Longrange hyperjump

[Psychomorph]

I have read this thread and in the past read peoples opinion on the subject of travel, particularly deep space travel and that many are displeased with how it is handled.
The way it is set up now is that you have to repeatedly manually perform short range jumps. I once tried to get to the core and realised that I spent about two weeks, nearly daily at least one hour free time, experiencing the most bland and mind crippling gameplay, so that I burnt out on ED and didn't play it for a year. To put it less dramatic (or more), it is an unethical grind with zero reward.

I heard people traveled to the other side of the Galaxy in a Sidewinder, I respect that, but it's something kids would do after school as challenge. I can't afford to sink in the bit of free time I have for a game that doesn't reward me with the necessary enjoyment and the issue is that I bought the game for deep space exploration specifically. I have never paid so much money for a game (more than 100 Euro), including expensive HOTAS, just so that I can experience deep space exploration and it puts you through this kind of torture. This is, as I said, unethical. I still like ED and like to return to it every time and love the new changes to exploration (much more fun), but the travel system is still a problem.


Contrary to the thread above I do not ask for an easy and quick solution, but a solution that still respects peoples free time. I remember seeing the route to Luke in the recent Star Wars film, which had a path over half the Galaxy, with few jump points and later they spent time in hyperjump travel, which lasted more than few minutes. I assume they made long range jumps, each lasting days and total travel time of maybe a week or more (just guessing, maybe months). You see this in every sci-fi film, where they spend some time in persistent hyper travel (Star Trek, Star Wars, etc). Something similar is what I'd like to see in ED:

- Like with real vessels (ships, airplanes) the maximum range is limited by fuel. So the fuel would be also a limit, not some abstract jump limitation.
- In the galaxy map you could set a fuel limit for a long range hyperjump (say 90% fuel consumption, or 60%, whatever you feel is safe) and it would show you a bubble around you which would be the maximum travel range for the percentage of fuel consumption that you have set.
- You set any star within that bubble as destination and the computer shows you the travel time in earth hours that the jump is going to take.
- You simply align the ship and engage the hyper jump.

The way this should work is that a long range jump would allow you to travel a significant portion at once (like spending 7 hours repeated manual jumping, only it's one jump), only it would not take less time, it would take exactly those 7 hours (or even more perhaps), but you could exit the game, go to work, spend the day productively and come back later.
If the deadline for arrival has passed, you will find your ship floating before the star of destination (autopilot drops you out of super cruise), if the deadline has not passed yet, you will find yourself still in hyper jump hours later. You could any time drop out of the hyper jump. You can open the Galaxy map and see how your marker slowly moves across the galactic plane on the set course, you can mark a star nearby, drop out of hyperspace and hyperjump to the nearest star, explore it and then continue the long range travel until next time you have free time to play the game.

It would also be great if you could access the panels while in hyperjump, so you can read the Codex, listen to the podcasts/radio, chat, check systems, etc. while you are traveling.

This would not be an easy and quick solution, as I am myself against wormholes and jump gates, it would take the time it does to travel across the Galaxy, but the game would not ask of you to spent hours upon hours to mindlessly repeat the same bland task of performing dozens or hundreds of a single minute long mini-hyperjumps.
That would be for plain galactic long range travel. If you wish to explore every system en route you obviously need to play the game they way it is, but if you have a specific destination in mind, it will take the time, but the game will respect your real life time also. We need this.

 

[777Driver]

(airplanes) the maximum range is limited by fuel. So the fuel would be also a limit, not some abstract jump limitation.

Actually in reality the range is based on gross weight (weight of fuel + payload + zero fuel weight) hence why heavy freighters do hops with multiple cargo stops. Was quite surprised when I first loaded ED and noticed they had modelled jump range on the same thing.

Would still like your idea though. I had hoped it would be seamless travel between stars, with econ modes for slower travel less fuel burn and meaningful fuel costs. Star Citizen is like that, that game looks and plays amazing now on a fast rig.

 

[Riverside]

I like the way ED implements jumps between systems but there have been occasions where I wished I could override the max fuel per jump limitation and perform a single jump of extended range. With synthesis as it is currently in the game I can get close to this but I like your idea of unlocking the full fuel tank better.

So as an alternative to synthesis yes.
As an alternative to plotting an up to 20,000ly route and manually flying the ship there (the thing I bought the game to do - fly a spaceship), no.

 

[rOmiLaYu]

Until they implement Elite Feet, I'm altogether unsure how far any of us can jump.

 

[Achibot]

The current design philosophy argues against "making the universe smaller", which your suggestion does and so I suspect you might well end up disappointed here. I'm not against it persae but at the same time I can jump from one end of the galaxy to another pretty quickly (approx. 9hrs playtime) in a high jump range ship, although I'm certainly not going to argue the exercise is interesting, unless you add your own gameplay or goals in between. As such, it's never going to be for everyone but I doubt it will change all the same.

 

[Wendake]

I like the idea that it still "costs" time but in that case you can plan your travel with playing and non-playing hours so you can plot your route to a nebulea in the morning before going to work and then come back at home and spend time actually exploring the nebulae system by system.

Also, players doing long-range wouldn't have the benefit of getting exploration data / money from those long-range travels which is good for balance.

 

[Riverside]

I like the idea that it still "costs" time but in that case you can plan your travel with playing and non-playing hours so you can plot your route to a nebulea in the morning before going to work and then come back at home and spend time actually exploring the nebulae system by system.

Also, players doing long-range wouldn't have the benefit of getting exploration data / money from those long-range travels which is good for balance.

There has been a great deal of discussion over an autopilot. In general it's not a feature I want but if it were implemented as long as it could be done more quickly manually (ie it doesn't become the meta to AFK your way around the galaxy) I don't really mind. Might make bots easier to programme & that probably wouldn't go down well with the powerplay & bgs communities.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

I really don't like the idea if i'm honest, it also breaks the game developer cardinal sin of encouraging people to turn the game off. The Elite series of games isn't Eve, its not a management screen game where you send ships around or queue up a few activities before leaving the pc. It's always been about the player piloting a ship and for me this breaks that too.

Allow me to ramble on for a bit, incoming essay:


Travel isn't what it used to be and the atmosphere has changed:
Max possible jump range has increased over 600% since launch with jumponium, engineering, guardian FSD booster, neutron stars. The absolute best time from Sol-Sag A* was 8hrs+ and even that was after many attempts to perfect the run.
Long distance travel was a challenge, an endurance test, you were actually far from home and it felt that way. When Jaques appeared in Colonia it was really like being on the frontier far from home and braving the journey gave you a camaraderie with the others who had made the trip. The Abyss to Beagle point actually required skill to route through successfully and there was a risk of being stuck, people made it their job in the game to find and publish routes to take. On Distant Worlds 1 I remember reducing fuel in my main tank to make a few tight jumps, these days even Sidewinder can make 41Ly and cruise over the abyss like its any other place!
Back then It was a journey to a destination and it was so far it made no sense to rush it so most people actually made the most of said trip and enjoyed it rather than grinding out jumps to get somewhere.

As it stands the best time from Sol-Sag A* is a touch under 2 hours, the time from Sol-Jaques is 1hr 47 minutes. I even did Sol-Beagle point run in 6hrs 35 minutes myself just to make a point about the jump range inflation creep! <- Both Jaques and Beagle times are before the latest Engineering changes and Guardian FSD booster too so the actual time to Beagle is definitely possible sub 6 hours now, I actually have a plan to re-run that particular thing after the upcoming Distant Worlds 2 expedition!
Sure that's the best times in a racing configuration but I'd wager with an hours practice at neutron jumping and an engineered ship most players could do 7,000-8,000Ly per hour consistently in a DBX/Asp/Conda.

Shortly put the galaxy is now small enough that people are making these 10,000ly+ distances purely to get to the goal at the other end, as you are/were. A lot of things that made those destinations and the journey to them great are being eroded. If players haven't got the playtime that's a fair discussion point, however, there there are groups that will fly out to places where you can multi-crew into their ships and see it in glorious 3rd person camera mode whilst they fly you around.

I'd agree that at inception jump ranges were too low, particularly combat ships. However, I think at current status they a little too high, we shouldn't be able to get to the other side of the galaxy in an afternoon or weekend. Or at the press of a button.

Implementing the long jump idea as it stands and I can all but guarantee there will be scores of people who fill a Cutter/Anaconda full of fuel tanks which are fairly cheap, click on "Sagittarius A*", leave the game for a week, play 20 minutes to see it then press "Sol" and leave the game for another week. That to me sounds like a terrible outcome. It'd make the accomplishment of the journey irrelevant and basically encourage people to take a few weeks off to see a destination or two.


Why I disagree specifically with the arguement made here:
That's all general about the concept, so going to discuss your reasoning specifically as well since it confuses me a bit if I'm honest: If Elite is unethical and lacking respect for the jump screens then literally all video games are also unethical and lacking respect right? That raid boss locked behind level 90 unlock, that character unlock you only get by beating the game, that weapon that costs 18 gazillion dollars, that final ending cut-scene you have to play the whole 30+ hour story to see. Simply put welcome to video games, it's how they work, you pay with both cash and time unless you buy a game with pay to win.
Yes you paid a lot for the game but I assume you chose to buy the game knowing it's a realistic simulation of our galaxy 1:1 scale, from what I read thats probably part of what sold it for you? Even going in blind on day 1 of kickstarter there are precedents in the other games within the Elite series to guestimate how it would work. As soon as the gamma(?) came out the streamers were on it so everything was pretty much revealed at that point should you have bought Elite later in the kickstarter or after launch.
Overall you decided to go for an objective that wasn't personally achievable and burnt out. I have sympathy to a point but its not a difficult calculation to work out 25,000ly in say a 35ly ship is 715ish jumps and at 1 jump a minute that's going to be 12 hours flight time. For similar reasons I never bothered with going to the centre in NMS because the repeated refuel planet gathering loop wasn't going to be fun for the 55 hours I guestimated it'd take, since I wasn't really interested in setting up shop there as the mechanics were identical across the galaxy. Instead I watched the end bit on you-tube and enjoyed messing around locally.

Yes I'm all for reducing the hyperspace animation/loading screen time, yes I'd be in favour of changing it from 5-4-3-2-1 just to 3-2-1 or even "engaging" or something. Yes I'm all for adding some gameplay where you can fly certain routes perhaps to speed things up, neutron boosting is actually really aligned with what I think should be done, allowing skill and risk to provide a speed benefit. However to answer this idea/post/thread specifically no I don't want to trivialise long distance travel.


My final round-off really boils down to a question: You state you are into deep space exploration, however, the mechanics of exploration are no different in the core from anywhere else. Sure there's a unique place or two like Sag A* but if you find the exploration gameplay "crippling" what is the difference to that same gameplay loop when you reach your destination?
If it's all about the destination then multi-crew group or youtube. If it's about the gameplay then why put yourself through something you don't enjoy when the mechanics are identical? Personally I'd rather they put in some interesting gameplay rather than telling people to go leave the game and come back later.

 

[Psychomorph]

@777Driver:
Of course you're right about the weight and Star Citizen is shaping up nicely indeed.

I like the way ED implements jumps between systems but there have been occasions where I wished I could override the max fuel per jump limitation and perform a single jump of extended range. With synthesis as it is currently in the game I can get close to this but I like your idea of unlocking the full fuel tank better.

So as an alternative to synthesis yes.
As an alternative to plotting an up to 20,000ly route and manually flying the ship there (the thing I bought the game to do - fly a spaceship), no.

It would be like an extended jump, farther than rows of manual jumps, but travel time would be increased compared to manual jumping. You go slower, burn less fuel and by this can go farther, so a single such jump would take time that you don't need to actively spend that time in the cockpit.

If speed is your priority, than you would need to do the manual jumping for most efficiency.

I like the idea that it still "costs" time but in that case you can plan your travel with playing and non-playing hours so you can plot your route to a nebulea in the morning before going to work and then come back at home and spend time actually exploring the nebulae system by system.

Also, players doing long-range wouldn't have the benefit of getting exploration data / money from those long-range travels which is good for balance.

Exactly. There is a trade off to everything. You're going to miss everything on the path, no data and as said above the travel would actually take more time compared to active travel.

The current design philosophy argues against "making the universe smaller", which your suggestion does and so I suspect you might well end up disappointed here. I'm not against it persae but at the same time I can jump from one end of the galaxy to another pretty quickly (approx. 9hrs playtime) in a high jump range ship, although I'm certainly not going to argue the exercise is interesting, unless you add your own gameplay or goals in between. As such, it's never going to be for everyone but I doubt it will change all the same.

Imagine you see a destination in front of you and start jogging toward it. It is an active process, that requires you to put in some physical work and you are fully occupied with that task, but you get there eventually relatively fast (since you are running).

Now imagine you are walking toward it and read something on your phone while doing so. It is a less involved process, you're not going to pay attention to the surrounding and remember anything. You are not going to arrive there that fast, but it is a physically less difficult task and you have performed a secondary task while at that (read an article).

Does the second way make the universe smaller? The perception is different. One way might not be better than the other, but you might be needing the one more than the other at a given time.

My final round-off really boils down to a question: You state you are into deep space exploration, however, the mechanics of exploration are no different in the core from anywhere else. Sure there's a unique place or two like Sag A* but if you find the exploration gameplay "crippling" what is the difference to that same gameplay loop when you reach your destination?

I don't find the exploration game play crippling, but the long range travel mechanics. When I reach the destination, I have spent days if not weeks having had the most bland gaming experience, after which I need a break from the game far from being excited to finally explore.

Of course, exploration can be done anywhere, right in front of the bubbles door step, wont even take you half an hour of travel, but that limitation is exactly what makes the Galaxy feel so small.

I really don't like the idea if i'm honest, it also breaks the game developer cardinal sin of encouraging people to turn the game off.

Some aspects of Elite Dangerous encourage people to turn the game off for way too long.


I understand your argument about the Galaxy should feel like a vast space and I agree that I don't want that to change too much. My argument is not to present a faster way to travel, but one where the mere perk is that you have some time off the flight stick. You would not single jump to the core, you would still need to perform a number of such jumps, because you're still limited by fuel. The universe would not shrink as much as you fear. Someone who awakened from hyper sleep would probably not think of the world as being a smaller place.


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I must say that the extensive row of mini-jumps makes the game feel more gamey to me, while a more persistent hyper space travel (as you see in Sci-Fi films often), makes it feel less so. I guess there is always another side of the coin in an argument.

Think of Han Solo needing to do 40 second jumps from star to star for a couple of days. He'd go insane. That is how I felt when I did.

 

[Siobhan]

Until they implement Elite Feet, I'm altogether unsure how far any of us can jump.

Not as far as a goat.

 

[Hanerib]

If I could change something in this game, then route plotting would only work for known, honked systems, where arrival star would be already scanned. Otherwise jump destination would have to picked from galaxy map or nav panel. This would in effect create a frontier of known systems, where travel would not require much attention, and pathways across the galaxy. Creating some pathways would become a project. Travelling to distant places would require navigation for years to come. Jumping off the known grid would sometimes result in misjumps, variably ending up somewhere where you were not supposed to.

Then there would be the dark systems, which won't appear on galaxy map at all, only in nav panel. Brown dwarfs, etc. Sometimes the system would only be a few asteroids orbiting some forgotten dark, icy planet. Then you would have some of these in the bubble, put some asteroid stations in them, or a megaship, interesting faction names, black markets, no nav beacons. Sometimes a system would show up in nav panel only from one system. Then you would finally start playing with permits.

It would be relatively inexpensive to do, create a lot of depth to this game, and be faithful to original game designs. Fdev, there is still time. People still play old and weird online games, not because they have beautiful legs, but they had something very interesting about them.

 

[Villeruff]

I can't afford to sink in the bit of free time I have for a game that doesn't reward me with the necessary enjoyment and the issue is that I bought the game for deep space exploration specifically.

So you do have time, you just don't like the gameplay. One of EVE's selling points is that you can make progress while logged out. Maybe that'd be more interesting.

 

[varonica]

I like the way ED implements jumps between systems but there have been occasions where I wished I could override the max fuel per jump limitation and perform a single jump of extended range. With synthesis as it is currently in the game I can get close to this but I like your idea of unlocking the full fuel tank better.

Hmm, how are FDEV going to handle the multiple requests from new players and experienced players when they use all thier fuel on a single jump and realise they have jumped into a system with a non-scoopable star? Me? I would just let them die, but the salt on the forums would be almost unbearable. Now the other thing is, fuel use increases almost exponentially with jump distance, the way it works at the moment even a T7 filled with fuel tanks would be lucky to jump 200ly in a single jump, which brings up another point, how exactly do you feed 700 tons of fuel into the FSD? You see larger FSD's use more fuel and jump further because they can take a larger fuel load, but how exactly do you move 700 tons of fuel instantly from multiple 64 and 32 ton fuel tanks to the FSD even if it could take that much fuel? Yes I know it's a game and "actual" laws of physics don't apply, but i would like it to be kept as clsoe to rality as possible, and movign that much fuel a round the ship is simply not going to work. An FSD jump is not like driving a car where the fuel gets fed in slowly, you pump in t he max it can take and convert it all to energy to power the interstellar jump.

Basically the entire travel system would need to be re-written, as it is now we get further range using mods and devices that don't impact directly the travel system itself, but once you get into re-envisioning the way that FSD's actually work you have a really big job ahead.

 

[Lestat]

Here another idea. Engineer your ship and use Netruon superhighway. You can get to Colonia in under 107 jumps with a ship with 70ly jump range.

 

[Psychomorph]

If I could change something in this game, then route plotting would only work for known, honked systems, where arrival star would be already scanned. Otherwise jump destination would have to picked from galaxy map or nav panel. This would in effect create a frontier of known systems, where travel would not require much attention, and pathways across the galaxy. Creating some pathways would become a project. Travelling to distant places would require navigation for years to come. Jumping off the known grid would sometimes result in misjumps, variably ending up somewhere where you were not supposed to.

Then there would be the dark systems, which won't appear on galaxy map at all, only in nav panel. Brown dwarfs, etc. Sometimes the system would only be a few asteroids orbiting some forgotten dark, icy planet. Then you would have some of these in the bubble, put some asteroid stations in them, or a megaship, interesting faction names, black markets, no nav beacons. Sometimes a system would show up in nav panel only from one system. Then you would finally start playing with permits.

It would be relatively inexpensive to do, create a lot of depth to this game, and be faithful to original game designs. Fdev, there is still time. People still play old and weird online games, not because they have beautiful legs, but they had something very interesting about them.

You absolutely speak my mind. I imagined deep space exploration in a game generally like this. Where finding the destination and traveling the route and arriving there would be THE gameplay and not just an implicitness. Deep space sensors would scan the space and pick up signals and radio waves, etc., much like our large telescopes do, but as a future tech version with some fictional advancements, so you can lock on those and dare the jump and chart it. Of course, visible stars would be visible, but you'd still need to let the computer run some data. That would slow things down, but it would be involved exploration game play, like mining is now, a bit arduous, but less bland than it used to be and more fun nonetheless.

Jumping into the system would open up like a mini universe in itself to you. There you could further analyze the materials that the system has so that could become the drive for a slow expansion of the human space and potential deep space colonization. I think it would be good to initially limit the vastness of the Galaxy and focus on making systems worthwhile, with weather effects, stellar phenomena, more geological in depth activities, levels of atmosphere. Basically beginning less mile wide and a bit more inches deep and later expanding the Galaxy with the working systems.

In any case, the hour is too late for this Elite game to do something like this, but maybe in the future there will be a game some time. Elite is still an excellent space exploration game nonetheless, the only of it's kind right now.

So you do have time, you just don't like the gameplay. One of EVE's selling points is that you can make progress while logged out. Maybe that'd be more interesting.

Yes, I don't like that particular aspect of gameplay. I can't ask for it to change, but instead try to come up with alternatives that might be worth thinking about.

Suggesting EVE, a game with even more grind and higher learning curve (I never played it, but heard things) is like offering me a slower car if I complain about the speed of my current.
Besides, a cockpit view with free head look is my number one requirement. Not gonna touch a space game if there is no free head look.

Here another idea. Engineer your ship and use Netruon superhighway. You can get to Colonia in under 107 jumps with a ship with 70ly jump range.

Engineering is definitely going to be something to look into for me, because of it. Generally not fan of the engineering feature, too much discrepancy in consistency, too much randomness.

 

[Radixbase]

Engineering is definitely going to be something to look into for me, because of it. Generally not fan of the engineering feature, too much discrepancy in consistency, too much randomness.

That was changed a while ago. It's very consistent now. Unlocking the engineers is a royal pain but Felicity farseer is fairly easy.. That's the fsd engineer. To echo everyone else.. My phantom gets about 65ly. With a neutron boost that's 260ly jump. I can get to Colonia, 22k ly away, in about 3 hours. This is a crazy improvement from less than a year ago. Also there's talk of a station being built near beagle point.

My point there is that the universe is shrinking but it's being done "in character" not from asking for a deus ex machina to drop it in. I think what you are asking for is in fact coming but it will come as the story progresses and those people, like you and me, exploring the galaxy and humping building materials to Colonia are helping progress that.

Maybe, just maybe, guardian or thargoid research will lead us to better witchspace tech, since they are creatures of hyperspace. We already have a guardian fsd booster which adds 10ly. I'm sure that's not the end. I'd actually like to see jump gate tech from the bubble to Colonia. Of course you miss the exploration in between etc, but not everyone is trailblazing.

 

[Phazon Xenomorph]

Actually in reality the range is based on gross weight (weight of fuel + payload + zero fuel weight) hence why heavy freighters do hops with multiple cargo stops. Was quite surprised when I first loaded ED and noticed they had modelled jump range on the same thing.

Would still like your idea though. I had hoped it would be seamless travel between stars, with econ modes for slower travel less fuel burn and meaningful fuel costs. Star Citizen is like that, that game looks and plays amazing now on a fast rig.

Actually . Star Citizen is still in development hell trying to sell ships for thousands of real dollars. Even when it comes out it'll be dead on arrival.

 

[uliando]

Well I'd love to have hypercruise instead. SO you could supercruise your supercruise and go fast or slow but your fuel would drain lot faster. Instead of jump range you'd have less fuel consumption or something.

 

[Non Grata]

I just hope an ethical solution can be found to all this.

 

[777Driver]

Actually . Star Citizen is still in development hell trying to sell ships for thousands of real dollars. Even when it comes out it'll be dead on arrival.

Haha, ookay. In the mean time I'll keep enjoying it with my mates, amazing graphics, excellent performance on a good rig, entire citys and planets handcrafted, major flight dynamics update coming shortly, haven't spent a penny on a ship (I will happily chip in after the flight dynamics update)

You SC bashers are like broken records, it is hilarious. Give it a rest, many are enjoying the hard work those devs are putting in, I couldn't care less if Chris Roberts is trying to sell capital class ships for $2000+, I wanted an immersive space sim and I got one.

[video=youtube;6iv70JP0s1U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iv70JP0s1U[/video]

Performance wise it runs great on 10 and 20 series cards.

[video=youtube_share;RpYiEg59pZs]https://youtu.be/RpYiEg59pZs?t=575[/video]