The "Hot topic" of recent times seems to be "supercruise is so slow, I'm bored..." and numerous suggestions on how to "fix" it. These basically amount to to fast travel / teleportation and are obviously aimed at instant gratificaiton of players, who are bored of AFKing or ran out of things on net flix to watch. With the exception of a few notable edge cases like hutton orbital, pitaniang etc, most destinations are a few minutes from arrival point, not hours. However it is the nature of humanity to alwant to go higher, further, faster, and it appears that interrplanetary travel in elite has now started to be viewed in that context.
So to clarify my own position, I am vehemently opposed to the current wave of suggestions, the tone of which could snarkily be surmised as one of "cant we just get there in 30 second already", but I'm not narcissistic enough to say noone's opinion other than mine counts. So i've been racking my brains for a way of potentially making supercruise transit times less through player agency, that doesn't shut the door on interdictions, and I came up with.....
Planetary slingshots...
Granted these aren't an entirely new concept, they are very effective, most of our unmanned space probes have been sent to destination by means of planetary slingshots / gravity assists... Voyager 1, a 42 year old space probe remains the fastest man made item ever, flying out of the solar system, having completed numerous flybys, at a dizzying 17 km/s. In game, really fast pilots use gravity braking to slow their craft for approach to station by either flying between the planet and the station, or doing a lap around the planet inside the gravity well to reduce speed. I am proposing we make a game mechanic that can selectively, if done with pilot skill, not an iwin button, pick up speed in SC. To let the game know which of these moves you are trying, gravity brake or assist, throttle position would be the selecter, 100% throttle you are wanting an assist, <20% throttle as you approach a planet, you are wanting to use it to wipe off some speed. Once the ships computer knows which manouvere you are wanting to use the approaching planet for, the HUD gets updated with a suitable vector.
I'd imagine that a gravity assist would look like a racing line around the planet, start out wide and fast on entry, come in close inclose to get pulled into the gravity well, and drift out wide as you exit, moving faster than you could without an assist. How much faster, well that would depend, I'd propose that gravity assist gained speed be added to top SC speed. So if you gained 200c by coming in to a planet FAST, say 600c approach, 750c exit speed, that 150c you gained from the planet would be added to your SC top speed, so you now max out at 2151c instead of 2001c, until you hit your next planet
If you string a few well executed slingshot assists together, three or four thousand c could be yours for the taking. To stop this getting miled and people staying in the slingshot sweetspot for ages and doing 100,000c, I'd suggest capping each slingshot assist speed-gain to a percentage of your approach speed, what that percentage should be would probably be best balance tested in beta. I'd also suggest that for balance, faster slingshot speeds reduce supercruise agility, the more slingshot gain you pick up, the more suercruise agility you lose.
By contrast, gravity braking would not really change, bar a new suggested course hud, maybe showing how much speed has been pulled from the vessel during this session and or projected exit speed, and would probably require a different line, say hold a constant radius around a planet to use its gravity to wipe off some of your speed?
Why this approach? Well it creates more player agency in how much effort they want to put in to get to their destinaiton in less time, and still leaves opportunities for interactions with other vessels, and new tactics for both hostile and defensive flying. Players could slingshot every planet between the arrival point and their destination starport, leaving only a couple of ways to interdict them, their pursuer would have to follow them through the series of slingshots to catch up with them. But if their pursuer only seen them say two slingshots later, they couldnt catch them, offering "carebears" a safer faster way to fly, that makes them have to put in more effort.
However more predatory players could slingshot everything and leave the orbital plane, looping like a bird of prey holding their high SC speed, then "dive" on their prey, fast. A game of cat and mouse could ensue with the predator chasing the fleeing and evading prey trying to get through a set of slingshots to out run their hunter. The predator would have to have made their mind up where their slingshot speed / agility trade off sweetspot is, too fast not agile enough the prey can easily out manouvere them, super agile, but too slow, their prey might run away from them.
So to clarify my own position, I am vehemently opposed to the current wave of suggestions, the tone of which could snarkily be surmised as one of "cant we just get there in 30 second already", but I'm not narcissistic enough to say noone's opinion other than mine counts. So i've been racking my brains for a way of potentially making supercruise transit times less through player agency, that doesn't shut the door on interdictions, and I came up with.....
Planetary slingshots...
Granted these aren't an entirely new concept, they are very effective, most of our unmanned space probes have been sent to destination by means of planetary slingshots / gravity assists... Voyager 1, a 42 year old space probe remains the fastest man made item ever, flying out of the solar system, having completed numerous flybys, at a dizzying 17 km/s. In game, really fast pilots use gravity braking to slow their craft for approach to station by either flying between the planet and the station, or doing a lap around the planet inside the gravity well to reduce speed. I am proposing we make a game mechanic that can selectively, if done with pilot skill, not an iwin button, pick up speed in SC. To let the game know which of these moves you are trying, gravity brake or assist, throttle position would be the selecter, 100% throttle you are wanting an assist, <20% throttle as you approach a planet, you are wanting to use it to wipe off some speed. Once the ships computer knows which manouvere you are wanting to use the approaching planet for, the HUD gets updated with a suitable vector.
I'd imagine that a gravity assist would look like a racing line around the planet, start out wide and fast on entry, come in close inclose to get pulled into the gravity well, and drift out wide as you exit, moving faster than you could without an assist. How much faster, well that would depend, I'd propose that gravity assist gained speed be added to top SC speed. So if you gained 200c by coming in to a planet FAST, say 600c approach, 750c exit speed, that 150c you gained from the planet would be added to your SC top speed, so you now max out at 2151c instead of 2001c, until you hit your next planet
If you string a few well executed slingshot assists together, three or four thousand c could be yours for the taking. To stop this getting miled and people staying in the slingshot sweetspot for ages and doing 100,000c, I'd suggest capping each slingshot assist speed-gain to a percentage of your approach speed, what that percentage should be would probably be best balance tested in beta. I'd also suggest that for balance, faster slingshot speeds reduce supercruise agility, the more slingshot gain you pick up, the more suercruise agility you lose.By contrast, gravity braking would not really change, bar a new suggested course hud, maybe showing how much speed has been pulled from the vessel during this session and or projected exit speed, and would probably require a different line, say hold a constant radius around a planet to use its gravity to wipe off some of your speed?
Why this approach? Well it creates more player agency in how much effort they want to put in to get to their destinaiton in less time, and still leaves opportunities for interactions with other vessels, and new tactics for both hostile and defensive flying. Players could slingshot every planet between the arrival point and their destination starport, leaving only a couple of ways to interdict them, their pursuer would have to follow them through the series of slingshots to catch up with them. But if their pursuer only seen them say two slingshots later, they couldnt catch them, offering "carebears" a safer faster way to fly, that makes them have to put in more effort.
However more predatory players could slingshot everything and leave the orbital plane, looping like a bird of prey holding their high SC speed, then "dive" on their prey, fast. A game of cat and mouse could ensue with the predator chasing the fleeing and evading prey trying to get through a set of slingshots to out run their hunter. The predator would have to have made their mind up where their slingshot speed / agility trade off sweetspot is, too fast not agile enough the prey can easily out manouvere them, super agile, but too slow, their prey might run away from them.
