[WIP] Mass Relay - Warping all over the place

[frizzank]

The massive battery pack your going to need to run the thing, does not come full!

Also radial versions of detector and battery.

[Molybdene]

For myself I worked on the GUI. Now you have a toggle button on the bottom left of the screen to show/hide the GUI.

I also added some settings, so you'll have the position of the screen saved, and you will be able to edit the config file to modify the behavior of the plugin (range of the detector, speed required, allow the warp of mass relays...)

In case you have some plugins that have also a button on the bottom left of the screen, there is an offset variable that you can modify to avoid superposition.

Next step: power requirement to use those nice looking batteries

[mazuzuri]

i was wondering, how are you planning on calculating the power requirements?

Especially since you don't want to make it to unrealistically large, but at the same time not too low making it overpowered.

[Molybdene]

I put a random variable on the settings for now that will convert distance into power requirement.

I will find & set a value after some tests, and I left the possibility for users to alter this value with the config file if they feel the need for less/more power.

I'm currently working on the animation of the mass relay for the warp. It will fire the animation, then warp the vessel

[kaldak]

i was wondering, how are you planning on calculating the power requirements?

Especially since you don't want to make it to unrealistically large, but at the same time not too low making it overpowered.

I'm not sure there's really such a thing as "unrealistically large" when talking about FTL travel As far as gameplay, even if it takes a few hours of game time to charge up the battery, time warp makes it not that big of a deal.

[Mekan1k]

Question- would it be possible to place a warp station on the ground near the launchpad/runway, one in geosynchronous orbit, and then use that as a 'fast' method of relaying objects from ground to orbit?

[Molybdene]

No, Mekan1k, it will not be possible. Not because I can't make it work that way, but because I don't want it to work that way. I want to give a purpose into making space stations in orbit around planets, and I want an alternate way of having to time warp for the good configuration for a transfer to another planet.

I don't want to make the game too easy, if you want to put something in orbit fast & easy, use HyperEdit, it's a great tool ^^

And as for kaldak, I agree, the limitation of having to spend tons of energy to warp is not such a big deal using the time warp to charge the batteries. The limitation I want to include is in the total of energy you have to spend. More batteries, more weight to send into orbit. You have to work a little to have a working mass relay, that's all

Plus, I kinda want to have "1.2 giga watts" spend into sending ships. the animation of the warp is 4 seconds long, so it's 1.2*4 Giga joules of power to spend. maybe

Edited November 12, 2013 by Molybdene
Joule formula fix - thanks Wandertek

[Xentoe]

hehe You know that your energytopic is real only hard, when using your mod alone.

With Nea rfuture Porpulsion or KSPI Mod this gate is supportable with a blink.

Perhaps it should need something else than only Energy?

But those additions can be thought off when the mainstuff is working.

Still very curious how this all will look at the every end :-).

[Mekan1k]

No, Mekan1k, it will not be possible. Not because I can't make it work that way, but because I don't want it to work that way. I want to give a purpose into making space stations in orbit around planets, and I want an alternate way of having to time warp for the good configuration for a transfer to another planet.

I don't want to make the game too easy, if you want to put something in orbit fast & easy, use HyperEdit, it's a great tool ^^

Just making sure- the last mod I used that had a similar function to this was the ORDA mod, and that had it's own share of problems because it could do that.

I was considering the idea of the Mass-Effect-style Mass-relay, and I realized there might be a problem if you tried to, say, have one in orbit around Eve and one around Kerbin- what happened if the path between the two had... I don't know... A Mun in the way?

So... How will the mass-relays actually work? You send a relay to your destination, one in orbit, and send up your ship to meet the relay, right? Then.... Does the plugin add speed and direction to your craft so you are going light-speed (or so), or does it change where the ship is in the CFG file?

While the first way would be realistic, the second way might be safer (IE no planets getting in the way of ships.)

EDIT: I am really looking forward to your mod dude.

Edited November 12, 2013 by Mekan1k

[XanderTek]

A little correction: Joules=Watts*time

hehe You know that your energytopic is real only hard, when using your mod alone.

With Nea rfuture Porpulsion or KSPI Mod this gate is supportable with a blink.

Not sure how serious Molybdene was about 1.2 gigawatts (it would be a great Back to the Future reference!), but that's not necessarily a trivial amount with Near Future or KSPI. That's a reasonable amount for a KSPI generator to supply, but you need to get that heavy equipment up to orbit and possibly gather antimatter. The Near Future generators and battery packs are way less powerful than that. This mod probably does target a similar audience to those two though, so I suppose it couldn't hurt to keep in mind how they might interact. Probably a bit early to start worrying about that though. As you said, balance can come later.

[Xentoe]

Just making sure- the last mod I used that had a similar function to this was the ORDA mod, and that had it's own share of problems because it could do that.

I was considering the idea of the Mass-Effect-style Mass-relay, and I realized there might be a problem if you tried to, say, have one in orbit around Eve and one around Kerbin- what happened if the path between the two had... I don't know... A Mun in the way?

So... How will the mass-relays actually work? You send a relay to your destination, one in orbit, and send up your ship to meet the relay, right? Then.... Does the plugin add speed and direction to your craft so you are going light-speed (or so), or does it change where the ship is in the CFG file?

While the first way would be realistic, the second way might be safer (IE no planets getting in the way of ships.)

EDIT: I am really looking forward to your mod dude.

I guess, it simple does a "placevariable" change.

It simple places the to warp ship instantly to the new location.

Like Hyperedit can do to.

I doub it will bring a real "fly" warp like KSPI does. (total different mechanism, there your mentioned problem can be real a problem because your ship real moves from A to B, with all the stuff between them)

[Molybdene]

Xentoe: If you have something else than energy in mind, please share, I'll think about it.

Mekan1k: An other plugin (Hyperjump) was doing exactly what you first describe: the simulation was put on rails, and the ship was given tons of speed to "get there" in a straight line. Trouble is, it was very very laggy. I didn't want that. My plugin is modifying the orbit value of the vessel.

Xandertek: Yep, you are right about the Joules formula, but I have an excuse, it was 4am, hehe. I was not really serious about the 1.2gigawatts, we'll see how much it will cost per Mm

[Xentoe]

Hmm I could perhaps imagine, that the Supply of this mashine would need perhaps a special resource, like Kethane (Not this exactly, only something you must get manual somewhere (Not getable with simple timewarp on and fine). And it should be not so mutch available.

[Molybdene]

I don't feel the need to add another resource to the plugin, that will mean more parts, and a plugin that will ask for more resources.

Once again, the idea behind having to spend energy is not about the time to gather and fill the batteries, it's about getting the batteries into orbit.

You will not only have to send a mass relay on orbit, you will have to build a station.

[frizzank]

Yes lets get everything working first, let people play with it. Then we can tweak what and how many resources it needs.

That being said the general idea is that you need to build a structure in space that is large enough to support the mass relay. Small jumps would be less resources, large jumps would need more resources and require larger stations. Our hope is that it would require some orbital construction on the players part but, no one is stopping you from building a Goliath launcher and sending it all in one go.

[XanderTek]

Xandertek: Yep, you are right about the Joules formula, but I have an excuse, it was 4am, hehe. I was not really serious about the 1.2gigawatts, we'll see how much it will cost per Mm

No worries, everyone makes mistakes at 4am , I was just trying to be helpful.

One thing you could consider to add more weight/complexity to the station is just to add more modules that are required on the station to complete a jump. I imagine splitting the actual mass relay into parts that need to be assembled would be a huge pain on the dev side of things, but you could for example have a separate module that is a large targeting supercomputer required for more accurate jumps. Or perhaps a long delicate antenna part is needed to establish the link to relays that are extra far away. It could kinda work like an upgrade system.

[Molybdene]

add more modules that are required on the station to complete a jump

Adding parts for completing a mass relay station is something that I will implement (with the help of frizz for the parts, of course), for a next version, like I said previously, this first version will be a "proof of concept"

[mazuzuri]

Hmm I could perhaps imagine, that the Supply of this mashine would need perhaps a special resource, like Kethane (Not this exactly, only something you must get manual somewhere (Not getable with simple timewarp on and fine). And it should be not so mutch available.

Well you wouldn't need to add another resource, what would concievably be rather realistic in sense of real world physics is heat build up. This would mean you only need to in some way hook it into the games inbuilt engine heat system.

What makes this realistic is the fact that channeling the amounts of power that Molybdene is thinking of would in the real world generate a lot of excess heat that would need channeling away to prevent catastrophic failure

Of course i have no idea whether coding it would be a simple thing, and it would probably be a fine tuning of the mod if it turns out to work as well as we all are hoping for.

[frizzank]

I edited the battery and the mass relay some. Better, or worse?

[XanderTek]

I think I liked the stack battery better when it wasn't a perfect cylinder. Looked more unique. I'm having trouble spotting differences in the relay, but it still looks wonderful!

[frizzank]

Its darker, not white

[Molybdene]

Sorry Xandertek, I asked for a change on the batteries, I didn't like it at all ^^'

And as for the relay, the texture is less white, more grey-ish to be more like other parts.

Thanks for the modification, Frizzank, I thought you wanted to keep the white on the relay?

[XanderTek]

Oh, I don't mind. I'll be happy using either

[Mekan1k]

I am REALLY looking forward to this mod.

[frizzank]

Thanks, we should have something to release soon.