[FSD CRITIQUE, with possible solutions] Apparently abritrary time sink for the player

[VR andysonofbob]

I hate pointless time sinks. What I mean by this is when the player is forced to wait for an apparently arbitrary amount of time for a cooldown timer to expire.

Before people kick off! Time sinks are FINE! As long as the player has something significant to do during this time.

ED does the following well:
Shields cool down/recharge rate - in combat, the cool down time and recharge rate is appropriate; in a station the shields recharge super quickly. Awesome.

ED does the following less well:
FSD cool down + charge + countdown = arguably pointless waste of player time. When exploring, waiting the cool downs does not take skill. Waiting for the cool downs did not make the universe feel bigger! It is just annoying and feels arbitrary!

My suggestion.
Half both types of cool downs (normal or emergency); reduce the charge by a third and shave of a second of the countdown so it engages when is says it does.

BUT to balance this:

COMBAT

• Increase the mass lock penalty and distance in proportion to the reduced charge times.

Basically, the time it takes for a pilot to wake out should feel the same as it does now.

EXPLORATION

• Increase the amount of heat damage suffered when overheating whilst the FSD is charging, so the pilots must gauge far more carefully the point to spool up the drives.

I have jumped to SAG A*. I have had to manually plot the last 300 ly or so because of lag. That took skill. When you pull off one of those super quick and efficient fuel scoops whilst lining up for the next jump, waiting for the jump timer takes the shine off your manoeuvre.

What do people think?

 

[ChaosCloud]

I think that compared to the SuperSnail Cruise accel/decel is the jump cooldown of 3sec the last thing I'd complain about.
Then again, my Asp runs only a A3 scoop because I don't like fully dedicating it to exploration alone so I need way longer than the cooldown anyways to refuel.

One other thing is though that your route isn't saved when you log off or get disconnected, that's something I'd like to see changed.
That and the random jump in point, meaning half of the time I jump into a system going in a plotted straight line and my next target is behind me... Needing to turn around there is often enough to 'keep me busy' for the cooldown.

So I gotta disagree as I don't see need for change there, and regarding your example of lining up the next jump while scooping: timing the scoop duration with the cooldown vs line up is a very skill needing element (which is what I think you would like to see?), I just curve around until I'm either too hot or full and then just be all "sooo, where's my target again?" XD

 

[VR andysonofbob]

I think that compared to the SuperSnail Cruise accel/decel is the jump cooldown of 3sec the last thing I'd complain about.

Mate, yeah. Agree. But at least you are arguably doing something productive e.g. running from or chasing someone!

You play a VERY different game from me if it takes you 3 seconds to get back into a jump bro! Three seconds? For me it often takes over a minute, with efficient servers to go from jump to jump. Why? 5 seconds jump between systems, then 50+ seconds to get back into another jump?

Seems (to me) like a totally arbitrary duration and therefore time == wasted

 

[ChaosCloud]

You play a VERY different game from me if it takes you 3 seconds to get back into a jump bro! Three seconds? For me it often takes over a minute, with efficient servers to go from jump to jump. Why? 5 seconds jump between systems, then 50+ seconds to get back into another jump?

Ok 3sec is more the time until the jump can be charged, wasn't that specific about it. It's somewhat ~3sec (often with a ~2sec delay before the cooldown even starts?) until I can charge up and that time alone is as said often used up alone by aligning for the next, and then there's the dunno 15sec of charging?
I admit that I don't travel that often around but compared to the hours I feel wasted in SC does this seem harmless to me. Ah well, different activities, different problems I guess.

 

[VR andysonofbob]

Mate, what bothers me most about this, is just how arbitrary it feels!

It's like DB just rolled a d20 a bunch of times for the different parts of the sequence:

1. Pause before cooldown: d20
2. Standard cooldown: d20 / Botched cooldown: d20 * 2
3. Charge: d20
4. Countdown: d20

Looks at results: AWESOME! Woot YEAH!

As I said, I don't mind cool downs per se, as long as they aren't pointless and unnecessarily drawn out. ED's FSD charge times consequently upset my inner equilibrium... many times each night. Booo!

 

[CMDR Byr Goefin]

When I read these, all I can hear is:

"I want to see less of the Galaxy"


Meh, I don't get it.

 

[DragoonKnight]

When I read these, all I can hear is:

"I want to see less of the Galaxy"


Meh, I don't get it.

Oh right, of course
waiting for FSD to Charge or fuel scooping = Seeing the Galaxy

 

[ChaosCloud]

When I read these, all I can hear is:

"I want to see less of the Galaxy"

Meh, I don't get it.

Yup, when I want to get from A to B I don't want to see the galaxy, I want to get from A to B.
I don't people that act like there's only 100% throttle and 0%, if one wants to take their time and sight see the galaxy there are more than enough ways, but when one wants to get quickly from A to B there's one choice and that's depending on how much enjoy staring at the screen with nothing to do than fly in a straight line (or watch the charge bar) not that interesting.

 

[VR andysonofbob]

When I read these, all I can hear is:

"I want to see less of the Galaxy"


Meh, I don't get it.

Hehe!

No one is suggesting increasing jump range etc.. I just can't see the point in the amount of time the player has to wait in this downtime limbo!

That said, when I travelled to Sag A* I did watch a shed load of YouTube debates etc.! But I could have done that with a decreased cooldown too!

 

[Vasious]

Dropping the cool down time, charge time and jump count down would have flow on effects on piracy, shadow missions and smuggling

 

[Magic Man]

OP, no thanks, works well and balanced enough as it is.

 

[VR andysonofbob]

Dropping the cool down time, charge time and jump count down would have flow on effects on piracy, shadow missions and smuggling

Mate I am totally aware of the above hence my comment on balancing.

As I was saying, when mass locked, INCREASE the duration and/or sphere of influence to balance out the delay. Basically smugglers, pirates etc. shouldn't be affected e.g. the average time from being interdicted to wake out would remain the same etc.

OP, no thanks, works well and balanced enough as it is.

With respect, how is it balanced? It is SO not balanced.

I would argue "Balanced" would be when everything is so tight, the player is still learning to shave off milliseconds, doing all that was needed to do between each jump even after a couple of 100 or so jumps and it is still challenging to do right when experienced. StarCraft2s mechanics are arguably balanced (they're still being refined!); ED's mechanics are not.

More importantly, I have addressed balancing: assuming the compensates for the mass lock that I mentioned in the OP were built in, why the delay when you are not in a sphere of influence or in a hazardous situation?

When there are so many potentially well implemented timers built in e.g. explorers having to time their fuel scoops against heat damage before jumping, mass lock affecting FSD charge time when escaping bounty hunters, shields recharge rates (do you persist or disengage before shields collapse?) etc. why the need for arbitrary ones?

An arbitrary set of cooldowns and warmups are not good examples of delays and seem designed to purely waste a player's time, with ZERO game benefit.

I repeat:
BALANCE
Combat/pirate/smuggling encounter etc.

• INCREASE the already built in modifiers (sphere of mass lock, mass lock penalty etc.) which already affect timers, which will therefore SLOWDOWN timers further and from greater range when something is happening. Aim for a vanilla experience.

BALANCE
When away from hazard.

• No modifier affecting timers resulting in speedier cool downs at all other times.

EVERYONE BENEFITS; NOBODY LOOSES OUT. NOBODY.

I think I am an experience gamer, having spend 35 years of my life gaming across all sorts of platforms and genres. I know when things are there for balance and when they are not. Honestly, I am open for a decent reason why the cool down, charge up timers are as they are and am happy to change my mind. I just need a good reason that I haven't already addressed.

 

[ChaosCloud]

For what it's worth, I benchmarked chain jumping and it takes roughly 45sec (for me) with charging, jumping (time can vary here due to connection issues or not) and cooldown until next charging can be done.

 

[Psycho Romeo]

What do people think?

I think this thread is silly.

I'll tell you what I read. I read "this isn't fun therefore it's not good". Blah blah not skillful blah blah waste of time blah blah arbitrary. Blah blah blah. It's the same song, different words as many, many, many other posts. Next I'm sure someone's gonna drop a QoL bomb.

The reason we have travel time is to realize time and distance. That 120ly trip to participate in a CG with your friend is supposed to be punishing. It's supposed to be three times as punishing if you have a corvette. But heaven forbid we punish the player with something not fun, right?

These things are the way they are because they're supposed to influence the choices and decisions you make. Maybe you regret that corvette and get an anaconda instead. Maybe later you'll be wishing you had two huge hard points. These things realize time and distance, and bring it to the surface and make them matter, so that they might influence us.

If you're bothered by travel time you should fly a ship that can jump better. There is no distance within the bubble that isn't reasonably quick to traverse in an AE built to jump.

 

[Korlan]

Here is something that might actually make sense...

Add a skill based maneuver to effectively 'align' the ship on its destination for a faster jump / charge time. Im thinking of a mechanic somewhat like the interdiction process, where its almost like a mini game. Maybe have 4 crosshairs that pop up that you yaw or pitch onto the destination ' target' ( think stationary escape vector ), primary fire to set and move to the next crosshair to set. How close all four cross-hairs are to the vector determine charge time, or to jump before the charge is complete.

Fun little line up game. Perhaps, higher class FSD's have fewer crosshairs to line up. And mutli-crew expansion allows crew member to line up to the vector for hyperspace jumps.