Please reduce travel times in the bubble

[Riverside]

No mini-games, no hard travel time limits, and no hard super cruise event intervals - keep these things mostly as-is mechanics wise and there would be little cause for anyone that mostly like things as-is to object.

What I have in mind is to tweak the max local speed between gravity wells to shorten the middle half of the journey, the potential for existing emergent play is generally at the start or near the end of any in-system transit - make the uneventful part not take as long. Potentially there could be some adjustments to make gravity braking more effective, Ill defer to Darkfyre99's considerably greater knowledge of this area of the game. Big Mike's suggestion for increased speed in trade lanes could work too, provided a skilled pilot could still be faster.

For stuff to do there could be more varied traffic & more USSs on those longer trips, random interdictions could be a little more than currently, again small tweaks, not drastic sweeping changes as have been common with AI tweaks in the past.

tbh my personal view is that I'd rather have the slightly dull current situation than risk losing the relative stability we have for the sake of minor tweaks, but there is scope for Golgot's experience to be improved without wreaking havoc on anyone else's game

Space is big, deal with it imo.

 

[VR Golgot]

What I have in mind is to tweak the max local speed between gravity wells to shorten the middle half of the journey, the potential for existing emergent play is generally at the start or near the end of any in-system transit - make the uneventful part not take as long

This is the nub of the issue for sure. (And the inevitable need for some form of braking at the end adds further gameplay potential to the system forms, ideally).

I get people not wanting to fracture the SC experience with more 'modes'. (Although I think the pre-planning aspect of 'jumps' ups the appeal, and is suitably 'spaceman' ).

Upvote for being open to 'win win' improvements anyways

 

[WinterKing2112]

I'm sorry, but SuperCruise travel times and combat are not equivalent.

Firstly, players are impacted by travel times in SuperCruise whether they do missions or not. There's no avoiding it. So let's not limit ourselves to the impact on missions alone.

Secondly, combat is infinitely more complex and skill-based than travelling in SuperCruise. You can't go into a combat situation with any ship configured any way you like, and then sit there for up to an hour doing absolutely nothing but waiting, and still expect to survive, or collect your reward.

In SuperCruise, you can.

Soooo... I get interdicted by a pirate and I do nothing, the pirate awards me? Great, must try that next time I get interdicted! What does the pirate give me? Free mats?

 

[Darkfyre99]

What I have in mind is to tweak the max local speed between gravity wells to shorten the middle half of the journey, the potential for existing emergent play is generally at the start or near the end of any in-system transit - make the uneventful part not take as long. Potentially there could be some adjustments to make gravity braking more effective, Ill defer to Darkfyre99's considerably greater knowledge of this area of the game. Big Mike's suggestion for increased speed in trade lanes could work too, provided a skilled pilot could still be faster.

One of the biggest sources of frustration I have with topics like this that people keep on using Newtonian terminology, such as speed, acceleration, deceleration, and so on, when most of what's actually going on in the game are actually the effects of mass lock: the effects of mass lock on FSD performance, decreasing mass lock, increasing mass lock, and so on. Someone at Frontier Developments, back when FD actually cared about verisimilitude in this game, seems to have sat down and actually created a coherent model of "Witchspace Physics," one that can be used to explain almost everything about how our ships perform in the game, including Supercruise.

Someone posted earlier in the thread that they tested "acceleration," from 0 to about 2000c at about 20 seconds. The fact of the matter is that it also takes about 20 seconds to go from 0 to 200c, or 0 to 20c. The FSD always takes about 20 seconds to reach full output, and thus full "speed". It's also why the "6 second" rule works regardless if you're approaching potato moon, a gas giant, or even a star like Proxima Centauri: FSD performance is relative to mass lock, as opposed to an absolute value. It's also why tweaks to mass lock can have counter-intuitive effects: increasing mass lock slightly decrease travel times of optimal routes while increasing times for non-optimal routes do to braking maneuvers being more effective, and vice versa.

The kinds of "tweaks" both you and Big Mike are proposing would pretty much require Frontier to scrap Supercruise as it is, and rewrite it completely, because presently Witchspace simply doesn't work that way.

My preferred solution to the "problem" of "long" Supercruise times would be optional modules that would, when activated, affect local mass lock: one module would decrease local mass lock, and another would increase it. Think of them as a "booster" and a "parachute" for your ship, that would also affect other ships nearby. Because the modules affects nearby space, rather than your ship directly, a fleet would only need one ship with a module installed if they're flying in formation. Increasing local mass lock would also be a way for players to enforce blockades or for pirates to ensnare prey.

 

[House0fDerp]

SuperCruise travel times have never been reduced.

Supercuise is no worse than it ever was. Number of jumps needed has decreased to get from one end to the other. Makes sense that we would use that to expand.

 

[nanite2000]

Soooo... I get interdicted by a pirate and I do nothing, the pirate awards me? Great, must try that next time I get interdicted! What does the pirate give me? Free mats?

What?

 

[WinterKing2112]

I'm sorry, but SuperCruise travel times and combat are not equivalent.

Firstly, players are impacted by travel times in SuperCruise whether they do missions or not. There's no avoiding it. So let's not limit ourselves to the impact on missions alone.

Secondly, combat is infinitely more complex and skill-based than travelling in SuperCruise. You can't go into a combat situation with any ship configured any way you like, and then sit there for up to an hour doing absolutely nothing but waiting, and still expect to survive, or collect your reward.

In SuperCruise, you can.

Read what u said....

 

[WinterKing2112]

Soooo... I get interdicted by a pirate and I do nothing, the pirate awards me? Great, must try that next time I get interdicted! What does the pirate give me? Free mats?

...then read what I said. Then you will understand.

 

[WinterKing2112]

Yeah, too many interdictions can be a pain. I'd be more than happy if during an hours play time I meet between 1 and 3 NPC pirates, but at the moment I can play for 8 hours and not see a single one.

Having said that, after watching the video I linked above, and following that up with a few more from the series, I went to play the game and noticed that there aren't very many risky systems around where I'm situated in the galaxy. Like the guy in the video I was paying attention to what the government types were and this informs you how safe or dangerous a system is, but in ED it's taken a few steps further by having security ratings and different states. Most of the systems where I am are corporate, high security systems in a state of boom. There's a couple of dictatorship systems, which would normally be more of a risk, but these are medium security and also currently in a state of boom. I looked a bit further afield, but I can't really see any low security systems in an unhappy state like war, civil unrest or outbreak... Perhaps the BGS needs a bit more randomness built into it to provide some variety?

Crikey, I am getting interdicted all the time now, and it actually got me arrested because I accidentally hit a space cop while I was taking down yet another scum sucking pirate! The good news is I have been promoted to expert in combat, but I really just want to be a simple space trucker! Granted, I am stacking missions to rank up with the Empire so I can unlock Hera, and I always fill up with cargo while I do the missionsto make some extra credits, so I guess it's self inflicted!

But this all happened in a medium security system, so even there I am getting plenty of pew pew! Not sure why you ain't getting the same attention from pirates that I am getting with almost every mission, this latest one there was mission interference guy #2, and a pirate, both in anacondas, both at the same time. Would have been nasty if I didn't have a fighter on board + space cops to the rescue, but then either me or my fighter hit one if the cops! This all seems to have started when I went to see Liz to unlock Hera Tani.....

The other issue is that I am taking out so many annies that my holds are full of G1 and G2 mats which I really need to trade 'cos it's making collecting the rare mats more difficult, so now I need to find a mats trader. Time to consult Dr Google again.... no end of consulting Dr Google with this game...... uh oh, sounds a bit whingey, I'm finally turning into a proper ED forum member!

 

[lenna]

What I have in mind is to tweak the max local speed between gravity wells to shorten the middle half of the journey, the potential for existing emergent play is generally at the start or near the end of any in-system transit - make the uneventful part not take as long. Potentially there could be some adjustments to make gravity braking more effective, Ill defer to Darkfyre99's considerably greater knowledge of this area of the game. Big Mike's suggestion for increased speed in trade lanes could work too, provided a skilled pilot could still be faster.

Gravity braking is not a thing in ED, a more accurate term would be quantum braking. Essentially, the way Super-Cruise seems to work is based loosely on proximity to larger masses in a similar way to gravitational sheer but the principles are somewhat different. The further you are from masses of significance the faster you can travel, seemingly in a logarithmic like relationship akin to gravity wells but the fundamental nature of the super cruise mechanics are obviously not Newtonian in nature nor based on gravity - the end effect may seem to be gravity based to a lay-person but it clearly is not if you look close enough at the super cruise motion behaviours.

Currently the trade lanes are in general the shortest paths rather than the optimal ones - without some form of external technological assist the speeds in trade lanes should remain consistent with super cruise mechanics/behaviours in general. Perhaps more optimal paths could be calculated for at least some of the longer trade lanes, the routes adjusted accordingly, and add some better manual flight indicators in the HUD for indicating where the trade lanes are.

For technological improvement to trade-lanes, perhaps super-cruise accelerators (comparable to Orbis/Coriolis slots in size and form) could be added at the start of some of the trade lanes (notionally only the main/longer ones) in normal space, usage of these accelerators would notionally catapult you to the notional maximum local speed along the trade lane from normal space - establishment of them would probably require some form of ISIs/CGs or other universe wide event (could be a based-on/derived-from Guardian tech).

As for tweaking maximum local speed, due to the way super-cruise feels and works doing this would not be viable without reworking super-cruise as a whole IMO. It may be logical for FD to tweak super-cruise acceleration/deceleration curves a little based on ship mass relative to optimal FSD mass but doing so would have knock-on effects to interdiction mechanics and/or overall game balance.

For stuff to do there could be more varied traffic & more USSs on those longer trips, random interdictions could be a little more than currently, again small tweaks, not drastic sweeping changes as have been common with AI tweaks in the past.

Depends on how you are thinking of tweaking USS/NPC Interdictions, at the moment the balance is near perfect IME/IMO. You could not reasonably expect an interdiction to occur randomly out in the middle of no-where say around the half-way point to Hutton for example, to introduce something like that would feel highly contrived and artificial.

Type of traffic seems to be dependent on various factors, but ultimately any increases to it would need to be done carefully as they do not sit totally in isolation and seem to be derived from either the BGS, other player activity in other instances, or a combination of the two.

tbh my personal view is that I'd rather have the slightly dull current situation than risk losing the relative stability we have for the sake of minor tweaks, but there is scope for Golgot's experience to be improved without wreaking havoc on anyone else's game

Space is big, deal with it imo.

This is the fundamental issue in play here - it seems to me that there is too much focus on certain edge/near-edge/non-mainstream cases rather than the most common cases. Any changes done would need to be done VERY carefully but arguably there are sufficient complications to support the case for keeping the status quo in the main.

Changing trade lines to be more optimal (with better HUD based guidance) or adding the technological trade-lane catapult structures at the start of SOME trade lanes would not be unreasonable though.

 

[nanite2000]

...then read what I said. Then you will understand.

I did both those things - I still don’t get it.

Can you explain it please?

EDIT: I just re-read those posts and I think what you’re saying is that you can’t always sit and wait in SuperCruise because you might get interdicted. Fair enough, but that is only going to happen within the first few hundred LS anyway in Solo, and in Open, it’s only really going to happen I’m busy star systems.

My point was that just because you can travel unhindered in superCruise doesn’t necessarily mean you always will, and that comparing something as simple as SuperCruise to something as complex as combat is a bad analogy.

 

[lenna]

Crikey, I am getting interdicted all the time now, and it actually got me arrested because I accidentally hit a space cop while I was taking down yet another scum sucking pirate! The good news is I have been promoted to expert in combat, but I really just want to be a simple space trucker! Granted, I am stacking missions to rank up with the Empire so I can unlock Hera, and I always fill up with cargo while I do the missionsto make some extra credits, so I guess it's self inflicted!

But this all happened in a medium security system, so even there I am getting plenty of pew pew! Not sure why you ain't getting the same attention from pirates that I am getting with almost every mission, this latest one there was mission interference guy #2, and a pirate, both in anacondas, both at the same time. Would have been nasty if I didn't have a fighter on board + space cops to the rescue, but then either me or my fighter hit one if the cops! This all seems to have started when I went to see Liz to unlock Hera Tani...

I think the point here is that such things are not exactly self-inflicted, they are accommodated for by the design - you want lots of activity then you stack the missions and/or carry lots of high value cargo. The probability of whether individual encounters will occur is at least partly RNG based so some people will encounter more/less incidents than others in comparable circumstances, but there is no real avoiding that without essentially making wrinkles feel too forced OR essentially forcing more combat on others regardless of their personal preferences.

The other issue is that I am taking out so many annies that my holds are full of G1 and G2 mats which I really need to trade 'cos it's making collecting the rare mats more difficult, so now I need to find a mats trader. Time to consult Dr Google again....

No real need to consult Google, INARA has the details pretty well catalogued and there are the galaxy map filters in-game too.

 

[jason 55]

yes, catering to instant gratification kids whos whole argument is , "thats Pathetic".this is What ED needs

seariously, ED isnt for you, not every one likes instant action all day everyday, go play NMS or something

Agree entirely, lately the emphasis has swung too far to make the game easier, this isn't and was never intended to be a 'quick fix' game and , even now, it has lost a lot of the appeal the original game had (super-cruise assist for example isn't really required or would you like AI controlled ships so you can go to work/school and come back to find it's travelled for you?) Exploration was arduous but had a sense of achievement when you travelled to Sag A, now you can do it in less that a day (fully engineered exploration at the moment travelling 120ly plus with FSD injections), Mining was a royal pain in the a** but so easy now you can make billions without even trying. If you find the game hard/boring/difficult/slow then as stated this isn't a game for you, it is supposed to be hard/slow/ and difficult that's the whole point but all people want is the biggest/best and they want it now. Elite Dangerous is NOT an arcade game but as a company seeking sales Frontier keeps trying to please everyone, which never works.

 

[peteuplink]

Crikey, I am getting interdicted all the time now, and it actually got me arrested because I accidentally hit a space cop while I was taking down yet another scum sucking pirate! The good news is I have been promoted to expert in combat, but I really just want to be a simple space trucker! Granted, I am stacking missions to rank up with the Empire so I can unlock Hera, and I always fill up with cargo while I do the missionsto make some extra credits, so I guess it's self inflicted!

But this all happened in a medium security system, so even there I am getting plenty of pew pew! Not sure why you ain't getting the same attention from pirates that I am getting with almost every mission, this latest one there was mission interference guy #2, and a pirate, both in anacondas, both at the same time. Would have been nasty if I didn't have a fighter on board + space cops to the rescue, but then either me or my fighter hit one if the cops! This all seems to have started when I went to see Liz to unlock Hera Tani.....

The other issue is that I am taking out so many annies that my holds are full of G1 and G2 mats which I really need to trade 'cos it's making collecting the rare mats more difficult, so now I need to find a mats trader. Time to consult Dr Google again.... no end of consulting Dr Google with this game...... uh oh, sounds a bit whingey, I'm finally turning into a proper ED forum member!

I found a system yesterday that is rife with pirate activity, every time I go there I'm guaranteed some combat, but generally I don't see them anywhere else because combat rank is linked to how often you're interdicted. Also, as I said above, the systems around me are mostly high security corporate systems in boom. My combat rank is mostly harmless because I don't see much combat, haven't destroyed any skimmers and spend most of my time hauling stuff from system to system. I've taken the odd planetary scan mission or surface salvage missions where I've shot a few skimmers, but not enough to increase my rank by much. I've reset my save a few times as well. The opportunities to increase combat rank have been very few and far between. I'd guess you've suddenly gone over some in-game threshold that makes interdictions more likely.

I think the scale should be re-balanced a bit, so that interdictions are a little more common at lower ranks (as I said I'd be happy with 1 or 2 NPC's in every hour of gameplay) but have it scale slower so it doesn't become annoying at higher ranks.

In an ideal world that rate of interdiction would be tied into the security rating and state of the system and ignore your combat rank completely. That way you'd know exactly which systems are more likely to be pirate hot spots instead of it seeming like it's a random roll of a dice combined with your combat rank. If you recall the Elite 84 video I linked yesterday, the guy playing it knew which systems were more likely to have pirates in them because he could tell at a glance by the systems government.

 

[WinterKing2112]

I did both those things - I still don’t get it.

Can you explain it please?

EDIT: I just re-read those posts and I think what you’re saying is that you can’t always sit and wait in SuperCruise because you might get interdicted. Fair enough, but that is only going to happen within the first few hundred LS anyway in Solo, and in Open, it’s only really going to happen I’m busy star systems.

My point was that just because you can travel unhindered in superCruise doesn’t necessarily mean you always will, and that comparing something as simple as SuperCruise to something as complex as combat is a bad analogy.

You got it. I have been interdicted almost constantly over the last few days. If I sat there and did nothing I would be back to flying a sidewinder very quickly! Not sure why I am getting interdicted so much.... still, lots of pew pew so can't complain.

 

[Riverside]

In an ideal world that rate of interdiction would be tied into the security rating and state of the system and ignore your combat rank completely.

I would much rather have that than the crass custom psycho NPCs introduced in 2.1. However the challenge the AI presents has been all over the place historically and the stability we have now, while a little dull is not something I'd be happy to put at risk when players who are bored can just not go to the quieter or more distant areas. IMO the benefit is not worth the risk, I appreciate this is a selfish view.

Any potential changes here would (imo) require more care & attention than FDev has historically shown over the past couple of years.

 

[WinterKing2112]

I found a system yesterday that is rife with pirate activity, every time I go there I'm guaranteed some combat, but generally I don't see them anywhere else because combat rank is linked to how often you're interdicted. Also, as I said above, the systems around me are mostly high security corporate systems in boom. My combat rank is mostly harmless because I don't see much combat, haven't destroyed any skimmers and spend most of my time hauling stuff from system to system. I've taken the odd planetary scan mission or surface salvage missions where I've shot a few skimmers, but not enough to increase my rank by much. I've reset my save a few times as well. The opportunities to increase combat rank have been very few and far between. I'd guess you've suddenly gone over some in-game threshold that makes interdictions more likely.

I think the scale should be re-balanced a bit, so that interdictions are a little more common at lower ranks (as I said I'd be happy with 1 or 2 NPC's in every hour of gameplay) but have it scale slower so it doesn't become annoying at higher ranks.

In an ideal world that rate of interdiction would be tied into the security rating and state of the system and ignore your combat rank completely. That way you'd know exactly which systems are more likely to be pirate hot spots instead of it seeming like it's a random roll of a dice combined with your combat rank. If you recall the Elite 84 video I linked yesterday, the guy playing it knew which systems were more likely to have pirates in them because he could tell at a glance by the systems government.

I tend to hang around nav beacons when I'm bounty hunting/collecting mats, good place to do combat, npc's are usually pretty easy. I think the npc's are tougher if you hang around compromised nav beacons, and they are often in wings so you can get ganked very easily there. Just don't do what I did once: turn up at a compromised nav beacon with cargo on board, I got attacked by at least 6 npc's! Had to get out of there PDQ.

 

[peteuplink]

I would much rather have that than the crass custom psycho NPCs introduced in 2.1. However the challenge the AI presents has been all over the place historically and the stability we have now, while a little dull is not something I'd be happy to put at risk when players who are bored can just not go to the quieter or more distant areas. IMO the benefit is not worth the risk, I appreciate this is a selfish view.

Any potential changes here would (imo) require more care & attention than FDev has historically shown over the past couple of years.

I just think that the system should be a lot closer to the way it worked in the older games, taking the government and system state as the basis of whether or not pirate activity will be present, instead of being determined by what combat rank you are. Because you can be Elite combat rank by virtue of having destroyed a lot of weaker enemies but be completely rubbish at fighting ships that are your own rank. But the game is written with the assumption that if you're Elite you're good at combat, so it increases the rate of interdiction and throws more Elite enemies at you. Which, if you got your rank by virtue of shooting a lot of skimmers or low-ranked NPC's, would end up being very frustrating.

The way it should work is if you're on the galaxy map and you see a dictatorship in a state of civil unrest, you know that system is a risk. However, if you see a democracy in a state of civil liberty, the risk is greatly reduced. In the original game, if you went into a system that was an agricultural democracy, you knew you were pretty safe, but an industrial dictatorship or even an anarchy system would spell certain trouble.

I'm pretty sure Fdev could fix it and make it all work a bit more coherently.

 

[WinterKing2112]

I think the point here is that such things are not exactly self-inflicted, they are accommodated for by the design - you want lots of activity then you stack the missions and/or carry lots of high value cargo. The probability of whether individual encounters will occur is at least partly RNG based so some people will encounter more/less incidents than others in comparable circumstances, but there is no real avoiding that without essentially making wrinkles feel too forced OR essentially forcing more combat on others regardless of their personal preferences.


No real need to consult Google, INARA has the details pretty well catalogued and there are the galaxy map filters in-game too.

Yes, just been watching an Obsidian Ant video on using the map filters to find a mat trader. Will give that a go tomorrow.

 

[Riverside]

I just think that the system should be a lot closer to the way it worked in the older games, taking the government and system state as the basis of whether or not pirate activity will be present, instead of being determined by what combat rank you are. Because you can be Elite combat rank by virtue of having destroyed a lot of weaker enemies but be completely rubbish at fighting ships that are your own rank. But the game is written with the assumption that if you're Elite you're good at combat, so it increases the rate of interdiction and throws more Elite enemies at you. Which, if you got your rank by virtue of shooting a lot of skimmers or low-ranked NPC's, would end up being very frustrating.

The way it should work is if you're on the galaxy map and you see a dictatorship in a state of civil unrest, you know that system is a risk. However, if you see a democracy in a state of civil liberty, the risk is greatly reduced. In the original game, if you went into a system that was an agricultural democracy, you knew you were pretty safe, but an industrial dictatorship or even an anarchy system would spell certain trouble.

I'm pretty sure Fdev could fix it and make it all work a bit more coherently.

I agree completely with everything but that last statement