Add possibility to land on a system directly to a specific star, nearest to destination station

[jepessen]

Some trading is a waste of time. Sometime happens that I reach a system, and the target station orbits around another star far, far away from the one next to me.
Since I don't see any reason for the interstellar jump to arrive always at the same star in the same system, I'd like to have something that allows to me to reach the system directly next to the star where my station is orbiting.

Of course it can be performed by some equipment that must be acquired, or it can be something that only bigger trading ship can have, but for people used to trade this can save a great amount of real-life time, considering that in these case we need more than 10 minutes (or more) to travel in deep space without doing anything. By shortening the travel distance, a player is also more protected by pirates that have less time to start the engaging.

So, my request is:

- Create an equipment that allows a ship to reach a system and, if a station is selected in that system as destination, reach the system directly within the star nearest to the station.
- Give the possibility only to some ships to have this equipment, or some other logic that don't give too much advantage to occasional trader.

What do you think about it?

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Edit:
Misread that post.

Jumping to a non primary star is actually a pretty highly requested feature.

Sometimes are apposed to this, others not.

The "but space is supposed to be big" argument is a bit thin, IMHO.

I've suggested that we should be able to jump to non primary stars from nav beacons, in normal space, to another nav beacon, also in normal space. You'd still need to supercruise the remaining distance to the station, which is also risky.
The risk / reward balance pays itself off, because carrying anything slightly valuable in to a nav beacon is highly dangerous. Supercruising the same distance would be a lot safer, but much slower in most cases.

Win win!

 

[asmcint]

So you wanna jump from station to station?

Y'know this is a game about space travel right?

Lestat will be here any moment to explain further.

That's not what's being suggested, and I'd advise you to read a little more carefully. What's being suggested is that you be allowed to pick which star in a system you arrive at. You wouldn't be eliminating in-system travel, but rather picking an arrival point more convenient for you. I wholeheartedly agree with this, as there's no enjoyment to be had whatsoever in spending 15-30 minutes traveling in a straight line because your target destination is 60,000 light seconds away.

 

[ebbrell]

No not for me, leave it as is.

In fact we exist supercruise too close to station now, more than we once did. It should by 25km out from it. Not 8km
There is no danger or race to get close for protection from station.

Old versions did, ed should

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

No not for me, leave it as is.

In fact we exist supercruise too close to station now, more than we once did. It should by 25km out from it. Not 8km
There is no danger or race to get close for protection from station.

Old versions did, ed should

I think 25km is too far. For slower ships, the ones that need the stations protection (newbies, T9s, unengineered, etc), it'll take well over a minute to reach the station.
Imagine doing that every time you needed to dock. Lol

I'd settle on 15km. Close enough to not be too annoying, but far enough to be in danger.

 

[Para Handy]

.....

What do you think about it?

Just like every time this comes up (once a fortnight probably) - I think NO!

Seriously, read mission descriptions or use maps and websites to avoid making long supercruise trips.

 

[Lestat]

Hey, op. Here a simple solution to solve your issue. Before you accept a mission use some of the features listed on the mission board to help you. You know Open galaxy map and view the location buy the system data and see how far the station is. If there no data to buy. Go to that location at your own risk.

The formula I use in a mission. Credit earn + Distance = Is the distance worth the wait.

 

[jepessen]

I don't completely agree to you with this...
It's true that I can analyze every trading route to check distance between stars and stations, but if you do it often it's always a waste of time. It's the same thing as the docking computer, it's something that the pilot can use it if he doesn't want to waste time in manually docking. From the point of view of the pure gameplay I don't see any reason because the jumpdrive should arrive always at the same star in a system, considering that, for example, it's not the one with biggest mass. From the point of view of the science of the game it makes sense to choose the star of the system, manually or automatically.
And also considering that's a feature that's often requested, maybe the community wants it, even if single players are against it (probably they are not traders)… Players have also a real life, and waste 15 minutes without doing anything apart seeing the distance from the station became shorter and shorter can be annoying...

 

[varonica]

Also no, there's a valid lore reason for only arriving at the primary star, and many missions are built around this feature.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

It's a good idea, and acts as a midway compromise between travel only to the primary star, and the suggestion to be able to target and jump to specific locations in a system.

I don't think it would do too much to make the galaxy feel any smaller, and you'd still have to make the effort to measure distances so that you can decide which star in a system is the closest to jump to for your final destination.

It may require a bit of rejigging in the galaxy map, but I don't think it would be too difficult to have a submenu option to select between stars.
Alternatively, the game could just require you to jump into the system map and plot directly from there, in which case nothing need be done in the galaxy map. Of course, you'd have to already have the system information, and that could act as a further restriction, not that it would placate the naysayers...

 

[fishbait]

No not for me, leave it as is.

In fact we exist supercruise too close to station now, more than we once did. It should by 25km out from it. Not 8km
There is no danger or race to get close for protection from station.

Old versions did, ed should

you need to take a trip to hutton orbital because youve clearly never had to reach any far out station ever.

 

[varonica]

you need to take a trip to hutton orbital because youve clearly never had to reach any far out station ever.

We are discussing the suggestion, not attacking the people so lets keep personal comments out of it.

Oh yes, let me point out that a) I have been to Hutton Orbital and I voted no and b) we have an entire player group "Hutton Orbital Truckers" whose very existence is based on the fact Hutton Orbital is a long way away, so if you are implying somehow that only people who have never been to Hutton Orbital are opposed to the suggestion that's an implication you need to rethink!

 

[fishbait]

We are discussing the suggestion, not attacking the people so lets keep personal comments out of it.

Oh yes, let me point out that a) I have been to Hutton Orbital and I voted no and b) we have an entire player group "Hutton Orbital Truckers" whose very existence is based on the fact Hutton Orbital is a long way away, so if you are implying somehow that only people who have never been to Hutton Orbital are opposed to the suggestion that's an implication you need to rethink!

what has been said i can not un-say, and to attempt to do so would just be insulting on my part.

but i will say having experienced firsthand the impact a long journey has on how i viewed distances in relation to my impatience, (im struggling to find the words that describe how your view of so many jumps or so long a time changes after you first make a long enjoyable journey anywhere) i will say that a sense of scale makes a difference.

 

[Lestat]

I don't completely agree to you with this...
It's true that I can analyze every trading route to check distance between stars and stations, but if you do it often it's always a waste of time.

If you have a home base. With a few locations that are too far. Write them down so before you accept the mission you can look at the paper next time and see if it worth travelling. It better than Click accept and ignoring key features of the game and complaining about the distance and not doing your own research.

It's the same thing as the docking computer, it's something that the pilot can use it if he doesn't want to waste time in manually docking. From the point of view of the pure gameplay I don't see any reason because the jumpdrive should arrive always at the same star in a system, considering that, for example, it's not the one with biggest mass. From the point of view of the science of the game it makes sense to choose the star of the system, manually or automatically.

You can waste your own time and effort and research this topic before posting a new topic about docking computers.

And also considering that's a feature that's often requested, maybe the community wants it, even if single players are against it (probably they are not traders)… Players have also a real life, and waste 15 minutes without doing anything apart seeing the distance from the station became shorter and shorter can be annoying...

You could save a lot of trouble using the Galaxy map and System map and not had to travel 15 minutes. But you sound like a user that love the idea to Click and accept all mission and ignoring key features. Then complain afterwards.

Another idea could be If you find a location that too far. Have a feature to Click and ignore missions from that Location. Instead of asking for a lazy mode.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Some trading is a waste of time. Sometime happens that I reach a system, and the target station orbits around another star far, far away from the one next to me.
Since I don't see any reason for the interstellar jump to arrive always at the same star in the same system, I'd like to have something that allows to me to reach the system directly next to the star where my station is orbiting.

Of course it can be performed by some equipment that must be acquired, or it can be something that only bigger trading ship can have, but for people used to trade this can save a great amount of real-life time, considering that in these case we need more than 10 minutes (or more) to travel in deep space without doing anything. By shortening the travel distance, a player is also more protected by pirates that have less time to start the engaging.

So, my request is:

- Create an equipment that allows a ship to reach a system and, if a station is selected in that system as destination, reach the system directly within the star nearest to the station.
- Give the possibility only to some ships to have this equipment, or some other logic that don't give too much advantage to occasional trader.

What do you think about it?

This must then affect payouts, they change payouts to better compensate the long super cruise journey.
So if we remove most of this traveltime by the proposed jump between stars in the same system, then basically all supercruise distant factor for increased pay needs to go too.


Just yesterday, I had two seemingly similiar mission

Take 120T of same cargo

But the payment of these two where very different

1st - 1-2 million,
2nd - 6-7 million

Both was about 15 LY away from where I am, and the difference was that the 1st had less than 1000 LS super cruise distance, and the 2nd had over 200 000 LS super cruise distance.


So this is one major thing that needs to be changed.



A prefer to have distances matter more when it comes to credits, than to have yet another lets make space smaller suggestion.


If you do not check before accepting missions, then it is up to to decide if you continue or abandon the mission.





And if pay goes down, you would most likely NOT have picked that mission, as it would now pay ALOT less.
So that only leave trade routes/source and return missions, where the commodities appears to have very limited supply, but then c an be found plentiful at a few systems, and that is because they most of the time is 300 000 LS or more from the main star. Stuff that is easily identifiable BEFORE accepting said mission or planning said trade route



So you have the option to do some basic checks BEFORE, and if you fail that, who is responsible for "wasting" your own time?

 

[Para Handy]

I don't completely agree to you with this...
It's true that I can analyze every trading route to check distance between stars and stations, but if you do it often it's always a waste of time. It's the same thing as the docking computer, it's something that the pilot can use it if he doesn't want to waste time in manually docking. From the point of view of the pure gameplay I don't see any reason because the jumpdrive should arrive always at the same star in a system, considering that, for example, it's not the one with biggest mass. From the point of view of the science of the game it makes sense to choose the star of the system, manually or automatically.
And also considering that's a feature that's often requested, maybe the community wants it, even if single players are against it (probably they are not traders)… Players have also a real life, and waste 15 minutes without doing anything apart seeing the distance from the station became shorter and shorter can be annoying...

1. For missions there is nothing to analyse, the distance from arrival is given in the mission description. For your own derived trade routes, yes you should for sure have to analyse what that route entails. If you are using a web-based trading tool then the station distance is listed. So your "waste of time" argument is invalid.

2. To assume that because a feature is often requested means that "the community wants it" is incorrect, it just means that there are frequently people who don't notice that their 8 Million credit mission requires a long supercruise journey - i.e. that greed had trumped perception.

you need to take a trip to hutton orbital because youve clearly never had to reach any far out station ever.

You misinterpreted ebbrell's post completely.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

1. For missions there is nothing to analyse, the distance from arrival is given in the mission description.

This is not completely true - for cargo delivery missions, yes, it is. For something like a surface scan or salvage, the mission-related signal sources can show up at any body in the system ... so even if all the stations are around the primary star, you can still end up getting sent to a distant secondary star at 400kLs to do the mission with no advance warning, or way to avoid it without just avoiding multi-star systems entirely.


And sure, it's completely avoidable - you can go to Colonia, or the Pleiades, where all stations are relatively close to the primary star. But what gameplay is it adding? The way interdiction works means you can't easily be caught in the middle - if they don't get you before you set off, they won't until you slow down at the other end. You'd be at equal risk of attack if you just dropped in at the secondary star and had to deal with NPCs getting out of the gravity well there.


Frontier, of course, don't seem to think that flying long supercruise distances to stations is good gameplay:
- the original design (presumably, while the stations were being positioned) would have allowed microjumps instead. Supercruise is better than that for a lot of reasons, but if they'd planned it all along, they probably would have positioned most stations differently.
- the hand-placed stations in Colonia or the Pleiades are generally either around the primary star or relatively close to it. The longest cruise is 5 minutes (30,000 Ls) in one Colonia system where there isn't a suitable closer place for the station.
- the FSS means that there's much less routine need to fly that distance while exploring
- I don't think any engineer bases are more than about 10kLs from the primary star
- most tourist beacons are relatively close to the primary star

Yes, missions to longer-distance stations have higher rewards ... but that could be amended to make it based on the distance from the nearest star instead, and still keep some flavour.

Surely if - the intentional joke of Alpha Centauri aside - this was actually something they wanted players to do, there'd be more features added since the 1.0 release that actually required it?

It wouldn't be a problem if there were things to do while flying in a straight line - maybe have remote access to mission boards, markets, etc. to set up your next job ready for when you dock, or maybe some sort of detailed ship maintenance mechanism where being able to spend ten minutes uninterrupted flight time would be a good chance to catch up on it. Or if interdiction/NPCs worked slightly differently, a long trip like that might mean fighting off multiple NPCs (you can't high-wake, after all!) and actually earning the reward, rather than pointing your ship in the right direction and going for lunch.

But I note that (Hutton aside, and no objection to permit-locking Proxima against this) none of the people saying that long-distance supercruise should be kept are making the case that it's really good fun ... just that it's avoidable. You're really selling it here!

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

You didn’t check the distance from the star to the destination.
You didn’t check if the destination had a large landing pad.
You don’t want to git gud at beating interdictions.
You don’t want to git gud at landing.
You don’t want to grind for light years to be able to make it to Sag A in 3 jumps.
Elite is not the kind of game where you can do xyz.
If you don’t like it the way it is, go play another game.

We did check. Staring at wallpaper for 2 hours for some extra credits is still not fun.
We did check. We still want more options.
We are good. We still want more options.
We are good. We still want an integrated docking function.
We wouldn’t care that the road is long if there was more to do while you’re heading to your destination, instead of just working on getting RSI.
Maybe Elite should become that kind of game.
We like certain aspects of the game, for those we don’t, we come to the suggestions forum, where ideas about injecting some more fun into the game come to be killed at the hands of Preserve the Grind TM conservatives.

Thank the Gods that none of them have a real say in what gets changed. But they were right who said that people are the architects of their own misery, and their words would be truer still if they added that people construct their own cages and design their own prisons, and become lovers to their sufferings.

Rant aside, the idea makes sense, and would likely result in more of the galaxy being explored by more players, which is a desirous effect given the size of the game world. I would suggest though that hyperspace jumps between stars in the same system should not be allowed, if it wasn’t already implied or specified. Assuming that auto-plotting only selects primary stars, then it would also make route plotting more involved, allowing players to take a more direct hand in their travels, and pay for being lazy by having to either take longer in supercruise, or having to make two extra jumps to get to the closer star, which perhaps they may not have the fuel for, which means more time scooping, unless the nearby stars aren’t scoopable, in which case they’d have to get to the nearest station first. All reasonable consequences.

In short, players can shorten their trips by making smarter choices. If other players who are into self-torture want to pull long haul zombification runs for an extra buck, they can still do missions in single star systems. No harm done. Or if you like that sort of thing, then harm done, just the way you want it.

 

[Para Handy]

This is not completely true - for cargo delivery missions, yes, it is. For something like a surface scan or salvage, the mission-related signal sources can show up at any body in the system ...

Frontier, of course, don't seem to think that flying long supercruise distances to stations is good gameplay:
- the original design (presumably, while the stations were being positioned) would have allowed microjumps instead. Supercruise is better than that for a lot of reasons, but if they'd planned it all along, they probably would have positioned most stations differently.
-
...........

The OP is specifically talking about trading"Some trading is a waste of time".

The supercruise mechanism was decided in consultation with the player-base. The original posts regarding this were linked in a post recently:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...stem-jumping?p=7287656&viewfull=1#post7287656

 

[Velixar]

It bad when players don't read the game manual.