Nav Beacon Discussion - How to make Beacons relevant and engaging!

CRITICAL EDIT: The general trend of discussion seems to be that nav beacons should be fleshed out and become consequential in the game, but should be implemented as a choice, rather than a forced drop. I do in fact agree with this notion, and would like to focus on the implications of nav beacon utilization, rather than whether it's a choice or not. The following post has my original idea, followed by a few key quotes regarding the discussion, which stipulate on a few changes that could be made to improve the original idea, so read the whole thing. If you assert that this is a terrible idea on the merit that forcing a player to drop at a beacon is stupid, I will ridicule you and you won't like it.

I'll better organize this starting thread with a concept that suggests change based on the concerns that other posters have had so far, but the big picture is that the nav beacon should have a purpose, and whether you utilize it is a choice with its own set of consequences, good or bad. Now that that's out of the way...



Right now beacons have absolutely no function - you could drop in and hunt NPC's that hang around there "because", but you could do that in a RES, and you'll rarely if ever see a PC there. But turning the beacon into a check-in station would give them a purpose and some life, and has many implications.

-blockades can become more relevant. Players can hang out at a beacon, persuading incoming players to leave or use supercruise to get where they're going....or to switch modes, unfortunately. The beauty is that in the case of CG's, a conflicting NPC's faction could also attempt to blockade the system, forcing players into supercruise or turning the beacon into a warzone.

-system security suddenly becomes relevant, with high security systems filling beacons with powerful authorities, and low-nil security beacons being empty or full of pirates. Traders now have an additional factor to consider when choosing their trade routes, and may have to tailor a route to be longer just to avoid dangerous systems, or those dangerous systems may have an economy that desperately needs supplies it can't get, making trading more about risk-reward than number crunching.

-beacons can be tailored to the system or the environment, allowing for a more customized experience. beacons in a binary star system become an overheating hazard, as do certain star types perhaps. beacons can reflect the allegiance or merely the aesthetic of the system. There's a lot that can be worked with here, even if it's just an excuse to put a large station to fly around in.

-police,
which have been quite trivial up until this point, will have a relevant presence as soon as you enter a system. They'll still have a meh response time out in supercruise, but in most systems they'll actually be sitting right at the beacon, where most honest players will show up for safety reasons.



Some fantastic ideas that were based around a forced beacon situation, but do have some merit to them if applied otherwise.


I like the OP's idea.

I would alter it slightly though: maintain the current sequence of events, where you arrive from Hyperspace into Supercruise at the star, allowing for fuel scooping and rapid transit to onwards systems as we have now; but add a perimeter around the arrival star - only when you cross over this perimeter into the system proper are you then pulled down into the Nav Beacon instance (via a static interdiction device used only by authorities perhaps), in order to facilitate the things in the OP, whilst maintaining the benefits of the current system.



Good idea. No Interdiction Bubbles in uninhabited systems, however. Does not make sense they would appear there.

Now, here is how we implement it so that travel through the bubble is less tedious:

-The star +20ls radius is immune to the Interdiction bubble

-Crossing into the forced interdiction zone drops all ships safely from Supercruise

-From within the Interdiction bubble, ships can align to their next destination and perform a "mini jump" to within 10Mm of that destination. Mini-jumps can only be initiated from within Interdiction Zones, as these mini-jumps directly to a destination MUST be observed by system authorities for security reasons.

-Mini-jumps can be initiated from any gravity well in the system (including the mass locked zone around stations) to the Interdiction zone.

-FSD Cool Down and Charge time are doubled within the Interdiction zone.

-ALL ships receive a 25 - 30% increase in their base Jump range. Likewise, having a full tank of fuel offers a "charged jump" that adds an additional 10% range. This further compensates players for forced time in normal space, by allowing them to travel from place to place faster (with fewer jumps).


There we go. NOW we not only have a reason to be in normal space more. We have a reason to WANT to USE these monitored transit zones for quick travel throughout a system.

Also, and I want to stress this: Normal Supercruise would remain available throughout a system, since security forces have time to spot and stop ships in that mode of travel. This would not replace Supercruise, merely add another method of travel to compensate players for the forced time in normal space.



Let's keep this discussion going!
 
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not a bad idea + rep

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Agreed, but its been discussed and many opposed it IIRC. As for exploration, there are no beacons in deep space.

that could be handled by simply changing any deep space system jump to land you in supercruise randomly within the jumped to system based on how well you aligned before jumping or something as such.
 
I really do think this is a good idea. It makes sense that the beacons would be there to help guide traffic to and from a star system in a way that can be monitored by the authorities (or 'taxed' by highwaymen) and could create some interesting gameplay possibilities.

There's just one problem with this though, and it's unfortunately a rather major one: it makes long-distance travel across the bubble more tedious than it already is. If the beacon is far enough from the star so that you don't overheat while hyperspace jumping and your destination is not blocked by another stellar mass such that you don't need to enter SC, this isn't a problem. If any of the above issues are present though you are just adding another barrier that doesn't need to be there.

I don't know how this issue could be solved but it's worth discussing anyhow. Repped.
 
Been wishing and going to bat for this every time it comes up.

Currently Nav Beacons make literally no sense...there shouldn't be ships there. Sure it is a great place to do some early game bounty hunting but it still doesn't make any sense why anyone is there at all.

Plus, all the game play that could be had if we were in normal space more often.


eh...I can dream, can't I?
 

NecoMachina

N
I actually love this idea. I think it would go a long way towards making the galaxy feel more alive. I think it would also give more more meaning to being allied or hostile with factions. It should only happen at nav beacons though, that way exploration doesn't become super tedious.
 
I like it a lot. If nav beacons are always situated a safe distance from the sun, it could be considered a safety feature, to avoid ships dropping too close and overheating.

Perhaps to mitigate the tedium factor, emerging at a nav beacon could have some actual navigational advantages. Like, if you go to supercruise from the beacon, you gain a temporary boost to supercruise acceleration, enough to shave, say, 30 seconds off a 500LS journey - and if you go to hyperspace from a beacon, your drive spools up as fast as when jumping to supercruise.

It's going to be a pain for anyone who needs to fuelscoop, though.
 
There's just one problem with this though, and it's unfortunately a rather major one: it makes long-distance travel across the bubble more tedious than it already is. If the beacon is far enough from the star so that you don't overheat while hyperspace jumping and your destination is not blocked by another stellar mass such that you don't need to enter SC, this isn't a problem. If any of the above issues are present though you are just adding another barrier that doesn't need to be there.

I don't know how this issue could be solved but it's worth discussing anyhow. Repped.

A stellar body becoming an obstacle is a rather large problem. The beacon could always be moved away from most stars that could cause an overheating issue, such that overheating is a rare occurrence rather than an annoyance. But to deal with possible obstructions....

Let's think about this. We could possibly game it or build a mechanic that ignores stars when trying to jump to another system from a beacon. Or maybe it'll only happen in certain instances and we should just have people suck it up. This is a good point for discussion, but I would suffer cheesy mechanic bypasses to implement this, personally.
 
I don't think we need any mechanics that make preying upon other players any easier.

In the current game, it would be trivial to completely lock down a system (assuming your instancing is working in your favor). the few police ships that show up are no threat to a wing of four combat ships, even in a high security system (as if that means anything)
 
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Idea seems to hold some much needed deeper gameplay potential.

I think we need to cut down on supercruise time overall, as SC is necessary, but never *really* a fun experience, and when you play a lot, its just endless waiting going forwards. A first step would be to increase safe dropout distance to 0.2 LS, but thats for a different topic.

Your idea fosters more interaction and might give system more character by either presenting police, pirate etc. forces.
You could still go about the old way in nonhabitated systems.
 
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Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
I don't think we need any mechanics that make preying upon other players any easier.

In the current game, it would be trivial to completely lock down a system (assuming your instancing is working in your favor). the few police ships that show up are no threat to a wing of four combat ships, even in a high security system (as if that means anything)

Exactly.

Thankfully this possibility was avoided at an early stage of the development process.
 
I like it a lot. If nav beacons are always situated a safe distance from the sun, it could be considered a safety feature, to avoid ships dropping too close and overheating.

Perhaps to mitigate the tedium factor, emerging at a nav beacon could have some actual navigational advantages. Like, if you go to supercruise from the beacon, you gain a temporary boost to supercruise acceleration, enough to shave, say, 30 seconds off a 500LS journey - and if you go to hyperspace from a beacon, your drive spools up as fast as when jumping to supercruise.

It's going to be a pain for anyone who needs to fuelscoop, though.

Those are some good points to bring up - spending more time at a beacon is better than spending more time in supercruise, and we could tailor the game as such. This sort of thing would shrink the window in which you could be interdicted out of supercruise, but even in high security systems it's hard to protect traders, so that's a reasonable way for a predator to make his move.

I don't think we need any mechanics that make preying upon other players any easier.

In the current game, it would be trivial to completely lock down a system (assuming your instancing is working in your favor). the few police ships that show up are no threat to a wing of four combat ships, even in a high security system (as if that means anything)

That's the thing though, in a high security system it'll have several heavily-equipped police waiting anyway. Consider that to enter a high security system, you're going to have to drop into a beacon with a few Anacondas scanning all ships that come in. It's going to be quite difficult (although rewarding) to slip into the system through their scans.

Which brings up another point - police, police blockades, police stops, police scans....all have little relevance...this change would lend to them immensely.

Idea seems to hold some much needed deeper gameplay potential.

I think we need to cut down on supercruise time overall, as SC is necessary, but never *really* a fun experience, and when you play a lot, its just endless waiting going forwards. A first step would be to increase safe dropout distance to 0.2 LS, but thats for a different topic.

Your idea fosters more interaction and might give system more character by either presenting police, pirate etc. forces.
You could still go about the old way in nonhabitated systems.

Absolutely.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
Agreed, just imagine all the posts about "I can't jump into Sytem xyz because some players have it locked down and I have a mission there!"

They could, of course, change game mode. However, what seems to be being requested is more rather than less interaction with other players, so enforcing a drop at a star's beacon (for only some stars, of course - not all stars have beacons) would seem to be counter-productive given how easily camping players can be avoided should the potential target wish.
 
I think they would change the game to much and the lore.

Think the better option be to integrate nav beacons into missions, so it act as a location to meet up with NPCs.

Beacons should also become like data access points are on the ground, so pilots can access data for specific missions or receive messages.

You should also be able to access the local Galnet.

ships could also be selling stuff at these navigation beacons.

From the dev side it much easier as well.
 
This would be great for the game as a whole, and really has an opportunity to make E:D more of a living breathing universe, since you know there are gathering spots where players are definitely going to show up.
 
They could, of course, change game mode. However, what seems to be being requested is more rather than less interaction with other players, so enforcing a drop at a star's beacon (for only some stars, of course - not all stars have beacons) would seem to be counter-productive given how easily camping players can be avoided should the potential target wish.


Ahh true yea forgot about modes,, duh,, long day making brain mush.. And to the actual point, agreed.
 
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