Supercruise Rework

[Tividar]

This problem largely goes away if you could target any star within a system for high-waking. For un-visited systems you jump to the main star. Once there you would scan the system and high-wake to the star around which your target destination orbits. If you have already scanned the system, you would be able to plot your course via the system map.

Eliminates tedium. Make use of existing mechanics. Doesn't break existing interdiction setup. Where are the downsides?

 

[Oldviboy]

But then what use would my supercruise playlists be?

You can continue to have them, it would be an option, having options it's progress , Its not a bad thing and that isnt going to break "the relism" ... we can already jump up to 80 light years or 500.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

With supercruise as it is at the moment, it's possible to make it a fair bit more fun by trying to optimise the approach - a fast approach, using a curved path and/or gravity-braking close passes - is much more interesting and requires hands on controls from about 0:08 on the approach.

The problem is the bit before that, where it takes minutes of flying hands-free with nothing you can usefully do to optimise it, minimal chance of interdiction (if they didn't get you at the start, they're not generally going to get you until the end), and very little other tasks you can do instead (no checking markets in advance, or setting up missions before you even dock, etc.)

This problem largely goes away if you could target any star within a system for high-waking.

Especially since you can do that if you own a carrier, I don't see why not. Make it require a size 1 module, even.

Or, equally, there should be campaigns to disallow carriers jumping anywhere to the primary star, if supercruise as it currently stands is such an important part of the game. For all the arguments in favour of 100kLs supercruise flights it's notable that rarely important in hand-placed assets (as opposed to procgen) is more than about 10kLs out, and most of it is much closer in.

 

[Tividar]

Especially since you can do that if you own a carrier, I don't see why not. Make it require a size 1 module, even.

Or, equally, there should be campaigns to disallow carriers jumping anywhere to the primary star, if supercruise as it currently stands is such an important part of the game. For all the arguments in favour of 100kLs supercruise flights it's notable that rarely important in hand-placed assets (as opposed to procgen) is more than about 10kLs out, and most of it is much closer in.

I've seen bits of posts on reddit that claim this was originally a design choice. I can't imagine why. Given that its not an issue for Fleet Carriers; if it was was a design choice I think its time to revist that choice. At the very least, it'd give commanders another reason to play the system scanner mini-game.

 

[Thatchinho]

Yes, the time used in supercruise is ridiculous, not to mention the ridiculous reduction of speed in the signals ... it is a pain in the arx, I dont know how there are people who can agree to spend time doing absolutely nothing.




***Come on, it is ridiculous that it takes longer to travel within a system than to jump several light years ... is that realistic?

It’s realistic in the context yes.

There’s 3 paradigms in the game when it comes to speed of travel:

• Normal Space
• Supercruise
• Hyperspace

It takes far longer in normal space to travel than it does in Supercruise or Hyperspace.

It takes longer to travel in Supercruise than in Hyperspace.

If you apply a rationale that it’s ridiculous that Supercruise takes longer than hyperspace, then by extension that’s equivalent to saying that it’s ridiculous that travelling places in normal space takes longer than it would in Supercruise or hyperspace, which is equivalent to saying that travelling in normal space should be as quick or quicker than travelling in Supercruise or hyperspace, which hopefully is clearly at complete odds with the context set out for the game.


Oh, and on the first bit... Supercruise has a ‘hard’ layer and a ‘soft’ layer. The hard layer is defined by the distance to and mass of bodies. The soft layer isn’t, and isn’t hard enforced...

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I've seen bits of posts on reddit that claim this was originally a design choice.

The original design for in-system travel was micro-jumps, where stations a long way from the star wouldn't have been a problem.

Supercruise was a late design alteration in a bit of a rush, and there are lots of things here and there left over from the old design
- stations a very long way out
- nav beacons still don't make a lot of sense, though at least they do something now
- took until 3.3 for signal sources to start working properly with supercruise

Better than microjumps because sometimes you just want to fly around - especially for planetary landings - but it left some rough edges.

 

[Thatchinho]

This problem largely goes away if you could target any star within a system for high-waking. For un-visited systems you jump to the main star. Once there you would scan the system and high-wake to the star around which your target destination orbits. If you have already scanned the system, you would be able to plot your course via the system map.

Eliminates tedium. Make use of existing mechanics. Doesn't break existing interdiction setup. Where are the downsides?

My take on this - variety in the game universe is good. Some things can be suitable for some people and not for others. Not everything has to be done or liked by everyone. In fact taken into account the sheer scale of things, quite obviously it's impossible for anyone to do everything. So there being a proportion of systems that involve long distances is not in any way a bad thing, and in fact just fits in with the nature of the setting.

Personally, being as there are virtually no cases where anyone is actually obliged to travel a long distance in-system, I've yet to see anyone set out a good case why things should be changed so that every system effectively only involves short distances.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

Supercruise travel times are a vital part of the overall game structure, if ships jumped to star, then intrasystem jumped to station, then flew 10km to the station, other than the 2.5km from drop point to station no fire zone, when would you get to pirate / assassinate / gank someone? Intrasystem jumps would turn Elite into a cookie clicker kind of almost real-time-strategy. However, having said that, I do believe there is room for improvement in supercruise mechanics...

I would like to see a gravity slingshot mechanic added to supercruise, if you look at the path of the voyager probes...

Image from: https://astronomy.com/news/2020/04/voyager-whats-next-for-nasas-interstellar-probes

Voyager 1, which launched in 1977, did the earth to Jupiter leg of its journey in 856 days which might sound a long time, but given that three and a half decades later, with much more advanced technology available to it, the Juno probe that launched in 2011 took 1795 days to get to Jupiter suddenly Voyager 1 seems rapid. Why was Voyager 1 with 1970's technologies over twice as fast as Juno, which had 34 years of technological advancement to its advantage? The answer is simple, gravity assists... With each planet it passed, a voyager probe picked up more speed by doing a gravity assisted "slingshot" manoeuvre. (There was also favourable planetary alignment)

If we could incorporate slingshots in to supercruise as a sort of skilled manoeuvre in supercrusie in elite, it would give us a skilful way to increase velocity & reduce travel times in supercruise, taking some of the tedium out of longer transits, while still giving the player the agency to enjoy flying a starship, and doing so in such a way that leaves the door open for interdictions & other shenanigans.

But what of gravity breaking?

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUtya7P_EPQ


Distance my friend - distance...

I'd have the slingshot work in such a was that if you skimmed the edge of a planets gravity well you could get a slingshot from it, making it possible to sling shot around it, during the sling shot the ships supercruise acceleration would increase, giving the pilot the option of using the planet for acceleration. However, if they got too close to the planet, either intentionally or inadvertently, they would fall deeper into its gravity well and slow down as per normal, and would encounter supercruise decelleration.

Tactically this opens up some interesting manoeuvres for in system transits - take a CG, like the current one with a 46,000LS transit from star to starport, it's a 46,000, lets call it ~10 minutes. And it is flying straight and level at full throttle, its going to be a yawn fest, unless you get interdicted. Under the slingshot proposal you could a minutewinding up your speed orbiting the the edge of the star's gravity well to slingshot to the station, zip there at for example 4x speed, say a two minute transit time, on approach you could either plan on slowing down on the linear approach, or intentionally do a loop of shame as a gravity brake. Doing this would leave you less exposed to interdiciton / ganking / pirating, but require more input and skill from you as a pilot / player. Or you could take the slow, boring and easy route.

So normal supercruise = ~10 minutes
Slingshot approach and linear braking = 1min "spin up" + 2 mins travel + 2 mins decellerating = 5 minutes
Slingshot approach with gravity braking = 1min "spin up" + 2 mins travel + 0.5 mins bravity braking = 3.5 minutes

It decimates tranist times, but requires player input, and keeps people in the realm of supercruise for the shenanigans.

 

[Thatchinho]

Supercruise travel times are a vital part of the overall game structure, if ships jumped to star, then intrasystem jumped to station, then flew 10km to the station, other than the 2.5km from drop point to station no fire zone, when would you get to pirate / assassinate / gank someone? Intrasystem jumps would turn Elite into a cookie clicker kind of almost real-time-strategy. However, having said that, I do believe there is room for improvement in supercruise mechanics...

I would like to see a gravity slingshot mechanic added to supercruise, if you look at the path of the voyager probes...
View attachment 192175
Image from: https://astronomy.com/news/2020/04/voyager-whats-next-for-nasas-interstellar-probes

Voyager 1, which launched in 1977, did the earth to Jupiter leg of its journey in 856 days which might sound a long time, but given that three and a half decades later, with much more advanced technology available to it, the Juno probe that launched in 2011 took 1795 days to get to Jupiter suddenly Voyager 1 seems rapid. Why was Voyager 1 with 1970's technologies over twice as fast as Juno, which had 34 years of technological advancement to its advantage? The answer is simple, gravity assists... With each planet it passed, a voyager probe picked up more speed by doing a gravity assisted "slingshot" manoeuvre. (There was also favourable planetary alignment)

If we could incorporate slingshots in to supercruise as a sort of skilled manoeuvre in supercrusie in elite, it would give us a skilful way to increase velocity & reduce travel times in supercruise, taking some of the tedium out of longer transits, while still giving the player the agency to enjoy flying a starship, and doing so in such a way that leaves the door open for interdictions & other shenanigans.

But what of gravity breaking?

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUtya7P_EPQ


Distance my friend - distance...

I'd have the slingshot work in such a was that if you skimmed the edge of a planets gravity well you could get a slingshot from it, making it possible to sling shot around it, during the sling shot the ships supercruise acceleration would increase, giving the pilot the option of using the planet for acceleration. However, if they got too close to the planet, either intentionally or inadvertently, they would fall deeper into its gravity well and slow down as per normal, and would encounter supercruise decelleration. Tactically this opens up some interesting manoeuvres for in system transits - take a CG, like the current one with a 46,000LS transit from star to starport, it's a 46,000, lets call it ~10 minutes. And it is flying straight and level at full throttle, its going to be a yawn fest, unless you get interdicted. Under the slingshot proposal you could a minutewinding up your speed orbiting the the edge of the star's gravity well to slingshot to the station, zip there at for example 4x speed, say a two minute transit time, on approach you could either plan on slowing down on the linear approach, or intentionally do a loop of shame as a gravity brake.

So normal supercruise = ~10 minutes
Slingshot approach and linear braking = 1min "spin up" + 2 mins travel + 2 mins decellerating = 5 minutes
Slingshot approach with gravity braking = 1min "spin up" + 2 mins travel + 0.5 mins bravity braking = 3.5 minutes

It decimates tranist times, but requires player input, and keeps people in the realm of supercruise for the shenanigans.

Edit - temporarily redacted while I re-read the second part!

 

[WR3ND]

...

I would like to see a gravity slingshot mechanic added to supercruise...

...

Cool idea, but I don't think it would quite work in the game the way it works now. Currently gravity wells slow you down. Maybe something to do with the FSD in lore, but either way, this would mean you speed up when you get closer approaching something, which has other implications.

Avoiding gravity wells could and to an extent already does have a similar effect. Maybe this effect could be amplified.

 

[robbyp]

Seems a perfectly good system as it is. Flying spaceships takes time.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

Cool idea, but I don't think it would quite work in the game the way it works now. Currently gravity wells slow you down. Maybe something to do with the FSD in lore, but either way, this would mean you speed up when you get closer approaching something, which has other implications.

Avoiding gravity wells could and to an extent already does have a similar effect. Maybe this effect could be amplified.

Thanks for the feedback, but I'd already covered gravity braking, which is what we currently have, just skimming around the edge would let you accelerate, but getting closer would cause you to fall into the gravity well as we have just now and cause you to decelerate.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

Seems a perfectly good system as it is. Flying spaceships takes time.

I quite like it as well, but given all the crying about "it takes too long", even Obsidian Ant is beating that drum, and when Odysseys releases we are going to get an influx of COD veterans who will be like "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot d'y'all do for those 7 minutes flying straight?" I thought it best to have an alternative to intrasystem microjumps on hand, and slingshots was what I came up with.

 

[Rubbernuke]

SC needs more in it- it needs zones that are patrolled around stations, cordons in lockdown, gaps for smuggling etc. That way supercruise agility would become useful and you can't just chonk a T-9 all over.

 

[askavir]

The original design for in-system travel was micro-jumps, where stations a long way from the star wouldn't have been a problem.

Supercruise was a late design alteration in a bit of a rush, and there are lots of things here and there left over from the old design

• stations a very long way out
• nav beacons still don't make a lot of sense, though at least they do something now
• took until 3.3 for signal sources to start working properly with supercruise

Better than microjumps because sometimes you just want to fly around - especially for planetary landings - but it left some rough edges.

IMO supercruise is essential, especially for exploration, but even if we wanted to go somewhere specific on a planet, just microjumps wouldn't work. That's why I don't want to get rid of supercruise, I can't even imagine the game without it, but I would sure love to see the supercruise acceleration and deceleration buffed by quite a bit.

 

[askavir]

SC needs more in it- it needs zones that are patrolled around stations, cordons in lockdown, gaps for smuggling etc. That way supercruise agility would become useful and you can't just chonk a T-9 all over.

I'd rather speed up supercruise but then drop much further away from stations / installations / wrecks / etc, and have all of that in normal space.

 

[Bottom Hat]

a hyper jump pointing to a planet that consumes fuel should be enough, the rest of you can continue leaving hours of life along the way

I found the Josh Brolin version of the Oldboy movie you described to me a few weeks ago mate - enjoyed it, thank you


Edit - and supercruise is lovely btw - have to not be off topic??

 

[Rubbernuke]

I'd rather speed up supercruise but then drop much further away from stations / installations / wrecks / etc, and have all of that in normal space.

Not a bad idea- ships need to be in real space much mor.

 

[WR3ND]

Thanks for the feedback, but I'd already covered gravity braking, which is what we currently have, just skimming around the edge would let you accelerate, but getting closer would cause you to fall into the gravity well as we have just now and cause you to decelerate.

OK, but these are kind of like conflicting forces, and while I like the real-world analogy, it doesn't quite make sense for FTL travel (not that anything really does anyway, but here we are) where it's possible to travel faster than the gravitational acceleration effect of something from its current location and mass could reach you, and bearing in mind that even if they did, the effect would still be insignificant at the speeds and the scale of time players play the game in. For normal space travel this would make more sense, but then we'd be limited to 1c, of course (never mind the effects of time-dilation).

In supercruise we are currently limited to 2001c. Changing how much we are able to speed up and slow down within a system, basically lowering the force effect scaling at range of gravity wells, would let us travel faster between things without changing the current mechanics.

And if we had an optional gravity well field overlay, this would make it more interactive as well, as people could dynamically adjust and correct their courses.

On the other hand... I do like Star Trek IV. Warp 10 around the Sun anyone?

 

[Konan]

No, leave it like it is. One of the characteristics of the game is the size of the galaxy and the distances travelled. Why in the world would you want to take that away? In the bubble for the most part, supercruise is the avenue of scanning and interdiction ships in shipping lanes. Please, for the love of the game stop suggesting stuff that would change one the aspects of the game that gives it character and distinctiveness. Size and scale of systems are characteristics of the game and is a favorite part of many player's experience.