Does no one play Wormholes?

[Briggs]

I've been reading these forum threads more closely lately and it seems as if no one makes mention of Wormhole Drives. It's always Hyperlanes and Warp. Am I the only one who prefers WHD?

[Cruel Destiny]

I quite enjoy wormholes myself, not only can they be potentially faster than hyperspace it also has a better chance of getting Jump drive technology earlier.

[Gingermonkey]

Wormhole are my least favorite out of the 3. Only one game i had did they give me a definitive advantage. But they are my favorite to play against since its so easy to strand the enemy fleet and then conquer them at my leisure.

[michaelbnx]

Always been my favourite :) .

On a theoretical and problem solving point of view, the most elegant solution. I am on A and i need to go to B. But B is far far away:
-warp: "going to build a device that compresses space in front, expands it behind, so that it
creates a FTL bubble in which i can travel."
-hyperlanes: "it so happens that there's that network of lanes between stars coming from
dunno where and built by dunno who, let's just use it."
-wormhole: "lets just bend spacetime so that A and B are close."

Now on a gameplay POV, wormholes require more micro than other systems, and you'll probably have to rethink your network along the way (I usually rebuild it from scratch when I get the lvl3 upgrade) but if you do so that u can always jump close to max range, it is definitly the fastest way of travelling before you get the (psi)jumpdrive. It gets slower later on thou, when moving my 350K fleet across my empire to attack that pesky AE, had holes creation time around 3 months... at that point, you really should go jumpdrives.

[Botji]

Wormhole drives are imo by far the best one available and I will be a little sad to see it go even though I mostly play with hyperlanes now.

Originally posted by michaelbnx:

Now on a gameplay POV, wormholes require more micro than other systems, and you'll probably have to rethink your network along the way (I usually rebuild it from scratch when I get the lvl3 upgrade) but if you do so that u can always jump close to max range, it is definitly the fastest way of travelling before you get the (psi)jumpdrive. It gets slower later on thou, when moving my 350K fleet across my empire to attack that pesky AE, had holes creation time around 3 months... at that point, you really should go jumpdrives.

I dont really agree that they need more micro than any other drive, you need to think less than with hyperlanes anyway since you just place new stations on the edges of your current range and ignore everything else after that.

The cost savings from the ship drive module itself pays for building more and more wormhole stations, each ship cost 5 less minerals to build and their maintenance cost is also reduced. If you do the math you see that for every so and so ships depending on drive level(wormhole drives are free but others cost 5,10,15 per level) you can build a 'free' wormhole station, the station also only cost a little energy in maintenance which makes you save slightly more minerals vs any other drive on the ships(ships cost both mineral and energy in maintenance).

So while you could rebuild your wormhole network when you get higher levels of the drive you dont really need to do it and it might be smart to keep your old stations as backup since they only take a tiny ammount of energy to maintain and if you have more stations in range of a destination you can move several fleets at once through your network which significantly speeds things up in your 'core' empire later on with higher levels of the drive, very useful when building reinforcements for your fleet and 10x different 'fleets' want to move around in your network.

well.. all this will be useless knowledge soon enough though :P

[Briggs]

I keep my old stations for the purpose of faster transit. The denser the network, the faster ships can move about. Not much of an improvement, but as has been said, the cost savings from using a ``free" drive makes it so it's easily affordable.

And they are so much faster than warp. That's my gripe with Warp. That and being too generic for my tastes.

[Kapika96]

I like wormholes. Definitely prefer warp over them in terms of usability. But I think wormholes are cool for rp purposes, and certainly not bad in their own right either.

[rfmacros]

Wormholes are IMHO the absolute best drive for warfare, as long as there's a human at the helm. The AI is... less than stellar with them. It's a bit of a drag to have to wait for months on end for my vassals/allies to deign building a wormhole generator far enough into enemy territory to actually be useful. Compare and contrast a warp drive fleet plopping itself right next to mine as soon as hostilities start.

[Moonjunk]

Wormholes are my favorite. Out of all the ways to move, it seems the most plausible in real life. I also like the plannin needed to min/max them.

[Red Bat]

Nobody seriously picks Hyperlanes unless they are forcing a hyperlane only game. They are just flat out inferior to Warp Drives. General consensus is that Wormholes are the best of the 3 types if you are willing to put up with the wormhole station mechanic. To the extent that jump drives end up being a sidegrade at best.

[Dree]

I used to like wormhole but they lag too much at the late game for some reason...back to hyperlane for me.

[jacobellinger]

Originally posted by Botji:

Wormhole drives are imo by far the best one available and I will be a little sad to see it go even though I mostly play with hyperlanes now.

Originally posted by michaelbnx:

Now on a gameplay POV, wormholes require more micro than other systems, and you'll probably have to rethink your network along the way (I usually rebuild it from scratch when I get the lvl3 upgrade) but if you do so that u can always jump close to max range, it is definitly the fastest way of travelling before you get the (psi)jumpdrive. It gets slower later on thou, when moving my 350K fleet across my empire to attack that pesky AE, had holes creation time around 3 months... at that point, you really should go jumpdrives.

I dont really agree that they need more micro than any other drive, you need to think less than with hyperlanes anyway since you just place new stations on the edges of your current range and ignore everything else after that.

The cost savings from the ship drive module itself pays for building more and more wormhole stations, each ship cost 5 less minerals to build and their maintenance cost is also reduced. If you do the math you see that for every so and so ships depending on drive level(wormhole drives are free but others cost 5,10,15 per level) you can build a 'free' wormhole station, the station also only cost a little energy in maintenance which makes you save slightly more minerals vs any other drive on the ships(ships cost both mineral and energy in maintenance).

So while you could rebuild your wormhole network when you get higher levels of the drive you dont really need to do it and it might be smart to keep your old stations as backup since they only take a tiny ammount of energy to maintain and if you have more stations in range of a destination you can move several fleets at once through your network which significantly speeds things up in your 'core' empire later on with higher levels of the drive, very useful when building reinforcements for your fleet and 10x different 'fleets' want to move around in your network.

well.. all this will be useless knowledge soon enough though :P

I keep telling people who are bumbed out about the upcoming changes that this is why we have mods. Don't expect wormholes to go anywhere. That said they are not going away in the base game they are just being reworked to act like mass effect's Mass Relays and will be able to jump across the whole galexy in one jump and aparently late game you will be able to build your own anyways. The coolest part is that if you see an AI empire that wont do what you want because they are 'too far' if you aquire a wormhole then acording the devs the game will concider them a nahboring empire. Naturally this can be a bad thing too if the empire is unfriendly but now it will allow for more proxy wars and easer vasilizsion or colinization. Lots of neat things in the future of this game I can't wait.

[EleventhStar]

asymetrical FTL was a big part of my decision for buying this game.

[rfmacros]

Originally posted by EleventhStar:

asymetrical FTL was a big part of my decision for buying this game.

Mods. Just... mods. Calm down.

[EleventhStar]

Originally posted by rfmacros:

Originally posted by EleventhStar:

asymetrical FTL was a big part of my decision for buying this game.

Mods. Just... mods. Calm down.

Mods will not be able to properly integrate non-hyperlane FTL into the 2.0 game.

[Elementium]

The WH have their advantages and inconvenients, like the 2 other FTL

for me, my FTL preference are

warp >= wormhole >>> hyperlane