Hi all,

This idea came to me as I was reading a book from Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence. In the book, which is set in the far future, humanity has become so advanced that they try to build artificial wormholes to traverse the void of space. I continued to think about the book's subject matter and I realized that if the playable races in Endless Space could (eventually) turn themselves into energy-based lifeforms, it would not be a stretch to think that they would be advanced enough to create their own wormholes/spacelanes. There would have to be some limitations of course, the wormholes/spacelanes cannot crisscross, must always start and end at star systems, and there must be a limit on how long they can be. As I thought about this idea, I noted that it would be impractical to build new wormholes/spacelanes as an improvement. Instead, they would be a support module that is installed on a starship capable of moving without wormholes/spacelanes. When clicked on, the ship with the wormhole or spacelane creation module will highlight on the galaxy map where new lanes can be created.

Anyway, this is my idea and I hope you will comment on it. Also, I apologize if this idea has already been suggested.

I believe the game ends before such technology would be available, Entropy missiles, AI's, Terraforming, Predictive Super Analysis and Engrams is one thing.



Building wormholes (And however the hell the space lanes actually work) is something on a much larger scale.

So, you are saying that turning a desert planet into an ocean planet is not a large scale project?

Well...Why? Once you unlock warp travel (free flight, whatever you want to call it) you have no need for the strings or wormholes anymore. Dump some engine mods onto you fleets, research the movement bonuses, and I had ships crossing a maxed out Spiral-8 galaxy in three turns.



If that's not enough, research the tech that link all of your wormholes together. You can enter one at the "top" of the galaxy and exit one at the "bottom." I just see no game play use or benefit from being able to create new wormholes or strings.

Now if the ability to close/open wormholes and/or add/remove space lanes were allowed early mid-game, you could actually make some interesting strategies out of that. IE - Creating choke points, or single lane paths that have to be followed to a defense planet... Minimum of 1 route to each planet, max of 6 routes.



I could see the early mid-game editing of wormholes and space lanes as a game play enhancement that would add value.

NovaBlazer wrote:
Now if the ability to close/open wormholes and/or add/remove space lanes were allowed early mid-game, you could actually make some interesting strategies out of that. IE - Creating choke points, or single lane paths that have to be followed to a defense planet... Minimum of 1 route to each planet, max of 6 routes.



I could see the early mid-game editing of wormholes and space lanes as a game play enhancement that would add value.

Except, it wouldn't matter. All choke points could be avoided by using the warp drive. You'll just fly by the choke point and defenders there to where ever your target is. It's as simple as...Left Ctrl/Shift + Right Click, I think, once you unlock the proper technology. I can't remember the exact keys to use, but it's something like that.



So even if you set it up so a planet only has one string reaching it, they can warp in from somewhere else. Or, if you can make strings, they'll simply make a new string going to that planet, and get there that way.

You should be able to irreversably destroy a planet to turn it into a wormhole/ring-singularity(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_singularity) and link them together. Obviously needs more thought so as not to cripple Hisho/Craver. But this would be awesome.



EDITL speelong

FinalStrigon wrote:
Except, it wouldn't matter. All choke points could be avoided by using the warp drive. You'll just fly by the choke point and defenders there to where ever your target is. It's as simple as...Left Ctrl/Shift + Right Click, I think, once you unlock the proper technology. I can't remember the exact keys to use, but it's something like that.



So even if you set it up so a planet only has one string reaching it, they can warp in from somewhere else. Or, if you can make strings, they'll simply make a new string going to that planet, and get there that way.

If fleet speed on lanes equals X and if fleet speed on free warp (off-lane) would be X/10 - that will work, I think.