Ships that can generate local highways

[Ovni]

It would be nice if egosoft could hide some secret zones outside the main highway network, while still allowing the player to look for these/explore them at a decent speed. Also, it'd be nice to unlock more exploration options as you advance into the game, instead of doing most of the scouting at the beginning and then only doing economy/missions.

I have an idea that might help with both of these: why not add to some advanced experimental ships a device with the ability to generate a localized "highway" or accelerated zone?

Of course the player shouldn't be able to just engage highway mode and instantly avoid pirates; neither should AI ships that have this leave no chance of escape to the player. So here's how I imagine it:

- The device creates a highway "bubble" centered around the ship, which accelerates everybody that enters it. Speed may vary depending on distance to the center of emission.

- As the ship moves forward, it leaves behind a highway "trail" which persists for a while, perhaps for 10 min, and afterwards begins to fade.

Since the trail inherits the strength of the emitted bubble, in the trail's center you're accelerated just as much as the ship that left the trail. Which means that, if you're a pursuing ship with an otherwise stronger engine, you should win the race.

POTENTIAL PROBLEM: If you're dogfighting while emitting a trail behind you, you'll leave a weird spaghetti of trail behind you - which you could view as awesome, but it might look ugly and be confusing. That's why maybe the temporary highway should be emitted by a drone or missile that pretty much goes in a straight line or flies a preset path when launched. It would force the player to take a risk with what might lie along the path, especially if the tunnel forms faster than you move, and pirates can enter from the opposite end and come for you.

Edit: Also, forming a temporary highway probably shouldn't work if too close to large objects such as stations.

Well, it's an imperfect idea but I think it has potential, feel free to improve it if you think it's worth something.

[jkflipflop98]

Or, once working your way through a sweet questline you gain the technology for yourself to build the accelerator devices that power the highway system.

They would, of course, be expensive in both time and resources to build. Having one's own private space highway is a projection of wealth and power.

[THE_TrashMan]

Looks liek soemthing like you propose would require a lot of time and resources to implement...and is prone to a lot of abus and bugs. Not sure if it would be worth the effort.

[Ovni]

Most interesting ideas take a lot of time and resources to implement. But trying to be a "backseat developer" and attempting to evaluate how much effort a given feature will take to implement is pretty useless. So much depends on how the game engine is structured. It's more intelligent to discuss the idea's worth, and then let the devs decide if they like the idea and whether they can pull it off.

As far as potential abuse and bugs go, please specify what you have in mind.

[dougeye]

reminds me of the jump gate ships from the Reunion Xtended mod

[wwdragon]

[stads]

think ships them self generating a highway would be a bad idea
unless there special capital drone ships cost about 1.5b each and ya need a pair to set up one link

could be a nice way to set up a pirate zone producing all kind of ware's that might be abit illegal at some places
but since this system could generate bugs here and there
think the better plan is to have some kind a pirate highway
and to not make it a pain with standing's place the pirate highway in a new side faction so we stil get to shoot the other pirate's taking over there turf but leaving the highway network open for use

[Virtualaughing]

Explore
A race which old as 50 million year had enough time to place short of local highways across few galaxies. They are called Ancients in the series of Stargate. Humans barely entered the Space Ages...
... hell i miss the Stargate Universe series soooo much

To bring a "gate" right to the front door of the enemy's secret base and then supprise them with an overwhelming force within no time would be excellent gameplay concept

[Kadsc]

since we will be limited to a single Player ship that is supposedly V. Important why not have it contain some experimental technology that let it either bend a highway to include itself (instead of A->B its A->C->B with C being your ship) or that it can create a link between a highway junction and itself that would allow for ships to quickly Arrive to Save it if they were on the highway

[Bobucles]

Speed is powerful. It completely changes the feel of the universe. Make ships too fast, and the scale becomes trivial. Make ships too slow, and travel becomes a chore.

A couple shortcuts throughout the game world can't hurt. Giving fast travel to every ship amounts to a cheat. If the player wants to explore sectors across the galaxy, why not use some drones instead?

[Ovni]

[Bobucles]

[Ovni]

I don't really get why you think that drones having any special capabilities are any better than the player having them. A drone that can jump around or go super fast ruins the sense of scale almost as much as the player ship having it. The distinction of being "really there" vs "not really there" is tenuous when you can do so many things remotely, in first person.

Also, we have no confirmations that there will be jumpdrives in X Rebirth, AFAIK. Personally I find them pretty lame, they destroy the concept of any area being remote and hard to reach. In comparison, giving "super speed" to the player through the creation of a highway is much more interesting, since nearby enemies share in the benefit, and it can even turn against you, if their engines are actually more powerful than yours. The only thing you have to ensure is that speed can only be used for long, empty stretches of space.