Should Jump Range Be Used As A Balancing Factor?
- Thread starter CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
- Start date
InMemoriamSirocco
Banned
Introduce the Military Grade FSD drive. It runs on matter-antimatter energy and thus uses different fuel and also produces radioactive materials that have to be stored in a cargo hold.
You cannot fuel it with hydrogen from stars, so dump the fuel scoop!
Only way to fuel it is to go prospecting for rare materials or dock at a station. Fuel is ten times as expensive.
The price for the drive is very high compared to standard FSDs.
But you double your jump range. Even though you have to refuel more often. But that can be countered with more fuel tanks (which means you need more cargo space for all the radioactive waste).
Dumping that waste in a system that is not anarchy gets you a tag that, if scanned by security, causes a fine for space pollution.
You cannot fuel it with hydrogen from stars, so dump the fuel scoop!
Only way to fuel it is to go prospecting for rare materials or dock at a station. Fuel is ten times as expensive.
The price for the drive is very high compared to standard FSDs.
But you double your jump range. Even though you have to refuel more often. But that can be countered with more fuel tanks (which means you need more cargo space for all the radioactive waste).
Dumping that waste in a system that is not anarchy gets you a tag that, if scanned by security, causes a fine for space pollution.
dynamicbob
Banned
i disagree
the idea is nice but the logic not too much. What you are proposing (using radioactive materials and also ending up with radioactive waste) sounds like nuclear fission, it wouldn't be hard to believe the reason we use hydrogen (aside from it being vastly available) is due to the fact its being used in nuclear fusion (which is more powerful than fission)
It's a complicated subject in which its impossible to please everyone, and everyone has valid points. e.g
- Explorers want exploration to be tricky and not dumbed down by longer jump ranges
- Payers want to be able to get to their friends easily without waiting half the night to arrive.
- Ships need to 'feel' different.
- Messing with FSD values means lots of messing about with hull masses/formula changes.
I'm dispensing with the combat/escape balance stuff because quite frankly none of the arguments stack up. Jump range has no bearing on combat, you can escape just as well regardless of your jump range and no, you cant compare an f22 to a space ship in 3302.
I don't think many people would disagree that the 4 groups above have valid points. So what i'd suggest is something like a premium fuel (super space unleaded) that you can only buy at stations. This would have the effect of boosting jump ranges by (a made up figure) 20%
This way explorers are kept happy as you cant get the fuel outside of the bubble so need to rely on normal jump ranges or jumpomium. Players inside the bubble are happy as it speeds up their time to friends(ttf), ship will retain their individuality and last but not least it wont need too much messing about with the code compared to the jump/star gate suggestion
- Explorers want exploration to be tricky and not dumbed down by longer jump ranges
- Payers want to be able to get to their friends easily without waiting half the night to arrive.
- Ships need to 'feel' different.
- Messing with FSD values means lots of messing about with hull masses/formula changes.
I'm dispensing with the combat/escape balance stuff because quite frankly none of the arguments stack up. Jump range has no bearing on combat, you can escape just as well regardless of your jump range and no, you cant compare an f22 to a space ship in 3302.
I don't think many people would disagree that the 4 groups above have valid points. So what i'd suggest is something like a premium fuel (super space unleaded) that you can only buy at stations. This would have the effect of boosting jump ranges by (a made up figure) 20%
This way explorers are kept happy as you cant get the fuel outside of the bubble so need to rely on normal jump ranges or jumpomium. Players inside the bubble are happy as it speeds up their time to friends(ttf), ship will retain their individuality and last but not least it wont need too much messing about with the code compared to the jump/star gate suggestion
There is a big difference between encroaching on the explorers viable ships, and wasting peoples time as a design stat.
The FDL has no good reason for having a useless FSD in its lore or background which means wasting the players time was considered a viable trade-off for weaponry and maneuverability. Because it isn't like 13 ly jump stops you from doing anything, it just makes you jump extra when your moving around the bubble. I genuinely think there should be a minimum jump distance for FSD balancing based on jumps to cover 200ly or something, where 30 is considered unacceptable but 18 is ok.
As otherwise the question isn't should jump range be a design stat in most cases, its should player time be a design stat.
The FDL has no good reason for having a useless FSD in its lore or background which means wasting the players time was considered a viable trade-off for weaponry and maneuverability. Because it isn't like 13 ly jump stops you from doing anything, it just makes you jump extra when your moving around the bubble. I genuinely think there should be a minimum jump distance for FSD balancing based on jumps to cover 200ly or something, where 30 is considered unacceptable but 18 is ok.
As otherwise the question isn't should jump range be a design stat in most cases, its should player time be a design stat.
The real explorers want engine wear and tear and exploring to be pushing back the boundaries of known space. This also means that explorer ships are designed to cope better with the rigours and dangers of Exploring. Better life expectancy from your jump engines, allowing explorer ships to travel deeper into unknown space.
For example, an Anaconda can jump 40Ly if you equip it right, you would think that would be brilliant for exploring? Well, no, because the Anaconda is general purpose ship and has not been specifically designed for deep space exploration. It engines would not coup or last as long as dedicated explorers. Yes it would get it would get to it's maximum distance from core sooner, before it had to turn around and come back... or never come back, but it would not be able to go as far or as deep as Diamond Back or Asp, even though they have a shorter jump range.
This is why exploring is a utter joke of a mechanic when you get an Eagle that can spend 10 months travelling around the galaxy or a sidewinder getting Sag A within a week of the game getting released.
Explorers are not happy, the real explorers are really really annoyed at exploring in this game. Exploring has become glorified Tourism, highlight by the fact the Hutton Truckers (Mainly Traders) organised an event to drop the rare Hutton Mug into Sag A, which a whole load of people who have never explored did... To only go and show what a complete and utter disgrace exploring is... Then we have these so called explorers going on about how hard it...
This game is pathetically dumbed down.
Last edited:
I'd love military drives, or just 'premium' fuel for bubble travel.
Not fond of the biowaste idea though, cos not many 'military' ships would even bother with a cargo hold. I wouldn't want to waste that space in my FDL anyway. So what would happen? Would My FDL would be pooing out biowaste everywhere? lol
It's also true, that there's nothing fun or engaging about jumping over and over.
And don't 'boo hoo' me, because I'm talking from plenty of experience, as I'm returning from Sagittarius A* in a Python with 23ly jump range! Lol
And the whole purpose of using my Python is so that moving my FDL 500ly is no longer the ball ache it used to feel like. Lol
Yes, my logic is ridiculous. Lol
But I'm not saying I want fast travel either.
Military fuel/drives? Hell yes.
Autopilot? Hmm maybe if done right.
Fast travel? No.
Not fond of the biowaste idea though, cos not many 'military' ships would even bother with a cargo hold. I wouldn't want to waste that space in my FDL anyway. So what would happen? Would My FDL would be pooing out biowaste everywhere? lol
It's also true, that there's nothing fun or engaging about jumping over and over.
And don't 'boo hoo' me, because I'm talking from plenty of experience, as I'm returning from Sagittarius A* in a Python with 23ly jump range! Lol
And the whole purpose of using my Python is so that moving my FDL 500ly is no longer the ball ache it used to feel like. Lol
Yes, my logic is ridiculous. Lol
But I'm not saying I want fast travel either.
Military fuel/drives? Hell yes.
Autopilot? Hmm maybe if done right.
Fast travel? No.
I like the idea of premium fuel. Not to increase jump ranges, but to add running costs to huge ships, as it would make sense that these ships need a more purified fuel source to power their enormous engines, thus costing more to produce.
Sorry, but you have really done nothing special going to Sag A, a whole load of Hutton Truckers dumped the rare Hutton Mugs there for a laugh... HAHAHAHA!! Twas a genius event. Also mention in my post above. That is not to say congrats on your personal achievement.
The jumping was never meant to be fun and engaging, that is the whole point and been part of the game since it was first released. It is the tech level we have to get around. I hate moving my FDL around, it's a pain in the backside, I could choose another ship if I wanted, but I didn't, I weighed up my options and made my choice.
No autopilot, at all for any reason.
Last edited:
I do really sympathise with explorers and know exactly what you mean. last year getting to Sag A* used to be a real achievement now it's become a little like space Ibiza and tbh I can see beagle point becoming the same thing this year. I'm just glad I got there before the rush arrived.
Tbh spending 10 months in an eagle, or relying on rock rats to help you get enough jumponium to make it to BP are epic achievements, akin to crossing the pacific in a rubber boat or swimming the Atlantic.
I would really love more exploration ships, especially an imperial explorer as quite simply the insides of the lakon ships and Anaconda look like scruffy dumps rather than something I would want to spend time in for weeks at a time. I want to explore in style
Exploration is a test of patience and being able to do routine tasks without error for weeks at a time, so yes while I would love space to be filled with star trek style anomalies, needing to stop and repair stuff before carrying on, requiring us to load up with provisions that would slowly deplete etc etc the reality is, anyone who is prepared to endure(and yes it is endure) hours and hours on end of jumping in one go, or for weeks at a time deserves all the credit they can get. Because that's about as far from instant gratification in a game as you can get
Last edited:
Add another mode to Solo, Private and Open. Arcade. Where all hurdles are removed from the game and no pesky trivialities as ship choice are an issue. Log in, pick any ship, choose a system and instant gratification.
Dear Zeus, please let NMS be released quickly and liberate us from arcade gamers.
Dear Zeus, please let NMS be released quickly and liberate us from arcade gamers.
It seems that the two different sets of opinion here are down to some people viewing ED as a computer game and some people viewing it more as a sim. In a game, reality isn't really what you're after, but in a sim it's rather fundamental. This tension between the two camps is never something Frontier are going to be able to resolve when they haven't really decided which takes precedence themselves.
<goes to look for some jumponium ingredients so his Asp can jump to that irritating star 40 ly away>
<goes to look for some jumponium ingredients so his Asp can jump to that irritating star 40 ly away>
Why does everyone go straight to extreme examples whenever people ask for quality of life changes, the game would be identical if every sub 20 ly ship jumped 20ly except somebody might actually use a T9.
The whole discussion point is around the idea that low jump range is so irrelevant to anything other than wasting your time, it doesn't stop you doing anything its just mild irritation as a balance stat.
- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -
I agree with you, but sim or arcade low jump ranges make no sense.
If it was a sim military ships wouldn't have gimped FSD's for no reason, infact they'd just be completely superior to consumer ships (and probably vastly more expensive), certain ships wouldn't have a FSD at all if they were carted around by a larger ship but the ones that were big enough would, because operating range is absolutely critical in warfare.
People love claiming its a sim when it fits their purpose but it isn't, its a deliberate choice made by FD to make combat ships take longer to travel, one that I think its pretty legitimate to debate
, while they are at it the T9 has always been almost completely irrelevant for the same reason.
Well actually, military drives are lore. Besides, it's one of the ways you could get radioactive waste eating away at your hold.
The downside of them was you had to carry fuel in your hold since scooping wasn't an option. Oh, and they were expensive and didn't fit on bigger ships.
If there was a class AA drive that boosted jump range by maybe 40% for fully laden ships and 0% for "empty" ships, and if it cost 10 or even 50 times as much as the A class drive, and possibly had some other limitations as well, maybe that would work.
I like this one, a drive that boosts laden only sounds fantastic. I'd give you the +10 rep button but it only gives 1
Well actually, military drives are lore. Besides, it's one of the ways you could get radioactive waste eating away at your hold.
Ah, them military drives... able to propel a Viper at least 27Ly per jump
Lore-wise majority of "police forces" used those. Not in ED though (yet...) :\Expensive. Non-scoopable fuel which turned into radioactives after/during use that was iffy difficult to get (legally) rid of...
Last edited:
It has been discussed already, but, I hope FD is reading. I like to wing up with friends I made in open, but also like to do my own thing. Well last night we all decided to wing up. We were all at our home stations and decided to meet at our favorite hunting zone. We killed 15 minutes just getting there. That is 25% of the time some of us were online! We are forced to do it, but, we all are open to an alternative game. This needs to be fixed! What's even worse is that if I wanted to use my FDL it would have been significantly longer. So my favorite ship, sits in storage because the mechanics of this game suck.
I'm a huge fan of ED and hope they fix this problem. Every fix I can think of will introduce an exploit into the game. So FD will have to balance that too. The easiest way to do it is: introduce new FSD science from the barnacles. Giving 25LY as the baseline to all ships. Then, keeping the various jump ranges the same. So the ASP-E still out jumps everything, but, you don't kill off other fun viable ships.
I'm a huge fan of ED and hope they fix this problem. Every fix I can think of will introduce an exploit into the game. So FD will have to balance that too. The easiest way to do it is: introduce new FSD science from the barnacles. Giving 25LY as the baseline to all ships. Then, keeping the various jump ranges the same. So the ASP-E still out jumps everything, but, you don't kill off other fun viable ships.
I feel with you.
But as you can see under the link above, those who seem to have the time to spare don't seem to care as much or even regard the punishing jump ranges on combat ships as good design for various reasons. As person with limited time, it's incredibly frustrating to argue the case, when others take Elite's design choices in this regard as gospel or downright tell you to play another game and defend the present time waster mechanics as quintessential to what Elite is about (for them).
Kind of undermines the whole "blaze your own trail" rethoric as well.If anything though, the poll shows that those who don't think flying in a straight line staring at the screen or cycling through loading screens for extended stretches of time aren't alone either. And they have actually tried it and can attest to how much time was wasted. Those who claim their immersion will be harmed if things were shaken up and rebalanced a bit for convenience certainly haven't tried what Elite would be like otherwise, but are projecting how much the relatively abstract "immersion" value of Elite will be harmed.
Frontier has decided.
Some people just haven't gotten the message, yet or are selectively ignoring the fact that Elite is, despite the relatively convincingly simulated astrophysics from my layman POV, a game through and through.
Edit: Magic Engineer weapon upgrades ("healing" lasers anyone?) and magic storage space syntheses isn't moving Elite any closer into the realm of simulation.
Last edited:
For me, the lack of jump range keeps me out of a lot of interesting activities. There have been several times I've wanted to do a combat CG 150-300 LY from my home at Jameson's Memorial. The preference would be to take the Vette or FDL but, I end up taking a FAS or Anaconda because it's so far away... or I don't bother at all because with a 3 hour play window I don't want to spend an hour jumping.
I sit firmly in yes range should be a balancing factor but, that minimum jump distance needs to be at least 15 LY but preferably closer to 20 LY using the same amount of fuel as the current drives or increase the tanks of the affected ships accordingly.