Supercruising to another star system reveals design flaws

[WalterHWhite]

That's fair enough. I don't think the maths is much beyond trivial, and for sure it'd need to be more continuous if speeds were faster.

FWIW I don't see multiplayer as an issue. The chances of being within 500ls of another random player would be so tiny it may as well be nil. Having someone follow you and tailing you closely though... seems like it'd require a little bit more work. The easy cop-out would be to treat it like a private group outwith a system while you're in sensor range.

It'd take a lot of people "out of the open" when you think about it. Most players would be hidden in between systems, most of the time. Maybe a good or bad thing depending on POV.

Not trying to discredit your suggestions, just sharing some thoughts.

 

[Johnny Spaceboots]

That's fair enough. I don't think the maths is much beyond trivial, and for sure it'd need to be more continuous if speeds were faster.

FWIW I don't see multiplayer as an issue. The chances of being within 500ls of another random player would be so tiny it may as well be nil. Having someone follow you and tailing you closely though... seems like it'd require a little bit more work. The easy cop-out would be to treat it like a private group outwith a system while you're in sensor range.

It'd take a lot of people "out of the open" when you think about it. Most players would be hidden in between systems, most of the time. Maybe a good or bad thing depending on POV.

Not trying to discredit your suggestions, just sharing some thoughts.

True, I imagine that it wouldn't be trivial by any means, though seemingly within the limits of modern day hardware. I'm sure there are all sorts of mechanics that you could use to find, catch up to, interdict etc people in between systems, and while I suppose people may be a bit more spread out than usual, that's always been kind of the case with ED. Provide more centers of interest to give reasons for players to congregate at specific points, and it could likely feel pretty lively, though.

 

[WalterHWhite]

It's entirely doable with the hardware I'm sure, it's more the cost/benefit. GPUs can perform a huge number of flops per second. Considering there's bug*er all in between systems they'd have plenty time to do this Personally from the way the game is currently, without super-super-cruise... it seems like a waste of electricity.

Moving in between systems as high speeds is an interesting idea. I was thinking how you could have a conceptual sphere round the galaxy and you pointing at particular points of it would make the 'skybox' and calculating players entering your vicinity relatively easy. Reminds me of that theory about the universe being a hologram on its edges.

Most of the stars would simply spread out away from your field of view anyway, and some directly in front of you would get larger. Occasionally you'd need to speak to the server to see if any stars in your travelling direction are now in your field of view. Doesn't sound like rocket science.

 

[rzhevski]

We can just suppose about “how to” and “is it possible?” but without precise knowledge about internal programming mechanism - it’s just all about speculation. It would be nice if Michael Brookes stops all these multipage debate with explanation of Frontier Development point of view. Once and forever.

 

[Shads]

Not a design flaw. No sane human being would waste hours and hours cruising to another system. The game was designed for the sound of mind.

 

[Johnny Spaceboots]

Not a design flaw. No sane human being would waste hours and hours cruising to another system. The game was designed for the sound of mind.

And yet we have Hutton Orbital, plus numerous other systems where you spends hours in supercruise. Honestly, the travel mechanics in general are pretty boring and occupy the majority of the players time no matter what. Hopefully they get improved to be both more seamless and more fun.

 

[rzhevski]

Not a design flaw. No sane human being would waste hours and hours cruising to another system. The game was designed for the sound of mind.

If someone cannot make hyperspace jump by some reasons to the nearby starsystem then supercruise can be solution for example. Especially if commander has many new cartographic data and bounty payments

 

[nexxo]

I'm not convinced that it's impossible to make it work in multiplayer. Keeping track of players and the very 0much so anemic background simulation that we have thus far should be possible, and I haven't heard any convincing arguments as to why it wouldn't be.

It's not just the keeping track of hundreds of thousands of players; it's passing the position and continuous movements for each of those players and their mutual interactions on to each player's computer in a practical way. Eve Online Has shown that having a few hundred players in the same instance lags the game to unplayable levels --and those ship movements are much less dynamic. I think that you underestimate the exponential calculations and data sets involved.
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Instancing is unavoidable. All that FD can do is make seamless transitions.
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Oh, and while people are complaining that exploring is boring and that it is immersion breaking to know that their space simulation is, well, a space simulation, a player called Erimus is out exploring and making mindblowing videos: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=103513
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At some point you have to decide whether you choose to be dissatisfied, or choose to be happy. I've got my tuna sandwich.*
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* If you read Calvin and Hobbes, you'll get the reference.

 

[cherbert]

In my book, we should strive to do more than just stating that "the current mechanism is poor". See if you can propose a graceful alternative method that meets the system lockout requirement.

And, no, a message saying, "You are approaching simulation boundary" doesn't cut it.

Some sort of safety mechanism that your ship navigation system won't allow you to venture too far away from a star. But I don't think any of that is necessary as I am pretty sure the current system is just a placeholder and Frontier intend to make it work.

 

[Soulkiller]

I think that a real-time continuous journey at 100000c, or whatever, would be preferable than the current hyperspace loadscreen. It would be visually spectacular, and could open a lot more doors for engaging exploration gameplay than clicking on a menu and choosing which level you want to load.

I would prefer this to current Hyperspace.

 

[nexxo]

I think it's possible to do this as a transition-hiding effect. It would look cool if it was a bit like Eve Online's in-system warp drive. But you have to separate it from the SC throttle in some way.

 

[Valence]

I was pretty surprised that when I first got killed in the game, I didn't die in real life. Ruined my immersion.

 

[Tetsuko]

I was pretty surprised that when I first got killed in the game, I didn't die in real life. Ruined my immersion.

I've had to hire a butler especially to gradually strangle me when my cockpit glass blows out. That's proper immersive that is.

 

[Sterlino]

But ....

let me guess a thing...

When (sept 2013) the capital ship battle came out devs specified that jumping (or travelling) through systems would be 'seamless'.
Later, i remember it well, when the beta started they said that the jumping sequence it's only a placeholder and the intentions are to make
it 'seamless' most later in a future build...
now... let's face the true: i don't think they really can do anything of 'seamless'...

so, it was a ''forced'' lie over a lie ?

 

[Vatox]

If someone cannot make hyperspace jump by some reasons to the nearby starsystem then supercruise can be solution for example. Especially if commander has many new cartographic data and bounty payments

Indeed, having the option to supercruise at a greater speed than the current limit of 2001c would actually make a lot of sense when it comes to stealthily entering another system. It is regrettable that currently the only way to reach a given star system is to land on its main star. This leaves one without a choice in a galaxy that is otherwise full of possibilities.

But ....

let me guess a thing...

When (sept 2013) the capital ship battle came out devs specified that jumping (or travelling) through systems would be 'seamless'.
Later, i remember it well, when the beta started they said that the jumping sequence it's only a placeholder and the intentions are to make
it 'seamless' most later in a future build...
now... let's face the true: i don't think they really can do anything of 'seamless'...

so, it was a ''forced'' lie over a lie ?

Having been a commander for only a short while, I was not aware of what you described. If Frontier have indeed termed the current mechanic a placeholder and revealed their intentions to actually work on creating a seamless transition between stars, that makes me hopeful once again. Having the desire to revisit the mechanic in a more realistic and complex manner actually makes way for introducing completely new gameplay elements, such as planets and comets that have been ejected into the interstellar medium. Exploration, smuggling and mining are three gameplay elements that may receive a major boost in such a case.

 

[Cmdr Pli55ken]

would not contribute to the fun aspect of the game. Many commanders who were previously unaware of the current situation have already expressed their regret with it. It was pointed out that apart from adding to immersion, being able to supercruise to a different star system also allows for stealth and exploration of deep space bodies.

Does one more person buy the game because this feautrure is in? Does one more person request a refund because the feature is missing? No? Then it's not worth spending even a second on contemplating whether to add the feature or not.
Making a game isn't art (although game designers certainly are allowed to have fun). It's a business. If you want to have a job the next day you'd better concentrate on adding features that bring sales and eliminating features/fixing issues that prevent sales. Anything else is "nice to have" (read: Not gonna happen. No way. No how)

 

[Corwyn]

I haven't read all the posts in the thread, but some of them indicate that you can't jump to systems without Nav Beacons, this simply isn't true. If a system is within your jump range, you can jump to it, you just jump to the highest gravitational mass in the system. From there you can explore the system. If, after you return with the data, and it's determined that it's a good place to setup operations, a Nav Beacon will be placed, as well as stations, that will take some time through, weeks, months, or years, depending on the importance of the finds in the system.

 

[Graywolfe]

Being the explorer type of guy that I am, I decided to do something few people would probably attempt - to reach another star system in super cruise.

Actually your above statement totally contradicts the title you've chosen for this post.

Since by your own admission 'few people would probably attempt' this it would seem to be a very good design decision to not implement it, and instead put development effort into the things that people do as part of the core gameplay.

 

[deMangler]

I don't know about that. At the very least, solar systems shouldn't be running into precision issues, and Vlad gave a good explanation of how he does it
http://en.spaceengine.org/forum/20-1717-31766-16-1381697620

It would be nice if a developer, who is familiar with FDEV's own unique challenges could clarify this.

As I said above - this wasn't a design decision for technical reasons or otherwise. I remember the discussion. If precision issues like this were going to stump things the game wouldn't exist in it's present form. It is the result of how things have been prioritised in development. I will see if I can find links to the original threads, But I will do that by googling when I get the time. So anyone could do that.

 

[TheEponymousBob]

Not a design flaw just a decision to allow multiplayer.

I'm not sure it's necessarily a multiplayer (ie. instancing) problem. There are definitely ways to handle near seamless instance transitions, so you can still track players by system, position in SC space and normal space. I suspect (though obviously don't know) that once you add a complex flight model, ship/station rendering (which I'm fairly certain is entirely separate from the astronomical body renders) p2p networking and AI processing, the cost of realtime rendering the backdrop would be prohibitive to the target hardware for anything approaching responsive combat. Or at least was when work started on E: D, which we know was some time before the Kickstarter launch.

Maybe it will come later; FD have said they anticipate scaling the game up as hardware progresses. In the meantime, it's an unfortunate limitation, but hardly (IMO) a design flaw.