Dump SC

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

So you want to jump from station to station?

That sounds incredibly dull.
Fast travel ruins games if done wrong.

In Guild Wars II, I often found myself just teleporting from home to my mission location and back again. It actually made the game really boring.

 

[Lobstris]

Lol! I dip into this forum after mostly staying away from it over the past six months - and lo! what do I see? The old "supercruise is boring™" argument.

All I can think of is someone in some TV series-or-other saying something "All of this has happened before and will happen again".

 

[Druid]

Thanks for the replies . Honestly every answer is respected . I am not actually ranting although it may seem that way. That's just the way of forums / social media to not feel the tone of face to face over a pint, honest criticism. I am huge sifi fan . I love reading space opera , watching series movies et all . I have played practically every game sim, mmo over nearly 40 years . With all this exposure to gaming literature I have a personal standard of what game experience clicks with me and what does not. I do understand the issues related to this mechanic and why it is there to facilitate certain gameplay. I just think SC and related gameplay is implemented wrongly . I main issue is due to scale .

The distances involved are supposed to be vast and travelling those distances in real time is unrealistic . SC is basically a times multiplier which in itself is unrealistic therefore I feel justified in criticizing it . When you find something of supposed interest like another pilot it is all based on the times multiplier. I tried flying in formation with a squady once and it was damn near impossible to match speeds and direction . Yes you can use the wing stuff but what if you just want to follow a pilot for fun? When you get near, the times multiplier exaggerates all the movement.

Would these vast distances traveled from the star to a station in the future involve months or years travel to get to your destination? I dont think so . A trader in this situation would do just a handful of runs before they die of old age. If we accept the mechanic of jumping to another star system in minutes, why is it acceptable to think travelling to another point in the star system will take months or years in real time. How many times have you overflown the station orbit ? Ive done this just due to boredom and watching tv waiting to get there. This is just because of the multiplier and it's exaggerated speedup.

Is it really much of a leap to ignore the boring stuff completely and have the interesting stuff accessible with the instances, jumpable, for want of a better word. You have your screen on the left with all the targets in system near you and indeed all the planets roid belts conflict zones ect . Is this not what is interesting . Randomly generating UE instances or whatever they are called while you are flying , for me, is not an interesting game mechanic it is just pointless fluff. Why shouldn't these instances be on the screen anyway where you can lock on them and go to the instance . Make the instance bigger if a bit of exploring is needed to find the artifact or bounty if needed but actually physically flying there using a times multiplier seems pointless and ultimately annoying the way it is done .

Lets be honest if you wanted a real space flight sim you would end up having to put yourself in a cryo pod for most of the flight. ED is ignoring technology that would be available by definition of it's own model and equipment that is in the game already. Does anyone really think flying in real time for months would be handled by a pilot with his hands on the throttle and flight stick? Or would it be a command issued to the flight computer?

Some will argue the SC is a technology to go faster and travel intermediate distances . Is it? Not in my mind it is just a multiplier . Where is the equipment for this marvel ? Is this some kind of beefed up ion drive ? Can I modify it ? Can I put one in that jumps like hyperspace 3/4 of the distance to my destination? None of these things are available.

Why cant we add a mod that lets us do small hyper jumps that has a cool down to jump again. Jammers to stop you doing it if you are being hunted . Mods to increase range. Call it a cryo tube if you like . Its going to take 4 months to get to this station and my cryo can put me to sleep for 3 months of the journey as it isnt the best on the market.

I don't know I am just throwing stuff out there as some folks were questioning that I was not offering suggestions and just moaning. Not only is SC unrealistic it is tedious . Others think differently and that's cool we all have our tolerance levels for game mechanics that try to simulate virtual real life. Just like grinding in MMo's, no one does that any more. Time sinks over enjoyment is so passe .

Cheers

 

[Para Handy]

...............

As you might have read elsewhere, SC was introduced because people were dismayed that E D was just going to be jumping from box-to-box (which is basically what you seem to want).

 

[Druid]

Nope Handy. Just read rubbernukes post about spicing up SC . I like his ideas . Would actually make SC mean something. My problem with SC is it's implementation and lack of fun.

 

[Lucifera Danzig]

Thanks for the replies . Honestly every answer is respected . I am not actually ranting although it may seem that way. That's just the way of forums / social media to not feel the tone of face to face over a pint, honest criticism. I am huge sifi fan . I love reading space opera , watching series movies et all . I have played practically every game sim, mmo over nearly 40 years . With all this exposure to gaming literature I have a personal standard of what game experience clicks with me and what does not. I do understand the issues related to this mechanic and why it is there to facilitate certain gameplay. I just think SC and related gameplay is implemented wrongly . I main issue is due to scale .

The distances involved are supposed to be vast and travelling those distances in real time is unrealistic . SC is basically a times multiplier which in itself is unrealistic therefore I feel justified in criticizing it . When you find something of supposed interest like another pilot it is all based on the times multiplier. I tried flying in formation with a squady once and it was damn near impossible to match speeds and direction . Yes you can use the wing stuff but what if you just want to follow a pilot for fun? When you get near, the times multiplier exaggerates all the movement.

Some will argue the SC is a technology to go faster and travel intermediate distances . Is it? Not in my mind it is just a multiplier . Where is the equipment for this marvel ? Is this some kind of beefed up ion drive ? Can I modify it ? Can I put one in that jumps like hyperspace 3/4 of the distance to my destination? None of these things are available.

Cheers

This is all very specifically incorrect, regardless of the definition you've decided on. Supercruise is not a "time multiplier," it's modeled very specifically on the Alcubierre Drive theory.
Source: http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Frame_Shift_Drive

Excerpt:

"Frame shift drives use a modified Alcubierre Drive design to compress space in front of ships in supercruise."

Alcubierre Drive:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

The only assumption is that we will have figured out how to meet the engineering challenges necessary to make it work in about a thousand years.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Thanks for the replies . Honestly every answer is respected . I am not actually ranting although it may seem that way. That's just the way of forums / social media to not feel the tone of face to face over a pint, honest criticism. I am huge sifi fan . I love reading space opera , watching series movies et all . I have played practically every game sim, mmo over nearly 40 years . With all this exposure to gaming literature I have a personal standard of what game experience clicks with me and what does not. I do understand the issues related to this mechanic and why it is there to facilitate certain gameplay. I just think SC and related gameplay is implemented wrongly . I main issue is due to scale .

The distances involved are supposed to be vast and travelling those distances in real time is unrealistic . SC is basically a times multiplier which in itself is unrealistic therefore I feel justified in criticizing it . When you find something of supposed interest like another pilot it is all based on the times multiplier. I tried flying in formation with a squady once and it was damn near impossible to match speeds and direction . Yes you can use the wing stuff but what if you just want to follow a pilot for fun? When you get near, the times multiplier exaggerates all the movement.

Would these vast distances traveled from the star to a station in the future involve months or years travel to get to your destination? I dont think so . A trader in this situation would do just a handful of runs before they die of old age. If we accept the mechanic of jumping to another star system in minutes, why is it acceptable to think travelling to another point in the star system will take months or years in real time. How many times have you overflown the station orbit ? Ive done this just due to boredom and watching tv waiting to get there. This is just because of the multiplier and it's exaggerated speedup.

Is it really much of a leap to ignore the boring stuff completely and have the interesting stuff accessible with the instances, jumpable, for want of a better word. You have your screen on the left with all the targets in system near you and indeed all the planets roid belts conflict zones ect . Is this not what is interesting . Randomly generating UE instances or whatever they are called while you are flying , for me, is not an interesting game mechanic it is just pointless fluff. Why shouldn't these instances be on the screen anyway where you can lock on them and go to the instance . Make the instance bigger if a bit of exploring is needed to find the artifact or bounty if needed but actually physically flying there using a times multiplier seems pointless and ultimately annoying the way it is done .

Lets be honest if you wanted a real space flight sim you would end up having to put yourself in a cryo pod for most of the flight. ED is ignoring technology that would be available by definition of it's own model and equipment that is in the game already. Does anyone really think flying in real time for months would be handled by a pilot with his hands on the throttle and flight stick? Or would it be a command issued to the flight computer?

Some will argue the SC is a technology to go faster and travel intermediate distances . Is it? Not in my mind it is just a multiplier . Where is the equipment for this marvel ? Is this some kind of beefed up ion drive ? Can I modify it ? Can I put one in that jumps like hyperspace 3/4 of the distance to my destination? None of these things are available.

Why cant we add a mod that lets us do small hyper jumps that has a cool down to jump again. Jammers to stop you doing it if you are being hunted . Mods to increase range. Call it a cryo tube if you like . Its going to take 4 months to get to this station and my cryo can put me to sleep for 3 months of the journey as it isnt the best on the market.

I don't know I am just throwing stuff out there as some folks were questioning that I was not offering suggestions and just moaning. Not only is SC unrealistic it is tedious . Others think differently and that's cool we all have our tolerance levels for game mechanics that try to simulate virtual real life. Just like grinding in MMo's, no one does that any more. Time sinks over enjoyment is so passe .

Cheers

The issue is you I'm afraid. I like SC. The reason is because it is interactive. I can change my mind and fly somewhere else, see something interesting, so can stop off there.

I find SC interesting, because I make it interesting, doing flybys of planets is exhilarating.

To me it seems that you use SC in the most boring way possible, just aim at the station put throttle to 75% and wait. That is a choice of course, or you can actually pilot your ship by avoiding gravity wells etc, scan ships that you can pick up materials from and checking for pirates.

You choose to make it as boring as possible and then complain about it. Fly your ship and it may be a bit more interesting for you.

AFAIK SC is the best fast ship movement mechanic I have see so far. I hate instant jumps (but realise we need these when we go system to system), jump gates and the dreadful quantum travel in Star citizen, which is even slower the ED and you can't control it.

 

[Han Zulu]

Why cant we add a mod that lets us do small hyper jumps that has a cool down to jump again. Jammers to stop you doing it if you are being hunted . Mods to increase range. Call it a cryo tube if you like . Its going to take 4 months to get to this station and my cryo can put me to sleep for 3 months of the journey as it isnt the best on the market.

Basically a really large portion of the game would become extinct.

Think about this. If you can jump quickly between point A and point B, then NPCs can too. Now, take on a mission to interdict and kill a wanted NPC pirate. How will you catch him? Today, you search for him in space and interdict him. With quick-jump drive, there would be only two interdiction points, A and B. You have to jump between those two back and forth until he shows up at either one, and then break his quick-jump. Is that a more interesting game for interdiction? Not so sure. Sounds like less interesting to me than current system.

Then, let's think of USS (unidentified signal sources). How do you find them? In SC.

What about finding war zones, thargoids, or random places to drop in a ring for mining? Should there be quick-jumps to those too?

And how would PvP players do embargo in power play if everyone can just jump to their destination?

And there's probably more issues.

Elite Dangerous is essentially built around the idea that you are "physically" moving through space and can find things on route, or be interdicted, or interdict, scan objects, and so on. Traveling in Elite in a system is a core function. Getting rid of that with jumping in the system would change things tremendously.

Without SC, ED would become a different game completely.

The issue of SC isn't the time, but that it's a bit boring at times, so there are ideas how to make it more interesting, which would be better than to remove it.
* Space legs, walking around in the ship during travel
* Listen to Galnet news (is coming)
* An NPC pilot that can fly for you (while you're walking around in the ship and do maintenance)
etc.

 

[Han Zulu]

AFAIK SC is the best fast ship movement mechanic I have see so far. I hate instant jumps (but realise we need these when we go system to system), jump gates and the dreadful quantum travel in Star citizen, which is even slower the ED and you can't control it.

Same. I love Mass Effect, but I hate that there's insta-jump to everything. You lose the feeling of actually being in space. And when I saw the quantum jump in star citizen, I was disappointed. It's basically a loading screen.

And considering that recently there was a player who did the record distance from Sol by flying in deep space on the other side of the galaxy. How do that with insta-jumps? And how would the fuel rats fly to her if everything is just point-and-click and you're there?

Also, what about buckyball racing... whoever clicks the "get there" button fastest wins.

 

[Han Zulu]

As you might have read elsewhere, SC was introduced because people were dismayed that E D was just going to be jumping from box-to-box (which is basically what you seem to want).

Is that true? When they were talking about having the insta-jump from box-to-box, did they know how to do pirating? I'm having a hard time seeing how they would have done pirating, bounty hunting, and such without some form of travelling. I thought pirating and bounty hunting was part of the original kickstarter, so it sounds to me that the idea of travelling in space was there from start.

 

[nexxo]

I think that SC is integral to the experience of ED: of flying a spaceship through space, which is big (really big. I mean, you may think it's a long trip down to the chemist, but...).

The only limitation is the players imagination. I note (on videos) that people tend to fly in a straight line to their destination. This, of course, makes it more likely that they get interdicted. Flying in an arc above or below the orbital plane however avoids this and offers a beautiful vista of he whole system with all its of its unfurling above or below you. Also good for exploration.

It could be a bit more dynamic by adding gravity wells: do a few wind-up orbits around Proxima Centauri before whipping at top speed to Hutton Orbital. Use planetary gravity wells to speed up your journey, or slow down in time before you hit the station.

Or ride the solar winds to pick up speed or slow down, and compensate for drift as you cut across it.

Space is your whelk!

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

FD could spice up SC to make it far more enjoyable.

Loads of us have had many suggestions, from boost, in system jumps, using shipping lanes as a "fast lane", slingshots, etc.

Every idea is usually shot down by someone who doesn't want any of it.
But the fact is, supercruise is currently really boring. Lol

I suggested using more nav beacons to jump between in the same system.
It's economical for long haul, but not for short haul. And it opens up areas for pirates to stalk by camping at nav beacons. And FD can control where secondary nav beacons are placed, so places like Hutton Orbital remain untouched.

Then you get "fast travel", if you want to take the time and risk to drop in to a nav beacon to jump to the secondary one in the same system. And if you don't, you fly normally.

Win/win. Except for FD that need to implement it. Lol

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Para Handy]

Is that true? When they were talking about having the insta-jump from box-to-box, did they know how to do pirating? I'm having a hard time seeing how they would have done pirating, bounty hunting, and such without some form of travelling. I thought pirating and bounty hunting was part of the original kickstarter, so it sounds to me that the idea of travelling in space was there from start.

Have a look here:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php/38-In-System-Travel-Polls

Seventeen different polls about in-system travel.

... and here is the post from Mike Evans about the reasoning for them:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/5728-Upcoming-Poll-Discussion-about-in-system-travel

... have fun.




P.S. Maybe we could just direct every instance of "kill SC" threads to those polls, maybe they'd shut up then.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Sure thing, let's remove the space from the space simulator.

Great plan.

 

[Han Zulu]

Have a look here:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php/38-In-System-Travel-Polls

Seventeen different polls about in-system travel.

... and here is the post from Mike Evans about the reasoning for them:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/5728-Upcoming-Poll-Discussion-about-in-system-travel

... have fun.




P.S. Maybe we could just direct every instance of "kill SC" threads to those polls, maybe they'd shut up then.

Nice.

So super cruise was indeed a majority's vote. One interesting thing I saw though is that "automated flight" (or something similar) also got a fairly high vote, so the idea of an NPC or autopilot taking care of the travel from Point A to Point B (say one station to the next), but taking the same time as it would doing it manually, wouldn't be an issue. Of course, the player would have to be willing to take the chance of being interdicted while the NPC is piloting.

 

[popuptoaster]

The issue of super cruise is caused by the game being multiplayer, in the original games there was no such thing but the player could speed up time in order to get places "faster". You can't do that in a multiplayer game or every ones games would get out of sync so there has to be a mechanism to allow players to move fast in system while still allowing players to interact. fast tarevl would just mean no player ever saw anyone else other than at a station or a deliberate combat zone.

 

[Han Zulu]

By the way, supercruise is a minor thing when you're doing an expedition like Dead End's Circumnavigation. We have to do about 4-5,000 jumps. That's hundreds of hours of just jumping... Over 300,000 LY. If it was drawing a circle on a picture of the galaxy, it wouldn't be a challenge.

Besides, out here, exploring, right now I'm happy I have SC to pull my ship up to a nearby star which has a lonely planet that's traversing (visibly) through space in front of the star. Without the ability to fly exactly where I want, I wouldn't be able to see this.

Spoiler

It actually is moving. About 2-3 minutes to traverse from right side to left

 

[Druid]

Emotive as always.

Look I dont care if we fly through the systems space but lets at least have some flexibility. I fly in Mobious . I have no interest in pvp in this game I do that with sub machine guns in ghost recon. I just want to enjoy myself . Therefore is it wrong to want a way of getting where I want to be without the hassle? I don't want to stop anyone else doing it their way. By all means take a wandering tour investigating every contact and sit by a planet to watch the sun come around it. Go and chase your bounties, In fact lovely Id want the option to do that too. But why cant I just jump to another nav point or location without having to sit bored while watching the speedo or is it important to everyone else that I cant? Dont let NPC's do it if you want your bounty hunting experience, it is easy to do. I will not go into the pvp argument about who is whose content either disable it in open play or something.

Therefore I am happy for those that want to use SC because it is nothing to do with me what your gameplay is but why criticize when I ask not to sometimes . Are you really bothered what experience I have in game ? I don't care what anyone else's is after all.

 

[space voyager]

Without SC you wouldn't have USS, interdiction, pirates, bounty hunting, ...

If we had instant jumping to where we would like to go, it would quicken things up, but then it would become like Mass Effect jumping, a simple loading screen between places. It wouldn't be a spaceship simulator anymore.

Exactly. Half of the game would be lost.

 

[askavir]

The game would be much, much poorer without supercruise. Take exploration (or even a planetary base assault, or mat collecting, etc) for example. Where would we inta-travel to? Directly from station to the a static point on the planet surface? To a static point in orbit, followed to insta-travelling another static point on the surface? Removing supercruise would effectly remove free flight in space, and that would be beyond terrible.

That being said... I would really love to see supercruise acceleration and deceleration buffed (no need to change top speeds). What makes supercruise feel dreadful sometimes are all those godawful "six seconds" endless waits every time you aim to drop into a USS, station, whatever. Having faster acceleration/deceleration allowing the ship to get to higher SC speeds faster, and also approach and drop into nav targets faster, would solve this for the vast majority of people (as the vast majority of systems don't have stations that far out), without killing the "space is huge" feel.

The reason I, for instance, ignore the vast majority of USSs is that I would have to deselect current nav target to select the USS, which would mean the ship would start to decelerate, resulting in : 1) slowly decelerate nto the USS and waiting endless "six seconds", or 2) USS ended up not being of interest, and now it's time to slowly accelerate back to original target, followed by the regular slow deceleration into target and another endless "6 seconds".