A mod idea: starting with warp point openers.

I haven't played much with stellar manipulation, but if SE5 is anything like SE4, the "destroyed on use" stipulation is nothing more than a silly nuisance that can be fixed in a single turn with repair.

I think this would open it up to abuse. Unless you mod in a lot of limitations into the hull that equips this device, the large hull could find itself being used for non-stellar manipulation uses.

To make this work without exploits, MM would have to special-code it to perform a sequence of actions when the button was pressed. The ship would have to open the wormhole, warp immediately and close the wormhole - all as one continuous action.

Stellar Manipulation components require a movement point to activate, so this wouldn't work on bases, closing that loophole. Can fleets use Stellar Manipulation? I haven't tried it in SE:V...as long as they can't, you couldn't use this technique to 'port whole fleets to the destination system. Only that one lonely little ship could go through...into the tentacles of whatever is waiting on the other side.

If the component had a very very limited range (say, 5 ly) and wasn't the same component type as the standard warp point creation components, (so it couldn't be upgraded later into the full-featured version) I could see this as being a viable idea.

You probably wouldn't WANT to mount it on anything but special-purpose scouts and colony hulls. If you really felt like making Babylon 5 style capital ships, you could put this on them instead of that extra massive-mounted main gun you would usually put.

If it's possible to have a component that can only be used on a particular hull size, you could even make it so only the smallest hulls can mount the thing. In roleplay terms, the thing makes such a small, unstable, temporary warp point that a larger ship couldn't use it - only the smallest of ships could squeeze through in time.

I would also suggest that ships using this component should take damage as they pass through their personal warp point - just like the unstable warp points sometimes do. The warp point is small and unstable, right?

A while I suggested an ability that you could add to components called "Complex to build." Basically, it could either lengthen the build/repair time for a component, or require that it be a space yard for it to be repaired, or both. If this got implemented, I think this mod would be feasible.

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I kinda like the idea (you basically make your own interstellar map as you go along) but as far as I know, no one's gotten an AI to make use of Stellar Manipulation. So playing with no warp points but those you create, even if the tech to open warp points is available from the start, would leave the player with a multi-system stellar entity, and the computer opponents with single system empires just waiting to be obliterated.

That said, if you wanted to play with warp points and have this going on, you could require that a Warp Point Ship have a WP Generator and bridge, crew, life, engines, and thats it - no room for anything else, and the WPG only going onto the WPS.

Well. I'm doing about 99% of what your talking about already in my BSG mod. I have the FTL drive set to echelon its distance ability to open FTL jump point (WPs) as the tech goes up and its has a hull type limitation of 1 or 2 per ship size (1 for lt cruiser and below, 2 for cruiser and above).

I have the AI doing limited FTL jump orders (mainly exploration and colonizing right now), I have yet to get it to look for defense and attack yet. That will come once school lets out.

As for fleets using stellar manips, they can't right now (I reported it as a bug/wanted feature). I have the AI solved for FTL jump with fleet, I just have one ship break formation, open WP and link back up with fleet. At the end of every turn all WPs are automatically closed with the event script (because the auto close WP ability isn't activated yet)

I plan to get a working mod out shortly after school break starts. I have been working some of the minor issues in between study/class but I'll have dedicated time to tackle the AI problem, which I think is the biggest hurdle to modding.