🌀The Hyper Engine and Jump Gate Technology

This document represents a work in progress, and is not finalized as part of our more formal GDD.

The Hyper Engine

The researching of hyper engine technology, from a Lore perspective, will mark a tremendous achievement in the budding history of the human race within the Kyanite Universe. The jump gates, powered by hyper engines, will strengthen their defensive and economic capabilities, and allow a deepening of the bonds of their culture as it evolves across new planets and colonies. This a testament to their journey toward unity in a vast and unknown starscape.

"Researching the Hyper Engine" will be the first part of a two-stage Community Campaign that will result in players being able to launch missions from any Jump Gate-equipped space station to any planet in any station that also has a Jump Gate. As the game evolves past simple mining missions, this will begin to open up vastly more efficient interstellar integration, allowing Stations and their communities to organize their economies in specialties and clusters.

A community like Alpha Origins, for example, might benefit from having their associated partner projects beginning to specialize in a particular resource generation or planet collection. The Lava Heads could provide a focused harvesting of resources specific to Magma planets in their station's star system, freeing Meta Mayhem to focus their resources into building out Metallic-based structures in theirs. As ships come and go between these star systems more fluidly, the Lava Heads would then get to focus the 5% tax from visitors to their planets all in one station, rather than feeling compelled to claim and build out Magma planets across all 100 just to get a slice of all the commerce.

The 5% tax for mining missions would still go to the Station from which the mission was launched.

Missions utilizing the Jump Gate will also likely incur an additional fuel charge in the form of Kyanite, either per trip, daily or weekly. It is also possible that resources like Kyanite Crystals may be implemented to cover the fuel charge. The specifics of this have not been finalized at this time.

"Researching the Hyper Engine"

This will be a universal portion of the campaign (not station-specific) in which players will begin to "research" by crafting all the components necessary to build the massive Jump Gates. As blending recipes are fulfilled, a "global" research bar will fill. When the bar is full, the second phase will then begin.

"Building the Jump Gates"

All stations will be allowed to participate in this portion, though only stations holding enough staked kyanite will be able to "activate" their Jump Gates. Players will begin to burn their researched components, crediting their chosen Stations and filling the station-specific "build meter". The specific mechanics of tracking this are not fully designed yet, so some details are, again, subject to some changes, but this is the general plan.