9/30/2024 - devlog
Michi talks about gateways and tries to answer some questions from the community about them.
Michi (molp)
I’ve continued working on the gateways this week. There have been many questions on the forums about how they work and how they are linked. Since that has been part of what I worked on this week, I'll try to answer some of them.
The GTW command has been expanded a bit. It now also shows the amount of upgrades the gateway received:
Some of you got confused by the 'links' section header, indicating that a gateway might have multiple destinations. That is not true though. A gateway can only ever link to a single other gateway. That other gateway has to link back in order for the link to be complete. So, why 'links' in plural then? While a gateway can only have one outgoing link, several other gateways might link to this gateway. We need a way to show which other gateways want to link to this gateway, so the operators can make an informed decision about the link.
A consequence of the one-gateway-one-link rule is that if a government wants to link to several other gateways, additional gateways have to be built and operated. Other than planetary projects, infrastructure projects can be built more than once.
Once the link is established, ships can travel between the gateways in both directions. The gateways' restrictions regarding ship volume have to be considered though: If a gateway with a small capacity and a gateway with a large capacity are linked, a large ship might only be able to use the gateway into one direction. The gateway on the origin side of the flight checks if the ship is smaller than the supported maximum ship volume.
Gateways will require a new fuel, vortex fuel, to operate. Each jump will consume a certain amount. The operator of the gateway, that is the local government for the time being, is responsible to supply enough fuel. Passing ships can’t refuel the gateway or bring their own vortex fuel. Think of the gateways as public infrastructure. You use them, you pay the toll, but you don't operate them yourself.
We plan on adding small indicators in the mission plan that show the current usage (in terms of jumps in the past 24h) and failure quote of a gateway. That should help to indicate whether using a route with a gateway is worth it or not. The current plan is to abort a flight if a ship encounters a gateway that has either run out of fuel or jump capacity.
Since gateways are operated by governments for now, there will be a motion to link a gateway to another gateway. Linking will be instant. We are currently thinking about what should happen with flights that plan to use the gateway, but the link changed or became incomplete in the meantime.
As always: we'd love to hear what you think: join us on Discord or the forums!
Happy trading!