some post 0.5 spec fun

[safemode]

what happens when an experimental confed ship pumps an insane amount of power through a spec drive? What happens when you compress space-time to a level that would cause the opposite expansion to be beyond the ability for the subatomic soup to stay connected?

I think it would be cool to see the beginnings of the next stage in FTL travel with inter-system spec travel.

The ship would be something introduced far into the game as a prototype that only those in high favor with confed would even have access to, and even then, it would only be available if you accept a specific mission.

It would be nothing more than a dual setup of extremely large reactors and tons of Spec capacitors.

It would travel at normal spec until you reached some great distance to the edge of your system (few light hours). Then you hit your nav computer (which is very different from normal) and you can select the system you want to spec to. First you have to wait for the nav computer to calculate a path, which in the VS universe is very complicated since you'll be traveling so far at such an effective speed. Then you initialize the hyper spec drive and wait for it to power up. Eye candy aside, the actual spec is tedius. You have to correct for computer error by maintaining the target in the crosshairs. Losing the target from the crosshairs for very long could result in the ship leaving spec in the wrong system or worse. The spec duration is time defined by the nav computer, and it can't be disengaged early. You can leave spec in inter-system space, which is a randomly generated "empty" abyss. Though i suppose we could throw in some nasty asteroid systems or pirate hideouts.

All in all, the way it should work is that the nav computer will time-out just as you reach the edge of your target system. Then you have to wait until your ship powers back up so you can spec regularly to civilization.


Overloads would be randomized, malfunction in intersystem nav comp could be common.

just an idea while at work.

[bgaskey]

This is an idea that has been proposed a lot, but I really don't think it adds much to the game if its buyable. making it a late-game quest reward is a much better idea. But on the other hand, it may be more of a hassle to code than a feature adding to the game. Thats all I got. I would love to try it out tho

[safemode]

well the idea is that it would be a VS-ified version of star trek's warp ....so mods could use the base feature as a means to travel system to system....without all the hassle we're adding to it in VS to make it "experimental"

so while it has little use in VS, it would be highly useful for any mods where "jump gates" dont fit.

[bgaskey]

good call. I didn't think of that one. Then it really should be added I guess. Its an important step in our engine development

[Zael]

If this were possible it would also be really awesome to add a few star systems that have no jump gates which can only be reached by these new cutting edge vessels. Possibly systems which held ancient technology or rare artifacts. Being able to traverse systems without jump points could potentially add a lot of things to the game in my opinion. It makes the exploration role a lot more feasible. This would also be very cool in multiplayer as well. Imagine hiding a small fleet in the void while waiting to attack a nearby enemy system.

-Zael-

[mortaneous]

With the addition of a very specialized item that can create limited time jump points and temporarily disable the regular jump points... the inter-system spec could be an even more useful tactical tool... they'd both have to be prohibitively rare and expensive though.
Imagine: Disable all jump points in a system to blockade it... or drive trade prices up when you're one of the few with the super-spec.
Create jumps directly to and from some of your most profitable trade locations... or directly from your fleet's home system to a soft target deep in enemy territory...
now there's some possibilities, perhaps not for vanilla VS, but a mod maybe.