This is a discussion post for my blog today concerning Transdimensional Warp Drives.

Let the discussions begin!

Calypso

These things are obviously convenience items. Not everyone is a FC. Even less people are Seers. And no one is a Seer is a Capital Ship. Just set the requirement to "Capital Ship" and be done with it. Or does JeffL tell you that's dangerous business too?

are we talking 10 hop range as the crow flies or including w4?

you would be halfway to the dg anyway @ 10 hop max range. whats the average hop distance to a t22 instance from kumari?

send a scout ahead? what a scout who isnt coming on your run? why would they do this for you? and if they do how are they getting on the run in a scoutship?

Add this to test server. I wanna try this shit!

First round of question answering!

Everyone will get devices that warp to AI and team or squad controlled permanent beacons. These will have a jump distance, some will be better than others.

Seers and Fleet Commanders will get devices that warp to AI and team or squad controlled permanent AND temporary beacons.

Fleet Commanders will get Capital Ship devices that can teleport the entire squad.

If you have Warp 4, Warp 4 will be used in the distance calculations.

By 'send a scout ahead' -- either someone just flies there and drops the beacon so everyone else can warp with the FC later. Or you fly there in your scoutship, drop the beacon, warp back to pick up your ship and warp with the FC. The point was to illustrate an idea of how I see temporary beacons used.

It'll be on test sometime soon!

Calypso

<3

If the scout ship drops a temp beacon in several distant galaxies, when the FC attempts a Squad jump, does he get to choose which temp beacon to warp to?

Will the FC need to be the squad leader in order to initiate the squad jump?

^

Also inform us when that gets on test.

When you activate a transwarp device, you get a little dialog box like this. It will include all applicable destinations.



No, the FC doesn't need to be squad leader.

Calypso

This has a potential of becoming the best addition ever. You got me very excited.

Can a player deploy multiple warp beacons in the same galaxy? How will they be identified on the warp destination list?

Will galaxies like Hyper, and Ruby Steppes allow a beacon to be deployed to avoid the drones?

If a beacon gets attacked, will there be a message to alert the person who deployed it?

How strong is the Temporary Beacon?

More questions answered!

Perm. Warp Beacons follow normal perm. drone placement requirements. So you can only put them in unowned or team buildable space. Temp. Warp Beacons follow temp drone requirements but with two additional restrictions. First, you can't deploy them in an instanced galaxy, second, you can't deploy them in an owned galaxy.

With those restrictions, I suppose it might be possible to put one in Hyper to bypass the drones. Same with Ruby Steppes -- although someone would have to make it through to drop the temp. beacon first.

Perm. Beacons will probably be one of the tankiest drones out there. Temp. Beacons... not so much. They'll only have a 15 minute lifespan and won't be able to take much of a beating.

If a player places multiple beacons in one galaxy it currently makes no difference to the system. The list of galaxies sent to the client for selection has unique applied to it before sending so you will only see one beacon for that galaxy. However... since warping warps you to the beacon, maybe this should be changed in further iterations. I could see a scenario where someone has an extremely large galaxy and wants beacons in both ends, etc.

Calypso

What tech will the first "post-test release" beacons be? I don't think many people will be happy if you say T22.

honestly its no bigge if it can be used in hyper etc, if you are of a high enough level to be getting one of these working or knowing someone who does then its exactly the sort thing it should be used for and you likely would have other ways of getting into hyper already.

the previous posted mentioned what level tech I would hope there would be a range of them up to t22 being best stats ones