Alteration to wake scanning - You follow them no matter what their jump range?

NeilF

NeilF
I was spit balling what might be the benefit if when a ship jumps and you wake scan it and lock onto it, if you then jump to their destination irrespective of distance. eg: If it's further than your longer range, then you use the fuel of your longest jump but can still follow them?

1) It might free up pirates/bounty hunters to keep on the tail of their prey.
2) It might open up some opportunities for explorers. eg: Two ships could do an extended jump with only using the materials.
3) Means a wing of ships can move at the fastest (longest jumping) ship's speed.
4) Might pave the way for how NPC wingmen follow you.
5) Leaving a station and see a fortuitous wake from someone else helping you further along towards your goal?

Any other positives?

Any obvious negatives?

Possible Limitations
  • You could put a limitation in such that you can't follow the wake of another ship if it's say 50-100% longer than your current range? eg: If your ship has a jump range of 20ly, you couldn't follow the wake of a 41ly jump.
  • As well (or instead of) a waker scanner, you need a different utility to be able to re-use a jump?
  • You could limit the mechanic only to jumps made from SC? Thus not allowing pirates to follow trade ships they've interdicted? If that's a concern? (That would kill no.5 above obviously)
  • Using the mechanic could significantly damage your FSD. eg: 10-50% damage.
 
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Lobstris

Lobstris
'Balancing' of combat ships/ship transfers would need to be looked at. Why pay or wait for ship transfers, or purchase a big FSD at all, if you've got a mate in a 50ly Asp you can just follow?
(Actually, I really hate the idea, and think it would be exploited to all heck, but my alternative ideas, such as more persistent wakes leaving 'trails' through multiple systems, coupled with larger jumps requiring much longer FSD cooldowns to allow pursuers to possibly catch up, would probably cause excessive (exponential) server/networking/storage demands and annoy the 'credits/hour' crowd when travelling longer distances).
 
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CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
Maybe if the wake system was more involved...

A large ship needs a large wake to follow, it can't follow a small ships wake.

But I small ship can easily follow anything else...?
 

NeilF

NeilF
VonBlade said:
Terrible idea. One wingman in a stripped out, engineered DBX to move the wing around the map, three players in 1D FSD FdLs to out-turn and outmanoeuvre anyone they come across.
Click to expand...

Wow... That sounds sort of like fleet dynamics and people working together :)

Not really clear from an actual gameplay view what the issue is though? Can you give a specific game example?

ps: Nothing stopping people transporting FDLs to a location with a 1D FSD? Or putting a 1D FSD in it? But agreed the suggestion makes it easier. eg: One of the FDLs could be fully spec'd and the rest have 1D FSDs...

Note: You could put limits in if necessary along the lines of... upto a maximum of twice your maximum range? ie: To prevent extreme abuse?
 
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Lobstris

Lobstris
NeilF said:
ps: Nothing stopping people transporting FDLs to a location with a 1D FSD? Or putting a 1D FSD in it? But agreed the suggestion makes it easier. eg: One of the FDLs could be fully spec'd and the rest have 1D FSDs...
Click to expand...

And so you end up with people 'transporting' other ships, circumventing the entire point of having certain sized drives on ships, or having different jump ranges on ships at all. You say 'give a gameplay example' and that's exactly what VonBlade has done. :D You say 'sounds like people working together', yes to use something that's almost as big a game breaking exploit as anything else I've heard, and putting single players at even more of a disadvantage that at current. :D :rolleyes:
 

Requiem Mortis

Requiem Mortis
I like the idea.

Edit... But maybe it would need a new module on one or both ships to work sympathetically with the FSD to make use of the jump scar/wake created by the lead ship to create a semi stable witch space conduit. This way you would need to compromise on the build used to be able to use the mechanism.
 
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Mangal Oemie

Mangal Oemie
To me this makes no sense. Ship limitations suddenly disappear?

Frankly, I'd wish for the opposite: make sure that following NPCs cannot exceed their jump range. I was once followed from system-to-system by an eagle NPC bounty hunter into deep space while I was in an explo Asp...
 

Sylow

Sylow
Mangal Oemie said:
To me this makes no sense. Ship limitations suddenly disappear?

Frankly, I'd wish for the opposite: make sure that following NPCs cannot exceed their jump range. I was once followed from system-to-system by an eagle NPC bounty hunter into deep space while I was in an explo Asp...
Click to expand...
.
This. Also for moving in a wing, in the rare case that people still do that, some improvements could be done. These would be:
.
- Allow somebody in wing to plan the route based on the ship with the shortest jumprange in wing.
- Synchronize jumps better. When you are locked to a wing member and he starts his jumpdrive, your jumpdrive should also power up and initiate the jump. It shouldn't be necessary to wait for the first ship to jump to then jump based on the wake.
- Make sure that ships appear next to each other in the destination system. This already got much better, but i think there's still room for improvement.
.
 

Lobstris

Lobstris
Counter idea to make bounty hunting more viable. Tracker limpets - on a successful hit reveal player location on the map for a fixed period of time (hours/days). I can think of disadvantages to that though - could be used in griefing particular individuals, and could be countered by log-off for the period required or mode-switching.

Sylow said:
A blackbird, an owl and a dog fly to Africa...
Click to expand...

I am so fed up with dog mess raining from the skies during the Labrador migration season.

Mangal Oemie said:
Frankly, I'd wish for the opposite: make sure that following NPCs cannot exceed their jump range. I was once followed from system-to-system by an eagle NPC bounty hunter into deep space while I was in an explo Asp...
Click to expand...

Precisely. :)
 
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NeilF

NeilF
Wyaston Hypatia said:
Someone follows you to a system they cannot leave with their FSD.
You log-off.
Click to expand...

Elite Dangerous :)

RagingxPenguin said:
Bad idea. No out jumping a hungry FDL. All well and fine if you are a criminal
Not so sure the trader that escaped with his cargo would agree
Click to expand...

Well, as I did say, you could put a limitation to prevent mad distance such as no more than 50-75% more than your current jump range.

ie: If you have a ship with a 20ly jump range, you couldn't follow an Anaconda making a 45ly jump?
 

RagingxPenguin

R
NeilF said:
Elite Dangerous :)



Well, as I did say, you could put a limitation to prevent mad distance such as no more than 50-75% more than your current jump range.

ie: If you have a ship with a 20ly jump range, you couldn't follow an Anaconda making a 45ly jump?
Click to expand...

Even then you're giving an advantage to people who don't need one and punishing someone who needs the leg up.
It's fine as is IMO.
A trade ship should out jump combat vessel, as its sometimes the only option they have
 
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