FTL mechanics

[TangentFoxy]

Depends on #16 Depends on #17

These mechanics are meant to make short frequent trips most efficient at the cost of player time, while longer trips are a bit slower but overall take less play time. I would also like variety in drive design/tech/capability to be possible.

• Drive systems are designed around a target mass. Being under or above that mass lowers their speed.
  • Some drives tolerate differences in target mass far better than others.
  • Stations have ballast available for pickup to match target mass. (Think high priority couriers, who need optimal speed.)
• Subjective time spent on a jump is the logarithm of the distance of the jump. (Longer jumps take longer, but not too much longer.)
• Objective time spent on a jump is based on drive speed with a small exponential based on distance. (Longer distance jumps are slightly slower than short distance jumps.)
• Fuel used for jumps is distance squared (or maybe a less aggressive exponential). Being below target mass dramatically decreases fuel use, while being above target mass only slightly increases fuel use.
  • The efficiency is different for different drives (perhaps the exponent is the efficiency).

The default drive speed is 1000c. This would make going to the edge of the largest known solar system take 56 minutes. Obviously, expecting a player to sit around for that long would be stupid, but most star systems should be far smaller than that. A soft cap on possible speeds should be at 10000c, lowering that trip to only 5.6 minutes.

• In-system, gravitational wells have a strong modification on drive speed.

[TangentFoxy]

Average FTL range needs to be like 200 ly? Maybe make the "target distance" of ships like 100 but they are usually underloaded to significantly increase range?

(This concept was based on the previous galaxy generation. The correct value has not been determined yet for the new method.)

[TangentFoxy]

I'm thinking of rebuilding the way systems are generated in order to make the galaxy much larger with more star systems, eliminating the density issues encountered thus far. It will require re-scaling this and time, but it should be worth the extra work.

[TangentFoxy]

Having an updated map should allow for calculating more precise jumps. Your reputation within factions as well as time spent since visiting a system should factor into this, as well as just buying map data. More data on a system makes this effect lessen. (A more accurate model is gathered by spending more time in a system.)

[TangentFoxy]

Navigation can prioritize faster subjective time or faster objective time. Or prioritize fewer jumps, lower fuel usage, fewer stops for refueling.. It will certainly have some complication.

[TangentFoxy]

It's important to note that Block Four has some notes about previous mechanics I experimented with.