Jump Hole Generator

Wed Mar 07, 2007 1:28 pm by dalix

Hi folks! I've never created any mods before and I'm sure this is a question that's been brought up before. Would it be possible to create a jump hole generator or hyperdrive that could be mounted to a ship? I know a lot of you would think that this would severely unbalance the game but I have some ways of making it somewhat fair.

First, simply make it quite expensive and only mountable on certain ships. This isn't much help though. The real balancing comes through the actual use of the generator.

I would prefer a jump hole generator over a hyperdrive for a number of reasons. With a jump hole generator, wingmates could follow you to the system you are jumping to. It would also allow enemies to follow you as well. This helps with the balancing.

A generated jump hole would have to collapse after a certain amount of time...say 15 seconds? This keeps systems from getting filled with jumpholes. I think jumpholes should also be destructable, almost like using a cruise disruptor. The problem with this is that whoever is being pursued would be able to turn around and destroy the jumphole behind them. Therefore, I propose that there be a special piece of equipment not unlike a missile launcher that could collapse a jump hole. To make it fair though, it will only mount on the hardpoint for the jump hole generator. That way, a ship could have either a jump hole generator or a hole collapsor (sic?).

It would also only be fair to be able to create a jump hole to a system you have been to before. You could create an interface with the map in Freelancer. When you click on a spot in a system, an option would be to create a hole in that spot. Of course, if you create a jump hole inside a planet or a sun or a radioactive area would be quite bad for the pilot so the pilot creating the hole would have to have some knowledge of the system.

Another way of increasing fairness would be the time it takes to generate a hole. An instant jump hole generator would be quite unfair. I think that to create the hole, engines must be cut and weapons must go offline. I think shields should stay up, we can't leave the ship completely defenseless. But it would leave you as a sitting duck. Basically, it couldn't be used in combat unless you had some wingmen covering you.

Some problems:
The first and most major problem I can see is that it may not be possible to create a jump hole out of thin air. It just may be impossible from the game's point of view. One way of counteracting this could possibly be to have jump holes in every point in space throughout the system and just have them be invisible and rather undefined. The jump hole generator could perhaps edit the data for the nearest invisible hole and activate it. This also may not be possible. You guys would know better than I would.

Secondly, you would essentially be creating two jump holes in two different systems simultaneously. When one closes the other must close as well. The other problem would whether or not to make the hole in the other system dockable. Would the jump hole created in the other system lead to the system your leaving? This may be a nightmare to work out in multiplayer but I think it may not be as big of a problem in single player.

OK, opinions? Maybe this is already an extensively covered topic somewhere. I just didn't have the time to read through everything but nothing quite like what I'm talking about came up when I searched. Thanks for taking the time to read this rather long post.

-dalix

Wed Mar 07, 2007 1:43 pm by Zyos

You can't create jumpholes on the fly, the only in-system jump technology would be using cruise at much faster speeds, and tbh, the NPCs would be crashing into things like you wouldn't believe.

Everything in Freelancer has a position and rotation, that includes jumpholes

The only possible alternative is having a hyperspace system with various invisible exit points into systems that would also have invisible exits, the only real way to simulate that.

Plus radiation from sub-space, and a re-balancing of VHFs to lower their nanobot capacity, and increase on freighter ships, would mean that only certain ships could sustain travel for long periods, but still give VHFs a way to skip a few systems along a long journey.

Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:08 am by SWAT_OP-R8R

again i lean myself wide out of the window and say... in theory something similar is possible with dll modding

it would be possible to limit the use of that jump-drive to bypass only a few systems (lets say the destination has to be 3 jumps away)

to make this work you will need additional hardpoints on EVERY ship, ALOT of knowledge of dll modding and fixed destination points (im not sure if its possible with variable coordinates)

what i see a problem is the part that others can use that new hole aswell and i see a big problem in balancing the usage of such a feature
but basically i would say it is possible to realize it for mods serverside

Thu Mar 08, 2007 5:25 pm by Rankor

I've often pondered this very question many times.
A way that a Capital Ship could generate it's own jump hole to a targeted location. (Clear across Sirius if desired)

Here is the concept:
Open Nav Map:
0. Locate Your ship. (piece of cake)
1. Set Initial coordinates in present system. (Waypoint 1) (easy)
2. Locate Target System and "zoom in" . (easy)
3. Set destination coordinates in target system. (Waypoint 2) (easy)
4. Act_Trigger = Generate_Wormhole (The Hard Part)
5. Dock
6. When all ships in the formation pass through, the wormhole collapses on both ends. (another hard one)

Still at present, until some really bright person comes along and figures this out...the game engine doesn't quite support it YET.
BUT...I still believe it's possible.

Edited by - Rankor on 3/8/2007 5:26:57 PM

Thu Mar 08, 2007 8:31 pm by merlinthewizard

I think FLshell has an admin only jump command
you could try to find a way to let players use the command as well but, only if they have the generator equipped
there wouldn't be any hole then, it'd br more like the hyperdrive idea
not sure how you could stop a player from using it though, shy of disabling all other ships systems to use it

Fri Mar 09, 2007 1:35 am by SWAT_OP-R8R

FLshell is no real option
but ill put this idea on my list and try to realize it when i have more time

Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:16 pm by merlinthewizard

I am very intereted in seeing what comes of this idea
May try adding it to my server as well, if a decent working prototype can be made for the device

Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:16 pm by F!R

The "jumping" might not be a good idee.

FLShell + FlHook provide commands for that and both are in use by the WTS admin team.
But we avoid to use it,
cause sometimes
--- FL seems to "loose" the position of the player and the "jumper" doesn´t
apear at the intended place but at "0, 0, 0" in the target system
(in a lot systems you´ll find the sun at "0, 0, 0"

--- this seems to crash the server (and the client too).

My personal impression is, that FLHook is more stable at that, than FLShell.

Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:37 am by Holzbein

sadly its bugged, but the crashes r not realy reproduceable so its difficult to track this error ... i also noticded other promlems after a beam in fl-hook, sometimes after a beam i cant dock, the update of ship positions seams to fail from time to time or/and the beamed character gets invunerable.
these problems can be only encountered yet by relog of the character or using a regular jumphole.

at least i hope flhook 1.6 will fix this.

so watch: http://www.drachennest200x.de/flhook/forum/index.php for further information, its now the place of the flhook project as far as i know.

Fri Mar 16, 2007 5:27 am by _xXx_

I would think the best way to do this would be to mount jump drives on ships. Basically, each ship would have one or two of these on them. Each jump drive would be preset to jump you to a particular systems JG, just like you'd come from the system on the otherside. In this regard you could balance it out since you could make the drives very expensive, and you'd actually have to visit a system to get a jump drive for that system.

Sat Mar 17, 2007 1:32 am by F!R

ATM we request all admins and players to re-select chars,
after a command, which changes the location of the char.
That seems to help.

The "safest" command under that point of view imho is the FLShell "/jump",
which kicks the player.
But executing more than one of these FLShell commands also seems to crash the server sooner or later and so we are some admins ...........

I m only guessing, but i suppose that a complete reload of the playerfile after
beam-ing might solve the problem.

(Sorry for getting a little off topic.)

Sat Mar 17, 2007 9:02 am by Ruppetthemuppet

I've just thought of a way to do this, or achive the same affect.
A Course is Plotted to the Next System, and the Jump Drive 'Drags' the player through the required jumpgate, skipping any Queues there may be without the jumpgate (Or Hole) Opening. This would mean that the player would only be able to jump one system at a time, but it's the same sort of thing.
Would this work? I'm interested to know.

Sat Mar 17, 2007 9:14 pm by lancerlover

another idea... would it be possible to have something (teleporter on torpedo hardpoint that uses ammo) that when used changes the autosave to a different place so that you can load the autosave and appear in the new place?

Sun Mar 18, 2007 11:41 am by Preacher0815

This could actually work similar to the "forbidden c word" on the HHC server. You enter a command in the chat console and are beamt, teleported or however you'd call it, to the destination of your choice. Of course it should be possible to further enhance this by having a special cargo required in the players ships, or have cash deducted prior to the jump.

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