The problem
Gates are HUGE, and if we are going to get player made gates, that would mean they would take gargantuan amount of space around the capitals, especially origin.
The solution
Instead of Gate<->Gate pairs, I would propose the idea of Gate-visibility.
What it means: instead of pairing 2 (and only 2) gates, a gate would be able to link any other gate(s) that it can "see". A practical example:
Each gate has [alpha] field-of-view (field-of-link?) and a player entering Gate 1 can go to any gate(s) that is within the FoL of Gate 1 AND within X radius. This way one gate covers a large enough area to not need 10-20-40-whatever gates near points of interests.
PvP, Secrecy, Privacy, Piracy
To not let anyone, anytime, anywhere hide themselves, gate accesibility would only work at the specific gate. Meaning if Gate 2 is made by an enemy faction, I can not enter Gate 2, but can enter Gate 1 and go to Gate 2. This sounds toooooo easy, right? Indeed, so add a twist: During entering Gate 1, trivially it would output a list of available gates that the user can travel to. With accessibility, the list would only contain gates, the player could also enter the other side (aka no private / enemy gates) so I would not see Gate 2 on the list. But now it sounds too easy, so add an extra twist: each gate would have an Id / Key, unique across every single gates in the universe. By entering this Id/Key at Gate 1, one could travel to any, even unlisted gates within the visibility at Gate 1. But it is still not safe at all, once a gate is "revealed" anyone would be able to travel there, so spice it up a little bit: each gate would have a universe-wide unique Id AND an owner-given "password".
An example:
Gate 1 is public, has a GUID of "7CFC1A2C-57CC-4068-A27C-1FB91E4A270C" and no password. I could see it from both Gate 2 and Gate 3
Gate 2 is private, owned by an enemy faction, with the guid of "049DB78D-01C0-4CFC-9AAF-9E169667E980" and a password [whatever].
When I approach Gate 1, I can not see Gate 2, since I couldn't enter it on the other side. But if I would enter the GUID and Password of the gate, even without listing it I would be able to travel there (on the other hand, once I get there, I would have absolutely no way of entering Gate 2, not even with the GUID and Password). The password of a gate could be changed by hand and yolol too, enabling a random generated password and the algorithm could be highly private. Even with obtaining the password once, it could change (by time, hand, whatever the owner can think of). Obtaining the algorithm would be another problem, and would be a valuable information. The guid would ensure that every gate have a unique part, and the password would give a control to the ownerto further limit the access.
Of course, now traveling from Gate X to Y does not mean I can also travel from Y to X (due to X could be outside the FoL of Y) but would prevent the requirement to spam gates all around the universe to maintain pairs.
Gates are HUGE, and if we are going to get player made gates, that would mean they would take gargantuan amount of space around the capitals, especially origin.
The solution
Instead of Gate<->Gate pairs, I would propose the idea of Gate-visibility.
What it means: instead of pairing 2 (and only 2) gates, a gate would be able to link any other gate(s) that it can "see". A practical example:
Each gate has [alpha] field-of-view (field-of-link?) and a player entering Gate 1 can go to any gate(s) that is within the FoL of Gate 1 AND within X radius. This way one gate covers a large enough area to not need 10-20-40-whatever gates near points of interests.
PvP, Secrecy, Privacy, Piracy
To not let anyone, anytime, anywhere hide themselves, gate accesibility would only work at the specific gate. Meaning if Gate 2 is made by an enemy faction, I can not enter Gate 2, but can enter Gate 1 and go to Gate 2. This sounds toooooo easy, right? Indeed, so add a twist: During entering Gate 1, trivially it would output a list of available gates that the user can travel to. With accessibility, the list would only contain gates, the player could also enter the other side (aka no private / enemy gates) so I would not see Gate 2 on the list. But now it sounds too easy, so add an extra twist: each gate would have an Id / Key, unique across every single gates in the universe. By entering this Id/Key at Gate 1, one could travel to any, even unlisted gates within the visibility at Gate 1. But it is still not safe at all, once a gate is "revealed" anyone would be able to travel there, so spice it up a little bit: each gate would have a universe-wide unique Id AND an owner-given "password".
An example:
Gate 1 is public, has a GUID of "7CFC1A2C-57CC-4068-A27C-1FB91E4A270C" and no password. I could see it from both Gate 2 and Gate 3
Gate 2 is private, owned by an enemy faction, with the guid of "049DB78D-01C0-4CFC-9AAF-9E169667E980" and a password [whatever].
When I approach Gate 1, I can not see Gate 2, since I couldn't enter it on the other side. But if I would enter the GUID and Password of the gate, even without listing it I would be able to travel there (on the other hand, once I get there, I would have absolutely no way of entering Gate 2, not even with the GUID and Password). The password of a gate could be changed by hand and yolol too, enabling a random generated password and the algorithm could be highly private. Even with obtaining the password once, it could change (by time, hand, whatever the owner can think of). Obtaining the algorithm would be another problem, and would be a valuable information. The guid would ensure that every gate have a unique part, and the password would give a control to the ownerto further limit the access.
Of course, now traveling from Gate X to Y does not mean I can also travel from Y to X (due to X could be outside the FoL of Y) but would prevent the requirement to spam gates all around the universe to maintain pairs.
