Boost need to go!

Boost is a terrible micro mechanic, it requires no skill, has barely any downside worth noting while requiring repeated actions. I'm all in favor of removing it and replacing with solution B.
 
In Elite dangerous, thruster output has zero effect on fuel consumption. For some reason it is based purely on module power requirements.
Yeah, noticed that... probably they just did not like how thrusters consuming fuel would affect gameplay...
This seems to be wrong for SRV though, it looks like fuel consumption is higher when thrusters are firing.
 
Kinda comes across as daft when people start talking about realism...for a game that's hundreds of years in the future.

We don't know what tech they'll have then, even just confining that to the role-playing of the ED universe.

The "afterburner" style mechanics were discussed on a separate thread, but I just don't have a problem with the current boost system. It works for dogfights and works for getting away. If the physics here were real, Elite dogfighting wouldn't happen. When you realise that you can accelerate indefinitely you would be all over the place and land a couple of hits on each other per hour.

More importantly, it's a good chance to just get your mindset into role playing. I am not asking you to turn up at your mate's with a D&D set and some geek spectacles, but get into the game rather than picking apart inaccuracies in a galaxy over a thousand years ahead of us ;)

Realism isn't a concern anyway. Not in the flight physics of this game.

Boost is fine as it is.
 
Yeah, noticed that... probably they just did not like how thrusters consuming fuel would affect gameplay...
This seems to be wrong for SRV though, it looks like fuel consumption is higher when thrusters are firing.

Yeah SRV consumes fuel through thrusters/main engine & Module power consumption. One of the reason why it runs out of gas quickly if you drive like a boy racer.
 
Kinda comes across as daft when people start talking about realism...for a game that's hundreds of years in the future.

We don't know what tech they'll have then, even just confining that to the role-playing of the ED universe.

The "afterburner" style mechanics were discussed on a separate thread, but I just don't have a problem with the current boost system. It works for dogfights and works for getting away. If the physics here were real, Elite dogfighting wouldn't happen. When you realise that you can accelerate indefinitely you would be all over the place and land a couple of hits on each other per hour.

More importantly, it's a good chance to just get your mindset into role playing. I am not asking you to turn up at your mate's with a D&D set and some geek spectacles, but get into the game rather than picking apart inaccuracies in a galaxy over a thousand years ahead of us ;)

physics are rather consistent even over a thousend years ahed. And Roleplaying in Elite needs a LOT ignorance to not see the most obviously non immersive flaws of how even the 20th century engineering found solutions to Problems that the Elites 34rd century has.

Boost doesn't makes sense the way it's implemented by the explanation, it only makes sense as "existing game feature".
 
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I also hope we can in 2.1 change the mechanics so I don't have to be like this all the time.

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like good old sports games, the faster you smash the button the faster you go?

Something like that, yes. However we all know that FD is trying to force players to fight, however to fight you need both to be willing.
That is why the speed bleeding was introduced. Ok that was removed, but then a Retro burn mode should be introduced at the cost of a high fuel consumption and heat.
 
So we got boost in ED, maybe its time for it to retire?

Boost never come to me as something logical, why do you have a boost function? Is it like a nitro burn in race cars? well maybe we need another mechanic instead. Something that burn fuel as crazy but keep you on the same rate as the top boost will do. However you can keep it as long as you can burn fuel.

Just for the fun of it, they can build in the heat mechanics as well. I would like a afterburner kind of mechanic instead of boost, what do you CMDR's say?

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Boost, the mechanics should not retire, only the way its applied. One option could be to have two "boost" modes.

A. as it is now (don't touch my boost)
B. Add on function, Retro burn mode, where the fuel burn are 50% higher and the speed proportional higher, for a longer period of time.
If you look at the boost function as a nitro function in cars, you can also only inject nitro into the engine for a short period, however you can only do it as long as you have nitro in your nitro tank.

The reason I wonder about this are because often commanders spam the boost button endlessly in a combat or run away situation. The "not enough energy in capacitors" keeps spamming a long time after the actual situation is over.

if you could select a retro burn sequence and then get a longer burn time, but not an instant speed gain, you could for tactical reasons select this instead of boost.

There is nothing, other than the quantity of NOS you are carrying, that prevents you from running your car on NOS as much as you want.

What you are proposing would throw the game out of balance and give an advantage to large ships that can afford to weigh themselves down with spare fuel tanks.
 
I prefer two types of boost, one with the FLIGHT ASSIST on, that works like the current one. And another boost, a realistic one, when you have the FLIGHT ASSIST off, the boost should be an exponential curve and keep the ship gaining speed for every boost you do, unless you entry in any planet atmosphere, of make a sling flight near a planet using the gravity to speed up, or when reverse thrust!

In fact the proposal for FD is to use the FLIGHT ASSIST off to make a real simulation of the space flight (for simmers!)
 
There is nothing, other than the quantity of NOS you are carrying, that prevents you from running your car on NOS as much as you want.

What you are proposing would throw the game out of balance and give an advantage to large ships that can afford to weigh themselves down with spare fuel tanks.

I would say that it depends on the ratio for the NOS, among other things. if you use the NOS systems excessively piston cracks can happen plus a lot of other issues. But to keep it on track within the ED universe its not to throw the game out of balance, I would like to make the game mechanics more interesting than just spamming the boost button.

In an escape situation we have boost boost boost high wake out option. If you watch videos of people playing you will see that the "no energy in capacitors" almost are on overload. That mean they are just pressing the button desperately. If you could switch to a second mode and start a retro burn, you will get the same result, however would not need to spam the boost button. The down side would be a higher fuel burn (so there is a cost of doing so) and more heat to manage.
 
In Elite dangerous, thruster output has zero effect on fuel consumption. For some reason it is based purely on module power requirements.
Thankfully yes, imagine the tank sizes required for the massive thrusters on the large ships, and the diminishing returns for actually attempting to move the extra mass otherwise.
 
Sometimes knowing how and when to accelerate can (really) save your life. A very long time ago my Mother (who was taught how to drive by her Uncle Jim, who was a racing driver; he taught her really how to drive a car well) was driving along a motorway, with (unfortunately) a person following a bit closely behind. As she was overtaking another car she saw the offside rear tyre start to come apart. She dropped a gear, and accelerated hard. She got past the accident before it hit her, and the car following her slammed on his brakes, and hit the other car (which had also crashed into the central crash barrier). Nobody was seriously hurt, but a police officer said that if SHE had also hit the brakes it was very likely there would have been fatalities (and it was highly likely she would have been one of them).
 
Thankfully yes, imagine the tank sizes required for the massive thrusters on the large ships, and the diminishing returns for actually attempting to move the extra mass otherwise.
Why should they consume too much fuel?
It depends on exhaust velocity, if this thrusters have near-C exhaust velocity they will not need too much reaction mass, just a lot of power.
Also it should just be balanced in terms of gamplay, not being realistic, and may be actually fun if done right...
 
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I think boost is ok, but boost should strain your ship => it should cause wear and tear.....damage you ship slightly.

That sounds like a horrible idea, unless you want people to only use boost when they need to run away from a fight that went bad or to chase down pvp kills.

Boost is currently very useful for large ships. It helps us turn quicker. Without it we are sitting ducks. So if you want to nerf the crap out of boost then you need to buff the hell out of turrets.

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I would say that it depends on the ratio for the NOS, among other things. if you use the NOS systems excessively piston cracks can happen plus a lot of other issues. But to keep it on track within the ED universe its not to throw the game out of balance, I would like to make the game mechanics more interesting than just spamming the boost button.

In an escape situation we have boost boost boost high wake out option. If you watch videos of people playing you will see that the "no energy in capacitors" almost are on overload. That mean they are just pressing the button desperately. If you could switch to a second mode and start a retro burn, you will get the same result, however would not need to spam the boost button. The down side would be a higher fuel burn (so there is a cost of doing so) and more heat to manage.

Fuel burn is not that important, especially for large ships. My corvette carries 64 tons of fuel. You think I will care if fuel consumption in combat increases? Even if I go from burning 2.5 tons per hour to 25 tons per hour it would still be meaningless to me. The current system of needing to recharge your engine capacitor to boost seems fair and balanced to me.
 
physics are rather consistent even over a thousend years ahed. And Roleplaying in Elite needs a LOT ignorance to not see the most obviously non immersive flaws of how even the 20th century engineering found solutions to Problems that the Elites 34rd century has.

Boost doesn't makes sense the way it's implemented by the explanation, it only makes sense as "existing game feature".

Uhm...wasn't talking about physics, bud. I am saying the technology that would be available to us, and that would be in use in these ships, is going to be considerably more vast. Why are people going to handbags at dawn trying to apply our modern understanding of vehicles as a whole to this game? Do we really, seriously think that spacecraft 1,000 years on are going to be taking their boost systems from nitro injections in cars?

As I see it, physics breaks are okay. Because if all physics were real the game wouldn't work. It's that simple.

I can talk about several examples, but for the sake of staying on topic, see my above post:
"The aggressive acceleration of the current boost is needed to allow for combat manoeuvres. If "boost" acceleration becomes gradual and the boost itself sustained it's easy for bigger ships to keep the more agile ships in check; the boost becomes obvious and gives them time to counter their movements. There's currently a nice balance in this game between smaller/more agile ships and the big boys."

And where my RP point comes in, and my point about technology. Why would they not use this boost system in the future? We may well realise that in combat ships we need aggressive acceleration for this reason, and implement it using tech that would inevitably be available to us.
 
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Boost is an awful, terrible "mechanic." I honestly dont know how it made it into production.

Boost should be replaced with Afterburner. Same speed boost, but constant. Afterburner should build heat and burn fuel steadily while active, allowing the player to burn as long as THEY decide its tactically worthwhile to do so. Afterburner is a simulator mechanic; boost belongs in a game. Which is odd, since its the only real game mechanic Elite has at present...
 
Yeah it is super terrible. Hey ship computer, make me go as fast as I can so we don't blow up! Ok pilot, now activating retro thrusters to slow you down.
 
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