| Author |
Transit System |
Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
|  Posted: 2005-11-05 09:58
Reading over this...I LOVE IT! Though I have some suggestions.
I like the idea of the neutral gates being relics from some long-gone race, though I think they should not connect to any systems near a faction's home system, nor should they link immediately adjacent systems. They should be spread well apart, but all of them should be linked together, so that capturing a system on the neutral gate network becomes a strategic priority.
As for the transit system itself...I don't think it should be restricted to Cruisers on down; for Dreadnoughts and Stations to be really usefull they need to be able to reach the frontline. However, here's an idea: The transit gates have both a time-based and a resource-based limitation on how often they can be used.
Basically, a ship passing through the node makes the resources required for the next ship go up, and then decay with time. So a lot of ships passing through a node together (like a fleet on the move) would use up a massive amount of resources, but the same number of ships spread out over a couple hours' time would use far less overall.
For example, Player A passes through a Node with a Cruiser. No other ships have gone through before him, so the resource cost is pretty low. A minute later, Player B comes through with another Cruiser, and in order to pass through the same node right on the heels of another ship, he has to use up a lot more resources than Player A. Player C comes through five minutes after that, and while he too has to use more resources than Player A, he doesn't have to use nearly as many as Player B.
To discourage topheavy fleets, the resource costs would go up dramatically with ship size. A Frigate or Destroyer would only increase the cost a little bit, a Cruiser would increase it a moderate amount, a Dreadnought or a Station would incur a massive jump in cost. The time could scale too--a Frigate's cost increase fades after a minute, a Destroyer's after five minutes, a Cruiser's after ten, etc.
This way, indivual ships navigating the network don't drain many resources while things are quiet...but big fleet movements will take a massive bite out of your pocketbook. It also makes the neutral gates much more valuable, as they (being advanced ancient technology) would NOT require any resources to use, so you could move a massive fleet through them with zero cost to your faction.
Edit: Just thought of something--suppose a faction manages to build themselves a shipyard out on the edge of their transit network...but enemy forces then cut that shipyard off from the home system. Would players be able to build transit gates from that isolated system, or even spawn in its shipyard?
Oooh, that gives me another nifty idea. If the Metaverse is REALLY big, you could have a few natural wormholes that lead to extremely distant systems...possibly allowing one faction to "flank" another by building a seperate transit network on the other end of the wormhole. Heck, if the MV is that big you could have *multiple* neutral gate-networks, independent of one another...
Edit Again: As far as resources go, shipyards (both the home yard and the player-built ones) should have access to resources from all systems on the same transit network...except the percentage that they have access to decreases with distance, because the transports that would ferry the resources to them would have to use up extra resources just to get to the shipyard, decreasing the net amount that the shipyard actually has access to.
Just using numbers off the top of my head, say they have access to 100% of the resources in their own system, 50% in a neighboring system, 25% from two systems away, etc. This would also discourage people from building shipyards close together, as they would draw resources from the same systems, decreasing the percentages even further.
[ This Message was edited by: Jim Starluck on 2005-11-05 10:13 ]
_________________
If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger space battleship and try again.
|
Diabo|ik
Grand Admiral
Joined: August 16, 2002
Posts: 327
From: Quebec, Canada
| Posted: 2005-11-05 13:27
I love the idea of the cost going up as ships go through since more energy is expanded faster and needs to be generated faster explaining why it takes more ressources ( the system is less efficient as the demand in output increases, it is true for most systems ). Also this could create what I'd call a "light up" effect on the gates/nodes in question, increasing the signature up to the point where it can be picked up by a 100 year hold scanner 8 systems away. That way you'd be able to predict, but not deadly accurately as with the old players count per system scheme, the fleet relative strenght basing your judgement on how "light up" it is.
For this to work, you'd need to adjust current gates base sig to one low enough as to only allow in-system gates ( 200k gu away or less, for example ) to be picked up by sensors if all gates have been unused long enough for their sig to drop to their base rating.
[ This Message was edited by: Diabo|ik on 2005-11-05 13:33 ]
_________________
Mostly Retired.
|
c0ld
Midshipman
Joined: June 24, 2003
Posts: 342
From: UK
| Posted: 2005-11-05 14:28
Some good idea's there Jim.
I said somewhere in the thread that the toll system could be made to require more resourses for bigger ships. Making the time between nodes longer after successive jumps seems the next logical step, I like it. It almost creates the illusion of a functioning supply and demand economy driving the toll system.
As for the problem of dreadnoughts and stations. The original intent of restricting them was to create variety. By only allowing bigger ships to spawn at shipyards, you can create systems that could be considered 'safer' than others. Maybe something like the difference between the old captain server and the GA server. It was also a way to add a tactical advantage to having more than only 1 shipyard (ie the home shipyard). Building a shipyard would mean you could bring out the big guns.
I'm sure though that there are other ways to make shipyards more significant. Maybe, if the MV was big enough, player-built shipyards in this system could be fleet owned? Maybe you could restrict a fleet to smaller craft if they didn't have their own shipyard somewhere. And if, as you say Jim, these shipyards get cut off from the transit system, it would be up to that fleet to re-establish contact. Heh, or maybe demand independence even.
_________________
|
English
Deutsch
Nederlands
)
