Post-change, for people who really enjoy long flights - that option would still be there. And since you'd actually have to scan the tertiary star, there's even a little hurdle you'd have to overcome to skip that multi-hour low-wake journey.
Supercruise Rework
- Thread starter CMDR DragonHorn
- Start date
That sounds like an argument for being able to high-wake to any star. Still leaves plenty of flying around in supercruise. I wouldn't want a setup where everything was micro-jumps.
The change would still represent a fundamental change in the nature of things. The game universe will have been changed from one where there is variety in the distances involved in systems, to one where effectively the distances are all small.
Like I say, I've personally yet to see anyone actually put forward a good argument for why a change of that nature is warranted.
It's all down to preferences though. Nothing about this is objective.
Like, the only two reasons for the existing structure that are commonly stated are:
1) it's immersive
2) supercruise is the only place stuff happens
First one is subjective (valid enough in that context) but the second is utter rubbish. Anyone who knows anything about supercruise will know the stuff that happens in it never happens during the middle 90% of any longer journey.
In fact, dissecting supercruise with intra star jumps (with suitably long cool down timers) would have the opposite effect of the existing setup by making things busier. It shortens the useless 90% and keeps us in the 5% bracket either side of that where stuff actually happens.
The fact generally appears to be, however, that people just love they long boring timers in elite.
Logically, nothing else makes sense.
TBC I'm not looking for a fight here. The scope of the change is the ability to high-wake to any star that you have previously scanned. A fleet carrier can already jump to (virtually) any stellar body in any system it has previously visited. There's very little in-game rationalization for why you must high-wake to some stars but can only low-wake to others. This looks less like a fundamental change to me than the correcting of a long-lived oversight. If you want to keep an element of vastness, generate signal sources at huge distances from the stars. If you like long distances, you still have a reason to travel them.
Nothing realistic about super cruise whatsoever.
Indeed, I'm pretty sure instantly moving from one point in space to another at least has a basis in theoretical physics, whereas magically displacing space from the front of your ship and popping it out behind you so you can achieve speeds in excess of light is pure fantasy.
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I had an idea to help make it a bit more interactive some time ago. Let me see if I can dig up that thread... Nope, seems to be lost in the void.
Well basically, it was an idea to have an optional 3D cube grid overlay showing gravity wells. This would be nice for exploration too as an option to explore without parking your ship and playing the world lock picking mini game to find where stuff is out in the black.
This is a great idea. I’ve always felt that the game should display a system map with all of the gravity wells so explorers can plan out the most efficient route through the system. You could use it to lay out a path which your on screen HUD could then show you so you can follow as you fly around the system.
Just in addition to the previous reply, I'm just going to point out that there would be consequences to the change.
A particular one, other than the point I've already made, is that there would no longer be higher paying missions to systems with long SC distances.
That's taking something away from the people who like doing (or are happy to do) the long SC journeys.
Also, a lot of SC threads come from people who have taken a higher paying mission only to find it involves a long SC distance. If the higher payouts aren't there, then the number of people chasing those higher payouts will obviously evaporate, and consequently so will the number of people getting caught out by unwittingly taking missions to systems to long SC distances. So a large part of what was leading to requests for changes to SC will go anyway, but that is something that could have been achieved without the change (and its consequences) by the application of personal discretion over mission choice. (That's only one specific source of demand for change, of course, and the same point doesn't necessarily apply to others.)
Simple:
Increase acceleration and deceleration. For me that would fix all SC speed problems.
Why would you necessarily need to reduce the payouts? If we're talking about the mission board, you'd still have to jump to the system, scan the destination star and then jump again. That's (nominally) more effort than a single jump to a systems primary star then a short super-cruise within its system of captive planets, and roughly comparable to courier and haulage missions to planetary bases which also have increased payouts; presumably to incent you to land on the planet.
If the goal is to preserve game-play involving long super-cruises, this is easily achievable with unidentified signal sources (for sand-box content) and via search and rescue missions (for the mission board). I've enjoyed doing the Search and Rescue missions. Stick a stranded Anaconda 200,000 ls out from the nearest star and offer a mission to repair and refuel him.
A lot of really great ideas here. Particularly interesting to me seem slingshot mechanic, could be really cool to have something like that.
Argument is always good, means some adjustments or additions could be made to improve experience.
Lastly, gotta say that, my main point is NOT NECESSARILY FASTER TRAVEL, but adding more OPTIONAL mechanics just for player to have something to do during supercruise. As I mentioned in OP example with glide. It doesn't make much sense in terms of "realism" and they could just ditch it, and make us fly down boosting post drop, but instead interesting mechainc was added. It doesn't make landing incredibly faster, but it gives an edge and lets player take some control on the game. Point is: we are playing game here. It's okay that people like having these mechaincs as they are, automated whatever, but adding something ON TOP for you to take advantage (OR NOT) could go a long way.
Again, I'm not advocating for any original SC travel mechanics to be changed in any way, but adding more options to it. So we can, you know, choose?
Argument is always good, means some adjustments or additions could be made to improve experience.
Lastly, gotta say that, my main point is NOT NECESSARILY FASTER TRAVEL, but adding more OPTIONAL mechanics just for player to have something to do during supercruise. As I mentioned in OP example with glide. It doesn't make much sense in terms of "realism" and they could just ditch it, and make us fly down boosting post drop, but instead interesting mechainc was added. It doesn't make landing incredibly faster, but it gives an edge and lets player take some control on the game. Point is: we are playing game here. It's okay that people like having these mechaincs as they are, automated whatever, but adding something ON TOP for you to take advantage (OR NOT) could go a long way.
Again, I'm not advocating for any original SC travel mechanics to be changed in any way, but adding more options to it. So we can, you know, choose?
FDEV doesn't have very good track record with that.
Yes, I'm referring to ADS -> FSS
Not looking for a fight either. Hope I wasn't giving the impression that I was either (or that I thought you were!).
FCs jumping point to point is necessitated by the type of asset they are. Personally I don't think that having to do something to make FCs viable means that how things work for normal ships should change. Cap ships and megaships have always been point to point.
Because the long SC distance is the reason why those missions pay so much higher than missions of the same type that don't involve long SC distances. The pay is for doing the long distance SC haul.
It's such little extra effort that it wouldn't be in any way comparable to the original reason for the higher payout. It would create a situation where there a bunch of systems which had much higher paying missions only for legacy reasons, which would lead to a situation where those are the systems that everyone went to do max payout - min effort missions. That then comes with its own set of issues.
It's more a case of needing a good justification for removing something from the game for those that enjoy it.
There's nothing to say that someone who, say, does data courier missions to a station would want to do S&C missions instead.
And it's also about my previous point about variety in the game universe being good. What's the actual case for getting rid of it?
What would you suggest about something like Hutton, where there is a massive player group built up specifically around it? And again, what's the actual case for forcing the change on them?
I hope that doesn't sound like I'm having a go at you or anything like that. I guess to come at it another way, the question for me is whether there is actually a problem that is sufficiently bad that would justify the change? (And is it a problem that can't be fixed in the vast majority of cases by simply exercising personal discretion?)
Let's see, I don't want to remove the supercruise, it's still there ... but as they said, I prefer to do things in normal space, and not leave part of the game time without doing anything ... I don't know why they insist on to say that the current state is realistic ... when you approach each planet it works the same for all, it does not take into account any parameter, it is an outdated and crude system ... not to mention approaching the signals, which is annoying and ridiculous .... in the last cg, for example, I was able to kill twice as many tharghs .... but I was wasting more time in super cruise than fighting ... I like ship games, but I prefer to pilot them in normal space than in a space on rails.
The x4 "supercruise" journey is exquisite, no loading miniscreens and fluid ... you can even see the stations or asteroids along the way, much better than elite "empty" space .
Obviously, you should visit each planet or star before you can jump to it, I don't see any problem,explorers can continue to live in supercruise if it is what they want .
The x4 "supercruise" journey is exquisite, no loading miniscreens and fluid ... you can even see the stations or asteroids along the way, much better than elite "empty" space .
Obviously, you should visit each planet or star before you can jump to it, I don't see any problem,explorers can continue to live in supercruise if it is what they want .
I don't have a problem with the current speeds, but also wouldn't mind the rates being tweaked a bit. I'd just set my throttle in the middle instead of at max if I wanted.
One issue I could see though is how it might affect relative ship maneuverability, like for fuel scooping, interdictions, and such, so the change would need to be based on gravity well distances, which it is now, not just straight acceleration/deceleration.
When you've very far away from everything else speeding up to 2001c is rather quick and much faster in comparison to starting from being close to system stars and/or worlds.
No worries. Good discussion. For me, the two largest justifications for change would be that the in-game frame-shift physics don't really fit with the idea that I have to low-wake to certain stars but not others and that the actual play value for those long distance journeys seems really minimal - especially given the super-cruise assist module. That second reason is an amalgamation of arguments for conservation of play time and increased opportunities for events to occur. I recognize being able to jump directly to the tertiary that Hutton orbits would largely eliminate the halo of game-play around the idea of super-cruise-remote stations. I think the trade-off would be worth it. But its not an either-or proposition either. There are a number of in-game rationales to setting up stations at locations that are truly remote from any stars. Coincident to implementing a change like this, you could run CGs for setting up remote deep-space stations (R&D labs, Pirate Bases, Monastics, Separatists, Xeno-enclaves etc., rogue planets). People who were genuinely interested in that sort of game-play would have it.
I've traveled a few light-years in supercruise in one go a few times. Having some stuff out in the black would be nice, as well as of course being able to supercruise between systems. Unfortunately, it seems the current meta game-play doesn't allow for that with permit locked systems and the like, so it's not likely going to be something that they'll implement.
Sometimes I swear this game would be awesome to play if it weren't for the game-play...
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Deleted member 38366
D
Remember those meaningless "Slow down!" Messages you get anytime you're "faster than allowed" near gravity wells?
While you see your speed decrease due to the gravity well, you yelling "No, speed up!!" and having the Throttle slammed to maximum?
So how about this :
...HOWEVER, at the price of increasingly losing directional control and the Ship veering to much off course (using it should start overheating the FSD and worst-case in a damaging dropout from SC when hard limits are exceeded).
Highspeed travel would be possible, but only with manual and increasingly skilled Control Inputs (keeping the Ship centered and on course), hot builds/Ships might have to limit the application as well in order not to overheat eventually.
So... how fast can you go if you're in a hurry? Depends. Skill and Risk Aversion.
Might end up evading that nasty Interdictor lining up behind you - but if you mess up, you might face leaving behind a Low Wake and 40sec of sweating while your FSD timer clocks down.
An Interdictor as well might make a dash for a juicy target.... but again comes at a price of having the overspeed controls interfering with the Interdiction Minigame and of course possible embarassment of dropping out of SC as well if things go downhill.
Should work in ways that doesn't make i.e. a clumsy T9 a disadvantaged ride (bigger rig, less swivel; heat might be a bigger issue eventually).
Basically very similar as how Ships already react to SC in a Neutron Cone - just with variable intensity, based on how far you push it.
On top, massively overspeeding near a gravity well could (optional) result in a very notable heat spike as well, as the FSD is now additionally pushed well beyond its normal envelope.
Something like that would work and give a few Options to be literally active on the Controls during longer SC travels.
Want to go faster? Sure. Want to go alot faster? Try it - IF you can control it....
While you see your speed decrease due to the gravity well, you yelling "No, speed up!!" and having the Throttle slammed to maximum?
So how about this :
- you still can use SCA or use optimal Throttle
- BUT you could throttle up and not only exceed the rated speed but also the rated acceleration which continues to increase beyond the normal limits (distance to nearest gravity well or star)
...HOWEVER, at the price of increasingly losing directional control and the Ship veering to much off course (using it should start overheating the FSD and worst-case in a damaging dropout from SC when hard limits are exceeded).
Highspeed travel would be possible, but only with manual and increasingly skilled Control Inputs (keeping the Ship centered and on course), hot builds/Ships might have to limit the application as well in order not to overheat eventually.
So... how fast can you go if you're in a hurry? Depends. Skill and Risk Aversion.
Might end up evading that nasty Interdictor lining up behind you - but if you mess up, you might face leaving behind a Low Wake and 40sec of sweating while your FSD timer clocks down.
An Interdictor as well might make a dash for a juicy target.... but again comes at a price of having the overspeed controls interfering with the Interdiction Minigame and of course possible embarassment of dropping out of SC as well if things go downhill.
Should work in ways that doesn't make i.e. a clumsy T9 a disadvantaged ride (bigger rig, less swivel; heat might be a bigger issue eventually).
Basically very similar as how Ships already react to SC in a Neutron Cone - just with variable intensity, based on how far you push it.
On top, massively overspeeding near a gravity well could (optional) result in a very notable heat spike as well, as the FSD is now additionally pushed well beyond its normal envelope.
Something like that would work and give a few Options to be literally active on the Controls during longer SC travels.
Want to go faster? Sure. Want to go alot faster? Try it - IF you can control it....