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


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The Stargates could be implemented for massive transit for people who don't own a probe. I mean, you built the road, you profit from the tolls people pay. And if you piss off te wrong people, they might come looking for your turf.

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@Cavadus

 

I can sympathise with your position but without stargates it will be hard not to have a divided player base. Either you make interstellar travel fast, and then players spread out to hundreds of systems, or you make it really slow, and people rarely travel between systems.

 

If you have really slow initial travel to new star systems, but then some means of connecting those systems for fast travel, then you have the beginnings of a solution to that problem.

 

Then you need to solve the problem of that initial slow travel to new systems. Personally I would prefer to make interstellar space filled with content so that there's a reason to be in between systems. That way it can still take weeks or months to get to a new system without making the journey empty.

 

I think if you limit stargate capabilities and range, and also make them destructible then it's not such a big problem.

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@Cavadus

 

I can sympathise with your position but without stargates it will be hard not to have a divided player base. Either you make interstellar travel fast, and then players spread out to hundreds of systems, or you make it really slow, and people rarely travel between systems.

 

If you have really slow initial travel to new star systems, but then some means of connecting those systems for fast travel, then you have the beginnings of a solution to that problem.

 

Then you need to solve the problem of that initial slow travel to new systems. Personally I would prefer to make interstellar space filled with content so that there's a reason to be in between systems. That way it can still take weeks or months to get to a new system without making the journey empty.

 

I think if you limit stargate capabilities and range, and also make them destructible then it's not such a big problem.

 

Let's suppose that when a player log off, the character disappear. You're moving only if you're online. That would take way more than a probe automatically moving 24h/24. So you'd need some sort of "bed" so that you have the option, to mantain your character ingame, even when you're offline. In that case, you could setup some sort of autopilot. This means that you could check that character once a day, while traveling for 1-2 months, while still playing on another character, doing whatever you want in the meantime. This would reduce the boring aspect of exploration.

 

Still, a big part of the time required, could be just about getting closer to the outer orbit of the star of your system, so you'd dock on those, and in this way you'd have something to do (acquiring resources, informations, equipment, ....) (you may even sign a transport contract to move something to some planet on the edge of the system, and then you could modify your ship for a couple of days, and then start the trip). That could be the contents you're asking for. Then, not every system should be 2 months of travel away, it depends on the size of the system, that depends on the size of the star. Some may be just 2 weeks away. You'd need a better ship, equipment and technologies to travel for longer periods.

 

Ofc stuff like "having to stop the ship and dispatch your solar panel to recharge some energy", "being able to design stuff in the virtual simulator, that you can reach from your ship", "having the chance to find precious materials in some asteroids in the deep space" or stuff like that, could give the player something to do in the meanwhile

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Then, not every system should be 2 months of travel away, it depends on the size of the system, that depends on the size of the star. Some may be just 2 weeks away.

how would the size of the system you start from significantly influence your travel time? 0.o

 

pluto is pretty far out the solar system, at a distance where sol looks like any other star and thats mere 8 light /hours/ out.

the closest solar system to sol is 4.5 light /years/ out.

thats a factor 5000.

 

if the solar system you are starting from is larger or smaller doesnt have much of an influence on travel time.

especially as the distance doesnt change if you are starting from a distant orbit or a closer orbit :P

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Let's suppose that when a player log off, the character disappear. You're moving only if you're online. That would take way more than a probe automatically moving 24h/24. So you'd need some sort of "bed" so that you have the option, to mantain your character ingame, even when you're offline. In that case, you could setup some sort of autopilot. This means that you could check that character once a day, while traveling for 1-2 months, while still playing on another character, doing whatever you want in the meantime. This would reduce the boring aspect of exploration.

 

Still, a big part of the time required, could be just about getting closer to the outer orbit of the star of your system, so you'd dock on those, and in this way you'd have something to do (acquiring resources, informations, equipment, ....) (you may even sign a transport contract to move something to some planet on the edge of the system, and then you could modify your ship for a couple of days, and then start the trip). That could be the contents you're asking for. Then, not every system should be 2 months of travel away, it depends on the size of the system, that depends on the size of the star. Some may be just 2 weeks away. You'd need a better ship, equipment and technologies to travel for longer periods.

 

Ofc stuff like "having to stop the ship and dispatch your solar panel to recharge some energy", "being able to design stuff in the virtual simulator, that you can reach from your ship", "having the chance to find precious materials in some asteroids in the deep space" or stuff like that, could give the player something to do in the meanwhile

To your first paragraph, that's not really gameplay, it's not much different from a probe.

 

But the rest of your post has good suggestions. I mean I think the journey to the outer solar system is really only a fraction of the total journey time, but still this kind of preparation could be interesting.

 

Your last paragraph is more what I'm thinking of. Running the ship, maintaining and improving survival aspects, building in the simulator and finding rogue planets and asteroid belts. Even better would be if they are significant enough that you can actually settle right there in deep space. In this way you could have various strategies for exploring deep space - living off the "land" vs taking everything but the kitchen sink and a large multi-timezone population, etc.

 

And yes, I totally agree that journeys could be of variable length and longer journeys would require a better strategy. If there are rogue planets some journeys could be really short - say just a couple of days or even hours - if you get lucky and find one not too far away. Obviously that wouldn't be as grand a prize as a whole solar system, but it is a stepping stone towards that goal.

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how would the size of the system you start from significantly influence your travel time? 0.o

 

pluto is pretty far out the solar system, at a distance where sol looks like any other star and thats mere 8 light /hours/ out.

the closest solar system to sol is 4.5 light /years/ out.

thats a factor 5000.

 

if the solar system you are starting from is larger or smaller doesnt have much of an influence on travel time.

especially as the distance doesnt change if you are starting from a distant orbit or a closer orbit :P

^----- what Cornflakes The Science-Bakes said.

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To my shame i have to say that i got my numbers wrong, its 5.4 light hours and a factor 7000 xD

Well Pluto has a highly elliptical orbit so it actually ranges between 4.1 light-hours and 6.8 light hours. However Pluto's not actually a planet. The furthest planet is Neptune, which is about 4.2 light hours from the sun. Proxima Centauri about 4.25 light years from earth.

 

Anyway that's all kind of irrelevant because the order of magnitude was correct which is the only thing that matters for the purpose of illustrating your point. You seemed to want accurate numbers though so I helped :)

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Well Pluto has a highly elliptical orbit so it actually ranges between 4.1 light-hours and 6.8 light hours. However Pluto's not actually a planet. The furthest planet is Neptune, which is about 4.2 light hours from the sun. Proxima Centauri about 4.25 light years from earth.

 

Anyway that's all kind of irrelevant because the order of magnitude was correct which is the only thing that matters for the purpose of illustrating your point. You seemed to want accurate numbers though so I helped :)

For Pluto i used the median which is according to wikipedia ~5.4 and wiki told me 4.34ly for proxima.

:shrug:

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I think the devs have a good plan for how this is going to work. If we made it a matter of hours to get to any star system, then all the pve style players would jet off to some remote system nobody goes to, so they could build in piece...

 

That will never happen. Players will keep exploring and colonizing for quite a while at good speed, like 2-3 years from release. Even if a pve player could manage to get there first, someone is gonna find him soon. To avoid players the ony option is to constantly escape. 

After a few years, the colonizing aspect of the game could slow down, because the game could reach hsi top population, and there'll be enough planets for everyone. In this case a pve player could try to setup a base in a unpopulated system, someone will still find him, but maybe in a year. 

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That will never happen. Players will keep exploring and colonizing for quite a while at good speed, like 2-3 years from release. Even if a pve player could manage to get there first, someone is gonna find him soon. To avoid players the ony option is to constantly escape.

After a few years, the colonizing aspect of the game could slow down, because the game could reach hsi top population, and there'll be enough planets for everyone. In this case a pve player could try to setup a base in a unpopulated system, someone will still find him, but maybe in a year.

 

The game universe had been described as "virtually limitless". And a single planet has literally trillions of voxels. If you can travel multiple light years per hour it would be easy to find a remote place where no one will ever find you by spending a few days traveling into the distance. Make it a couple of weeks of travel if you really really want to be sure you'll never be found. Then build your base on an insignificant planet underground. Chances are no one will ever visit your system, let alone find you.

 

Look at elite dangerous. Travel a couple of thousand light years out and virtually every system you come across had never been visited before.

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I think the devs have a good plan for how this is going to work. If we made it a matter of hours to get to any star system, then all the pve style players would jet off to some remote system nobody goes to, so they could build in piece...

Simple solution: gimme an instance of the server software and im not going to bother the community anymore :V

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Exploration will still take the same amount of time whether you use a stargate seed ship or a crewed exploration vessel. They still have to use some sort of slow, continuous FTL travel to get to where they want to go. The only difference is that once explored, the stargates allow immediate traversal to the furthest reaches of explored space.

 

It sounds like stargates do a better job of keeping a community connected rather than splitting it up. No matter where you are, the stargate can take you straight back to Alioth or nearby. Back to civilization. Back to a central trading hub.

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I'd personally scrap the freeform jumpdrive.

Stargates get you to your destination, with or without arrival gate (a lot harder without, though).

"Jumpdrives" (if available) can get you /to/ an already existing jumpgate without needing its (explicit) cooperation.

 

So you can get /to/ systems in range of a jumpgate with any kind of ship, from the smallest to the largest ones.

Getting back is harder because you either have to build a jumpgate on the other end or take a jumpdrive with you.

 

would allow relatively easy exploration while limiting the population spread and concentrating traffic to established hubs.

Also encouraging cooperation because gates will be expensive and the only way to get anywhere and getting back needs another gate or a jumpdrive enabled carrier

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I'd personally scrap the freeform jumpdrive.

Stargates get you to your destination, with or without arrival gate (a lot harder without, though).

"Jumpdrives" (if available) can get you /to/ an already existing jumpgate without needing its (explicit) cooperation.

 

So you can get /to/ systems in range of a jumpgate with any kind of ship, from the smallest to the largest ones.

Getting back is harder because you either have to build a jumpgate on the other end or take a jumpdrive with you.

 

would allow relatively easy exploration while limiting the population spread and concentrating traffic to established hubs.

Also encouraging cooperation because gates will be expensive and the only way to get anywhere and getting back needs another gate or a jumpdrive enabled carrier

 

I wonder, have you seen any of the Stargate series? Because in that series you do need a departure and an arrival gate. In the series, it's explained as being similar to telephones. You need a phone to dial out. You also need to dial another phone to get a connection. Anything else gets you a "this number does not exist" message. (in normal operation. Forget the exceptions)

 

Your explanation of a jump drive and jump gates is pretty similar to the stargate mechanic anyway.

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Exploration will still take the same amount of time whether you use a stargate seed ship or a crewed exploration vessel. They still have to use some sort of slow, continuous FTL travel to get to where they want to go. The only difference is that once explored, the stargates allow immediate traversal to the furthest reaches of explored space.

 

It sounds like stargates do a better job of keeping a community connected rather than splitting it up. No matter where you are, the stargate can take you straight back to Alioth or nearby. Back to civilization. Back to a central trading hub.

 

Exploration will take roughly the same amount of time whether using a probe or a crewed vessel, unless the crewed vessel has reasons to stop along the way.  A crewed vessel, once at their destination can then build a stargate, so that's not really a difference.  The real difference is that crewed vessels make for exciting gameplay, whereas probes are afk.  You send it on its way and do something else until it gets to its destination.

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I'd personally scrap the freeform jumpdrive.

Stargates get you to your destination, with or without arrival gate (a lot harder without, though).

"Jumpdrives" (if available) can get you /to/ an already existing jumpgate without needing its (explicit) cooperation.

 

So you can get /to/ systems in range of a jumpgate with any kind of ship, from the smallest to the largest ones.

Getting back is harder because you either have to build a jumpgate on the other end or take a jumpdrive with you.

 

would allow relatively easy exploration while limiting the population spread and concentrating traffic to established hubs.

Also encouraging cooperation because gates will be expensive and the only way to get anywhere and getting back needs another gate or a jumpdrive enabled carrier

 

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "scrap the freeform jumpdrive".  I didn't think anyone had suggested that... but then you go on to suggest a semi-freeform jumpdrive, unless I've misunderstood you.  I'm not really sure how you came to your conclusion of it helping keep people concentrated either.

 

All I will say is that when it comes to travel, exploration is not the only consideration.  Easy travel is the bane of strategic warfare.

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When it still aired with new episodes i breathed stargate, lol.

 

And i seem to have done a bad job explaining my idea.

 

There is no other way than the gates to get to other systems in my proposal.

A gate shoots you there and another one can shoot you back home.

There is no second gate required at all, it makes travel a lot easier if there are gates on both ends, though.

 

Not exactly similar to stargate

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@Cornflakes

 

Your jumpgate idea sounds like a really nice recipe for a lot of confused (and stranded!) new players. Not that I think that's a bad thing.

 

But really, why the hate on "freeform" easy travel?

 

My concern is for the solo players and small groups. These players will likely not have the resources to own their own Stargate network, which means their very ability to even access more than 99.99% of this game would be entirely at the whim of large wealthy player organizations. These large groups will be the ones setting the tolls and the tags and the hoops that every other player would be forced to jump through if they want to see more than the starter system.

 

That does not sound like fun to me.

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What I hope is that probes won't cost an arm and a leg to build, cause they could turn into space pinyatas if they destroyed crafts/probes are salvagable. They could however be a LUA script challenge, or a high-tech upgrade taking time to hit as a mark. But if they are a possible "treasure hunt", yeah, space pinyatas it is :P

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