Improving Supercruise and Hyperjump

spAde4488

spAde4488
I've been convinced by multiple posts here that both of these game mechanics should be improved so that the considerable time spent in these travel modes becomes as fun as ship piloting in 'normal space', instead of the bore it currently is.

I propose two new travel modes for each supercruise and hyperjump, toggled on the HUD right panel.

Supercharged Supercruise:
The boost button, currently non-functional in supercruise, activates supercharge mode. This grants a massive boost to ship acceleration, maneuverability, and significantly reduces gravitational slowdown at the cost of a massive increase in fuel consumption rate. Upon deactivation, the player enters supercruise at their achieved speed and is temporarily much more susceptible to all gravitational slowdown effects.
Skill:
  • Want to get to that station fast? Hit supercharge, get sucked back in your seat, time the supercharge deactivation correctly so that the extra gravitational effects on exit slow you to a safe drop-out speed.
Risk:
  • You are vulnerable! If interdicted while in supercharge mode, the ship is automatically pulled out and the fsd cooldown penalty applied.
  • Saftey protocols are deactivated. If you collide with a celestial body, expect significant damage or death.
  • Watch your fuel gauge!
Reward:
  • Back of your seat mind-blowing acceleration, speed, and maneuverability!


Chained Hyperjumps:
Just before arriving at the next system in a plotted route, a 'chain-jump' vector is identified. If the pilot successfully engages and navigates this 'exit tunnel' in witch space, they briefly drop into supercruise but then immediately begin the jump countdown to the next system in their plotted route (to which they are automatically aligned).
Skill:
  • interdiction style minigame of maneuvering to a HUD mapped vector
Risk:
  • engaging with but then missing the vector leads to a 'disrupted exit' from witch space, increasing your fsd cooldown and possibly placing you either too far, or too close to the star.
Reward:
  • The chained jump receives a bonus in fuel-efficiency proportional to how well the vector was engaged. (This somewhat makes up for the loss of opportunity to fuel scoop).


Feedback welcome! o7
 

TyphosArtaxes

T
+100 to the chained jump idea. I would use economical routes far more often if travel went in a more flowing/less tedious travel manner. I would rather play 2+ min of a witchspace 'steering' minigame to travel several hundred lightyears than drop, turn, cooldown, charge, jump x30. It would have the benefit of having pitstop stars feel like real pitstops; giving you a break from witchspace to refuel/relax before the next long jump.

Another idea to ease the travelling timesink would be player-placed nav beacons that can be jumped to directly. Perhaps limit them so they don't get abused, but it would make repetitive runs far easier - a lot like the way fast travel works in a lot of open world games.

I love the supercruise boost idea!
 

Jubei Himura

Jubei Himura
spAde4488 said:
I've been convinced by multiple posts here that both of these game mechanics should be improved so that the considerable time spent in these travel modes becomes as fun as ship piloting in 'normal space', instead of the bore it currently is.

I propose two new travel modes for each supercruise and hyperjump, toggled on the HUD right panel.

Supercharged Supercruise:
The boost button, currently non-functional in supercruise, activates supercharge mode. This grants a massive boost to ship acceleration, maneuverability, and significantly reduces gravitational slowdown at the cost of a massive increase in fuel consumption rate. Upon deactivation, the player enters supercruise at their achieved speed and is temporarily much more susceptible to all gravitational slowdown effects.
Skill:
  • Want to get to that station fast? Hit supercharge, get sucked back in your seat, time the supercharge deactivation correctly so that the extra gravitational effects on exit slow you to a safe drop-out speed.
Risk:
  • You are vulnerable! If interdicted while in supercharge mode, the ship is automatically pulled out and the fsd cooldown penalty applied.
  • Saftey protocols are deactivated. If you collide with a celestial body, expect significant damage or death.
  • Watch your fuel gauge!
Reward:
  • Back of your seat mind-blowing acceleration, speed, and maneuverability!


Chained Hyperjumps:
Just before arriving at the next system in a plotted route, a 'chain-jump' vector is identified. If the pilot successfully engages and navigates this 'exit tunnel' in witch space, they briefly drop into supercruise but then immediately begin the jump countdown to the next system in their plotted route (to which they are automatically aligned).
Skill:
  • interdiction style minigame of maneuvering to a HUD mapped vector
Risk:
  • engaging with but then missing the vector leads to a 'disrupted exit' from witch space, increasing your fsd cooldown and possibly placing you either too far, or too close to the star.
Reward:
  • The chained jump receives a bonus in fuel-efficiency proportional to how well the vector was engaged. (This somewhat makes up for the loss of opportunity to fuel scoop).


Feedback welcome! o7
Click to expand...

Love it all.

However I will take the opportunity to include something that was in Drew's book and is a part of canon lore: Miss-jumps.

Miss-jumps can be part of the risk of chained hyperjumps. The further off the vector, the farther away you can miss-jump (within reason). Additionally, the FSD cool-down will also effect the galaxy map and sensors, so you can't see how off the mark you are right away.
 

Lestat

Banned
Lestat
I say no to both Ideas. On Supercharged Supercruise, It affects Pirate play. You get a get out of free card avoiding them.

Chain Chained Hyperjumps. We can already do 70+ LY jump range. We can get across the Galaxy in a day or two Less than 930 jump.
 

V'larr

V'larr
I think the first idea sounds neat; it'd be nice to accomodate risk of interdiction still, but I don't think piracy is anywhere close to being worth the amount of time overall we spend during longer cruises.

Not sure I'm on board with chained hyper-jumping though, galaxy feels small enough as it is thanks to what Neutron-boosting has achieved.
 

[VR] Goooost

[VR] Goooost
I'd also like to add that this would make it possible to both catch up to players you'd like to interdict or get away if you've been paying attention.
 

Hydrino

Hydrino
Jubei Himura said:
Love it all.

However I will take the opportunity to include something that was in Drew's book and is a part of canon lore: Miss-jumps.

Miss-jumps can be part of the risk of chained hyperjumps. The further off the vector, the farther away you can miss-jump (within reason). Additionally, the FSD cool-down will also effect the galaxy map and sensors, so you can't see how off the mark you are right away.
Click to expand...
+1 for Mis-jumps which were part of the DDF discussion and the original game.

Just a note to other posters, "Witch-space" as such no longer exists as far as ED lore based on early dev comments (however, with the Thargoid's return and capital ship jumping there seems to be some uncertainty as to the current dev thinking). Hyper-jumping is just super-charged Super-cruise, which is based on the Alcubierre idea of contracting space in front of a ship (or basically folding the sheet of paper up to cut the distance actually travelled) or more commonly the Star Trek Warp-drive. One does not exit normal space (which is impossible), one contracts it to get places faster and this only simulates FTL travel which is of-course, impossible.
 

LuxAeterna

LuxAeterna
spAde4488 said:
Chained Hyperjumps:
Just before arriving at the next system in a plotted route, a 'chain-jump' vector is identified. If the pilot successfully engages and navigates this 'exit tunnel' in witch space, they briefly drop into supercruise but then immediately begin the jump countdown to the next system in their plotted route (to which they are automatically aligned).
Skill:
  • interdiction style minigame of maneuvering to a HUD mapped vector
Risk:
  • engaging with but then missing the vector leads to a 'disrupted exit' from witch space, increasing your fsd cooldown and possibly placing you either too far, or too close to the star.
Reward:
  • The chained jump receives a bonus in fuel-efficiency proportional to how well the vector was engaged. (This somewhat makes up for the loss of opportunity to fuel scoop).


Feedback welcome! o7
Click to expand...

How would you tackle the heating problem from spooling your FSD near stars? Doing chained jump could fry your ship if not careful

Would that be another risk added to the mechanic?
 

spAde4488

spAde4488
Thanks all for the comments.

Hydrino said:
Just a note to other posters, "Witch-space" as such no longer exists as far as ED lore based on early dev comments (however, with the Thargoid's return and capital ship jumping there seems to be some uncertainty as to the current dev thinking). Hyper-jumping is just super-charged Super-cruise, which is based on the Alcubierre idea of contracting space in front of a ship (or basically folding the sheet of paper up to cut the distance actually travelled) or more commonly the Star Trek Warp-drive. One does not exit normal space (which is impossible), one contracts it to get places faster and this only simulates FTL travel which is of-course, impossible.
Click to expand...

Neat. Got it.

Jubei Himura said:
Love it all.

However I will take the opportunity to include something that was in Drew's book and is a part of canon lore: Miss-jumps.

Miss-jumps can be part of the risk of chained hyperjumps. The further off the vector, the farther away you can miss-jump (within reason). Additionally, the FSD cool-down will also effect the galaxy map and sensors, so you can't see how off the mark you are right away.
Click to expand...

Yes, that sounds like a fun risk.

TyphosArtaxes said:
+100 to the chained jump idea. I would use economical routes far more often if travel went in a more flowing/less tedious travel manner. I would rather play 2+ min of a witchspace 'steering' minigame to travel several hundred lightyears than drop, turn, cooldown, charge, jump x30. It would have the benefit of having pitstop stars feel like real pitstops; giving you a break from witchspace to refuel/relax before the next long jump.
Click to expand...

Just to clarify, the chained hyperjump isn't a single continuous jump. It's more of a way of streamlining, gaming, and speeding up the current jump routine.

LuxAeterna said:
How would you tackle the heating problem from spooling your FSD near stars? Doing chained jump could fry your ship if not careful

Would that be another risk added to the mechanic?
Click to expand...

Good point. I think it would be easiest to have the exit point be far enough away from the star so that there was no heat load. That would also help with auto-aligning to the next system, which is often obscured behind the star.
 

[VR] CMDR TYRTHEMIS

V
All of that sounds really cool! They've had different kinds of FSD in the past, a Guardian FSD could allow players to choose between this system vs a human FSD at the cost of increased power. Imagine flying at hyperjump speeds without witch space, just adjusting the games background and rendering stars in a radius thats about their jump range.
 

Phenom D

Phenom D
Nice idea!

This is actual need in future to rework or add some features to this boring flight model. This ideas could do travelling challenging and engaging yet dangerous. Just like normal pulse engines are thrilling especialy in combat.
Now, SC/HC sometimes feels like it's part of grindwall where you could go make yourself coffee and take a shower.
I would like to see something that keeps me occupied, not keeps bored. Thanks for great ideas CMDRs :)
 
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