Warp Point modding question, and a couple of other mod Q's too.

You can't hide warp points.

Your other components are easily doable. For the Gravity Drive, you'd have to have a propulsion system where larger ships needed more movement points to gain 1 movement - the Balance Mod does that as well as some other mods.

Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

Kwok,

Your saying you cant place abilities on warppoints such as cloak, correct? Can you place abilities on other space objects like storms or anything? (Such as preventing scans of a certain level; I know some sectors can block basic scanners). Then maybe place the storms in the same sector.

I also loved the Star-Fire series and considered implementing closed warp points into a mod someday. Thanks

-Unnamed

Unnamed Mod

I'm looking at the StellarAbilityTypes.txt . Does this sight obscure everything or only scanners below strength 10 (looking at ability 2 Formula 1). Anyone know?

Name := Normal Storm

Ability 2 Amount 2 Formula := 0

-Unnamed

Unnamed Mod

Warp points can be given abilities such as sight obscuration, but you can't hide them. That will only hide objects within that sector.

There are lots of abilities you can apply. Refer to FQM beta 12's StellarAbilityTypes.txt file to see some creative ability uses for stellar objects.

Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

Cloaking warp points would be sort of moot anyway wouldn't it? You can see the link in the big map so you know there is one there. If you don't have warp points can be anywhere you have a rough idea of where the wp is, no more than a few tries to send orders to warp until you find the right spot.

The only thing I can think of that would work (though it has a few problems) would be a special storm that uses the external events script to move any ships from one system to another. You wouldn't be able to give warp orders you'd just have to move to and be sitting on the storm at the end of the turn. You also wouldn't see the name of the system it 'links' to on the storm. You'd have to script it to check the 'hidden' end and do the same thing. And lastly since (I think I remember) storm destroying components come before warp closing components these special 'warp points' would be easier to remove, and of course you couldn't open one without some more special scripting.

Just my thoughts

Hey Khyron,

The link on the big map is visible (I think they should be removed until the warppoint is actually traveled) but if they were not there or the placement was random, as you mentioned, then closed warppoints would be really interesting. In the books closed warppoints were normally only closed on one side (cloaked). So if you found the open end, you could move ships thru and pretty much guarantee it was undefended. These closed warppoints could be in your home system and there was no way to know until a ship came through it. (interesting possibility, war changer). In the books, surveying would actually increase during wars as both sides hoped to find new warppoints into enemy space, especially closed warppoints, and try to make it a war of movement instead of slogging thru defended warppoints.

-Unnamed

Unnamed Mod

Also thanks for the idea, it is certainly interesting.

-Unnamed

Unnamed Mod

SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki

For humans, I'd expect one could hide a warp point by changing the graphics to be totally transparent, or match the background.

I don't know if the "Warp Point" sign can be removed or not, and that would be a give-away, even if you couldn't pinpoint the exact hex.

AI would be different. One would have to program AI's to not recognize them until they've "accidentally" found them. More trouble than it's worth, if it can even be done.

You might be able to set up something in the event script that when a ship is moved through the closed warp point any empire that can see the hex the ship emerges from on sensors will be able to use that end of the warp point going forward. Basically if a ship is sitting on the closed end the script will check if this value is enabled and if it is move the ship to the other end of the warp point.

You could get it to work, more or less, I don't know if you could get the AI to work though (I haven't even looked at modding the AI yet).

I did think about creating a special warp point image that mimics the background, but I think a clever or determined player could bypass this without much problem.

From the same books all open warp points didn't allow anything to be placed withing a certain distance from the warp point so defensive units and ships had to be x distance away (not so with the closed end of one though). Suicide Junkie has some code in his mod that pushes any ship sitting on a warp point to a random adjoining hex in a similar fashion. I'm pretty sure you could do the same thing with units also.

Although on a larger scale I played in a game in SE4 that had all one-way warp points (created by editing the map to delete one side of each warp point). The biggest problem with that game was that you had to give explicit orders to warp through those warp points, you couldn't just say go to system B from system A for example. Not a show stopper but it did make for tedious turns issuing all those extra orders.

The optimal solution would be to see if we can get the additional functionality for warp points into a patch. There are already place holders for size limits on what can pass through some warp points, if we could get him to add a closed version (can't return through) and a hidden version (this might be harder it would have to have some sort of trigger to know when you could use it).

I'm curious if you were going to implement other items from your source material. For example they had units (that I can't recall the name of) that consisted of a number of one-shot missile tubes that could use warp points. Another would be that they used the name mines, but in actuality they were basically satellites with one-shot weapons (usually bomb-pumped energy weapons of various sorts).

Actually, they did have mines, as well as energy bouys. The energy bouys are the things that you're thinking of as being bomb pumped lasers (would be an interesting unit to have, destroyed after each use) though they also had reuseable ones (IDEW - Independantly Deployed Energy Weapons).

As far as the idea of closed warp points goes - I'd LOVE to see it implemented. However, I don't think it is something that you can mod into the game. I have seen, under a colonization order, ships go to a partially explored system, through an undiscovered warp point to a totally unexplored system, cross that system to another undiscovered warp point to get to a partially explored system that has the planet I sought to colonize (and thus claim the system). In other words - even if *you* the player don't know the shorter path is there, the game does, and will use those shorter paths. It is, well, bizarre. (As a side note, I don't remember just which version of teh game I saw that in - it was not the most recent version but I don't know if it has been fixed)

One other thing, you're confusing the size restriction with whether a warp point is "open" or "closed". Basically, an "open" warp point was a typical, plain as day easy to see warp point. Whether it was one of unusual gravitonic stresses (smaller point, or damaging, or whatever) was irrelevant to the "open" or "closed" status. A "closed" warp point was invisible to all sensors. There are only two ways of finding these - come through the other side, OR watch someone else come through from the other side. Whether it was a small point, a damaging point, or whatever was totally irrelevant - what mattered was that these points were invisible.

As far as mine placement and such ... IMO that should be done within the sector. Open warp points acted as small black holes, destroying anything that did not have the mobility to keep away, and the gravitonic stresses then destroyed the (relatively) small objects. The best way to handle this issue, IMO, would be to make an open warp point "slowly" suck in units (except for drones, which can pass through warp points, and fighters, which have mobility) at the end of every turn that are less than one third of the way out from the center of the combat area, and destroy them. Slow enough that it would not be apparent while in combat or moving stuff in the sector view, but should be done at the end of every turn. That area in the center of the sector would simulate the area where ships could deploy from an open warp point. Closed warp points, however, could have mines and such placed right dead center of the sector

But, sadly, I don't see these sorts of things happening without a fairly major patch - I don't see those things as being something one can mod into the game.

The warp point font is still displayed if the graphics are not, I haven't found where the font/display code is for the WPs.

Alright,

1) We could definitely change out the picture for the closed warp points. This would make them invisible on the map (for humans at least).

2) We can eliminate the warp point font (line 9203 & 9204 of the mainstrings.txt) and then the name will only show up once the warp point has been traversed. Would then say the target system name only instead of "Warp Point to X".

3) Warp Point lines can be eliminated in the Quadrant Map Display - Show Warp Lines option. Not sure if these can be eliminated by changing the mainstrings.txt entries, but maybe.

4) There is an entry for one way warp points in the stellarobjecttypes.txt . I'm not sure if it works though. They are not implemented for any warp points in the stock game. Also dont know if you could convert them to two way warppoints once the have been traveled through. ( I know the size limitations dont work right now)

5) I think I can teach the AI to not guard or explore through closed warp points if we give them some special designation; possibly through changing their names to Closed Warp Point or something. However, the AI might accidently go through move to an unrelated system as Astroshak mentioned. Probably be trickier to teach the AI to notice closed warppoints once enemy came through, but I think I might be able to do it with enough time.

-Unnamed

Unnamed Mod

Idea for the closed warp hole. Used a storm with a special tag and have it look like a warp hole, but not connection. Then the next turn after first player has seen the closed hole used the event script. The script will act between turns to open a warp hole there to a random system else where. "Ha boss I don't remember that warp hole being there in our home sytstem, and is that a EEE attack fleet TOO...."

He ponders the dangers inherent in the advantages, and advantages inherent in the dangers. - Ts'ao Ts'ao

Crimson

Crimson,

That may be the best/easist solution suggested so far. It wouldnt be exactly the same as cloaked warppoints, but would get much of the feel (the oh Sh** moment). Thanks for the suggestion.

For data nets, we could make a large component that increases experience a huge amount (heroic levels or something), and then make neural nets fairly cheap. The ship with the large component has the experience bonus and the other ships feed off it. Destroy it and the rest of the ships lose the bonus (datanet destroyed). WOuldnt be exactly the same but pretty close for now.

Drones could be modded to be like one shot missiles that can warp from the books (soaking up mines, and specific targets).

-Unnamed

Unnamed Mod

The problem with that idea for a closed warp point is thus :

I have found it, and I've gone through it. The Drishoka in the system didn't have that sector under surveillance, and so missed my arrival. Under the script idea proposed, they now know where it is, its just some new open warp point that magically appeared in their system.

They shouldn't be aware of where I came from, unless they see me enter or leave through the closed warp point that I know about and that they now suspect is present but don't know the location of unless I show them by coming or going while in sensor range.

Astroshak,

That is an excellent point, it would not be the ideal situation since the closed would not be cloaked. (At this point I'm pretty sure this will not change unless we get some help from Aaron). However, we could set warppoints to not visible unless seen until been in sensor range at least once (like planets). This way the new warp point would not be seen until a ship passes by in sensor range. It wouldnt be cloaked but at least its not automatically seen. Also if its off the beaten path (like a storm system or black hole system) then it may not get seen for a while, or until its too late. Again not the perfect solution, but perhaps there are no perfect solutions.

Also we may want to tone down the sensor range of basic sensors. I believe in the books some systems had "shells" of sensor satellites just in case of closed warp points. May make the warppoints less obvious when they open.

-Unnamed

Unnamed Mod

For closed warp point... sometimes with this game version (1.66) I've received the report that a Warpo Point closed for natural reason, but... at the other end the warp point is still functional!!!

Example: One WP connect System A to System B. The next turn one report says that the WP in System B is closed. WP in System B really disappear, but it's still here in System A, and I can use the WP to go from System A to System B. AI don't use this "one way" WP (I've tried to send a colonizer with "colonize" order, but the ship won't move... I must order manually to ship through WP).

I don't know if that will be usefull... anyway one-way WP are a great idea.