Warp Drives and Hyperdrives in Starbase

[Nate612]

In Starbase, there is a maximum speed limit of 150 m/s. And since EA is getting closer and closer, more and more stations will appear and new things will be added that will be far far away. So a Warp/ Hyperdrive might be useful. The speed of warp is determined by the speed that goes above the speed limit. For example, 100 m/s above the speed limit is Warp 1 and 200 m/s is Warp 2 and so on. The maximum warp speed is warp 10. You go to warp by charging the thrusters for 2 minutes which will cause intense heat. And when you drop out of warp, there will be a 5-10 minute cooldown before you can warp due to the extreme heat.


What Kind of Ships can have Hyperdrives / Warp Drives?

Fighters and small ships are too tiny to fit fast hyperdrives in Starbase, the most a fighter or small ship can have is most is about Warp 1 or maybe 2.

What new devices would be used for Warp Drives / Hyperdrives
Medium and Large Fuel Rods - Larger versions of fuel rods.

Medium and Large Fuel Chambers - Larger versions of fuel chambers.

Medium and Large Generators - Larger versions of generators.

Xilatrium - A new liquid element called that is a combination of Xhalium and Ilmatrium. Xhalium is used for it’s high energy and Ilmatrium for its energy storage and heat transfer. It is a very conductive liquid but is very efficient. If both Ilmatrium and Xhalium are in a Warp Chamber, they both melt and mix together creating the element.

Small, Medium, and Large Warp Chambers - Used for storing Xilatrium and lets Xilatrium flow through the Regulators. Powered by the medium and large fuel chambers and generators. Melts Xilatrium and Ilmatrium

Regulators - This device is used to recycle the fuel and keep the fuel chamber from overloading and destabilizing and if it does, it will explode. They are powered by medium and large fuel rods, fuel chambers, and generators. This also is what converts Xilatrium into energy. It also radiates a type of radiation that degrades metals that are used for endoskeletons. You can either put the regulators on the outside of the ship or use radiators to radiate it so you have the Regulators exposed. Powered by the medium and large fuel chambers and generators.

Large Radiators and Radiator Extensions - Larger radiators that can radiate more and can be used to cool regulators and is optional. You only need these when the regulators are inside the ship.

Warp Thrusters - Thrusters that allow ships to go to warp and are powered by Regulators.

Warp Coolant - Each time you go to warp, a quarter of the warp coolant cell is taken away. And depending on how long you are in warp, more can be taken away. These are placed on Warp Thrusters. You can still go to warp without them but will cause damage to the ship and in some cases can explode the Hyperdrive.


Isn’t this OP?
No, not at all. It is balanced. First of all you still need to pilot the ship and if you were to warp into an asteroid belt or a debris field, you would take large amounts of damage. And as I previously stated “You go to warp by charging the thrusters for 2 minutess which will cause intense heat. And when you drop out of warp, there will be a 5-10 minute cooldown before you can warp due to the extreme heat.” So you can’t just warp out of conflicts all the time. They are also unstable and if you don’t change your warp coolant or put enough Xilatrium in the Warp Chamber, things can become very unstable and can become catastrophic.

What About Warp Gates?
Warp gates are kinda boring ngl.

Edit: I added "Small, Medium, and Large" to the Warp chambers section

 

[PandaPants200]

I think warp drives should also have a distinctive radiation plume when you enter and leave warp so people with sensors can tell if someone is entering or leaving the zone.

 

[Cavilier210]

So, we moved this discussion here, which is great! Better visibility.

So, I'd like to ask here, What method would be used to determine warp factor? As in maximum warp speed. I would imagine exponential power supply requirements that increase related to ship mass. I also think it important that these be vulnerable, so that people don't just rely on these for their long range transportation (on the other hand, towing business anyone?).

I also sort of question whether or not the regulators should be required to be exposed to the external side of the ship. Maybe not mounted externally (depending on shape) but at least in some manner exposed to space.

I do like that doing this in the belt would be near suicide as well, and that it creates a need for secondary fuel source that depletes, which will increse the value of Ilmatrium. Though... Vhalium is expensive and rare as hell Did you choose that one by design?

 

[Nate612]

1: As I previously stated in my post it's determined by the speed above normal speed limit. Example: 100 m/s above speed limit is Warp 1. 200 m/s above speed limit is warp 2. 650 m/s above speed limit is Warp 6.5 and so on

2: No they aren't, though it is more efficient for them to be outside due to the high radiation rate, they can be easily targeted be destroyed causing an explosion. You can opt to put them inside and use radiators to stop radiation from spreading.

3: I chose the materials purposely.In my original post it said "Xhalium is used for it’s high energy and Ilmatrium for its energy storage and heat transfer. " I chose Xhalium for it's high energy output and because it's rare. Being able to be going above a certain speed limit should be hard to do and should require lots of work and should not be handed to you as soon as you get a new ship.

 

[Nate612]

Also for the first question. Due to the new element's high energy output and efficiency, Not much more mass is needed. Plus I did say the maximum warp speed is 10. Which is crazy fast

 

[Cavilier210]

Also for the first question. Due to the new element's high energy output and efficiency, Not much more mass is needed. Plus I did say the maximum warp speed is 10. Which is crazy fast

No no, i understand the speeds themselves, but what determines the ability of a ship to reach those speeds. Or are you saying all ships would be capable of warp 10 here?

 

[Nate612]

No not all are capable of Warp 10. They are determined by the amount of Xilatrium in a warp chamber, size of warp chamber, amount of regulators, amount of fuel rods powering the devices, and how many warp thrusters are on the ship. Plus since Xhalium is so rare it will be hard to make it to warp 10

 

[Quevin]

I will stand by, warp gate allow for infrastructure to be build and maintained / defended, I am completely against ships being able to just "warp" everywhere.

It does remove gameplay, if you want to mine somewhere in the belt, you better build a highway!
Small warpgates are the way!

I rather have more stuff to do on your ship then fast travel being extremely easy.

E.G.
- I detect an player within 25km of me (rad detection), I jump drive a huge distance away.
- What about the entire gameplay loop of building / maintaining Refuel stations / small warpgates. You might not like it, but others do.
- Everything on a ship is going to make it a solo gameplay versus a community based gameplay.

The game as is, is already extremely "safe" there is almost no risk involved, with this implementation you only adding more safety and removing any risk involved.

I can now jump to xhalium hotspots and be back before any pirate would have had time to even find me.

If other games are any indication of how it impacts PvP, any form of Warp, has broken PvP in many ways.

====

Belt is aprox. 17.5 km away from Origin, ship going max speed will reach this in: 117seconds.
Class 9 & 10 roids are ~110km away from Origin, ship going max speed will reach this in: 16 minutes.
Xhalium is aprox. 500-750km out from Origin, ship going max speed will reach this in: 56 minutes (500km) / 83 minutes (750km)

Now once you build a station over there travel time is reduced insanely. (Yes, station don't have the features implemented yet to stay there and don't even need to go back to origin)

Once the features are implemented warp gate is completely unneccesary.

====

I build my ships for speed and time of flight, to be able to do so. Yes I only can carry the contents of a C10 core, but I am able to do so with ease.

Design your ships for such a purpose and don't expect all ships to be able to do everything. In general All-purpose ships have been less effecient then ships designed with a single purpose in mind.

I also don't use Mining Lasers, because they eat energy (fuel rods) I rather handmine over there without ever having to worry about running out.

 

[Cavilier210]

Quevin, I don't think having more to do on your ship, and having a fairly well balanced faster speed mode (that doesn't remove you from the game world, unlike some ideas out there) are mutually exclusive. Many people just are going to avoid the gates. I personally don't want to be ganked, and will be avoiding the gates when EA comes out.

I would love to hear some ideas on shipboard content. Have any? If so, start a thread! Let's get on it!

 

[Quevin]

Yes, my point exactly you don't want to use a community, nor want any PvP or Risk involved, which is why this is a bad idea.
You can also just stay in the Dev Safe Zone, where everything is safe? no need to venture out far. because once you do, there should be risk.

Boarding is simple;
Stealth ship => Plasma Throwers => Thrusters, happy boarding!

 

[Nate612]

Quevin, shouldn't getting Xhalium and other rare ores be hard to do? Plus, if warp gates are to be added to multiple places, pirates can guard them which will cause players to not go to them making them pointless. You're not gonna be the only pirate when EA comes out and not everyone is going to have your style of piracy.

It does remove gameplay, if you want to mine somewhere in the belt, you better build a highway!

Well I am not saying that all ships are required to have one. You probably would think warp drives are made for bigger ships which they are meant for.

I am completely against ships being able to just "warp" everywhere.

So am I but warp gates are somewhat like that. If more are added people can just warp wherever. And I did say that warp is when you go above the speed limit and it's measured by every 100 m/s above the speed limit so nobody is not jumping for place to place in an instant.

 

[Cavilier210]

Yes, my point exactly you don't want to use a community, nor want any PvP or Risk involved, which is why this is a bad idea.
You can also just stay in the Dev Safe Zone, where everything is safe? no need to venture out far. because once you do, there should be risk.

Boarding is simple;
Stealth ship => Plasma Throwers => Thrusters, happy boarding!

There is plenty of risk without serving myself on a silver platter to you.

 

[Quevin]

if warp gates are to be added to multiple places, pirates can guard them which will cause players to not go to them making them pointless.

Yes maintaining and defending those warp gates is gameplay, thanks for pointing out mechanic in the game worth fighting over.

Well I am not saying that all ships are required to have one. You probably would think warp drives are made for bigger ships which they are meant for.

There is no design for ship size, everything is modular and dynamic, meaning the smaller the ship with a single purpose the better the use, It will be used by smaller ships no matter what you do. Unless they force small / large ship differential its never going to happen.

So am I but warp gates are somewhat like that. If more are added people can just warp wherever.

Yes and they have to be maintained / defended, otherwise they are risky. having such a system available on each ship only removes more gameplay than it adds.

===

Also I never stated I would be the only pirate, I am stating that current gameplay is extremely safe, doesn't mean we should add even more safe gameplay mechanics. If you leave the SZ, its FFA meaning you should expect to lose everything, not suggest ways to make it even more safe. Ask/pay for protection, design your ship to be fully stealth against rad detection, don't use Warp gates instead travel to long distance.

 

[Quevin]

There is plenty of risk without serving myself on a silver platter to you.

so adjust your ship to be stealth in terms of rad detection, it will make your ship go slower, don't use warp gate and travel the full distance.
make the pirate work for it to get anything from you, add gunner position actually have others on your ship able to defend it.

Have some extra plates for protection, etc.

 

[Cavilier210]

so adjust your ship to be stealth in terms of rad detection, it will make your ship go slower, don't use warp gate and travel the full distance.
make the pirate work for it to get anything from you, add gunner position actually have others on your ship able to defend it.

Have some extra plates for protection, etc.

Thats a mechanic that's not implemented. I also still have no interest in being at a time and place I know people like yourself would be sitting. In SB, unlike Eve, I can avoid gates altogether. Which I will. How about you take you're own advice here and devise ways to pursue the people like me who will avoid you, when we know exactly where you'll be.

I have no problem with piracy and PvP. I just see no reason why your life should be made easay

 

[DivineEvil]

I stand against warp drives.
- Something being expected to be useful doesn't make it necessary.
- Something that is unnecessary does not justify the development of an entire machinery architecture, that is essentially existing structures of power and thrusters combined, just to circumvent the speed limit alone.
- The 150m/s speed limit is not only a matter of balance but also a technical limitation for ships to appropriately interact with the environment.
- Other games that use warp drives have them to move between already existing locations, and in many cases, that mechanic trivializes travel as such.
- Warp drives directly interfere with the concept of warp gates, which are already in development and provide for the same purpose with associated requirements, that vastly outweigh such suggested here. There's no feasible way to balance warp drives and warp gates without making either one redundant.
- In Starbase, conventional travel is meaningful. It takes time and resources, and everything works under the same limitations - this is what makes it meaningful, balanced, intuitive, and risky. Add the warp drive, and that balance will be destroyed. Asking for some Xhalium for it to run by will not change anything - it will just widen the rift of elitism between players using their warp-equipped mining haulers versus regular folk who will be unable to afford one and fall prey to pirates in their stead.

 

[Cavilier210]

Do you think massive miners are going to be the go to mechanism for mining? I really can't see that. Large miners (given current limits) are already unwieldy beasts. They also stand literally no chance against pirates currently due to the current borkness of turrets. The turrets we currently have can cause rapid unplanned disassembly at the site of the turret base because of problems with syncing and latency. There's a whole thread on this topic.

So while in a perfect world your guys idea of "arm the miners" is all nice and that, its not a tenable arrangement until the weaponry with multicrew ships is figured out.

Plus, you have people like Quevin who literally build high speed endurance miner killers. What realistic counter is there to that, and in what way does it benefit to the miner player at all to have to blockade run every time they want to travel a good distance? It doesn't. Gate camping is not fun for the victim. I argue its not fun for the camper either, but hey, some people like to sit and wait. Its a yearly celebration where I live to spend days in the cold sitting and waiting.

Now to be fair, we don't have a myriad set of features yet to even try out other ideas. There are no sensors. Just the Mk 1 computer screen. The amount of data needed to have a scanner work over large distances may not be all that large, and our 3D locations can be monitored and stored by the central server at all time. So getting a ping of someone being somewhere in range of a scanner (not a definite position) is a low tech possibility. However, the stealth and hunt dance is a hell of a lot more fun than "poof, I appear at the moon, and all the pirates are there to welcome and subsequently extort me! Whoooo!"

 

[DivineEvil]

Do you think massive miners are going to be the go to mechanism for mining? I really can't see that. Large miners (given current limits) are already unwieldy beasts. They also stand literally no chance against pirates currently due to the current borkness of turrets. The turrets we currently have can cause rapid unplanned disassembly at the site of the turret base because of problems with syncing and latency. There's a whole thread on this topic.

Perhaps you should move to that topic then. This post doesn't seem relevant to the discussion.
If large ships can manage warp drives but smaller ships can't, then it will be impossible to pirate against warp-equipped ships that whizz by from the safe-zone.
If smaller ships can manage warp drives, then all non-newbie players will use them, and the pirate/prey relations will remain the same, and the only thing that will be achieved is the triviality of traveling to deep Belt for rare ores and to other locations.

 

[Cavilier210]

Perhaps you should move to that topic then. This post doesn't seem relevant to the discussion.
If large ships can manage warp drives but smaller ships can't, then it will be impossible to pirate against warp-equipped ships that whizz by from the safe-zone.
If smaller ships can manage warp drives, then all non-newbie players will use them, and the pirate/prey relations will remain the same, and the only thing that will be achieved is the triviality of traveling to deep Belt for rare ores and to other locations.

I have a feeling you haven't actually read the post here, and I don't have to move to a different thread in order to have a relevant discussion here. Your own alternatives are borked and untenable, and instead of admit that and brainstorm, you're having a knee jerk reaction because you worry that your prey will be too hard to catch. The game is not all about you. You have to work around the reality that people don't want to be easily caught by rats, and realize that rats will also have access to the same tech as these miners you fear will outrun you.

 

[BlurredDev]

Idea must be implemented, in any game with huge space, I mean Elite Dangerous and Space Engineers and Space Rangers, EVE and so on, in some ways are implemented warp jumps, I don't think they did it just for fun, so this feature just must be in Starbase C: