Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So we've had a chance to play a bit with structure in space. They are nice and there's some decent variety needed if you want to min/max things. If you want to build a little city there's one big problem: Instawarps are too damn useful, especially since ships still come out of the new structures too fast and so take ages to align in any other direction. Given the safety that tethering provides after docking I don't think it's imbalanced to speed up the warp.

What benefit does it allow? Well for starters if I'm building a small cluster of refinery + ECs I don't have to put them all in a single straight line. I can make a nice compact cluster in 3 dimensions and not hear cursing every time somebody undocks a freighter. It also means that FCs can undock a fleet and not have to worry about it bumping off of the structure when he calls an align prior to warping off, he can just warp off instead. Yes it's an advantage for the defender but it's an advantage that requires them to undock. It's an advantage that gets them in to a fight faster without actually influencing the fight itself. This can be reasonably cheap to run as I see it as a QoL improvement with limited impact.


In my simplistic view implementation could consist of:
Stats wise probably pitch it similar to a reprocessing facility but with a running cost discount for refineries and ECs.
For everybody that undocks the ship starts off at 75% of maximum speed. If they then issue a warp or bridge command while tethered the structure applies a non-aggressing 90% web which doesn't break tether. If it was an aggressing web it would probably want some kind of exemption option.

If it looks overpowered then it could be limited to only providing the instawarp webs between structures that have it installed. This however is likely trickier than it appears since I expect most people are warping to BMs near the undock rather than to the tether edge that a "warp to structure" leaves you at.

FYI the whole reason you leave a structure at full speed is to get you off the undock so you don't automatically bump when trying to warp back through the station.

Also, fun fact, webbing a ship going the wrong way won't actually speed up its align, just like it won't speed up the align of a ship that isn't moving and is webbed before it starts aligning. The way webs work is they reduce your max speed, this pushes you into warp instantly if you were already going fast enough in the right direction to warp after the web's effect is applied.

If you're trying to warp back through a station that just kicked you out though then you're already going too fast the wrong direction, so you need to slow down and then accelerate back the other way, so the web being applied doesn't actually help you much if at all.

The tether range is large enough for anything to slowboat away a bit then turn around if your next warp point is across the structure model. No need for a change on that. Pilot your ship and it will all work.

Fleets bouncing off of structures during aligns is a minor point which is why I suggested the fuel discount applies to non-citadels. The overall suggestion should've been clear that this is a QoL time saving feature rather than making things easier.