Michi goes into detail why the navigation system needs an update to support the upcoming gateways.
You can find the full issue of the development log here.
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The upcoming gateways will change that premise: As I mentioned in previous devlogs gateways might not work all the time, they might lack fuel or upkeep. There might be multiple gateways in the same direction, and there are also costs associated with gateways in the form of fees. We’re pretty sure that players want to have a way to control which route a ship is taking.
What are you thoughts on how to handle a Gateway that becomes inoperable midflight?
At flight planning time, let’s imagine the following route is available:
[start] --jump--> [B] --GW--> [C] --jump--> [D]
The gateway that connects system B to system C is fully fueled and operational at the time that the user computes and selects a flight plan. They select this flight plan and take off from the starting system.
But in the time it takes for the ship to jump to system B and approach the gateway, the gateway runs out of fuel.
The simplest thing to do would probably have the ship just stop and abort the flight at this point.
But I’m wondering if we can do better, for example by having the ship reserve fuel with the gateway at the time it starts its journey (instead of when the ship arrives at the gateway).
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As it stands right now, a flight will be aborted at the gateway if said gateway is inoperable.
We considered other alternatives: For example, we could implement a slot system, where a jump slot would be reserved during flight planning. From the development perspective this solution adds a lot of complexity though, which is why we dropped it for now, to reduce the scope.
Hopefully it won’t be a common occurrence. However even if it is rare, anything that could potentially unexpectedly disrupt a flight is a reason not to risk using a gateway at all. Whatever you can do to minimize/eliminate the risk or increase the value of gateways to make the risk/reward calculation better would be appreciated.