LegacyWorlds Beta 6

The previous posts in the series explained the basic elements of distance and trajectory computations in the Legacy Worlds Beta 6 universe; this final post about travel and distances puts these elements together, explaining how and when they apply.

Indeed, while players will get the final say about their fleets’ trajectories, some details remain to be explained. In addition, many other elements of the game use the travel rules (e.g. mining operations or trade); in these cases, the various computations are applied behind the scenes, without any intervention from the player.

Path optimisation

In the previous post we described optimal indirect routes as well as sub-optimal indirect routes; however, these routes only apply to interstellar travel. When trying to compute an optimal route between two areas, the game will also consider the trajectory’s endpoints. For example, when traveling from a stellar system to another, it may sometimes be worth staying in Hyperspace to avoid a particulary dense Oort cloud.

Travel time

While we have described trajectories in terms of abstract “distance units”, the actual time it takes a fleet to travel along a trajectory also depends on other factors.

• The slowest ship in a fleet determines the fleet’s actual speed.
• The speed of a ship depends on both its engines and its size; quite obviously, a capital ship outfitted with fighter engines will not be able to accelerate as fast as a fighter.
• Some ships may be outfitted with specific modules that can cause them to fly through nebulae or near black holes at optimal speeds.

Fleet trajectories

While the game’s interface will provide the player with automated trajectory selection tools, it will be possible to create arbitrary trajectories - deciding which sections to travel and whether they should be traveled in Hyperspace or normal space. While this is unnecessary under most circumstances, it is sometimes useful to create a more complex path, for example while planning an attack.

Supergate travel

Supergate travel was not described in this series of post; that is because it obeys specific rules which are not really a part of distance and trajectory computations. We will post more details about supergate travel in another post.

Automated uses of path computations

In addition to fleets, many elements in Beta 6 will need to use path computations: probes, remote mining operations, trading, population migration… In these cases it would be annoying to ask the player about the trajectory to use. Trajectories used by these elements will therefore be computed using the best known route.

Next time on the LWB6 blog …

This concludes our series about travel and distances. While it was quite boring and sometimes a bit technical, I think it was necessary to describe these various notions.

The next post will be about the stock market system, which can be used to increase an empire’s benefits while introducing a chance of economic depression.