Warp lanes/gates

posted on September 26th, 2012, 11:11 am

I was just thinking of the old game "freelancer" and a thought struck me. what if there were buildable "warp lanes" where ships can go through at warp 1. of course, in-game it would be much slower. but still 3-4 times normal speed. like for example
where | is a lane and - is space
|---------------|---------------|--------------|
now you have to build at least 2 for it to work. at you have to build others because after a set space, you need anther one to go further.

Shields will be its ability to make ships travel, if the shields fall, the lane will be disabled
now if one of these is disabled, the gate between the two is closed and ships can't go there. however they can still cross the other lanes. if the lane is disabled/destroyed while a ship is going through it, well, god save the ship. the damage will be between 30%-100%. if the lane is disabled before the ship reaches its segment, the ship will go out of warp.

these can only transport ships in straight lines and not through nebulas making them somehow useless in nebula filled maps.
my suggestion would be reletively weak shields and medeocre hull. with a high ressource cost per unit. also note that both sides can use a built lane. so what was a fast transport between your main to your expansion might become a highway for an attack.

another thing to note would be to maybe have small turrets on each lane to protect it for some time against attackers. maybe also ships can get out anytime they want, they don't have to wait till the end.

thoughts?

posted on September 27th, 2012, 11:00 pm

Theres nothing really wrong with the idea over all. I think the devs just dislike any type of warp related features.. The next patch will include nebulae that boost speed of vessels traveling within. In general that could serve similarly to what you have in mind.

On a side note your initial idea also seems kind of like a nidus canal from starcraft but without the instant traveling feature....... maybe more like a literal roadway where you build and drag the lane to the destination. once built itd serve as a fast lane for ships. Not very "trekkish" could serve a purpose in another flops race but I dont see it happening.

Thanks for presenting your idea though - keep em coming.

posted on September 28th, 2012, 5:07 am

it does have to be warp, it can also be "insert technobabble here".I know the subject of speed nebulas, but It would be fun if you could build something like that.

posted on September 28th, 2012, 6:51 am

I think the devs just dislike any type of warp related features..

I like the idea, i wish there was code support for it. i wondering if something could be acomplished along the lines of a propulsion booster station.

IE. neutral station replaces the target into a warp capable vessel, which then can warp for a limited time.

posted on October 3rd, 2012, 3:15 pm

I was just thinking of the old game "freelancer"

I have that game. I love it, to the point where I use some of the sounds in my mod.

The idea sounds great. I was thinking of suggesting it, but I dropped the idea because I didn't think it was feasible codewise.

I support this, completely.

posted on October 3rd, 2012, 8:59 pm

I instantly thought "Freelancer" too. I tried to start a Freelancer mod long ago. Extracting the models was hard though.

I think the main issue with this idea though is as others have said; Doesn't fit in with the "trek" feel very well.

posted on October 12th, 2012, 7:58 am

Yep the warp-lane idea is floating around in my head for quite some time. I'm not yet sure if they would be beneficial for gameplay, but one day i would like to experiment around with them, if just to add them for mods

posted on October 14th, 2012, 6:29 pm

not sure about warp as a whole

but for the borg there could be a late game transwarp conduit (not a artificial wormhole like in armada tho) where it makes ships move faster from the "gate" to the target destination. but not back again.

posted on October 25th, 2012, 2:31 pm

Theres nothing really wrong with the idea over all. I think the devs just dislike any type of warp related features..

Yes and no. We dislike the near limitless warp that was offered with stock Armada 2. It destroyed a large portion of strategic gameplay.

The concept is quite interesting. However it might be hard to agree with how warp-engines are shown to us in Star Trek. There were never prerequisites required for a ship to go to warp in unexplored space. I like the idea, but i think it doesn't work well for a Star Trek RTS.

posted on October 25th, 2012, 2:47 pm

we've got a new nebula concept (dicrhomatic) that increases impulse speed already.

maybe make a second version that increases speed even more. so that the map maker can make a "lane" out of several of these nebulae. they can choose which version of the nebula to use to choose the speed of the lane.

the basic principle of fast travel lanes is there.

posted on December 8th, 2012, 8:29 pm

After thinking about ways warp could possibly work in the game, I remembered how the gravity well of a planet in armada 2 caused ships to drop out of warp.

I was thinking, maybe you can make map objects that caused this effect. Say you were to make a map object visible in the map editor, but invisible during game, that make an area impossible to warp in. That way you could easily make the areas on the map that you would want people to be able to warp in, but perhaps not in strategic areas on the map and the surrounding areas. I don't see why you couldn't make map objects like this effect a large area of the map, and maybe make multiple objects that cause the effect over varying distances.

In my opinion, I don't think this would deter from game-play as long as thought is put into creating the maps, and would also allow for larger maps to be made.

What do you guys think?

posted on December 8th, 2012, 10:02 pm

I like it, so rather than make warp lanes as objects, you block off the areas you don't want warp using a pre-existing hard coded game feature. Might try that on my own maps...

posted on December 18th, 2012, 3:13 am

it doesn't have to be warp, it can be... (insert random technobabble here).