FTL and Wormhole Drive ideas

[JamJulLison]

There is something that is bugging me. How come higher level FTL and Warp Gens use up more fuel then the lesser ones. It's not like the timer itself is saying how long the ship is traveling. The timer is just making the calculations. So the only thing on them drives more powerful on them is their computers which calulate the times faster. So I can't see the drives using up more fuel to open the same kind of wormhole the lesser drives are creating. I can understand with multiple drives of the same kind. Since more drives are being used. But it doesn't make much sense with a single drive.

My idea. Either make it so it cost the same fuel regardless of the types. But the bigger the ship, the more fuel it cost. After all it would have to open a bigger wormhole for larger ships then smaller ships.

The other idea is have sort of a hyperspace travel developed and it replaces the wormhole gen and the timer counts as the actual time the ship is spent traveling. Of course during that time the ship can't be attacked or even seen anywhere since it is in hyperspace. The FTL could still remain though. Just change it to what I suggested before.

Out of these ideas ideas I would prefer the first one.

[SirEmi]

It has to do with the Light Years distance between the origin and the jump destination.

Having a more powerful Wormhole Generator or two WHG's will calculate the trajectory faster, but because of the accelerated calculus more Fuel Cells are needed to achieve the stable wormhole. Simply put, more energy gets used because of the rushed process to open the wormhole faster. Thus, time / fuel / LY traveled is the same, you just move faster with more WHG modules.

Having a mark 100 module consume the same amount as a mark 1 will lead to an unbalanced and un-realistic space travel, with ships zipping in seconds across vast distances and with negligible fuel costs.

Anyways, what I'm working on is having different special optimizations for ships, for example this one for exploration / scout ships:

- ship special optimizations:
   A ship can only have one optimization performed. Optimization can be removed / sold at 50% the purchase cost.
   
   -> Scout ship optimization -50% navigation time, -50% Fuel Cost
      - Jump drives tuning and optimization. Unfortunately, it only works on small ships (Shuttle 460,000 solars, Frigate 2,080,000 solars).

Those upgrades will be available at SOL / Earth shipyard, costing additionally and applied only on select ship classes. Different classes will have different upgrade options, but only one option / ship. Options like Freighter, Factory ship, Reinforced Hull, etc.

[JamJulLison]

I like these idea and your explanation is a good one.  I am glad you think things through on stuff like this. Those ideas seem pretty good as well. I wish I could see all the idea you got that your working on. Each one seems to be better then the last.