Black holes

From Starport: Galactic Empires

A black hole.

A black hole is a star system with a black hole in the middle where the sun should be, and no planets. Unlike systems with a sun, when you approach the middle your ship is sucked in. You are then instantly transported to another system somewhere in the galaxy.

The black hole's destination is always the same system. This predictability makes black holes a very efficient means of travel over long distances. They can save fuel when traveling to star bases or returning to a section of the galaxy.

Long taxi runs are sometimes helped by black holes. Some users have reported making millions in a single long taxi run with a lucky black hole placement.

Not only is the destination always the same, but it is always the same location within the destination system. This predictability can be a hazard. Players with defenses near a black hole's destination system sometimes surround the black hole exit point with mines and turrets, or fill the system with lasers.

Using a black hole uses no fuel.

Black holes are one way. Successful players need to know the network of black holes in order to map efficient routes throughout the galaxy.

Each galaxy contains 9-12 black holes although there are some special galaxies with more. Even the small 100-system galaxies like Blitz contain 9-12 black holes.

Black holes appear on the galaxy map as an intersection without a colored vertex. This makes it difficult to pick out black holes on the map by sight, especially if the black hole is in a line between two other systems so vertex is nearly 180 degrees.

Autopilot can be dangerous with black holes. Players can be sucked into the black hole if their autopilot path takes them too close to a black hole. After getting sucked in the autopilot automatically shuts down. However, often times if you are sucked into a black hole while your autopilot is engaged, you will be stuck at the event horizon, if you press any arrow keys it will turn off autopilot and you will go through, but if you don't want to go through, type /warp and after a few minutes your ship will warp to another location inside of the system at a cost of 1 warp fuel.

NPC's don't fall into black holes. When they approach they stop at the event horizon, just as all ships stop at the edge of suns. This can be a useful tactical advantage when fighting NPC's.

Escorts don't fall into black holes either, but they frequently get stuck at the event horizon. Use the "/e warp" command if this happens.

Finally, sleepers also do not fall through black holes, but simply orbit at the event horizon until killed or the player logs back on.

Racetracks are sometimes set up within black holes where the penalty for cutting a corner too close sends the player away.

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