Remove the traveling grind

[Para Handy]

That is actually a strawman statement, please, .........

No it wasn't a strawman ARGUMENT (perhaps you need to look-up what that means?) - it quite specifically addressed the point that you want your ship to be flown by an entity other than yourself.


... and yes the same suggestion comes up every couple of weeks.


So seriously, instead of mistakenly labelling my comment on someone else's post, why not answer the question I posed directly to you pages ago: What is the purpose of your suggestion, why would it be needed in these days of Engineers, Guardian Boosters, NS-boosts, etc?

 

[Shinji Ikari]

That is actually a strawman statement, please, you are not flying anything, you are playing a game, playing games is a way to pass time in a enjoyable way, I spend a lot of time in flight sims, they are actually designed to replicate flying a real airplane as much as you can on a PC, they got AP, how boring is that, no no mate you must fly the air plane [haha]

Multi star jumps was actually something FDEV had on the drawing board from the beginning, they also had NPC crew, we never got any of those, we (who don’t know how to code) was of the belief it was because it was difficult to do, but then We saw someone do it during a weekends of coding and it worked beautifully, they all hell broke lose and it was removed, never the less there was people who had everything on rails, including trading, now I don’t want that, I just wished I could at least jump 5 or 10 stars without the need to do this utterly boring game mechanic, and that is also why I actually don’t log in and play more in Elite, that’s a shame actually because there is a lot I do like, however traveling around is something you need to do no matter where you go.

And I’m sure I’m not the only one who feel this way.

When and where did FD say that?

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Easy to fix, you can’t use it if the system is not explored, so that is not an argument, next.

The system you want to go or the systems in between? By "explored" you mean that your CMDR has been there, that someone has been there, that it has population in it?

 

[Shinji Ikari]

No, that is not the point, the point is to keep exploration protected, so if someone has already explored the system and sold the data, you can buy it and use it to travel using A) NPC helmsman or B) Autopilot what you want is just to make it hard for everyone, not to protect exploration, if someone already explored the system, it’s not unknown anymore is it?

Even if explored, reaching a system is a milestone in the eyes of many explorers, your idea will make that sense of achievement dissapear.

 

[Junagu]

It occurred to me the other day that E is designed with a lot of gaps, space, seemingly spurious blanks all over the place and so on because there really needs to be time and breathing room to allow us to do things around the main game elements: like set up module settings and fire groups, check maps, drum up some response from the squadron chat stream, etc , etc. Assuming that there will be more Game in the future and not less then this is a pretty shrewd/canny move in the game design as otherwise it would very quickly become overwhelming and fragmented. I think that it is a deliberate and long-held policy of the game design. Less is more.

But that's me - not whinging like an entitled brat white knighting again

 

[Hydrino]

Instant travel from one point to another (presumably a point you've already visited) makes sense in an RPG, but none in a space simulator.

If you had "jump gates" they would be no-go areas in open, as every ganker in existence would congregate there. They also have no Elite lore to back them up.

As a player who is time-poor myself, I appreciate what you are saying, but it doesn't really fit with Elite as a game. I mean, if you just set your ASP on auto-pilot to Beagle Point then logged off and came back in a week, what has been achieved? You won't have saved any time, you'd have just not played. So I'd say "No" to any kind of auto-pilot.

How else could it work? How could we change it?

• Maybe if we removed the single-jump restriction and allow ships to jump their total range in a single "leap". The witch-space tunnel would last longer and the FSD cool-down would also be longer (minutes, not seconds). This could always be done with some Guardian tech "Frame-shift modulator". Yes, you go further faster, but while the "FSD modulator" cools, you could do a bit of exploring.
• Also (a long desired function) have the ability to direct-jump to any star in a star system, either from within or from without that system (provided we had visited it in our ship to lock in the location).

I would think that those changes could improve QoL without breaking the core of the game.

The points from Arithon are the ones I could support (micro-jump - but only to secondary stars, please FD my eyes bleed from watching a countdown timer wasting 15 minutes of play time just to explore around secondary stars ... ).

Also, it makes zero sense to be able to route to any star in the galaxy... when only .03% or whatever is actually explored/visited by players.

*Rather the exploration mechanic should be further enhanced than 3.3 in alignment but maybe a bit enhanced as well to the original DDF proposal.

To wit, players could only target unexplored stars on the galactic map that are in their jump range, and have a mis-jump possibility. Once an explorer visited they could drop a crafted / 3d-printed NAV Beacon at each star in the system to facilitate jumps. ONLY when explorer returned to Interstellar Cartographics with the data would star data and direct route plotting exceeding one jump become available for other pilots to use.

The current very gamey mechanic of being able to mouse around the Galaxy (and find stuff sometimes, btw, like Jacques), is not aligned with original proposal nor realism in a sim and frankly allows more shallow game-play and doesn't spark player cooperation and cool view of "what has been mapped" that would be available to everyone.

Nav-beacons lighting the way to Sag-A, Beagle Point, etc. The famous routes would be even easier to follow and more famous.

But auto-pilot for hyperspace is a no for me, sorry OP because I agree the "press J and wait" game mechanic for long travel really stinks, especially in un-engineered ships.

 

[Hydrino]

Here a better idea instead of complaining about 800 Jumps start Engineer your ship some and use some common sense gameplay and use neutron stars to jump farther. I known some who gone from Sol to Colonia in 107 Jump less than 2 hours.

Well, that's still 2 hours of limited game-time spent pressing J and watching the jump animation rather than something more interesting.
But travel is certainly a lot of the "play" involved with Elite. I get mixed feelings as I sympathize with explorers who "put in the time". But I also see some of my sessions where I spend 30 minutes or more just to get to where I want to be, so I can do what I want to do. Travelling to Guardian sites from the bubble is a recent example where in my ship it was a half hour.

Now, if more interesting stuff happened during the jump, if FD enhanced the mechanics overall and included micro-jumps only to secondary stars, I'd probably be a lot happier spending 30 minutes getting where I want to go.

Another option could be if FD let us start the game wherever we had a stored ship. I know some will scream about that idea, but it really would not affect anyone at all so screaming about it is stupid, but it would make it a lot easier to play with friends in a home system as well as doing other stuff without having to buy a full game copy 10 times over- which would just be ridiculous to even suggest.

My takeaway is really that FD could make this process more interesting and certainly for me the start of that is to revisit the DDF topic, mis-jumps, micro-jumps to secondary stars, dark systems, mysterious places, more PvE chances, falling out of jump in no system at all but just out in the black between stars, Player placed Nav Beacons, varying fuel quality, more fun scooping mechanic (hopefully comes with atmospheres), etc.

 

[CMDR Big Mike]

I think the current mechanic works fine. its one of the more "sim" aspects to the game IMO. It is easy to think of a car moving down a highway or a boat sailing across the sea. From the outside they would both seem to be cruising along without issue. The reality, however, is that both require constant input form the person driving/ at the helm. A solution from the path OP is going down would look like autopilot with nothing to fill the dead time. (BAD).

What would be cool is spacelegs. Space legs would allow you to hop on a transport ship, perhaps a luxury liner, and travel as a passenger. They could put an arcade with access to CQC or other fun stuff aboard the transports. Then you could have your ship delivered once you arrive at the destination.

 

[Lestat]

107 jumps! Sorry I start to look like my avatar after 10 jumps....

Take shorter trips. Or do more exploration. All I feel you are trying to do is Dumb down a game because you are unwilling to update your ship. Remember laziness is not a skill unless you are trying to make it as a skill?

 

[Firebeard]

Whereas it is becoming de rigueur for "I don't actually want to fly my ship" proposals every other week.

My response: go play EVE or X4 where you need never actually fly your ship!

See this is what puts folks backs up.

I DO fly my ship - I've played Eve and X4 and 3030 Deathwar Redux (which I'm some respects does hyperspace better than elite) I've played Frontier, Wing Commander, Privateer, X wing, Tie Fighter and I'm sure I've missed some.

In a "suggestions" forum I figured ideas could be mooted and discussed. There is an enormous timesink in travelling which - as a working man sometimes I have to opt to not play Elite because I have marking to do.

To respond to a suggestion with effectively " off to another game" shows that you are so intransigent in your approach you won't even consider a system that you would never use.

If you want to suggest counter arguments, reasons it would break gameplay, or simply reasons it wouldn't work - fine but the most productive posts here have taken the "autopilot" idea and suggested ways it could make travel actually fun (and more immersive).

 

[Para Handy]

See this is what puts folks backs up.

I DO fly my ship - I've played Eve and X4 and 3030 Deathwar Redux (which I'm some respects does hyperspace better than elite) I've played Frontier, Wing Commander, Privateer, X wing, Tie Fighter and I'm sure I've missed some.

In a "suggestions" forum I figured ideas could be mooted and discussed. There is an enormous timesink in travelling which - as a working man sometimes I have to opt to not play Elite because I have marking to do.

To respond to a suggestion with effectively " off to another game" shows that you are so intransigent in your approach you won't even consider a system that you would never use.

If you want to suggest counter arguments, reasons it would break gameplay, or simply reasons it wouldn't work - fine but the most productive posts here have taken the "autopilot" idea and suggested ways it could make travel actually fun (and more immersive).

You ignore my point though - which is that there is very little "grind" in travel these days anyway. Seriously, you think 5 jumps is "grind"? "Timesink"? Please, you have got to be joking.

I am not telling people to go play another game, I am saying that those games have the ability to have your ship(s) flown without you doing the flying - so if you just don't want to fly your ship - there you can have that. However in Elite there is supposedly a lore reasoning that advanced computing / AI is banned / outlawed so a complex multi-jump computer just shouldn't exist. Even Jacques, which was a relic of before, couldn't manage long-distance travel and he had a whole station available.

As for your last sentence, all I can say is that is a fine example of selective perception.

 

[Yure]

I would rather keep the jumping It makes the game more interactive. The auto jump feature seems boring.

Good thing it would be optional with an autopilot module.

 

[Yure]

I can see one big issue with that idea that wouldnt fly with alot of players, heck placing such a thing in the game would end up in a mass desertion from the game by alot of ppl.

Its boring? Dont fly mate! Play something else!

Why i say many ppl would leave?

Exploring!!!

U are exploring... U took the time and effort to actually fly the distance to get to some place, and u have been doing it for months, years?! And all of the sudden now there is this mechanics, and some guy that just started now can set its ship in autopilot and get to where it was so hard for u to get and can get here with no effort and beat u to a discovery...
I can see the outcry from miles away if such a feature would ever be implemented!

Also with such a feature, the galaxy would shrink alot, and the exploration part of this game would instantly became a joke...

Nah! I get why u want such a feature, but i dont agree with it, unless it was limited in use, lets say it was only usable in the bubble in systems that had lets say a nav beacon that supported that, wich would prevent ppl from abusing the system.

Technically the feature wouldn't be honking, so your not exploring, your just travelling. So the point is moot.

 

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

Ah yes, another "I don't want to fly a spaceship" in a spaceship flying game. I wish the FPS crowd would go play those games and stop trying to ruin a game based around flying spaceships.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

Ah yes, another "I don't want to fly a spaceship" in a spaceship flying game. I wish the FPS crowd would go play those games and stop trying to ruin a game based around flying spaceships.

That comes across as a little crass. It seems to me more accurate to say "I want to do more than just fly a spaceship in a spaceship flying game that I see greater potential for than what is currently implemented".
Expansion and change does not necessarily equate to ruination.

Taking each suggestion on a case-by-case basis, identifying any issues, assisting in solving or mitigating those issues where possible, or helping to otherwise improve upon the suggestion if possible would be more constructive in my opinion than attempting to categorise and dismiss. If after specific review you can't see the feature as being one that players enjoy in the game, or that would be found to be useful by many, then you'd have a case for opposing it on that basis.

 

[Yure]

Ah yes, another "I don't want to fly a spaceship" in a spaceship flying game. I wish the FPS crowd would go play those games and stop trying to ruin a game based around flying spaceships.

Nope. Just rather not do the mousewheel left or right 5 seconds then J button for two hours when I want to get somewhere.

It a spaceship game, I want same technology as Thargoids. It a been a year already. We would have reversed engineered the hell out of their systems by now in 2019.

Just trying to be as "immersive" as possible man... With magic dimensions, and invisibility cloaked bases, all of which is I could get to using my teleportation spell, and when I need backup, I want to use my gate spell to summon another buddy. K-thanks!

Don't like it, don't buy the module.

 

[Tikanderoga]

Well, that's still 2 hours of limited game-time spent pressing J and watching the jump animation rather than something more interesting.

That's it right there.

Or just bit more than a single trip to Hutton. Why should be made to wait 90 minutes to "get there". We can jump 60 or 70 light years but we cannot jump 0.3 ly.
Yes yes, blah blah blah, mechanic and etc, heard it all. Still - massive time sink for nothing. Why not let people in Solo microjump? If they are out in the void, let them jump. It's not like they are going to get interdicted. There is nothing out there. That's also another topic that got addressed at some stage. 400bn star systems. Might as well place some things out there.

 

[NorthPeruvianChile]

I'm in complete favor of opening this game up to more casual players, this is a great idea having a JUMP COMPUTER for those that would like to travel across the galaxy while either their co-pilot / jump computer handle the simple work of jump > scoop > jump > scoop > jump. Don't like the feature??? DON'T USE IT!!! We've had this argument a million times over the landing computer and after 1,000,000 landings it gets very tedious but nobody is FORCING you to use it, it's nice to have the option there and it takes up a slot so there is a consequence.

Same thing can apply to a JUMP COMPUTER, takes up a slot, you will get there slower than if you jumped manually, and you've now opened the game up for many many more players to jump the vast distances in the galaxy with much less grind. Making the game more accessible to a broader audience will only help things, but it doesn't mean you don't need to pay attention. I would LOVE to watch my ship jump across space while enjoying my coffee and reading the news in the morning that would be great! But if you don't want to play that way than don't, nobody is forcing you to do it in the same way nobody is forcing you to use the docking computer.

More options is always better for the players and you would find many more players going on long journeys and exploring the galaxy, cmon we haven't even touched 1% of the galaxy and at this rate the game will be dead before we even hit 2%, anything to get more players out into the black is a GREAT IDEA!!!!

 

[Ian Doncaster]

It a spaceship game, I want same technology as Thargoids. It a been a year already. We would have reversed engineered the hell out of their systems by now in 2019.

The FSD - which we started with - is already based on reverse-engineered Thargoid tech.

Also, you really don't want a Thargoid drive. They have neat hyperdiction and in-system capabilities, but there's no evidence that they're capable of a speed greater than about 50 LY / week (and some evidence that they're not).

 

[amigacooke]

I suppose Frontier could take all the content, put it in one solar system, and remove star ship travelling altogether.

See you in the verse.