then in 1.9. This would need fleshing out. Starbases would be individually designable but also buildable according to a template. Needs flseshing out. and a more general rework to be more simmilar to old spaceports. But i like individual system ownership and think the old system for it was 100% whack.

But the main idea for suggesting ftl inhibitors apply to wormhole stations are in the earlygame. Where stations actually matter.

 

[Roboduck3000]

Will it be possible to release this for 2.9? Do the script changes let you fix the interface radius problems?

 

[Pancakelord]

Will it be possible to release this for 2.9? Do the script changes let you fix the interface radius problems?

Unfortunately not. Unless i've missed/misread one of the new triggers, or they add some more between now and final release, it does not look like there is any real way to add ambient objects (what the image for the radius of the wormhole would be based on) dynamically/via event to the galaxy map, directly.