Hi all, please have a read of my idea - I've given it a lot of thought and hopefully I've summed up the main points below. Harsh critique welcome since I believe this could be a real boon to the game.
Essentially this will work alongside supercruise to allow for, for additional costs, intra-system ‘jumps’. I.e. jumping instantaneously to your desired system location, be it a beacon / planet / station etc.
The idea here is that super cruise would still have its uses, which I will outline through this post, but it can also be circumvented in certain scenarios for additional costs depending on the activity / ship / other conditions, by using a ‘Slipstream’ intra-system jump method.
The reason I’m calling it a ‘slipstream’ jump is because it will only be available for locations that have been previously discovered, scanned and successfully sold to universal cartographics by another commander - so explorers cannot just go slipstreaming to brand new locations that nobody has visited before.
This will obviously have several benefits and, as such, should have associated costs. This way the gamer will have to make the conscious decision between utilizing Supercruise or 'Slipstream' as their desired method of travel.
Universal additional costs
> Fuel: This would be the main consistent cost associated with slipstreaming. Currently supercruise travel uses barely any fuel (if any at all?) but a slipstream jump would use fuel in a manner that scales similarly to frameshift jumping, taking into account your drive/fuel tank/mass/distance traveled. A relatively small cost for sure, but it will add up.
> Ship wear and tear: Slipstream jumps should be considered risky and unstable, and so a % chance (10%, for example) to cause 1% structural integrity damage to your ship would accompany every jump you make. For a new player these costs are minimal and fuel costs larger, but for a more experienced player, their ship’s integrity is more expensive to repair.
> Increased FSD cooldown after slipstreaming: The idea here is that you may slipstream to a signal source, nav beacon, conflict zone or even a RES and find yourself in a spot of trouble - the increased FSD cooldown is a risk you’ll need to weigh up before putting yourself in that position in case you need to make a speedy escape.
> Physical impacts / shots will cancel your slipstream charge: pretty simple premise to remove slipstreaming as a potential escape method from fights.
Trading
One of the main considerations when trading is your route distance and the risk of piracy - it’s clear that allowing slipstream jumps for trading would negate a lot of the point and risk of the profession, so there would need to be certain considerations. Here are some ideas:
> Valuable items cannot survive a slipstream jump: Some items may be completely destroyed upon a slipstream jump, meaning it’s not a viable transport method whilst making high value trade runs. This relates to the risk and instability of the slipstream.
> Some items have a % chance to be destroyed: Some items may survive a jump, but each ton has a % chance of being destroyed during the jump
> Wear and tear: It may be that the increased tonnage inside the ship simply increases the chance and % impact to ship integrity. Another cost that can eat in to your profits, for the reward of a faster trade route!
Distress beacons
This is ‘kind of separate’ but also ‘kind of related’ to the intra-system slipstream jump idea, in that ships can buy ‘distress beacons’ - one-shot items that alert all commanders in a system that they’re in distress, and these beacons become physical locations that commanders can drop in on, or slipstream to.
Just imagine the multiplayer implications! Picture this scenario:
> T9 ambling towards station loaded with expensive goods, gets interdicted by a pirate and submits.
> Drops distress beacon immediately
> Pirates, bounty hunters and general galactic white knights alike heed the call and all slipstream to the location within 10-30 seconds
> A giant battle erupts!
> More commanders join the fray as the battle rages
> Everyone has an incredibly tense and exciting gaming experience and a great story to tell!
> Alternatively, more pirates heed the call and just a single bounty hunter - the BH cannot quickly escape because of his FSD cooldown and he ends up going the way of the T9… blown to dust.
> Pirates could even drop them as bait, or someone who simply wants some interaction may drop a different kind of beacon.
It would just be awesome
Imagine the sight when you, the commander wearing an oculus rift, arrives at Leesti and wants to head to George Lucas. You engage your FSD for a slipstream jump, line up with the destination… Your sirens burst, your engines roar in your ears as you’re accelerated to unfathomable speeds. The planet goes from a dot, to a tennis ball and to a full on glorious earth-like filling your entire view in a mere moment, and with an almighty BANG your drives cut out and it’s silence as George Lucas is slowly spinning, just 10km ahead...
I’m sure there are dozens of reasons why this may not be the BEST and most COMPLETE idea around, but I think it would add a lot to the game, without taking anything away.
Thanks for reading, now your thoughts, please!
CMDR Roderick Reith
Essentially this will work alongside supercruise to allow for, for additional costs, intra-system ‘jumps’. I.e. jumping instantaneously to your desired system location, be it a beacon / planet / station etc.
The idea here is that super cruise would still have its uses, which I will outline through this post, but it can also be circumvented in certain scenarios for additional costs depending on the activity / ship / other conditions, by using a ‘Slipstream’ intra-system jump method.
The reason I’m calling it a ‘slipstream’ jump is because it will only be available for locations that have been previously discovered, scanned and successfully sold to universal cartographics by another commander - so explorers cannot just go slipstreaming to brand new locations that nobody has visited before.
This will obviously have several benefits and, as such, should have associated costs. This way the gamer will have to make the conscious decision between utilizing Supercruise or 'Slipstream' as their desired method of travel.
Universal additional costs
> Fuel: This would be the main consistent cost associated with slipstreaming. Currently supercruise travel uses barely any fuel (if any at all?) but a slipstream jump would use fuel in a manner that scales similarly to frameshift jumping, taking into account your drive/fuel tank/mass/distance traveled. A relatively small cost for sure, but it will add up.
> Ship wear and tear: Slipstream jumps should be considered risky and unstable, and so a % chance (10%, for example) to cause 1% structural integrity damage to your ship would accompany every jump you make. For a new player these costs are minimal and fuel costs larger, but for a more experienced player, their ship’s integrity is more expensive to repair.
> Increased FSD cooldown after slipstreaming: The idea here is that you may slipstream to a signal source, nav beacon, conflict zone or even a RES and find yourself in a spot of trouble - the increased FSD cooldown is a risk you’ll need to weigh up before putting yourself in that position in case you need to make a speedy escape.
> Physical impacts / shots will cancel your slipstream charge: pretty simple premise to remove slipstreaming as a potential escape method from fights.
Trading
One of the main considerations when trading is your route distance and the risk of piracy - it’s clear that allowing slipstream jumps for trading would negate a lot of the point and risk of the profession, so there would need to be certain considerations. Here are some ideas:
> Valuable items cannot survive a slipstream jump: Some items may be completely destroyed upon a slipstream jump, meaning it’s not a viable transport method whilst making high value trade runs. This relates to the risk and instability of the slipstream.
> Some items have a % chance to be destroyed: Some items may survive a jump, but each ton has a % chance of being destroyed during the jump
> Wear and tear: It may be that the increased tonnage inside the ship simply increases the chance and % impact to ship integrity. Another cost that can eat in to your profits, for the reward of a faster trade route!
Distress beacons
This is ‘kind of separate’ but also ‘kind of related’ to the intra-system slipstream jump idea, in that ships can buy ‘distress beacons’ - one-shot items that alert all commanders in a system that they’re in distress, and these beacons become physical locations that commanders can drop in on, or slipstream to.
Just imagine the multiplayer implications! Picture this scenario:
> T9 ambling towards station loaded with expensive goods, gets interdicted by a pirate and submits.
> Drops distress beacon immediately
> Pirates, bounty hunters and general galactic white knights alike heed the call and all slipstream to the location within 10-30 seconds
> A giant battle erupts!
> More commanders join the fray as the battle rages
> Everyone has an incredibly tense and exciting gaming experience and a great story to tell!
> Alternatively, more pirates heed the call and just a single bounty hunter - the BH cannot quickly escape because of his FSD cooldown and he ends up going the way of the T9… blown to dust.
> Pirates could even drop them as bait, or someone who simply wants some interaction may drop a different kind of beacon.
It would just be awesome
Imagine the sight when you, the commander wearing an oculus rift, arrives at Leesti and wants to head to George Lucas. You engage your FSD for a slipstream jump, line up with the destination… Your sirens burst, your engines roar in your ears as you’re accelerated to unfathomable speeds. The planet goes from a dot, to a tennis ball and to a full on glorious earth-like filling your entire view in a mere moment, and with an almighty BANG your drives cut out and it’s silence as George Lucas is slowly spinning, just 10km ahead...
I’m sure there are dozens of reasons why this may not be the BEST and most COMPLETE idea around, but I think it would add a lot to the game, without taking anything away.
Thanks for reading, now your thoughts, please!
CMDR Roderick Reith
