Hyperspace travel/jump/warp vs fast forwarding the game?

[nats]

So getting to the most important statement of the game so far :S

The only statement that concerned me a little about the new Elite was the following:

“…with more rapid travel (to allow for the multi-player nature of the game) – so you travel quickly using local “hyperspace” travel rather than by fast-forwarding time…”

Now the thing I loved about Elite Frontier was sitting around on a base watching the planets and sun rise over the horizon etc in speeded up mode (because it would all take far too long in real time). I wonder if that will be allowed in the single player version?

Realistically I think that if not then this would a minor loss if we get multi-player added - being able to play with other people in the game will be great. As long as you can play the game solo as well that is.

So how do people see this working then if you hyperspace or jump everywhere rather than speed up time? I hope that it is essentially travelling at super fast speed - like warp speed in Star Trek - and as such you can select various warp speeds to travel at. You wouldnt be speeding up the game but you could travel up to the planets and see them get larger very fast. I always loved that in Frontier.

So then would you be able to be intercepted when in warp? I assume you would have to be otherwise it would be a very boring game if all the interception could only occur at real time. Space is a very big place after all.

And if you could intercept a warping target ship - how would you intercept it? What would you see if you were sitting in real time around a planet and a ship warped towards you, or if you were a pirate sitting in deep space half way to the planet and a ship warped past you? Interesting questions!!

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

“…with more rapid travel (to allow for the multi-player nature of the game) – so you travel quickly using local “hyperspace” travel rather than by fast-forwarding time…”

That essentially is the difference between Classic Elite and Elite Frontier.

Classic Elite allowed you to skip forward (warp) as long as nothing was in the vicinity to prevent you from doing so.

Elite Frontier had the concept of time that allowed you to accelerate forward regardless of what was nearby. (I am guessing that you could put yourself in the direct path of an object, accelerate time, and be obliterated whereas in Classic Elite you couldn't)

I envision in the multi-player world you can skip forward through space (warping) until you encounter something so if you are lucky (or plan it) you could intercept people forcing them to slow down and deal with you

And if you could intercept a warping target ship

That, I guess, would depend upon having jump-gates (like in EVE) that you could sit around and snare people as they enter your region of space. If not, then there might be ways of tracking people using long range sensors and with a fast enough ship intercept them so that once you are within a certain range warping stops. (Think Star Trek)

 

[TizzleStick]

I'd hope that there would be a hyperspace drive that allows you to travel from system to system and then some sort of jump drive that allows you to cover system distances quickly.

The jump drive would work under the idea that it is a short range hyperspace, it would jump you forward a small distance so you can effectively travel faster than light.

The space sim Independence War had a similar idea which I thought worked well, an FTL (Faster Than Light) drive that you could use to travel around the solar system quickly.

Both hyperspace and the jump drive would require time to spool up to avoid them being used to escape from a fight, or for your prey to escape too easily .

 

[gunbladelad]

Given that the Thargoids had made peace with humanity in Frontier : First Encounters (assuming the player does the relevant missions) then surely they could have exchanged technology.

For players this opens up a LOT of possibilities - for example being able to force other ships into a misjump (Say for example if you're going to pirate or assasinate another ship). This could be applied to ships "warping" through local space as well - as long as you're between them and their target, you could project a "disruption field" that brings them out of warp.

 

[Schwarzwolf]

I read jumpgates? Please no jumpgates. That doesn't fit in Elite. Elite was the full free roaming game. A short range hyperdrive would be okay for the multiplayer, but it should work complete freeform. So you can get a corse and fly free around like in the last ones. I also think they don't plan something like jumpgates and a free full roaming around.

Procedural and full freedom. Thats the core of Elite. And this should stay.

 

[TizzleStick]

I read jumpgates? Please no jumpgates.

Totally agree, let me hyperspace from anywhere and jump into a system a fair distance out from the sun (just like the original Elite and Frontier games) then I engage my jump drive to travel around the solar system.

And to allow for some adventure, there's a missile you can buy that disrupts the jump drive so if I'm a nasty pirate I can get ships to drop out of jump drive so I can attack them. The missile disables the jump drive for a few minutes...

 

[gunbladelad]

If - and that's ONLY IF - they decide to go down the path of Jumpgates, I reckon that they should incorporate a fee for using them, with said gates being only in the safer core systems (Such as Banards Star to Sol). Naturally said fee should be high enough to encourage using the Hyperdrive instead but not so high to force people to never actually use them.

Essentially charge them enough that Jumpgate usage is going to eat into their profit margin by a LOT more than fuel will.

 

[The Space Pirate]

So getting to the most important statement of the game so far :S

The only statement that concerned me a little about the new Elite was the following:

“…with more rapid travel (to allow for the multi-player nature of the game) – so you travel quickly using local “hyperspace” travel rather than by fast-forwarding time…”

Now the thing I loved about Elite Frontier was sitting around on a base watching the planets and sun rise over the horizon etc in speeded up mode (because it would all take far too long in real time). I wonder if that will be allowed in the single player version?

That's my main concern as well. If speeding up time is removed - because of MP - I'll be massively ed off.

Oh, and no jump gates! This is not Babylon 5.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Oh, and no jump gates! This is not Babylon 5.

Which, incidentally, was an awesome show (if you skip Season 5)

Look guys .. the reason why I mentioned jump gates was to do with this:

And if you could intercept a warping target ship - how would you intercept it?

HOW would you intercept another ship in MP ? In my understanding there are only a few ways to do this and one of them involves "camping" a jump gate (or camping an entry point) .. something that I would not be voting for as this is Elite, not EVE.

My preferred method would be akin to Star Trek - jump at will - fly to your destinations - and to interact with other ships you locate them on long range scanner and if your ship is fast enough you can intercept them .. ("Change course to intercept Mr Worf" ... "Captain, they have already changed course to intercept us!" - Borg episode)

 

[The Space Pirate]

Remember that people have said that there will be no time-speed-up key meaning that you no longer travel between systems (Elite:Frontier) but instead you will probably "warp" ahead (Elite J key)

It will be massively disappointing if you can't speed up time using 'Stardreamer' in the SP game. I'm a bit confused: is there a dedicated SP game? Or is SP simply MP, with only AI allowed? If that's the case, I don't see how 'Stardreamer' will be possible even in SP mode.

I never played Elite - but with the primitive graphics, I doubt seeing a sun rise and set wasn't anything special. However, the graphics in this game will be amazing and it will be a damn shame if speeding up time was disabled when you're only playing with AI. I will be checking out 'Oolite' at some point though - provided it will work with a controller. I don't do keyboard gaming anymore.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

I never played Elite - but with the primitive graphics, I doubt seeing a sun rise and set wasn't anything special.

Which is a shame as then you would understand how the jump drives worked and how vast distances were handled - It was pretty awesome.

Also, Elite wasn't played for the graphics which I do admit were very good at the time but pants now by today's standards. Elite+ was a decent attempt at vector graphics (filled polygons) but took away from the purity of Elite's wireframe.

 

[nats]

I'm a bit confused: is there a dedicated SP game? Or is SP simply MP, with only AI allowed?

I have just asked that very question to Frontier via the Kickstarter site - which will take precedence the single player or multi-player? And I hope DB will explain how the multi-player will work in due course.

Because I certainly dont want the multi-player restriction of everything being instantaneous lowering the whole gameplay of the single player game...space needs to feel huge. Travel and communications should be slow.

I don't want to have people/guilds etc communicating across the whole galaxy in real time and ganging up and attacking me instantaneously. There is absolutely no fun in that for me. If you want that go play Eve is my view on that.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

I don't want to have people/guilds etc communicating across the whole galaxy in real time and ganging up and attacking me instantaneously. There is absolutely no fun in that for me. If you want that go play Eve is my view on that.

I too will be glad for clarification on MP / PVP.

Irrespective of how communication is dealt with in game people will talk outside of it (Mumble/Skype/etc) - care needs to be taken on what you can / can't do in game and how death is handled. As you said - you're minding your own business and a group of friends turn up, blow you apart, and steal your cargo.

Perhaps a suggestion for this would be multiple server types:

- Single Player (offline)
- Multiplayer co-op
- Multiplayer "free for all" (PvP server)

That way you can choose where you play and the levels of risk you want to accept.

 

[Soulfly]

I have just asked that very question to Frontier via the Kickstarter site - which will take precedence the single player or multi-player? And I hope DB will explain how the multi-player will work in due course.

Because I certainly dont want the multi-player restriction of everything being instantaneous lowering the whole gameplay of the single player game...space needs to feel huge. Travel and communications should be slow.

I don't want to have people/guilds etc communicating across the whole galaxy in real time and ganging up and attacking me instantaneously. There is absolutely no fun in that for me. If you want that go play Eve is my view on that.

Yes! I am also curious as to how they will tackle multi-player game play. Got a thread right here: http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2715

And yes it would be helpful to have a word from the dev team how they envision this aspect of the game.

 

[archamedes]

I can only assume the smart thing to do would be using 2 seperate modes depending on if its single player or multiplayer. Obviously in single player it would be easy to use the time fast forward option, but in multiplayer it automatically uses the real time mode. no biggie really

 

[The Space Pirate]

I have just asked that very question to Frontier via the Kickstarter site - which will take precedence the single player or multi-player? And I hope DB will explain how the multi-player will work in due course.

Because I certainly dont want the multi-player restriction of everything being instantaneous lowering the whole gameplay of the single player game...space needs to feel huge. Travel and communications should be slow.

I don't want to have people/guilds etc communicating across the whole galaxy in real time and ganging up and attacking me instantaneously. There is absolutely no fun in that for me. If you want that go play Eve is my view on that.

That is a really good point about MP - I was beginning to think Elite 4 MP wouldn't be the typical MP game where people can play just to ruin your game, but if you get a group of idiots who decide to do what you outlined above, then that's exactly what it would be.

Another thing: if Stardreamer (or speeding up time) is disabled in MP, how will deadlines for missions work? Introducing MP into the mix throws up all kinds of questions.

I can only assume the smart thing to do would be using 2 seperate modes depending on if its single player or multiplayer. Obviously in single player it would be easy to use the time fast forward option, but in multiplayer it automatically uses the real time mode. no biggie really

If there's a dedicated SP mode. And as I said above, how will mission deadlines work if time cannot be sped up?

Irrespective of how communication is dealt with in game people will talk outside of it (Mumble/Skype/etc) - care needs to be taken on what you can / can't do in game and how death is handled. As you said - you're minding your own business and a group of friends turn up, blow you apart, and steal your cargo.

That's another problem. When I used to play Left 4 Dead, some people had mics. Some of them were really bad mics and it just got on my nerves hearing them talking to each other (often about things that had nothing to do with the game)! Sometimes you even had people singing - badly!

 

[The Space Pirate]

Which is a shame as then you would understand how the jump drives worked and how vast distances were handled - It was pretty awesome.

Also, Elite wasn't played for the graphics which I do admit were very good at the time but pants now by today's standards. Elite+ was a decent attempt at vector graphics (filled polygons) but took away from the purity of Elite's wireframe.

Well, I'm trying to get into Oolite right now, so I guess I'll get an idea of how Elite worked. When I can figure Oolite out, that is. Right now, I am very confused. Starting in Lave doesn't help matters much, that's not exactly a safe region of space.

 

[gunbladelad]

They might go down the path of the random missions on Freelancer and do away for the time limits in multiplayer. In Assassination missions it'll probably be as simple as "Get to base X and kill the target before he lands at base Y in system Z."

This could be altered if the multiplayer version has time as a factor, although the server would need to syncronise the times on everyone connecting (If you ask me they're best leaving out the time altogether in Multi - it'll cause no end of headaches...)

 

[The Space Pirate]

They might go down the path of the random missions on Freelancer and do away for the time limits in multiplayer. In Assassination missions it'll probably be as simple as "Get to base X and kill the target before he lands at base Y in system Z."

This could be altered if the multiplayer version has time as a factor, although the server would need to syncronise the times on everyone connecting (If you ask me they're best leaving out the time altogether in Multi - it'll cause no end of headaches...)

Yep - it won't work at all in MP.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

I believe you can do many wonderful things now with instancing - whilst the game is a failure (due to there being no "end game" content and Bioware cocking things up royally) take a look at Star Wars:The Old Republic.

My friend played that quite a lot and I watched him from time to time - there they had various "instances" that allowed the story to continue for you whilst not affecting the people around. It's how they developed the story line for your character, and even had the option of group play in them.

It could be one way in which they deal with "time based" events - you get your "mission" and the clock starts from there, you have a certain number of days to reach the end point and upon arriving at said destination you enter an "instance" to deal with the story. If you happen to be grouped (if they do such a thing) then you all enter the instance together. Once the mission is over you re-enter normal space with the rest of us.

They also had some interesting ideas on how the story-arc unfolded so that your decisions affected future events - but regardless of what you chose it didn't affect other people. (Again due to said instancing)