Forums » Suggestions

FTL Drives

Dec 30, 2007 MythOpus link
I've only been playing for roughly a little over half a day in total, but one of the first things I picked up on is how monotonous flying in space can get. So, here's my proposal. Implement "Faster Than Light" Drives. An FTL Drive can be most recently seen in the new Battlestar Galactica series from Sci-Fi but I'm sure it has been seen in many, many other Sci-Fi shows. The general idea for it does come from BSG though so most of the things I will talk about will work/look like in the BSG Universe.

Simply put the FTL drive will let you jump faster and farther than a normal wormhole/jump could take you. In fact, in many ways its far superior. The advantages of this system allows you to take a jump from wherever you are, meaning the 3000 meters distance from any 'object' in the game is not required to make the jump. The downside however is that you can't use it time after time after time. After using it to jump to a system, it needs to cool down and recharge. I'm going to give a ball park figure of 3-5 minutes. This recharge time may also vary depending on how many Systems one skips over.

Addtionally, a FTL jump to another system costs. Fuel to be exact. In the BSG Universe its called Refined Tyllium but you could really subsitute any type of Mineral/Ore/Natural Gas/ETC.
So, if you made an FTL jump from System 1 to System 2, it would cost 1000 CU's of whatever fuel source is decided. After that you must wait roughly 3 minutes for the FTL to recharge before you can make another jump.If you made an FTL jump from System 1 to System 5 (A jump of 4 systems) it would cost 4000 CU's of whatever fuel source is decided and then the FTL drive must recharge for roughly 5+ minutes.

This is not supposed to be a replacement for normal in-system jumping and system-to-system jumping. It is simply meant as another mode of fast transportation. The FTL drive itself would be an add-on, that you would equip onto a new FTL port and would cost quite a bit of credits.

Addtionally, there would likely be more than one type of FTL Drive each with varying advantages/disadvatages (for ex. one FTL drive using fuel more effeciently then the next drive but the next drive has a faster cool down time).

FTL travel will also not have any dangers such as Ion storms because FTL travel works on the principle of folding space so travel is instanaenous.

The 'Fuel' for the FTL drives will have a special storage tank, most likely incorporated into the actual port, so any cargo space isn't taken up. The 'Fuel' will most likely be mined from certain systems and moved around to all the systems. The systems farthest from a Fuel deposit will have their FTL fuel cost more etc.

I think I've covered all the bases. Sorry for poor paragraph formatting.
Dec 30, 2007 Lord~spidey link
Sorry mate but FTL drives is for battlestar galactica not vendetta online

Vo i fine with the intersystem drive it has for now later on the devs will ad a port for "addons" like something similar to what you suggested, scanner upgrades and goodies Ect...
Dec 30, 2007 mr bean link
travel is too fast already.
Dec 30, 2007 toshiro link
Paragraphs are fine, it's readable...

However, the system currently used for long-distance travelling has seen much development and suggestions, and I think it's fine as it is for the moment (but then I haven't played in some time now).
Dec 30, 2007 Pyroman_Ace link
FTL drives are also infesible from a scientific perspective, for violating the Theory of Relativity.

Additionally, FTL drives, even if they worked, couldn't be activated in a gravity well, and asteroids/stations would generate wells, as well as form hazards to FTL nav-systems.

And they don't work with what I remember of the backstory.
Good thought, but there's just too many problems with the idea to make it work with the preformed Vendetta universe.
Dec 31, 2007 upper case link
serco are also infeasible (note the spelling before the doc comes around) from a demographics' perspective, for violation of natural selection laws. there are no way ugly faces like that have any chance at mating.

on the more serious side, we care not too much about this or that not being technically possible because (surprise:) this is a game.

we used to have a really cool in-system warp acceleration & animation but the devs took it out because sissies on here though it could be abused to run away from a fight.

(another issue was warp-killing but, although it was fun and should have remained in-game, was hacked in such a way that warping would send you off in a random, generally opposite direction preventing you from hitting target.)

if i had my way with these whiners i'd have whipped them off the map and carried on with what was, at the time, a much nicer and less repetitive travel experience.

we had kamikaze possibilities before. with both warp-killing and /explode.

but... one shouldn't have too much fun in a game. because it pisses off those who make it a nerdly honor issue.
Jan 01, 2008 Pyroman_Ace link
uc,
Serco's don't need to mate, they assemble us out of parts from our dead Itani enemies at Flight School.
That and two words: Warrior Women

I do agree though that the old warp system was kind of cool and that warp-killing probably should have been left in the game (with some weird property to make it at least a little harder)
Jan 01, 2008 toshiro link
Jan 03, 2008 pantomime link
"travel is too fast already."

Second.
Jan 03, 2008 upper case link
That and two words: Warrior Women

my point exactly.



united for life. would you??
Jan 04, 2008 smittens link
On topic, I think the devs are working on a system to make travel less boring.
Jan 04, 2008 toshiro link
Oh yes, Karun... well, he had a bad outfitter. Making a body like Kusanagi 'Major' Motoko's is quite a different matter. But much more fun, too!

If I could find a picture of Gally/Alita, you'd see another example. Oh well.
Jan 08, 2008 The Ori link
The FTL drive used in VO makes some kind of a miniature wormhole right? That sounds less plausible than most other methods of FTL, like warp and the other kinds of trans-dimensional assisted travel.
I just never got the FTL in this game, so it spawned another of my aimless rambles that could use just a little more coherency and direction.
Just pulling off Mass Effect (awesome game), they could move the Normandy with an enormous core of element zero, which will increase or decrease the mass value (like the inertia and other properties of matter's mass without removing matter... Is that just mass? anyways) based on an electrical charge ran through it, without using thrusters. They created something similar to the ship drives in VO, which created an area of space-time in front of the ship to gain mass, and pull the ship into it (rinse and repeat for movement). The large forms of inter-system travel were mass relays which were GYNORMOUS cores of element zero that created corridors of mass-free space between point A and B, allowing instantaneous travel between any two paired mass relays. Smaller FTL drives used the element zero (eezo) to make a sphere of space similar, allowing travel exceeding the velocity of light. Maybe the FTL in VO runs about the same, creating an area around the ship with repulsive negative gravity behind and attractive positive gravity in front?
/me cowers and waits for flames.
Jan 13, 2008 reDust link
I couldn't see an FTL drive working in VO.
The only changes I would make to navigation is altering the visuals of in system and out of system warps.
And maybe add a limit to the distance of in system jumps.
Jan 14, 2008 toshiro link
Actually, we are already using FTL technology. We travel from one point in space to the other faster than it is possible for light to travel, since it is almost instantaneous (the load time does not count, ideally we would not have any).

In fact, the technology employed (wormholes) is, from my point of view, no less implausible than, for instance warp technology, since in both instances, the time-space continuum is distorted (a wormhole is essentially a folding of the time-space-continuum, while warp technology makes 'pinches' in it).