Constructing new stations

[Echo 7-7]

Gate construction does take a little while, yes. Though as I understand it DSE simply plugs in the Ageira parts.

The Hokkaido project is creating a gate to the system where the Dragons base out of and is more a tool for Samura to study the gate than actually get anything done.

The Sigma project is relatively recent, as I understand it.

And then there is the slight issue of needing, as far as I know, the gate to be connected to a sister gate on the far side before you can flip a switch and set up whatever tube exists between the two. Which I presume means getting from point A to point B at least once the old fashioned way and building the second gate over there. Which might take a while, depending on how many light years away the connecting gate is going to be.

That's about right. It's a complicated process of plugging in, but at the most fundamental level, there is a basis of modular construction when it comes to Jump Gates. The most difficult part is alignment and calibration.

Because Gate construction is slower and more complicated than a base, the presence of a staging platform at the location of the Gate makes everyone's life much easier, as it acts as a warehouse, worker habitation, and so on.

Personally, I find the best way to look at Gate Construction is that certain (very large) vessels have operational Jump Drives, as demonstrated by the Osiris during the SP campaign. They are modified from the original drives on the sleeper ships, but with shorter operational range. A construction ship jumps to the Gate's destination, and begins construction of the twin Gate until the first Gate is 'locked on' to its partner. At that stage, the first completed Gate can be utilised by ships Jump Drives to bring more materials to the second construction site. The logistical problem of getting those ships back to where they came from means that this cannot be done until very late stages, but by that point the completion of the second Gate may only be months or weeks away.

While the Blood Dragons like to attack the Hokkaido Site every day, I don't think it should have taken over 16 years to be completed. I believe the Devs are compensating for this by throwing on an extra two pairs of completed Gates linked from the Hokkaido system, leading to Rishiri and Nagano (take a look at the 4.86 map to see what I'm talking about).

The Tau construction site is actually completed; hence why BMM now own the base. There is a Trade Lane in the works there which would lead mining ships deep into the ore-rich areas of the system (ie. towards Cali Base); however, the Outcasts have essentially put a stop to that.

The Sigma-19 Gate Construction Site in Okinawa is a recent venture that began a few years ago. It is being funded by both GMG and Kishiro.

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There was a sig here, once.

[Dusty Lens]

The cruise engines we enjoy right now on our fighters and such are exactly the same as the drives on the sleeper ships, just much much smaller. According to the design docs at any rate.

It's one of those aspects of FL sci-fi physics that shouldn't be looked at too closely.

[Fletcher]

I think the preconception is that we think of jump drives as like Star Wars' hyperdrive or the jump gate effect. When in actual fact in lore its just a very fast mass drive, or just a very powerful rocket on the ship.

Maybe the gates should be rethought as manufactured worm holes or some form of mass reduction engine that can propel ships to astounding distances.

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"Oh chuffing blimey, another day, another person being whiney!"
Fletcher's Feedback and Stories Thread

[Dusty Lens]

The Liberty History doc holds that they craft superluminal tunnels through real space. Or so we can infer from the Texas disaster, where feedback from the tunnel intersecting dark matter (lolol science) caused the parent gate in the Texas system to kersplode, resulting in all manner of bad times.

Freelancer science.

[Tachyon]

Freelancer science.

Something like that exists ? Hesery.

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[Enoch]

The Liberty History doc holds that they craft superluminal tunnels through real space.

To me that sounds more like a specific device (Homeworld's Hyperspace Core, or a technology like permanently active jump holes perpetually propelling the ship in hyperspace) than just very powerful engines.

But as you said, Freelancer science.

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