quote:
Originally posted by Nyx:
Anyone here familiar with the Fading Suns universe from holistic Design? They're universe has these big gargoyle-encrusted warp gates at the edge of many, many systems. Sending the proper signal to them (I think with radio waves, but I'm not certain) in the presence of a huge mass (the gates and most races who have reverse engineered the tech use contained singularities for this, one race uses contained, artificial stars) opens the gate to another gate. The trick is that many people don't know all the keys to each destination. So one noble house might be able to take the gate from planet at to planets B, C, and D, while house 2 can take it to c, d, e, f, and g. Unless they share data (not done in this universe except in the most extreme circumstances) or use a device to track another's ship, noble house 1 just can't use the gate as well as their rival can.
Well, when MM gets around to implementing Warp GATES as opposed to the 'natural' Warp POINTS that we have now, something like this could be offered as an option. I was thinking that there would be a treaty option to allow an ally to use your warp gates, myself. If treaties were changed to have all sorts of "floating" options rather than the rigid structure that we have now you could give access to resupply depots, or warp gates, or intelligence sharing as you saw fitfor a particular ally. You could even trade DIFFERENT options with your allies! "I'll give you access to my warp gates if you give me access to your resupply depots." Now THAT would be cool!
[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 24 January 2001).]