The invention of the Jonferson Space Dynamics Division Corporation [Jonferco] which first coined it, deployed its first prototype in system Albion, and ultimately sold the Highway schematics to different races before the Jump Gate Shutdown event took place. Its utility cannot be wronged, even by the very players outside the fictional universe of X. However its implementation can be criticised, and even now we are seeing the third major public iteration of them in-game with the first two taking place in its birth-game, X-Rebirth. It's not perfect. It's a ways of transportation that renders many other types of drives near useless as long as we are taking into account its general presence/area/direction only. It's so effective, yet near game-breaking. The paradox is placed upon multiple layers. They are broken, but not. They are balanced, but not. People like them, but not. You can live with them, but cannot. Etc.
So, I'm proposing a third major rework for them, but I would also like to hear what other people think, and how would they rework them - keeping in mind that removing them entirely is not possible.
Let's examine their current form, shall we? Just to be clear, when we speak of highways, two individual transportation systems can be taken into account: regular Highways and Superhighways. Superhighways do have their own problems, but I want to focus on the regular Highways in this thread. So, the Highways currently are:
GENERAL OUTLOOK
-They are two dimensional blue lines, acting like a single track with lots of marging space for a single ship
-They are usually bi-directional with two highways put next to each other on the same plane a few metres apart, propelling ships into opposing directions.
-They bend a bit during turns (creating a rather off-putting sight).
-They have advertisement boards placed around them.
-They are fixed onto the universe, players/factions cannot modify/build/extend/disable/remove them.
TECHNICAL OBSERVATIONS OUTSIDE
-They are indestructible.
-They don't have generators/catalysts/engines behind their functioning state, they are "just there".
-The ad-signs of the Ring Highway system are there for aesthetic reasons and don't serve purpose, they don't even have active collision meshes.
-The non-ring Highways do have 'starter' and 'ender' gates/generators, once again indestructible, but active collision meshes.
TECHNICAL FUNCTIONS
-They only work on that precise 2D line, placing the central point of the ships at the line point, effectively cutting the ships in half.
-They only support XS, S, and M class ships.
-They accelerate ships to near 10.000 m/s.
-They have static speed marking points (so they can slow you down in certain parts but re-accalarate you in others).
-They apply a blurring effect for objects in momentum relative to you.
-Ships "inside" Highways are indestructible and indisruptable by "outside" forces, including weapon fire and actual objects.
-Ships do not "overlap /cannot overtake" inside them, each ship are on a fixed speed track that cannot be altered by keys.
-They throw you "upwards" by default when exiting them (by full-stop/backspace button).
-After exiting them, ships inherit their momentum, thus they are forced to calculate potential evasive manouvers while the ship decelerates.
-If you slide to the very side of the highway track, it slows you down to reasonable speed. If you exit the highway by the full-stop button in this case, you don't have to worry about high momentum.
-Entering them from different angles, other than upwards (from approx. 25/-25 to 90 degrees) may prove difficult.
-The "belly side/downward side of the highway doesn't always work as intended, sometimes rendering the player ship stuck in a reentry-ejection loop because of the automatic upward ejection direction.
MY PROPOSED VARIANT
So, why my proposed Highway system would be good?GENERAL OUTLOOK
-Highways get back their Tubular form from Rebirth with a different, more transparent layer that renders them invisible after a certain distance.
-They wouldn't touch the Jump Gates, so the continous ring-flight wouldn't exist.
-Each Highway would get their Starter and Ender points as originally intended.
TECHNICAL OBSERVATIONS OUTSIDE
-The Highways would get a generator every 20 km or so.
-Player/Factions could shoot these generators until they are disabled, disrupting the line (and dropping its traffic, traffic piracy ftw).
-The Highways would be rebuilt by the governing faction of that certain Sector.
TECHNICAL FUNCTIONS
-Remember the first iteration of the highway system? It would be something like that, but not.
-Here's how my version would look like from a technical stand-point:
-As you can see, there would be a 'Column' for each speed (similarly to how highways work in real life) and a 'Row' for each class of supported ships.
-Lane-swapping would be similar to how it was in Rebirth v1.0 with one big difference: you could only swap left and right since you couldn't "enter" the wrong class' lane (for instance, an M class ship couldn't fly in the S/XS lanes).
-Entering the Highways would put you into the slowest lane/column, but would only need to press to the left twice in order to gain the maximum speed the highways can offer.
-That being said, exiting the highway from the fastest lane would make your ship inherit the previous momentum, thus you had to slow down manually.
-If you exit the highway from the slow lane, you are just simply pushed out to your regular/sub-light speed.
-You can enter the highway tube from any direction, you would be automatically "pushed" into the right lane/row.
-The Fast Lane would be similar to the current highway speeds (10.000 ms), the Middle lane would be about 6000 ms, and the Slow lane would only accelerate you minimally (1000-2000 ms) for minimal distance crossing.
-Since XS ships are just ingame for a show, the highway's XS lane could be full of them, simulating high traffic.
-Unlike in Rebirth, the Highway Tube's walls would be near-transparent thus you could see where you're at.
-The Inner-lanes/micro-tubes would also only pop-up for a few seconds when you swapped lanes, otherwise they would fade to invisibility.
-Ships still cannot overlap each other inside.
-It would eliminate the dreaded continuous 'traveling ring effect' that your mind eventually numbs into.
-But if you preferred the continous ring highway, you could still stay in the fast lane that would basically catapult you into the Jump Gate with full speed, and you could catch the next Highway on the other side with ease.
-Capital ships wouldn't be required to use the backside of the Jump Gates for entry.
-By the different speed lanes it would make traveling low distances less annoying (especially with M-class ships).
-Highways would be interactive, opposing factions/pirate factions could do highway raids and attack the stranded and disrupted traffic.
-It eliminates the unnecessary marging space of the current highways with an actual useful function.
-This could also potentially enable players and factions the ability to build more Highways.
-It would be easier to enter Highways once again.
-Highways would once again get their definitve starting and ending gates/points.
This is my idea anyway. What do you think? How would you change them instead?
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