Is anyone interested in utilizing supercruise for interstellar travel? A simplified take on expanding supercruise's usefulness.

[Forum_Dad]

I know, I know; It's been suggested and shot down a million times before so I'll try to keep it short and to the point.


Supercruise would behave exactly the same way that it currently does with a few additions to its usefulness:


1.) If a player is currently in a star system and wants to leave that system via supercruise, the start-up procedure is no different than its current implementation. Once in supercruise, the player would simply fly until they've reached a predetermined point where the host star's "sphere of influence" ends.

• Concessions might be made for systems like Sol where the Voyager probes are still counted as being within the solar system despite being a gazillion miles away.

2.) Once the player reaches this point, they'll be shown a prompt similar to the one displayed when leaving planetary flight, letting them know that they're leaving the system. This message will also be used to mask the de-instancing/unloading of the current system and the player's transition to interstellar space.

• Once in interstellar space, the player is free to fly in any direction; they're not required to select a destination system.
• While traveling in interstellar space, star systems will have a visible ring/sphere (similar in appearance to orbital lines) denoting their sphere of influence.
• The top speed of supercruise would be greatly increased while traveling in interstellar space, though it would still remain slower than jumping directly from system to system via hyperspace.
• Fuel constraints still apply and would most likely be changed for balance.

3.) If a player traveling in interstellar space chooses to enter a system, regardless of having targeted that system, they'd simply fly into the system's "sphere of influence" and be shown another prompt indicating that they've entered the system similar to the Glide Mode indicator (which also masks the loading/instancing of the system).


Pros:

• Not needing to repeatedly jump from star to star on long journeys assuming you have the fuel.
• Immersive and adds a seamless feel to long-distance travel.
• Entirely optional.

Cons:

• Slower than jumping directly from system to system via hyperspace.
• I'm sure there are others that will be pointed out to me.

Basically, this idea is taking supercruise and the transition that occurs between space/planetary flight and scaling them up to work with interstellar travel. It's meant to benefit players who desire a more immersive and seamless "space sim" experience who also don't enjoy stopping at every single star along their transit route.


What do you think? What changes would you make? What would you keep/throw away?

 

[varonica]

Since the speed of SC is limited to a max of 2001c it would make travel between two distant points, or even relatively close points, almost impossible.

 

[Konan]

Im happy with the way it is now. Lots of other fish to fry for Frontier, like fixing their broken product

 

[Forum_Dad]

Since the speed of SC is limited to a max of 2001c

In the OP I had said that the speed of supercruise would be greatly increased during interstellar travel (due to the lack of any sources of gravity).

 

[varonica]

In the OP I had said that the speed of supercruise would be greatly increased during interstellar travel (due to the lack of any sources of gravity).

How greatly though, to get anywhere distant you would need to increase it to millions of times the speed of light, and anywhere with a dense star field would cause serious issue, you would be literally bashing into stars systems every few seconds, you simply couldn't use it in the core, it might be useful if you stuck to the outer edges of the galaxy and the gaps between the arms, but we already have a method of hyperspace jumps that can get us clear across the galaxy in a matter of days. To do that in SC would need at least 100,000c, at that speed you wouldn't even see star systems coming let alone be able to steer around them so it would be like a roller coaster, one second doing 100,000c the next second a few 100c at most as you pass through a system.

It would appear to me to be a solution in search of a problem

 

[Forum_Dad]

How greatly though, to get anywhere distant you would need to increase it to millions of times the speed of light, and anywhere with a dense star field would cause serious issue, you would be literally bashing into stars systems every few seconds, you simply couldn't use it in the core, it might be useful if you stuck to the outer edges of the galaxy and the gaps between the arms, but we already have a method of hyperspace jumps that can get us clear across the galaxy in a matter of days. To do that in SC would need at least 100,000c, at that speed you wouldn't even see star systems coming let alone be able to steer around them so it would be like a roller coaster, one second doing 100,000c the next second a few 100c at most as you pass through a system.

It would appear to me to be a solution in search of a problem

Star density wouldn't be an issue; supercruising in interstellar space would be treated exactly the same way as supercruising inside of a star system. As you get closer to bodies of mass, your ships speed decreases proportionally. This being the case, players would most likely choose to use traditional hyperspace jumps in areas such as the galactic core. Or, and this might be of more interest to explorers, players could manually fly to individual stars since the distances between them would allow for minimal flight time while still providing a more interactive and seamless experience.

Probably the biggest benefit beyond pure enjoyment would be convenience. I'll quote an example that I had used on Reddit:

Beyond immersion, It's a much more convenient method of travelling long distances. To be honest, this might be more important than immersion/gameplay depending on who you're talking to.

Let's say I have a 300 lightyear journey in a ship with a maximum jump range of 20 lightyears. Instead of jumping 15ish times, I could supercruise and be there in 2ish "jumps" (or supercruise most of the way there, then jump, or any other number of combinations). FDev could (and should) easily increase fuel consumption proportionally at speeds above 2,000c for balance purposes. If travelling 300 light-years using the traditional method takes around 15-20 minutes, then superdupercruising should take around 30. A very reasonable timeframe, but still slightly slower than directly jumping from star to star. Again, this is for immersion and convenience.

 

[Erei]

Hyperjump is also used as a loading screen. Without it, you'd find nothing once you arrive. People have tried already with very close system.

It would take a lot of work, for quite little return IMO.

 

[CMDR Rabbit]

Since the speed of SC is limited to a max of 2001c it would make travel between two distant points, or even relatively close points, almost impossible.

Roughly 19 hours, allowing for idle network drops and reconnecting, for about 5 LY. i tried it for giggles once or twice (ran out of fuel just short of target system the first time),a lthough OP suggests raising the max 2001c once out of the original system's sphere of influence.

Hyperjump is also used as a loading screen. Without it, you'd find nothing once you arrive. People have tried already with very close system.

It would take a lot of work, for quite little return IMO.

The OPs suggestion does handle the instancing of the new system, and while i think t would be cool to be able to do it,i agree, on FDEVs part its more work than its worth for something people who do it, would only ever do once or twice.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

The only way i can see this useful would be, if you could bypass Permit Locks with it.
But since most Permit Locks are not there for giggles and gameplay but for future content and secret stuff...nah.

The current System works fine, so why introduce the possibility to break Systems like Alpha Centauri (which is huge with Hutton Orbital being 0.22Ly away from the Main Star)?

 

[Chrystoph]

I could see value in the process in terms of assembling a Coriolis out in the Dark to make bridges to otherwise inaccessible zones.

 

[Spacegamejunkie]

Just allow system to system jumps, without having to Drop Out at each Star.
That way we would not have to baby sit each and every Jump.
Which would allow travel until we needed to fuel scoop, or want to take a closer look.
Have auto Honk at each star, and time to pause, drop out, or continue.
So everything remains the same, only removing the Drop out Loop.

Could also allow picking a in system target point, to Drop Out At.
This would give the best of both FSD and Super Cruise travel.

 

[Teh Smoo]

How greatly though, to get anywhere distant you would need to increase it to millions of times the speed of light, and anywhere with a dense star field would cause serious issue, you would be literally bashing into stars systems every few seconds, you simply couldn't use it in the core, it might be useful if you stuck to the outer edges of the galaxy and the gaps between the arms, but we already have a method of hyperspace jumps that can get us clear across the galaxy in a matter of days. To do that in SC would need at least 100,000c, at that speed you wouldn't even see star systems coming let alone be able to steer around them so it would be like a roller coaster, one second doing 100,000c the next second a few 100c at most as you pass through a system.

It would appear to me to be a solution in search of a problem

Well, the same system that slows you down as you approach a planet would slow you down as you fly near stars.

But yes, solution in search of a problem. I can't think of ANY good reasons to do this. And most of the other reasons are "just cuz I wanna" which fails to impress me, personally. Can we have more limpet and ship computer threads, please?

 

[Teh Smoo]

Hyperjump is also used as a loading screen. Without it, you'd find nothing once you arrive. People have tried already with very close system.

It would take a lot of work, for quite little return IMO.

Please learn to distinguish between forum sections. General Discussions is the appropriate place to say "this is how it is now".

This is SUGGESTIONS, a subforum for CHANGES TO EXISTING SYSTEMS.

Yes, it's a loading screen. Yes, this idea isn't worth development time. WHAT IF IT WASN'T A LOADING SCREEN?

...Yeah, it would be a new way of wasting time.

 

[Spacegamejunkie]

Please learn to distinguish between forum sections. General Discussions is the appropriate place to say "this is how it is now".

This is SUGGESTIONS, a subforum for CHANGES TO EXISTING SYSTEMS.

Yes, it's a loading screen. Yes, this idea isn't worth development time. WHAT IF IT WASN'T A LOADING SCREEN?

...Yeah, it would be a new way of wasting time.

But, But, But, I wanna waste time without having to Baby sit the screen, for each jump.
Just make it so we don't have to drop out at each star.
The time we spend diddling around a star, could be used to check the Honk scan,
and decide if we want to drop out or continue on.
The mechanics remain much the same, just staying in witch space for travel,
without forced drops to Super Cruise each jump.

 

[Chrystoph]

Back before the inclusion of Fleet Carriers and their 500 LY range, there was this event called, Distant Stars. It was a suicide mission because it used a Neutron boost when the expedition Knew there weren't any to use to get back and the jump range was roughly 200 LY.

This would have allowed a return trip, but more importantly, joined with a mechanic for creating a station, you could actually drop a Deep Black jump location. Stations having enough gravity to Mass Lock should mean that, if there is nothing more massive, like a star, you should be able to jump onto a station in the interstellar void.