Geoff the Medio wrote:I am unable to find the relevant post(s), or don't see what the important distinction is between starlanes and wormholes such that they can't be two cases of the same game mechanic and use the same UI. My previous question was about what the difference between them was, with my later post attempting to clarify that the reason this mattered was that if they are the same thing, they could use the same UI (regardless of what that is).
I guess that
technically you of course can understand systems with stargates in it as a network where each system is simply connected with each other system by a wormhole. Technically the connection between two stargates is exactly the same as a wormhole connection, so if you think that to be the cleanest/simplest solution, I can't think of a reason that would prevent us implementing both with the same basic framework.
The difference/issue Dilvish is referring to stems from the UI element proposed in the thread you linked (if I understood him correctly). The way it's described there it sounds like you get such an "appendix"
for each wormhole a system has. That will work for "natural wormholes", but definitely not for "stargate wormholes" (for the already stated reasons). If however this UI element is implemented as you indicate here...
The point of the mentioned mini-starlane-to-wormhole icon was to indicate which systems have a wormhole/stargate. The icon would provide something to interact with to show fleet paths going thorough without having to draw the move path cutting across the galaxy. Mousing over or clicking could provide a list of systems connected to a wormhole opening on the map. To actually go through a wormhome/stargate, you'd just right click the destination systems (be that at the other end, or a few systems away from the other end), and the fleet movement algorithm would plot a path through (or not, depending what's faster).
...which sounds more like having only one "appendix" attached to a system in case it has at least one wormhole, then that might work I think.
The other difference I referred to, the need to have to distinguish between "stargate wormholes" and "natural wormholes" anyway because of the much more dynamic nature of the first, and therefore needing a different framework anyway can of course be addressed the way you suggested:
Vezzra mentioned needing to add/remove connection if planets change ownership, but I don't see a problem with this... There could be an effect-based mechanism that generates "natural" wormholes, and maintains them every turn. Player-created wormholes ("stargates") would do the same thing, whether that is between specific pairs of systems or between all systems with owned stargate buildings.
This would basically extend what Dilvish proposed for stargate connections (that is, recalculate/adjust the "stargate connections network" each turn) to
all wormholes, thus eleminating the need to keep track of the "type" of a wormhole, as all are recreated each turn anyway, if I understand your suggestion correctly. Yes, that should work also.
Actually an effect based creation of wormholes like this will introduce a more flexible wormhole concept, as it will allow to introduce all kinds of wormholes, which can created by all kinds of causes, stargates would be only one of them. There could be "stable"/"static" ones, others which open and close randomly, others which are created by ship parts, buildings, etc.