Wormhole Technology Proposal

Hello Keen Software House and Community,

I've been sitting on this idea for a while now, thinking how Space Engineers can be made more interesting by introducing a higher degree of end-game technologies. Originally I had the idea to also propose hyperspace technology but one could say that hyperspace technology is already represented by jump drives (though long distance jumps, longer than wormhole jumps could be represented by a hyperspace window or something).

For now I want to share my idea about wormhole technology, it's quite the read, i know but i'm writing this because i think it could have a big impact on the game. I also want to write about the needed existing components and new components. Next to that i want to briefly talk about the impact it could have on the new economy / faction update and on overall performance.

I am open to suggestions and constructive criticism, but please read through this first as I've thought about this idea a lot and have spent a couple of hours writing this.

Wormhole Technology?

Yes, the idea is that you can build a station in space that has the technology in it to establish a wormhole connection (shown by a block that projects a cool visual effect) with another station that is a multitude of long distance jump-drive jumps away. You could drift into the first end of the wormhole connection with your ship and come out on the other end of the wormhole.

How can this be useful

Personally I've been thinking about creating a custom universe where I spawn in more planets that are a multitude of jump-drive jumps away. Far enough that jump-drives start to loose their effectiveness but not so far that it becomes annoying to jump to those planets using jump drives. I can think of a few cool ideas on how to implement wormholes in a custom universe like connecting up groups of planets with other groups of planets, groups of planets consisting of a maximum of 3 planets and the associated moons. I'm sure community members can think of more cool implementations.

How should it work

I'll try to keep it simple. One idea is to add a block to the game, the 'Wormhole drive'. It's a single (big, bigger than the refinery) block that can be placed, and is very expensive as in you'll need a lot of components. It would also need a lot of power, so much power that you need to get creative with all the power generation methods that are available, but not so much power that the introduction of the worm-hole drive requires a new method of power generation and power storage. Wormhole drives have a range, and require other wormhole drives within that range to connect to (if they are owned by your faction, or if they are essentially free to connect with). The minimum range should be proportional to several maximum distance jump-drive jumps.

Possible gameplay scenario at least I would enjoy

Imagine you find a tablet with some coordinates to a forgotten group of planets. After entering the coordinates you discover that the group of planets is so far away, that even your state of the art Jump-drive won't get you there without recharging a couple of times. Taking trips to the group of planets would take so long that it would essentially cost more than what you can get out of it. You decide to make it your mission to get to the far away planets anyway by putting all your efforts and resources into a project that get's you there using jump-drive tech and building your wormhole outpost there. As a smart engineer you'd only have to make the trip once, because you could use the newly built wormhole connection to get back home...

Impact to the core game: existing components

Introducing a new block like this also introduces new components. So, what components should this wormhole drive block have? I'm not sure on the exact count of each component but i'll list the already existing components I think the block needs first.

• Steel plates (lots of them)
• Metal grids (the same way they are used in heavy armor blocks)
• Construction Components

A wormhole drive block should be very strong and durable as a lot of power will run through it and since they are difficult to build i think they should be able to take a hit or two before breaking. Next I think the wormhole drive needs an internal energy buffer and a low resistance energy conduit so we'll need:

• Power cells
• Super conductors

In order to compute the wormhole destination and to determine if there are other wormhole drives in range I imagine we also need the following:

• Computers
• Radio-communication components

Optionally, this block should also have some form of keeping things cool. It could need an (internal) atmosphere (oxygen) could be piped in to cool the super conductors. Additionally those super conductors need to be properly and safely insulated to protect the rest of the internal system against the intense cold superconductors and to protect the superconductors themselves. We also need to be able to read some stats off a display. We'd need:

• Motors (fans)
• Large steel tubes (protect the superconductors)
• Displays (40 or something)

Impact to the core game: New component / no new ore

To really complete the circle we'd need a single new component: 'Wormhole drive component'. It does all the final things that make a wormhole go. It's responsible for the visual effect the block projects and is responsible for materializing / de-materializing grids that go through the wormhole. This component could be made out of Iron ingots, cobalt ingots, gold ingots and of course platinum ingots. Introducing a new type of ore wouldn't be necessary because not a whole lot can be made out of platinum yet.

Impact to the core game: Economy and factions, tickets.

Wormholes could be held by factions, denying / granting access to factions of choice or hostile factions. Players could have the ability to charge other players through the storeblock for a passage trough their wormhole using a ticket. It would be cool if NPC's are able to make use of NPC wormhole stations that are also available for players to use but having to pay for a trip through the wormhole, also using a ticket. Wormhole drives could also work together with contracts to deliver set amount of resources from A to way over at the other end of the universe B, but still requiring a decent amount of normal travel.

Impact to the core game: PCU

I don't know exactly how much of an internal performance impact this new block and functionality will have, I think it will depend on where the wormhole devices are placed. If the wormhole drives are placed near planets, this means that planets and asteroid fields need to be loaded and unloaded every time a player goes through a wormhole. If wormhole devices are placed further away from planets and moons, and only asteroids are in the direct vicinity of the wormhole drive the performance impact will presumably be a bit less. Because of this uncertainty I think this block should have a higher PCU value, high enough that one has to think about the merits of building two wormhole stations but not so high that it renders the difficulty to gather the resources for it mute.

Impact to the core game: planets / overall performance impact

I've seen a lot of requests for more planets on steam and on here. Personally i think that just adding planets for the sake of adding planets isn't interesting enough. The same goes for my wormhole idea, it isn't interesting enough on its own. I could say that wormhole technology could be interesting without far away planets to those that like to build stations very -very- far away but then i'm probably talking to a more niche set of players like myself.

Combine the two, more planets (or planet groups) and wormhole technology, both ideas could be interesting. Perhaps even as a new future 'planetary update' ;-) Joking aside I do realize this could have a big performance impact so it could be a good idea to have a new scenario or scenario option that implements extra planets so that it remains optional for those that don't have a high end computer system (like myself to some degree, money doesn't grow on trees unfortunately).

Outro

Alright, this took me longer than expected. I have tried to structure and write down all the parts of my idea that were floating in my mind for a long time to the best of my abilities. I hope to have been complete but i'm sure I've also missed a couple of things. If the community has idea's surrounding mine or would do things a little differently I would encourage you to write out your idea's on wormhole technology as well. I have so many more thoughts I could write down but this document would be extremely long and i wouldn't leave anything open for discussion that way. Leave a comment and tell me what you think, vote if you like to see wormholes come alive in the future of Space Engineers.

If you have made it this far into my proposal, thank you very much for reading this wall of text. I wish you many days of successfully challenging, but not summoning Clang!