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Stargate econ?


Daphne Jones

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Some musing on stargates brings up some questions:

 

Will the builder of a stargate be able to charge a toll for its use? If not, how would they amortize the cost?

 

Will a stargate have a (digital) key, so only authorized users can use it? Will the owner have to have an armada patrolling to stop unauthorized use?

 

If I send a probe from Earth to Mars (or other pair of planets in the same system) will I be able to build a stargate between them? This could be very profitable for fast, easy trade if a use fee can be charged. Or is there a one stargate per system limit?

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Some musing on stargates brings up some questions:

 

Will the builder of a stargate be able to charge a toll for its use? If not, how would they amortize the cost?

 

Will a stargate have a (digital) key, so only authorized users can use it? Will the owner have to have an armada patrolling to stop unauthorized use?

 

If I send a probe from Earth to Mars (or other pair of planets in the same system) will I be able to build a stargate between them? This could be very profitable for fast, easy trade if a use fee can be charged. Or is there a one stargate per system limit?

Great questions !!!

 

I'm thinking about the customization of the portal too, to differentiate an allied and an enemy portals.

 

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Well it would definitely have elements that make up the threshold, and I would imagine there would be tolls or no tolls based on the organization that constructed it. Some stargates may require no fee, but require your ship to be scanned; on the other hand, there could be another gate in the same system that has a fee, but won't scan your ship. Also its safe to say, in any case they will be full of advertisements.

 

Other gates could be private and be hidden for use by only those who constructed it, the question then would become, could someone hack a enemy stargate to get an active wormhole?

 

As for there construction imagine some very large elements that make up the gate and require a lot of power or special fuel to run, these elements are placed on a construct, any construct including, Stations, capital ships, maybe even on planets depending on what technologies it is made of. 

 

Another question is will they behave as if you cross the threshold you go through the gate, or more eve like approach where you simply go near it and jump. Preferable crossing the threshold of any active gate will take you, regardless of permissions. That way to manage tolls people would have shields over them or simply would not activate them until the toll is paid.

 

Well that was a long rambling of ideas, hope something in there makes sense.

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With the RDMS system it should be capable of handling most cases. You can assign the right to use to all your friends and not your enemies. Depending on what kind of trade system we get, we could have the ability to trade that right for some cash. Perhaps the right could be temporary, making it closer to a toll. Perhaps the trade could involve regular payments, making it more like renting.

 

As far as hacking, we'll have to wait and see.

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I just went and read the [post=272] RDMS DevBlog[/post] and it's a very complete system - at set of rights is actual an object that we can build. It can be given to other players and it can be revoked... so yes, selling permission to use your stargate for a week or whatever should be possible.

 

Edit: Oh well, that link looks horrible but it works, lol.

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I think it will be interesting to see how stargates work. I also wonder if each stargate can only go to one other stargate or if there is a limit to how many stargates can be put in a system. Say for instance a group builds some stargates to get a bit away from everyone else and creates a "capital" system. Could they then build 20+ stargates connecting that system to as many others as they please? Or would there perhaps be a range limit, so you can only connect to systems in range?

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I think it will be interesting to see how stargates work. I also wonder if each stargate can only go to one other stargate or if there is a limit to how many stargates can be put in a system. Say for instance a group builds some stargates to get a bit away from everyone else and creates a "capital" system. Could they then build 20+ stargates connecting that system to as many others as they please? Or would there perhaps be a range limit, so you can only connect to systems in range?

 

I read somewhere (AMA thread probably) that a stargate will be able to access any other gate in range. So the limit will be range.

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I am not a fan of star gates personally. They almost negate the requirement for a ship

Stargates as in the movie and TV shows definitely make ships unnecessary, but my impression is that DU stargates will be in space, not on planetary surfaces. Is that correct?

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Stargates would be fantastic. However, only if there were a handful of them in the universe. I suppose later NQ could make a nice story about a network of long abandoned alien stargates but for now, the initial construction and operation cost should be so expensive that it makes stargates they type of construct that only the most powerful of corporations can build (or take by force for themselves). Ensuring that stargates are incredibly rare means that they are also incredibly valuable. They will be universal points of interest for those willing to pay the toll in hopes of finding their fortune in a new frontier and perhaps for those larger corporations who would dare to try and take the stargate for themselves.

I like the idea of a large fixed gate on one end and a smaller semi-portable gate on the other. When a planet's natural resources have been depleted of the smaller stargate could be relocated (perhaps this is when a rival corporation could strike) or perhaps chained to another to expand the network. There is a sci-fi novel called Pandora's Star that in part deals with this idea. It's well worth a read if you are into space operas.

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Stargates would be fantastic. However, only if there were a handful of them in the universe. I suppose later NQ could make a nice story about a network of long abandoned alien stargates but for now, the initial construction and operation cost should be so expensive that it makes stargates they type of construct that only the most powerful of corporations can build (or take by force for themselves). Ensuring that stargates are incredibly rare means that they are also incredibly valuable. They will be universal points of interest for those willing to pay the toll in hopes of finding their fortune in a new frontier and perhaps for those larger corporations who would dare to try and take the stargate for themselves.

 

I like the idea of a large fixed gate on one end and a smaller semi-portable gate on the other. When a planet's natural resources have been depleted of the smaller stargate could be relocated (perhaps this is when a rival corporation could strike) or perhaps chained to another to expand the network. There is a sci-fi novel called Pandora's Star that in part deals with this idea. It's well worth a read if you are into space operas.

I agree. Though it should be possible to have a secret gate. And the number of gates shouldn't be fixed and known from the players as it will make secret gates less relevant. Gates should also be destructible.

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I like the way stargates are handled in DU.

 

The only thing I fear will happen is to see a few big orgs controlling them at the start. Eventually I expect a public stargate to emerge because it will make sense economically.

 

But in the beginning?

We are in for a wild ride. ;)

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I agree. Though it should be possible to have a secret gate. And the number of gates shouldn't be fixed and known from the players as it will make secret gates less relevant. Gates should also be destructible.

Yes, secret gates would be cool. Perhaps there could be some way to scan and detect massive power signatures but also some way to mask them.

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I like the way stargates are handled in DU.

 

The only thing I fear will happen is to see a few big orgs controlling them at the start. Eventually I expect a public stargate to emerge because it will make sense economically.

 

But in the beginning?

We are in for a wild ride. ;)

Hence my idea of a long abandoned alien network of gates. Human gates could be moved, chained, captured or destroyed but these alien gates just do their own thing and are impervious to human technology. Again, I have another sci-fi reference. This idea of human discovering a network of alien gates (strictly speaking it was automated pods that go through a gate) was covered in the book Gateway - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_(novel)

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Yes, secret gates would be cool. Perhaps there could be some way to scan and detect massive power signatures but also some way to mask them.

Oh yes, yet again, ephemeral gates would be a little bit cheated in this case, or they should leave an energy mark for some hours, but still OP.

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I think it would be cool to have a couple "classes" of stargates, like in the TV series Stargate SG1 and Stargate to Atlantis. A "normal" gate that only relatively small ships could fit through, ( like the "puddlejumpers" from Atlantis,) and then a Supergate that could handle transporting entire mother-ships.

 

The advantage would be that the smaller gates would be less expensive to build and use less power, and could even be portable. But, they would have much less range than a Supergate. Maybe they would also require a "cooldown" after each jump.

 

That would really open up some possibilities for back-door sabatoge by an enemy, since they could build a small, unobtrusive gate behind a moon or such, and send ships through every now and then to spy or strategically harrass their opponent. This is kind of like the secret gates that were discussed earlier, and would be detectable when they came online and for a short period after they shut down.

 

Also, it would be neat if they incorporated a "dialing sequence" (again; Stargate SG1/Atlantis,). Especially if they incorporated the "alien" gates, they should have a different dialing sequence/operation than a human-built gate.

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I think for the moment, the simple answer is that nobody knows yet DaphneJones. Stargates are a gray area as they are a long way off on the roadmap, and rightly so because of how long it will take the community to be able to construct even 1 (suggested over 1 month upon acquiring all tech and resources relevant by sending a probe out to reach the construction site). Now there have been a lot of problems in other games of what is called "Bottle Necking" whereby you can effectively set up a blockade on the gate's entrance to destroy all ships trying to pass through. A  problem if say you built your gate, and a faction wanted to grief you and stop anyone including yourself from being able to use it. To combat this it has been suggested that the gates will have a large radius around them that you can activate the jump ability so that is extremely difficult to do this. Because of this feature AccuNut I do not think that gate classes will be relevant as the size of the gates eventhorizen would no longer be relevant to a ship's ability to enter a wormhole. The ship would need to be in range to activate the stargate and would be warped from their location. Of course, however, if this is something the community would want it could become a reality that each gate class allows bigger ships and as such, each class is more expensive to build. Novaqaurk has said they will listen to the community and implement things there is a genuine demand for.

 

Delving a little more into the games mechanics, we should remember that this server technology works better when players are closer together. As such although Novaquark has essentially given us an infinite universe, they are making it difficult for us to explore out as they want to keep the community together, as well as providing a real reward for those who wish to explore.

I think a lot of very interesting points are made about stargates, and I think it is something the community should really come together to discuss. I would personally like to see stargates owned by players that can only be used by the tagging permission. But I do think we need to consider a scenario whereby; player A builds a gate to a new world that is heavily used by everyone and one day cuts the gate off or the gate is destroyed so no one can return through it. All players on the other side cannot build gates and are now cut off from all markets, their safe zone resources, ships and most of their precious items they felt to valuable to leave outside of the safe zone. Devs would have to physically intervene to effectively teleport all players back, which is a hassle to them.

 

In this scenario perhaps having 2 forms of gates to build, personal gates that can have tags and permissions set. Once a player travels through the gate they cannot have permission removed to make the return journey even if said gate is destroyed. As well as community gates that are cheaper, indestructible and are useable by everyone. There is a lot to consider and think about with these things and it is never as simple as it may first appear. As cool as ideas may be and as much as we may want to see them, we do have to think outside the box and take all things into account.

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I just hope that star gates are not the required method of a ship travelling to a new system. If all traffic is routed through a fixed point it will lead to easy ambushes. I am usually a bit of a solo player in just about every game I play, it certainly takes me longer to reach milestones but I like the freedom of it. If I am forced to gate to specific systems it will make it difficult to hide. I am a huge fan of the X serries having played all but the latest "rebirth" iteration and those gates worked well in a single player scenario. However I employed a strategy of using the gates as an ambush point against many an enemy ship and became very rich doing it. With an MMO scenario it would become a pointless excercise trying to solo

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I just hope that star gates are not the required method of a ship travelling to a new system.

You could go via FTL. If you have the resources for a week-long trip just to get to the next system over. Stargates are intended to be the best method of travel for interstellar communications.

 

If all traffic is routed through a fixed point it will lead to easy ambushes.

NQ have said that to prevent this, the gates will have large radii to jump into/out to. And of course, if you want to stay completely safe, stick to the civilised systems where the stargates will have patrols. If you're going out into nullspace, one should expect to have to potentially defend themselves from pirates or hostiles.

 

The gates also aren't directly linked. They work more like the Stargates of SG1, where you simply have to dial to another system within a certain distance.

 

With an MMO scenario it would become a pointless excercise trying to solo

Are you really surprised that an MMO will require a ton of teamwork to be able to get anything worthwhile done?

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