If I'm not mistaken, Dea Motrona's station (with rare resources) is something like 0.14 Ly away from the nav beacon. It took me 1 and a half hours to get there the first and only time I tried. 0.14 Ly is about 4.5 million Ls away if my calculations are correct
Supercruising to another star system reveals design flaws
- Thread starter Vatox
- Start date
If I'm not mistaken, Dea Motrona's station (with rare resources) is something like 0.14 Ly away from the nav beacon. It took me 1 and a half hours to get there the first and only time I tried. 0.14 Ly is about 4.5 million Ls away if my calculations are correct
it's generated while jumping, based on your position, afaik. (saving 400 billion hi-res background would be a bit tough i think..)
In terms of what most people would refer to as their gameplay, this discovery really would not have a negative impact on it. In terms of what I, perhaps mistakenly, have started to expect from ED, however, I'd say it did negatively impact my immersion. Now, you may say that immersion doesn't really count and you'd be right, as most people probably are looking into areas which are far removed from it, such as trading rare items, interdiction bugs, etc. But in my point of view, and this is of course a completely personal opinion, some little things are more important and leave a more lasting impression than those general things everyone is currently experiencing.
Of course there are instances. The question was will it let you travel all the way. The next one was will it auto jump at some point when you are close enough or let you see that you are flying at an empty dot.
Usual story for so many games: it's all smoke and mirrors, a pretty illusion. Plenty of invisible corridors, permanently locked doors, that mountainous horizon you can never reach! Saves on constructing areas that no-one ever visits, system resources when trying to run a world, development time etc.
Doesn't matter as long as you enjoy playing and they hide it well.
Doesn't matter as long as you enjoy playing and they hide it well.
I think it displays stars that are a certain distance away from you. It probably takes information from your galaxy map and draws stars that are close to you (probably within 20-30 light years away). There was another guy who tried this and posted his pictures on reddit (as a part of his trip to Sagitarius A*), and he mentioned that he could see new stars appearing in the distance as he moved towards his target system.
Well, if so, then the constellations are in principle changing whilst in supercruise. So I don't know what the constraint is. Has Frontier ever addressed what the constraint is here? I am sympathetic to the original post's ideal.
Thank you for schooling me in how to be properly snarky and unpleasant. I mean, you're right, it's totally outlandish that when people express disappointment others might question whether that disappointment really falls in line with what they would actually prefer in the purely hypothetical circumstance where they couldn't have everything. So I was way out of line, I'll try to be more offputting and unpleasant in the future. Kindly climb out of my butt now.
No, the're not - the star field is generated when you jump to a system (it's one of the things the game does during the hyperspace animation, which is, in effect, a pretty loading screen).
I'd say with about 99.99% certainty that it's a technical issue. These guys have built quite possibly the most accurate simulation of a galaxy ever - if there was a quick and easy way to allow you to supercruise to other systems, I'm pretty sure they'd have done it.
Whilst I understand why some people might spend 9hrs or even several days flying to another system using sc when you can hyper there in a few seconds and so do it just for the novelty, I doubt many would do it more than once.
I don't believe anyone sits for 9hrs watching space debris go by, which means you go afk and leave the game running - that isn't really playing a game IMO.
I don't think it adds anything to the game, makes restricting access to systems trickier for FD and would be a complete waste of FD development time.
There are far more important aspects that affects everyone that FD should spend their time on.
I don't believe anyone sits for 9hrs watching space debris go by, which means you go afk and leave the game running - that isn't really playing a game IMO.
I don't think it adds anything to the game, makes restricting access to systems trickier for FD and would be a complete waste of FD development time.
There are far more important aspects that affects everyone that FD should spend their time on.
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I'm sure it's been said, but I want to add my voice to the cacophony.
There is absolutely no gameplay reason a player would travel between systems in SC. If there was a reason, FD would've added it in. Immersion, attention to detail, etc. all get trumped by gameplay, as they should.
Yes, it would be nice and we'd see a couple of appreciation threads about it, probably filled with people saying they'll have to try it someday, but very few actually would.
OP, it's not a design flaw, it was a design decision. One made after considering the FDev resources v. the potential game experience gains. I agree with FDev's ultimate decision to not spend the resources to add it.
There is absolutely no gameplay reason a player would travel between systems in SC. If there was a reason, FD would've added it in. Immersion, attention to detail, etc. all get trumped by gameplay, as they should.
Yes, it would be nice and we'd see a couple of appreciation threads about it, probably filled with people saying they'll have to try it someday, but very few actually would.
OP, it's not a design flaw, it was a design decision. One made after considering the FDev resources v. the potential game experience gains. I agree with FDev's ultimate decision to not spend the resources to add it.
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I guess you haven't seen Space Engine then? All games are obviously instanced via some mathematical trickery, the debate here is that at the moment Frontier aren't even bothering and instead allowing you to arrive at an empty destination.
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I would like to point out that having the ability to supercruise to another system is not restricted only to immersion benefits. Celestial bodies lying much further out than the main planets do exist in the galaxy and even in our solar system. The objects of the Oort cloud come to mind, as we do not currently know what is out there apart from comets, but some scientists believe there could be larger bodies, perhaps even planet-sized ones. Having the possibility to actually reach such objects in the ED galaxy and map the region of space between two stars would be a fine addition to the gameplay mechanics of exploration.
Troll looking pretty likely.
There is no gameplay reason to have 400 billion star systems but they cared enough to model that.
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Other games have this feature (Space Engine, Noctis (and that's an old DOS game)) so it's not a technical limit - it's perfectly do-able.
FD just don't know how.
And no it's nothing to do with instancing - any system can have multiple instances already.
Reasons for having it are obvious:
- fulfilling the "no limits" paradigm of total freedom in a seamless gameworld. The realisation that the skybox is actually a glass wall gnaws at you, like the un-reachable backdrops in other games... it's inimical to suspension of disbelief and lasting immersion.
- the moving skybox could be used in the hyperspace animation, instead of a generic one.
- interstellar space is cool in its own right, and not entirely empty; there's rogue bodies like brown dwarfs and planets, dust clouds and various types of debris fields... A USS in interstellar space could be far more convincing and enticing than those routinely found around stars.
- stealth; to avoid hyperspace footprints, or being intercepted in hyperspace by Thargoids.
Probably a fair few others i'm overlooking, but contrast with all the good reasons for NOT doing it:
- it's apparently tricky to implement (even though an old DOS game managed it)..
Can't think of any others - it's all pros and no cons. Please don't see this as an attack on ED, but it IS dissapointing that Elite still has this restriction.
Finally, the line between 'fully seamless' and merely gving that impression could be a very grey area - i don't care how it's implemented or what tricks it employs. I'm all for never looking a gift horse in the mouth, provided it looks like a real horse, and not a pair of drama students in a donkey costume.
FD just don't know how.
And no it's nothing to do with instancing - any system can have multiple instances already.
Reasons for having it are obvious:
- fulfilling the "no limits" paradigm of total freedom in a seamless gameworld. The realisation that the skybox is actually a glass wall gnaws at you, like the un-reachable backdrops in other games... it's inimical to suspension of disbelief and lasting immersion.
- the moving skybox could be used in the hyperspace animation, instead of a generic one.
- interstellar space is cool in its own right, and not entirely empty; there's rogue bodies like brown dwarfs and planets, dust clouds and various types of debris fields... A USS in interstellar space could be far more convincing and enticing than those routinely found around stars.
- stealth; to avoid hyperspace footprints, or being intercepted in hyperspace by Thargoids.
Probably a fair few others i'm overlooking, but contrast with all the good reasons for NOT doing it:
- it's apparently tricky to implement (even though an old DOS game managed it)..
Can't think of any others - it's all pros and no cons. Please don't see this as an attack on ED, but it IS dissapointing that Elite still has this restriction.
Finally, the line between 'fully seamless' and merely gving that impression could be a very grey area - i don't care how it's implemented or what tricks it employs. I'm all for never looking a gift horse in the mouth, provided it looks like a real horse, and not a pair of drama students in a donkey costume.
Thank you for being good sport, even if you're totally right my post was indeed unpleasant. To be honest, your quoted post did contain a sufficient amount of perspective and politeness, in the end, and I did fail to perceive it, before posting mine. So, please, accept my apologies for my not-so-well-thought-out post, and receive this +1 rep as a token of my respect.
Space engine. Completely seamless. You can zoom in to the milky way from 5 galaxies over and land on earth with no noticiable interruption.