B5 style Jump Gates

[QuarianRex]

None thus far. Just puzzling things out till I regain access to my computer. I was debating on whether or not I should include warp opening capability on the gate itself or just keep it as a door jam. Hadn't sonsidered the movement point thing though. Guess that solves that dilema.

I like the human controled open/close jump engine approach (indeed it was one of the first things that I thought of when I first looked through the components text file) but I was facinated by the concept wormholes being naturally unstable and ways to use that in a game while maintaining playability.

Since it will be quite some time till I can test any of this out myself, does anyone feel like testing any of this out in the meantime? If anyone does I merely ask that you post the results so that I have something to think about while I'm waiting.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Val:
Another thing I was working on is a B5 Map with Hyperspace sectors that all gates will be connected to, to represent travel time through Hyperspace. Only wish I could limit new Jump Gates to open only to Hyperspace! (I do know that I can give a planet the ability to prevent new gates from being opened, but then a jump drive couldn't be used in that system to enter Hyperspace)

If you do come up with some creative way around this, please let me know!

What if you made all jump drives work to the same distance, say 50 light years or less, and then layed out you quadrant maps so that all non-hyperspace systems are at least 60 light years apart. Place some hyperspace systems in between, and then you would only be able to open warp points to and from hyperspace. Place some long distance warp points connecting the hyperspace systems at the begining. The only problem I can think of then is if a player makes the mistake (or does it on purpose for that matter) of closing one of these long distance hyper warps there will be no way to reopen them.

Geoschmo

[QuarianRex]

Sweet idea Geo.

[Val]

Geo:

I had actually thought about limiting the jump distance to 1-2 hex and making a 'dual layer' map that would have Hyperspace below regular space, thereby limiting it. This is great when making a map, but I was also trying to come up with something for generic games. Another issue is that it would be nice to force the ai to close the gate when done...

[Jmenschenfresser]

Here's my theory of how to do this.

First change all of the pre-existing "low" severity events to one of the other three. Then add in, in pairs I would assume, an open warp point event and a close wp event. Now these are the only two types that fall in the low severity Category.

Now up the % chance on an event happening in the settings.txt to 100%. When you start a game, allow only low severity events. If it works the way I think it should. You should then have one warp point open and one close each turn. If that works you can dictate how many open and close each turn by adding more entries in the events file.

Of course you won't have any other events.

So if you want to make jump gates that close after a turn or two at most. Mod in a cheap component that every ship can carry which opens WPs, then if you have enough entries in the events file to cover all the possible open WPs, they will close by them selves. You can even give it a timed event so that it closes after a turn of two if you want them to be reliable for a certain time.

If it works that is.

[ May 21, 2002, 21:52: Message edited by: Jmenschenfresser ]

[jimbob]

Jmenschenfresser:

And then the trait "Lucky" would actually be "Builds Stable Wormholes!"

I like this idea the most (not to limit the others, which could be used in conjunction easily). And it's not like the random events are all that exciting anyway, I regularily play on maximum frequency, maximum damage, and they hardly slow me down. I'd just add to each warp opening or closing component the "increases chance of event" effect. This way, people that are opening/closing more worm holes will have their wormholes closed more often.

If you want nasty & unexpected events, introduce Rollo's monsters to the mod!

[ May 21, 2002, 23:55: Message edited by: jimbob ]

[Jmenschenfresser]

Yes! The lucky trait would possibly allow your WPs to stay open longer.

Not sure about the ability of change bad events...doubt you can add that to a component, since it only appears on facilities, I think.

But you wouldn't need it. The opposite could be done. Have a facility that decreases the chance of bad events, and this could stabilize the WPs for a time.

The only problem with this mod is that it could never be used with the AI. As I assume more WPs will close every turn than open, if any open at all, most systems will lose all of their WPs after a while, and to travel anywhere will take a "jump drive."