Please reduce travel times in the bubble

[Lestat]

Sure. But my question then is : what does long travel time really bring to the table for a group aiming to do coop. Does it bring interesting gameplay ?
I every cases I have experienced, it's a negative. It's just a 10-20min time sink spent in SC and the Hyperspace screen saver.
Slow travel time is relaxing when exploring or trading, because in those cases it is supporting the gameplay. For coop, it is 100% hampering it.
And let's not forget that wings can still have instancing issues with two players and MC is still unstable and vestigial... years after release.

Don't get me wrong, ED is a fantastic solo game. But coop support is anecdotal and on par with gamedesign from the yr 2K.
I guess ED is just not a proper MP/coop game, and never really will. In the end it a net loss of players for FDev, but so long as design purity is maintained, all is well

I take it you are a Accept all mission and then whine when you find a 10-20 Minutes that your own fault. Oh by the way you know like Combat if it too hard or in this case too far. You can discard the mission. .

 

[Lestat]

I think Elite Dangerous's travel times wouldn't be an issue if more things happened while you were travelling. In the original '84 game the travel times could also be pretty lengthy, but more often than not you'd encounter pirates or Thargoids on-route to your destination and this stopped the game from being boring. If FDev would increase the interdiction rate a little so that we encountered NPC's more often (especially early on when your combat rank is low as interdiction rate is tied into your combat rank), then the monotony of sitting still and staring at your destination timer until it's safe to press the button to disengage supercruise would be diminished. Far too much of Elite Dangerous is time spent doing nothing but watching the timer and waiting for your "safe to disengage" message to pop up.

I think frontier working on something to add in the travel time. Like walking around ships. Maybe repairs in Exploration and such. Or if you are a pirate. To be able to modify the cargo so it looks like something else. We can look at Elite vs Star Citizen. One game out and adding stuff over time. While the other is still in Alpha after 5 years.

 

[Muetdhiver]

I'm not speaking about missions....

Just pointing out that gathering people scattered across the bubble for coop play is gated by an unnecessary and unfun time sink. And that it's poor design and user experience.



Missions are fine btw.

 

[dxm55]

ED is a fantastic solo game.

That's a sore point that many backers who were given hints at a standalone solo mode that didn't materialize.
Instead all we got was a shared galaxy in different modes.

Hence we can't even get fast travel in Solo Mode. This would have been possible if there was a true standalone mode.

 

[dxm55]

Here a better idea. Stop hijacking someone else topic and make your own topic about autopilot. So people don't get confused from "Please reduce travel times in the bubble" which is what this topic is about. Vs you wanting "Autopilot" so you can see a movie. They have nothing in common. One about distance and one about letting the computer play the game itself.

Too bad. The gripes are related.

The question has always been. How to reduce travel time, which does not sit well with the grind monkey crowd.
Then the next question would be, while doing long SC hops what can I do? Watch a movie? Well... yes, if I could truly handed the ship off to automation.
And with that you can also hand off jumping to automation. Set waypoints, and away we go!

So like it or not, Bub, the topics are related. Deal with it.

 

[Muetdhiver]

That's a sore point that many backers who were given hints at a standalone solo mode that didn't materialize.
Instead all we got was a shared galaxy in different modes.

Hence we can't even get fast travel in Solo Mode. This would have been possible if there was a true standalone mode.

I don't see why we can't have limited fast travel with multiplayer. Many games manage to do it just fine.

Just limit is to some arbitrary distance (e.g. 200 lyr) and maybe only at spawn.

 

[lenna]

Sure. But my question then is : what does long travel time really bring to the table for a group aiming to do coop.

I think you miss the overriding point - travel in itself is just a fact of life and in the main largely unavoidable in Elite. Longer travel times are a factor based on distances between A and B but that is a controllable element in ED to a large degree (you do get to choose where you go) but the travel itself is not.

When travelling, there is the possibility of encounters along the way be they radiant signals or interdictions and making travel faster for longer journeys would effectively reduce the opportunities along the way for various reasons. The longer the distance, the greater the risk since there is (a) more distance covered and as a direct consequence (b) longer travel time. This is a co-operative gameplay opportunity in itself since flying in numbers (i.e. as a wing) also helps to mitigate the risks from longer journeys.

When I am doing missions around the bubble most of the time super cruise travel distances are around 5k Ls or less which should be coverable in much less than 10 minutes unless you are deliberately dawdling, stopping off at signals along the way, or engaging in interdictions either as an interdictor or a target. When engaging in bounty hunting missions or other kill missions then you need to be prepared to travel to your targets wherever they may be - but then the hunt/chase is part of the gameplay.

TL;DR - Arbitrarily limiting travel times is unnecessary, and would make no sense. The vast majority of super-cruise travel times are rarely as long as some people are trying to proclaim as the norm unless you are either deliberately taking your time or are especially bad at managing super-cruise travel.

 

[lenna]

Just pointing out that gathering people scattered across the bubble for coop play is gated by an unnecessary and unfun time sink. And that it's poor design and user experience.

Stick with unrealistic system size games then like Microsoft Freelancer.

 

[CMDR Big Mike]

I'm not speaking about missions....

Just pointing out that gathering people scattered across the bubble for coop play is gated by an unnecessary and unfun time sink. And that it's poor design and user experience.



Missions are fine btw.

Sounds like poor planning

 

[Lestat]

Too bad. The gripes are related.

The question has always been. How to reduce travel time, which does not sit well with the grind monkey crowd.
Then the next question would be, while doing long SC hops what can I do? Watch a movie? Well... yes, if I could truly handed the ship off to automation.
And with that you can also hand off jumping to automation. Set waypoints, and away we go!

So like it or not, Bub, the topics are related. Deal with it.

Please reread the topic. I posted here.

But keep long travel times outside the bubble.

Its stopping me from playing.

For me, 10/20 mins staring at screen to get somewhere is ok if exploring new frontiers or the odd long range mission or something. Not ok for the majority of missions, mining, trade, bounty etc

Here the original Topic dxm55 Where does it talk about Autopilot or Automation again? I don't see it. All I see a person who does not use common sense when they accept a mission or when they get to a mission destination and they find out they bit off more then they could chew. That could be Combat or in this case long Destination. But here an easy Fix for you and others. If it too Far then discard and go to the next mission.

 

[WinterKing2112]

I think Elite Dangerous's travel times wouldn't be an issue if more things happened while you were travelling. In the original '84 game the travel times could also be pretty lengthy, but more often than not you'd encounter pirates or Thargoids on-route to your destination and this stopped the game from being boring. If FDev would increase the interdiction rate a little so that we encountered NPC's more often (especially early on when your combat rank is low as interdiction rate is tied into your combat rank), then the monotony of sitting still and staring at your destination timer until it's safe to press the button to disengage supercruise would be diminished. Far too much of Elite Dangerous is time spent doing nothing but watching the timer and waiting for your "safe to disengage" message to pop up.

You want a bit of action in supercruise? Try stacking missions out of Leonard Nimoy station. I did that before I bought Horizons so I had no engineering in my anaconda and got interdicted twice, foolishly decided to take on the interdictor twice and ended up with 2 rebuys. Probably would go a bit bettter now that I have Horizons and my annie has a bit of engineering!

 

[WinterKing2112]

Please reread the topic. I posted here.

Here the original Topic dxm55 Where does it talk about Autopilot or Automation again? I don't see it. All I see a person who does not use common sense when they accept a mission or when they get to a mission destination and they find out they bit off more then they could chew. That could be Combat or in this case long Destination. But here an easy Fix for you and others. If it too Far then discard and go to the next mission.

Dxm also thinks engineering is too grindy. I don't think ED is the game for dxm, needs a nice FPS or some such game that does not require an ounce of patience....

 

[dxm55]

I don't see why we can't have limited fast travel with multiplayer. Many games manage to do it just fine.

Just limit is to some arbitrary distance (e.g. 200 lyr) and maybe only at spawn.

Most fast travel encompasses time compression. No can do in a multiplayer as time goes out of sync for everyone.

The only way to do faster travel in the bubble is to

• Increase FSD range dramatically
• Increase SC speed and acceleration rates
• Allow FSD jumps directly to a B/C or D star in a multi-star system
• Allow micro jumps in a system
• Arrange for more ferry services between the bubble and far out colonies

None of which is technically infeasible. It's just a matter of how the FD wants to make the game accessible.

 

[CMDR Big Mike]

Most fast travel encompasses time compression. No can do in a multiplayer as time goes out of sync for everyone.

The only way to do faster travel in the bubble is to

• Increase FSD range dramatically
• Increase SC speed and acceleration rates
• Allow FSD jumps directly to a B/C or D star in a multi-star system
• Allow micro jumps in a system
• Arrange for more ferry services between the bubble and far out colonies

None of which is technically infeasible. It's just a matter of how the FD wants to make the game accessible.

Or, like I suggested, make SC accelerate faster along the trade lanes that are already in the game. Also make the lanes visible similar to orbit lines. Everyone wins

 

[peteuplink]

You want a bit of action in supercruise? Try stacking missions out of Leonard Nimoy station. I did that before I bought Horizons so I had no engineering in my anaconda and got interdicted twice, foolishly decided to take on the interdictor twice and ended up with 2 rebuys. Probably would go a bit bettter now that I have Horizons and my annie has a bit of engineering!

I've tried stacking missions, taking higher ranked missions and going to low security systems, but I just don't get interdicted very often. Admittedly, I have quite a low combat rank as I have a habit of resetting my save out of boredom, and I know that combat rank is tied into how often you're interdicted... I just think it'd be better if the initial rate of interdiction was a tad higher. In the original game it was about 1 in 3 trips would see some sort of combat, in this game it's about 1 in 20 trips... I think it needs to be about 1 in 10.

The game would be a lot less boring, and long journeys less dull, if NPC's were more of an event...

 

[Factabulous]

Or, like I suggested, make SC accelerate faster along the trade lanes that are already in the game. Also make the lanes visible similar to orbit lines. Everyone wins

Well, other than people who avoid the trade lanes to make use of gravity-glitches to speed up travel, and people who turn off the orbit lines, because of the immersions. So other than them, everyone wins....

 

[Dunkz17]

But keep long travel times outside the bubble.

Its stopping me from playing.

For me, 10/20 mins staring at screen to get somewhere is ok if exploring new frontiers or the odd long range mission or something. Not ok for the majority of missions, mining, trade, bounty etc

Please reduce travel times outside the bubble too!

 

[CMDR Big Mike]

Well, other than people who avoid the trade lanes to make use of gravity-glitches to speed up travel, and people who turn off the orbit lines, because of the immersions. So other than them, everyone wins....

*most people then. Can’t help those that would want to fly blind or people looking for glitches.

The trade lanes should be established routes to stations that avoid gravity wells. Being in one would grant like 2x bonus to accelerating in SC. By having visible lanes pirates can see where theoretically the traffic will be, and security can patrol it.

Those not interested can use the SC assist or just travel off the route like normal.

This would allow faster SC transit times in the bubble while adding the opportunity for emergent game play and not taking anything out of the game

 

[WinterKing2112]

I've tried stacking missions, taking higher ranked missions and going to low security systems, but I just don't get interdicted very often. Admittedly, I have quite a low combat rank as I have a habit of resetting my save out of boredom, and I know that combat rank is tied into how often you're interdicted... I just think it'd be better if the initial rate of interdiction was a tad higher. In the original game it was about 1 in 3 trips would see some sort of combat, in this game it's about 1 in 20 trips... I think it needs to be about 1 in 10.

The game would be a lot less boring, and long journeys less dull, if NPC's were more of an event...

When I was starting out they were sometimes a bit too much of an event! Then I watched the "git gud @ trading" video and then I at least knew how to escape. Btw, you've mentioned boredom twice in the above post, gets me wondering if something with a bit more action would be more your cuppa tea. ED's not an action game, sure it happens sometimes, but it's also about trading, missions, exploration etc. There are tons of pure action games out there, but ED's very different from them in that it explores ALL of the realms of the game, not just action.

 

[WinterKing2112]

Well, other than people who avoid the trade lanes to make use of gravity-glitches to speed up travel, and people who turn off the orbit lines, because of the immersions. So other than them, everyone wins....

And the ones who avoid the trade lanes to avoid getting pirated.....