No more high-range FSD buffs, thanks!

[andrewg_oz]

A good deal of my objection to further increases of jump ranges is that the current three waves of jump range increases has done nothing to quieten the request for more range. So far we've had:

1. Synthesis boosts
2. Engineered boosts
3. White dwarf/Neutron boosts

And we still have people wanting more!

For me, increasing the jump range has removed aspects of exploration gameplay from what little there was to begin with, and flattened out the galaxy, for no actual benefit in regards to gameplay. The people who find travel tedious are still finding travel tedious, and people like me who like the idea of a large galaxy with navigational challenges to cross sparse parts find the galaxy getting smaller and more homogeneous.

For those people who find travel tedious, what jump range would be enough? 100Ly? 500Ly? 1000Ly? 65 jumps to Beagle Point? One jump to anywhere in the bubble?

IMO, increasing jump ranges are the single worst decision that has been made in the game. The galaxy model was a fundamental design decision from the start - to have a huge galaxy and all that has been done since is make it smaller.

To those people who find travel tedious - stop travelling so far and stop shrinking the galaxy for me! You've always got the choice to travel shorter distances, but if I want to travel to place that I *know* is at least 1800 jumps away, well, I can't do that any more! I don't have even that choice any more.

 

[Raino]

For those people who find travel tedious, what jump range would be enough? 100Ly? 500Ly? 1000Ly? 65 jumps to Beagle Point? One jump to anywhere in the bubble?

it'll never be enough - "we want instant success" is the request

a "WIN GAME" button at launcher would be the best solution, i think

 

[Rock-Hermit]

For those people who find travel tedious, what jump range would be enough? 100Ly? 500Ly? 1000Ly? 65 jumps to Beagle Point? One jump to anywhere in the bubble?

I asked this myself earlier in the post. But none of the instant gratification crowd have the backbone to answer because every one of them will have a different line in the sand that's acceptable to them, only for someone else to come along and say no, I want triple that or quadruple this. Frontier need to draw that line and stick to it, otherwise what was the point of them making a 1:1 scale galaxy in the first place

it'll never be enough - "we want instant success" is the request

a "WIN GAME" button at launcher would be the best solution, i think

This, exactly this. Oh but none of them will admit it of course.

 

[crushdepth]

it'll never be enough - "we want instant success" is the request

a "WIN GAME" button at launcher would be the best solution, i think

It's more like 1,400 load screens on my Sag A trip was a few too many. If it were say 300, that's still plenty.

I"m not sure I won anything on the way.

 

[andrewg_oz]

It's more like 1,400 load screens on my Sag A trip was a few too many. If it were say 300, that's still plenty.

I"m not sure I won anything on the way.

So, given that a 50Ly range ship (a comfortable non-stripped-down Anaconda or DBX) should be able to do the 25,900Ly to Sgr A* in a little under 550 jumps (no neutron or synthesis boosts), you're suggesting something like a doubling of existing jump ranges?

Actually, 25,900Ly divided by 300 jumps and derated using a 95% jump efficiency comes to pretty much exactly 90Ly.

I'm very confident that *somebody* will think that's not enough.

 

[galahad2069]

For me, increasing the jump range has removed aspects of exploration gameplay from what little there was to begin with, and flattened out the galaxy, for no actual benefit in regards to gameplay.

And how exactly?

No one forces you to engineer your FSD to the limits. You are free to install an E-rated module and enjoy your crappy jump range all the way you want.

In the meantime I'd gladly enjoy not having to stare at the same boring loading screen 20 times whenever I need to travel from A to B in a combat fitted FDL or Vulture.

 

[andrewg_oz]

No one forces you to engineer your FSD to the limits. You are free to install an E-rated module and enjoy your crappy jump range all the way you want.

You're still not understanding the issue. It's not the crappy jump range I want, it's the loss of meaning to the shape of the galaxy - the fact that there are arms and gaps where the star density drops and IMO you should be forced to navigate carefully. All that is gone now.

There is also the loss of places where I knew that to get there I would need to jump at least 1800 time - even in the best ship. Those places are gone now.

In the meantime I'd gladly enjoy not having to stare at the same boring loading screen 20 times whenever I need to travel from A to B in a combat fitted FDL or Vulture.

That's the same thing you're criticising me for! No one is forcing you to travel in an FDL or Vulture. Ride a DBX and transfer your combat ship.

I will point out, however, that I was never against *all* jump range increases, just at the high end. Buffs (within reason) for the Vulture, Corvette or FdL would be OK.

 

[Surprised Brony]

You're still not understanding the issue. It's not the crappy jump range I want, it's the loss of meaning to the shape of the galaxy - the fact that there are arms and gaps where the star density drops and IMO you should be forced to navigate carefully. All that is gone now.

There is also the loss of places where I knew that to get there I would need to jump at least 1800 time - even in the best ship. Those places are gone now.


That's the same thing you're criticising me for! No one is forcing you to travel in an FDL or Vulture. Ride a DBX and transfer your combat ship.

I will point out, however, that I was never against *all* jump range increases, just at the high end. Buffs (within reason) for the Vulture, Corvette or FdL would be OK.

It would be nice to have a limited way to reach the extremely far away stars on the edge of the galaxy one day. I agree that base jump range at the high end is as high as it needs to be, but I would like 100% of the galaxy to be somehow accessible one day. I don't prioritize that over keeping the high end range as is though.

 

[Cold Earth]

No one in this thread is asking for ridiculous jump ranges and saying that people want instant gratification or an instant win simply isn’t true, going by the comments in this thread. It doesn’t make your point any more valid saying this and telling the people that don’t want jump ranges restricted / nefred that this is what they want doesn’t make it true either.

The galaxy is massive, even with the bigger jump ranges. You can still play the old way if that’s how you want to play. No one is stopping you guys from doing that or enjoying playing that way. The game is multi platform and so console versions have a smaller Open population and jump ranges do affect the amount of players in Colonia and other far reaching places, just look at the console sub forums to see people complain about how no one is there. That’s not a good thing.

How long do you think it would take to explore the whole galaxy in elite? Even with the current jump ranges it probably won’t ever be done. There is always going to be places you can explore. Time in real life is a factor for a lot of people playing this game and if you’ve got an hour to play one night, spending that hour jumping constantly, just to move across the bubble and not even explore just isn’t fun. That’s one reason why people watch Netflix whilst playing this game as it’s not engaging enough whilst your jumping over and over again, and there’s nothing else to do whilst you jump over and over again.

Personally I don’t engineer my ships to death. I settle for a decent jump range mod (say 3 to 5 rolls per ship I mod) and get on with it. Other people maxing their jump ranges doesn’t affect my playing experience and if that’s how thy want to play the game then they can go for it I don’t mind.

How does other people having bigger jump ranges than you affect “your”personal gaming experience? I think that’s the main thing the people on the bigger jump range side of the argument really haven’t seen any good explanation for.

 

[lecorsobreton]

Asking for no more FSD jump range is like saying extra firepower, shield, hull resistance or power generation are useless. Having 50ly is comfortable and you need that kind of range for few things.

 

[Jethzk]

I guess it depends where people expect the limits to be set. Everyone has different limits so who is right and who is wrong? It used to be 40 light years max. Then synthesis made it 80, now neutron jumps give you 240. So why not make it 100 lights per jump. Or 1000. Why not get rid of jump range altogether and make all 400 billion stars 1 jump away? Some would love that and since it doesn't impact on anyone else's game, there should be no balance issues. We'll still not explore them all in our combined lifetimes if we could instantly jump anywhere. The same can be said for combat. Lets make it one shot one kill. And trade runs too. Let's make 1000% profit per run, any run.

Or lets realise there's merit in why games have hard limits on some things and understand why power creep can be detrimental?

I made my trip to Sag A with a 30 ly jump range and no neutron stars/dwarf stars. I visited the great destroyer on my way. Do I think it's a bad thing that players can do the same thing I did in less time? No, I'm happy for them. Frankly, I discovered more systems/stars along the way than they will.

I'm not talking about extremes, like instantly jumping to wherever you want, or 1 shoting every ship. I'm talking about increasing the FSD range by ~50%. Please don't straw man this argument.

For some it's not about the speed, but the illusion of distance. That illusion is persistent while it's there, but it's tenuous because it's based on nothing more than some very pretty graphics, a few on-screen numbers, and the fact that if it took a player x units of time to get where they are it'll take them x units to get back. There is a risk that making those numbers increase or decrease more quickly will break that illusion, at which point one of the game's USPs -- the 1:1 scale Milky Way -- becomes redundant or at least diminished.

You don't have to agree with that, or even understand the psychology behind it, but David Braben understood it and for the time being it seems that FD are broadly on the same page. They might change their minds at some point, but in the meantime it's important not to fall into the trap of thinking that all players who want to maintain relatively small FSD ranges are doing so because they want to "go slower" or for travel to be "more difficult."

For them, it's not about how quickly you can move through the galaxy but about how mindbogglingly big it appears to be when you're "out there". The two are obviously linked, but they're not the same thing.

FWIW I quite like MadDogMurdock's idea further up the thread, for increasing jump range within the bubble but keeping it small enough outside to maintain the distance illusion. It's not a perfect solution, but as I've said elsewhere the perfect solution doesn't exist. It does seem like a reasonable compromise though.

It would also make for a good reason to explore, especially in Colonia and in those systems around the edges of both bubbles. We could have CGs to construct nav beacons (or even a semi-automatic system whereby if a given number of CMDRs sells the data for a system it gets a beacon automatically) which would decrease the travel time between those systems and so speed the expansion of the frontier.

Yet the galaxy, even the middle of it, is relatively small in comparison to what can be reached. A one week trip was enough for me to say, yeah, I reached my goal, but the sky's the limit to anyone deciding they want to see how large the galaxy really is. I think if they took the time to actually explore the galaxy and not just the bubble, they would see how large it really is.

Technology improves over time. We can travel to Mars at a faster rate than we ever could before. That doesn't mean we should quit developing technology simply because we are able to reach Mars.

 

[Surprised Brony]

Asking for no more FSD jump range is like saying extra firepower, shield, hull resistance or power generation are useless. Having 50ly is comfortable and you need that kind of range for few things.

For the sake of the health of the game, some numbers are better off not being inflated further. Higher numbers always are useful, but the game can suffer for it at some point.

 

[Rock-Hermit]

I'm talking about increasing the FSD range by ~50%.

Why ~50% though? Why don't you want it to be a 75% or 100% increase? What makes 50% your sweet spot?

I'm not talking about extremes, like instantly jumping to wherever you.

But why not? The galaxy has 400 billion stars, even if we can instantly jump anywhere we could never visit them all in a lifetime.

 

[galahad2069]

You're still not understanding the issue. It's not the crappy jump range I want, it's the loss of meaning to the shape of the galaxy - the fact that there are arms and gaps where the star density drops and IMO you should be forced to navigate carefully. All that is gone now.

There is also the loss of places where I knew that to get there I would need to jump at least 1800 time - even in the best ship. Those places are gone now.

There are people who don't give a damn about the shape of the galaxy. They can enjoy getting somewhere with less number of jumps.

And there are people (like you) who do. You can fine tune your jump range to your liking and thus feel the shape, structure and spaciousness of the Galaxy as you wish, without forcing the same way of thinking on others.

I think it's quite understandable that most people won't find amusement in doing their favourite activity 1800 times, let alone staring at a loading screen, however pretty it is.

That's the same thing you're criticising me for! No one is forcing you to travel in an FDL or Vulture. Ride a DBX and transfer your combat ship.

No, this is a false parallelism.

If you choose your jump range carefully, which you are free to do, you can have the exact same perception of the size and shape of the Galaxy as you had pre-engineers.

On the other hand I won't get my FDL somewhere faster by travelling in a DBX and transporting the FDL (which I quite often do BTW), because ship transport is not instantaneous, so it will eat up my precious game time regardless.

 

[John Xenir]

I wonder: has anyone actually mentioned that the increased FSD jump range also translates to overall greater range?
This actually aids long-range exploration nicely.

 

[biohazard15]

To those people who find travel tedious - stop travelling so far and stop shrinking the galaxy for me! You've always got the choice to travel shorter distances, but if I want to travel to place that I *know* is at least 1800 jumps away, well, I can't do that any more! I don't have even that choice any more.

And what exactly prevents you from doing so? The fact another player can do it in 900 jumps?

For those people who find travel tedious, what jump range would be enough? 100Ly? 500Ly? 1000Ly? 65 jumps to Beagle Point? One jump to anywhere in the bubble?

100 Ly on a fully engineered DBX would be nice, for starters at least.

 

[Urbanski101]

*Facepalm*

Yes, and once upon a time it took months to cross the Atlantic ocean to reach the US, now it takes hours because we have aircraft.

Progress, things move on. I can just hear Columbus...."what, 5 hrs? It took me frikkin months to make that crossing, and I had no GPS, just used stars and old charts....nerf airplanes...now"

p.s. what the hell is happening on these forums, every other thread is asking for a nerf 'cos I don't like it'....definitely coming to these forums less and less these days, it's become a total whine fest :S

 

[Allitnil]

I can well believe that someone has reached a point where there just aren't anymore stars in front of them already.

It was possible to get to that situation in some places pre-Engineers. Indeed, the furthest proc-gen system from Sag A* was reached only a month or so after Horizons was launched.

 

[biohazard15]

*Facepalm*

Yes, and once upon a time it took months to cross the Atlantic ocean to reach the US, now it takes hours because we have aircraft.

Progress, things move on. I can just hear Columbus...."what, 5 hrs? It took me frikkin months to make that crossing, and I had no GPS, just used stars and old charts....nerf airplanes...now"

p.s. what the hell is happening on these forums, every other thread is asking for a nerf 'cos I don't like it'....definitely coming to these forums less and less these days, it's become a total whine fest :S

There are always some luddites who think that in their sweet time Sun shined brighter and the grass was greener. Always will be, I guess.

Thankfully, most whines are truly ridiculous (like this one), and thus sink to the bottom without any attention from FD.

 

[Jigster]

Being able to zip across the bubble in double quick time has made the game more enjoyable for me.