RE: [VV} FTL discussion was RE: [VV] Vectorverse

Adopting three forms of FTL travel allows a more diverse gaming
environment:

Wormholes will be the main transit trunks - fast, cheap, heaviliy
defended
Jump gates will be the intermediate traffic and short routes -
moderately defended, more likely to evacuate the area than defend it as
it only assists ships going outbound.
Plain FTL - the workhorse for the fringe systems and those who don't
want to be regulated.  Most piracy and fleet actions would occur using
this mode.

-Binhan

-----Original Message-----
From: B Lin 
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2005 3:26 PM
To: 'gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu'
Subject: [VV} FTL discussion was RE: [VV] Vectorverse

FTL Travel:I like the multiple method of FTL travel for a universe as it
adds more possibilities, rather than being limited to distinct trade
routes (wormholes) or slow travel (small space-fold jumps or hyperspace
travel) and thus you can mix and match as needed.

At the top level should be the "instantaneous" FTL such as wormholes and
artificial wormholes.  They would allow instaneous transportation
between two points, but could be limited by size (only a certain mass
may pass through), direction (it only works one way) or have a delay
between transits (gravitational disturbances disrupt the wormhole)

At the next level will be jump gates that "boost" ships faster than
their normal drive rates, so that the inital jump is longer or the
transition to hyperspace is faster, so that short or intermediate ranges
are cheaply accessible.  The advantage of jump gates would be that they
could be used for a range of directions for outgoing traffic and it
might be possible to send non-FTL ships through, but would be limited in
that they only help on the inital move outward, and don't necessarily
make it easier for inbound traffic.

The lowest level of FTL is the "plain-vanilla" hyperspace or space-fold
technology.  Depending on which you choose, ships may or may not be
vulnerable during transit.  You could PSB that ships can be intercepted
in hyperspace or that a space-fold technology causes a measureable
gravitational response at the far-end before the ship transits which can
be used to determine where a ship will appear.	Otherwise, ships in FTL
will essentially only be vulnerable when the drop to sub-light or are
in-between jumps.