[Faille]

Actually, not sure if this would be a game, though it probably have game applications.

Basically, I've watched countless sci fi shows and am tired of their attempts to explain FTL travel and have distences that have little meaning.

So what I'm envisioning is a trading style game. Starts off with dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of star systems spread randomly around. In order to travel from one system to another, jump gates need to be built connecting them. That's where players come in. They would be the ones building the gates in order to facilitate trade.

The cost for building a gate and for traveling between them would have to increase exponentially with distance so that its more economical to build shorter gates. However, it's probably faster, and more profitable to trade via longer jump gates. ie its more profitable to trade between 2 systems connections by a 10ly jump gate, then to go via 10 jump gates that are 1yl distance.

The trading itself I would be happy to be automatic, though obviously that opens a game in itself. I'd rather not worry to much about about designing a commodity market or having players manually flying the routes. Instead, players would just be able to build ships that would automatically run the most profitable routes.

You could have the players start on random planets. or they could start on just one, or even have different races as starting points and possibly give each race different values for their construction, though that might all be more down the road. Likewise you could have the ability to destroy other players jump gates, though would be at a great cost.

You would probably need to have a limit to the number of gates at each system, though possibly that could be increased, or just a increasing amount per gate added. 1m for first, 2m for 2nd, 4m for 3rd, etc. though possibly 1,1,2,3,5,8,13 might be better system to use to it doesn't get too much too quickly.

the main thing I want to see is how a galaxy would be colonized assuming jump gates were invented and get a real feel for how a real trading network might develop. As such I would like it to be more online though I guess single player might work. It really sounds like a space tycoon style of game, doesn't it?

Any ideas on how to design and program this sort of game / computer model? Any volunteers to help do it? 8)