Hey Frontier, here's something to chew on for New Era. How about a new type of FSD (perhaps a Guardian FSD if you must) that allows players to give up supercruise for the ability to jump to specific planets and points-of-interest. This would be completely optional, so not to take away everyone who loves supercruise. Here's how I personally would love to see it work, but obviously these are just all ideas on the whiteboard:
The basic concept is that with this "Guardian FSD", there is only normal space and hyperspace. The advantage is that the drive allows you to jump directly to any planet or POI. To offset this advantage, it would drop you a considerable distance further from the POI, requiring flight in normal space to get there. So for example, instead of dropping in 10 km from a station, this might drop you in 50 or even 100 km from a station (same goes with tourist beacons, etc). When approaching a planetary base, it would drop you in where glide normally kicks in, requiring you to fly to the base like I sometimes personally do when glide is aborted because my approach is too fast. So while not an exact 1:1 ratio, the time saved by direct hyperspace to a planet (like in Star Wars) is offset by the time required to travel in normal space.
This new drive would be for those of us who really don't like supercruise. While I know supercruise is meant to make space feel "big", it actually makes it feel smaller to me. I can run a lap around a SUN in seconds, which makes the sun feel smaller than a station does in normal space. But when I drop into a nav beacon, then the sun actually feels big. Same goes for planets - in supercruise planets just feel small, even during the supercruise glide descent. But approach the planet in normal space, and it actually feels like a PLANET. And since the majority of supercruise time is just staring at a warp drive screensaver, I actually feel it is more immersive to just pop out at my destination and then fly the ship in normal space for a longer duration.
Another advantage would be added gameplay. PvP pirating could happen in normal space instead of supercruise, for example, as pirates could lurk in the "drop in zone" around stations. The challenge for pirates would be to visually spot hyperspace flashes and catch up with targets that are out of sensor range before the target reaches the no-fire zone. As a "normal-space" pirate, I find this compelling, both from a pirating and a trading point-of-view. Supercruise interdictions are BORING, IMHO of course.
Obviously lots of people will have no interest in this type of drive, and that's why I recommend making it optional. Not only would it be optional per-player, but also per-ship. It need not require a Guardian grind to unlock - I'd be happy if it were sold like the "generic" FSD, but it would allow a different type of gameplay that would still work well in Elite Dangerous. This is a game about OPTIONS and VARIETY (otherwise we should all be flying Cobra IIIs with a very limited set of modules), so adding some variety to how we traverse a solar system would be wonderful. Obviously there are things that would need to be taken into account - potential exploits, things like the FSS and mapping probes, signal sources, etc, but you folks at Frontier are clever, surely you can make it work without that much effort. Shoot me a DM if you need help with the specifics!
Anyway, that's my wish.
The basic concept is that with this "Guardian FSD", there is only normal space and hyperspace. The advantage is that the drive allows you to jump directly to any planet or POI. To offset this advantage, it would drop you a considerable distance further from the POI, requiring flight in normal space to get there. So for example, instead of dropping in 10 km from a station, this might drop you in 50 or even 100 km from a station (same goes with tourist beacons, etc). When approaching a planetary base, it would drop you in where glide normally kicks in, requiring you to fly to the base like I sometimes personally do when glide is aborted because my approach is too fast. So while not an exact 1:1 ratio, the time saved by direct hyperspace to a planet (like in Star Wars) is offset by the time required to travel in normal space.
This new drive would be for those of us who really don't like supercruise. While I know supercruise is meant to make space feel "big", it actually makes it feel smaller to me. I can run a lap around a SUN in seconds, which makes the sun feel smaller than a station does in normal space. But when I drop into a nav beacon, then the sun actually feels big. Same goes for planets - in supercruise planets just feel small, even during the supercruise glide descent. But approach the planet in normal space, and it actually feels like a PLANET. And since the majority of supercruise time is just staring at a warp drive screensaver, I actually feel it is more immersive to just pop out at my destination and then fly the ship in normal space for a longer duration.
Another advantage would be added gameplay. PvP pirating could happen in normal space instead of supercruise, for example, as pirates could lurk in the "drop in zone" around stations. The challenge for pirates would be to visually spot hyperspace flashes and catch up with targets that are out of sensor range before the target reaches the no-fire zone. As a "normal-space" pirate, I find this compelling, both from a pirating and a trading point-of-view. Supercruise interdictions are BORING, IMHO of course.
Obviously lots of people will have no interest in this type of drive, and that's why I recommend making it optional. Not only would it be optional per-player, but also per-ship. It need not require a Guardian grind to unlock - I'd be happy if it were sold like the "generic" FSD, but it would allow a different type of gameplay that would still work well in Elite Dangerous. This is a game about OPTIONS and VARIETY (otherwise we should all be flying Cobra IIIs with a very limited set of modules), so adding some variety to how we traverse a solar system would be wonderful. Obviously there are things that would need to be taken into account - potential exploits, things like the FSS and mapping probes, signal sources, etc, but you folks at Frontier are clever, surely you can make it work without that much effort. Shoot me a DM if you need help with the specifics!
Anyway, that's my wish.
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