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The Hyperspace Mechanics of Stargate Travel


yamamushi

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I'm posting this in this subforum because it felt like a more appropriate place than the Mechanics subforum, if only because Hyperspace isn't something I've seen mentioned by the devs.

 

 

We know from NQ that (borrowing an old quote Saffi's thread here https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/304-scrub-stargate-and-transportation-questions/):

 

- FTL Travel will be the hard and slow way to explore other solar systems. It will be difficult because complex logistics will be needed to make the travel worth it. In fact, we expect FTL Travel to be most likely used to go to an adjacent unexplored solar system, and build a Stargate.

 

 

Based on that summary of what we know so far, I'd like to discuss idea of Hyperspace travel between Stargates.

 

 

One can presume, based on that summary, that the expected outcome of using a Stargate would be instantaneous travel between two locations in space. However instead of an instant warp between two locations, I think it would be more intriguing if Stargates operated more as interstellar highways where travel between two points was faster than simply using FTL but still not instantaneous.

 

Similar to how it took several minutes for the crew to travel through the wormhole in Interstellar:

 

 

 

 

The ingame reasoning for this could be that there is simply not a way to completely bend space to have two points touch each other, that space could only be bent so far. Or that there is just not way to produce that much negative energy. I think this can be best illustrated with this diagram of a wormhole:

 

C79gRA4.jpg

 

Wherein point A and B do not explicitly touch each other, but there is a "throat" distance between the two points. 

 

This "throat" could be described as "hyperspace".

 

 

 

I'm imagining the hyperspace gates from Cowboy Bebop, specifically from the "Gateway Shuffle" episode. Where entering a gate would put you on a narrow fast lane through space, but leaving that fast lane safely and accurately (explained below) requires the existence of an exit gate. 

 

Flying through hyperspace wouldn't make you immune to attack, and you would have to navigate carefully through the path, as leaving it could cause massive damage to your ship and leave you stranded in unexplored space, millions of lightyears from the nearest inhabited solar system.

 

A journey through hyperspace between two gates would only be a few minutes, as opposed to the hours/days of travel with FTL. 

 

This clip from Star Trek Into Darkness visually illustrates what I think leaving hyperspace would look like, although I know they're not travelling in hyperspace in Star Trek but I don't want to get into the semantics of the Star Trek universe:

 

 

 

That clip also brings up another detail that I'd like to see if this were implemented, combat while in hyperspace. 

 

I think that ships should still be able to fire on one another while in hyperspace. Although perhaps the mechanics of combat while in hyperspace should be modified to account for the different type of combat environment vs real space. ie, laser shots being bent because of the immense pull of gravity? 

 

 

Stargates would probably be incredibly difficult to destroy, so there wouldn't be a very big chance of getting stuck in hyperspace because of a group of pirates shooting at your exit gate. But they shouldn't be impossible destroy, so that a sufficiently large fleet could take one on. 

 

 

There could also be a mechanic that allows for different sized stargates, or stargates that prohibit specific ship types or sizes from passing through. The diameter of a stargate could also determine the size of its hyperspace lane.

 

 

 

I have more to say about the topic of stargates, but I'd like to see what others think about this first. 

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Interesting reasoning. As we have theorized, a large amount of negative energy needs to be genorated in order to sustain a warpgate. Without the negative energy or lack thereof, it could cause the Stargate to fall short. As well, in my ideas, it could also mean that the mass of the ship may not be able to be carried. Let me give an example.

 

Negative energy is required to stabilize a warp or bend in spacetime. Without that negative energy, the bend may collapse or become smaller. In that case, the ships may have a harder time fitting, meaning that the size of the ship  and mass would matter in this equation. Therefor, if a ship was to travel, it would need to fit the requirements of this Stargate in order to enter and exit unharmed.

 

As well, your discription of the Hyperspace Gates in Cowboy Bebop is a good example. During that point, they were traveling between spacetime due to the Hypergates. When they encountered the exit gate, they had to move through it in order to pass back into the normal plane of existance, while the missiles were stuck in the existance in spacetime.

 

I do think your theory of stargate destructibility though should be changed. I have ideas about this but I'd like to make suggestions. Stargates I feel, should be built so that they can continue their energy delivery. Let me provide the example of stargate security. It would make sense to have some security behind stargates. As well, the way the stargates are built individually should be taken into consideration. Let assume that each stargate needs to generate negative energy in order to sustain the gate. if that generator is taken out, there should be some storage of negative energy in order to sustain the gate for a period of time. As well, it might be a good idea to provide extra storage for the gate so that it may run for an extended period of time. Then, I think the idea of the gate itself being destroyed should be next.

 

In all, this requires a large discussion of physics, quantum physics and spacetime theories in order to pull this off. I think the devs might already have some theories that are currently explored lined up to build their travel system based off it.

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I do think your theory of stargate destructibility though should be changed. I have ideas about this but I'd like to make suggestions. Stargates I feel, should be built so that they can continue their energy delivery. Let me provide the example of stargate security. It would make sense to have some security behind stargates. As well, the way the stargates are built individually should be taken into consideration. Let assume that each stargate needs to generate negative energy in order to sustain the gate. if that generator is taken out, there should be some storage of negative energy in order to sustain the gate for a period of time. As well, it might be a good idea to provide extra storage for the gate so that it may run for an extended period of time. Then, I think the idea of the gate itself being destroyed should be next.

 

 

We could look at Stargates more as wormhole generators, and if they ran out of power, the wormholes could continue to exist for a period of time before shrinking and eventually closing. Kind of how it would look if this funnel got pinched off:

 

 

3N5wquP.jpg

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Interesting proposals, though I think you miss some important points about FTL / Hyperspace travel.

 

  1. Your first idea about traveling through hyperspace not being instantaneous is fine, although personally I disagree with the idea I can see the justifications for it. However, requiring an "exit" gate makes it a logistic nightmare to set up a gate-to-gate system. The point of the "exit" system is to have a way to return, not a way to limit the potential of star gates.
  2. Combat in hyper is honestly illogical. Most sci-fi genres have imagined that you could figure out where someone went based off things like the signature left by their jump, their direction of ship, etc... but almost none have alluded to being in hyperspace at the same time as another, unless it's a purposeful "timed" jump like some have done in things like Battlestar Galactica. The "science fiction" fact is that you generally cannot join someone already in hyper, so the only potential for a combat scenario would be that you jumped with someone else.. and then tried to kill them while in hyper. That would be too rare of an occasion to justify the resources needed to provide a hyperspace combat system.
  3. Stuck in hyperspace? What would be the result of this? While it's an interesting story potential, I think the gameplay of it would not be quite as exciting. This is another reason I disagree with the required "exit" gate.
  4. Different sizes is actually not a bad idea - I have worried that the star gates idea would become a thing that only very large organizations could do... but implementing it in a way where there are various sizes gives the potential for smaller groups or possibly the rare individual even. Though one thing that does concern me..  would star gates be limited in number in a star system? I'd hate to see 1,000 star gates in one system... but then again, does it give too much advantage to a group if it's very limited? I think that aspect could certainly use some talk / decision making by the devs.

Don't let me feedback hold you back, though. The more input and ideas we provide, the more fleshed out DU can really become and the more inspiration we can provide to devs.  :)

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I think your second and third points can be addressed if you watch the "Gateway Shuffle" episode of Cowboy Bebop.  

 

If you didn't have a stargate on the other side to act as your exit, you couldn't really control where it would put you when you entered it. The idea of travelling to another solar system to build a stargate would mean having one built at the starting point already to connect the two ends. That's what "exit" means in my description, that if your destination stargate is destroyed mid-journey, you're not going to end up where you expected to. 

 

In Cowboy Bebop when the destination gate was disabled, they continued along hyperspace forever. The physics how it works are explained in the episode. 

 

I think that would be somewhat game breaking, so I would propose that if your destination gate was disabled, that the wormhole shrinks until it collapses and you are left in a region of space far from your destination (depending on how far from the exit you were when it collapsed). 

 

You could imagine a scenario where a wormhole exit is collapsing and you are racing through a shrinking tunnel trying to make it out before it closes. 

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  1. Your first idea about traveling through hyperspace not being instantaneous is fine, although personally I disagree with the idea I can see the justifications for it. However, requiring an "exit" gate makes it a logistic nightmare to set up a gate-to-gate system. The point of the "exit" system is to have a way to return, not a way to limit the potential of star gates.

From what I have gathered individual ships will have FTL drives

I think that having star gates would add a good deal to the game with their own advantages and disadvantages

Advantages:

  • Faster
  • Needs no fuel on the ship's part
  • Can be much longer ranged (jump to several "systems" away rather than just next "system")

Disadvantages:

  • Requires a lot of resources to set up
  • Requires and exit gate I.E its not a long ranged jump to anywhere
  • Requires a bit of resources to maintain

Should there be a function for players to charge others (Toll) to use the gates then you could see an epic community maintained web of jump gates connecting the reaches of space and allowing far faster travel than short range  FTL "hopping" from one place to another

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I like all of these examples, however, what if the Devs are planning a gate more along the lines of the movie Contact.  where there is a network of gates that can move you around the galaxy, not instantly but with a short amount of travel time between gates.  In that way instead of always moving from Point A to any other point, you have to travel along a line of gates, point A, to B, to C to get to D.  giving you an option of course of stopping at any point or continuing on to the next gate.

 

I think this would be a cool way of doing it, because that would solve the problem of dialing different gates like in SG-1 and also making it harder to spring surprise attacks on someone across the galaxy.  It also make the amount of energy needed not as great, since you are going a vast distance but making it in leap frog steps.

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Should there be a function for players to charge others (Toll) to use the gates then you could see an epic community maintained web of jump gates connecting the reaches of space and allowing far faster travel than short range  FTL "hopping" from one place to another

 

I can see this being the case as they have described it already for other things you own and flags etc.  so if I build a SG, I own it and get to set the flags on it...

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I like all of these examples, however, what if the Devs are planning a gate more along the lines of the movie Contact.  where there is a network of gates that can move you around the galaxy, not instantly but with a short amount of travel time between gates.  In that way instead of always moving from Point A to any other point, you have to travel along a line of gates, point A, to B, to C to get to D.  giving you an option of course of stopping at any point or continuing on to the next gate.

 

I think this would be a cool way of doing it, because that would solve the problem of dialing different gates like in SG-1 and also making it harder to spring surprise attacks on someone across the galaxy.  It also make the amount of energy needed not as great, since you are going a vast distance but making it in leap frog steps.

 

 

This is how I imagined it, that you need to statically assign a destination for a gate, such that two gates A<->B connect to each other but not B to C. 

 

I also think there should be a minimum distance required between stargates. So that you can't just hop out of one and immediately jump into another one. 

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You know, I'm just going to add little bit more diverse range of discussion here.

 

The idea of Stargates is not new in any sense, and has countless theories. The ones we are discussion are currently theories, so I propose we start to expand on their possible elements.

 

An example is the hyperdimension travel in Cowboy Bebop. It's a simple way to describe it, but falls into a complex category of travel and logistics. During that episode it is seen that gates are setup in order to bend space time and travel "faster" than the speed of light. You are entering a plane of travel that is technically, non-existent on our plane of reality. You are moving in between the dimensions of this universe or transdimensional travel. In this time, physics of course would still act similarly to our universe, but due to being in a state which we are not yet sure of ourselves(no research done because we haven't been able to do this), we could expect a number of things to happen.

 

1. Our minds can not compensate for the change in things and we "instantly" travel. While we have not traveled instantly, ot us it is perceived. However, that goes against what we have already said.

2. Due to this lying in the realm of quantum physics, out reality might be warped and effects of our surroundings might change. ie. our ship chaning structural integrity, electronics not working properly, etc.

3. A logistical nightmare of stuff happens and it's too complicated.

 

So yeah. Even though we are more or less bridging across our universe, it would still technically be transdimensional travel in spacetime and cause an extreme amount of stuff to happen. However, I view some things still being able to work correctly, such as weapons, light and all these other things.

 

I suppose the question is, what do we know would work and what wouldn't work in Stargate travel. What might be broken or unable to work due to it?

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I like all of these examples, however, what if the Devs are planning a gate more along the lines of the movie Contact.  where there is a network of gates that can move you around the galaxy, not instantly but with a short amount of travel time between gates.  In that way instead of always moving from Point A to any other point, you have to travel along a line of gates, point A, to B, to C to get to D.  giving you an option of course of stopping at any point or continuing on to the next gate.

 

I think this would be a cool way of doing it, because that would solve the problem of dialing different gates like in SG-1 and also making it harder to spring surprise attacks on someone across the galaxy.  It also make the amount of energy needed not as great, since you are going a vast distance but making it in leap frog steps.

Yes that is exactly what I mean. The jump gates would of course not be able to go THAT far so yeah you would need a network

they just need to be longer ranged, faster and generally more convenient than using the FTL drives.

it is just I think it would be a great benefit to the DU universe if the network was created, maintained and expanded by the community rather than just being there from the get-go such as in EVE Online.

The exit gate would be the way to stop the surprise attacks.

However it would probably be a two-way system to minimize over complication.

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I suppose the question is, what do we know would work and what wouldn't work in Stargate travel. What might be broken or unable to work due to it?

 

For things I think shouldn't work, either completely or partially:

 

- Long Range Communications

- Navigational Sensor Readings

- Bombs , or having them pulled out of the edges of the "tunnel" after a short period of time, as they shouldn't just be left floating around for someone to wander into. 

- Transporter Beams, I haven't seen Transporters mentioned but if they do make it into the game they shouldn't be usable during stargate travel.

- Tractor Beams

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I think your second and third points can be addressed if you watch the "Gateway Shuffle" episode of Cowboy Bebop.  

 

If you didn't have a stargate on the other side to act as your exit, you couldn't really control where it would put you when you entered it. The idea of travelling to another solar system to build a stargate would mean having one built at the starting point already to connect the two ends. That's what "exit" means in my description, that if your destination stargate is destroyed mid-journey, you're not going to end up where you expected to. 

 

In Cowboy Bebop when the destination gate was disabled, they continued along hyperspace forever. The physics how it works are explained in the episode. 

 

I think that would be somewhat game breaking, so I would propose that if your destination gate was disabled, that the wormhole shrinks until it collapses and you are left in a region of space far from your destination (depending on how far from the exit you were when it collapsed). 

 

You could imagine a scenario where a wormhole exit is collapsing and you are racing through a shrinking tunnel trying to make it out before it closes. 

 

I have seen it. I'm talking more about actual gameplay mechanics though - it's easy to come up with ideas or to draw stuff in an anime, but not so easy to implement that into a video game. That's also my point about the exit gate. Star gates will likely be in PvP space, meaning they can be attacked. A guesstimate on my part says they won't be easy to destroy... but my experiences in Eve and many other MMO's say that doesn't matter, players will find a way to do it. If you make it a requirement to have both a start and end gate... that opens up a whole can of worms (punny) that would make maintaining star gates not worth it in my eyes. Also... a lot of work would likely have to go into building one... just to end up "lost in space" because people on the exit gate decided they wanted to ruin your day.

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Even in Eve Online, player built Jump Gates still need a start and end gate to work, if one of them is destroyed the gates are functionally useless. 

 

Stargates, being much larger and considerably more powerful, would likely require a large well-organized group of players to build together. I don't think they should be easy devices to create. 

 

And with the difficulty of building them, they should be just as difficult to destroy, taking a considerable amount of time and firepower. Such that they wouldn't randomly just become destroyed while you were mid-journey. You would be aware that the destination gate was under attack and would be entering knowing that. It would take much more than just a wandering group of pirates to take one out. Wars would be fought over them. 

 

Ideally you wouldn't be building two stargates if both sides weren't already well established and defended. 

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I like the Babylon 5 Hyperspace Mechanics.

 

You have Hyperspace... and Jump Engines... and Jump gates.

 

Small ships don't have the power to use Jump Engines to access Hyperspace and must use the Jump gates.

 

Big ships can produce enough energy to form a Jump point (punch a hole in space) to access Hyperspace... But depending on their tech level may have to power down weapons to do it.  So they too often use jump gates.

 

It takes time to travel in Hyperspace... but it's as if everything is much closer so it takes much less time.  In Hyperspace there's all sorts of energy flowing all around and no reference points... so a craft could easily get lost... or get pulled along with the flow if it lost power to engines.  The Jump gates transmit a lock on signal so ships can navigate through hyperspace to their destinations.  Even if your destination is a system that doesn't have a gate yet... But if you go too far from where the Jump gates are you could lose their signal and not be able to find your way back... The Jump gates are what provides reference points in Hyperspace.

 

So if you want to make a place a destination that people will use... building a Jump gate there is a sure way to do it... and puts you on the galactic hyperspace map so to speak.  And if you want to hide... be in a system without a gate and have a ship big enough to make its own.

 

 

 

In B5 the gates are hard to make... They're government projects... or found as remnants of long gone civilizations.  But Easyish to destroy.  And when they go... boy do they go.  They aren't destroyed very often though... Because it would be suicide for the one doing it.  And if you could somehow manage to survive it... you'd be trapped there as odds are your ship can't form a Jump point.  Most ships can't.  It's only the really big ones... owned by governments...

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I like the Babylon 5 Hyperspace Mechanics.

 

You have Hyperspace... and Jump Engines... and Jump gates.

 

Small ships don't have the power to use Jump Engines to access Hyperspace and must use the Jump gates.

 

Big ships can produce enough energy to form a Jump point (punch a hole in space) to access Hyperspace... But depending on their tech level may have to power down weapons to do it.  So they too often use jump gates.

 

It takes time to travel in Hyperspace... but it's as if everything is much closer so it takes much less time.  In Hyperspace there's all sorts of energy flowing all around and no reference points... so a craft could easily get lost... or get pulled along with the flow if it lost power to engines.  The Jump gates transmit a lock on signal so ships can navigate through hyperspace to their destinations.  Even if your destination is a system that doesn't have a gate yet... But if you go too far from where the Jump gates are you could lose their signal and not be able to find your way back... The Jump gates are what provides reference points in Hyperspace.

 

So if you want to make a place a destination that people will use... building a Jump gate there is a sure way to do it... and puts you on the galactic hyperspace map so to speak.  And if you want to hide... be in a system without a gate and have a ship big enough to make its own.

 

 

 

In B5 the gates are hard to make... They're government projects... or found as remnants of long gone civilizations.  But Easyish to destroy.  And when they go... boy do they go.  They aren't destroyed very often though... Because it would be suicide for the one doing it.  And if you could somehow manage to survive it... you'd be trapped there as odds are your ship can't form a Jump point.  Most ships can't.  It's only the really big ones... owned by governments...

have to say from what iv read this sounds like a sound logic for the game. the smaller ships and such use gates and big ships house a jump engine. for full on fleets to go to battle though the ship would need to be big enough to have a hanger to house fighters otherwise they couldnt jump with the big ships.

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have to say from what iv read this sounds like a sound logic for the game. the smaller ships and such use gates and big ships house a jump engine. for full on fleets to go to battle though the ship would need to be big enough to have a hanger to house fighters otherwise they couldnt jump with the big ships.

 

In B5 the big ships could make a point for the smaller ships to use or anyone really... you could go into hyperspace using the jump point made by your enemies ship if you wanted to and timed it right... If you didn't time it right you could collide or be destroyed when the jump point closes moments after the big ship went through.

 

But still... carrier ships where quite common.  And I think for the game a limit of "only the ship making the jump point can go through it" would make sense and further encourage carrier ships.  So I like that limitation.

 

 

 

Further on Jumpgate function and destroying them. 

 

They store a lot of energy... They take a long time to power them up initially but after that's done can be used open jump points into hyperspace quite frequently. 

 

They do have some armor... and usually there's a well armed space station near by to operate and defend them.  If one is attacked the operators of it could discharge them to prevent them from blowing... and thus preventing their own destruction and everyone else nearby and ecological disaster on any nearby planet... But if they do then it take a long time to power it back up and any ships in Hyperspace coming to their rescue wouldn't be able to use it.  They'd have to turn around or divert to another gate... or wait for a jump engine capable ship to arrive to make a jump point for them... so they can leave hyperspace with it.

 

The quickest and stupidest way to destroy a jumpgate... before any operators could discharge it... is to use it to open a jump point... and then using your jump engine capable ship to open another jump point inside the Jump gate.  Boom!  No more gate.  No more station.  No more you and your extremely valuable jump engine capable ship. 

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The quickest and stupidest way to destroy a jumpgate... before any operators could discharge it... is to use it to open a jump point... and then using your jump engine capable ship to open another jump point inside the Jump gate.  Boom!  No more gate.  No more station.  No more you and your extremely valuable jump engine capable ship. 

 

And probably no more Planet if its close enough.

 

I like the B5 mechanics a lot and the "only the generating ship can use the gate" makes sense.

In addition to that i would bring in the possibility of "mobile jumpgates" because in a fleet will still be ships that are not large enough for a own jumpengine, but big enough as that they could land on an carrier.

 

Of course these mobile jumpgates would be even more expensive than normal stationary ones. They will be well protected by armor, shields and maybe point-defense, but they will be pretty slow too and if a jump-point is established they will be stationary, till its closed again. And now offensive capabilities due to the large consumption of energy by the jump-point generator.

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And probably no more Planet if its close enough.

 

I like the B5 mechanics a lot and the "only the generating ship can use the gate" makes sense.

In addition to that i would bring in the possibility of "mobile jumpgates" because in a fleet will still be ships that are not large enough for a own jumpengine, but big enough as that they could land on an carrier.

 

Of course these mobile jumpgates would be even more expensive than normal stationary ones. They will be well protected by armor, shields and maybe point-defense, but they will be pretty slow too and if a jump-point is established they will be stationary, till its closed again. And now offensive capabilities due to the large consumption of energy by the jump-point generator.

 

 

And you can have fleets standing by in hyperspace waiting for signals from your scout ships to jump into the system and begin the battle.  They can relay the spots most advantages for a jump point to open and disgorge the fleet from several different spots. 

 

In the show they even have a ground team send coordinates to the ships in Hyperspace so they could open a jump point inside the atmosphere of the planet... and thus insert a ship behind enemy lines to take out the ground based defenses.

 

 

I'm still debating on the one ship to jump point idea... It'd be great if the large ships could let the medium class cruisers and the like in and out of hyperspace... But they can use the local gate if you're attacking a system with a gate.

 

Cause you couldn't prevent anyone from using the gate other than to shut it down so no one could use it.

 

Most ships that can generate a jump point with their jump engines are vulnerable when entering and exiting hyperspace as they had to divert power to generate the jump point.  If they can allow other ships through at the same time or ahead of them... then those ships could have their weapons fully powered up and be firing as the come through. 

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Some videos Featuring the jump points and hyperspace.

 

https://youtu.be/2k8SRxOYC_U?list=PLo0Ow__m-XJLwII47LMrpswOkaAaQ3qse

 

 

 

https://youtu.be/wl6E0Y_jYHk?list=PLo0Ow__m-XJLwII47LMrpswOkaAaQ3qse

 

 

 

https://youtu.be/eH8WKvyOT38

 

 

 

That last one the Narn aliens were fighting a ancient alien force with very advanced tech and they used something to disrupt the jump point as the Narn were trying to escape back to hyperspace and the collapsing jump point destroyed the Narn ships.

 

I fail at embedding these youtube videos...

 

 

another battle montage so a few glimpses of jump points and some views of the ships in hyperspace.

https://youtu.be/jSa6Zl8fcyo?list=PLzUwdMSZr2iaHdMHnN_pC76O7QrAedr-I

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Hi there!

 

While reading the suggestions about FTL travel, the hyperspace mechanics of Homeworld 2 came to my mind - especially the thing with the hyperspace-inhibitors.

 

It could be interesting, if entities wouldn't simply disappear at one point and pop out of another. Instead they could travel in some kind of hidden subspace tunnel, which may be interrupted by some kind of hyperspace inhibitor field, causing the ship to fall out of hyperspace...

 

This could be very interesting for pirates, but would also be hard to balance...

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