So, you've been out trading and you're heading for home port.  You've got to make a jumpt to another solar system to do it.

The team has already agreed that jumps will be allowable from anywhere outside a sizable gravity well and that they will always terminate in an unoccupied Lagrange point (look it up) in the target system.

But suppose you got pirates on your tail?  You jump... are you safe?

I say no, you ain't safe.  You open your wormhole and you fly through it, and for a very short time, those pirates have the opportunity to enter your wormhole right after you.

And then you have to outfly 'em, both inside the wormhole and when you arrive.

How can you outfly somebody within a wormhole, i was asking myself?

And then it hit me like a hammer.  My first love in this industry was coding the engines for racing games.  What is a wormhole but a racetrack?

Oh, we can do this.

And it will be hot.

---

I have plundered the fen,
Through all secrets i spy
Old Madd ap Maddonwy
knew no more than I


In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister - Goethe

OK, I have a question.

Should we also make that Wormhole open to other ships as well?

Here's an example:

A carrier-class startship opens it's sails and creates a wormhole to jump through.  Moments before, they were under attack by a small force of pirate fighters that originated from a nearby pirate battleship.

The carrier dispatched it's own fighters to intercept to allow the carrier to get away.

Fighters do not have faster-than light propulsion systems, and therefore cannot create the wormhole required for faster than light travel.

Now my question - can they use the same wormhole created by the carrier to follow it to it's destination? And (of course) can the pirate battleship and fighters follow as well?

If so, we have essentially just moved a fight from one section of space to another, and eliminated any hope of escape for the carrier and it's fighters.  Unless they win, of course.

If not, then why can't they follow?

---

Producer.

Well, it wouldn't stay open for more than a second or two.

---

I have plundered the fen,
Through all secrets i spy
Old Madd ap Maddonwy
knew no more than I


In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister - Goethe

Perhaps you could make the duration of the wormhole entrance a function of the drive/mechanism used to open it.

IOW, if you're using the Dood's Drives model 1337 mechanism, it can open a wormhole entrance that will last for 3 seconds...basically just long enough for 1 ship to get through.  However, if you're running a squad or in command of a battle group, a larger ship might have a Dood's Drives model u63r mechanism that opens a wormhole for 15 seconds to allow the rest of your fleet/squad/fraggles to follow you to the same point...although you run the risk of allowing other people you didn't want to follow you into the wormhole as well.

Good thinking, that bothan.

---

I have plundered the fen,
Through all secrets i spy
Old Madd ap Maddonwy
knew no more than I


In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister - Goethe

I likes. Good thinking indeed.

---

Producer.

good thinking on all accounts!

a racing-through-wormhole game? effing brilliant!

Kohs:

good thinking on all accounts!

a racing-through-wormhole game? effing brilliant!

SHHH!

We dont want to stroke Cael's ego too much...

 

---

Producer.

Dood:

...your fleet/squad/fraggles...

I will make sure that Fraggles become an integral part in the Faith Universes lexicon. The term now officially refers to a group of smaller vessels, manned or not, usually in space, deployed to protect the larger capital ships. On the ground, alternative terms include "Cannon Fodder".

Fraggles.

The word is now written alongside the I.R.T. acronym in Faith lore.

---

Chris E-A. It's in the name.

Quick questions: If we take the route mentioned, and have the more powerful engines capable of generating prolonged wormholes, will they always generate the wormhole for the same length of time, every time, or will there be a quick sail option, which opens it only long enough for the ship to enter(or similar mechanism that allows the player to vary the length of time which the wormhole is open)?

Also, to generate an entry to the wormholes, does the ship project it at one point in space and have to enter it? Or does it generate this entry gate around itself? If the former, what happens if the wormhole closes before it completely enters(or does it just have to come into contact with the entry portal)? What happens if the ship that generates the portal cannot reach its own portal before it closes?

Why is the sky blue? Where to babies come from? What's this button do?

Chris:

The word is now written alongside the I.R.T. acronym in Faith lore.

Don't forget "Daves" too ;)


And as far as the "racing through a wormhole" goes, well, it sounds really exciting to me.

No Daves.

---

I have plundered the fen,
Through all secrets i spy
Old Madd ap Maddonwy
knew no more than I


In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister - Goethe

Cael:

No Daves.

 

Oh you lost that battle the moment you posted that article. They are Daves, if not in practice they are to us. :)

:P

Jaecob:

Quick questions: If we take the route mentioned, and have the more powerful engines capable of generating prolonged wormholes, will they always generate the wormhole for the same length of time, every time, or will there be a quick sail option, which opens it only long enough for the ship to enter(or similar mechanism that allows the player to vary the length of time which the wormhole is open)?

I think the engine should affect the maximum duration, but not necesarily the absolute duration.  For instance, if I purchased the Model u63r engine, but I don't have enough fraggles to necessitate a 15 second "gate", I should be able to set it to maybe 10 seconds, to allow me and my minions to pass through, rather than always having to go for the full 15, and running the risk of giving pirates a prolonged opportunity to give chase.

You could do both.  A large ship might (for whatever reason) require a longer lasting wormhole, but have engines that can make them extend even beyond that so the Fraggles can come through as well.

So a small ship might be able to make a getaway in 3 seconds without much likelyhood of being chased.  A fleet with a single central ship might require 20 seconds of open gate time just on sheer logistics of getting them all in.  Whereas the capital ship by itself has a minimum gate time of 10 seconds maybe because you can't completely 'downgrade' a huge wormgate drive.

Perhaps some ships even have multiple drives installed just to vary their wormgate uptime.

My question is, if you don't manage to keep up with the person you are chasing through the gate, where do you end up at the end?  Is a wormhole tunnel linear?  Or are there all kinds of intersections and part of plotting a path from one place to another is creating a map of the wormhole system you are entering and following the prescribed route?