Hypergates

Also, it would be nice to be able to unanchor them like a shipyard, because I ended up with obstacles in the path as well.

The hypergates work mostly as intended (at least in my game): The speed on all tiles that are touched by the white beam is doubled (initially, can be enhanced by techs). You have to move your ship on the beam (not necessarily on the gates themselves) to make it reliably use the speed boost. The auto path logic isn't always working with hypergates. Also the indication of needed turns on the path (the smal numbers in hexagons along the path) is not correct, they don't take the speed boost into account. But if you watch your ships move along the hyper lane you see that they actually move the distance that is shown as needing two turns (initially with the 100% speed boost).

edit move star bases like shipyards.

It does help to manually move your ships to the closest point on a hyper lane first and then select a destination. If in doubt, just select a hex immediately outside the closest end gate for the max movement benefit

You're warping a significant chuck of the space-time continuum here, bud. You can't just un-anchor that like a fishing trawler

In my last game (which was part of the campaign) I accidentally routed a hyperlane through a nebula.  Ships would get on the hyperlane until they got to the nebula, then get off it, go around the nebula, and get back on the hyperlane.  I assume that if I had researched more hypergate tech to speed up the hyperlanes that they would have stayed on the lane through the nebula, but I didn't have a chance to try it.  Anyway, avoid nebulas if you can. And avoid black holes.

Has anyone tried to use a hyperlane that you don't own or seen an AI use one of yours?

Yes and yes.

Yep. Did that last night with a scout that re-routed to use someone's else lanes

Reminder that the pathing algorithm is not always accurate in connecting to the hyperlane- Your sometimes better off in finding a direct path to the lane and letting it then follow it 

Hyperlanes work as intended, as far as I can tell.  Warped space which allows for all fleets to move faster.  Pathfinding is sometimes an issue, but for the most part, all fleets can use all hyperlanes. 

Note that you can trade for other civs' gates, to make new lanes.  And you can redirect where your gates connect at any time.

Thanks guys for all the feedback. I figured out the hyperlane issue not long after my original post. 

As far as unanchoring the Hyperlane, I still feel that should be possible. One commentor mentioned that warping/folding spacetime is a big deal so they shouldn't be able to be unanchored. My counter is that as many times per turn I like, I can connect the gate various other gates and redirect the lanes(which I think is a little OP, where as unanchoring them instead would be more reasonable).

I have mixed feelings about the ability to utilize other peoples hyperlanes/vice versa. My preferred play style is fairly malevolent, so I usually create raiding parties to cut through enemy space destroying their developments to handicap their production, so them building hypergates usually accelerates this process.

I would suggest possibly a branching tech tree improvement(similar to the 3 option weapon improvements).  It would goes as follows:

Option A ) Jump Gates: Instead of creating a lane with a hypergate, a jumpgate would allow your ships to be "deposited" at one gate and "withdrawn" at another. Perhaps this costs a resource. Think Dune with instantaneous spacefolding costing spice melange(or promethien in my suggestion).

Option B ) Subspace Gates: Instead of creating a path on the surface of the map that is accessible to all factions, this would create a hidden network of "tunneled" subspace paths, only visible to players with this tech. Each gate would only have one "connection charge" on creation, meaning that once a connection is established, reconnecting to other gates would either be impossible or would have a resource charge associated with it. For a player with Subspace gates, they would function as normal hyperlane except "private". My example in science fiction would be an episode of Star Trek Voyager where the crew discover the Vaudwarr, an ancient warlike race preserved in cryo chambers. They used a secret network of subspace channels to pop up unexpectedly through out the galaxy allow them to use space age blitzkreig tactics. I would suggest that in this option the ships would be immune to detection to other players barring being directly adjacent. 

Option C ) would be some sort of base improvement on vanilla hypergates and lanes. 

As often as I have to tell people to "read the screen/manual/sheet-in-your-face," I had to learn this the hard way.

My rig can finally hold up a Ludicrous map, though, so that little detour isn't a big deal on a really long lane.

Yes-- and I don't like it. I originally planned to use them to quickly bring fleets into enemy territory but once I learned the enemy can also use them, that plan was foiled.

The owner of the hyperlanes should be the only Civ that can use them, with the possible exception of allies and/or team members.

I'm soon going to have the first hyperlane booster tech. Is there any chance that the speed boost is limited to civs with the tech, or better yet the owning civ?

It is limited to civ with the tech.

Argh! The Unit Transports seem to completely ignore the nearby hyperlane, and there's no way to course correct manually...

That's problably the same problem with pathfinding that normal ship movement has also: to be sure that your ships use a hyperlane you have to move them onto it manually, otherwise there is a (not so small) chance that the hyperlane is partly or entirely ignored.

But as you said, you cannot influence unit transports manually. At which opportunity I again propose to make it possible that citizens not only spawn at the homeworld. For me it would suffice that spawning is random and happens proportionally to population size on a planet.

sticking to 3.4 with ucp grm ... wait until the bugs are worked out

Traveling through hypergates ain't like dustin' crops, kid... :+)

Hi,

Surely you should park military units on your hyperlanes - and enemy ones if they're relevant too - to prevent their units from arriving unannounced. it's the same principle as putting units on roads / railways in civ2 (when anybody could use a road/railway in later editions they were only available to the host civ) to curtail enemy movement.

Cheers,

Jon

When I  first heard about hyperlanes, I thought they would work along the lines of wormholes. That is, they would have one entry point and one exit point. That is not how they were implemented -- you can enter a hyperlane at any point along its path -- like a road and not a tunnel.

I wouldn't mind expending the resources to guard my gates but I certainly don't want to station ships all along its path to protect it from what I deem to be interlopers. This approach could become terribly expensive on large maps with long hyperlanes not to mention a huge waste of resources.

My ridiculous solution would be to create a second hypergate next to the original. I could then connect those two when I don't need the "real" hyperlane and only enable that one when I need it for my own ships. Administrators are expensive and this idiotic strategy would cost me one that could probably be used to better advantage elsewhere. Perhaps we don't have to connect a hypergate to anything? I haven't looked into that possibility-- it only just occurred to me.

If it sounds like I don't like the current hypergate/hyperlane implementation, that's because I don't. Oh, and did I mention that pathfinding has been broken for many months now-- long before hyperlanes came into the picture. Let's fix the old stuff before introducing new stuff, please.

'Nuff said,

Richard

A hypergate does not need to connect.  Right at the top of the destination list is a selection for "none".

yes , I was hoping you would pop in one end and out the other , this method of roads that others can use is a bit lame in my opinion...

Instead of helping us guard our territories as I wished with mines or other , we are now more vulnerable to invasion than ever .. absurd

Doesn't seem all that different to me. Once things start getting feisty on the map, I start rolling out sensor pickets. Lining hyperlanes with them shouldn't be too tough unless you go crazy with the things.

Mines would be fun, though.