Consider adding levels to Warp Gates

First, Warp Gates are probably one of the coolest features of NP as it adds a whole new strategy dimension to the game. Plus they keep the game moving, especially important for mega-galaxies where the distances are long - great job Jay.

I’d propose that Warp Gates be taken to the next level … literally! :wink:

I.e. right now, you can only build a “single” Warp Gates … which does a 3X speedup.
I’d propose that similar to Economy/Industry/Science, you be able to buy level of WG’s.
And obviously the price goes way up for each level.

I.e. when you buy the first WG (on two connected stars), the speedup is 3X.
When you buy the 2nd WG (again, must be on both connected stars), the speedup is 6X.
Level 3 WG’s provide 9X speedup … etc. Although with the levels, you might change the multiplies to X2 rather than X3.

Same WG rules apply - doesn’t matter if you or someone else owns the WG, the speedup factor still applies and is whatever the lessor value of “Warp Gate’ness”

In terms of destroying WG, you can destroy per level - i.e. you can downgrade a 3X WG to 2X … or maybe it is an all-or-nothing when you destroy a WG.

I envision this adding another “level” to Warp Gates … and also helps move along mega-galaxies. Plus in those games, gives you something else to consider upgrading when you are getting boatloads of cash.

Plus I don’t think this should be too difficult to implement.
Or maybe destroying is an all or nothing thing - not sure.

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I think this would be a good idea.

I think that the level 1 Warp Gate should be 2x and could be cheaper then the current upgrade. and then could go up in 2x steps, maybe stopping at 10x or 12x

Are you going to show the warp speed in the stars icon (maybe just put the multiplier beside the star).

This idea sounds great and I would say that it is sort of a must have.
I was in a game, my production was 3-4x higher than of my neighbours, however, I soon consumed all my targets and was surrounded by nothing but allies/neutrals.

I built a warpgated path through my allies, but despite having excessive production I was unable to maintain the desired sector, because when my ships arrived, which took 3 days, my targets would gather enough ships.

In other words, they were fighting the numbers I had 3 days ago, not with my current state.

Yes, I’m thinking 3X is just a bit too much.

Another way to think about it is every star comes with a “level 1” speed … but you can upgrade it. So level2 is 2X, level3 is 3X, level 4 is 4x, etc. That seems a bit simpler to understand and note that’s a linear progression … so slower growth than another 2X or 3X increment each level.

And yea, visually, I envision a “Warp Speed Factor” number being displayed/associated with the star.

I’m not sure about limiting the “Warp Speed Factor” because ideally this should be able to scale with the galaxy … and if you REALLY need something to get their fast (i.e. QWERTY’s example), you should have some ability to do so if you have the resources to spend.

This would also help greatly with team play because often a player will become a “supplier” for their teammates (I’ve been in and out of this role in the current game) so anything I can do to get ships faster to them would be helpful for game play.

I like the idea, though have a few thoughts.

  • Don’t lower the price for the base gate. They get cheap enough in long games, especially if the resources are anything but sparse.
  • Go with the lower increments. Maybe even each level only gets you a small increase G1-2x, G2-3x, G3-4x etc. Max it out at something like Gate level 9 for 10x. That would have you jumping 3.33ly per Tick, which is pretty fast.
  • Ship travels at the speed of the lower gate.
  • If you destroy a gate, it gets completely destroyed. You lose all levels with no refunds.

Edit: Apparently I was typing my idea as Hulk posted his. I also cut a related idea from mine before posting it, and will start a new post with it when I have time later.

@HULK’s point about 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x sounds better and if there is a limit it could be up in the 20-30x.

I agree with all of this.

I think if people are able to build better warp gates, the game would go too fast. A player may only build the first level of warp gates and they are at a disadvantage. Someone with 4x speed can go in and attack with a big force, sending several waves with the other guy not being able to gather a good enough defense. I don’t use warp gates much so I would be at a big disadvantage. I prefer the slower speed of the game. Someone can send fleets across the map in less than a day with a high level of warp gates. I would rather have the slower pace of the game than a fast pace. You also won’t have to be at the computer 24/7 the way it is now, where you would have to devote a lot more time to the game if you have faster warp gates.

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I totally agree with jason3609.
I would like to add: As warp gates would be progressively more expensive, they are especially a tool for the leading player, thus making it even more difficult to bring down a leading player.

I agree the upper level gates would need to be crazy expensive. However, if you are concerned about the game speed increasing too much, I would counter that sometimes a map gets so big that you need something like this or natural wormholes. In the current Team game, it takes 3 days to get from my home star to my front line with warp gates. I am by no means the largest player. I simply have a long way to travel to get to the front lines for my team.

I’m not concerned about gates speeding up the game too much. If you build a crazy fast gate in range of your enemies then I think you can expect it will be used against you.

@jason3609 I guess there could be a problem where a player could move 95% of all their ships to one side of their own empire in the blink of an eye, but they still have to travel into your space at normal speed. This should give you plenty of time to build your own gates and move defenders into position. (Or if you prefer, launch your own attack now that you know 95% of their ships are in one place. )

I will do this.

But I don’t think we need an artificial limit.

I could make it so that terraforming doesn’t reduce the cost of gate builds however. (I just momentarily though I might like to do this for economy too)

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Removing Terraforming from both Econ and Gates could really stifle things. Econ would get really expensive very quickly, and in turn slow the progression of the early game. Gates may get cheap with enough Terra, but you could force them to Expensive, then use the same formula that you use for other Infrastructure.

I think most players only buy gates early in the game when they absolutely need them. Even then, you have to wait for a couple levels of Terra before you can afford a pair, and you buy them at a great sacrifice to Economy growth.

As the person who made the original suggestion, I’ll try to condense the specific implementation that I’d recommend based on other comments.

First, lets call this a “Warp Star Speed” (or something like that) and every star by default (or when abandoned) comes with Level 1 which is 1/3 LY/turn. A WSS of two means 2/3 LY/turn, three is 1 LY/turn, etc.

As before, you can purchases Warp Gates (now called additional levels of Warp Star Speed - WSS) similar to how you can do Economy/Industry/Science - i.e. the cost increases with each level but is reduced by TF. Similar to EIS, costs can be cheap/normal/expensive.

A ship moves between two stars at a rate of the slowest of the two WSS’s. I.e. if you have a star with a WSS=5 and another with WSS=3, then carriers moves at 1 LY/turn. It does not matter who owns the WSS - i.e. they can be used against you … but you can destroy to put an incoming fleet into slow-mo mode. If you destroy a WSS, ALL levels are destroyed (I like this!)

Visually, a similar highlighting now does with WG’s can be used with an associated (large) number.

I still don’t like this, especially for a turn based game. Although I would assume that no one would be that dumb to use a 9x gate on the front line, that’s just asking for trouble :slight_smile:

I guess I see the argument here with covering long distances, but if it’s going to be applied to all games it just allows the leaders to “snowball” even more.

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Not sure if this would work, but could the warp speed work like a magnetic attraction, i.e. the warp speed factor of any star is the speed at which ships travel to the star.

So your travel speed is always determined by the warp speed multiplier of the star you are travelling to.

Therefore you only need to upgrade a single star, not a pair of stars to achieve a speed increase, this of course benefits your enemies as well as you as if they are in range of your boosted star they also get there quicker, even if they have made no increases to their own stars.

OR

You could add the warp speed multipliers of the start and finish star to determine the speed between the two stars (same speed in both directions).
Once again you don’t need to pair up the gates at the same speed and your enemies receive the boost to their speed as the attack you. Also has less impact if your enemy destroys their warp gate as you still use any of your own warp gate bonuses at your launching star.

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Just a consideration- but I was very glad this second version of the game did not have a ‘speed’ tech. Which is what this sounds like to me.

I think there was a reason it was removed- i.e. managing late game when you have an unknown amount of response time becomes all consuming.

If you lost a sector because you were sending troops and your enemies were fighting what you produced 3 days ago (I understand the logic there) then you didn’t gamble enough and create production on your front lines. Or you didn’t anticipate your enemies response.

I think the transit time and the lack of ability to move ships faster and faster is one of the few factors that keep the game from completely snowballing.

My $.02.

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I like the idea of being able to increase the gate speed, but I do feel it needs an upper limit, and a relatively low one at that. I think the comments / concerns that this would be a tool to help a snowballing player snowball even faster is a valid one w/o a limit.

I propose that a standard gate be 2x, and you can upgrade it 2 or 3 times, each w/ an additional 2x. So at the max (either the player with the most $ or one desperate enough to sacrifice econ) can only have a WG that moves things at 6x or 8x speed. This would allow faster deployment of forces across large galaxies, but not at an insane speed.

Some of the concerns about needing faster WG because it took 3 days to get your ships to the front line…that’s a problem strategists have dealt with in many wars…how far are your men from the supply? I would argue that if you are having to supply things 3 days away at WG speed, you need to work with better and more frequent loops and higher production at the closer stars…

Anyway, having 20x speed seems ridiculous, but keeping it to 6X or 8X seems like an advantage but not an unbalancing one.

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I still like it how things are now. People need to plan ahead and if they just build more advanced warp gates, they can send ships fast for defense or wipe out other players much faster. If a warp gate is at 6x speed, an usual 12 hour trip would take only 2 hours. That speed is still way too fast. You will be able to send most of your ships across a small map in less than 12 hours if you use loops. The normal speed with warp gates how they are now at 2x speed this same trip will take 36 hours. Players will have more time to react with a slower speed if a player decides to send all their ships across the map to attack. At the normal speed without warp gates, this trip would take 3 days. Warp gates already give a good advantage over weaker players and there doesn’t need to be a big gap between weak and strong players.

If you really want a fast paced game, you should increase the speed using a custom game. This is a better alternative to faster warp gates. It also won’t give a player a big advantage over another player. All players who join would want a faster paced game. You can have 4x or 8x speed on warp gates this way instead of the usual 2x speed for a warp gate in a normal game. (2x speed) x (2x speed for warp gate) = 4x or (4x speed) x (2x speed for warp gate) = 8x.

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I agree that there is an interesting decision there and often in the large games I will pay more for industry where its needed rather than simply buying the cheapest wherever it is.

What we are trying to do with the warp gates is provide a way for you to move ships around your own empire at a reasonable pace, while giving a defender plenty of time to react. When the attack comes it will be through normal space unless you built a gate too close to the front line.

I dont want to play fast games because I only want to check in every 8 to 12 hours. But I also want to be able to choose to move ships around my own empire at a reasonable speed.

I think this is one of those features it would be nice to test and if we don’t like it we turn it off again.

I agree that this would be a good addition to the game and for those who don’t like it they can join games with it disabled or not use the setting in games they create.
Maybe for those who want to limit the speed increase @JayKyburz can configure a limit to the warp speed.