Capsule Drives and Lpoints

If I remember correctly, GrandpaTrout once had a whole bunch of similar 'unstable lpoint' ideas. The concept has always been one that I have found pretty interesting. It seems a little weird that there would be 'undiscovered' lpoints in a system because there aren't a whole lot of places they could be. It doesn't take much time to send a ship around and check all the spots between large bodies. I'm sure computers of the future could even calculate every possible location pretty quickly too. But there could be lpoints that are too unstable for the government to risk ships exploring where they go. These lpoints would be considered useless by the government, so they would often be left completely unmonitored and unguarded. In my opinion, 'unstable lpoints' are a much better concept than 'undiscovered lpoints'.

Also, since I've managed not to add to this discusion until now, I've always hated it how any lpoint in a system links to all other lpoints in the same system. The more lpoint destinations are limited, the better. It adds more depth to travel than going in and out of lpoints because you actually have to travel between them. I've always found it annoying that you often have to circle back into an lpoint you just left.

Well, lots of thoughts coming out.

I have to agree with you Shane about finding it kindof boring to jump into a system and then circle around an Lpoint to jump out again. It turns whole systems into nothing but speed bumps. I also like the idea of limiting each Lpoint to one route. I was thinking of limiting it to 2 or so, but heck why not just one?

I also am of the same mind in regard to how Lpoints effect a capsule jump. They define the direction and range of an Lpoint (but not by virture of anything they do, but rather in how they limit the capsule formation). So yes you have hundreds of Lpoints, and some are useful for short intrasystem jumps, some are very good and can be used for interstellar jumps, and many are completely useless...and or unused because they are regarded as borderline unstable or dangerous.

Originally posted by Shane

If the L-point has nothing to do with where you go, then why can't you jump from Hoffer's Wake directly to Firefrost? Or Dante? Or Mwari?

Quite simply because the size and power of a ship's capsule drive limit how far you can go. According to the EoC 'literature' Navy capsule jumps were supposed to have greater ranges. Whether this was actually integrated into the game I know not, but I think it wasn't, which in turn hints back at why I said the implimentation of the Capsule/Lpoint functions in the game is a little different from how they were theoretically supposed to work. Could be wrong though.

I like the idea of 'unstable' over 'undiscovered'. More believable. I have imagined it working this way myself already. But is it workable? How far along in that jump code did you come GrandpaTrout?

L-points in EoC behave a little differently than L-points in I-War (iirc). One can argue that the technology advanced some in the hundred or so years but there were fewer of them in I-war1, and they were more flexible; if you could get to one, you could go select a destination (in or our of system) and get there. In EoC, you can use almost all L-points within a system to travel to most other L-point within that system; and some L-points allow travel to destinations out of system. Some of these interstellar L-points can offer more than one interstellar destination, but not all.

From a gameplay perspective, it wasn't too annoying to me to have to exit, circle around and line up for another jump...it was just how travel and traffic worked given the technology limitations (its kind of like getting annoyed at the cars stopped on the highway in front of you, not because you're all stuck in the same traffic jam but simply because you can't lift off vertically and fly over them all). Besides, I often used the delay to have a quick boo around me and scope out any juicy cargo targets and do a little opportunistic pirating before moving on. I would definitely not want to see interstellar L-points restricted to edge of system for the same reasons already pointed out by GT; otherwise why ever travel into a system? We need to make the player HAVE to get through the system, at least in some places.

I like the idea of restricting the L-point routes, but only a little. Some flexibility is needed to keep the game interesting. You don't want to turn the map into a snakes and ladders gameboard, where you always know exactly where and how a specific destination must be reached, and most of the time you can skip over systems until you get to a destination. I also like the idea of being able to discover new L-points. Yes, they are theoretically constrained as gravitational cancellation points, but as mentioned, they should be discoverable and testable, and have some element of mystery or randomness to them to keep them interesting. The steepness of the gravity well, and the nature of the L-point's own gravitational properties (along with the imperfections mentioned by GT) interact with the ship's capsule drive to produce destination options. It isn't just the ship's cap drive that does it all, and only needs to find a low gravity place to do it in an energy efficient way. There needs to be this interaction. In this way, the gas giants of a system should be the main L-points with the most potential, and the smaller ones have the most limitations. Yes there's less gravity in deep space to effect the Cap drive, but there's no 'slinging' potential either. This should reach diminishing returns, or some kind of energy efficiency cross over point as you move toward the star's own well...otherwise the best L-point would be between the primary and its closest planet (i.e. right next to Mercury).

Unstable and intermittent L-points are also something I favour, if for no other reason than the fact that they offer exciting gameplay and storytelling features. In The Meeting, the SRF (Singularity Research Facility) is a secret research base at the darkest outskirts of Momar system, accessible by an intermittently useable L-point created by two oddly co-orbiting comet or planetoid-like bodies (the 'Quarrelling Lovers'). The predictable timing of this jump point allowed some fun storytelling and tension, and the fact that it was the main access to the SRF made it a travel bottleneck (of course anyone could try to simply LDS all the way out to the SRF, but they would be detected way before they got there and decimated by its defences).

All in all, I think the decisions about placing L-points should be driven somewhat by consistency of theory and pseudoscientific fluff, but mostly by gameplay and playtesting and balancing requirements. My 2 cents.

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Hot4Darmat

I built two prototypes dealing with capsule jumps.

The simple one was based on the idea of unstable (thus unused) lpoints. It allowed the player to target a moon, and then it would place a Navigation marker at the suspected lpoint position. Once the player was at that location, it would allow “scanning� for the actual lpoint. (The assumption was that you would need to be carrying special sensors or something to use the scanning feature).

Once scanning was complete, if you found an lpoint, you could activate a nav computer to jump your ship. I can’t remember where the prototype sent the player. I planned to add these “hidden� lpoints to the save_type cluster building program – just like the standard lpoints. And you could specify the destination system.

Such a mod would essentially create a scout career for the player. Hunting lpoints and seeing where they went. There could even be star systems that could not be reached otherwise.

The second mod was more complex. Basically, when you jumped, a script captured your ship and placed you in a simulated capsule space. That space had all the stars and interstellar lpoints (built from the cluster map and save_type program). Your goal was to pilot your “capsule� to your target lpoint before time ran out. I wrote a gravity simulation for the stars that tried to pull you in. There were objects that would slow you down (nebula clouds). And some that would sling you (black holes). Each lpoint had a launch speed. The higher the speed, the farther you could travel. When time was up, the simulation tossed you out the closest lpoint. So you could end up a long ways from expected. Or get tossed back out where you came from.

I like that system because it makes each capsule jump a flight challenge. A fully loaded freighter could handle like a pig, making jumps a challenge. These kinds of things need lots of play testing and I never took it past a prototype.

An easy improvement would be to create a single star system called capsule space. All lpoints jump into it. A script disables your LDS drive while you are there. And you have to reach another lpoint. When a timer expires (could be based on capsule drive class) you get tossed out the nearest lpoint. That would be a tiny amount of code, but a fair amount of cluster building work. Well, actually, it could all be automated by the save_type program.

I guess the key point is that the current lpoint and capsule implementation is not the only solution. It is perfectly possible to replace it with something better. This is one of the rare items that POG has great support to do!

We just need to choose how it should work. And what is fun.

The more I think about the all lpoints reach one system (representing capsule space) the more I like it. First, it is easy, almost no code. Second, all the standard traffic scripts should handle it just fine. If traffic wants to reach another system, it will just route its way through this special system. The traffic might freak out at getting capsule jumped, but that is hard to tell without trying it. It might just recover, plan the route again, and rejump.

One really cool feature is that you could chase someone into capsule space. Outrun them to the exit, and be waiting on the far side. (I suppose we would need to lock down weapons in capsule space also). Freighters and so forth will already be slower. No extra work there.

I can imagine using tiny planets to represent stars. And use some great textures off the SOHO observatory site. Flux was never designed to link so many systems together. There might be hidden limitations.

Edit: Checked the map structures. It looks like we could have up to 32k worth of lpoint connections. Pretty good because 200 systems is the max Flux seems to handle.

I kinda like the idea of this 'capsule space', but it may be too tedious for regular jumps. Maybe 'stable' lpoints would work normally. The player would only have to control the process if the lpoint is too unstable for computer control. Even then, you could add to the random feeling of these routes by making it occasionally jump without player control. Sometimes to the right place; on rare occasions it may take you randomly to just about anywhere in the cluster. I know this would take more work to POG, but it would be pretty cool.