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?

It isn’t very realistic and we have always been attached to have a universe which would be as close to reality as possible or which could function in a logical way.

Indeed, having planets which are all equivalent to each other, having stellar systems which always have the same number of planets and are so regularly organised in the universe or having a universe which is only a plane and not a 3D structure isn’t realistic.

Moreover, travel times to go from one side to another are getting enormous when the universe gets bigger. For now it is still manageable since the player base remains small. But what if we manage to attract more players?

Therefore we definitively had to rethink the shape of the universe to have it solve these various issues.

This implied including various types of planets, be it on the size or environment point of view. Stellar systems had to include a random number of planets. The shape of the whole universe had to be less regular and had to include a notion of volume and not only plane. We also needed means to go faster from farther locations.

While we were at it, we could also include concepts we had thought of for Beta 5 but didn’t include at the time, such as stellar objects other than just planets, nebulae and planetary remains, for example asteroid belts.

This lead us to design a Beta 6 universe divided into layers. A layer is a roughly circular area containing a set of objects such as star systems, nebulae or black holes. Each layer has a Z coordinate, which indicates where to place the layer on the map. The only normal way to go from a layer to another is through a supergate. A graphical representation of an example layer is presented below (click the picture to get more explanations).

Various types of stellar objects can be found in each layer. Star systems are basically composed of a star which can be orbited by a varying (but limited) number of planets, planetary remains or asteroid belts. Nebulae are dense clouds of gas floating in space.

Black holes are singularities in the structure of space-time. They can occur naturally, which is fortunately rare, and can appear because of the use of devices related to a very advanced technology.

Finally, supergates allow fleets to fly from a layer to another. Supergates cannot be built; they are leftovers of an ancient civilization, which connect layers in the universe. They occupy whole systems, a bit like nebulae, and are indestructible.

What do you think of this new shape of the universe?

Is it too complex to apprehend?

What do you think of the list of considered objects? Would you add something else (along nebulae, black holes, supergates, stellar systems including planets, asteroid belts and planetary remains)?

Considering supergates can be “controlled” by alliances, what kind of features would you associate with this supergate control?