Faster than Light Travel

[Enigma]

hehehehe, mmm, good times ^ _ ^

[G]

Can I just say I love how this conversation started with discussions about travel methods, and has now turned into a mysterious unknown civilization building jump gates throughout the universe and a monster that eats ships?

[Enigma]

Post 7 suggests unknown gate builders (and nanites!) but I'd much prefer that we build our own gates. especially for my P-Corps game, where there may be hidden jump gates in system.

the suggestion of unknown hyperspace creatures eating ships in transit had me come up with dark-matter engines for another game, which I then used for my ongoing Interstellar Cruise Ship Scorpio game. (it wasn't monsters eating the ships, it was a dark matter incursion into this reality that rip the ship apart from the inside, then sucked most of the debris back into hyperspace. Survivors 'saw' illusions they mistook for monsters.)


But I really don't want hyperspace monsters eating ships, sorry.

One possibility is exotic matter - say a rock from a failed jump gate explosion that's now outside of space and time. In a jump stream between gates, it allowed the ship to slip through the edge into an isolated bubble of space-time (your dead space). Only another fragment can open a hole between the bubble and the jump stream.

Or maybe someone started their jump drive while going through a jump gate and tore a hole? >.<;

So:

Just jump gates - or jump gates and some slower jump drives to allow ships to travel where there is no gate? (explorer ships, gate repair ships, military ships, fringe ships)

Should jump gates be two fixed points or can we dial-a-gate? (i'd prefer two fixed points, personally)

Should the gates be open all the time (and if so, two-way travel or alternating one-way?), or only open when ships are in transit? (I like the "only open while ships are in transit")

Should jump gates be slow (taking hours or days to transit) or fast (seconds or minutes)?

[G]

Ha, I wasn't necessarily suggesting monsters, just thought it was funny how the conversation managed to turn that way...
I think as far as timeframe is concerned, it should depend on how far you're travelling. And fixed points between jump gates seems better to me too, prevents people just jumping all over the shop, wherever they feel like.
It would make more sense for the gates to only open when ships are travelling, otherwise it'd risk damaging gates from random space debree, etc, coming through on its own, wouldn't it? (Shoot me down if I'm talking crap, I'm not as tech with this stuff as some of you guys are...)

[Enigma]

Thanks for your input, G! ^ _ ^

What do the rest of you think?