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Destroying Stargates


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From what I've gathered, the main way of travelling between systems will be through stargates similarly to EVE, except here they will be player made. 

 

Now I was wondering what would be the benefit for an organisation to build a stargate if anyone can use it after being constructed ? Will stargates be player controlled, or will they just become neutral entities once built ? And will they be destructible ?

 

Having them player controlled would open up a number of gameplay possibilities such as taking over stargates, setting up tolls, limiting the use of the gate for enemies of the controlling corp, or if you're banned from using a gate, hacking into it to be able to use it... Of course even if the gates will be neutral, gameplay like that can arise, you just have to camp one side or the other with ships or a station.

 

Moreover having destructible stargates would open up a lot of options for warfare, making it possible for a defender to slow an enemy down by destroying stargates on their path, as well as to allow an attacker to destroy gates between enemy systems to hinder their movements (that would be similar to blowing up bridges/railroads behind enemy lines to prevent reinforcement of the front line), or between enemy systems and the outside world to destroy their trade with the rest of the galaxy.

   

Finally, having an evolving landscape of routes between places, would alongside spicing trading up a bit, give some use to the mechanic that has been mentioned several time of travelling between systems using FTL engines. They mentioned that the trip would last around a week, and you would need a very well built and expensive ship, so if stargates become public and indestructible after construction, the only use of this would be to travel to systems outside the network of gates. However, if some of the aforementioned mechanics are implemented, you might have a much better reason to do such a trip, for example to smuggle goods into an embargoed system or to make a strategic attack deep into enemy territory if you can't break through their stargate's defenses.

 

What do you think ? Should stargates be neutral, or should they be player controlled ? And should they be destuctible ?

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I think this will take some trial and error to decide.  While ti does make for some very nice politcal options and potential mischief it also has the potential to be a game breaker for some. Imagine you have built your home on a distant planet that takes weeks to reach, youve come back to get the last of your stuff to transport there and the gates gone.  Sure the gates can be rebuilt but how long?

 

Then there's new players, if the gates are controlled by certain Org's then any new player would need to join the controlling Org or face being trapped in the starting systems. And tbh it's the internet, if it's destructable it will be destroyed simply because it can be regardless of any political motivation.

 

The problem is, if it's open to anyone then there isn't really much insentive for anyone to spend the time and resources to build it in the first place.

 

Dunno it's a tough one to pick sides on,  maybe a Universal build project for the gate systems where every Org contributes to the building of it and a plaque on each to say which Org contributed the most.  Then make them indestructable?

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My theory based on the informations we have and based on the main concept of the game:

-Stargates will be controlled by players, so that you can tax people from using them, or block their access completely. 

-Stargates will be destructible or stealable.

Why? 

1)Stargates will be hard to build, there's a lot less incentive to build something that remains neutral. Taxing people from using it or keeping it private to be the first accessing a solar system will be a ways to get back the investment. 

2)Blocking the access to it may get some people angry, so you'd likely be more exposed to attacks (from people that wants to steal the stargate and make it public). Higher risk, higher reward. Alternatively if you give people access to it, you'll gain taxes from them, but you'll lose the advantage of having private access to the solar system (temporarily, until someone build another stargate). 

3)Ofc there'll be a lot more strategic plans revolving around stargates when there'll be a war. 

 

It balance itself

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Assuming there will be nothing to stop you making more than one stargate to a specific system? I hope they don't become camped out bottle necks just like in eve, that tactic is so laim and tiring. If we are able to destroy them it might be a deterrent for parties to camp them because it might lead to people destroying their stargate from the other side

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My theory based on the informations we have and based on the main concept of the game:

-Stargates will be controlled by players, so that you can tax people from using them, or block their access completely. 

-Stargates will be destructible or stealable.

Why? 

1)Stargates will be hard to build, there's a lot less incentive to build something that remains neutral. Taxing people from using it or keeping it private to be the first accessing a solar system will be a ways to get back the investment. 

2)Blocking the access to it may get some people angry, so you'd likely be more exposed to attacks (from people that wants to steal the stargate and make it public). Higher risk, higher reward. Alternatively if you give people access to it, you'll gain taxes from them, but you'll lose the advantage of having private access to the solar system (temporarily, until someone build another stargate). 

3)Ofc there'll be a lot more strategic plans revolving around stargates when there'll be a war. 

 

It balance itself

You watched too much Battlestar Galactica. TOO MUCH I SAY TO THEE! :V

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Yes star gates will be player controlled and you will be able to set up tolls and restrain its access.

 

However I'm more concerned about the price of such a star gate and it's durability:

- If both are too much then the one controlling the stargates will have too many advantages and it would become wars of attrition

- If star gates are expensive but easy to destoy it will not become profitable to build one at all

- If star gates are cheap and durable, it is not profitable in the long run because there will be too many alternatives and there soon will be gates to jump from one planet to another

- If both are not much then it could be interresting since it would pretty much be constant war over the access control and power will often shift thus maintaining an equilibrium.

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Would be nice to see if the Building of those stargate wouldnt  be limited to build them in space/solar System, so we can build them anywhere and my imagined Project called "World Bridge" is doable :) .

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Assuming there will be nothing to stop you making more than one stargate to a specific system? I hope they don't become camped out bottle necks just like in eve, that tactic is so laim and tiring. If we are able to destroy them it might be a deterrent for parties to camp them because it might lead to people destroying their stargate from the other side

Stargates won't be one to one connections. They're more like gates from Stargate SG1, where you can dial any gate in a certain range (no confirmation if the size of the gate changes its range or anything). So certainly, a rival org might want to make their own gate to not have to pay taxes to whoever controls the current gate in a system, but we won't end up with seventy gates orbiting Alioth.

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Yes star gates will be player controlled and you will be able to set up tolls and restrain its access.

 

However I'm more concerned about the price of such a star gate and it's durability:

- If both are too much then the one controlling the stargates will have too many advantages and it would become wars of attrition

- If star gates are expensive but easy to destoy it will not become profitable to build one at all

- If star gates are cheap and durable, it is not profitable in the long run because there will be too many alternatives and there soon will be gates to jump from one planet to another

- If both are not much then it could be interresting since it would pretty much be constant war over the access control and power will often shift thus maintaining an equilibrium.

I'm curious how we can have an interstellar space exploration game with the only form of FTL being stargates unless they're pre-existing gates like in the stargate series.  I think in order to allow for exploration, we need to have ships that are capable of FTL on their own.  However, the FTL drives are bulky, expensive and prone to breakdown, and they consume a lot of fuel, making stargates a much more cost effective option for freight and passenger traffic and of course sublight warships could be much more heavily armed and armored.

 

I enjoyed Traveller's FTL system.  Each jump could travel between 1 and 6 parsecs depending on tech level of the drive and fuel expenditure.  10% of the ship mass would have to be fuel for every parsec jumped, and at lower tech levels the jump drive itself could take up half the ship, so a 100 ton ship with jump capability would have to have a 50 ton drive and 20 tons of fuel for a 1 parsec round trip, leaving only 30 tons for sublight drive and fuel, crew, cargo, sensors, armor and weapons.  A sublight ship that relies on stargates would have three times the warfighting, passenger, cargo or drive capacity.

 

Ships can scoop water to filter for deuterium if they have scoops installed, but using unrefined fuel gives you a chance of a mis-jump.  Your ship could wind up jumping to the wrong star, or even stranded in interstellar space, leaving you the option of hoping for a rescue or opening the airlock and waking up at a resurrection node.  Scout ships are small enough to jump safely with unrefined fuel.

 

In Traveller, a jump took a week, but in DU obviously that won't do.  Perhaps it could take 10 minutes, while a stargate transit is instantaneous.

 

A Stargate Constructor ship would be able to go FTL and build a stargate at its destination, but it would't have room for anything else, so it would be big, expensive and vulnerable.  I think Stargates would work better if they only connected to a paired gate on the other side.  You build the gate in one system, your constructor makes the jump to the destination, you build the gate at the destination, then you jump back to your origin to get more resources for the next gate.  That's how you build a chain out.  It takes time, it's very expensive, and the size of the gate limits the size of the ships that can make transit.  The gate cannot be shut down but it can be shielded or have physical doors added to allow access control.  If a gate is destroyed the corresponding gate becomes inactive until a new gate is built with the same quantum signature, so you can't switch gates.

 

Control of the gates is based on defenses on either side so an opposing force would have to take the stargate on one side, then come through one ship at a time, possibly running into a minefield, a focus of many ships' weapons, defensive forts... like the Honor Harrington books.  Attacking through a warp point was a very expensive proposition in that series.  

 

Before someone tells me that's not how it works, remember that it doesn't work any way at the moment; maybe it doesn't work this way in EVE, but this isn't EVE and we're not locked into anything except the voxel technology and the story at this point.

 

Why did we have to use an ark ship to travel thousands of light years if we have stargate technology?  Perhaps that's a tech that's going to have to get discovered for civilization to be able to expand beyond the initial system.  We could discover shipboard FTL technology before we get to stargates so we can explore the universe before we set up commercial trade routes.

 

Anyway, that's just my two cents.  I think it could make the game progression interesting, giving pirates a way to operate outside of the bounds of registered stargate routes, but making ships that don't use stargates less commercially efficient and combat capable.

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I'm curious how we can have an interstellar space exploration game with the only form of FTL being stargates unless they're pre-existing gates like in the stargate series.  I think in order to allow for exploration, we need to have ships that are capable of FTL on their own.  However, the FTL drives are bulky, expensive and prone to breakdown, and they consume a lot of fuel, making stargates a much more cost effective option for freight and passenger traffic and of course sublight warships could be much more heavily armed and armored.

Yes, that's it. FTL drives will be expensive and you wouldn't put them on smaller ships. You can travel between systems if you like, but you'll have to prepare for a week's worth of travel to get to the nearest system.

 

Stargates work by creating the first gate, sending out a beacon ship (that will travel via FTL) that when it reaches the target system provides a target to jump to using the Stargate once (like how in the early Star Wars universe they could only jump between places strong in the Dark Side). You have to jump through with all the resources to build another gate at the other end for permanent use.

 

Why did we have to use an ark ship to travel thousands of light years if we have stargate technology?  Perhaps that's a tech that's going to have to get discovered for civilization to be able to expand beyond the initial system.  We could discover shipboard FTL technology before we get to stargates so we can explore the universe before we set up commercial trade routes.

Earth was abandoned quickly and generation ships aren't too resource intensive. A stargate network wouldn't have been able to get away from the neutron star quickly. Remember, it can take a little while for the beacon ship to reach its destination. The stargates are only a good way of travel so you can go back and forward - if you're abandoning a system you don't want the gravitational influence to get through, so it's faster to just run away with FTL.

 

Anyway, that's just my two cents.  I think it could make the game progression interesting, giving pirates a way to operate outside of the bounds of registered stargate routes, but making ships that don't use stargates less commercially efficient and combat capable.

Piracy won't be impossible, even in civilised systems. Unless there's a fleet wondering around every lone asteroid, pirates will be able to snipe unsuspecting merchants and it'll be even easier in less civilised systems on the frontier or even just those whose local governments don't want to police the entire system. Piracy should be high risk, high reward, and the way the game's set up right now it will be.

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Stargates work by creating the first gate, sending out a beacon ship (that will travel via FTL) that when it reaches the target system provides a target to jump to using the Stargate once (like how in the early Star Wars universe they could only jump between places strong in the Dark Side). You have to jump through with all the resources to build another gate at the other end for permanent use.

 

 

Earth was abandoned quickly and generation ships aren't too resource intensive. A stargate network wouldn't have been able to get away from the neutron star quickly. Remember, it can take a little while for the beacon ship to reach its destination. The stargates are only a good way of travel so you can go back and forward - if you're abandoning a system you don't want the gravitational influence to get through, so it's faster to just run away with FTL.

 

 

Woah no way, is it possible to find that stuff on wookiepedia?

 

I think in EVE's lore, the first star/jump gate had something devastating like that happen to the original one.  Hence why earth isn't a possible destination and even the local area around the first gate will kill you.  Pretty neat concepts...

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Woah no way, is it possible to find that stuff on wookiepedia?

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Infinite_Empire

 

Wookiepedia's pretty fun, Disney should make some movies out of the early lore.

 

I think in EVE's lore, the first star/jump gate had something devastating like that happen to the original one.  Hence why earth isn't a possible destination and even the local area around the first gate will kill you.  Pretty neat concepts...

I don't think I explained my reasoning behind that too clear in the previous post. I think that humanity went with FTL generation ships simply because such a ship can cover 10 lightyears, collect some resources, then move on. In comparison, a stargate network would send a probe 10 lightyears, have to build a gate on the Earth end, then after the connection's established (at this point the same amount of time for both projects has passed), you then need to build a stargate at the other end. Sure, more people will survive if you get the gates done in time. But humanity didn't have the time (and who knows what a neutron star would do to the wormhole) so we left as fast as we could and abandoned Earth completely.

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OHHHH, the aliens in KOTOR.  I recall reading something like a forerunner type alien race as well.  They were responsible for Centerpoint Station and the Corellian system having like 5 perfect planets in it, crazy lore...

 

 

 

I wonder tho about sending the probe as a beacon, what's to stop people from using probes as temp star gates and abusing that kinda system?  It sounds way cheaper...

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It's a one-time jump and I imagine the resources for what is essentially an automated ship will be very expensive. You won't want to jump to a foreign system unless you're building a stargate to get back to civilisation. If you just jumped through without the materials for a second gate, it's going to take you a very long time to get the resources for another gate to get out of the system.

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Ah...

 

That leads us back to the risks/dangers of trying to build even one star gate then because then an org would basically have/need enough for two in a relative short amount of time to really get that built asap.

 

I wonder if the gate itself will act as a space station with automated defenses upon it, and where people can hang out casually or only as a large device used for travel with little to no defenses!  Just thinking about all this crazy stuff is making my head spin now.

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Ah...

 

That leads us back to the risks/dangers of trying to build even one star gate then because then an org would basically have/need enough for two in a relative short amount of time to really get that built asap.

 

I wonder if the gate itself will act as a space station with automated defenses upon it, and where people can hang out casually or only as a large device used for travel with little to no defenses!  Just thinking about all this crazy stuff is making my head spin now.

 

 

You can probably build a space station right next to it for defense/social aspects. And keep in mind that stargates are going to be introduced later into the game (like 3-6 months, maybe longer) so the existing orgs will have lot's of resources to spare to build them. They will be expensive but well within the budgets of decent sized groups. This initial confinement of everyone to the same system for the first months of the game will help to boost the economy and let people get on their feet before the mad dash to new worlds.

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You can probably build a space station right next to it for defense/social aspects. And keep in mind that stargates are going to be introduced later into the game (like 3-6 months, maybe longer) so the existing orgs will have lot's of resources to spare to build them. They will be expensive but well within the budgets of decent sized groups. This initial confinement of everyone to the same system for the first months of the game will help to boost the economy and let people get on their feet before the mad dash to new worlds.

I think that the arkship is going to be the focal point for a massive city due to the impenetrable shields, so while there will no doubt be a mad dash for the rim after FTL is discovered, there will always be a player presence on the arkworld.  It's going to be the focal point of banking, commerce and recruiting. 

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As I recall, NQ said that each account will be able to have something like 3 in-game avatars.  

 

This means you can send one of your avatars on a week long FTL voyage to another system while another avatar stays at home.  

 

I am curious how this works with resurrection nodes.  Do each of your avatars have independent nodes, or do they all use the same nodes?

 

So I think it is possible that players will be active both at the fringe, middle systems, and at home.

 

I am also curious if each of an accounts avatars will share the same membership in organizations. 

 

Will players be able to see all the avatars of another player (see in-game who the other avatars are for a player)?  It would definitely make things interesting if a player could have an avatar high ranking in one organization and another avatar high ranking in an opposing faction.  I will assume organizational membership will be per account and not avatar.

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