Highways

Master of the Blade · Post by **Master of the Blade** » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 11:56

Ummm, corhen?

pjknibbs wrote:Pluto if (a) both planets were on the same side of the Sun--double the travel time if they're on opposite sides and (b) your ship was capable of travelling at lightspeed.

Syock · Post by **Syock** » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 14:20

pjknibbs wrote:t would take 5 hours of real time to travel from Earth to Pluto if (a) both planets were on the same side of the Sun--double the travel time if they're on opposite sides and ...

Does this mean I could possibly be looking forward to planetary motion, rather than a static layout? http://forum.egosoft.com/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

Post by **Terre** » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 16:15

I wonder if our super-fast highways will go to plaid.

Spaceballs - They've Gone To Plaid

DJ0JJ · Post by **DJ0JJ** » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 18:46

Lol people talking about going as fast as light and saying it will look like passing 5 hours... you forgeting TIME DILATION!

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 18:58

That's only important when figuring out the wages of your crew when some of your ships are using highways at relativistic speeds and some are not.

Subjectively you are "on SETA" while on such a highway because the game around you must be operating at a higher time factor.

The only way around that would be wormhole travel or similiar types of instant travel magic.
You can't have your cake and eat it, too. =P

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 19:14

Gazz wrote: Subjectively you are "on SETA" while on such a highway because the game around you must be operating at a higher time factor.

Why must it? Seems to me they can make the "highways" work by simply making ships move faster inside it, while everything else carries on at normal speed.

Toastie · Post by **Toastie** » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 19:45

Gazz wrote:Subjectively you are "on SETA" while on such a highway because the game around you must be operating at a higher time factor.

The only way around that would be wormhole travel or similiar types of instant travel magic.
You can't have your cake and eat it, too. =P

Highway travel would be more akin to being in a canoe in a sluice where the water flow is faster or even one of those travelators at airports which make it appear you're travelling faster than those walking normally alongside... the key thing here is that you're doing everything else at the same normal speed in normal time, just travelling faster due to the highway's current or flow.

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 20:20

Yes, but the simple fact that you are moving at ludicrous speed means that you are not "doing everything else at the same normal speed in normal time".

It's the result of moving that fast, just like whatever you see in front of your ship will have a blue tint while things behind you have a red tint.
Direct result of high speed.

Toastie · Post by **Toastie** » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 20:59

I think you'll be mildly surprised at what you will be able to do while travelling in a highway.

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 21:49

Flipping rude passers the bird? =P

LV · Post by LV » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 22:00

For some reason toasties comment brought a vision of flipping pancakes at the kitchen window of my ship as it made it's way along the highway

Maybe i've got a subliminal desire for caravans in rebirth

Toastie · Post by **Toastie** » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 22:11

@LV and your comment gave me a great idea about a spongebob-style patty-flipping minigame!

imperium3 · Post by **imperium3** » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 22:22

I love the highway system already because it has great potential for some proper exploration. Previous X games (except BTF of course because it was all unknown) were hamstrung with little sectors and the closest to "exploration" was either trundling out hoping for something far out of the ecliptic, or finding a gate to an unknown sector.

But this... This has lots of potential. You could have highways that pass through an asteroid belt crawling with pirates, and they have to be patrolled by military ships to keep the traffic safe. Likewise, you could set up your own pirate base in an asteroid belt with important highways running through it!

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 22:33

Toastie wrote:I think you'll be mildly surprised at what you will be able to do while travelling in a highway.

I got it! Spray an oil film behind your ship!
Next bend in the highway the pursuers are sooo toast!

thrangar · Post by **thrangar** » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 22:35

pjknibbs wrote:
Bill67 wrote: I wont say I am dissappointed til I play the game but the one thing that did get my attention was that they said that SETA/Hyperspace were hacks to travel but IMO I dont see how a highway isnt 1?

Yeah no one will want to wait 15-30 minutes to cross a solar system but to use a highway tube system to speed up travel seems strange to me.

SETA was always a bit of a hack because it requires the entire game universe to run at up to 10 times the normal speed. This puts a massive additional strain on the CPU which can result in all sorts of oddities--like capital ships in X3TC not firing their turrets if you're at full SETA because the scripts that control them don't have time to run, and the famous "auto-pillock" being unable to navigate properly at that speed. Far better, therefore, to include some artificial means of making the ships travel faster than to speed up the whole universe.

.

I am with pjknibbs on this point.This is what has me excited about the hwy sys

Still alittle worried about system size and travel time to a hwy.
Hopefully local hywys can be built by player

Shimrod · Post by **Shimrod** » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 22:37

Toastie wrote:I think you'll be mildly surprised at what you will be able to do while travelling in a highway.

Perhaps we can exchange Grey Poupon with passing ships

Syock · Post by **Syock** » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 22:38

I'll have drones fly over to ships as they pass by and sell sandwiches to the crews.

imperium3 · Post by **imperium3** » Sat, 1. Oct 11, 22:45

Syock wrote:I'll have drones fly over to ships as they pass by and sell sandwiches to the crews.

Cargobay now contains... BLT.

Aquitaine · Post by **Aquitaine** » Sun, 2. Oct 11, 15:39

This is actually one of the best pieces of news I've seen, both in terms of recognizing one of the limiting factors in X (SETA) and in coming up with a novel solution for it (highways). Kudos to Ego.

ragamer · Post by **ragamer** » Sun, 2. Oct 11, 16:04

Lets hope my english is good enough to make this understandable:

As far as I understand highways (HW from now on) are just "high speed zones" that allow you to "hop out" in real space at any point you want... I also assume that you can interact with other ships on the HW in the same way you could do on Real Space but ANY interaction across the HW Interface will not be possible.

I think the idea is to be able to create Stations along a HW any traveler would want to hop out close.

So I think what Ego is after is to give us what has always been VERY HARD to do on past games...

...To ADD content to the mostly-empty Space easily.

There are a few important questions although:

- Superhighways are simply Gate Jumps with "travel time" with some backgroung loading? Or one can Hop Out in new Sectors?

- How one can "Hope In" into a Regular Highway, at the endpoints only? Or anywhere across their path?

- Are they linear, curved or twisted paths?

- How is direction going to be managed? Independent tunnels? Or Relativistic Space shared ones were space is deformed so travellers going on in different directions can fly past others at "slow" speeds?

- This time there will be effective ways to prevent ships to access in/out certain portions of a HW?

The way I see it, HW are a certain way to create "trade routes" on space beyond the physical placement of the trade hubs...

...If I understood them correctrly, ofc.