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Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 3:32 pm
by jmercer
I guess I should have been more explicit. My "almost always" was primarily aimed at long distance starlanes with very short travel times. These would be rare and coveted. Make them a different colour to differentiate them from standard lanes but other than travel time, they function exactly like standard lanes.

I should check the reqs and docs, but if planetary efficiency is determined by the distance from the homeworld, then one of these structures with both endpoints inside your borders could give you a huge bonus to efficiency. If the endpoints are in two warring factions zones then they become a focus point of the war, a beachhead in each others territory. If the two factions are allies, this would effectively make the homeworlds closer together, perhaps increasing trade.

Since I seem to like making up potentially unfavourable ideas. What if these rare lanes have a lifespan? Say only X amount of tonnes can move through them before the dissipate? This turns them into an exhaustable resource. Do you allow your civilian trading fleet (which is abstracted away into the background) to use the lane and use it up quickly or do you mark it "military only." Perhaps these exhaustable lanes are random galactic events. All players are alerted that a lane will be forming in X turns, they are not told where. I might find one end in my territory so I had better move a fleet there in case the other end isn't friendly, or if it makes me too tempting a target to my ally.

Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 7:22 am
by skdiw
many of people ideas here have been brought up long time ago. in fact, ideas along with mine got so fancy that the map worked more like free space with analgous of "mountains and valleys," "tribal cache and indians," "impassable rivers and mineral rich oasis..." if i remember correctly, the basic conclusion was that we were going to leave those ideas for modders. right now i think we just want to get some framework done first. a couple fancy ideas might get in there eventually. don't forget that some brave commited soul got to code all these.

normally in discussion in non-tech threads, we don't mention techs that could potentially upset game rules. although sometimes we mention them so that FO has the framework to be modded to the player's liking later.

Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 7:33 pm
by marhawkman
jmercer wrote:Since I seem to like making up potentially unfavourable ideas. What if these rare lanes have a lifespan? Say only X amount of tonnes can move through them before the dissipate? This turns them into an exhaustable resource. Do you allow your civilian trading fleet (which is abstracted away into the background) to use the lane and use it up quickly or do you mark it "military only." Perhaps these exhaustable lanes are random galactic events. All players are alerted that a lane will be forming in X turns, they are not told where. I might find one end in my territory so I had better move a fleet there in case the other end isn't friendly, or if it makes me too tempting a target to my ally.
OOOhh.... I like that one.
eleazar wrote:So if it's undesirable for nearly all starlanes to have some sort of variability, it begs the question: Why is it necessary to have additional game rule, info panels, GUI conventions, documentation for something that rarely occurs, and the player won't expect?
Meh... It's not that hard. We could make it so "special" starlanes have an info box for this. The info box would show the "schedule". Although I'd make it a really simplistic one. Maybe just show how it oscilates between fast and slow. and show the extent of the oscilations.

Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 5:04 am
by SowerCleaver
A general question: are we using the same engine for starlane travel and STL combat? I would assume engines for these two activities should be different as stretch limo engine is different from dirt bike engine.

One simple way (excluding equating the two) is allowing two applications for each engine tech: Cruise (for starlane) and Burst (for combat).

Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 2:16 pm
by eleazar
SowerCleaver wrote:A general question: are we using the same engine for starlane travel and STL combat? I would assume engines for these two activities should be different as stretch limo engine is different from dirt bike engine.

One simple way (excluding equating the two) is allowing two applications for each engine tech: Cruise (for starlane) and Burst (for combat).
All that is yet to be determined 0.4 stuff.
Personally i agree, i like to see a distinction between the two types of engines, so i can build a scout (rapid starlane transit, lousy maneuvering in-system) or a planetary defense fleet (lousy starlane transit, great maneuverability) etc.

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:53 pm
by Aquitaine
I think it's important to take a general 'game design' stance on what you call something like this, rather than kill yourself over a proper name. What we refer to as an AU now might be referred to as a Cosmologkical Unit by the Spathi, a Astrokaleidopoic unit by the Klackons, and a Really Really Long Way by the British.

So I would say forget science and just call them light years or AUs even if they bear no actual resemblance to the scientifically accepted definitions of those things. The vast majority of players won't notice, and something like "Stellar Fathoms" is too specific and atmospheric -- it sounds too nuanced and forced and is the type of name a single race might call something space-related rather than what the Player/Emperor should be dealing with on a broad level.

Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 5:07 am
by eleazar
In regards to the previously discussed idea of variable speed starlanes:
Aquitane wrote:There are no 'faster/slower' starlanes as the system is currently spec'd out. Wormholes are instantaneous.

The faster/slower starlane issues came up on the old boards. While we liked the variety, we thought that it introduced one too many variables into the system -- if the starlanes themselves change how fast you travel and your engines change how fast you travel, that basically ended up with the player having no idea how fast any one journey would take until he actually went to do it, and that violates the KISS rule for marginal returns.