Space-time drilling
Space-time drilling is a technology allowing an alliance to bypass the standard fleet movements rules by jumping to a layer directly without having to go through supergates (it doesn’t allow players to jump to a different protection level tho).
While this very powerful technology has quite a few inconvenients (it costs a lot and presents a variety of risks), it gives an alliance the ability to attack an alliance located on another layer without having to go through potentially dozens of supergates, which can be quite a lengthy process and could alert the target before it’s too late if the fleets are detected on their way.
To use the space-time drilling ability, the first requirement is the construction of ships equipped with space-time-drills. These very cumbersome, power-hungry and expensive pieces of equipment can only be transported by the largest ships. The space-time drills carried by the ships are necessary, but not sufficient to the use of the ability. A drilling control center has to be constructed in the system that will be used as the point of origin; this building can only be constructed on a planet owned by an alliance.
Once driller ships have been brought to the origin system and the drilling center has been built, the alliance must decide which layer the drill is to reach, as well as the approximative location of the fleets when they arrive. The distance between the layers determines the amount of energy drilling will require: the higher the energy, the more ships are needed. Planets in the system being drilled contribute to the amount of energy produced.
After the decision has been taken, the drilling operation is initiated. It lasts quite some time, depending on the amount of energy required. During the drilling process, space-time in the origin system is being heavily modified; any interruption of the process, for example if enough driller ships are destroyed, or the planet on which the control centre is gets captured, the whole system will be destroyed immediately and turn into a black hole.
Once the drilling is complete, all fleets in the system at the time (including enemy ships) are sent to the approximative location selected by the alliance’s commanders. However, some ships will be lost, some fleets will end up in the wrong layer … In any case, the origin system is completely destroyed and turns into a black hole.
What do you think of the possibility to go from one layer to another without using supergates?
Do you think the cost (in time, resources, potential losses), the complexity of the process and the required technological level are high enough to avoid having black hole flourishing all around the universe? What would have been the limits you would have defined?
Lemorsa:
I love the idea, only i wonder, how could an alliance counteract this other than by interrupting it? Also, what if a layer has this done within it quite a bit… how does that area become replaced so that the layer isn’t just a wasteland, or is that what you would like to be a consequence?
February 21, 2008, 11:13 pmju:
The idea is that it is so expensive and time consuming that it should be performed very rarely. As such no layer should become a set of blackholes and I don’t think we really need to counter it: the players on the destination layer would get a warning and know something might be coming through and be prepared for an attack.
February 22, 2008, 8:53 amTSeeker:
@Ju - Yes, we need to counter it, Lemorsa is right. Remember how WHSN was supposed to be expensive? Have you looked at the R1 map before R1 was terminated?
What I would suggest to counter it is preventing drilling from happening if it is too close to either a black hole or a system in which drilling is being performed. It’s simple enough to do, and would prevent a layer from becoming a complete wasteland.
@Lemorsa - since it takes quite a while to do, however, and because the whole layer in which it is taking place gets warned, I don’t think it can be used as an offensive weapon. However, one rule I have forgotten to add in the description is that the driller ships should get destroyed in the process.
Finally, it would be a good thing if the system’s destruction was not mandatory when the driller ships or the control centre are destroyed. It would only happen after 1/3rd of the required time has ellapsed.
February 22, 2008, 9:50 amju:
Well the cost, time and number of people involved (an alliance) make it way more difficult than WHSN. We’re scaling up quite a lot. However I agree on the fact that more limits should be added. The distance from another blackhole or drilling point is actually quite a nice solution.
February 22, 2008, 6:37 pmLemorsa:
That is quite a good counter. Do black holes also slow down the time of systems directly next to them? If they do take up a whole system, i would say that they would have to affect the surrounding systems in some way…
February 22, 2008, 6:53 pmTSeeker:
@Lemorsa - Blackholes don’t slow down “time” as this would be a mess to implement. They only slow down ships that pass through the nearby system, and completely prevent ships from crossing them (means you have to go around them instead.)
February 23, 2008, 7:56 amrimtosser:
Holy crap this is awesome! I had never even thought of this or anything like it after being introduced to the whole supergates and layers thing.
Like has been said before I think it is VERY important to get the cost and time right. I also must say as well, it would probably be better to go too far than not far enough. I remember the WHSN and…damn. It should cost so much as to really actually hurt the player/alliance who is using it. I know I have read before (I think) that money won’t just nicely accumulate so that everything is really cheap (like in b5…when you have 1B banked, it doesn’t matter how much anything costs!
Also on that note, it should take quite some time to do but I also would like to say not way too long. As mentioned above the entire layer that it is happening on would get warned, this could end badly. I can see this being here almost wholly for surprise attacks and a surprised attack is hardly a surprise if someone on that layer can inform the game that someone is drilling! So either that alliance would have to own the entire layer or some feature would have to be there. All I can think of right now as I am almost already asleep in my chair is to make the game not warn the layer for a while but…that actually sounds crappy…anyway, this sounds awesome
February 23, 2008, 3:04 pmLemorsa:
TSeeker-> basically what i meant, not time per say, but how fast one can travel in the systems around it… sorry, bad wording on my part.
February 24, 2008, 6:13 amBuiltom:
A possible thing that could also discourage overuse could be failure of the space-time drilling, in which all the money/time invested would be lost, however the system would remain intact due to the black hole not forming; not sure if the drilling ships should get sucked into a small wormhole/something malfunctions and the ships explode to stop the process from starting immediatly after it fails.
@rimtosser: well there could be some form of probe/beacon that would have to be positioned in the surrounding systems to try to mask the drilling, but once it gets to a certain point even the most blind fleets would realise there is something wrong where they are.
February 29, 2008, 9:29 pmLemorsa:
that would be cool, like a 85% chance that it will work. odds are that it will, but you never really know…
March 3, 2008, 2:37 amju:
Usually we don’t use that kind of predefined probability.The probability is always linked with something else. Here it would be some technologies and perhaps the difficulty of the drilling process given its particular settings (distance of destination, number of ships involved, size of the origin system, etc…).
March 3, 2008, 9:11 amLemorsa:
yeah, definitely. however losing your black hole other than by being attacked will be a possibility, correct?
March 4, 2008, 10:05 pmLemorsa:
It would be cool, however, if the players scientists could determine the possibility of it failing by adding the different factors, letting the player know what he’s risking.
March 4, 2008, 10:07 pmju:
Given the cost and time involved i don’t like the idea of a probability of failure even in the absence of interferences. In this context, interferences means destruction of the drilling ships or loss of the planet hosting the control center, that is to say successful attack by someone else or a successful sabotage mission by a foreign spy. If you can come up with a logical reason for the process to fail other than mere chance, feel free to suggest one, though.
March 5, 2008, 8:44 amLemorsa:
I think the whole spy thing just took care of that…
March 6, 2008, 7:08 pmwiles9:
I love the idea, sounds complex enough not to be abused.
How about surrounding ships?
Just a suggestion for ‘warnings’ etc. If all ships within a certain distance were pulled automatically into the Drilling stations bay due to the forces of the BH preparation.
So.. to explain better: The drilling station has a bay, were all ships are pulled, and locked safely into, and as soon as the drilling is complete, the ships are pulled through.
Anything is pulled into this. The alliance building this must ‘ground’ all ships that aren’t meant to go, and all ships they want to go must already be at the gate. This means more preparation before use, more time and organisation, less abuse.
Also. As for alerts. If an enemy allaince happened to be scouting, could they also be pulled into the bay accidently, hence be alerted. Even a full scale attack could be diverted by accident if the attacking fleet got sucked into this?
I am not sure if this has much potential, but its an idea anyhoo. Spying is good, always like ‘ingame spying’ and not ‘real player spies’
April 1, 2008, 10:04 amju:
This idea of drilling station bays doesn’t make sense in the context. The largest ships aren’t designed to land on planets.Moreover they are massive. How could they get into bays which are part of a ground structure and fit inside this structure?
April 1, 2008, 1:21 pmLegacyWorlds Beta 6 » Blog Archive » Travel and distances (3/5) : special objects:
[...] 4 units away from a supergate. These rules affect both the universe generator and the use of the space-time drilling [...]
December 3, 2008, 11:33 am