Jump Range as a Balancing Factor

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
Discuss!

Back Story
A long time ago, when I enjoyed using my FDL as my primary ship, I regularly got frustrated with its pathetic jump range. This was long before The Engineers.
I regularly used to bang on about how jump range shouldn't be used as a balancing factor, because it's basically a form of transport, which punishes you for picking one ship over another.
Due to the nature of the multiplayer portion of ED, there is almost no gameplay in chasing another CMDR to another system.
And even if there was, the FDL wasn't the ship to do it, despite its role as bounty hunter. Lol

So I asked the question, Should Jump Range Be Used As A Balancing Factor?.
It got some interesting responses, but it's long since locked, and beyond out of date, so I'm starting a new discussion.
Edit: I found the post, it's still an interesting read. :)

Now, with all the Engineers, most of us generally can jump 50~% further in one go. Which is nice, but some ships are still lagging behind quite badly, and a low jump range basically makes them unpleasant to travel in, while offering no particular benefits.

The ships fuel tank makes an excellent balancing factor. The FDL, on a standard tank, can only perform 3 maximum range jumps before needing to refuel.

The problem is, (it's not really a problem) is Jump Envy.

The problem isn't really that it takes a lot of jumps to get a Corvette or FDL from one end of the bubble to another. The problem is, is that it takes a lot of jumps to get a Corvette or FDL from one end of the bubble to another, compared to most other ships.
Or Jump Envy. :p

So while Asp, Anaconda and Python users can skip along to the next CG relatively quickly, FDL and Corvette, and many other low ranges ships, must spend the same time to do the exact same thing.
On top of that, they also have terrible fuel tanks, so they take even longer.

Simply because they are good in combat.
(Although, the T9 is one of the low ranged ships...lol)

So, I'm asking the question again,

Should Jump Range Be Used As A Balancing Factor?

Would the game really change that much, if all ships(bar exploration class), could more or less jump the same distance, but we're instead, balanced just by their fuel tanks?

Using the FDL as an example, if it had a more "normal" jump range, say 30~ly (modified), when battle loaded (which is it's only job) and was still limited to 3 jumps on a tank, it would still be a harder ship to travel in, compared to a Python (in Multirole loadout), with 30~ly range, which can perform about 5 jumps per tank. But the travel time would feel better, because you're interacting with the game by scooping, rather than just watching more loading screens than the Python.
In order to make the FDL travel better, it needs to sacrifice two internal slots, 1 for a fuel tank, and 1 for a fuel scoop.

That already seems like a good enough balance to me, without the unnecessary gimping of jump range.

The same logic could be applied to all ships, allowing travel times to be more dependent on fuel scoop and tank, than simply what ship you chose to travel in.

Going off topic slightly, but in my general opinion, if ship class was going to effect anything, it should effect supercruise more. Combat ships being the fast, agile interceptor types, and the larger ships being the slow, but an almost unstoppable force.

Anyhoo, discuss!

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
 
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Mohrgan

Mohrgan
In the interest of the current balance, the FdL, and any other jump gimped ship, would need to take a hit somewhere else to account for the better value overall just gifted to the benchmark ship, and it's brethren. There would have to be a reshuffle of numbers to take the jump range positive/negative out of the equation all together. An FdL's relative jump range is part of the balance between ships, not in spite of it.
 

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
Yay! 2 posts that completely missed the point.

Admittedly, I'm not good at making points. Lol

:p

I have a feeling this won't go as well as the last thread, in 2016...

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
 

Wulfram Carbide

W
I think jump range is a good balancing factor.

The real problem is that for a few ships excellent jump range is piled onto already excellent stuff
 

shadragon

shadragon
Wulfram Carbide said:
I think jump range is a good balancing factor.

The real problem is that for a few ships excellent jump range is piled onto already excellent stuff
Click to expand...
-AspX
-DBX
-Anaconda

All need to be stripped down to move long distances. You can have heavily armoured / armed -or- long jump range. When stripped down, there's no real threat from those ships against a properly equipped vessel loaded out for combat. That's the balance I think OP is referring too.

The engineered FSD fills the hole of limited jump range nicely. You can get 40 LY without engineering, but with it 55-60 LY is not impossible. Plus neutron stars, of course.

My FDL has 20'ish LY jump range with engineered FSD and loaded for bear. That's fine for short jumps, but I still have my Conda, AspX and DBX for long range stuff.

You could give people Corvettes with 1,000 LY jump ranges and there would still be someone moaning they wanted more. The game is balanced fairly well now with various ship roles. Want speed get a Cobra, want jump range get a Conda, want combat power get a Corvette, want cargo hauled get a T-9... etc. etc. etc.
 

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
I'm not sure jump range really balances anything.

How many times have you used to your ships jump range to escape PvP? Or chased another CMDR, but been hindered by your own range?

In most cases, people pick to jump to any system to flee from an attack. And in pretty much all cases, there's no point chasing someone to another system because instancing won't guarantee you'll meet anyway. And in the event you actually brought a wake scanner, by the time you've used it, and followed them, your target may jump again, and be gone forever. Or your target may drop to normal space, and then jump to another system.

So basically, the only thing low jump range does, is force you to either; take longer to travel than most other ships, which means you're not doing what you want for a while longer than someone in a different ship,
or use the transfer feature, which also means not using your ship.

Not to mention, some ships, *cough*Corvette*cough*, can't even leave the system with the stock E rated FSD. That's just daft. Especially when no at in the system sell a good enough FSD to leave it. Lol

Again. I've gotten used to simply not using these lower ranged ships. Their jump range is a huge factor in whether I'll actually fly it or not.
Especially when another ship can do the same job, and jump further.
(Corvette Vs Anaconda, FDL Vs Python, etc).

And like I said, isn't the fuel tank and fuel per jump good enough balance?

If a Python and FDL had identical ranges, the Python will still outrun the FDL on the 4th jump, simply because it doesn't have to refuel.

It's all just a discussion anyway, I'm not asking for change. :)

The Engineers have sorted the main issue with the low ranges, of some ships simply not being able to travel well, because they spent more time jumping sideways the towards their destination.
On time, my FDL took 6 jumps to cover 17ly because of the star density. Lol
These days I can do it in one. So it's already massively improved.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
 
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NascentChemist

N
I've never flown the FDL, so I can't comment on it's jump range.

But I don't mind the range on my Corvette. It's pretty inconvenient, but I like the feeling. The role playing is nice: it may take me forever to get somewhere, but I'll be a threat once I'm there.
 

nanite2000

nanite2000
I don't mind jump range being used as a balancing factor for combat ships. But I can see the OP's point.

I wouldn't mind a way to get those ships around the bubble more easily, but I'm not sure increasing jump range on those ships is the answer by itself. To preserve balance, I would propose either one of the 2 following options:

* Develop a 'send ahead' feature, where you can send a ship on to a specific station. Ship transfer time limits would still apply, but at least it would be there waiting for you upon arrival.
* Increase jump range for *all* ships by the same factor. So, imagine if all your ship jump ranges doubled (yes, including the Anaconda). Getting around the bubble would be a lot quicker/easier, but wouldn't give your combat ship any inherent advantage over other ships.
 

Edelgard von Rhein

E
I'm not convinced the fuel tank size is a significant balancing factor, especially since you can now filter out non-scoopable stars when plotting a route (although in regions where there are many, including the bubble, they sometimes creep in). Most of the time, there's not much need to make more than three max range jumps without fuel scooping in between and some explorers downsize the fuel tanks on their ships.
.
I don't have a FDL but I do have a Dropship that I sometimes use as a mission runner - it has similar internals to the Asp Explorer (slightly better) but the main differences are jump range, speed and manoeuvrability. If I'm sticking to short range missions, the Dropship outperforms the Asp because it can haul more cargo and is better able to handle a fight, although it's shield is pretty terrible and any kind of fight usually ends up with some repairs being required. The Asp is better for missions that go more than one jump away because that saves time - and that's the key to why jump range works as a balancing factor: time to achieve a given task. The Asp takes less time than the Dropship to reach more distant destinations because it's an exploration ship and needs fewer jumps but the Dropship can do a better job in combat - it will earn credits more quickly than an Asp in a RES site.
 

Faybs

Faybs
One could also ask the question, should hardpoints be a balancing factor? I would really like my taxi hauler to be able to defend itself, and adding a few more hardpoints would really help
 

metatheurgist

metatheurgist
Faybs said:
One could also ask the question, should hardpoints be a balancing factor? I would really like my taxi hauler to be able to defend itself, and adding a few more hardpoints would really help
Click to expand...

Yep. If combat ships should get a buff in jump range, then why not let cargo ships have the same capacity for shields, dps, armor as combat ships and keep their ability to haul loads?

It's really frustrating for a trader/explorer that to actually trade/explore they have to fill their ships with "pointless" modules like scanners, racks, srvs, scoops, fsds, limpet controllers completely making them uncompetitive for combat. How's that fun for a trader/explorer? Should any of that be used as a balancing factor?
 

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
metatheurgist said:
Yep. If combat ships should get a buff in jump range, then why not let cargo ships have the same capacity for shields, dps, armor as combat ships and keep their ability to haul loads?

It's really frustrating for a trader/explorer that to actually trade/explore they have to fill their ships with "pointless" modules like scanners, racks, srvs, scoops, fsds, limpet controllers completely making them uncompetitive for combat. How's that fun for a trader/explorer? Should any of that be used as a balancing factor?
Click to expand...

I actually brought up that point the other day. Lol

I think traders should be well defended, but low damage. Having more utility slots, but less weapons.
Combat ships should have more utility slots and weapons, but less internals.
Multirole have an average amount of all.
All in varying degrees of course, base one ship size.

Of course, way too late for all that. Lol

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
 

CMDR ANCALAGON

C
I think I may be with the OP on this...perhaps. In an effort to form my own opinion, I'm starting with a clean slate, or some basic givens:

- ships have an FSD that allows FTL-esq travel, and ability to "jump" to neighboring systems.
- All ships have equal acceleration and speed while in SC.
- Ships are generally constructed as tools for a specific role, which can broadly be broken down into three categories of hauling (passenger ships are considered a sub-category here), combat, or multi-purpose

It makes sense that ships intended to haul things would maximize cargo space, leaving less room for munitions and hardpoints (volume and mass). On the oppisite end, combat ships want to maximize fire power and speed, or fire power and surviability and have little need for cargo, and want as much energy as possible availabile for moving the ship quickly rather than lifting mass or overcoming its own interia.

In this balancing act, I don't see what factor that is inherent to hauling or combat that would limit jump range. It would seem that the factors affecting jump range would have to be the available power, ship mass, and physical space to install one. This latter bit is a bit tricky to visualize since I only know the mass of the different sized modules, but not the other characteristics.

So perhaps the limiting factor is more of a consequnce or result of the other variables rather than a variable that is directly involved with balancing. I run into problems I think, when I consider the DBX and other small ships, or the FDL, FGS, and Python.

Obviously, the Anaconda is far larger and heavier than the friendly sidewinder, but that also means more room for a larger FSD, so I'm sorta okay so far. But I keep coming back to the small ships, and the reasons that one will have a range of 10ly while another has a range of 40ly are not clear.

The only limiting factor that is consistent is maximum size of the module that can be fitted on each ship. Honestly, for me this is good enough explaination. If someone says that in order for the FDL to have a larger jump range, some other aspect would need to be reduced to balance things out, I'm not following that logic, because jump range really doesn't give an advantage. If the FSD were being restricted for balancing reasons, then I would expect the SC speeds to be impacted as well.

So, I'm with the OP that jump range should not be a balancing factor, but I don't think that it is being used as a balancing factor anyway. I believe that jump range varies from ship to ship because other design considerations for each ship impacted the available space to fit the FSD. Basically, for similar reasons that two cars of similar size and weight may have significant differences in speed and range.
 

Riverside

Riverside
I like a good dilemma, me :)

If the ship you want to take falls short in some way, you choose a different ship, with different advantages & shortcomings. There should be no right answer, only choices.

The FDL may be late to the party but once it arrives it absolutely dominates in combat. Ditto any ship outfitted purely for combat really. If heavy combat ships are to get a better jump range, what other benefit should be taken away? Speed? The traders tactic is to run, traders need speed to escape. Combat ships need to be able to hold ground, they don't need speed, they need good offence & defence. The explorer wants to be able to travel quickly, they want jump range at the expense of defence.


The jump range on combat ships isn't bad, it's just that others are better. I'm fine with jump range as a balance, and a fully specialised ship being severely compromised in all other ways.
 
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