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Am I alone in thinking that Stargate Probes are a bad idea?


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I think its more that while a stargate is active its a point to point transfer but it can be linked to another stargate within its range though I agree that the RDMS system will probably handle the ability to use a gate or not

"Except, of course they make star-gates impossible to edit in that manner. Which I hope they don't. Imagine if a star-gate can only have one destination. Horrible. Did Nyzaltar say it would be possible to disassemble star-gates and unpack them at another place with another destination? I can't find it on the forums."

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"Except, of course they make star-gates impossible to edit in that manner. Which I hope they don't. Imagine if a star-gate can only have one destination. Horrible. Did Nyzaltar say it would be possible to disassemble star-gates and unpack them at another place with another destination? I can't find it on the forums."

They will make the gates editable in that manner, since the RDMS handles rights for Organisations as well. Cause, you know, you need to have the key to your own house and the stargate, is a gate nonetheless :P

 

 

Also, stargates work by building a gate at your end, then sending a probe to another place, which then spawns a proto-stargate for you to jump to. Then, as you arrive, you upgrade the gate for a larger volume of ships, via modular pieces. It's not a one way trip, cause that would NOT make any sense. Perhaps, the size of the gate even affects the travel times. Larger gate = more easy to pass through it (or something to that line of thought).

 

 

The real tricky business is if you can link one stargate to many stargates on the adjacent systems around it and if a "Star-Net" can be built that way for massive relocation of flotillas on the borders of a faction. I mean, it should be a thing, since it gives power to those who can build such complex networks.

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They will make the gates editable in that manner, since the RDMS handles rights for Organisations as well. Cause, you know, you need to have the key to your own house and the stargate, is a gate nonetheless :P

 

 

Also, stargates work by building a gate at your end, then sending a probe to another place, which then spawns a proto-stargate for you to jump to. Then, as you arrive, you upgrade the gate for a larger volume of ships, via modular pieces. It's not a one way trip, cause that would NOT make any sense. Perhaps, the size of the gate even affects the travel times. Larger gate = more easy to pass through it (or something to that line of thought).

 

 

The real tricky business is if you can link one stargate to many stargates on the adjacent systems around it and if a "Star-Net" can be built that way for massive relocation of flotillas on the borders of a faction. I mean, it should be a thing, since it gives power to those who can build such complex networks.

"I fully support this idea. A complex or simple network of star-gates will make logistics, warfare, support, exploration and espionage a lot easier. With the time factor cut down, the game would be a lot more exciting."

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"I fully support this idea. A complex or simple network of star-gates will make logistics, warfare, support, exploration and espionage a lot easier. With the time factor cut down, the game would be a lot more exciting."

Yeah, you could even isolate the Prime Stargate for your capital by not allowing anyone other than the top-tier members of your organisatio to get there, to reduce the possibility of any decapitating blow to your faction, if territory control can work via a network as well, going from a planet's entire hex to be enslaved to another planet's hex, with the collective hex of a system being controlled by another system and so on and so forth. Could make for excellent micromanagement by people whose job is to manage the logistics of an empire.

 

 

Same goes for stargates I suppose, one links to another in a system and all of the require a faction's "key" module piece on board the satar-gate for you to jump to them, or even, an FTL type of travel for your faction's ship, but no access to the Star-Net itself, so to avoid people in your faction abusing or misusing such a tool.

 

 

And of course, tolls. Money maintains the gates, tolls secure such a thing.

 

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Yeah, you could even isolate the Prime Stargate for your capital by not allowing anyone other than the top-tier members of your organisatio to get there, to reduce the possibility of any decapitating blow to your faction, if territory control can work via a network as well, going from a planet's entire hex to be enslaved to another planet's hex, with the collective hex of a system being controlled by another system and so on and so forth. Could make for excellent micromanagement by people whose job is to manage the logistics of an empire.

 

 

Same goes for stargates I suppose, one links to another in a system and all of the require a faction's "key" module piece on board the satar-gate for you to jump to them, or even, an FTL type of travel for your faction's ship, but no access to the Star-Net itself, so to avoid people in your faction abusing or misusing such a tool.

 

 

And of course, tolls. Money maintains the gates, tolls secure such a thing.

 

"I like this thinking. A very good way to secure your empire would be to build up in a very remote area of space and construct just a few star-gates to reach the capital or the entire territory if you will. The downside of this idea, is that it's quite the same thing as isolating your faction. As Dragoon has noted, that's not a very good idea. You could work around this by placing your empire in one place and the capital in a place far away. But, this is essentially unwise. The logistics for construction and security will almost be a nightmare."

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You're absolutely right. I was just giving an example of a particular type of choke point in 3D. And 10 minutes was just plucked out of the air but in reality, 1 hour or even more could be sufficient. When terrain is complex and mixed inventive leaders can utilise it to their advantage in any number of ways.

 

i dont disagree that terrain effects create gameplay, they can create a lot of gameplay.

 

but i dont think that nebula and asteroid fields could consistently create choke points which arent just statistical oddities but influence the game as a whole.

if the system creates one choke point and then doesnt for long distances. making the choke point an oddity thats mostly circumventable and not something you always have to think about strategically.

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i dont disagree that terrain effects create gameplay, they can create a lot of gameplay.

 

but i dont think that nebula and asteroid fields could consistently create choke points which arent just statistical oddities but influence the game as a whole.

if the system creates one choke point and then doesnt for long distances. making the choke point an oddity thats mostly circumventable and not something you always have to think about strategically.

 

Well, nebulae and asteroid fields might not create choke points, but they are battlefields in their own right. A nebula would probably interfere with sensors, possibly throwing off your reckoning of the enemy's position, or perhaps limiting how far you can see so that they're practically invisible. Asteroid fields are battlefields meant mostly for smaller craft that can hide in the shadows of asteroids and use the asteroids as cover as they commence their attack. 

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Well, nebulae and asteroid fields might not create choke points, but they are battlefields in their own right. A nebula would probably interfere with sensors, possibly throwing off your reckoning of the enemy's position, or perhaps limiting how far you can see so that they're practically invisible. Asteroid fields are battlefields meant mostly for smaller craft that can hide in the shadows of asteroids and use the asteroids as cover as they commence their attack. 

 

im not disagreeing with that at all, but Klatu Satori claims that they would create choke points.

which i disagree with.

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im not disagreeing with that at all, but Klatu Satori claims that they would create choke points.

which i disagree with.

"If nebulae are occasionally made galactic storms and phenomena, they might work as choke points. Looking at the possibility of nebulae being hostile to any thing that moves certainly gives them the ability of being passive choke points. You wouldn't want to fly your ship where the scanners or the ship itself may be damaged."

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"If nebulae are occasionally made galactic storms and phenomena, they might work as choke points. Looking at the possibility of nebulae being hostile to any thing that moves certainly gives them the ability of being passive choke points. You wouldn't want to fly your ship where the scanners or the ship itself may be damaged."

 

thats more like a no-go zone as opposed to a choke point.

(assuming the nebula isnt torodial or anything)

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The real tricky business is if you can link one stargate to many stargates on the adjacent systems around it and if a "Star-Net" can be built that way for massive relocation of flotillas on the borders of a faction. I mean, it should be a thing, since it gives power to those who can build such complex networks.

 

So something like this? Where two stargates can be connected by other/s? Also reminds me of the way antennas work in SE. As long as you have a proper network laid down, you can access a ship 1000km away.

 

I do like the idea.

 

As far as rights to access stargates go, obviously you need a "can use" tag to use it. But you should need to have a "can use" tag on the dialing and receiving gate, as well as any gate on the network in between. If you do not have access to an intermediate gate, perhaps an alternate route in the network could be found instead. If no alternate routes exist, you cannot dial out.

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i dont disagree that terrain effects create gameplay, they can create a lot of gameplay.

 

but i dont think that nebula and asteroid fields could consistently create choke points which arent just statistical oddities but influence the game as a whole.

if the system creates one choke point and then doesnt for long distances. making the choke point an oddity thats mostly circumventable and not something you always have to think about strategically.

That pretty much just sounds like you don't think certain shapes can be consistently created. The devs can write any algorithm they like for the procedural generation of different environments. Any shapes you like can be common, uncommon, or rare, it's just a matter of writing the right algorithm to create the desired effect and testing it to see what kind of universes are created.

 

But again, choke points aren't just about shapes, canals and bottlenecks, they're about interacting environments and what players do with them. Bottlenecks are pretty uncommon even on land and sea, and rare in oceans.

 

My point is that it's variety that makes for interesting wars and battle grounds. Stargates are a part of that, but only a small part. They certainly should not be the whole story as that would be disappointingly restricting.

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thats more like a no-go zone as opposed to a choke point.

(assuming the nebula isnt torodial or anything)

"Not a no-go zone, dear friend. Not a no-go zone. Think of it as an attrition zone. If your ship has enough armour and shield, you won't have to bother about the dangers of entering such zones. However, if it doesn't, it will slowly and steadily reduce your structure's integrity."

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My point is that it's variety that makes for interesting wars and battle grounds. Stargates are a part of that, but only a small part. They certainly should not be the whole story as that would be disappointingly restricting.

Why would stargates be the end-all of strategy if they were the only(useful) way to travel between stars?

 

environmental conditions apply without freeform interstellar travel as well.

A nebula or radiation cloud affects you the same when you are in orbit around a star as it does when you are in deep space.

(And the effects of black holes and asteroid fields make more sense in interplanetar ranges as well lol)

 

And without freeform travel NQ doesnt have to design a second balancing framework around detection and movement impairment whichs constraints are completely different than the ones for in-system gameplay.

 

For effective deep space interdiction you need sensors with light hours to light months or even years.

But for in system gameplay you definitely dont want sensors that can keep an eye over the whole system on its own.

Same for FTL disruptors and the like.

 

 

I personally dont see a way to reconcile one of those problems without completely breaking the other thing.

And honestly also see no reason to open that can of worms in the first place.

 

Why bother with building all those extra systems to prevent freeform interstellar travel from breaking the rest of the game when most of the gameplay works the same without it?

 

I know its cool and would be a nice thing to have (i actually want it myself). But it opens up such a huge can of worms that i'd rather have it not in the game (at release) than to make the rest of the game suffer for it because of the diverted resources.

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Why would stargates be the end-all of strategy if they were the only(useful) way to travel between stars?

environmental conditions apply without freeform interstellar travel as well.

A nebula or radiation cloud affects you the same when you are in orbit around a star as it does when you are in deep space.

(And the effects of black holes and asteroid fields make more sense in interplanetar ranges as well lol)

And without freeform travel NQ doesnt have to design a second balancing framework around detection and movement impairment whichs constraints are completely different than the ones for in-system gameplay.

For effective deep space interdiction you need sensors with light hours to light months or even years.

But for in system gameplay you definitely dont want sensors that can keep an eye over the whole system on its own.

Same for FTL disruptors and the like.

I personally dont see a way to reconcile one of those problems without completely breaking the other thing.

And honestly also see no reason to open that can of worms in the first place.

Why bother with building all those extra systems to prevent freeform interstellar travel from breaking the rest of the game when most of the gameplay works the same without it?

I know its cool and would be a nice thing to have (i actually want it myself). But it opens up such a huge can of worms that i'd rather have it not in the game (at release) than to make the rest of the game suffer for it because of the diverted resources.

 

Khorne speaks the truth.

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"Not a no-go zone, dear friend. Not a no-go zone. Think of it as an attrition zone. If your ship has enough armour and shield, you won't have to bother about the dangers of entering such zones. However, if it doesn't, it will slowly and steadily reduce your structure's integrity."

 
This is exactly what I mean.  Terrain should restrict travellers in some way.  It could be completely impassable, or it might just restrict your top speed or could be that you need heavy armour, or a low mass, or maintain a high speed, or have special sensors, etc.
 
Why would stargates be the end-all of strategy if they were the only(useful) way to travel between stars?
 
environmental conditions apply without freeform interstellar travel as well.
A nebula or radiation cloud affects you the same when you are in orbit around a star as it does when you are in deep space.
(And the effects of black holes and asteroid fields make more sense in interplanetar ranges as well lol)
 
And without freeform travel NQ doesnt have to design a second balancing framework around detection and movement impairment whichs constraints are completely different than the ones for in-system gameplay.
 
For effective deep space interdiction you need sensors with light hours to light months or even years.
But for in system gameplay you definitely dont want sensors that can keep an eye over the whole system on its own.
Same for FTL disruptors and the like.
 
 
I personally dont see a way to reconcile one of those problems without completely breaking the other thing.
And honestly also see no reason to open that can of worms in the first place.
 
Why bother with building all those extra systems to prevent freeform interstellar travel from breaking the rest of the game when most of the gameplay works the same without it?
 
I know its cool and would be a nice thing to have (i actually want it myself). But it opens up such a huge can of worms that i'd rather have it not in the game (at release) than to make the rest of the game suffer for it because of the diverted resources.
 
Honestly I don't see any real issues here.  So you have close, medium, and long range sensors where the respective ranges do not overlap (i.e the long range sensor can't detect anything that the shorter range sensors can).  Similarly you can have close, medium and long range interdictors,  where the medium range one can't interdict anything at x distance from a star and the long range one can't interdict anything within 10x (or some other suitable multiplier) of a star (distance to star restrictions could also be placed on sensors if necessary).
 
There will definitely be issues of some kind, as there are with all game mechanics, but I think they are small especially when compared with the gameplay options that open up.  The gains far outweigh the costs.  And I certainly don't see anything game breaking... it is stargates that require a bunch of restrictions in order to prevent them from breaking the game, not normal travel.
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And what possibilities open up compared to stargates?

 

And how do stargates break the game more?

Give them a more or less hard range limitation and maybe some spool up time when opening up the connection.

Doesnt need different forms of interactions nor different illogical sensor rules compared to normal flight.

 

And i just can place a ship a bit outside a star system and monitor everything in it with your weird only-long-distance sensors.

(hell! how would those make sense? >.> )

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You could say that, a certain type of long range sensor doesn't work inside a solar system, because the solar wind produces too much interference. 

 

As for free-form travel, my question is: Why? The system that's in place is already quite good. If I so choose, I can build a base off in deep space, and stage operations from there, and I know it can't be too far from the enemy or the travel time will be debilitating. Mind, travel time is something one must plan, when considering everything. If it's near instant, you're just reducing immersion from the game, in my opinion.

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And what possibilities open up compared to stargates?

And how do stargates break the game more?

Give them a more or less hard range limitation and maybe some spool up time when opening up the connection.

Doesnt need different forms of interactions nor different illogical sensor rules compared to normal flight.

And i just can place a ship a bit outside a star system and monitor everything in it with your weird only-long-distance sensors.

(hell! how would those make sense? >.> )

Epic journeys through space with entire communities of players traveling together and experiencing the universe? Just to name one.

 

Stargates are a superweapon. You can't seriously think they're simple to implement. They have to be extremely difficult to build in order to stop them from being game breaking. That difficulty has to involve multiple game mechanics and be fairly complex. There also needs to be some way to stop warfare revolving entirely around them. That is not an easy problem to solve. I'm not saying stargates shouldn't be in the game. On the contrary, I think they're necessary, but they need to be a piece of the puzzle, not the whole thing.

 

"Different forms of interactions"? Different forms of interactions are a good thing, not bad, but I don't get what interactions you're referring to.

 

Regarding sensors, my point was it's an easy issue to solve. But they can easily make sense with a suitable lore explanation. Another idea is to have longer range sensors have a decreased resolution and so can't detect ships that are near stars.

 

You could say that, a certain type of long range sensor doesn't work inside a solar system, because the solar wind produces too much interference. 

 

As for free-form travel, my question is: Why? The system that's in place is already quite good. If I so choose, I can build a base off in deep space, and stage operations from there, and I know it can't be too far from the enemy or the travel time will be debilitating. Mind, travel time is something one must plan, when considering everything. If it's near instant, you're just reducing immersion from the game, in my opinion.

No one is more strongly against instant travel than me. I've never once said that I want instant travel. In fact the instantaneous nature of stargates doesn't sit well with me, but I understand that it is a necessary evil. I'm only speaking against the idea that stargates should be the only form of interstellar travel, and I'm not convinced about stargate probes. I think it would be better if the journeys were made by real players. But I've explained this idea at least twice before. As long as that is at least a viable option in the game I'll be happy. Which hopefully it will be. If DU is a continuous single shard universe then there won't be anything stopping you from traveling between systems normally. The only question is whether the journeys are eventful and can provide interesting cooperative gameplay.
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For effective deep space interdiction you need sensors with light hours to light months or even years.

But for in system gameplay you definitely dont want sensors that can keep an eye over the whole system on its own.

Same for FTL disruptors and the like.

 

 

I personally dont see a way to reconcile one of those problems without completely breaking the other thing.

 

I agree that the choice you outlined exists. I suggest we do break something: deep space interdiction. There's really no need. And if you did want it, there's other solutions with a "normal" sized sensor range.

 

The other thing that is very much unknown at this point is sensors. What kind of information will sensors give? Will there be different sensors for different things? Will there be different ranges for sensing different things?

 

 

There's already a limit on freedom of movement. DU is supposed to be focused on emergent, cooperative gameplay. In accordance, FTL speeds are extremely slow relative to the scale of interstellar distances. There's no reason to go out into nothing, except on the rare occasion of a probe (but that's unmanned anyway) since there's literally nothing out there that is reachable in a reasonable amount of time.

 

There may be those who want to break from that mold, but they shouldn't be punished with artificial limits. The core idea of the game is what will limit them.

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I agree that the choice you outlined exists. I suggest we do break something: deep space interdiction. There's really no need. And if you did want it, there's other solutions with a "normal" sized sensor range.

I agree it exists, but that it's trivial. However, I think you're right that there isn't really any need to have sensors/interdictions at interstellar ranges anyway.

 

There's already a limit on freedom of movement. DU is supposed to be focused on emergent, cooperative gameplay. In accordance, FTL speeds are extremely slow relative to the scale of interstellar distances. There's no reason to go out into nothing, except on the rare occasion of a probe (but that's unmanned anyway) since there's literally nothing out there that is reachable in a reasonable amount of time.

 

There may be those who want to break from that mold, but they shouldn't be punished with artificial limits. The core idea of the game is what will limit them.

I agree with all of that except there shouldn't be literally nothing out there. There's lots of potential for things to be out there.
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Epic journeys through space with entire communities of players traveling together and experiencing the universe? Just to name one.

 

aaaand that doesnt work with instant jumping/ stargates .... how?

 

build a jump capable ship, follow the wake of jump probes and build gates in the systems which are interesting for other people as well or where some leave the ship to stay in the system.

 

 

Stargates are a superweapon. You can't seriously think they're simple to implement. They have to be extremely difficult to build in order to stop them from being game breaking. That difficulty has to involve multiple game mechanics and be fairly complex. There also needs to be some way to stop warfare revolving entirely around them. That is not an easy problem to solve. I'm not saying stargates shouldn't be in the game. On the contrary, I think they're necessary, but they need to be a piece of the puzzle, not the whole thing.

 

first: they are going to be in the game so there is no point arguing if they are easier to implement than something else.

they already have to be balanced.

 

second: stargates have much less ways of breaking the whole strategic game than go-anywhere-from-anywhere FTL drives.

with stargates you have limited ways to get somewhere, instead of being able to walk around any kind of defenses but the ones at the installation you are attacking.

why should i stop somewhere but my intended target?

gives the attacker huuuuuuge advantages in terms of target choice and (strategic) focus fire ability.

with basically no way for the defender to be there in time unless they are in range before the strike, which would be a bad intel situation for the attacker and not planning on the defender side.

 

without the "strike anywhere" capability of freeform FTL drives the universe loses its "war anywhere anytime" characteristic which gives /stability/ to the world which is protected by the ones who fight for the players who arent involved in fighting (yet).

giving players the peace they need for actually building cool stuff instead of having something thats worse than EVE nullsec everywhere.

 

 

 

 

"Different forms of interactions"? Different forms of interactions are a good thing, not bad, but I don't get what interactions you're referring to.

 

Regarding sensors, my point was it's an easy issue to solve. But they can easily make sense with a suitable lore explanation. Another idea is to have longer range sensors have a decreased resolution and so can't detect ships that are near stars.

 

 

my point is that NQ would basically have to replicate any sensor and movement impairment capabilities that are likely to be in the game for interstellar engagement.

but with completely different balancing constraints (and logical inconsistencies if done as you suggest...)

doubling balancing and game design work for those elements for not much extra gain over discrete jump mechanics.

focus instead on the gameplay that concerns /everyone/ not only the people that avoid Stargates.

 

 

I agree that the choice you outlined exists. I suggest we do break something: deep space interdiction. There's really no need. And if you did want it, there's other solutions with a "normal" sized sensor range.

 

 

the guy with the FTL drive who wants to stomp your mining facilities agrees.

theres definitely no need for deep space interdiction that could keep him from jumping on top of your factilities and nuking them out of existence and jumping out of the system again before you can react.

 

[sarcasm]sounds like a very balanced and fun approach for everyone[/sarcasm]

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aaaand that doesnt work with instant jumping/ stargates .... how?
 
build a jump capable ship, follow the wake of jump probes and build gates in the systems which are interesting for other people as well or where some leave the ship to stay in the system.

 

I'm talking about a real voyage through space that takes time.  Instant jumping/stargates is just teleporting, where's the journey?
 
It sounds like you're now advocating for jump drives on ships... that seems to go against everything you've said until now.
 
stargates have much less ways of breaking the whole strategic game than go-anywhere-from-anywhere FTL drives.
with stargates you have limited ways to get somewhere, instead of being able to walk around any kind of defenses but the ones at the installation you are attacking.
why should i stop somewhere but my intended target?
gives the attacker huuuuuuge advantages in terms of target choice and (strategic) focus fire ability.
with basically no way for the defender to be there in time unless they are in range before the strike, which would be a bad intel situation for the attacker and not planning on the defender side.
 
without the "strike anywhere" capability of freeform FTL drives the universe loses its "war anywhere anytime" characteristic which gives /stability/ to the world which is protected by the ones who fight for the players who arent involved in fighting (yet).
giving players the peace they need for actually building cool stuff instead of having something thats worse than EVE nullsec everywhere.
 

I'm not talking about instant jump drives, I'm talking about the same FTL that is used for interplanetary travel where it takes weeks or even months to go from one system to another.  On the occasions where it's actually used to launch an attack it would be a massive and risky undertaking, and it would still be relatively easy for the system owners to see it coming once the enemy fleet enters the solar system.  We're still talking about an hour to get from the edge of a system to its centre, depending on its size.  If the defenders also have some small outposts on the outskirts of the system they can give themselves even more time.  And I'm also talking about interceptible FTL, so enemy ships can be intercepted before they reach their targets.

 

But let's consider stargates in this scenario.  You're talking about an alliance that has colonised/claimed an entire solar system, right?  Assuming this happens at some point (presumably years after launch), that alliance will have control over all stargates in the system.  An enemy wouldn't be able to use stargates to get into the system anyway.  The only way an enemy could get in would be to send their own stargate probe, which could be sent to anywhere of their choosing.  Once it arrives, instead of jumping through equipment to build a stargate, they jump a fleet through.  In this scenario they've bypassed the defenses and can attack in the same way as I describe above, except without the difficult journey.  A smart commander might send several probes so that they can attack from different angles and guard against the possibility of some probes being spotted and destroyed before they reach their destination.  This pretty much ruins your entire argument.

 

However there's an elephant in the room here.  We're talking as though single organisations will control entire solar systems.  That seems really unlikely to happen within any reasonable time frame.  Have you seen the size of individual planets?  Tens of thousands of hexes, hundreds of thousands of square kilometres, quadrillions of voxels.  I don't see any single organisation controlling even a single planet, let alone a whole solar system.  Wars are more likely to occur between organisations living on the same planets and the same solar systems.

 

EDIT:

 

the guy with the FTL drive who wants to stomp your mining facilities agrees.

theres definitely no need for deep space interdiction that could keep him from jumping on top of your factilities and nuking them out of existence and jumping out of the system again before you can react.

 

[sarcasm]sounds like a very balanced and fun approach for everyone[/sarcasm]

 

 

Missed this bit.  Again, we're not talking about any different kind of travel.  Just the same "normal" FTL that would be used for interplanetary travel.

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I'm talking about a real voyage through space that takes time.  Instant jumping/stargates is just teleporting, where's the journey?

 
It sounds like you're now advocating for jump drives on ships... that seems to go against everything you've said until now.

 

 

"you cant possibly enjoy this camping trip without the six hour car travel to our camping location!"

:rolleyes:

 

 

and i dont say that jumpdrives are bad, i say that freeform drives without any limitations on arrival point are bad.

 

when you can fly around without any limitations (and you explicitly said it doesnt need limitations....) every semblance of strategy goes out the window.

 

 

 

But let's consider stargates in this scenario.  You're talking about an alliance that has colonised/claimed an entire solar system, right?  Assuming this happens at some point (presumably years after launch), that alliance will have control over all stargates in the system.  An enemy wouldn't be able to use stargates to get into the system anyway.  The only way an enemy could get in would be to send their own stargate probe, which could be sent to anywhere of their choosing.  Once it arrives, instead of jumping through equipment to build a stargate, they jump a fleet through.  In this scenario they've bypassed the defenses and can attack in the same way as I describe above, except without the difficult journey.  A smart commander might send several probes so that they can attack from different angles and guard against the possibility of some probes being spotted and destroyed before they reach their destination.  This pretty much ruins your entire argument.

 

with the difference that having to get something thats interceptable to the target before you can jump in your whole fleet changes the whole game.

 

its not "suddenly, fleet" its a possible entryway for the fleet you can plug without having to engage the attacking combat fleet with a more-than-equal defense fleet.

shifting some of the advantage back to the defender, leading to more stability for the non-fighting population.

 

 

other pretty simple additions could be spool up and spool down times for any variation of jumpgate/drive tech.

the stargate probes are lighting up for a while until they are ready to be used (preferrably with some time of standstill)

and jumpgates couldnt just be switched off when someone you dont like comes in sight, but have to be slowly wound down during which the wormhole/whatever connection stays active.

 

 

and what "interceptable" FTL? you said yourself that that is not needed :P

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