Supercruise - Why?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 94277
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I'd love to see the time taken to decelerate lowered, and some more finesse to the control in supercruise so that you can fly with skill and be rewarded for doing so with shorter cruise times. It's just too easy, that's what makes it boring.
 
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I'd love to see the time taken to decelerate lowered, and some more finesse to the control in supercruise so that you can fly with skill and be rewarded for doing so with shorter cruise times. It's just too easy, that's what makes it boring.


With that I agree. If FD could introduce a bit more skill and player involvement supercruise would become even cooler.
 
Without SC, every player and npc in the galaxy would just appear where they are going. Stations would have a group of ships, Nav's would have a group, RES's would have a group, and every inch of playable space would be deserted. A system would just be 4 dots where you can select which "room" to visit.

Not to mention trading! *Purchase, launch, *click*, land, sell, purchase, launch *click* land, sell,* "I'm Rich!" (Oh wait, now I see why you want it to be instant.) A mission to track someone down? Gone. It's just finding the room he clicked, or someone jumping out of a fight, no more giving chase, just click the room he teleported to.

I would compare it to removing all vehicles from GTA. "I like the game, but do I really have to DRIVE everywhere? I mean it takes forever and so many things can go wrong." Just click a waypoint on the map and *poof*, your there! Mission Success! "Now, where's the next click, I'm about to level up!"

Something that may help (it did for me at least), is not to focus on the numbers and distance, that seems to stretch out the perceived time it is taking to get there. Most trips are 15-30 seconds, but it feels like an eternity when watching a counter. Watch the environment, round the planet from the other side to get a good approach to the bay doors of the station. Like most things, it goes pretty quickly if your not counting the seconds.

Another thing I find myself doing is pretending there are a couple of complaint oriented passengers in the cockpit with me, who I agreed to give a ride to work, and they are already running late. Each mistake/delay that occurs incites an imagined *sigh* or "I don't have time for this!" from one of them. "I thought you said you were fast!" This also helps me roleplay when docking, if it doesn't look good or professional, I'll hear it from them. "Guess it's amateur hour." Etc. . .

Hope this doesn't make me sound like a complete Loon. Just trying to explain how I cope with the downtime.
 
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Deleted member 94277

D
You do realize there is an in-game lore explanation for what you're seeing during supercruise, right? You're not actually seeing what's out there because you're right - the human eye wouldn't see the photons. Read up on the in-game lore sometime - a lot of it is intriguing and explains many of the nuances that is the Elite universe.

Actually, no, I don't realize. I see in the forums players referencing to it all the time, but other than the unofficial wiki, I have no idea were to find cohesive, clearly formated lore. I know there are novels, but I'm not reading those. I want it in encyclopedic format. Are they to only source of 'lore'. And if what we see, from our cockpit is a representation of the universe outside our FTL bubble, then we should not be able to see it with our canopy broken, which is the case. Ragardless, it's a game and some suspension of disbelief is required, I know.
 
Being able to supercruise around and actually 'fly' the ship are what keep me playing. Iirc it was in fact discussed in the DDF but I may be wrong about that. Anyway, it's one of the many things that make ED unique and worth playing.
 

Deleted member 94277

D
Without SC, every player and npc in the galaxy would just appear where they are going. Stations would have a group of ships, Nav's would have a group, RES's would have a group, and every inch of playable space would be deserted. A system would just be 4 dots where you can select which "room" to visit.

Not to mention trading! *Purchase, launch, *click*, land, sell, purchase, launch *click* land, sell,* "I'm Rich!" (Oh wait, now I see why you want it to be instant.) A mission to track someone down? Gone. It's just finding the room he clicked, or someone jumping out of a fight, no more giving chase, just click the room he teleported to.

I would compare it to removing all vehicles from GTA. "I like the game, but do I really have to DRIVE everywhere? I mean it takes forever and so many things can go wrong." Just click a waypoint on the map and *poof*, your there! Mission Success! "Now, where's the next click, I'm about to level up!"

Something that may help (it did for me at least), is not to focus on the numbers and distance, that seems to stretch out the perceived time it is taking to get there. Most trips are 15-30 seconds, but it feels like an eternity whem watching a counter. Watch the environment, round the planet from the other side to get a good approach to the bay doors of the station. Like most things, it goes pretty quickly if your not counting the seconds.

Another thing I find myself doing is pretending there are a couple of complaint oriented passengers in the cockpit with me, who I agreed to give a ride to work, and they are already running late. Each mistake/delay that occurs incites an imagined *sigh* or "I don't have time for this!" from one of them. "I thought you said you were fast!" This also helps me roleplay when docking, if it doesn't look good or professional, I'll hear it from them. "Guess it's amateur hour." Etc. . .

Hope this doesn't make me sound like a complete Loon. Just trying to explain how I cope with the downtime.

Again, the problem is not the time it takes, it's the fact that it's unrealistic. To use your example, what I want are the cars back to GTA - what we have now are a bunch of unicycles travelling at mach 5: "Man, I know we need to get around somehow and it's awesome to travel around in unicycles at scramjet speed, but isn't that unrealistic?" Frankly, the ideal scenario in my honest opinion would be the inexistence of SC in superluminal speeds, but only subluminal ones. That would be much, much, much more boring. It would take forever to get around. But I still would prefer that, because I prefer realism.

And don't worry, I RP all the time to get around some of the most bizarre aspects of gaming all the time. If that makes you crazy, we're all crazy then.
 
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Oh, I misunderstood then. If you want it to take longer to travel everywhere for realism sake, Kerbal Space Program is your Jam. Full on realism; Earth to Mars (Well, THEY dont exist, but you get the point.) takes a couple of months, and it IS fun, however the player interactions and combat are quite lacking in an environment like that. No thanks, I'll take the "fighter pilot in space" approach I get here.

Also I believe selectable nav points will be available soon, in very limited quantity, for those special stations in Binary systems (*cough cough* Hutton Orbital). Not as a general play mechanic, but in specific instances. That seems to be a nice compromise of time/playability.
 
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I would say it would be nice to have a Microjump for those super long distances. Since it's an Alcubrie gravity drive (massively mis-spelled..) then at least allow a microjump between huge gravity wells within systems (ie. between the different Stars in a system)
 
Again, the problem is not the time it takes, it's the fact that it's unrealistic.

Really?
The only answer to that is: It's a game... and nobody wants to be forced to use realistic generation ships in a realistic space travel game to get around.
It would consume to much of our life and the lives of our children and grandchildren :).

Frankly, the ideal scenario in my honest opinion would be the inexistence of SC in superluminal speeds, but only subluminal ones. That would be much, much, much more boring. It would take forever to get around. But I still would prefer that, because I prefer realism.

To be honest I can't tell if you are serious or just a bit trolling around. To me what you are saying makes no sense at all. As far as I am concerned FD found an optimal solution for space travel in this game.
 
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Deleted member 94277

D
Oh, I misunderstood then. If you want it to take longer to travel everywhere for realism sake, Kerbal Space Program is your Jam. Full on realism; Earth to Mars takes a couple of months, and it IS fun, however the player interactions and combat are quite lacking in an environment like that. No thanks, I'll take the "fighter pilot in space" approach I get here.

Yeah, I play Kerbal. I love it. But it's on a completely different ballpark than ED. It lacks the, let's say, RP aspects of ED. It's a great game really, just as ED. My problems with SC arise from the fact I like ED. If I disliked it, I would have uninstalled it and simply not played it anymore. Complaining is part of loving a game.
 

Deleted member 94277

D
Really?
The only answer to that is: It's a game... and nobody wants to be forced to use realistic generation ships in a realistic space travel game to get around.
It would consume to much of our life and the lives of our children and grandchildren.
To be honest I can't tell if you are serious or just a bit trolling around. To me what you are saying makes no sense at all. As far as I am concerned FD found an optimal solution for space travel in this game.

I'm not trolling. Why do people keep asking that? I'm just criticizing. Since when that is the same as trolling? I sincerely like ED and I just shared an opinion. I'm sorry if I don't share your views.

And indeed, it's a game. This is why I play it. If realism was a requirement for me to play something, I'd never have played anything. I just find it would be more immersive. Oh, and please... 'Optimal solution'? I strongly disagree. It's an effective solution and that's hardly the same thing. They managed to satisfy the DDF and a future, space MMO expecting future player base, as well as players like me, who like realism. They threw a bone to everyone. But I make no mistake, it is a bone, not a steak.
 
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I'm not trolling. Why do people keep asking that? I'm just criticizing. Since when that is the same as trolling? I sincerely like ED and I just shared an opinion. I'm sorry if I don't share your views.

And indeed, it's a game. This is why I play it. If realism was a requirement for me to play something, I'd never have played anything. I just find it would be more immersive. Oh, and please... 'Optimal solution'? I strongly disagree. It's an effective solution and that's hardly the same thing. They managed to satisfy the DDF and a future, space MMO expecting future player base, as well as players like me, who like realism. They threw a bone to everyone. But I make no mistake, it is a bone, not a steak.

I had not even noticed that other people also picked up on the same thing as I did.
To explain: You claim to be against sc because it is not realistic, but do you feel that your proposal to just jump from any station to any station is realistic? If you are for realism, than that is a very illogical and weird proposal too. That is why I felt you might be trolling.

I said "As far as I am concerned FD found an optimal solution for space travel in this game."
For me SC is optimal. I can see a few tweaks here and there to improve the experience but in general I love it.


If realism was a requirement for me to play something, I'd never have played anything.
Oh, well.. is that not the end of the discussion then?
You said you had a problem with SC because it is not realistic, and now you say this... You must have no problem with sc then?
It is these kind of contradictions why people feel you might be trolling.
 
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Again, the problem is not the time it takes, it's the fact that it's unrealistic. To use your example, what I want are the cars back to GTA - what we have now are a bunch of unicycles travelling at mach 5: "Man, I know we need to get around somehow and it's awesome to travel around in unicycles at scramjet speed, but isn't that unrealistic?" Frankly, the ideal scenario in my honest opinion would be the inexistence of SC in superluminal speeds, but only subluminal ones. That would be much, much, much more boring. It would take forever to get around. But I still would prefer that, because I prefer realism.

But you're okay with all the other elements of un-realism when they have explanations (ie sound in space) and were given a decent one (similar simulation/projection for pilot spatial awareness) that has really only one consistency flaw (when your canopy breaks).

How often does your canopy break if that is ruining your immersion?

I mean Supercruise is, in effect, very similar to that of Star Trek's warp speed, and ships see and chase each other in Warp all the time.
 
I imagined people love it, but you guys do realize that if we're travelling faster than light, we shouldn't be able to see anything, right? As I said, what we see are photons reaching nerves inside our eyeballs. Assuming our ship is in some kind of hyperdrive bubble, we should be able to see our ship and things inside it, but anything outside of it should appear severelly distorted, if at all. We're literally out racing what we see. This is why I hate it: it's unrealistic and not immersive, if you understand your physics. As I said, even tough it is boring, I wouldn't mind if it was well, even more boring but realistic, without the impossible visual representation of the universe outside.

You don't travel faster than light though. your FSD warps space ahead of you to be smaller and space behind you to be bigger. You end up getting places as though you had traveled faster than light but your ship never physically moves a super-luminal speeds.
 
Disagree. I think SC is great and gives you the feeling of actually travelling around the solar system without taking months to do it.

How else would mechanics like interdiction be possible without super cruise?
 
I won't lie. I could do without the 17 minute 373,000LS journey across the same system just to go to another starport.

Agreed! I don't mind SC at all, and I actually find it rather relaxing SCing in an uncharted system. However, having to SC 500,000 ls to do a detailed scan is tedious. A microjump to these far away stars would be nice.
 
How else would mechanics like interdiction be possible without super cruise?

IWAR2 used LDSi missiles. Basically those were missiles that could "supercruise", follow the target and hit it (and all the ships surrounding it) with an interdiction field, disabling their LDS for a minute. Once the missile hit you'd get a waypoint to find your target.

Assuming there were no supercruise, you could make it so that those things hit targets mid-warp. (IWAR2 had supercruise, a much better version of it actually)
 
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Again, the problem is not the time it takes, it's the fact that it's unrealistic.

They've been there and done that, which is why we have supercruise; they already tried realistic. So if you genuinely want realistic, you can play one of the earlier versions of Elite (Frontier II). But the lesson I learned from it: realistic sucks. Supercruise is a much more elegant solution. :)

Don't worry - even though it's realistic, you won't have to spend days merely to get from the jump point to the station if you find that you're not hardcore enough to do that - they offer a FastForward button, so your weeks of boring travel can fit in a gaming session. You can think of that as taking some drugs (or a machine) to slow your metabolism, making the outside world seem to go by very quickly.

But one advantage of the fastforward-time system - you can park in space with a nice view of a solar system, crank up the time FastFowarding, and watch all the great celestial machinery in action :D
 
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I'm not a proponent of eliminating SC at all but, as has been said many times all the way back to pre-release beta, the mechanics they describe that allows you to jump from 2Ly to 20+Ly between systems by locking on to a large mass (star) could be tailored to lock on to stars within the same system for "in-system jumps".
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Once you are at that far away star you re-enter SC and fly around to the planets and spaceports. I don't have issues with SC when I'm not exploring but when I am exploring those 500,000+ Ls journeys are pretty discouraging.
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have a nice day
 
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