In system jumps.

[Ralph Vargr]

What about an FSD fuel injector? Press and hold a button to fire it. Consumes fuel. Major boost to acceleration and local top speed. Generates progressively more heat the longer it fires. Consumes more fuel the higher you are over the local top speed.

Shortens trips via an active mechanic. Makes supercruise more dynamic, and makes attempting to interdict someone more interesting. It also make auxiliary fuel tanks more attractive.

Beige Squadron eats jumponium like crazy. You should see the supply demands...

Those who use jumponium, and reject micro jumps are (redacted).

 

[Ralph Vargr]

We have access to high speed trains, but we still use slower ones without loosing the sense of scale. Better now?

I used to fly supersonic aircraft. Now I drive a car. Going to the nearest USAFbase (about 25 miles/40 km), and asking for a fighter is not going to work.

I can't drive to London, or Cambridge.

It's 6231 statute miles/10,028 km to Cambridge. It would take ten hours, with no refueling, to fly that in my old bird.

It would take 103 hours, with no stops, to drive/swim my car there.

Now, there's some deep, immersive (bottom of the Atlantic) gameplay for you!

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Hi there, there would always be people that want this system jumps feature and others not. For my self, I would like this feature too. But to satisfy both community desires I would go a middle way. There should be no other module needed for this, because you already have a frameshift drive. I think that System jumps should be dangerous, because you overload the FSD for the in system jumps. Module damage, overheating the frameshift drive should be the result of this action. Farther there should be no planet or asteroid field be in your way, the reason is pretty clear.

So why not...

Traveller copied this from Elite in 1977.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

See, that's the thing, innit?

This is why the whole "if you don't want it you don't have to use it but don't stop other people using it" thing is such a load of tripe.

As a simple litmus test for any idea, simply as yourself "Why wouldn't I want to use this?"
If you can't come up with a good reason, proportional to the usefulness of the thing being proposed, chances are your proposal is a lousy idea.

In the case of something that could jump you across an entire system, thus granting you the ability to avoid pirates, PvP, mission-related interdictions and turn Cr50m/hr missions into Cr500m/hr missions, it'd need to be a doozey of a drawback to balance the benefits it'd provide.

How about, say, if there was, say, a 25% chance that using super-super-cruise would cause your ship to be destroyed?

In Traveller, it's called a misjump. Traveller lifted this from Elite in 1977.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

No, the comparison works perfectly well, thanks.

If I'm playing chess with someone, 'doing nothing' whilst waiting for them to make a move, I'm still playing chess.
If I'm playing Monopoly, 'doing nothing' whilst waiting for 5 other people to make their moves, I'm still playing monopoly.
In both cases, I can walk away from the game if I wanted to, watch Netflix, make a cup of tea, but whilst I'm doing any, all or none of those things, I'm still playing a game.

If I wait too long to play a hand in a casino, at poker, the dealer will call a sixty second timer, or my hand is dead.

If I take too long of a bathroom break, they either blind down my stack, or take away my chips in a holding box.

Walking away means folding, and leaving the table, or what you whippersnappers call logging out.

You don't get to pick and choose what criteria are applicable for declaring something "boring".

No. I do that.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

So, what did we learn here today? The monkeys are happy to push the lever over and over again!


I'm tired of fighting nonsense arguments. I think I have offered various solutions that include compromises to suit everyone. But it's useless as long as the stubborn are on an ego trip and think only of themselves!


I'm out for now and wonder about the stubbornness and uncompromising attitude of some people here!

You *just discovered* the forum is as much as a Skinner Box as the game?

 

[Tarman]

Well I lied a bit at least. I didn't see this bit from Frenotx under all the handbags full of buns. I also just stole it from Ralph's post because that's too many pages ago to keep looking.

"What about an FSD fuel injector? Press and hold a button to fire it. Consumes fuel. Major boost to acceleration and local top speed. Generates progressively more heat the longer it fires. Consumes more fuel the higher you are over the local top speed.

Shortens trips via an active mechanic. Makes supercruise more dynamic, and makes attempting to interdict someone more interesting. It also make auxiliary fuel tanks more attractive."

This concept combined with a suite of various injector types would make SC so much more interesting, as the speed range for any given vessel would be build-specific instead of galactically regulated across all existing ships. Burn that fuel, risk a bunch of heat damage if you really want or need to push it; get there fastest and either avoid the problem or BE one. I also like the extra utility this adds for a fairly underused piece of existing kit, what with fuel being available basically everywhere for free.

As far as insys jumps, I'd take them if they were combined with the injector gameplay, to provide lots of A-B travel alternatives to a robust selection instead of merely making the little we have pass by faster as a singular feature. Putting an insys jump as the fastest but least reliable/most risky selection would give it a nice flavour imo. I'd tend towards mostly risk of damage or a dropout on the way rather than not getting you where you want to go at all, because really that doesn't seem fun ALL the time to end up somewhere stupid. More like flying the Falcon where you gotta bap the panels to restart a sketchy system.

For those that ARE interested, there should be a Mystery Drive. Runs like an old TARDIS but only spatially. It takes you... to a place, where you weren't before. GLHF. I'd extend Mystery Drive powers to the galaxy at large as desired, because if you choose to play Lost in Space this seems like some crazy fun without breaking anything.

It seems to me that jump-capable Elite could tap a deeper nav beacon gameplay angle as well, even without placing them ourselves. Supercruise imo needs to be richer for sure, but not necessarily just faster. We need MOAR stuff of interest, and like you say, more interactivity there, so that it's somewhere people feel like spending time with instead of bunning about whether or not any of us can withstand the current version.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Would you make the same argument for letting large ships land at outposts?

It's the differences that give us choices to make. There's a good argument that there still aren't enough of them.

There is only one choice here: Python.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Well I lied a bit at least. I didn't see this bit from Frenotx under all the handbags full of buns. I also just stole it from Ralph's post because that's too many pages ago to keep looking.

"What about an FSD fuel injector? Press and hold a button to fire it. Consumes fuel. Major boost to acceleration and local top speed. Generates progressively more heat the longer it fires. Consumes more fuel the higher you are over the local top speed.

Shortens trips via an active mechanic. Makes supercruise more dynamic, and makes attempting to interdict someone more interesting. It also make auxiliary fuel tanks more attractive."

This concept combined with a suite of various injector types would make SC so much more interesting, as the speed range for any given vessel would be build-specific instead of galactically regulated across all existing ships. Burn that fuel, risk a bunch of heat damage if you really want or need to push it; get there fastest and either avoid the problem or BE one. I also like the extra utility this adds for a fairly underused piece of existing kit, what with fuel being available basically everywhere for free.

As far as insys jumps, I'd take them if they were combined with the injector gameplay, to provide lots of A-B travel alternatives to a robust selection instead of merely making the little we have pass by faster as a singular feature. Putting an insys jump as the fastest but least reliable/most risky selection would give it a nice flavour imo. I'd tend towards mostly risk of damage or a dropout on the way rather than not getting you where you want to go at all, because really that doesn't seem fun ALL the time to end up somewhere stupid. More like flying the Falcon where you gotta bap the panels to restart a sketchy system.

For those that ARE interested, there should be a Mystery Drive. Runs like an old TARDIS but only spatially. It takes you... to a place, where you weren't before. GLHF. I'd extend Mystery Drive powers to the galaxy at large as desired, because if you choose to play Lost in Space this seems like some crazy fun without breaking anything.

It seems to me that jump-capable Elite could tap a deeper nav beacon gameplay angle as well, even without placing them ourselves. Supercruise imo needs to be richer for sure, but not necessarily just faster. We need MOAR stuff of interest, and like you say, more interactivity there, so that it's somewhere people feel like spending time with instead of bunning about whether or not any of us can withstand the current version.

I'm down with the idea of 'fuel injection'.
it adds a new dimension to SC with benefits and downsides, without cimpletely compromising ED's sense of scale.

An alternative, or possible an addition, would be an engineering option to increase SC acceleration at the expense of jump range.
It's less interactive, but simpler to understand and (probably) implement.

 

[Schmack]

Within context of this game, I disagree less strongly than I would about patience in general but I still disagree. People aren't equal. We're born to different parents and we experience different events. This game has several gradients. You do what you want to do and I'll do what I want to do. Just because you don't understand doesn't spoil the fun for you. As has been mentioned, there are plenty of smaller systems and I like my exclusive spots you haven't the patience for.

Ok, I'll stay away from "watching paint dry" roleplaying.

There are many skills. Transferable skills, overlapping skills...like math, empathy or patience, for example. They all have their virtues and areas where they're relevant. To dismiss the relevance of something that let's me have something that isn't worth it for you to have so that you can have everything convenient makes me not want it out of a sense of exclusivity.

There is a difference between a skill and an attribute. Math is a skill, because it's learned. Empathy is an attribute because it develops naturally. You cannot teach empathy. You either feel it or you don't. You cannot teach patience. You can make your students wait, but that's not the same as having patience. I've never seen a class that teaches patience (would it ever start? I'm reminded of the Monty Python skit about arguments), or read a book that shows how to improve your ability to wait for things (would you ever read it?). Same is true for empathy. Empathy is a developed attribute that requires experience. It's not a skill. You're probably no better or worse at empathy than am I, and if you were, you'd not be able to catch up to me, nor I to you. The only reason to have patience in a video game is for a payout. There is no payout for patience in this game that's not simply part of a grind wall. In fact, without cash cows that severely increase Cr/hr for limited times (until fun prevention arrives), many players here who have been playing for years probably would have stopped playing years ago.

I play in Solo, everything is exclusive to me.

You go first. I'll learn from second hand mistakes where I can and trust my judgement when to make a move.

It's a video game. It's unlikely you'll suffer any lasting consequences from impulsive actions.

It forces you to decide whether it's worth it for you to travel that far or not and this gives it value to me. It would shrink everything immensely. Have you any idea how long my "If you don't like it, then don't use it." list is for me to theoretically keep the game as difficult as it was when I enjoyed it most? It feels like because it's not a sim you want to slay all the "pointless" sim elements left in it. I agree it isn't ideal (I'd rather we had a maximum supercruise speed of 10MCR and we had no hyperdrive whatsoever). Some grind in some areas are more excusable in others, especially when one side has alternatives and the other does not.
You go to swim in the pool and discover it's only three feet deep for safety concerns.

This game is 3 feet deep, but your contention seems to be that, because you cannot get into the pool without long waiting periods, you can pretend it's the Mariana Trench and that somehow waiting to get into a shallow pool makes roleplay more immersive.

I'd not be for anything that ruins the game for others. However slowly my game is being ruined and folks like you say "if you don't like it, do something else". Same to you.

 

[Schmack]

The more inconsistent the lore becomes the worse the game is. A bit like a story driven game with a rubbish story. No matter how good the mechanics are, if there is no good story/lore to tie them together the worse it is.

The large majority of players have zero idea that the lore even exists. The lore doesn't keep me from logging off when I've watched the countdown timer for the umpteenth time to another USS with the exact same dynamics as the previous one. In fact, you can totally avoid the lore here, it seems to be an esoteric aspect to the game that select few engage in or even care for.

 

[varonica]

There is only one choice here: Python.

And yet if you look on the forum there are people over and over again requesting that Conda's shouldn't be disadvantaged by not being able to dock at small outposts, there should be docking tubes or small shuttles so they also get to do missions to small outposts. You can't argue for one position because that's what you want then flat out reject a different situation that reflects essentially the same position. Regardless of arguments for and against that just demonstrates rank self interest and nothing else.

 

[Iskariot]

okay, so i'm new to the forums, but i am not new to this game.
first of all, i love elite dangerous. it brings out the boy in me who used to always wanted to go out into space.
and many people who play this game has many, and often, valid reasons or wants for changes in this game.

i have none of these. i know all too well that developing in a game like this would be a monumental task. creating new content must be a nightmare for frontier devs.

but i want to make a discussion (although i know many people would have before me, and more after too) make a discussion about in-system jumps.

in the time i am writing this, i have found a binary star system where the other sytem is 578,900 light seconds away. usually when exploring, you absolutely would not go to that system, because that's ridiculous. but this system i have went to basically has 7 water planets, and multiple ones i assume to be like earth, even better, noone has ever discovered it.

now i'm a huge discovery . i like my name on things. especially on a special system like this.
but to supercruise 590k light seconds from the parent star to this one, and then even further to scan all the planets i want, my god it's tedious. incredibly tedious. 12 minutes in and i've barely did 200k of it in my asp.

what i dont get is why the dev's havent implemented in system jumps, or atleast boosted jumps, where you can jump lets say 100k light seconds ONLY if you were targetting a star. that way it would only take me 2 minutes to do 5 or so jumps then i supercruise the last 90k, which is acceptable.
it wouldnt be very hard to implement because the jumping mechanic is in the game, the exploration is very much centred on jumping from one system to another. maybe its not that simple, after all, the jump system only jumps you to parent stars, but atleast if you target a star, why cant i supercruise at 10x speed untill <100k light seconds to only stars?

it would make much sense too, because then you couldnt use that in any other instance, to only towards stars to within 100k light seconds, and save much time. so, so , so much time.

many people have many gripes with this game, mine is this, and that finding other players who want to play together also is a nightmare. none of my friends play this game, they call me a nerd haha, but they dont know how good elite is.

but i digress.

devs,
get on this. i dont want to do a 25 minute supercruise run just so i can get my name on the almost perfect system to discover.
i typed all this and im still 150k out...
it would be such a quality of life change for explorers.
thoughts?

This topic keeps popping up again and again.
Like others I would not want to remove all long distance in-system trips (like Hutton) from the game, but I do think that it would be cool to have in-system mini-jumps with limitations!

A proposal I made is not just about minijumps but about Supercruise and in-system travel in general:

I love supercruise. It is a magnificent addition to this spacesim.
It is the perfect balance between extremely fast spacetravel and still being awed by the enormity of the universe.
Soaring past a beautiful star or planet is still a thrill and I must have done it thousands of times by now.

As far as far away locations in a system are concerned... I simply don't travel where I do not want to go.
I won't go to Hutton because it is too far away and has nothing to offer for my troubles.

I would like changes to supercruise.

CHANGE 1.
I want more player agency. I want to have more influence on flying in supercruise, more piloty things to do.
This could be done via pip management for example.

CHANGE 2.
I also want the HUD to change its layout in supercruise with new HUD elements, just like it changes when you approach a planet.
I am sure FD could make something up to make it look cool and different and appropriate for Supercruise.
The HUD might give you an ideal travel solution by showing you a flight path to fly around a planet to accelerate and speed up travel.
I think these changes would serve to underline the differences between the different flight modes and would make us feel like real ace space pilots .

CHANGE 3.
I would like to be able to do in-system minijumps to other stars in the same system.
There could be rules for this to be possible:
1. A second star has to be at least 100.000 ls (just an arbitrary number) removed from the main star for example.
2. You might need to fly 1000 ls away from the main star to be able to do a minijump
3. Minijumps might cause light damage to the FSD
4. Minijumps might consume a lot of fuel, because... reasons.
5. We might have to buy an expensive modification for the FSD to make minijumps possible.
6. Minijumps might not be possible to certain star types.
7. Another tool FD might use to regulate in system mini-jumps could be some kind of jump inhibitor installation that prevents ships from doing a mini-jump in certain systems. For example a far away military installation, orbiting a second star in the system might have such a device to prevent enemy ships from jumping to it directly.

 

[NW3]

People play games to have fun. The objective when designing an activity should be to make it fun.

This is the fundamental dichotomy of ED. SOME people play games to have fun. Others enjoy a challenge, a relaxing side trip, or play for any number of reasons.

Personally, while I enjoy playing ED, most of the time, I don't find ED to be fun, but that's OK, I'm not playing to have fun.

You will never convince me that getting rid of supercruise or adding microjumps is a good idea. And, yes, I could avoid using it, but making travel easier would mean that there would be far less objects to claim as first-found. I'm willing to fly 500Kls to reach a faraway second sun, so I can claim it, even after dozens of other explorers have passed through a system.

That being said, I could accept limited travel nerfing in the bubble, using jump-gates or something like that.

I would be in favour of local jumps, especially for exploration - make it an optional feature, then those against it don't have to use it and those who want the feature can.

Respectfully, Nope. The mere existence of microjumps would ruin exploration. There would be far less objects to claim while exploring.

 

[NW3]

We used to have to wait hours to compile something back in my day.

Actually, some of us still do. I work on a huge software suite. A full compile can take a LONG time; luckily I don't have to do that often, thanks to incremental compilers. Running our full test suite takes MANY hours, so we run it overnight. Even so, we've had to drop some of the really long tests, which we only run occasionally.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

This topic keeps popping up again and again.
Like others I would not want to remove all long distance in-system trips (like Hutton) from the game, but I do think that it would be cool to have in-system mini-jumps with limitations!

A proposal I made is not just about minijumps but about Supercruise and in-system travel in general:

I love supercruise. It is a magnificent addition to this spacesim.
It is the perfect balance between extremely fast spacetravel and still being awed by the enormity of the universe.
Soaring past a beautiful star or planet is still a thrill and I must have done it thousands of times by now.

As far as far away locations in a system are concerned... I simply don't travel where I do not want to go.
I won't go to Hutton because it is too far away and has nothing to offer for my troubles.

I would like changes to supercruise.

CHANGE 1.
I want more player agency. I want to have more influence on flying in supercruise, more piloty things to do.
This could be done via pip management for example.

CHANGE 2.
I also want the HUD to change its layout in supercruise with new HUD elements, just like it changes when you approach a planet.
I am sure FD could make something up to make it look cool and different and appropriate for Supercruise.
The HUD might give you an ideal travel solution by showing you a flight path to fly around a planet to accelerate and speed up travel.
I think these changes would serve to underline the differences between the different flight modes and would make us feel like real ace space pilots .

CHANGE 3.
I would like to be able to do in-system minijumps to other stars in the same system.
There could be rules for this to be possible:
1. A second star has to be at least 100.000 ls (just an arbitrary number) removed from the main star for example.
2. You might need to fly 1000 ls away from the main star to be able to do a minijump
3. Minijumps might cause light damage to the FSD
4. Minijumps might consume a lot of fuel, because... reasons.
5. We might have to buy an expensive modification for the FSD to make minijumps possible.
6. Minijumps might not be possible to certain star types.
7. Another tool FD might use to regulate in system mini-jumps could be some kind of jump inhibitor installation that prevents ships from doing a mini-jump in certain systems. For example a far away military installation, orbiting a second star in the system might have such a device to prevent enemy ships from jumping to it directly.

I like change 1 and 2 as a way to speed up supercruise. I would also add FSD stress that can damage your FSD drive if you push it too far as well and it's costly on fuel.
So you can do the fast but costly and slightly risky way or go the safe way. That way both can be viable alternatives.

I don't and won't ever like mini jumps so change 3 is out of the question for me.

 

[NW3]

This topic keeps popping up again and again.
Like others I would not want to remove all long distance in-system trips (like Hutton) from the game, but I do think that it would be cool to have in-system mini-jumps with limitations!

I love supercruise. It is a magnificent addition to this spacesim. It is the perfect balance between extremely fast spacetravel and still being awed by the enormity of the universe.

As far as far away locations in a system are concerned... I simply don't travel where I do not want to go.
I won't go to Hutton because it is too far away and has nothing to offer for my troubles.

I would like changes to supercruise.

CHANGE 1.
I want more player agency. I want to have more influence on flying in supercruise, more piloty things to do.

CHANGE 2.
I also want the HUD to change its layout in supercruise with new HUD elements, just like it changes when you approach a planet.


CHANGE 3.
I would like to be able to do in-system minijumps to other stars in the same system.
There could be rules for this to be possible...

Change #1 is something I would vote for. #2 seems unnecessary, but could be useful, but I'd insist on a customizable HUD color first. The only way I would accept #3 is if it were limited to some systems in the bubble, via a jumpgate or similar mechanism.

I would also accept faster supercruise acceleration/deceleration. That would improve inner system travel, while leaving a trip to Hutton Orbital largely unchanged. Likewise, that would minimally change exploration; distant secondary stars would still require a time commitment to reach (and claim as first-found).

 

[Straha Yeagar]

Micro jumps, but only if controlled by auto pilot in Solo mode only FTW!

 

[zarrazee]

OP. I'm up for this. Seems strange you can jump up to 70LY (excl jumponium) in 20 secs, but it can take over 30 mins to get to some intra-system destinations.

Perhaps you could achieve this with:

• an ENGed FSD as an experimental effect and/or
• by fitting an intra-system FSD drive which is 2 classes smaller than the FSD class size for that ship

 

[Frenotx]

You will never convince me that getting rid of supercruise or adding microjumps is a good idea. And, yes, I could avoid using it, but making travel easier would mean that there would be far less objects to claim as first-found. I'm willing to fly 500Kls to reach a faraway second sun, so I can claim it, even after dozens of other explorers have passed through a system.

You do realize that despite people being out there exploring for ~3 years now since launch, discovering on average ~1 system per second, less than 1% of the galaxy has been explored? Even if you could instantly travel to any body you wanted, there is not exactly much risk of the game running out of undiscovered systems...