Idle thought: Gateways with dial-a-destination

[captainpatch]

From what I have seen thus far (having only 2 Gateways), Gateways are paired, Point A to Point B. And once having paired them, those two are ALWAYS the two ends of a wormhole, even as additional Gateways come online. HOWEVER, the player CAN choose to "turn off" the connection. (And I am just guessing, but I suspect that at later date, "turn it back on" again.) This on-off aspect makes me think that there should be considerable flexibility in how Gateways function. If it is possible to initially connect ANY two Gateways, would it not be possible to enter a Gateway and then go to ANY other Gateway?

Mechanically, it would be similar to investigating a Heavily Defended anomaly: Plot a unit to move into a Gateway and it pops a panels offering a list of all possible other Gateway destinations. Then -- voila! -- that's where the unit pops out. Seems like something a computer program could handle with relative ease.

[Pizzarugi]

I think it would be great if gateways don't work exclusively in pairs, but allows simultaneous connection to each other and pathfinding takes whichever gets them to the destination quicker.

As it currently stands, I don't get much use out of them due to the limitation of black holes and only allowing one gateway each.

[pandreon]

Isn't this how the Stargate works, in the Stargate franchise?

[captainpatch]

Originally posted by pandreon:

Isn't this how the Stargate works, in the Stargate franchise?

Exactly. The Gates create temporary wormholes that extend from Point A to any other Gate. [The question arises about what happens if travelers from two different locations choose to go to the same destination at the exact same time.] And like Stargate 1, it would be necessary to map the entire network. (Can't go to a destination if you don't know its address.) As several empires are building new Gateways at the same time, new addresses would be becoming available all over the place. Which means that empires would build in lockout features so they don't have armadas of Drengin fleets popping out of their domestic Gateways, all at once.

Hmm. This would allow for almost near-instantaneous Communication across the entire breadth of the galaxy. Which would make Logistics and military movements MUCH more effective.