The Trouble with Associating Jump Range with Exploration Gameplay

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Jump range was incredibly important on my last exploration trip to the rim.

I was making hops between stars using just neutron jumps to cover almost the maximum distance I could cover in order to keep exploring the area.

Yes, all you really need to explore is a fuel scoop and some form of discovery scanner. But range is what gets you to where you want to be.
Exploring the difficult to navigate areas of the rim makes exploration that much more fun, but it absolutely requires a good jump range.

It's also helpful if you suddenly become bored of exploring and want to come home. Lol
And combined with synthesis jumps, can get you out of unexpected pickles.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Han Zulu]

Compared to 2.1 the power creep is small. Once that was out of the bag, there was no going back.

True. Engineering started it.

Sure, I like bigger jump ranges as much as anyone, but the galaxy is somehow dimished by it.

Yeah... I don't know. I don't feel that.

There are still areas where even a 60+ jump range is barely enough to get through. Star One, Arm's End, and such are tricky to get to, and if you start exploring the edge, the real farthest out of the rim, you're more or less stuck unless you have a really, really good jump range, and a truckload of jumponium.

I have trailed a bunch of new stars to several of these locations, and at times, the only jump going forward was 119 LY. Hard to do with a 45, even with boost.

Besides, we have only discovered 20 million stars out of 400 billion. There's still 20,000 times more stars to find.

I'm disappointed with 3.0 mainly because the fleshing out of core elements doesn't seem like much more than tinkering around the edges so far - the changes just move the issues rather than fundamentally fix them.

It seems like progress bars and grind are the only things the sockpuppet has in the toolbox.
Wing Missions are very much shared grind.
Hell, they even put progress bars below the materials counts.

I hope there's a hug improvement in Q4 for exploration. New sights, sites, views, things to do, tools, etc. Crossing my fingers.

 

[WR3ND]

True. Engineering started it.


Yeah... I don't know. I don't feel that.

There are still areas where even a 60+ jump range is barely enough to get through. Star One, Arm's End, and such are tricky to get to, and if you start exploring the edge, the real farthest out of the rim, you're more or less stuck unless you have a really, really good jump range, and a truckload of jumponium.

I have trailed a bunch of new stars to several of these locations, and at times, the only jump going forward was 119 LY. Hard to do with a 45, even with boost.

Besides, we have only discovered 20 million stars out of 400 billion. There's still 20,000 times more stars to find.


I hope there's a hug improvement in Q4 for exploration. New sights, sites, views, things to do, tools, etc. Crossing my fingers.

Agree with you here for the most part, and likewise have similar hopes for the future of exploration gameplay. I would only say that systems explored isn't so much so reliant on having a large jump range, though it is more so in these sort of fringe scenarios, if you'll forgive the double entendre. Keep in mind that there's always going to be stuff further out that we can't reach and likewise we will always be limited by our jump ranges in this regard no matter what they specifically are.

 

[Han Zulu]

Agree with you here for the most part, and likewise have similar hopes for the future of exploration gameplay. I would only say that systems explored isn't so much so reliant on having a large jump range, though it is more so in these sort of fringe scenarios, if you'll forgive the pun.

I know what you mean. I'd put it rather that it's a specific type of exploration where it's needed, but generally, for most other styles of exploration it's not important, and even can be a bit "in the way" so to speak.

I'm glad I have the jump range, not just for the hard to reach stars, but the three times I wanted to go back to civilization and not spend a month doing it. For instance, I went back when the T10 came out to try it, then I flew all the way back again, some 20,000 Ly to the edge. Boy was I happy for JR and neutron stars. After all, the "first discovered by" are mostly taken close to the bubble now. Easier to find virgin systems out here.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

True. Engineering started it.


Yeah... I don't know. I don't feel that.

There are still areas where even a 60+ jump range is barely enough to get through. Star One, Arm's End, and such are tricky to get to, and if you start exploring the edge, the real farthest out of the rim, you're more or less stuck unless you have a really, really good jump range, and a truckload of jumponium.

I have trailed a bunch of new stars to several of these locations, and at times, the only jump going forward was 119 LY. Hard to do with a 45, even with boost.

Besides, we have only discovered 20 million stars out of 400 billion. There's still 20,000 times more stars to find.


I hope there's a hug improvement in Q4 for exploration. New sights, sites, views, things to do, tools, etc. Crossing my fingers.

The edge will always be the edge regardless of how big jump ranges get - it'll just be that bit further out.
What's been lost is the differentiation in the middle.

Crossing between arms, especially the outer arms was a navigation achievement of sorts.

Sure, the better route plotters and star filters made it easier as well (welcome additions), but the fundamental jump range balance that made them a navigation hazard at all is gone.

 

[Han Zulu]

The edge will always be the edge regardless of how big jump ranges get - it'll just be that bit further out.
What's been lost is the differentiation in the middle.

Crossing between arms, especially the outer arms was a navigation achievement of sorts.

Sure, the better route plotters and star filters made it easier as well (welcome additions), but the fundamental jump range balance that made them a navigation hazard at all is gone.

Unless you intentionally take a smaller ship for the challenge, as some do during the expeditions. At least we can choose how much danger we want to put ourselves in.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Unless you intentionally take a smaller ship for the challenge, as some do during the expeditions. At least we can choose how much danger we want to put ourselves in.

Handicapping yourself is one thing, challenging the limits of what is possible is something else.

Who knows, maybe I'll have a go at the distance record - are we past 80k LY yet?

 

[askavir]

Once I set off to see all the ingame real hypergiants. One of them was Mu Cephei, a modest 5K ly away from Sol. But it sits in between spiral arms. The last jump required a 35ly jump distance. I was in my AspX, who could only make that jump (no engineered FSDs back then) after I burned just enough amount of fuel in supercruise to shed weight, and I was finally able to make that extra fraction of jump-range. By a fraction of a ly jump capacity, I could have come home empty-handed.

So yeah, jump range IS important. It's important to:

1 - Travel between spiral arms
2 - Travel in the outskirts of the galaxy
3 - Travel very high or very low in the galactic plane.
4 - To get to the area i'm interested in exploring faster. (yeah I don't explore randomly, so what?)
5 - To get home faster when I decide it's time to come back.

On top of this, due to the near complete absence of any actual exploration gameplay of any kind, I would go as far as saying jump range is nearly the only thing that actually matters (even more than the surface scanner, which merely transforms planet-pointing into some credits), as besides jumping the only exploration gear you'll actually be using during the trip is your eyeballs. Hopefully this will no longer be the case after Q4, which is my personal make-or-break for ED.

 

[WR3ND]

...

I think this highlights the crux of the issue, as I see it. Exploration has seemingly become more about jump range and travel mechanics in the eyes of the player base and Frontier alike than, well, exploration, with the way development has progressed and evolved around it. Admittedly, some might not really have an issue with that, though I think most all of us can agree that we'd like to see further enhancement of exploration gameplay.

 

[crushdepth]

Along these lines, finding the shortest jump range requirements to reach the Crab Nebula was a very enjoyable part of exploration gameplay for me. This is something that becomes more of a moot form of exploration in relevant exploration gameplay with ever increasing jump ranges, and yes, it is something now limited more to just the fringes of the galaxy and one-upping other explorers in min/maxed meta ship builds.

You also need longer jump ranges above/below the galactic plane.

 

[WR3ND]

You also need longer jump ranges above/below the galactic plane.

I include above and below, as well as the rim of course, as being part of the fringes of the galaxy, basically, the thin bits that are difficult to reach without more sufficient jump ranges.

The Crab Nebula is a bit of a ways below the galactic plane as well. You can see Barnard's Loop off toward the galactic plane and core here in this pic...

Spoiler

 

[CMDR Poet Starwind]

Nevermind, you covered it.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

In this case, we had a galaxy with a defined structure of spiral arms with sparser gaps in between that had a real impact on navigation and generated fair amount of discussion and interest - path finding and such.

Now, we effectively have an amorphous blob that thins out at the edge.
The game setting is a little poorer for it.

Bigger isn't always better.

I totally agree. The most fun I had exploring was pre-Engineers, when I took a Clipper out to check out some nebulae on the fringes of the galactic arms.

Having to try to chart a path to get where I wanted was awesome. The last nebula I wanted to visit, I ended up being unable to find a way to get there. I ended up having to turn around and head home just 100ly away from my ultimate goal.

That feeling - having traveled so far, and put up with so much, only to have my final goal just out of reach - the sense of scale and awe and wonder and the just nothingness out there sometimes... One of the top two gaming experiences of my life.

Truely incredible.

It seems like exploration has lost that now. Engineers just made it tourist-y.

I think it would be cool for a mechanic to be added that put that sort of pathfinding back into the game. Something, and I don't know how it would work, but something where discovering, mapping out, and planning the right sequence of jumps let you do multiple jumps in sequence, for the fuel cost of the first jump, or something.

Basically something that effectively gives you that better range, for speed and to get the far-out places, but also makes you work for it, like you used to.

 

[Zeeman]

You can jump small distances with a ship that has a capability for very long jumps. You can not jump very long distances with a ship capable of only very small jumps.

Long jump range does not define exploration, but it is a nice tool to have in the bag.

Dismissing the mothership, and having cool scanners in SLF's would be another...

I think I'd have liked it if jump ranges never really got beyond the 1.0 levels, but rather, engineers had offered special upgrades that allowed for "one off" large jumps (say, 400%) at the cost of damage to your FSD and Hull. Thus, you'd be limited in the number of huge jumps. You'd make the effort to map a course as close as possible to your destination, but when you *really* needed it, you could get a 120-150LY jump.

We can, of course repair FSD's and hulls, so, this is not really such an interesting idea anymore, more of a thought as to the way it possibly should have been.

What would also have been cool, is manual plotting of routes. the ability to link jumps, or even to see the jump distance between any two stars.

Just seems to me that rather than give us cool tools for doing what we want to do, we just get "cheat mode" ways of doing it.

I remember being about 0.4LY short of making it to Beagle point in my Asp X in 1.x, and, of course, did not realise this until I actually got there (though that was not the original goal of that trip, it was meant to be a "3 hour tour" test run. Frustrating, but it was fun working it out all the same. I have a boatload of tags surrounding Beagle Point for my efforts, too. I am more proud of those than anything else in terms of where I've been, because I earned them.


Z...

 

[Deleted member 115407]

In the Livestream it sounded like they have big plans in store for exploration.

You should make sure this stuff goes into focused feedback, WR3ND.

Personally, I started out likeing my to explo trips, but there was so little to do that half way through the second I couldn't take it anymore. I would like to like exploration more, so hopefully they come up with some good stuff.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

I totally agree. The most fun I had exploring was pre-Engineers, when I took a Clipper out to check out some nebulae on the fringes of the galactic arms.

Having to try to chart a path to get where I wanted was awesome. The last nebula I wanted to visit, I ended up being unable to find a way to get there. I ended up having to turn around and head home just 100ly away from my ultimate goal.

That feeling - having traveled so far, and put up with so much, only to have my final goal just out of reach - the sense of scale and awe and wonder and the just nothingness out there sometimes... One of the top two gaming experiences of my life.

Truely incredible.

It seems like exploration has lost that now. Engineers just made it tourist-y.

I think it would be cool for a mechanic to be added that put that sort of pathfinding back into the game. Something, and I don't know how it would work, but something where discovering, mapping out, and planning the right sequence of jumps let you do multiple jumps in sequence, for the fuel cost of the first jump, or something.

Basically something that effectively gives you that better range, for speed and to get the far-out places, but also makes you work for it, like you used to.

I again disagree, engineers opened a new chapter and thus closed in the exploration timeline. Try and visit the Owl Nebula, you'll see that even with engineers you can't get there yet I didn't know that until I was about 300 Ly from it and there simply was no more options.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Personally, I started out likeing my to explo trips, but there was so little to do that half way through the second I couldn't take it anymore. I would like to like exploration more, so hopefully they come up with some good stuff.

Exploration as it's currently implemented relies on players setting tgeir own goals in order to make it interesting. The odds of finding something unique or spectacular are astronomical (sorry).

For some, the goal is taking their ships to the limits of the galaxy - hence the clamor for longer jump ranges.
Others want to take cool selfies - and thus we had the beige fury.
Personally, I've become an astrocartographer, which means I spend my time mapping stars listed in the 21st century catalogues - the HDs, HRs and HIPs. Currently on my 4th constellation (out of 88) so there's plenty to keep me occipied.

 

[Godsailsaqueen]

In the Livestream it sounded like they have big plans in store for exploration.

You should make sure this stuff goes into focused feedback, WR3ND.

Personally, I started out likeing my to explo trips, but there was so little to do that half way through the second I couldn't take it anymore. I would like to like exploration more, so hopefully they come up with some good stuff.

I think Fdev should receive feedback on what exploration can be, not on what exploration should not be.
This thread started on the wrong foot (IMO) by dividing explorers (with subpar styles that should not be the focus : long range stuff), when exploration should on the contrary include more things, more intertwined, not substract anything to what is already a barebones state.

I think exploration can be something that has its place for every player, be it scanning, charting, prospecting, route-finding... it should be engaging, rich.
I also think they can come up with things that wouldn't be detrimental to anyone. For example, those who ask for a long range exploration ship do not stop other players from fitting short range ships.
On the contrary, asking for Fdev to forget about jump range could be detrimental for long range explorers, would they listen to this opinion on their next exploration ship or whatsoever.

Can we all have good things ?

You can jump small distances with a ship that has a capability for very long jumps. You can not jump very long distances with a ship capable of only very small jumps.

Long jump range does not define exploration, but it is a nice tool to have in the bag.

Exactly.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

You have some great ideas here. I particularly like the single use module, it could get us to where we want to be exploring, then we could dawdle our way back. [up]

Yep, it worked for 7 seasons of Voyager.

 

[WR3ND]

Yep, it worked for 7 seasons of Voyager.

Not so much for Jaques Station, but then it did give some place for some players to bother traveling to and congregate around for various reasons, at least.