Remove the traveling grind

[[VR] Mad Mike]

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.

In the past i suggested what I considered "improvements" to exploration... 1 being what you said... that you cannont route plot past systems not fully scanned, and then the data returned and sold.

A few liked the idea, but, lets just say if the rep system had the negative vote like in the old days, i would have been pushed back to harmless....... over all the phrase "as popular as a fart in an elevator" comes to mind

Some people just do not want to actually, what i would call explore, and just want space tourism, which does make me sad. (space tourism should definitely be a thing for those who want the glory shots but exploration should be a hands on thing. The FSS is imo a step in the right direction but still does not change the fact that we can all magically plot huge routes through parts of space which have supposedly never ever been visited...... this imo is wrong.

hell as a carrot and a stick scenario, I would probably be able to get behind an auto pilot IF it could only route to systems which were already fully explored and data sold back to UC, BUT OTOH if a system was not explored by anyone you could only plot 1 jump at a time.

ALSO
I would have it that when jumping to an unexplored system, you take <minor> damage - somewhat similar to losing an interdiction attempt..... exploration ships such as the DB EX and Asp Ex would take less damage than multi role ships like the conda, etc.
the lore here being, if the system is not already fully explored your ships computer cannot make a perfect jump. Personally i would also put a small piece of skill mini game in there on each jump - not prolonging the time taken to do it, but to make it more hands on.

do it well damage is minimised, do it badly and it is maximised or possibly even a missjump where you lose your fuel and end up a few 100,000LS away in the same system.

 

[lysan]

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?

Because pressing (J) 107 times is a skill ? Right [up]

 

[lysan]

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).

Agree, must be a lot of unemployed sitting around glaring into the flickering light of their screens! And that’s sad, they don’t want a real discussion, only we don’t want it, so you can’t have it. Sorry but I’m just ignoring these “arguments” as they are about feelings and not about facts.

 

[lysan]

When and where did FD say that?

You must be new around here, however I have posted this many times, with proof, just use the search function. [autopilot]

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

Because pressing (J) 107 times is a skill ? Right [up]

At all costs, we must Preserve the Grind TM.

Is it just me, or is it bizarre to see this volume of low imagination conservatism on the forum of a futuristic space game?

Honestly, if someone were to develop a game with one quarter of the features that these people hold up the Cross of Christ to oppose, they’d already have a more enjoyable game than Elite. I’m not saying every suggestion is great, but enough really fun proposals have been objected to for the most tenuous and often barely relevant reasons.

No doubt the response to that will be the predictable “go play that game then”.

 

[Old Duck]

Personally I would welcome a full-fledged optional autopilot system that let me plot a route from a station in one system to a station in another system and do all the flying for me. I use autopilot in my flight simulators all the time and that doesn't mean I don't like flying airplanes. Such a system would need to come with some limitations, however:

1) No exploration credits. The fact we need to hand in our exploration data "in person" implies that SC insists on data that is collected by humans, not automation.

2) Flight happens in real-time. The game has to be running on your screen as if you actually were flying yourself, similar to if I point my ship at Hutton Orbital and then go wash dishes while the ship flies the two hours in supercruise.

3) Bad things can happen. Autopilot should not be able to avoid interdictions or perform fancy maneuvers to avoid overheating when dropping out between two close stars, for example.

4) It should be slower than an experienced pilot. An autopilot would err on the side of safety over "fast", so slower fuel-scooping, slower supercruise approach speeds, etc.

I actually think AP is a great idea and have suggested it myself, but I also realize it will likely never happen unless I write my own AP software, and if I do, I'm not telling anyone! People around here hate the idea of autopilot, even an optional AP that they themselves would not need to use. [shrugs]

 

[TopCat160]

so you DO CARE then?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw

This is brilliant. I think I must in fact be the love child of David Mitchell's parents, as that one irritates the bejeezus out of me too.

I can now sleep soundly at night again, worry-free since the point has been made, and so well!

 

[TopCat160]

Such a system would need to come with some limitations, however:

1) No exploration credits.

2) Flight happens in real-time.

3) Bad things can happen.

4) It should be slower than an experienced pilot.

^
^
So much this. Repped again sir.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I actually think AP is a great idea and have suggested it myself, but I also realize it will likely never happen unless I write my own AP software, and if I do, I'm not telling anyone! People around here hate the idea of autopilot, even an optional AP that they themselves would not need to use. [shrugs]

everything else aside, the fact that travel is so simplistic in ED that you could just knock a bot up in an hr or so to travel for you I think says something in and of itself. imo travel, esp very long range travel, should have some skills involved and not just a test of endurance.
I am a PvE player... but i do wish the E had some more teeth.

the other elite games had auto pilot in so ..........................

(of course can you imagine the cries of complaint when someone turns on AP and goes for their tea or what ever only to come back and find out they got destroyed due to a failure of the AP?... whilst it is true the other elite games had AP, they did have a very high failure rate esp when it came to docking or getting close to the gravity well of a planet iirc.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Because pressing (J) 107 times is a skill ? Right [up]

For the specific 107 times that is being referred to, yes, because it wasn't just about pressing 'J' 107 times, but about carefully plotting a route through the appropriate neutron stars (considerably more hand-optimised than the in-built plotter gives) and scoopable stars, then rapidly and flawlessly scooping for the neutron boosts without causing too much damage to the drive, picking times to repair, balancing the ship's fuel reserves and performance versus its mass, etc. to do the Sol-Colonia run faster than anyone has done before or since.

It was a record-setting performance for a reason, and a lot of skill, practice and planning was involved.

This does make it highly misleading to suggest that *anyone* can make it from Sol to Colonia in 107 jumps - to get that good you'd have to have done so many long-range high-speed journeys that you wouldn't consider the distance a big deal anyway ... and the "Colonia in under 2 hours" headline doesn't count all the planning and prep required before departing Sol. The game is not and should not be balanced around record-level performances, just as NPC combat is not balanced around every single player being at the skill level of a PvP league winning team.

Four hours Sol to Colonia is a much more reasonable estimate for someone with a fast ship who knows how to neutron jump, but has not made speed runs their in-game speciality. That's still considerably faster than it used to be, and there are a lot of balance issues which would be caused by making it take less at-keyboard time.

(But there's no particular need to go to Colonia anyway - inhabited systems are just one jump away from anywhere in the bubble, and unexplored uninhabited systems can be found within a few thousand LY)

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Maybe we're all looking at this the wrong way.

The complaint is "routine travelling is skill free and boring" (true!) so why not just allow it to be entirely automated.

But what if Frontier went the other way - make routine travelling require skill and interaction?

- drop into systems in the Elite/FE2/FFE way: about 3000 Ls from the primary star. If you want to fuel scoop, then gas giants are relatively safe, while stars are possible but highly likely to cause heat damage to your ship no matter how careful you are (and melt it entirely if you aren't). Suddenly travel has much more resource implications: do you scoop? do you detour to that gas giant to scoop instead, because it's safer, or carry on now because you have plenty of fuel and hope you don't end up sun-skimming later? (But also: if you pick your arrival direction carefully, you could end up very close to your destination station without having to get out of the star's gravity well - so in-system supercruise journeys would often be quicker)

- increase the NPC interdiction rate and competence to Elite/FE2/FFE levels: travellers need to be proactively trying to avoid interdictions, and often will need to fight to stay alive. Combined with the inability to instantly scoop and jump before the NPCs spawn, the journey itself can be exciting, not just the destination.

- increase the consequences of wear-and-tear: explorers need to be obtaining repair materials to operate without the support of resupply bases without major system failures getting them. Allow repair materials (and repair activities) to be transferred between ships so that a convoy and logisitics operation can support each other (without making it impossible for lone explorers). This could also tie into squadron fleet carriers to allow supported exploration of important areas.

- make hyperspace to systems you haven't personally explored require a process of carefully plotting a route. Systems no-one has explored require the same ... but the "hints" you get for an explored system aren't available.

Make travel more exciting and interesting than 'press J, watch loading screen, etc.' and it's no longer "the bit you put up with to get between the other bits". The sense of scale of the galaxy goes *up*.

 

[amigacooke]

Sorry but I’m just ignoring these “arguments” as they are about feelings and not about facts.

The whole argument is about feelings not facts.

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

It seems to me that there are people who want a game set in space, and there are those who want to be chemists.

 

[MoonRacer]

Maybe we're all looking at this the wrong way.

The complaint is "routine travelling is skill free and boring" (true!) so why not just allow it to be entirely automated.

But what if Frontier went the other way - make routine travelling require skill and interaction?

- drop into systems in the Elite/FE2/FFE way: about 3000 Ls from the primary star. If you want to fuel scoop, then gas giants are relatively safe, while stars are possible but highly likely to cause heat damage to your ship no matter how careful you are (and melt it entirely if you aren't). Suddenly travel has much more resource implications: do you scoop? do you detour to that gas giant to scoop instead, because it's safer, or carry on now because you have plenty of fuel and hope you don't end up sun-skimming later? (But also: if you pick your arrival direction carefully, you could end up very close to your destination station without having to get out of the star's gravity well - so in-system supercruise journeys would often be quicker)

- increase the NPC interdiction rate and competence to Elite/FE2/FFE levels: travellers need to be proactively trying to avoid interdictions, and often will need to fight to stay alive. Combined with the inability to instantly scoop and jump before the NPCs spawn, the journey itself can be exciting, not just the destination.

- increase the consequences of wear-and-tear: explorers need to be obtaining repair materials to operate without the support of resupply bases without major system failures getting them. Allow repair materials (and repair activities) to be transferred between ships so that a convoy and logisitics operation can support each other (without making it impossible for lone explorers). This could also tie into squadron fleet carriers to allow supported exploration of important areas.

- make hyperspace to systems you haven't personally explored require a process of carefully plotting a route. Systems no-one has explored require the same ... but the "hints" you get for an explored system aren't available.

Make travel more exciting and interesting than 'press J, watch loading screen, etc.' and it's no longer "the bit you put up with to get between the other bits". The sense of scale of the galaxy goes *up*.

- Drop into system 3000ls from star and allow fuel scooping from gas giants: No. Just no, there are gas giants with helium and other than H atmospheres, this would be a problem. And 3000ls from a star is a huge sphere, which easily can lead to massive prolonged travel times in system. Fuel Scooping from star is fine as it is, and you can take damage. And picking arrival direction - how? By taking extra jumps (where you have to do the same)?

- increase the NPC interdiction rate and competence to Elite/FE2/FFE levels: No! This is annoying enough as it is, and being interdicted with a ship with no cargo racks at all, and no mission, is hard to justify. And every time fighting for my life for no reason against massive OP NPCs (engineered, so that I am even more forced to take on the awful engineering grind just to survive) would (for me at least) be a reason to give up the game entirely. 'Proactively avoid interdictions' - how? Sometimes you win, sometimes you loose, and if you are interdicted near the station (or while trying to land) there is not much you can do. Most often I win the interdiction, but it is just annoying. I do not trust the NPC AI to be fair and 'not cheating'. I have heard too often about NPCs ignoring chaff, silent running and coming back in seconds completely healed, and so on. This would lead to newer players practically unable to travel. Bad idea, IMHO.

- increase the consequences of wear-and-tear: This I would find quite good, provided that explorers can use the AMFU to repair wear and tear also. As it is now, I think you can repair only damage, not wear and tear. I would multiply the price of maintenance, because flying an expensive and big ship should have a constant cost. It is a bit too cheap now to fly huge ships. But this would not do anything to travel mode, wouldn't it?

- Needing hints for new/unexplored systems. This would be hard to implement. Especially in the bubble this should be no issue at all, all the systems are well known. It would be only something for explorers and probably annoying too.

As I stated earlier: Traveling is fine as it is, IMHO.

 

[Old Duck]

The whole argument is about feelings not facts.

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

It seems to me that there are people who want a game set in space, and there are those who want to be chemists.

Oceans are big, too. I know, I have crossed one! That's actually an argument for autopilots on seafaring ships. Even sailboats, a common choice for individuals who "enjoy boating", come with autopilots.

Sure, there are those who will row a boat across an ocean for the challenge, but Roz Savage isn't advocating for the banning of autopilots on all ships.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Maybe we're all looking at this the wrong way.

The complaint is "routine travelling is skill free and boring" (true!) so why not just allow it to be entirely automated.

But what if Frontier went the other way - make routine travelling require skill and interaction?

- drop into systems in the Elite/FE2/FFE way: about 3000 Ls from the primary star. If you want to fuel scoop, then gas giants are relatively safe, while stars are possible but highly likely to cause heat damage to your ship no matter how careful you are (and melt it entirely if you aren't). Suddenly travel has much more resource implications: do you scoop? do you detour to that gas giant to scoop instead, because it's safer, or carry on now because you have plenty of fuel and hope you don't end up sun-skimming later? (But also: if you pick your arrival direction carefully, you could end up very close to your destination station without having to get out of the star's gravity well - so in-system supercruise journeys would often be quicker)

- increase the NPC interdiction rate and competence to Elite/FE2/FFE levels: travellers need to be proactively trying to avoid interdictions, and often will need to fight to stay alive. Combined with the inability to instantly scoop and jump before the NPCs spawn, the journey itself can be exciting, not just the destination.

- increase the consequences of wear-and-tear: explorers need to be obtaining repair materials to operate without the support of resupply bases without major system failures getting them. Allow repair materials (and repair activities) to be transferred between ships so that a convoy and logisitics operation can support each other (without making it impossible for lone explorers). This could also tie into squadron fleet carriers to allow supported exploration of important areas.

- make hyperspace to systems you haven't personally explored require a process of carefully plotting a route. Systems no-one has explored require the same ... but the "hints" you get for an explored system aren't available.

Make travel more exciting and interesting than 'press J, watch loading screen, etc.' and it's no longer "the bit you put up with to get between the other bits". The sense of scale of the galaxy goes *up*.

gets my vote

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Because pressing (J) 107 times is a skill ? Right [up]

That's a double edged sword, setting up an autopilot is no better.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

You must be new around here, however I have posted this many times, with proof, just use the search function. [autopilot]

No I'm not new here and it's your responsability to cite things, not mine.

And I have participated in other iterations of this same thread, I don't recall you citing anything like that.

 

[Firebeard]

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.

But the difference with the run to Hutton (which I've done twice for the free anaconda) is that you CAN just leave it flying and keep an eye on the direction.

 

[Lestat]

Because pressing (J) 107 times is a skill ? Right [up]

My Guess you never have done it. Never touch Neutron stars with a ten-foot pole. because they SCARE YOU. You don't want to challenge your self to point A and B and you use the Galaxy map default route to set your course.

 

[Chaparral]

To the OP. You should actually perform 5 basic game tasks (cargo mission, explore 3 systems, earn 1 million BH in a res, etc.) and time how long you are spending in jumps, and SC. This data would emphasize exactly how much of game play is spent "waiting".

I don't disagree that multiple jump screens and long SC trips are useless time eaters, but the stats on just how bad they are would do a better job of making your point.