Tim57

Wormholes/Stargates

Wormholes/Stargates

Wouldn't it be cool if you could find wormholes in the game. You'd have to build a starbase at any end you wanted to enter, but eventually, you'd be able to move them to strategically usefull positions. Actually, maybee it would only be cool if you gained some sort of trade bonus from it - move it back to a homeworld and you can trade with the far end as if it were the homeworld.
29,660 views 45 replies
Reply #26 Top
Lucky Jack...

Let's consider:
1) Humans came up with a *breakthrough*. Note that. What is that breaktrhough? Probably how to put the hyperfold generator inside it's own folded space *safely*. This is just a guess of mine, but it seems to be what the other races hadn't been able to do, or were not crazy enough to try because it was so dangerous.

Being able to put the projector inside the ship would allow:
* reduction of power to create the hyperfold.
* allows for a more efficent use of their power, as they can replace the energy lost in the hyper field "on site" (during transit).

Now, let's take a closer look at how that one "change" would affect the power needs, just due to geometry.
Whether the Star Gates create a tunnel between both ends, or merely a sphere as big around as the gate itself, this area is much bigger then the ship. This means it takes much more power to just create the same "density" as what a smaller sphere. It takes a lot more power to get the gate to say, the x10 density that you can use to create a smaller sphere that the hyperdrive creates around its ship.

Perhaps if you made a star gate just big enough to fit through your biggest reasonable hulls, then it too could be upgraded to be faster. More power to put into the gate on the projector (sender) end. However, the gates work in conjuction. This tells us it takes a projector on both ends to complete a "FTL" passage via star gates. Let's presume symmetry means that it takes as much power to de-phase a ship from FTL-alternate space to normal space as it takes to send it. So you have to have a star gate as big as the sender, and it has to generate as much power. Reasonable? Seems so to me.

Now, consider entropy. Nothing is immune to entropy. Is all the energy consumed in a gating devoted purely to a transition start/transition end matter with the travel? Or do you have to pack on extra energy to maintain the field intergrity along the way? If you have to pack on extra energy to maintain the field, then that would be done at the front end. Maybe this explains why the ships are so much smaller then the gates themselves? If the aliens couldn't put their own projectors inside the field, then they had to pack it with lots of extra at the start, which is devoted towards making sure the package gets to the other end intact, rather then travelling faster, but risks packages getting "lost" in trasit. The Human Self Contained Hyper-Drive, on the other hand, can generate a field for speed, and as long as their Drive continues to function, it can replace the lost field energy, continuously. Thus, almost all of its energy can be devoted to speed. Hence, why it is faster to start with, and why they can get faster as you advance in the game (better power generaton means more power to devote to speed, therefore the faster the ships get).

Let's just accept the death of the idea that the starting Star Gate tech should permit instant porting from the start of the game. Trying to create such a rationale creates a reason why the GC universe would never happen (ie, FTL drives are infinitely slower then star gates). Let's instead focus on when and how players should gain instant porting or even space-laning. When would it prevent the drag down on the bigger maps? How much trouble should it be? Should it be the all-nodal Civ style Airport system? Should it be the once discovered "instant-port anywhere in the empire" system of MoO2? Should it be a more of a tree-branch system, where you purposely connect two ends, and any facility can be connected to as many ends as you want, so long as you build the terminals? When does managing your instant travel infrastructure become as much of a pain as not having any instat port capability and having to wait forever for your newest ships from your biggest ship building worlds to reach the far flung parts of your empire?

Not that I don't have fun arguing the game-verse continuality. But it seems pointless to argue it, trying to stretch it into instant porting from the start. Remember, this is Brad's universe. If he wants us to start with instant porting tech, he'd give it to us. He hasn't. Remember, he's had, what, 10 years of player comments? Bringing it up now isn't going to change his mind. Hundreds of fans have already beaten us all to it by years and years. Now, maybe in a spin-off, you'll be able to start off as the Dreadlords. WIth just one, small, self contained, stealthed Star Base. With all the major races well established empires. So that you have to go about, rebuilding the Arnor empire, while avoiding giving yourself away, until you've grown big enough and strong enough that the races combined will not be able to stop you. That sounds like a lot of fun to me. What about you?
Reply #27 Top
Star Pilot, you present some interesting arguements about interstellar travel. First you call it folding of space, then you talk about spheres and tunnels. Just what is your idea of FTL travel?
Reply #28 Top
While the exact system or systems that GalCiv uses for FTL is not clearly stated, we can gather clues from the back story, from the game physics, and from the given improvements in FTL travel that become available during the game.

From these clues, I believe that what GalCiv uses is most likely a system where a sphere of alternative space is created around a "package" (the ship or barge being sent through a star gate or using its FTL drive). It's this sphere volume that allows "normal" matter inside to safely and conveniently get around normal physics and appear to normal reality to travel FTL. As the ships travelling FTL still have a physical presence on the game map (ie, ships "in transit" can be attacked by other ships and even space sharks), this tells us that there is some actual point of interfacing between the ship's pocket universe and normal reality. Other items can somehow interface or force a transition from FTL space to normal space. Perhaps other starships can create a higher resistance in the local space, this slowing or stopping other FTL ships. Perhaps space sharks can naturally travel between normal space and FTL space. As FLT ships update everything in their sensor range on our main map, this again supports that there is a physical interface, where the ship inside its travel envelope can sense normal reality, to some degree, outside their FTL envelope. Unlike in say, MoO1, where a ship or fleet, once it goes into FTL, is committed until it arrives at its destination.

With gates, you can have a couple of options. You have the Television Series "SG1" physics, where each gate creates a tunnel of warping space between the two points, and the gates are occupied while the package is in transit. The transit time itself can be instant, or merely very fast (ie, 100 million light-years/second). Sometimes, it's all one way travel (ie, a sending and received gate, but not back travel). Sometimes, it's merely "a door" so that things entering one side of the gate leaves the other. The Egosoft's Trading/Fighting/Adventure Space Sim Xverse uses this system: gates that form the terminal points of a "fast pass tunnel", and its always both ways and always active. Very simple. Having your gates occupied while a traveller is in transit requires that gate travel be instant or fast (so long as you want to use multiple pathing). Consider, if you only travelled 1 Light Year/second, then opening a Earth's Gate to an Andromeda Gate would keep the gate occupied for over 2 million seconds for the transit time alone. That's a long, long time. Imagine if airport runways could only be used if no other aircraft were travelling between that runway and another one? Air travel would not be a common thing if you had to wait the hours most flights take to transit from their originating runway to their destination runway. But if the transit is just a few seconds, then its just a matter of coordinating and scheduling to maximize your through-put.

Now, in GalCiv, the illustrations we have from Star Dock show that the gate is used only "momentarily". This implies that they don't need either end to be open while a traveller is in transit. So it's not an actual "tunnel" that is created between the two gates. Then what is happening? It must be a transitional effect that is placed on the ship or created around the ship's spacial volume. Easiest way to create this protected or altered volume is just make a sphere. With the GalCiv system, I presume that the gateway imparts the actual "travel" velocity by creating a wave effect. The package ship sits in it's volume of space that is carried in this wave towards the target gateway. The target gateway catches the incoming wave (acting as a receiver) and reverses the process that transitioned the ship to its special state back to reality. This would allow for an easy logical breakthough: the humans put the projector safely into their ships, creating self propelled FLT star ships. This allows ships with their system to go anyway (no need of a pre-built reciever), allows them to change where they are going on the fly (altering their carrier "wave" slightly results in them changing travel direct), and allows them to transition back to reality whenever they want (can stop anywhere along their path). It's all basic SF FTL physics. Most work on the principle that the FTL drive creates some effect around the ship allowing it to circumvent normal reality. Some put all the work on the beginning and end (ie, big energy expenditure to go FTL and to stop being FTL), and some make it more like normal earthside travel (you have to constantly expend energy to continue to move forward/overcome the normal reality's "friction" or resistance to FTL movement).

The star gate transitional system, where the star gates "transmit" and "recieves" this FTL wave, means that if you don't want to let the Drengin invasion fleet through your star gate, you just don't "receive" them. Then, they are trapped in their altered state, passing through the universe. This means that invasions can only work via sneak attacks (you have no reason to suspect that it isn't a merchant convey coming through the gate), or some form of covert action where the recieving star gate control station is taken over and then set to "receive" the invading fleet. A highly secure arrangement. The controllers of the gate only let through what they trust and thus cannot be easily invaded.

Now, the interesting thing to me is what is everyone using to instantly communicate? You have to schedule the arrivals at your gate to make sure that you don't have 2 different travelers inbound at the same time. Otherwise, I would think there would be problems. So how are they doing that? How is it that your FTL ships, going as fast as you can push matter, have instant communication with their HQ? Something is going faster then you can push (thinking) matter. Is it all using simple quantum entanglement, so you have some really busy communication centers, where everything is being relayed to comm hubs at HQ (and back) via various permanent Point To Point chains? I presume that there is some other mechanism at work, to allow for easy communication between all parties without prior exchanges of communications. However, as each turn in GC is a week, that would permit a network of a simple permanent Point to Point communication network to a central source and back out. But that means that you'd need to send a quantum communicator through to whoever you want to safely travel to in the future. So that you and they can communicate when to send through a traveller, and so they know who that traveller is (so they will 'recieve' it), and not have problems of having multiple travellers needing to be recieved at the same facility at the same time. How do you get that first link out to them? This may be why the race that gave humans the information to build a star gate sent through the specs with its receiver set to "always on". That guaranteed they'd be able to send through travellers, and those could carry quantam communicators. A new star gate would be highly secure, even set to "always on", because no one but the race that was in electromagnetic based communication with them would even know they were building a gate, let alone when it would first go online and be available to recieve. Show a new species how to build a gate, make sure it's always on, send through your merchant fleet, and once you've secured your treaties and advantageous trading prevs, then show them how to "secure" their gate. Then, you can give them other gate locations, and a few communicators to those gates, to open trade negotions with the other races. In exchange, of course, for whatever you want. Just some thoughts.
Reply #29 Top
get around normal physics


Star Pilot, I assume when you say "get around normal physics" that you are just using a metaphore for the ever changing knowledge base we have for physics. That is, it is not "getting around" physical rules that will enable FTL, but learning more about the the rules we already have some knowledge of and learning about rules we don't yet know.
Reply #30 Top
Lucky Jack, you should presume and not assume. Because when you assume, you make an .... well, you probably know the rest.

I'm not concerned with having an actual discussion, including all physics as we currently know or strongly suspect, on how to go FTL. All I'm concerned with here is the game and how and when is it appropriate to allow us, the players, instant-porting from location to location in the game. Game physics isn't concerned with the reality, or what we know. If it was, there wouldn't be any other aliens, or, if it included them, they'd be something so totally different, they could only be modelled in the game as a "dangerous" region of space where corrosive nebuli slowly drift over to encompass whatever enters its region, or a mere resource to be harvested to make other stuff (ie, research, or money) from.

There are ways to "get around normal physics". We have a particular framework that we consider normal. But change enough of the conditions, and things act very different. For instance, changing the speed being travelled or changing the scale of the material worked with, and "normal" physics no longer seems to apply. Physics still apply, because its still what happens in the physical existance, but it just doesn't seem normal or expected to us. "normal physics" generally refers to whatever set of physics people are most familiar with. With authors, or fans of SF works, you have even more physics. For instance, Star Trek physics (utilizing the warpage of space that matter and anti-matter reactions create to go FTL), or Star Wars physics (where having lots of extra life-force or bacteria or gas enables you with reality altering and mind altering abilities), etc etc etc. For our purposes here, we are talking "GalCiv physics". Not reality, not the "NASA FTL Quantum Gravity physics theory #3", and not anything else. We just need a framework that is consistant with what we know of GalCiv, and stays in agreement with it for Galciv's game as it advances.

Anyways... WHEN should we get instant-porting? Mid game? Late game? Never? What kind of fast travel should it be? Space laning (ie, x5 faster travelling time between established points), true instantaporting? Should it be variable destinations but low usage per turn, or empire wide or dedicated facilities?
Reply #31 Top
At this point I think I am going to withdraw my objections to what I have seen in this thread as inconsistant and conflicting concepts. My objections were from a fear that, if such conflicting concepts were made part of the game, it would stretch the credibility of the game and detract from the game's enjoyability. I am sure Stardock will not permit that to happen.

I am not a debator. I do not enjoy debate for its own sake. I can not take a stand that is contrary to my understanding. I can, however, accept possibilities, and do enjoy thinking about what "could be".

Jack's rule #1: The only constant in the universe is change. This is really an observation that our knowledge of our unverse is forever changing. As applied to the game, if you change the rules, any of the rules, you have to show some way to support that change (some new discovery or some event that alters ones perspective of the rules). I think GC1 did this fairly well, with a few (perhaps only one) relatively unnoticable exceptions. (I got tripped up on one recently.)

Jack's rule #2: The physical laws of our universe might be exact, but the study of physics, by the human nature of those studying it, can not be exact.
Explanation: The laws of the universe we collectively call physics exist. Our collective knowledge of those laws is incomplete and inexact. and changes as our understanding of our universe changes. Technical discoveries through research shows parts and pieces of those laws, and our understanding of how to use those laws expands and changes along with the resultant changes in our collective knowledge (the "particular framework that we consider normal physics" as you called it, or the collective scientific vewpoint of universal physics as I prefer to call it).

Jack's rule #3: You don't get around physics. You learn new things about physics that lets you accomplish new things.
Examples:
#1. The "collective wisdom" (perhaps a better term would be "common missinformation") once stated that the earth was flat. Did Columbus "get around physics" when he sailed to the western hemisphere? No. He showed that the rules of physics were missunderstood (or if not missunderstood, ... well, lets not get into that).
#2. The "collective wisdom" once stated that man would never fly. Did the many people that showed this "physical rule" false "get around" physics? Again, no. They showed the true (and I hesitate to use the word "true") rules and took advantage of them.
#3. The "collective wisdom" once stated that the speed of sound would never be exceeded. Did the researchers at Bell Laboritories, test pilots of the experimental faster than sound aircraft, and many others, "get around" physics? No. They discovered more about the physics of atmospheric flight and used that new knowledge to develop the technology.
#4. (And this one is still in the theorum formation stages - and thanks to you, Star Pilot, for giving me the clue). The "colective wisdom" states that FTL travel is not possible. As "proof" of this they point to Einstein's "theory of relativity", (conveniently forgetting that he postulated two such theories). But is it really "collective wisdom" that says so? Star Pilot's clue prompted me to search on the web for "NASA FTL Quantum Gravity physics". And did I ever get a hit!!! link --- http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw69.html --- The site is npl.washington.edu. (???Can someone give an authoratative answer to the following question: is npl in this site address the National Propulsions Labratory???)
The article, by John G. Cramer and titled "NASA Goes FTL Part 1: Wormhole Physics", is about a workshop on "Advanced Quantum/Relativity Theory Propulsion" held at the Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory and attended by "NASA personnel, NASA consultants and contractors, academic physicists, and science fiction writers" (some of the physicists are also SF writers).
The article says that they discussed two types of worm holes (and I would have to guess from the way this article made this statement that theorists today have more than just two theoretical types of worm holes). It would appear that we (or perhaps only our descendants) shall see the collective knowledge of physics expand, not to "get around physics", but to provide the knowledge needed to exploit the natural laws of the physics of the universe to permit FTL travel.
The article also stated "Our technical capabilities at present are not up to the task of creating" either of the worm hole types they were discussing, almost as if dismissing the lack as something to be solved elsewhere, or later. Further discussion in the article implies to me that the technical capacity requirement needed is pure brute force power, although I come to this implication somewhat obliquely.
Never the less, the article points out that there are currently at least two theories about how it might be possible to create worm holes, and what the effects of using them might be.

Research (and other events) in the game certainly has the right to advance "newly discovered" rules for FTL travel within the game. I have no requirement that the discovery be based on our current day knowledge of physics. The only thing I ask is that there be consistant explanations for the rules, and the changes in rules, in the game. (I tend to spot, and latch onto, convoluted inconsistancies of reasoning and that tends to detract from my enjoyment.)

Again, however, this all still just shows how important "view point" is to our acceptance of; 1. life, 2. SF stories, 3. Movies, 4. games, 5. et all. Being believable means being consistant, or at the minimum, explaining changes in rules (In real life, learning more about the laws of physics, in a game like GC, discoveries and events that allow rules to "change"). As long as GC continues to do this well, I will continue to enjoy it. I don't really care where such changes occur, as long as the game maintains balance and consistancy, and allows me to "buy into" it.
Reply #32 Top
The only thing I ask is that there be consistant explanations for the rules, and the changes in rules, in the game. (I tend to spot, and latch onto, convoluted inconsistancies of reasoning and that tends to detract from my enjoyment.)


I would have never guessed.

By the way:
#1, the universe isn't constantly changing. The local conditions may be changing, but the universe isn't. Well, okay, there is some evidence that the laws of physics themselves may actually be changing, but it is on such a slow scale that it would have zero impact on us as individuals, and even as a species. So, to us, the universe is constant.

#2, our study of it can be very exact. Humans just prefer to believe what they want, rather then what the evidence dictates. We are emotive beings, not logical ones.

#3, You can easily get around inconvenient physics. We do it all the time.

#3#1 Even in the dark stupid ages, most people knew the world was round. You are buying into a "make yourself feel superior" myth which holds everyone before us were idiots. SCIENCE (the collective knowledge of people) knew the world was round. Indeed, we know that the Ancient Greeks figured out how big the earth is to a remarkable degree of accuracy. The "Collective Wisdom" of Columbus's time was that Earth was too big to safely sail westward from Europe to the Orient (Far Eastern part of Asia). Columbus believed that the estimates of how big the earth was in size were wrong and overly large. Turns out, "Collective Wisdom" was very correct and Columbus was very wrong. However, Columbus did discover that the ancient lands of legend to the west did exist, and unlike the then "modern" Europe, it still had untapped resources of trees. That one fact by itself is what drove the major powers of the time to colonize the new world. The navies of the world were wood then, and they needed the best wood to make decent fighting ships. The super powers of the time were chewing through their wood much faster then they could grow it.

#3#2 Which collective wisdom? Our ancient ancestors definately thought that the privalaged could fly. Heck, they knew it, because they did it. Ballooning is an ancient form of flight that was practiced for thousands of years in the Americas, and there is some evidence that the some of ancients people in North Africa/Mediterranean did as well. When the Wright brothers decided to attack the problem of Powered Heavier-Then-Air flight, the thinking was that there wasn't enough power available to permit viable heavier then air flight at that time. And that thinking was correct for several years after the Wright Brothers first flight. Which you'd know, if you were familiar with the history of modern aeronautics. Heavier Then Air Flight (airplanes) need to generate a lot of power to be able to go fast enough to take advantage of aerodynamic lift. That power only became only available with alumnium block combustion engines. The Wright Brothers did what other aeronautic pioneers had been trying to do. However, what set the Wrights truly apart from the others were the Wrights managed to get enough of an alumium power block engine to put on their glider to add that extra bit of thrust to turn it into a self-powered flyer. As aluminum power block technology advanced, planes became truly feasible. Aliminium power blocks only became viable when we had industrial electricty. It takes a tremendus amount of power to work with with aluminum (compared to other metals, such as copper or gold). So powered flight had to await industry harnassing electricity.

#3#3 Collective Wisdom never said that the speed of sound could not be exceeded. It was well known at the time that it was exceeded all the time, even by common place objects (ie, whips). It was known that the current aeronautic engineering and construction techniques could not stand the strain of supersonic flight. That's why all the major powers of air decided to investigate how to break the sound barrier, how to control the air plane when it was going that fast, and how to survive doing so. Indeed, NASA, as well as other research organizations or branches of commercial aeronautic companies, are still researching it.

#3#4 Collective Wisdom does not say that FTL is impossible. It merely states that our conventional or traditional techniques for accelerating spaceships will not permit the reaching of seriously near light speeds, and certainly not past it. So we know that to go FTL, it will take something other then what we are doing, now.

Be very careful using the term collective wisdom. True collective wisdom tends to be based on the best knowledge and experience available, and that is how it survives to continue being the collective wisdom. Of course, it won't always be right, but it will be right for its particular circumstances extremely often. That's why its collective wisdom.

Anyways, onto things that actually matter.

Research in a game is meant to open new options. Its a small step reward structure. You play for a while, and you get the award of being able to use the new option. It's a good gaming feature, which is why it is so often included in developing strategy games. Keeps the game interesting.

I don't like any rules in a game to "change". However, I don't mind new features becoming available. IE, you get Rairoad tech in Civ, you can now create a Railroad terrain feature. Units get to move across a "Railroad" terrain feature at 0 cost. That is just a feature of the game. Some might consider that a rule change, but I don't. Railroads are always there in the game... just that you cannot build them until you get RR tech. If you played a post-apocolypse scenario in Civ, you could have some railroads already existing. You just could not build them yourself, because you just don't have the infrastructure or working knowledge to do so. In Civ, does it seem unreasonable to be able to build a railroad after getting Railroad tech? It doesn't to me. Nor does it seem unreasonable in Civ to build airports after getting flight tech. So a similar "discover" would seem logical for enabling some form of accelerated travel or even instant-porting.

Again, the question to me isn't "how" Star Dock would justify such. Indeed, SF is filled with thousands of examples to "inspire" them. It is, instead, the question: When should we gain such capabilities in the game? When would it be a good point to introduce it as a "reward" to the players? When do players really need that capability on the bigger maps (and therefore, having it, has a better GC playing experience)? I don't care if Star Dock calls it "Instant Space Warping", "Dimensional Sliding", or "Quantum Catapulting". I just care about when would be appropriate to the game, and how that could make playing the larger maps more fun. Should it be only available as a late tech, and be a empire achievement to permit instant-porting between any of your worlds? Should it be a point to point system? Should it be a map construction project so that you have to "railroad" your space tiles between your worlds? What would be more fitting to the GC game and our enjoyment?
Reply #33 Top
This just came up to me a few days ago, and i have been working on it ever since.

If two circle shaped objects with a hole in the middle of each, were powered with eneugh energies to calibrate super-conductive positirons and neutrons and polythionics, we could create (when the calibrated magnetics join in the middle) a ball of supermagneticcoespheres (SMCS) to :

a) put magnet ships through the "gate" (or any term thus christened) and by doing that, pull the ship towards the middle, then maneuvere around the SMCS, then calibrate the magnetics to be pushed away from the SMCS, to then proceed to the other "gate".

b) Create a SMCS in the middle of an enemy armada or starbase to pull them together and ultimately KILL THEM...

c) use the SMCS to harvest metal out of planetoids or asteroids.

d) ultimately change the balance of power in the galaxy.

thoughts?

your very caffeine infested friend...

Imtorolin
Master and lord of the 1st Quadron of Elites.
Reply #34 Top
Vicious. What about defenses against such a weapon?
Reply #35 Top
by specially calibrating supermagnets within your ships to fend off or absorb the magnetic forces outside.
Reply #36 Top
WOW this post is really going places. I think there are a few of good ideas in here. But what would it take ti actually get the design team to add wormholes/stargates?

Is it that they can't get the ships to use the wormholes/stargates when the direct flight path takes longer
Reply #37 Top

It's possible, but it's just not a trivial thing to code properly and we have a lot of stuff to get in before Gal Civ 2 goes gold. 

Reply #38 Top
But what would it take ti actually get the design team to add wormholes/stargates?


Ship Alpha1 = coordinates x15 y18
Ship Alpha1 enters x15 y18
move Ship Alpha1 to x5 y2
display message "Your ship has arrived safely on the other side of the wormhole"

Thats how i did it in my sad little 2d 1 level amateur space game...
Reply #39 Top
I strongly support the idea of introducing some sort of instantaneous travel.

I favor the wormhole strategy. Having the option to turn them on and turn them off would be smart so that the players who do not like the feature because it complicated things for them dont have to use it. But, also, add a slider in the galaxy creation window to adjust the number of wormholes so that the players who like to have 2-3 wormholes can have just that, and the players who like 5-6 wormholes can have that. The only problem I see for the developers (other than the lack of time needed to throw this feature in) is that it wont be possible to always have the wormholes in strategic, and sensable locations unless it is a campaigne because the maps are randomly generated. In a randomly generated map a wormhole can end near your home planet and the other end of the wormhole only 4 sectors to the left. Or having it lead to some sector far far away where nothing exists but an unusable star system. Not very useful..
Reply #40 Top
It actually takes a lot of programming to make 6 to 8 wormholes work. It can be done. Maybe they are saving it for Galciv3 or maybe they don't want to mess with making the computer civilizations use it intelligently....at any rate it would be fun.
Reply #43 Top
I'd still like to see some sort of instantanious travel.....

even if we have to have 2 sorts of ship types.

for instance, using a Dune inspired method. you'd have the Space-Folding ships, and the standard ships.

The SF's are huge and carry the normal ships within them, and then transport them to the destination.........

Granted they would need to be hugely expensive, or atleast expensive compared with the mass they can carry within there holds.

It would add a lot of strategy to a conflict, because the enemy could transport an entire taskforce behind your lines, and then you'd have to assemble a force to counter it. but it would be balanced out, because you could do the same to them.

It'd be interresting atleast, though im not sure if its viable, because getting the AI to make best use out of it, is not an easy task.
Reply #44 Top
Your idea is interesting, morden.

But i have to go with the wormhole theory. With the ability to create one, your species could become Gods, ultimately. To control that type of power, you could do everything from creating a superb interstellar net of wormholes, to building one in the middle of an enemy star system and leading to nowhere. I would suggest that that be the last research to be discovered, for it is perfection. (after you do all the test-reasearches on it )
Reply #45 Top
eh what about black holes ?


black holes ultimately destroy you in any case possible.