Horizons Hyperspace Anomalies - Spicing up Supercruise

[Blackcompany]

Another poster came up with this idea. I merely wanted to expand - and expound - upon it briefly.

Imagine Anomalies as road hazards that crop up during Supercruise. Like hazards, manual navigation is required to avoid these Anomalies.

Unlike hazards, Anomalies present opportunity for reward as well as some risk. Consider:

- Solar Flares: riding Flares through Supercruise increases acceleration and provides constant hydrogen fuel in small sips, at the cost of higher constant heat and some heat spikes which may require offsetting or departing the Flare path.

-Comet: stay in the wake to have the icy tale obscure you from scans and interdictions but beware small rocks and some usually minor hull damage.

-Slingshot: Flings you out at great speed across a system, but beware. Slowing down will take a while and turning at high speed can crash you out of Cruise, damage your hull or fsd or even fling you on another course entirely. Best for long, straight shots.

-Disruptor cloud: wreaks havoc on nav systems. May cause crash stops, trigger a misjump or even short out a system temporarily. No benefit here. Avoid at all costs.

-Solar pocket: small hydrogen pocket. Small sips of fuel as you pass through. That's all. No risk.

-Solar Storm: harvest and store excess energy from these strange storms to increase fsd cool down and shield regen for a while. May cause minor hull or module damage, but nothing major.

-Wormholes: Where do they lead? What affect might they have on my ship when I enter or leave their space? What strange data or objects might I encounter inside?

-Derelict: sometimes, ships die at ftl speeds and nothing slows them down. Running into one is...bad. Really, instant death bad. BUT, interdicting them will drag them into normal space. Free loot!

Just some ideas for Supercruise encounters to spice up travel and make stick time more engaging. Thoughts?

 

[CMDR The Lord Marshal]

Excellent suggestions and ideas.

I had thought myself of solar flares and meteor showers, but hadn't considered the extra details like you. Any other of these would certainly make space travel even more interesting and varied.

 

[Blackcompany]

Excellent suggestions and ideas.
I had thought myself of solar flares and meteor showers, but hadn't considered the extra details like you. Any other of these would certainly make space travel even more interesting and varied.

Thanks for the reply. Hopefully others will chime in too.

 

[Pazmino]

Ha, seems to be on the wish list since yesterday. If you go to the suggestions section, there are these threads
Random WORMHOLES yes or no
Rouge Planets. Malfunction FSD Mechanic.
Yes, any additions like this would be great, besides wormholes. No to this for reasons explained in the wormhole thread.
And great additions by you. +1

 

[woodrage]

Love it

Adding a bit:

Mines: Result is obvious

Being able to land on that comet you mentioned. Shut down systems and ride it close to your destination

Entire system in a gas or field ( along with clouds in certain systems as you mentioned) of some type that messes with random systems

 

[Loskene]

I'm fine with unexpected ionized gas clouds or other spacial anomalies that might be scientifically plausible, but elite is going for an accurate representation of the milky way galaxy, so that gets in the way of some of the more scifi elements you suggested. Some of them are not very useful though, like tailing a comet to be sneaky. Comets don't have warp drives, you do.
Also a ship exploding while in supercruise would immediately be thrown out of warp with whatever original relative velocity it had before it engaged the FSD. It wouldn't keep going at superluminal speeds forever.
Anyway, the main problem I see with this is one of implementation. Given frontier's track record do you think these would become nuanced and interesting encounters with a decent enough variety to rarity ratio to avoid becoming stale? Or is it more likely that we'd get a "placeholder" mechanic that becomes repetitive and annoying after the first impression, something to be glanced at or ignored with a sigh like the previous "wouldn't that be cool" idea they added. Looking at you, salvageable wrecks.

 

[Pazmino]

I'd say I rouge planets & black holes should be rare. and would mostlikely be outside the bubble. No to wormholes. Comets below LS - good point. Meteoroids heading to a planet would be great - a CG to blow it up or evacuate the planet/station.
It should fit into the science of the ED universe and have a valid risk/award balance. However some risk/adventure in while in SC would be great. I'd prefer thing when hyper jumping.

 

[Chris Simon]

OP, some of it sounds so awesome that it makes me sad that it isn't in the game.

Michael said comets are already in the stellar forge. So far only as an invisible mass, and they will introduce them once they figure out what to do with them.

Now only to summon Michael here, in this thread, so he sees what to do with them!

*Starts drawing a pentagram*

 

[nexxo]

Another poster came up with this idea. I merely wanted to expand - and expound - upon it briefly.

Imagine Anomalies as road hazards that crop up during Supercruise. Like hazards, manual navigation is required to avoid these Anomalies.

Unlike hazards, Anomalies present opportunity for reward as well as some risk. Consider:

- Solar Flares: riding Flares through Supercruise increases acceleration and provides constant hydrogen fuel in small sips, at the cost of higher constant heat and some heat spikes which may require offsetting or departing the Flare path.

-Comet: stay in the wake to have the icy tale obscure you from scans and interdictions but beware small rocks and some usually minor hull damage.

-Slingshot: Flings you out at great speed across a system, but beware. Slowing down will take a while and turning at high speed can crash you out of Cruise, damage your hull or fsd or even fling you on another course entirely. Best for long, straight shots.

-Disruptor cloud: wreaks havoc on nav systems. May cause crash stops, trigger a misjump or even short out a system temporarily. No benefit here. Avoid at all costs.

-Solar pocket: small hydrogen pocket. Small sips of fuel as you pass through. That's all. No risk.

-Solar Storm: harvest and store excess energy from these strange storms to increase fsd cool down and shield regen for a while. May cause minor hull or module damage, but nothing major.

-Wormholes: Where do they lead? What affect might they have on my ship when I enter or leave their space? What strange data or objects might I encounter inside?

-Derelict: sometimes, ships die at ftl speeds and nothing slows them down. Running into one is...bad. Really, instant death bad. BUT, interdicting them will drag them into normal space. Free loot!

Just some ideas for Supercruise encounters to spice up travel and make stick time more engaging. Thoughts?

Yes to solar flares, slingshots, comet trails and derelict; no to disruptor clouds, solar storms and wormholes. It has to stay plausible.

 

[Blackcompany]

Thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated. Just want to add something interesting to Cruising.

How bout this one: Solar Wind Currents

These would be Solar "expressways" present in most systems, with strength/speed and proliferation based on star size (procedural generation friendly).

Solar Wind Currents could be used during Cruising. Ride outbound Currents to speed up faster and swap out to a reverse current to decelerate more quickly. Also: finding a current aligned with your next system before jumping, if one is available, catapults you, greatly reducing fuel consumption on that jump.

Just beware of rare swirling or circular Currents (slang: rapids) more common in binary or some other special system or possibly near some gas giants, as these could sliw or spin you or even occasionally force a crash stop if too strong.

The key: all this could be displayed on the HUD during SC. Just a small numerical indicator, colored red for stronger Currents, maybe.

Just a thought. I was brainstorming ideas that could be almost ever present without being frustrating...

 

[Loskene]

Thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated. Just want to add something interesting to Cruising.

How bout this one: Solar Wind Currents

These would be Solar "expressways" present in most systems, with strength/speed and proliferation based on star size (procedural generation friendly).

Solar Wind Currents could be used during Cruising. Ride outbound Currents to speed up faster and swap out to a reverse current to decelerate more quickly. Also: finding a current aligned with your next system before jumping, if one is available, catapults you, greatly reducing fuel consumption on that jump.

Just beware of rare swirling or circular Currents (slang: rapids) more common in binary or some other special system or possibly near some gas giants, as these could sliw or spin you or even occasionally force a crash stop if too strong.

The key: all this could be displayed on the HUD during SC. Just a small numerical indicator, colored red for stronger Currents, maybe.

Just a thought. I was brainstorming ideas that could be almost ever present without being frustrating...

I'd like to think there's some way to spice up supercruise and make flying at superluminal velocities a bit more exotic. It's the one area of the game you can have a little scifi leeway with since nobody knows what FTL travel would be like. "Riding the rapids" of the spacetime highway sounds like a decent start to make things more interesting. I wouldn't tie it into natural phenomena like solar flares since they'd have little effect on something traveling faster than light, except maybe battering the navigation shields a bit. Maybe have the transitions between dominant gravitational spheres of influence as you travel serve as "white water" areas of space that can have subtle effects on your Frameshift drive. Better still if they're a little bit dynamic and change over time, so you have to get used to the "feel" of the local space warping wherever you fly.

 

[Blackcompany]

I'd like to think there's some way to spice up supercruise and make flying at superluminal velocities a bit more exotic. It's the one area of the game you can have a little scifi leeway with since nobody knows what FTL travel would be like. "Riding the rapids" of the spacetime highway sounds like a decent start to make things more interesting. I wouldn't tie it into natural phenomena like solar flares since they'd have little effect on something traveling faster than light, except maybe battering the navigation shields a bit. Maybe have the transitions between dominant gravitational spheres of influence as you travel serve as "white water" areas of space that can have subtle effects on your Frameshift drive. Better still if they're a little bit dynamic and change over time, so you have to get used to the "feel" of the local space warping wherever you fly.

Very good points. I like the idea. And like you i dont believe we really need a scientific reason for such a game play change. At this point, anything that makes Supercruise more interesting, and more engaging, without making it tedious or unfair to the player - in other words, no FTL-style, roguelike die roll ship damage we cant avoid or some such nonsense - would be a positive addition to the game I do believe.

 

[HereticPilot101]

This is a mixed bag of treats. Some of these make sense, others don't. These are all things that would affect a ship that was travelling in real space (with the exception of slingshot, which seems the most plausible), but super cruise is not real space. Instead, it's similar to witch space. We can prove this by noting the complete lack of relativistic effects (blue & red-shifting/visibility of whole color spectrum/time dilation), as well as the fact that ships in real space cannot see ships in supercruise. Solar storms and solar flares (also prominences and CME's) are real events, so inclusion is/will be beneficial. They're there currently, but only graphically, however, we already know that radiation is harmful to ships in Elite, as well as heat, so it would make more sense to stay as far away as possible from these events. Wormholes are an interesting probability, though, as they could show up as an unidentified signal source. From there who knows. Comets would be impossible to catch with normal engines, because they are moving at significant fractions of the speed of light in real space, which Elite's new ships can't do, and they can't interact with a comet in supercruise. Derelict ships are half and half. On one hand, power failure would shut down the FSD, thus bringing the ship out of supercruise, but the pilot dying for unknown causes while in supercruise could be a valid reason for this, and one we'll have to deal with eventually, once ship theft becomes possible, but sans-crew, the ship would rapidly either exit supercruise by hitting some large astronomical object, or shoot off into the distance, never slowing enough to be interdicted, until they run out of fuel hours later.

 

[tooterfish]

These are all great ideas. Supercruise badly needs some kind of terrain to make it more interesting. I know gravitational forces do provide some, but it's not really that intuitive to new players, and the distances between bodies in general makes the opportunity to use it quite rare.

And that slingshot idea would be a great "in lore" method of performing microjumps in a system. Hutton Mugs for everyone!

 

[CMDR ARGHouse]

Bring on the Thargoid interdictions!

 

[possessed]

+1 rep to OP...

 

[Lucius-Darcia]

Another poster came up with this idea. I merely wanted to expand - and expound - upon it briefly.

Imagine Anomalies as road hazards that crop up during Supercruise. Like hazards, manual navigation is required to avoid these Anomalies.

Unlike hazards, Anomalies present opportunity for reward as well as some risk. Consider:

- Solar Flares: riding Flares through Supercruise increases acceleration and provides constant hydrogen fuel in small sips, at the cost of higher constant heat and some heat spikes which may require offsetting or departing the Flare path.

-Comet: stay in the wake to have the icy tale obscure you from scans and interdictions but beware small rocks and some usually minor hull damage.

-Slingshot: Flings you out at great speed across a system, but beware. Slowing down will take a while and turning at high speed can crash you out of Cruise, damage your hull or fsd or even fling you on another course entirely. Best for long, straight shots.

-Disruptor cloud: wreaks havoc on nav systems. May cause crash stops, trigger a misjump or even short out a system temporarily. No benefit here. Avoid at all costs.

-Solar pocket: small hydrogen pocket. Small sips of fuel as you pass through. That's all. No risk.

-Solar Storm: harvest and store excess energy from these strange storms to increase fsd cool down and shield regen for a while. May cause minor hull or module damage, but nothing major.

-Wormholes: Where do they lead? What affect might they have on my ship when I enter or leave their space? What strange data or objects might I encounter inside?

-Derelict: sometimes, ships die at ftl speeds and nothing slows them down. Running into one is...bad. Really, instant death bad. BUT, interdicting them will drag them into normal space. Free loot!

Just some ideas for Supercruise encounters to spice up travel and make stick time more engaging. Thoughts?

The problem here is, that all these anomalies you described are SLOWER than the speed of light and we are mostly FASTER than the speed of light (up to 2000 times faster) so this wouldn't be possible.
Also it wouldn't make any sense since the frame shift drive shifts the space in front of you and every object with a smaller mass than yours get theoretical also shifted. You would simply flyby a comet without really realizing it since he got shifted and you bypassed him with 200 times faster than light.

Every anomaly in supercruise would require FTL travel and this can only be done artificial and not natural.
For those "anomalies" we have interdictions

 

[tooterfish]

I don't think you appreciate just how large some of those features could be.

Cometary tails can stretch for many light minutes for example, according to wikipedia the largest observed was 3.8 astronomical units long. That's far enough to reach from the Sun all the way past the asteroid belt, and more than half way to Jupiter. Even travelling in supercruise it'd be possible to stay "inside" a feature like that for many minutes.

 

[coca_fr]

+1 Great ideas !

 

[Ddraig]

Agree.

However Hyperspace jump is a loading screen. Every system you jump in is instanced, therefore, the client can only show you that loaded system and nothing else. If you travel from one system to another via supercruise, someone did it by the way, you arrive to nothing because the loading of that system only occurs during the jump. I think this kills any interference to the hyperjump, as I understand it... maybe there is a way.

Personally I would love to have gravitational distortions during Hyper Jump caused by black holes in the path of the jump and drop down to normal space in the middle of nowhere.