Player built gate networks, some ideas

[DarkJester]

Allow players to build hyperspace gates and link them together

Allow players to destroy gates - This makes them strategic assets, appropriate reputation damage and armed response should be triggered when vs NPCs

 

Players should not be able to build a gate unless they own the sector

 

Cost of building a gate should fixed - Standard ores to build gates, the better the material the further the range and the more gates you can connect to it

 

To connect two gates that have been built it should cost resources proportional to the distance they cover, the further the distance the better quality of ore needs to be used

[Kamo]

Yay, player jumpgates !

It'd be wonderful... once gates would be actually used by cargo runners ::)

Here's another thread on the idea~

[Gamer Senpai]

This MOD works, just follow the directions.....

https://www.avorion.net/forum/index.php/topic,2610.15.html

 

 

I have a nice network, now if I can get a MOD that uses cargo shuttles between sectors...

[DarkJester]

I looked at that, however while that mod is great it does not allow player made alliances to create a gate netowork that becomes a point of conflict or a military objective.

 

Key to my proposal is soventry is required to build gates, they cost resources and create chokepoints and military targets. They are valuable and expensive assets.

 

Allowing cargo ships to use them as well would be amazing.

[BlackGazebo]

Gates don't really create "choke points" when every ship is jump-capable, though.  Fleets don't need gates to jump into the center of your empire.

Functionally most of their value comes from being able to create long-distance supply chains. 

 

I'm also not sure that we're "there" yet in terms of alliance function and infrastructure.  Your idea is a few steps ahead of all the legwork that would have to be done to make sure new alliances aren't just flattened by larger alliances instantly.  If your idea is "player-built gates" then cool, if your idea is "sov war" then you're gonna have to flesh it out just a bit more.

[DivineEvil]

Gates now are just secondary means of travel mostly in pursuit of trade routines for smaller ships. Once the player gets the means to jump dozens of sectors across, the use of gates goes out of the window, even despite the lengthy cooldown timers, which still beat the amount of time it takes to move across the gate network. This is then only beaten by wormholes, that allow you instantaneous travel across the regions and tiers of the galaxy.

 

If you'd want to introduce Gates into the faction warfare, you'd first want hyperspace blockers built in a form of a station, that creates dead-zones of a certain radius, that prevents the hyperspace jumps into any sector within, hostile or otherwise, the same way space rifts currently do. In this case, Gates can in fact become an important strategic objective, that allows travel in and out of faction territories without constantly disabling and enabling the blockers, and also creates the choke points.

 

In order to balance these things out, both Gates and Blockers should require an enormous amount of energy generation and associated crew demands. Gates take up more energy the further the distance they cover, and Blockers generate the field proportional to the energy generation provided, meaning that they never have any spare energy after all systems are accounted for. Moreso, Gate connections cannot cross one-another, and Blockers will not activate if their field encroaches on the fields that are already there.

[DarkJester]

Liking where this discussion is going getting the creative ideas going :) I will give it some more thought.

[Gamer Senpai]

I would also like to be able to name sectors, Like Senpai I, Senpai II etc...

It would help in navigation...

[Kamo]

It would also help for completing systems. Right now I get sectors like Avorion Color Alpha, Beta, and Gamma, but there's a sector with an Oil Rig, a Solar Power Plant and a partridge and a pear tree near Beta, and I'd like to include it on-grid and name it Avorion Color Delta.

Also, Gates need to either change faction (or be askable to change faction), be boardable (it'd be pretty difficult to board though, because you may pass through the gate, annoyingly) and capturable, or be destructible and buildable so you'd have control of the gates of a conquered sector.

 

Like DivineEvil said, Gates are usually used by cargo/trade ships. So gate map-orders are needed ASAP, because some cargoes cannot jump (especially those poor Bobs in the Iron Wastes), especially since the last update which upped many hyperspace energy costs and made some jump-capable ships... much less so :(.

(And since I cannot play anymore due to a bug, upgrading them is also even more on hiatus than before, I was already occupied with some WAAAGHs and "trade accomodations".)

 

Edit: The "askable to change faction" will depend on the relative sovereignty of the previous faction in both (current and linked) sectors. So buying a gate with 4 NPC stations and 8 player stations in those sectors would need 2/6 (a third) of (some fraction, like a half, of?) the gate founding cost plus a small fee, while buying a gate with no NPC stations would only need the base fee.

Of course the fraction of the founding cost would change based on relations, so it would be wasteful (as, the fraction would get above 1) to buy an enemy gate where there's still stations belonging to them in the sectors to conquer.

 

On the other hand you may also found gates for a nearby faction, cutting most of the founding cost (which would be a customs fee) :). That would also be a really nice gesture diplomacy-wise if both sectors belong to the faction (as in, turning an -100000 Abhorrent faction into a Poor/Mistrustful one), because it'd mean you really want to trade peacefully with that faction as you're boosting their economy by helping their infrastructure.

[Ubus99]

Gates don't really create "choke points" when every ship is jump-capable, though.  Fleets don't need gates to jump into the center of your empire.

Functionally most of their value comes from being able to create long-distance supply chains. 

 

I'm also not sure that we're "there" yet in terms of alliance function and infrastructure.  Your idea is a few steps ahead of all the legwork that would have to be done to make sure new alliances aren't just flattened by larger alliances instantly.  If your idea is "player-built gates" then cool, if your idea is "sov war" then you're gonna have to flesh it out just a bit more.

 

an idea taken out of the book series "heliosphere2265":  jump-disrupting stations. they need a lot of energy, but deployed at the edge of your territory they throw every ship passing trough their sector out of the jump.