This is a personal opinion post and I in no way expect any change to result from it. It's more of a "what if" kind of thing rather than a call to action, perhaps resulting in a rational discussion between the pros and cons of different versions of travel. Sometimes just ruminating over different ideas generates some pretty cool results.
I personally have never been a big fan of the "jump" version of interstellar travel. My first online space game was Eve Online back when it was new, and one of the more irritating parts of it was having to jump from one system to another and then travel across a system to get to the next gate. Elite removed part of that irritation by not forcing us to travel through each system to get where we're going, and I feel like that was a good decision. However, one good thing about the Eve system was the fact that you were highly likely to be attacked by other players depending on where you were because you were forced to constantly be in a state where others could get to you fairly easily if they really wanted to. In Elite, you're not really in any danger until you reach your destination system and have to supercruise, because you basically stick close to a star and you're out of an enroute system before anyone can really get to you. Pretty boring.
I sort of wish that they had gone with a more Star Trek version of travel. Something like a big instance for interstellar travel that drops you into individual system instances once you arrive at your destination. That sort of thing would make it more possible for people to find you in the middle of your journey and increase the feeling that you're never really safe, which for me at least would generate the sort of looming sense of danger I used to feel back in my Eve days. It would also remove the repetitiveness of jumping over and over between stars, which is one of the primary reasons I tend to get bored and stop playing, because if you're on a single monitor you're stuck just sitting there manually travelling because you'll run into a star if you tab out to maybe watch a video or research something game related. With a more warp drive type of setup, you can just select a system in your fuel range, hit the warp drive, and then sit back and relax, only stopping when you need to fill up again or reach your destination...or when someone yanks you out of warp to rob you.
As I said, this is more about having an interesting discussion and maybe hearing some cool ideas than expecting any change. I understand the lore has established jumping as the norm, but maybe some other improvements might be teased out by thinking about things in a different way.
I personally have never been a big fan of the "jump" version of interstellar travel. My first online space game was Eve Online back when it was new, and one of the more irritating parts of it was having to jump from one system to another and then travel across a system to get to the next gate. Elite removed part of that irritation by not forcing us to travel through each system to get where we're going, and I feel like that was a good decision. However, one good thing about the Eve system was the fact that you were highly likely to be attacked by other players depending on where you were because you were forced to constantly be in a state where others could get to you fairly easily if they really wanted to. In Elite, you're not really in any danger until you reach your destination system and have to supercruise, because you basically stick close to a star and you're out of an enroute system before anyone can really get to you. Pretty boring.
I sort of wish that they had gone with a more Star Trek version of travel. Something like a big instance for interstellar travel that drops you into individual system instances once you arrive at your destination. That sort of thing would make it more possible for people to find you in the middle of your journey and increase the feeling that you're never really safe, which for me at least would generate the sort of looming sense of danger I used to feel back in my Eve days. It would also remove the repetitiveness of jumping over and over between stars, which is one of the primary reasons I tend to get bored and stop playing, because if you're on a single monitor you're stuck just sitting there manually travelling because you'll run into a star if you tab out to maybe watch a video or research something game related. With a more warp drive type of setup, you can just select a system in your fuel range, hit the warp drive, and then sit back and relax, only stopping when you need to fill up again or reach your destination...or when someone yanks you out of warp to rob you.
As I said, this is more about having an interesting discussion and maybe hearing some cool ideas than expecting any change. I understand the lore has established jumping as the norm, but maybe some other improvements might be teased out by thinking about things in a different way.
