[rscaper1070]

I'm guessing from the first mission that intrasystem gates have a limited range and that they are daisy chained throughout the system. Does anybody have any guesses as to the operational range of the gates?

[Kolgena]

It seems to me that the gates teleport ships between them. Unlike Knossos portals, it seems intrasystem gates need an end-point gate to compliment it.

[rscaper1070]

Well, yeah, I know that. What I'm asking is what's the range? In the first mission you have two gates in the middle of nowhere. If all you need is a twin gate, why not have a gate from Europa to Mars? It seems that their range is limited and it's necessary to chain them to go far distances.

[headdie]

I believe their function is to act as an external jump drive, so i suspect you might need one at both ends, but they do seem to turn up in fairly open space (the wargods mission to capture the logistics ship for example) so perhaps the route needs to be lined with them to some degree

[Vip]

Am I the only one who read the title of this thread as "Intrasystem Gate RANGERS"? ^^

[Cyborg17]

Intrasystem gate rangers!!!
*guitar solo*

Intrasystem gate rangers!!!
MIGHTY MORPHIN SYSTEM GATE RANGERS!!!!!

[headdie]

Am I the only one who read the title of this thread as "Intrasystem Gate RANGERS"? ^^

nope that was my first thought to lol

Intrasystem gate rangers!!!
*guitar solo*

Intrasystem gate rangers!!!
MIGHTY MORPHIN SYSTEM GATE RANGERS!!!!!

 

[Scotty]

Re: gate ranges.

The short answer is that we don't know.

Presumably there is some kind of range, judging by the gates in the middle of nowhere, but this could honestly be a way to circumvent periodic mass shadows (orbiting planets) by positioning the in between gates above the system ecliptic.  It'd look like nowhere, but it'd make sure your freighter never accidentally jumped through Jupiter, or something.

[rscaper1070]

Bingo, that's the idea I was looking for. I had a similar idea but I didn't think to go off the ecliptic. Thanks.

[qwadtep]

Intrasystem gate rangers!!!
*guitar solo*

Intrasystem gate rangers!!!
MIGHTY MORPHIN SYSTEM GATE RANGERS!!!!!

Secret project

[X3N0-Life-Form]

Intrasystem gate rangers!!!
*guitar solo*

Intrasystem gate rangers!!!
MIGHTY MORPHIN SYSTEM GATE RANGERS!!!!!

Secret project

That explains sooo much.

[JerichoDeath]

These gates...
I have been thinking about those gates.
I had been wondering why they were so far apart from each other.
If one gate is linked, entry and exit, with another, then why have the entry to the next gate be so far away?

-but then I realized that it was likely because the ships need time to cool their engines down for the next jump.

---

Then, I wondered:
If Karunas and such use those gates, then wouldn't the GTA have the advantage of being able to jump all around the system anywhere they wanted to?
That is, if UEF Military ships have to use those gates to get around quickly... maybe I'm wrong, though.

[MatthTheGeek]

UEF military ships are all equipped with intra-system jump drives. Only some civilian ships aren't, for economical reasons.

On the strategical point of view, since you can track jump signatures in a system, you can use gates to slip by warships as long as you periodically fake-fire the gates you control, so the enemy can't tell between a real warship using the gate or just a fake jump generated by the gate.

[-Norbert-]

It also allows a ship to enter an area without using up it's own energy reserve, meaning the can jump out the moment the calculations finish (or make an immediate crash jump, if the situation is dire enough), rather than having to wait for the drives to cool and re-charge.... assuming the target area is close enough to a gate.

[Scotty]

I'm pretty sure gates are linked, which means you don't even have to do calculations in the first place.

[-Norbert-]

Yes, but when I was talking about jumping out, I didn't mean turning around and flying back into the gate you came out of. I meant you can jump out with the ships actual jump drive, which (assuming the calculations are done reasonably fast) might be quicker than the whole turning, depending on the ship in question of course.

[BlasterNT]

In that case though, Jericho has a valid point.  If there's no cooldown necessary in using gates, why are consecutive gates spaced so far apart? 

[rscaper1070]

My technobabble explanation would be something like gates produce an artificial Lagrange Point and having two in close proximity would interfere with their gravity fields.

[JerichoDeath]

I think that we've seen planetary gravity fields produce errors in subspace jumps before. So, that explanation might make sense.

The only possible problem that I see is "why don't warships' own intra-system jump drives give each other errors, then?"

-but there are multiple solutions to that.
Maybe they sync with each other, or the Intra-System Gates are just way more powerful then the jump drives inside of ships, or maybe ships' jump drives have some kind of dampening system installed in order to prevent such errors from taking place.

There might also be strategic reasons for keeping the gates apart... when were they built, anyway?
Or maybe it has something to do with trade associations or space-faring law at the time they were built.

[-Norbert-]

Maybe activating a gate is creating a gravity pull. For ships this isn't a problem, but a static gate would be pulled out of allignment. And placing them further apart was simply more economic than fitting them with manouvering thrusters and systems that automatically realign the gater, after a neighboring gate activated.

The six gates near Mars (as seen in Sunglare) look like they are connected, so they wouldn't suffer from the same problem, if that really is the case.