There are a few mission types (planetary scan, sensitive X retrieval, wetwork, etc) where the destination will be a mission signal source, so you don't know in advance how far out it will be. Those mission destinations can generally be at any distance from arrival out to the "edge" of the system, which seems to be loosely defined by the distance to the most remote body. But again, that's exactly why you learn which systems in your working area have those distant secondaries.
Increase Supercruise Acceleration and Top Speed to No More than 20 Seconds AFK
- Thread starter DrGrib
- Start date
There are a few mission types (planetary scan, sensitive X retrieval, wetwork, etc) where the destination will be a mission signal source, so you don't know in advance how far out it will be. Those mission destinations can generally be at any distance from arrival out to the "edge" of the system, which seems to be loosely defined by the distance to the most remote body. But again, that's exactly why you learn which systems in your working area have those distant secondaries.
Lestat
Banned
Here a few options for players who think it too far. First, you look at the mission reward If it low. Drop the mission. A simple solution to a simple problem. If the Mission reward is High. You need to weigh the distance vs Mission Reward. Then choice. You trying make the problem so complex when it so easy to solve.
Kinda like Doing some combat missions in a small ship and finding out you should have a Medium or large ship.
Doing it in SC is perfectly safe. I like to minimize the time I spend in stations and make the most of my time while travelling.
There's no point making SC quicker if you just end up spending more time at a standstill.
It doesn't matter whether SC flight is Newtonian or not.
I'm just suggesting that a perfectly reasonable analogy exists that at least does have some basis in real spaceflight that could be extended to the completely fictional FSD drive to provide some element of navigation in SC beyond avoid the gravity wells.
Except that current super cruise flight characteristics would need to be changed to suit and that would have a not insignificant detrimental effect on the gameplay as a whole. Arguably, it does matter whether super-cruise behaviour is Newtonian in feel (if not implementation) because it would need to feel that way for sling shot mechanics to make sense - currently they don't and IMO and seemingly the opinion of several others it should not be changed to fit the kind of gameplay you would like.
Further more the FSD does have it's foundations in real theoretical science (Alcubierre Drive) and Newtonian mechanics at the level we are talking about would fundamentally not make sense in that context. At slower speeds, there is an element of Newtonian mechanics in play but it is limited in scope and would not lend well towards the principles of slingshot/orbital braking mechanics.
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As in things like assassination reveals which are only clarified once you scan a ground facility etc (or in old variants get a tip off etc).
It's not that you're forced to complete them, it's just that it's a dire gaming experience to have to dump the contract rather than be bored for 8+ minutes or whatever.
Plenty of mission types are targeted at neighbouring systems, and ones like the above (wetwork missions etc) often won't guarantee precise destination or distance.
In rare cases missions can even divert to a neighbouring system from the one directly elected. I'm not talking optional wrinkles, I'm talking 'Cmdr, the target is actually over here' diverts.
I could ensure I was never taking missions anywhere close to such system combinations, but the process of doing so would itself be dull... A conundrum.
Frankly, 5 mins of gameplay-free travel time is still annoying.
That's fine if you settle at a base, but plenty of the game's unique material is spread much more widely. Hence I roam in the main.
This is a fine post.
I'm not convinced transit would have to be instantaneous though. For example variants of a risky, flight-based contraction of the transit could use the varying run ups to add variety. IE in my tether pitch (see sig) a trip to Hutton would still take fair while still, with greater risk involved in that lengthier transit. (Navigating the 'tether' over that period / arriving at the braking zones at dangerous speeds).
The risk of death would counter-act the fact that it's still a lot quicker than the traditional approach. Keeping the journey involving even in its longest guise, and balancing the advantage it would otherwise give against slow-boating etc.
Why do you think insta-jumps would be a necessity?
As I stated in another thread (in DD) I'd be okay with subtle tweaks to the supercruise acceleration rates around gravity wells that rewards skill, I think the OP asks too much in this case.
Lestat
Banned
But don't you have to also have to dump the contract even if you are close to the location if you found the NPC had better combat ship or multiple combat ships than the ship you are flying.
I don't see Discarding a mission is a problem. I see it part of the game mechanics.
I agree some locations should either be closer or faster to get to 20 second seems like too little time. I don't know what amount of time would be reasonable. But today I literally went and watched TV for an hour while my ship reached a station and that was at full speed not using super cruise assist. That is way to long to wait, heck most of the time I Alt Tab and surf the net while I'm traveling as their is so much down time.
The difference there (as we've discussed before Lestat
), is that there is gameplay involved in that decision. You fight, you fail, you flee. At the very minimum you deploy counter-measures and flight manoeuvres to escape. It is distinct from hitting a 'choice' between prolonged boredom or a repeated annoyance, with no distinct gameplay mechanisms of note deployed.
I timed my acceleration from 30kps to 1978c yesterday, it took me 20 seconds so that's not really an issue, you can indeed go from zero throttle to max speed in 20 seconds, I really think we accelerate fast enough. What the OP and most people on this subject mistake for accleration is gravity well constrained top speed. It is this, and only this, that allows interdiction at all, it's fairly simple to understand, if we were to uncap acceleration in gravity wells the first ship that starts accelerating will always be accelerating away faster than the chasing ship, not just moving faster, but accelerating away faster, making interdiction impossible.
The other thing that uncapping acceleration would lead to is stellar face planting. At the moment with the system we have any ship can maneuver around a star and fuel scoop with the throttle on maximum, this is ideal for explorers and other players who rely solely on fuel scoops. If we uncap acceleration this would become much more difficult and almost impossible for beginning players.
There may be minor tweaks to SC that will help, but major changes will affect a lot of things in ways we can't predict. Interdiction, fuel scooping, planetary and station approach, in fact it could actually lead to longer travel times if players find themselves zooming past their destination at 2001c and then have to turn around and slowly approach, and I am sure it will kill my favourite trick altogether, gravity well braking.
In the end any changes would need to be carefully tested and approved or rejected by FDEV, however as stated by a few others I am fine with the way it is, avoiding gravity wells while flying through systems, gravity well braking and etc is exactly the way interplanetary travel should be done.
The other thing that uncapping acceleration would lead to is stellar face planting. At the moment with the system we have any ship can maneuver around a star and fuel scoop with the throttle on maximum, this is ideal for explorers and other players who rely solely on fuel scoops. If we uncap acceleration this would become much more difficult and almost impossible for beginning players.
There may be minor tweaks to SC that will help, but major changes will affect a lot of things in ways we can't predict. Interdiction, fuel scooping, planetary and station approach, in fact it could actually lead to longer travel times if players find themselves zooming past their destination at 2001c and then have to turn around and slowly approach, and I am sure it will kill my favourite trick altogether, gravity well braking.
In the end any changes would need to be carefully tested and approved or rejected by FDEV, however as stated by a few others I am fine with the way it is, avoiding gravity wells while flying through systems, gravity well braking and etc is exactly the way interplanetary travel should be done.
I don't. The point was more that, if there is a single unified mechanism for travel, with million-fold differences in travel distance, you either: A) have some trips be unreasonably long or short, or B) the travel mechanism operates in constant time. Hyperjumps, for example, are not instant, but they do operate in roughly constant time, and certainly in an amount of time that is independent of the distance covered.
There is of course an option C - provide multiple mechanisms. Then you can take the fast but dangerous (like in your tether proposal) or limited (hyperjumps only to an arrival star) option for long distances, and the slow but safe and flexible one (supercruise as it is today) for the shorter ones.
Lestat
Banned
Why can't YOU use the same analogy when you find out a mission destination that too far instead of complaining about the distance and asking for a short cut? See I am not asking to have Combat nerf because I could not do a set type of combat.The difference there (as we've discussed before Lestat
See we can both drop the mission for different reasons For you it could be due to distance For me its combat. But I not going to whine to Frontier because I could not beat a ship.
Then start using the same common sense I do. Like me finding a Foe too hard for me to kill. You found a distance you are unwilling to travel. Do what I do. DISCARD THE MISSION and your problem solved.
If they are just going to make an easy button for anything at all that takes any effort. Then there is no point in continuing to play. If 10 minutes is too much time to take to go somewhere, maybe its not worth going to then. If traveling across the entire galaxy took little effort, it wouldnt mean anything. There is a reason Hutton Orbital is a thing. But by all means, ask for that easy button. I would post a big easy button meme if I had one and on top I would write end game here. Seems that is what is wanted these days. Effortless easy gaming that can be completed in a week so we can move on to the next game. No thanks, I dont want that as there are more than enough titles working on that idea.
Ok, buy you can still look at the system and see if you want to risk it sending you to a further out destination. You still have the choice before you take the mission.
If 5 mins is too long for you, ok, that's fair enough, its a valid opinion.
As for roaming, then just look before you leap. Open the galaxy map from the mission screen and check out the target. It takes a few seconds and could save you minutes of travel time. If the system is not known to you, open EDSM or EDDB or whatever and check distances.
I'm really sorry, but 99% of the arguments here for cutting travel times seems to be all because of edge cases rather than the norm and then presenting those edge cases as the norm.
You wrongly conflate ‘faster’ with ‘easier’.
If you think staring at a screen doing nothing for 10 mins is ‘hard’, then I’ve got news for you - it’s not. It’s just time consuming and boring.
For those of us with families, friends, jobs, and social lives (I.e. those of us without as much free time as you), we think that those of you who rely on the uneventful long journeys in SuperCruise to get ahead are just playing the easy game.
