0003384: Candy tech: Temporary wormhole generator - Arcen Idea Tracker (Bugs and Features)

ID	Project	Category		Date Submitted	Last Update

0003384	AI War 1 / Classic	Suggestion - New Features		May 9, 2011 10:44 am	May 9, 2011 1:15 pm

Reporter	martyn_van_buren	Assigned To
Severity	minor
Status	new	Resolution	open
Product Version	5.010

Summary	0003384: Candy tech: Temporary wormhole generator
Description	I guess this is for another expansion, but I'd like to see a high-cost ship that can change the map, temporarily creating (or maybe even closing) wormholes. I would imagine a two-part ship, where the halves can move separately and on command can create a wormhole between each of their positions. The wormhole should last an uncomfortably long time, perhaps ten minutes, and survive even if the ship is destroyed --- so if you use it to bring reinforcements in from your core, you'd better lose the battle or you're going to see the ships that just beat you pouring in through the same hole. It would create some interesting strategic decisions, allowing you to bring a ton of reinforcements into a remote battle quickly, or to link up distant defensive fronts, or to create an escape route to save half a losing fleet, but always carrying the risk that the AI will use your own wormhole against you. It seems like a pretty big ability, so it would probably come with a major cost, possibly being a golem-like capturable. The wormhole would probably have to be constructed, adding additional resource costs. It would also probably be limited to using its ability once every half-hour or so, so you couldn't use it to maintain a permanent wormhole between two systems. The ship would probably be non-transportable, but have a great deal of health to allow it to get far into enemy territory with an escort fleet. I think the artificial wormhole should carry supply, allowing you to use turrets and force-field generators in deep-raiding. But of course something would have to be done to prevent abuse in the LoS campaign --- perhaps the smaller, portable wormhole would be unable to carry transport-immune ships. But then, I think it would be cool to be able to use it to move human resistence fighers across hostile world quickly.
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Internal Weight

TheDeadlyShoe May 9, 2011 1:15 pm reporter ~0012132	I agree that there is much exploit potential. Too much and too simple map reworking can harm a game a lot (see Space Empires). Maybe instead of a buildable it could be a capturable, so you couldn't just apply spire directly to forehead. "Wormhole anchor", capturable structure, can build a mobile exit ship (cap 1) at great expense. Exit ship can construct a time limited wormhole exit that leads to the generator. It fits story-wise too, obviously the AI has a much greater understanding of warp tech than hummans, what with its exo-galaxy wormholes and no-stun warpgates. The principle issue I see, practically speaking, is that it might require a lot more reworking behind the scenes than is practical. It might not be simple to define a new wormhole during gameplay.