Distance and Time...

[[VR] scipio_77]

Well, I think surface maps should be projectable on to the HUD or viewable like the codex, so you could check up on the system bodies while travelling at proper cruising speeds. It would also be neat with ways to plan jump routes without SC going into slow-poke mode.

This way you could oogle some information and feel like you're doing some prepwork for your journeys.

 

[ChrisF0001]

To me, one of the best things about this game is that it doesn't abstract away the vast distances of space. I mean, it tries to map the galaxy at 1:1 scale, there's no other game that even attempts something like that. If I try to play something like X4, where an entire 'sector', implied to be an entire populated star system in some way, is actually about the size of a small village, my brain just rebels. Things are much quicker, sure, but the only way I can deal with the absurdly tiny scale is to actively avoid thinking about it.

So here we are, with, at long last, a game for people who appreciate time and distance and the fact that space is big. 'Fast Travel' options would make a joke of the whole thing. I'm sorry if you find flying to Hutton or Colonia boring, but you don't have to do that, and for those of us who like that sort of thing, this game is the only one we have that delivers. It may not appeal to everyone, but it does appeal to some. Please don't take away our game because you're impatient.

Sometimes I read these threads and imagine people posting in a Eurotruck Simulator 2 forum saying there should be fast travel mechanisms because driving is boring. (And storyline missions and changes to the world based on player actions, but that's a slightly different rant...)

 

[Midian Cabal]

Of course space is big. It's where we have all our stuff and still it's almost empty. We don't really need all that space. All our stuff could fit in no space at all. At least it used to.
Back then nothing took any time at all. We didn't have any time. Everything(which was probably noting) happened all the time.

Then lots of stuff happened and we had to get time to keep track of it all. It was a good solution. As long as nothing happened it was ok that everything happened at once but when everything started to happen, it was better to spread it out a bit.

Now a lot of time has passed and stuff is really spread out. Those of us that usually stay in places where quite a bit of stuff is closer together, will get used to that. We easily get annoyed, if stuff we want is stored unnecessarily far away. We feel we simply do not need that much time separation before interacting with our destination.

At least we are about medium sized. Not really big and not really small. No matter where you go, you will always be at the center or the observable universe and have your own local time. Not to shabby, if you ask me.

“In the beginning, there was nothing. And God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a lot better.” - Woody Allen

 

[metatheurgist]

If you look at the people complaining, they largely focus on the really long distances like Hutton, instead of talking about the much more common few hundred LS that takes no more than a minute or two to travel to.

The missions with the long travel times pay more. Sometimes I'm reminded of the story of the monkey with it's hand in the jar....

 

[Tikanderoga]

So here we are, with, at long last, a game for people who appreciate time and distance and the fact that space is big. 'Fast Travel' options would make a joke of the whole thing. I'm sorry if you find flying to Hutton or Colonia boring, but you don't have to do that, and for those of us who like that sort of thing, this game is the only one we have that delivers. It may not appeal to everyone, but it does appeal to some. Please don't take away our game because you're impatient.

How about add fast travel, and those who want to use it can, and those who chose not to use it, won't.
It's like the docking computer. It's there, but no one forces you to use it.

 

[Teepers]

If you look at the people complaining, they largely focus on the really long distances like Hutton, instead of talking about the much more common few hundred LS that takes no more than a minute or two to travel to.

I wonder if these people deliberately don't check what missions they are taking and keep taking missions to places hundreds of thousands of LS out and then complain about the travel times.

If you run missions to relatively close stations (around primary, no more than a couple of thousand LS out), then you don't even have time to get bored.

I am going to play devils advocate here seeing as how I have to appease that snobby two chinned piece of crap called Professor Palin and figured I would go ahead and use this opportunity to knock out elite explorer and then never fire a probe again. In the bubble you can avoid missions but once you get out and are doing planetary scan it seems like every star wants to fling its planets of worth out at least 50k LS. It gets tedious going across the system to spend 3 seconds firing probes only to have to dash across to the other side of the system to do it again. That is a lot of time spent in SC just to do the only thing you can out this far save for give up and turn back or finally succumb to space madness and overload your reactor.

 

[Slowfiddler]

Docking computers don't trivialise the size of the galaxy. Fast travel would, even if not used.

 

[CAPT. Ho Chi Minge]

Now that was an excellent film. Brian Cox (UK physicist/broadcaster) would have taken probably two 45 minute TV programmes to say all that.
I'm not having a go at Pro Cox here, just that modern TV science documentaries seem to be produced by frustrated arts graduates.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqse4VoNsYY

The issue when its brian cox presenting is the show becomes more about him than the science , its focused more on his clothes and the backdrop than the actual science.

Dead ringers (uk tv sketch show) had some incredible sketches pointing this very thing out) .. the quote "on me garry" , is a gem as the camera tries to pan around and he becomes less of the focus.

On topic .. for me i feel they could tart up the travel with some activities to do enroute , once youve set the throttle to the blue and faced towards your destinatiin i dont think you even have to touch the controls afain till the drop out , very dull.

 

[Tikanderoga]

Docking computers don't trivialise the size of the galaxy. Fast travel would, even if not used.

Just listing something that is in game that people can opt in to use or not, same as engineers. Everything is optional, some people like jumping and honking the galaxy 300 times on their way to Colonia, and some people get driven insane.
Go there once - Fast travel unlocked. If you want to go again, you can chose to fast travel, or you can go and jump all the way - your choice which way you want to go. You know, blaze your own trail, etc? Personal narrative? RP your jumping?
My narrative: Been there, done that, let's get this over with, I need the money!

 

[WR3ND]

Some people complained that they didn't want to be blown up in supernovae if they were ever implemented too...

Never mind that our ships generally travel many, many times their expansion rate while in supercruise. And don't get me started on the odds of accidentally happening to jump into a system just as a super giant collapses, not notice, and go in to fuel scoop it or something.

I've traveled the interstellar distances between stellar systems in supercruise several times in the game early on just for testing.

As the game is now, in human terms, this scale isn't really conceivable within the game, traveling at 2001 times the speed of light.

Point being, it already is fast travel, especially considering high wakes. But yeah, I'm all for more and varied things to do while traveling and piloting our ships. Sounds good to me, provided it isn't just another FSS type mini-game.

No silly teleportation though, please, rebuys not withstanding, though I haven't personally seen one in years.

 

[Helvellyn]

My ego is bigger than the Sol system. I need intergalactic distances to make me feel small.

That's what the Total Perspective Vortex is for!

 

[[VR] Goooost]

I want to remind everyone that having a little travel time is important for the future of the game, as that becomes space for extra content like spacelegs. If they got rid of travel time, then introduced stuff to do on the ship, but doing stuff on your ship meant allocating your own time to it, nobody would use it. But if when it becomes a way to pass the time that's already there, it adds to the game immensely. Of course they would need to develop some kind of supercruise assistant so you dont overshoot your target while tinkering in the back so there are some technical challenges to overcome.

 

[CAPT. Ho Chi Minge]

I want to remind everyone that having a little travel time is important for the future of the game, as that becomes space for extra content like spacelegs. If they got rid of travel time, then introduced stuff to do on the ship, but doing stuff on your ship meant allocating your own time to it, nobody would use it. But if when it becomes a way to pass the time that's already there, it adds to the game immensely. Of course they would need to develop some kind of supercruise assistant so you dont overshoot your target while tinkering in the back so there are some technical challenges to overcome.

I do hope spacelegs would be far more than just faffing around your ship. FYI there is a supercruise assist module too.

 

[LordFerret]

ED should be like this. Imagine how much time we could save...

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6f9_9kzuzk

Good gads, how many hours did I spend playing that on a Teletype (HP2000C via 300baud acoustic coupler)... wondering now how many ribbons and rolls of paper I wasted.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I am going to play devils advocate here seeing as how I have to appease that snobby two chinned piece of crap called Professor Palin and figured I would go ahead and use this opportunity to knock out elite explorer and then never fire a probe again. In the bubble you can avoid missions but once you get out and are doing planetary scan it seems like every star wants to fling its planets of worth out at least 50k LS. It gets tedious going across the system to spend 3 seconds firing probes only to have to dash across to the other side of the system to do it again. That is a lot of time spent in SC just to do the only thing you can out this far save for give up and turn back or finally succumb to space madness and overload your reactor.

I suppose yes, if you're looking for surface stuff it kind of negates the change we got with the FSS which mean you no longer need to go charging across the system to scan planets.

 

[Quantis Trap]

The problem is not that people complain because they always do. The problem is that Frontier little by little over time caves to damands of players who are going to eventually rage quit no matter what. That's why we have all easy buttons we have now.

 

[WR3ND]

The problem is not that people complain because they always do. The problem is that Frontier little by little over time caves to damands of players who are going to eventually rage quit no matter what. That's why we have all easy buttons we have now.

I don't know if it's so much caving or trying to appeal to a wider market. There are some things I'm glad Frontier reconsidered, like instant ship transfers and the Engineers roulette wheel.

 

[ChrisF0001]

I don't know if it's so much caving or trying to appeal to a wider market. There are some things I'm glad Frontier reconsidered, like instant ship transfers and the Engineers roulette wheel.

I've seen at least one game where the producers changed almost literally everything overnight because they decided that they didn't want the niche-market playerbase they already had, they wanted a much larger more mainstream one. So they threw that existing playerbase under the bus.

That game never really recovered, and pretty much ruined that whole franchise for me in the process.

Please let's not have Elite become That Game.

 

[WR3ND]

Yeah, shoot for the stars, not for the status quo, and they will come and tell their friends, and their friends will tell theirs, and so on. Better to stand out in a crowd for excellence than doing the same thing as everyone else or getting by with the lowest common denominator.

Just my general take on things. Not pointing a finger at Frontier.

Speaking of Frontier though, I do happen to think they've accomplished this with some aspects of the game.

 

[b0redb0y]

Instant light-year travel would make exploring the far reaches of the galaxy a trivial exercise and remove the wonder of reaching Beagle Point forever. If you could get to Colonia in one jump, why would it be different from going anywhere in the Bubble?

This is the thing that worries me most about the recent rash of cheaters - it makes me wonder if I'll go 20000 Ly and find some cheater has been there already, and mapped everything, and (more to the point) got their name on everything. That would make me very sad...

In relation to Huttonesque super-cruise distances, the same thing applies. Where would the achievement be in getting there if it only took 5 minutes?

We need these travel times.

But I'd be all in favour of more stuff to do on the way.

We can't actually walk round - there's no gravity in our ships, even the big ones - this is documented in the books. But I'd love to be able get out of the seat, hit the head (appropriate content of course), make a (Hutton) mug of coffee, play some zero-gee pool; I can already read the Codex (although I haven't yet )... Maybe Supercruise Assist is looking ahead...