published on July 28, 2025 in devlog
Michi is back to implementing the gateways. This week: setting everything up for the implementation of the flight system.
Michi (molp)
It's one of these weeks when I can't really show you anything yet, because everything is in flux and nothing is done yet. What I can tell you is that I started to work on the gateway flight model in general. Over the course of the last few devlogs we built (and released) a new pathfinding logic that works on the server and not the client. To keep the development and iteration time short, I only added what's necessary: the existing flight system with its segments, take-off, departure, jump, approach, landing and transit.
For the gateways we'll add three new segments: field lock and field decay will happen right before and after a gateway jump. Field lock is a short flight segment that happens right before the actual jumps. Lore-wise that is where the gateway creates the necessary FTL field with its emitters using the new Vortex Fuel. Field decay is also a short segment where the effects of the jump fade off and the ship can enter the destination planet's orbit. The jump segment itself will also get its own flight segment, so it can be distinguished from the regular FTL jump segment.
From a technical standpoint, we'll use the field lock segment to perform a few checks to decide if a jump is possible at all. You might recall that gateways need upkeep, fuel and enough capacity to be operational, and the company is required to pay the fees for the jump. If the jump is not possible, it will be aborted at this point. There have been a few discussions on Discord if the jump aborts could be prevented, for example, by providing the necessary fee upfront, or a booking system for jump slots etc. While we understand that such systems would provide quality of life, we also want to deploy the gateway feature as soon as possible. We can always add additional functionality later on.
As always, we'd love to hear what you think: join us on Discord or the forums!
Happy trading!