Please reduce travel times in the bubble

[Darkfyre99]

It sounds like you and rslg have an understanding of how the theoretical physics of supercruise has been simulated in ED, whereas the "supercruise is boring crowd" ( let's abreviate that down to SIBC going forward) don't.. This is one of the reasons I agree with you and rlsg i.e. I prefer scientific explanations (even tho they are theoretical) over the extremely dubious reasoning of the SIBC. Because the SIBC by definition have somewhat limited attention spans, their eyes must glaze over halfway thru your detailed explanations and they give up, posting yet another iteration of their flawed arguments because they cannot think of a logical way of countering your statements.

Supercruise is one of the few remaining artifacts from the early development era of Elite: Dangerous, when Frontier Developments actually cared about verisimilitude in this game. It feels like someone at FD sat down and modeled the “physics” of Witchspace, and created a fictional FTL system that is consistent in Hyperspace, Supercruise, and normal space... if you assume that engine performance is enhanced by the FSD.

Pretty much everything else has been nerfed to pointlessness, can be ignored due to Monty Haul rewards and power creep, or dummied out... all to appease the Veruca Salts of the community. Even Supercruise is a shadow of its former self, losing quite a bit of skill-based game play and actually slowing down hands on flying, in order to speed up hands off flying.

The sounds that would appear when the FSD was under a lot of stress, and your ship was maneuvering hard through the “eye of the needle,” as well as the visual effects from such maneuvers, made you feel like your ship was about to tear itself apart. You can get a hint of what that was like when your in “glide mode” and you make some hard turns.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Staring at a screen without any input into the game for several minutes gets boring after 1500hrs of play (for me).

If you are indeed doing that, then what you're doing is inflating your travel time considerably. Try active piloting. It's a lot faster, you're not nearly as vulnerable to interdictions, and IMO it's a lot more fun. Even the shortest Supercruise travel times are nearly doubled by flying like what you describe above.

 

[lenna]

Supercruise is one of the few remaining artifacts from the early development era of Elite: Dangerous, when Frontier Developments actually cared about verisimilitude in this game.

I generally agree with this viewpoint but...

It feels like someone at FD sat down and modeled the “physics” of Witchspace, and created a fictional FTL system that is consistent in Hyperspace, Supercruise, and normal space... if you assume that engine performance is enhanced by the FSD.

I get your line of thinking but Witchspace means something different to me. The FSD has two modes of operation:

1. Hyperjump - this uses "Witchspace"
2. Supercruise - this does not

Both involve similar but possibly different principles that overlap. All FTL systems can be considered fictional since currently it is outside of our technological grasp (at least on the basis of publicly available information), but the FTL system FD have implemented is consistent with prevailing scientific theories on what FTL systems might exist in the future.

 

[VR Golgot]

Because the SIBC by definition have somewhat limited attention spans, their eyes must glaze over halfway thru your detailed explanations and they give up, posting yet another iteration of their flawed arguments because they cannot think of a logical way of countering your statements.

You'd done quite well at not lowering yourself to these simplistic tribal slurs recently, it's a shame to see you descend again.

Darkfyre certainly has a strong argument on why acceleration increases could be counter-productive. Plenty of the 'SCIB' crowd, such as myself, recognise their arguments.

(Which is why I argue for a skilled micro-jump solution, which doesn't fall foul of these issues. Dark wouldn't like that solution I suspect, but at that point we're more into the realm of personal taste than limits of the existing game physics. Especially if it were balanced to be optional ).

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

If you make travel times trivial, then the size of the galaxy/systems become trivial. That is not something I would like to see.

 

[VR Golgot]

In the specific case of missions, their rewards are scaled based primarily on Required-Time-Investment, Level-of-Effort and Risk (the time limits are on the most part arbitrary - with few exceptions they are 24hrs real time - and have been like that for some time).

This does get to one key aspect in game design terms. The issue you're skirting is that 'effort' here also takes the form of 'time vs reward'. Many players do not find the 'gameplay' of time buffers rewarding. It is a legitimate objection, purely from a player preference perspective.

I am sorry but it is you who are wrong in your fundamental assertions, if there are problems with certain mission spawns then the issue is with the mission spawns not the super-cruise travel mechanic.

I agree that comprehensive mission info would resolve the worst mid-mission annoyances (IE make late destination reveals avoidable). There would be a hit to immersion to have such things laid out upfront however, it's worth noting. I'd prefer a solution that retained a degree of mission unpredictability while also resolving the above. (Skilled micro jumps would do this )

Supercruise transits are the common theme in many scenarios outside the mission structure however. As noted by examples like the current Alliance CG being an 8min+ transit each time, unique Thargoid narrative locations bring comparably far etc.

Supercruise is the common denominator.

Ultimately, it does not change the truth of what I have been saying all along - those complaining about SC travel times are on the most part moaning without a solid argument to back them up.

This is not a truth. This is just you moaning without a solid argument to back you up...

(See how this isn't actually a constructive approach to debate? )

 

[lenna]

This is not a truth. This is just you moaning without a solid argument to back you up...

False - The SCIB crowd do not have any solid basis, they have presented no facts, just baseless claims that have been debunked with actual facts. The evidence is clear from threads such as these.

 

[VR Golgot]

False - The SCIB crowd do not have any solid basis, they have presented no facts, just baseless claims that have been debunked with actual facts. The evidence is clear from threads such as these.

The SCIB have presented lots of facts, and have a very solid base to their case. The evidence is clear from threads like these.

(See, I could do this all day too. It doesn't get us anywhere though...)

 

[lenna]

The SCIB have presented lots of facts, and have a very solid base to their case. The evidence is clear from threads like these.

False - there has not been one objective fact that supports the case that super-cruise times on the whole are as excessive as some are claiming without either

1. Mitigating outlier case circumstances - the Hutton Run for example
2. Failure on the part of the pilot to navigate SC efficiently

@Darkfyre99's earlier post pointed at indicative evidence of #2.

 

[Darkfyre99]

I generally agree with this viewpoint but...


I get your line of thinking but Witchspace means something different to me. The FSD has two modes of operation:

1. Hyperjump - this uses "Witchspace"
2. Supercruise - this does not

Both involve similar but possibly different principles that overlap. All FTL systems can be considered fictional since currently it is outside of our technological grasp (at least on the basis of publicly available information), but the FTL system FD have implemented is consistent with prevailing scientific theories on what FTL systems might exist in the future.

The problem with "real life" FTL systems is that they rely on exotic matter (which has negative energy densities) in order to function. While Einstein's general relativity equations do allow you to plug that kind of thing into his equations, quantum mechanics does not, and as far as I know, the same is true for any of the leading theories of quantum gravity.

In the Elite universe, we actually have a form of exotic matter: the stuff in Witchspace. With Hyperjumps, we rapidly accelerate our ships through Witchspace, relying the largest stellar-class mass at stop us at our destination system. With the FSD, we "shift our frame of reference" via some form of exotic matter, relying on huge masses to slow us down, or even stop us outright, at our destination within a system. And even in normal space, something is causing our ships to slow down, even when no outside natural force is acting on them.

Heck, even the older Type 2B Hyperdrives from Frontier: Elite 2 and Frontier First Encounters, which are stated to be canon in this game, operate under similar principles: throw your ship through Witchspace, and rely on stellar-size masses to stop you at your destination. Given that the the maximum time it took to complete a jump was seven weeks days, and the possible jump ranges in those games, the FSD can even operate at speeds similar to those of the older game's Hyperdrives.

So we have three FTL technologies in the Elite Universe that operate nearly identical to each other. As far as I'm concerned, it's far more parsimonious to assume that all three technologies share an underlying "physical" principle: Witchspace. If we extend that explanation to another, similar phenomenon (normal space "top speeds"), we can explain a gameplay compromise as existing in-universe, without invoking any other forms of novel "physics."

 

[VR Golgot]

False - there has not been one objective fact that supports the case that super-cruise times on the whole are as excessive as some are claiming without either

'Excessive' is a subjective determination. It's pretty hilarious that you think you can falsify such sentiments.

• Mitigating outlier case circumstances - the Hutton Run for example

• Extreme outlier cases aren't the only ones which annoy. Some players are annoyed by a 5 minute dead time journey etc. Some by 3 minute ones.
• Mitigation becomes a comparable pain to the journey in the case of the spread of missions that can non-optionally redirect you to a neighbouring system from the initial destination. To mitigate against being sent to a distant location you have to either cull all of those mission types from your playstyle, or all target systems which even neighbour another system containing a distant body. We're definitely not dealing with outliers now. And this is not fun mitigation, many players will inform you...
• Mitigation is not always desired when the location is a point of interest the player wishes to visit. IE the Alliance player who wants to aid the CG, but would have to make a 7.45 minute journey to the target station every run.

• Failure on the part of the pilot to navigate SC efficiently

@Darkfyre99's earlier post pointed at indicative evidence of #2.

I've used mass braking myself. Had a lot of fun with it back when the effect was more pronounced. (Running pirate barricades in open in a T6).

But it's not the panacea you're suggesting. It doesn't make the dead spaces between stars any more engaging. It doesn't magically eliminate the long transits. Darkfyre culled approximately 25% off the travel time there by using mass braking, compared to the standard '6 secs' technique. Taking that as a very blunt metric: Would the above Alliance player feel any better that their looped journey was now closer to 6 minutes rather than 8? I suspect not. I certainly wouldn't.

---

TLDR: You can't falsify player's sentiments. You could try engaging with the above game realities however, rather than pretending they're not there.

 

[WinterKing2112]

You'd done quite well at not lowering yourself to these simplistic tribal slurs recently, it's a shame to see you descend again.

Darkfyre certainly has a strong argument on why acceleration increases could be counter-productive. Plenty of the 'SCIB' crowd, such as myself, recognise their arguments.

(Which is why I argue for a skilled micro-jump solution, which doesn't fall foul of these issues. Dark wouldn't like that solution I suspect, but at that point we're more into the realm of personal taste than limits of the existing game physics. Especially if it were balanced to be optional ).

Okay, I'm going back under me bridge, will stay there until I have learned to behave reel good.

 

[dxm55]

Supercruise, SchuperCrooz, SchmoozerGoose. It's all fictional. It's a game.
Just stop wasting time with "dead time" already.

 

[Jools]

Not that this guys words, especially from that period of time, ever had much bearing on how the game actually looks and plays nowadays but here is David`s oryginal vision for Elite: Dangerous

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9612CgOr3lE&t=5m45s


My personal irrelevant 2 cents on the topic:
Like (IMO) about 80% of all the major problem this game has, excessively long boring travel times are direct outcome of turning what is in its core a single player game into a crippled MMO without much thought... also maybe listening to the flight sim crowd too much in the early days who mostly just want their DCS in space, which IMO elite never was, especially not since Frontier: Elite 2 which had its own far more space relevant (newtonian flight and high velocities instead of WWII planes in space) flight model and much more gamey structure that allowed for more experimentation, trial and error, and gameplay variation without major brakes and slowdowns

 

[Riverside]

Not that this guys words, especially from that period of time, ever had much bearing on how the game actually looks and plays nowadays but here is David`s oryginal vision for Elite: Dangerous

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9612CgOr3lE&t=5m45s


My personal irrelevant 2 cents on the topic:
Like (IMO) about 80% of all the major problem this game has, excessively long boring travel times are direct outcome of turning what is in its core a single player game into a crippled MMO without much thought... also maybe listening to the flight sim crowd too much in the early days who mostly just want their DCS in space, which IMO elite never was, especially not since Frontier: Elite 2 which had its own far more space relevant (newtonian flight and high velocities instead of WWII planes in space) flight model and much more gamey structure that allowed for more experimentation, trial and error, and gameplay variation without major brakes and slowdowns

So how long is too long? That's subjective. There are plenty of times (like making a jump) where there is enough time to take a drink or some other small task done hands off but still at the controls, there are some occasions where there is enough time to briefly look away and not miss anything, the occasions where the attentive player could legitimately go AFK for a period long enough to take a comfort break of a few minutes are extremely rare, although there are opportunities where remaining AFK in the game are safe (parked or well away from civilisation).

If I need to attend to some IRL distraction that takes more than a few tens of seconds I need to take in-game action (park my ship or make sure it will be safe). If I need to attend to some urgent IRL task at a moments notice it is extremely rare that I could return to the game and expect not to have to take some action as a result of my inattentiveness (in the game). I may have simply overshot (most common, I would be in supercruise & just go full throttle as I get up), I may have been interdicted, or an opportunity may have been missed (USSs etc).

The game does not require the constant attention that driving a car does (mostly because there is so little to collide with in supercruise that minor mistakes are not punished), it is relatively slow paced (which suits me just fine), I think the compromise already in the game between the requirement to actually fly the ship and how long typical journeys take is already in a good place.

 

[lenna]

The game does not require the constant attention that driving a car does (mostly because there is so little to collide with in supercruise that minor mistakes are not punished)

Arguably, it requires a similar level of attention as doing a longish motorway (UK)/interstate (US) drive - In the real world equivalents, on the most part you are cruising along for much longer periods of time than the vast majority of SC journeys in such cases. However, there was a case of a Winnebago driver leaving the wheel unattended on auto cruise to make a hot drink in the back and then blamed the Winnebago manufacturer for the accident that occured because of their own inattentiveness. The SCIB crowd are on a similar level to the Winnebago driver IMO. Things can happen in SC, they just do not happen all the time and there are factors that increase the risk thus individuals can choose to a degree how big an incident risk they wish to incur.

 

[WinterKing2112]

Supercruise, SchuperCrooz, SchmoozerGoose. It's all fictional. It's a game.
Just stop wasting time with "dead time" already.

And he's just been on an engineering thread asking for a 1:1 ratio on mats for upgrades. They need to make a super-easy version of this game for dxm and his ilk. Problem is he will rapidly run out of stuff to do and claim he didn't get his money's worth. So whatever Frontier do, there will always be lots of whinging! Makes me really, really happy I did not choose game design as a profession......

 

[Sysmon]

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

Maybe a mechanic by which multiple nav beacons could be present in a system, and we were able to jump to those? It would require a pop-up when engaging the hyperdrive where we would have to pick a beacon to drop out at.

S

 

[Vasious]

The problem with "real life" FTL systems is that they rely on exotic matter (which has negative energy densities) in order to function. While Einstein's general relativity equations do allow you to plug that kind of thing into his equations, quantum mechanics does not, and as far as I know, the same is true for any of the leading theories of quantum gravity.

In the Elite universe, we actually have a form of exotic matter: the stuff in Witchspace. With Hyperjumps, we rapidly accelerate our ships through Witchspace, relying the largest stellar-class mass at stop us at our destination system. With the FSD, we "shift our frame of reference" via some form of exotic matter, relying on huge masses to slow us down, or even stop us outright, at our destination within a system. And even in normal space, something is causing our ships to slow down, even when no outside natural force is acting on them.

Heck, even the older Type 2B Hyperdrives from Frontier: Elite 2 and Frontier First Encounters, which are stated to be canon in this game, operate under similar principles: throw your ship through Witchspace, and rely on stellar-size masses to stop you at your destination. Given that the the maximum time it took to complete a jump was seven weeks days, and the possible jump ranges in those games, the FSD can even operate at speeds similar to those of the older game's Hyperdrives.

So we have three FTL technologies in the Elite Universe that operate nearly identical to each other. As far as I'm concerned, it's far more parsimonious to assume that all three technologies share an underlying "physical" principle: Witchspace. If we extend that explanation to another, similar phenomenon (normal space "top speeds"), we can explain a gameplay compromise as existing in-universe, without invoking any other forms of novel "physics."

One Could argue that we still only have 2 FTL technologies
The Hyperjumps of today are the same as the older Type 2B Hyperdrives, where you throw your ship through Witchspace, and rely on stellar-size masses to stop you at your destination, just you can use the frame shift drive in witch space to cover what used to take 7 days in a matter of seconds.

 

[dxm55]

excessively long boring travel times are direct outcome of turning what is in its core a single player game into a crippled MMO without much thought...

This is probably the key. Long travel times were mitigated in FE2 by time compression, and because it was a standalone game.

But Long travel times is/was acceptable in that game, as it made you plan your journeys, and especially those missions where you had to time yourself to intercept a target and kill him when he entered a certain system LYs away.

It made sense then. But we got around that time sink nonsense with time compression so we didn't waste minutes or hours of our life commuting.


I dunno man.... Long, non-compressible travel times look good for retirees.... , and maybe the odd kid who loves these kinda games.
But it doesn't make sense for a consumers who are working adults with limited play time.