Now that the basic map junk is done, including the ability to select travel routes, the next step is to make it so the ship can actually fly from one sector to another without the player’s input.

Enter Hyperspace!

Essentially, the goal here is to do the following junk:

• Stop the ship
• Turn the ship to point toward the center of the next desired sector in the jump list
• Do a nifty little particle stream out the ass of the player’s ship as it takes off and flies to the target sector
• Slow down when it reaches the middle of the target sector
• Hand control back to the player

And it works like a charm!

So, then I thought it would be cool to do the same thing but for a “Jump” drive. The primary difference here is that there’s an animation opening space, the ship zooms into it, the screen blinks to the target sector, space opens up again, and the ship comes out.

It’s much faster than the Hyperspace option, which means it’ll be an add-on to the ship that will take a while for the player to get their hands on.

Progress

• Hyperspace now works on the ship, including the nifty animation bits.
• Jump also works, including the animation for that too.