FTL drive. Pointless, a bit dangerous, but cool

[CopyOfSatan]

After reading about Newtonian Aurora.

Newtonian Aurora - Rules

I really like the presented FTL concept. I especially like the chance of ending up in an unexplored system literally on the other side of the exit home. Combined with long transitions, exploration would be a very dangerous activity, since any help, even from a neighboring system, would not be able to arrive quickly enough.

However, in the current Aurora, this is also works when you fly away from JP. But when you jump into the new system, you don’t find yourself 3b km from JP, and the ship that jumped after you is 4b km from JP and 6b km from you.

It might break a few game mechanics, but… can you add them to the game?

The FTL drive will allow you to travel to any known star system in a number of months equal to the distance to the system in Light Years x2 (10 LY = 20 months) if the normal speed of ship is, for example, 10000 km/s. When jumping, fuel is consumed equal to the fuel consumption for 1/4 of the flight time. If there is not enough fuel, the flight will be longer.

FTL drive is a fairly large and expensive Military component. It can only move the ship on which it is installed.

For a long jump, let’s use 48 LY distance at 10000 km/s ship speed. 4 years before arriving is quite a long time. The average MSP consumption for 4 years of flight (± 20%, and reduced by the Engineering skills of the officers) is subtracted from the ship’s MSP reserves. During the jump, the MSP cannot be transferred to another ship, so if the ship does not have enough MSP for 4 years of maintenance, it will fall apart somewhere in interstellar space. Also, upon arrival, its Maint clock will increase by 4, which will lead to very frequent maintenance failures. So you’ll have to think about the balance of speed, fuel (at least 1 year) and MSP if you want to make a long jump.

For some short jump, let’s use 10 LY distance. Usually, this is a 1/2/3 jumps trough JPs, which at a 10k km/s speed will obviously be faster than 20 months flying. This can be used to assault the system, as you are not flying through JP, but it will increase the flight time.

To make the jump, the ship must first be at some distance from the star and be between it and the target star. The gravsurvey mechanics will work as in the original FTL concept. So if you assault the unsurveyed system, your attacking fleet will end up in a random location, and most likely won’t be able to return without a fight.

I guess they’ll have to fly in normal space, so that the arrival will not go unnoticed. It will create a short powerful EM signal or have the effect of a switched on transponder. However, incoming ships will not be affected by Jump Shock.

Any details or specific numbers can be changed, as desired by the Balance.

Thus, we will have the opportunity to ignore the current map of jump points with huge expenditure of time, space on the ships, resources and with the risk of ending up at the destination without fuel/MSP for the return trip or not reaching the target at all. The opportunity to do something dangerous, often pointless, but cool.

Honestly, I don’t think this is appropriate in the current game and can be accepted.

[serger]

I’d suggest making hyperdrive as just a variant of the JP mechanics, as a campaing option “hyperdrive jump engines”.

1. Gravsurvey reveals hyperdrive vectors instead of jump points. Looks the same as JPs, yet to make a jump the ship needs to move in a hyperdrive-activated mode from the JP zone (there may be some radius from which it can start successfully) outwards of the central star = towards the system hyper-limit (which radius depends on the stellar mass). After reaching the limit the ship appears (instantly or after some delay, though the latter would need additional table at the database, for the ships at the hyperspace) at the hyperlimit of the destination system. You need to survey the finish zone and find the backvard vector to return back after the first jump in this system, or, well, it’s possible to get the data from another empire.

2. After the activation of the hyperdrive the ship cannot change it’s vector until hyperdrive is deactivated, destroyed or finished the cycle after the jump. Finishing the cycle needs some time after entering the destination system, depending of the system’s grav configuration and the ship’s velocity, which is cosmografically an equivalent of getting from the hyperlimit to the corresponding JP (so, after finishing you know where it is, you just need to find the starting hyperdrive parameters to jump back for the first time). If the hyperdrive is destroyed or damaged before finishing the cycle, the ship finishes immediately as a wreck on the outbound or inbound vector.

3. JPs in this mode are not as much random, they are distributed at some fraction of the hyperlymit (1/2 will be ok). It’s possible to jump between the star components, and gas giants has their own hyperlimits with the associated JPs towards the parent sun (instead of Lagrange points), so it’s possible to make microjumps towards outer system giants (those out of the hyperlimit). They are just radial (if you want to microjump towards the other gas giant - you need to microjump towards the parent star, make a maneuver in the inner system space and then microjump towards the other giant).

4. Military jump drives are able to deviate from the finishing vector randomly. Civilian ones get you strictly to the jump point. Jump shocks are here. Be ready for ambushes.

5. Stargates are a possible addition for the next version.

[Froggiest1982]

I think to do not break the current mechanics and keep it within the lore, FTL could be replaced by temporary rifts. Opening rifts could work with a new device. Higher tech devices allow for larger rifts and more ship to transit and longer opening times along with further jumps from opening systems. Rifts could open in random positions across known systems only. So you could open a rift in Sol to travel 3 or 4 jumps away directly either for fast colonization, transport, rescue, or surprise attack (unless the rift opens where it shouldnt, ops!).

I am assuming since we have spoilers already using rifts, that AI NPRs should not find it too difficult to use or handle them.

EDIT: Reading again seems like you can end up in any system, in reality u still select the landing system, you just don’t know where the rift will open in such system.