EXPLORATION: Inertial Glide (Alternative to Jumping)

[Atebits]

Request:

Please make an alternative to jumping called Inertial Glide.

. How it works:
. Enter Jump Sequence by pressing J per usual.

. Cost of Entry:
Inertial Glide - Fuel cost of Jumping +2 (entry and exit)

. Experience:
Player enters a visual field like that of the galaxy-map

. Purpose:
Enables the player to enter a Continuous-Flight Mode like that of Super Cruise.

. Speed:
about 5% slower than Bucky-Balling averages.
this is about exploring and making exploration a continuous experience rather than ...jump ...star blindness... (because it really does involve traveling no matter how much scanning is later done)

Gameplay:


. Players select an 'Exit Target'
. The 'Exit Target' is an area of stars ahead of them wherein the ship will 'Will exit'.
. The 'Exit Target' can be reduced to a filter such as KGB-FOAM
. The 'Exit Target' begins an 'auto-pilot' sequence such that as the pilot enters the range of the 'target' area it begins to vector towards a star favored from the filter input by the pilot.
. The 'Glide' is those areas previous to the 'Exit Target' along some magnitude measured in Light Years
Example: the pilot can
a. scan for 'sites of interest' such as
'anomalous signals,
void densities (objects within the void that are not stars or systems)... possibly RNG?
...and other creative ideas for ACTUAL gameplay.
b. pilots can target star systems as they pass by selecting via the hud "enable gravity well vectoring" or simple "enable vectoring"
c. pilots can then further select the system ahead which is of interest by deliberately turning their ship towards the "vector target" (usually a star system)
. the ship, much like a glider, then begins to move towards the target by its already exiting inertia plus pilot input
e. caution: some fun... vectoring should be 'slowable' but speed cannot be increased creating a situation of inevitable 'glide collapse'. Therefore, this action should be a commitment. If you begin to exit 'Interial Glide' the process is irreversible.
e. caution II: some more fun... pilots can 'opt out' of exiting prematurely (such as passing by another star system on the way to their 'vector target') by actually selecting a 'vector target'
e. caution III: players can disable prematurely exiting 'inertial glide' before their 'Exit Target' by NOT selecting for 'enable vectoring'


This would really improve exploration and the game as a whole. Please do this even if it is an Engineering thing.



Reason For Request:

. Current Exploration Traveling Experience / Gameplay
Press J ... Jump ...become blinded by star ...a few seconds of actual gameplay ...jump (dis-allowance to do anything else except to prepare for the jump-exit gameplay-moment) ...jump-exit ...star blindness ...repeat

. Current Exploration Traveling Experience / Gameplay
My Statistics:
Systems Visited: 49, 914
Profits from Exploration: 724, 794, 462
Total Hyperspace Distance: 1, 652, 484 Ly
Number of Gameplay Elements Discovered Involving Exploration: 0
Unique Things Discovered Because of Stellar Forge: Two Landable Ring-Worlds almost touching (about to collide), Three Icy Ring-Worlds with one orbiting the other in close proximity, one set of Earth-Likes orbiting one another, one set of Ammonia Worlds orbiting one another
Unique Things Discovered Because Frontier Did Some Development: 0
Unique Things Discovered Because of Exploration-Content: 0

Extent of Daily Exploration Experience... FOR YEARS...
...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess

 

[varonica]

Extent of Daily Exploration Experience... FOR YEARS...
...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess ...Jump ...Starblindess

Jump, fuel scoop (optional), scan, check system map for interesting bodies, identify interesting bodies, go to interesting body and scan, if vulcanism=true and body temp between X & Y check splash craters for life forms, if temp not between x-y and vulcanism=major check for volcanic sites, on leaving system if life form = true and Braintree = yes check nearby systems for guardian ruins etc.....

If your exploration experience consists of jumping over and over again then maybe you should reconsider exploration as a profession?

 

[Sapyx]

I'm not entirely sure, but the main purpose of the idea appears to be replacing the hyperspace screen with a more interactive "hypercruising" travelling-between-the-stars mini-game.

Problem: the hyperspace screen is a loading screen. It is showing a few simple graphics because it's busy generating the target star system. So, adding anything to the hyperspace experience can only increase the length of time between systems, considerably, because whatever happens beforehand you'll still need the 30 seconds to two minutes of "loading screen" before you enter your target system. By your description, it can't start loading the next system while you're hypercruising, because it doesn't know where you're going to arrive until you actually arrive there.

I think we all agree that the exploration mechanic can use some improvement, I'm just not sure this would be an improvement. I'd personally rather see us given more possible things to see and do in each star system, more reason to explore the so-called "boring" systems, to reduce the jump-honk-jump monotony we can all experience on occasion.

 

[NW3]

I do think it's possible to implement something like this, even though the exit to the destination system would still need to go through the "loading screen". This is somewhat similar to the "chain jump" mode I have previously suggested. It would be nice to have a less boring way to travel on long voyages, even if you have to skip gathering valuable exploration data along the way.

 

[Atebits]

Sapyx
Not a replacement to the hyperspace screen.
- I think Frontier has some plans for that besides how it works now.
- Thargoid space

Varonica
Nailed it. Everything you said is part of the external game.
- FDev won't let us write programs outside the game to create in-game utilities like what you just described
- There are good reasons why FDev doesn't let us do this (cheating)
- There are bad reasons why FDev hasn't made exploration consist of 'equipment' (a hud) where-in we can program the relevant data we are scanning for and inform us by way of a tone what is taking place. The bad reasons FDev won't do this is because they seem to lack a general competence for GAME design. They are very good at programming. They are very good at simulation. They are very bad at making things that have a structure of GAME to it.
- When you are flying there is a weird signal-to-noise image on the right bottom side of your hud like a sound-filter image. Whatever that is, I have always thought since the beginning of the game, belonged to exploration content. I had imagined that you would need to learn to 'tweak' that by opening it through another key (say pressing 5). This would open a whole hud area that would require software purchases. You could then input things like you've written about so as to do discrete searches or a general field of study across the system for 'anomalous quanta' / data-sets.
- Alien 'ruins' are copy-paste. I stopped associating with them when that became clear. The geometry related to them is pointless containing no information. It is just geometry to make it look complex.
- Vulcanism are little sprite fountains. More evidence FDev is going to rely on RNG as much as possible to 'develop' the game.
- No 'camps' or 'regions' of intense risk-to-reward such as asteroid fields inhabited by self-developing rogue-ai or thargons, etc
- a general lack of imagination of 'zelda-like' qualities of discovery, gained knowledge, implementation of gained knowledge, and integrated flow towards a consequential outcome (discovery an a rogue-ai asteroid field after initially finding a weird 'traveling' satellite and analyzing its wake signature' ... a general lack of competence with this sort of thinking as a whole by FDev
...Jump ...Starblindess
You missed the statements about this having to do with traveling differently and MORE slowly. Again, for the purpose of actually getting involved with a kind of hud mini-game that actually involves some analysis of data. That's far more realistic than 'stop-and-scan' every bloody star and orbiting body endlessly. There is no reason you can't do that, but it would be much more fun if traveling to another star system wasn't an artifact of leaving the current system. That it actually involved GAMEPLAY. This is really the point of all this, adding more areas that have GAMEPLAY and not just waiting for FDev to RNG something RNG on to the planet whose overall consequence to the wider galaxy and lore is exactly NOTHING.

NW3
Ya, I have no issues with a loading screen.

What was your chain-jump mode? I specially avoided ideas of this being a 'fast travel' or 'warp drive' concept. It is meant to be more like using a real life glider. You get yourself up into the air by the assistance of something motorized. Afterward, however, you suffer the fate of all aircraft - decline due to loss of airspeed and elevation. In this case air speed is lost by the proximity to a gravity well. Elevation is somewhat 'safety-netted' by your ship ultimately navigating towards a gravity well once it becomes clear the course of momentum forwards has become negligible to the 'target' destination. Ala, if a gravity well costs -10 inertia and you have 100 passing by system 9 will automatically instigate the vectoring towards the nearest-next system of system 9 because you've effectively reached the point of zero forward moment. Remember, I said that this begins with 5% less speed than you would gain from jumping over and over. That's another 5% loss every time you pass close to a gravity well where you have turned vectoring on in the first place.

I'm kind of imagining this as 'near-witchspace' travel. You are moving along the boundary of witch-space and so things like your mass don't really count against you. However, the loss of forward momentum comes about because of interaction between the field you are existing as/in through the process of Inertial Glide and some near (large) mass body (star systems).

This is game-lore babble to excuse FDev from actually needing to fill in the gaps between stars.

 

[varonica]

Sapyx
Not a replacement to the hyperspace screen.
- I think Frontier has some plans for that besides how it works now.
- Thargoid space

Varonica
Nailed it. Everything you said is part of the external game.

Nope, everything I listed is what I do every time I enter a new system.

As to your replacement to hyperspace, I very much suspect the coming squad carrier is the key to new travel methods, the carrier will almost certainly employ the capital ship hyperspace technology rather than the FSD technology we use in our ships because the FSD technology is limited by the max mass it can take into hyperspace, so the conda is probably the largest ship we can fly as an individual pilot, and probably the reason for a lot of other things like landing pad sizes. This is also the reason why a few other changes were made, for instance moving megaships no longer requires server restart, so the same will apply to squad carriers.

To sum up, I expect the FSD and its limitations to remain the only method for moving small ships long distances, moving large ships long distances will probably require an extended jump of hours or for extreme distances even days. I fully expect a change in travel technology, but it will have a downside and not be the equivalent of instant travel or anything similar. I am cool with that for groups, something that requires a considerable investment in time, money and resources to enable groups to travel large distances without the jump and scoop. Once at the destination it should require refuelling over a period of days, maybe with player interaction or maybe not, whereas some sort of extended or fast travel for individuals in small ships would not be very good for the player base or game.

Anyway there is lots that can be done as far as planetary and stellar exploration is concerned, but I don't have a seat at the table where decisions are made, I can only express my ideas and agreement or disagreement for ideas posted here, it says nothing to my opinion of other payers who post ideas so if I criticise an idea that's all I am speaking to, the idea. I am not keen on your inertial glide, it doesn't fit with the technology we use in small ships at all, other methods of long distance travel I am not always against.

 

[Atebits]

Varonica,
It is NOT a replacement to Hyperspace.
- Otherwise, awesome speculation.

Frontier,
This is NOT a request to replace Hyperspace.

Everyone,
This is NOT a request to replace Hyperspace.


This is a request for more ways to have some GAMEPLAY

 

[varonica]

Varonica,
It is NOT a replacement to Hyperspace.
- Otherwise, awesome speculation.

Frontier,
This is NOT a request to replace Hyperspace.

Everyone,
This is NOT a request to replace Hyperspace.


This is a request for more ways to have some GAMEPLAY

No I understand what you are saying, what I am saying is the FSD drive is a hyperspace drive that enables jumps between systems for small ships, there are other types of drives but they only work with large ships, capital ships etc. You are asking for a complete rework of the drive systems for small ships which honestly isn't very practical. Yes given that this is a game and the FSD doesn't actually exist you could change it to do anything you wanted, even traveling clear across the galaxy in one jump if you wanted, but there are limitations to FSD's, even if they are imaginary limitations of an imaginary drive. Just throwing all those away because GAMEPLAY simply doesn't make sense.

No you don't want to replace Hyperspace, you just want to shoehorn an entire extra new drive system into our ships, bypassing and ignoring everything that the current technology can do, and for some sort of GAMEPLAY that I don't necessarily think is GAMEPLAY. I'm don't want to get into arguments about fast travel here because they go nowhere, but GAMEPLAY is subjective, and I don't really see anything in your suggestion that will add to GAMEPLAY, but it will detract from any sort of consistent technological basis for the game. To sum up, I don't want to see traveling the galaxy in ED turn into "because magic."