Hyperdrive for interplanetary travel

[Guest Tom]

I think it would be nice if you didn't have to use jump gates in the same system (You would still use wormholes to get for interstellar travel). All the areas would still be segmented, but maybe you could get from, say, earth to Jupiter using you hyperdrive without having to go through the jump gate. You would select Jupiter from the nav map but instead of going to the jump point to jupiter, you would fire up your hyperdrive and go there directly. The effects would be the same as jump points, you won't be able to see or do anything to Earth from Jupiter so you would still only need to update on region at a time. I think it might make navigation a bit easier.

Also, I think it would be nice if you could get more upgrades for you BC, like you main IOD laser array and turrets could be upgraded, without having to find the artifact.

Oh, and one more thing, I think it would help alot if you could compress time by more than 4x (up to maybe 16x or 32x), it would make waiting for the mission to end, or waiting for mining drones to collect their minerals, a lot less tedious. I know doing this will need a lot of processer speed, so maybe you can only use the higher time compression factors when there are no enemy ships in the area and no battles going on.

[This message has been edited by Tom (edited 01-03-99).]

[Guest David Sanftenberg]

That reminds me of my time honored tradition of deploying mining drones, launching an interceptor, firing on my BC with its shields down, then getting free repairs from Galcom which eat up time.

That brings up an alternate suggestion: A limit to how many repairs you can get for free per day from the Galcom station. As it is now, what's to stop someone from bashing their BC into a planet for fun and getting free repairs?

[Supreme Cmdr]

Tom, read all the messages in this forum and you will see why the galaxy will remain segmented.

[Pandora]

>A limit to how many repairs you can get for free per day from the Galcom station.

>As it is now, what's to stop someone from bashing their BC into a planet for

>fun and getting free repairs?

Lowering the shields and ramming the BC into a SS is the fastest way to create some damage. Shooting it with an IC is a close second.

There *is* a deterrant, however. Sometimes you lose a section of the ship (OOPS) and all crew in it.

You can hire new ones but you can't replace their o-the-job training.

AI levels are a rare enough commodity since you can't buy them. <g>

Pan,

Lead Tester BC3000AD

writing at 14:44 Bavarian Time (GMT+1) on 4 Jan 99

[Guest SkNova]

I think Tom meant the galaxy would still be segmented but you would have a Hyperdrive to go to other planets, use Impulse or something to go around the planetary area quick.

[Guest]

So what is really the difference? Having to jump out to a Jump Gate and then maneuver towards it, with the possiblity of being under fire, adds a little more spice to the game than simply leaving the station and engaging a jump drive to your chosen location, doesn't it? All the suggestion would do would remove jump gates.

DeSylva.

[Guest Lucas]

If the jumpgates were removed and a "jump engine" or something like that put in, (just for the sake of discussion) you couldn't mine the areas around the jump gates. Hostiles could just pop in anytime, anywhere. Personally I don't much care for that idea... <*shudder*> Of course you could do the same I suppose... but good grief, what would you use instead of the patrol order that tells your cruiser to visit every jump point in the region, so that it keeps moving and lets you command wars from TacOps? You would need some kind of "Fly around randomly" order. And then where would you come out in the next region? Either you would have no idea, (and could pop in right next to an enemy ODS/SS/etc) or there would need to be some way of setting the spot that you wanted to come out in. How would you keep navigation straight? You wouldn't be able to block an area off by blockading a jump gate, enemies would just appear at the far side of the area, run until their "jump engines" charged, and then take off again! Blockading an area would be a big PITA proposal or else just impossible.

Ok, that's enough yaking and answering my own questions for now I guess.

[Guest IDxRogue Master]

Good point about mines and stuff but thats realtime realspace warfare for ya.

also traditional Hyperspace travel thought assumes the computer senses the presence of obstacles in jump path before it leaves hyperspace even in wormholes just watch startrek movies and recall a scene where the enterprise has to make an emergency warp jump abort when an asteroid is detected mid jump in the Wormhole. such is the dangerof Infrspace travel. but argueing for the Gatesis the same school of thought that hyperdrives in starwars use well charted jump paths to avoid this phenomena and also require clear paths(away from gravity wells and collision courses with other vessels when entering hyperspace,plus a varying (by ships engine factor)hyperdrive charge time and acceleration "run".to reach hyperspeed.all of these factors plus the fact that ships without hyperdrives could use them for interstellar travel make jumpgates a commodity!Even still I vote(although appearantly there is no vote.) FreeSpace jumps waybe with Jump anomaly randomprobability fields as compromise for the Strategic factores Mining etc(wich would actually make things a bit more fair for attackers(giving them a 1-# chance of not smacking into a defense cluster),and also heavy extra strain/collisionrisks on Engines not using jumpgates and well charted jump paths,core shutdowns and navigation fauxpas for forced Hyperspeed abortions.just a wish fellas.One I'll be happy to (try to)fulfill in my on future projects.(godwilling)