Hello Backers!
Here is the hyperspace rules set that we've agreed on, following another set of extensive debate, both in the team and on the forum. We'd like to thank everyone for their involvement! As with the Death Penalty thread this will stay here for a few days, then be moved to the archives section.
Cheers,
-Mike
Hyperspace Rules
Before the player can initiate a hyperspace jump they must set the final destination of the journey:
- The player selects a destination using a galactic map navigation interface
- The destination choice is hard-limited by several factors:
The amount of fuel available determines the maximum distance of a trip
Ships have an internal fuel capacity – additional fuel can be carried as cargo and transferred to the ship’s tank
- The basic jump range of the ship’s hyperdrive, determines the distance of each step of the trip
Different hyperdrives have different capabilities
- Jump range
- Fuel efficiency
- Charge time
- Hyperdrives can be replaced with better models to increase capabilities
- Jump locations available to their star map determine the route of the trip
- The player may also have access to additional information that could inform their decisions:
- Activity heat maps for trade, piracy, conflicts etc.
- Hyperspace tracking/prediction devices to monitor local ship activity
- A hyperspace journey may comprise of a number of jumps depending on the distance travelled
- When inputting a journey, there may be multiple routes available to choose from
- Once a destination has been inputted the hyperdrive can be engaged
Once a journey has been set, the player can engage the hyperdrive:
- When the hyperdrive is engaged it begins to draw power from the ship’s power plant until it is fully charged:
- The hyperdrive cannot be initiated if its power draw would make the total power draw of the ship exceed the ship’s power plant capacity
- The player can disable power safeguards to enable the plant to run at over 100%, suffering fatigue damage in the process
- The player can turn off other powered systems to free up capacity for the hyperdrive
- The hyperdrive cannot be initiated when the ship is too close to a celestial body or large man-made structure; the ship must use in-system travel to reach a minimum jump distance
- To create a safe transit the hyperdrive must perform real-time changes based on ship’s power draw; changes to the ship’s total power draw (up or down) slow the charge rate by a percentage value for a duration
- The percentage value and duration is based on the quality of the hyperdrive
- The hyperdrive is sensitive to interference caused by incoming attacks; when an attack impacts on the hull or shields, the hyperdrive’s charge rate is slowed by a percentage value for a duration
- This effect cannot stack with itself
- The percentage value and duration is based on the quality of the hyperdrive
- Special exotic modules can be fitted to ships which when activated interfere with a targeted hyperdrive in range, slowing down charge rates by a percentage value whilst active
- This effect cannot stack with itself
- The percentage value and duration is based on the quality of the module versus the quality of the hyperdrive
- A hyperdrive module that has suffered damage may suffer a malfunction when initiated
- The charge rate may be impaired
- The percentage value and duration is based on the severity of the malfunction
- The hyperdrive may misfire, becoming inoperable for a short duration whilst it runs diagnostics, after which it can be initiated again
- The charging process may generate extra heat
- The hyperdrive may misjump
- Whilst charging the hyperdrive generates heat
- Once the hyperdrive is fully charged it activates:
- The appropriate amount of fuel is removed
- The drive discharges all power
- The ship enters hyperspace
- Time-based effects (charging shields etc.) continue as normal during a hyperspace transition
- A residual opening is left, which dissipates over a duration (up to minutes)
- After a delay (a few seconds) the ship exits hyperspace at the destination area
- If the journey consists of more than one jump the hyperdrive automatically begins to charge for the next jump
- The player can cancel/pause the journey at this point
- Certain types of hyperdrive can use fuel upgrades, and modules are available to allow normal hyperdrives to use them
- Fuel upgrades are carried as cargo units and can be committed to a hyperdrive jump whilst a route is being plotted
- Fuel upgrades increase the capabilities of the hyperdrive for a single jump
- Fuel upgrades produce dangerous waste as cargo units
These multiple jumps for a journey can go via dark systems, rogue bodies surrounded by lightless, dust-filled space, which will:
- Support all sorts of interesting encounters in their own right
- Become useful physical star map locations to discover
- Allow multiple routes to a destination
- Allow players to meet each other far from civilization
There are actions that players can take which directly interact with hyperspace jumps:
- Players that have become Allies (an explicit in game selection of a "friends" flag) can slave their ships together and jump as a single entity
- All ships involved must fully charge their hyperdrive before the jump is initiated
- If any of the ships suffers a misjump, all ships misjump together
- Each slave jumping ship must remain within a set range to at least one other slave ship
- If this distance link is broken, the jump is aborted for all slaved ships
- For each additional slaved ship the chance of a malfunction causing a misjump is lowered
- Ally groups enable the strongest match-making rules, prioritizing the integrity of the group over match ups with other players if it would result in splitting the allies group
- Using specialized ship modules a residual opening can be analyzed to determine the exit point of the hyperspace jump
- This analysis takes an amount of time
- It takes at least as long as the time window for tailgating (so you can’t do both)
- It must fully complete before the residual opening dissipates to give a result
- Analysis of a miss jump gives the original target as the result, with a probability of a misjump based on how quickly the analysis was started after the jump occured
- Ships can target a residual opening and attempt to “tailgate” after the ship that jumped
- The tailgater must be in close proximity to the residual opening and activate the hyperdrive
- The time window for tailgating is a fraction of residual opening’s total existence time
- There is a significant reduction in charge time for tailgating
- Fuel is expended for the jump as normal
- If the tailgater does not have enough fuel to reach the destination they misjump
- If the actual jump range is greater than the tailgater’s hyperdrive capability they misjump
- The closer the residual opening is to dissipating when the tailgate jump is initiated the greater the chance of a misjump
- The tailgater suffers an amount of hull/module damage during the jump based on how close the residual opening is to dissipating
- If successful, the tailgater appears very close to arrival point of the tailgated vessel
- Special ship modules exist that when active can give brief forewarning of ships about to arrive nearby at a location
- Specialised munitions can be obtained which disrupt residual openings, preventing tailgating and analysis
Misjumps have their own set of rules:
- Misjumps can result from a number of scenarios
- A hyperdrive malfunction can result in a misjump
- A galactic map malfunction can result in a misjump
- Activating the hyperdrive inside certain space phenomena can result in a misjump
- Attempting to tail-gate another ship’s jump can result in a misjump
- A misjump transports the ship to a new destination
- This distance between the new destination and the target destination is a random value based on the distance travelled (the longer the jump, the greater the misjump range potential)
- The misjump destination may be the outer limits of an inhabited system, or a dark system
- Such systems may not yet be in the player’s galactic map
- Very rarely, a misjump can result in turning up somewhere else
- After a misjump, the hyperdrive automatically runs a diagnostics test for a duration before it can be charged again
- There is no way to force a misjump other than directly sabotaging the hyperdrive module to guarantee a malfunction
. But watch for aim-botters!
