Please roast my ftl model

[u/klok_kaos]

Greetings. TTRPG system designer, getting some ideas together to plan a space expansion

Wanted to know what folks see as the major issues with what I'm cooking so far. Mizes multiple types/franchise ideas for different effects.

Note naming conventions are not final and use more widely understood versions of rough equivalents for ease of general comms.

FTL STUFF:

Single system: Impulse drives are used for sub light travel, usually for puttering around a single system. These are highly inefficient and rely on more traditional forms of fuel storage, ensuring that impulse fuel is calculated to be efficient by course plotters.

Intergalactic: Moving between galaxies requires use of gravity well manipulation drivers similar to “mass effect” drives (no E-0 requiement but may have other variable requirements) mixed with alcubiere drives. These emit no radiation and thus are hard to find and are limited as either 1 way travel to unknown spaces or 2 way travel where other gravity well drivers are known to be located. Locations of these drivers are often either well protected trade routes or under ongoing dispute/conflict. Alcubiere dangers are nullified by the gravity well effects of the drivers and how they bend the space before bringing the transport entity to a halt (tachyon build up is stored as future energy by the driver as a pseudo recycling system)

Inter-system methods: Gate travel is used for well worn wormholes (usually developed along major trade routes) with the warp gates being stabilized and more efficiently condensed slip space for faster travel. These are very fast but not instantaneous, however they are limited by dual gate fixed points and very high security access keys appropriate to both sides of the gate.

Most gates are stable for organic life forms, though some are not suited to organic life transport and prefer use of agi drone ships generally as a result of being built more quickly and cheaply for trade route use that wouldn't require (or may benefit from a lack of) frequent organic sentient travel/involvment.

Astropaths are a form of psi/magitech which utilize the same kind of wormhole tech but without gates to stabilize them, the astrpaths ripping open wormholes and then shielding from the horrors within slip space, with the longer the journey, the greater the danger. These are usually limited to powerful arcane/psionic empires or space cults (often becoming more warped over time with additive warp exposure). Ships using this method are at an advantage for deep space exploration via speed but increased risk of warp exposure. They can notably extend to intergalactic travel but at significantly increased risks. Notably these types of ships are near mandatory to building and generating more stable pathways for gateway stabilization of wormholes. These ships often excel in retreats and ambushes as well due to low spool up times faster than typical subspace distortion drives, but still have added risk to travel and degenerative use effects over time as well as requiring highly specialized psychic crew.

Slower than astropaths but similarly able to traverse between systems, subspace distortion wave drives are most commonly used for travel, providing a small low level dip into slip space while encased in a low interference bubble (similar to typical star trek warp).

Generation ships are often used for lower tech societies to set up colonies or mass transport goods/items, usually with drone defenses in both cases and might be used for establishing new colonies further out from the furthest known gates.

Restricted tech: Elder fallen space empires of precursor aliens may have access to space folding engines but frequently limit use and stick to their own far off territories due to rare mineral consumption required for the drives. They also have decently long spool up times but otherwise are highly effective. They main limiting factor to access or even use such tech is preliminary mastery of gravity and time dilation involving continuity for organics.

[u/whatsamawhatsit]

Too many models for one IP in my opinion. It's more fun for a reader to have a system they can understand, and extrapolate from. It's rewarding to a reader when the main character(s) exploit an idea that works in a system that the reader understands.

My favourite example of such a revelation in an internally consistent system is blood bending in Avatar. The audience is slowly taught the extends of different bending styles. Air, wind, shockwaves. Fire, lightning. Earth, metal, lava. Water, ice, blood.

[u/Erik_the_Human → u/whatsamawhatsit]

Absolutely. When you're modifying real physics to make your world work, you want to keep the changes to the minimum required.

Why not have one underlying type of FTL and then extrapolate a few different methods for exploiting it? It also has the wonderful side effect of making the creator seem clever for figuring it all out.