If you want to link to this thread or repost the concept then please feel free to do so, personally I think the status quo should be maintained where Super-Cruise is concerned.
proposal for alternative SC mechanic
- Thread starter Turd Ferguson
- Start date
That's the thing. Engineering for SC gives only those who wants to do the engineering grind and advantage. Then you have tears about power creep again.
A change across the board would be better. But grind monkeys just want longer travel time, don't they? It's almost as if they enjoy watching paint dry.....
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Of course you would find it nonsense. I don't like watching paint dry, you might think differently.
Right now if I wanted to travel from Qwent bast to Patterson, It would be faster to jump out of the system and back in again, rather than utilize in-system travel itself.
There is a flaw in this mechanic obviously. It only depends if you want to see it or not. But it is apparent that you don't.
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But if you say you know how to choice your mission and avoid those station that are far away from the arrival point. Then the game is working as intended. You can pick mission suited by your play style. With station that are close to the main stars and avoid watching paint dry.
I suppose it could be said to involve some kind of skill, but pretty minimally. I don't think it's anything you can really practise, so much as something you can just get wrong occasionally if you're really not concentrating. Kind of like trying to play noughts and crosses/tic-tac-toe. You can only lose if you really screw it up and let your mind drift off onto something else entirely. Non-SCA supercruise is like that.
I don't think I actually made that argument, for the above reason: FSS/DSS doesn't require skill - just the ability to concentrate to the minimal degree necessary to avoid screwing it up.rlsg said:
That said, I'd make the same comment on FSS, too: while I much prefer the current model to the former jump-honk-jump-honk-jump-honk system, I'd even more prefer a system that did actually take some practice and skill to master - like an electronics warfare specialist learning their equipment, or an astronomer learning to read spectral lines and such.
But why should that preclude super cruise from being made faster or more engaging?
So you could get an I don't have to think mechanic. Really? Let take your suggestion of being able to jump to either Star in a system and everything is at a short distance? That what Your current idea is all about.
Listen, I rather have players think before they leap mechanics that we currently have and It works I would also like other mechanics added that will enhance our gameplay. Like walking around our ships and being able to repair your ship manually or modify your modules. Maybe study artifacts you find on a system. Which can fill in the time we are flying to A to B.
At least that will works with my Role Playing and Space Trucking and Exploration.
What makes you think you wouldn’t still have to ‘think’? If going faster became a skill-based activity as i’ve suggested in the past, that’s the opposite of ‘I don’t have to think’.
And if it was just a general increase in speed across the board, it wouldn’t change people’s decision making process they use right now.
I’m also open to having a general speed/acceleration increase across the board, and/or the ability to target secondary stars from the Galmap with your FSD drive.
I’d rather have the ‘think before they leap mechanics’ and ‘think and be engaged while they are flying’ so that they don’t get bored while they travel long distances.
So you do agree that super cruise can be made more engaging then?
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Supercruise will not be more engaging by making it into Mario Karts in Space. It will just become jarringly irrelevant to a space travel simulator.
Objects in space can indeed be made more interactive: I am currently promoting adding radiation and/or stellar wind to the game, so that we would be having to take degradation from those features into account when flying. I would also like to see a regional mass factor addition to the Supercruise (and radiation/stellar winds) mechanics, so that different parts of the galaxy would get different feels (Core = very dangerous, slow supercruise. Edge of galaxy = less dangerous, fast supercruise. Bubble = current levels of danger, and current pace of supercruise). Adding such features to the game may mean we would have to balance the benefits of getting close to stars and gas giants with the issues of increased hull/module/life support degradation.
If the Supercruise mechanics from the early days were added back in, benefits of skillful flying would be back, as would the issues of not reading the local mass field correctly. That could be balanced with a contoured overlay to the UI showing where spacetime is 'thinnest' = where the fastest supercruise speeds can be obtained.
It still would not be faster than it is, just more involved. But making mechanics more involved just upset those who got used to the placeholder versions, as is seen in the neverending FSS vs ADS debate.
SMissions that require you to fly 350,000 Ls from the jump-in point to deliver/courier something over still pays the same as those that delivers to destinations 500Ls away from the arrival point. And in some cases, those are the only missions available in certain regions, which makes it draggy for those who wants to rep up with said particular factions in that system or region.
So really, the solution is simple, FD.
Allow jump ins to secondary stars, then we don't have to worry about SC mechanics.
In what way is the OP’s suggestion like Mario Kart?
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2001C is an arbitrary limitation.
Supercruise need another acceleration rate past the 50c and a "slow down" mechanism past midway of any long travel so people can overshoot at fast speed, use the secondary star to gravity brake.
Also, exclusion zones need to become desintegration zones and people should die when they plant their faces on planets at ludicrous speed.
Supercruise need another acceleration rate past the 50c and a "slow down" mechanism past midway of any long travel so people can overshoot at fast speed, use the secondary star to gravity brake.
Also, exclusion zones need to become desintegration zones and people should die when they plant their faces on planets at ludicrous speed.
That is not a flaw in the mechanics, it just is a simple fact of life (a bit like a plane being faster than a train) - it may however cost you more fuel to do the two jumps though. Overall your logic is heavily flawed and you see flaws where there are none.
As for watching paint dry, that is a false analogy since radiant events can and do occur - the closest example would be a Motorway (UK)/Interstate (US) journey where most of the time you are driving in a straight line waiting for your exit but you still need to maintain awareness as random emergent events/incidents can happen. The random emergent events may not happen most of the time but that is largely circumstantial.
Have you tried the "Desert Bus" game? It was for Sega CD. You are going to love it, it's an old gem for that kind of gamplay.
No I have not, and I doubt I would like it as a game in itself. The general formula for random/radiant/emergent events during long(-ish) journeys is a pretty common gameplay element for ALOT of games. In ED, there are is a combination of factors/elements - the travel element is just part of the course.
This would be true if I had to avoid traffic in space. But short of carrying mission cargo where I am expected to be interdicted, it's most of the time just waiting to reach the 7 seconds mark for me to pull back the throttle.
Booorrriinnnnnggg
Well, in defense of Desert Bus, that game required you to keep steering the whole 8 hours. Of course, that was entirely useless and unnecessary, but even that can be considered a kind of gameplay, albeit a terrible one.
In contrast, for last week CG I made 70+ trips to Judson Station 161k lys away from the entry point because I wanted the Alliance to get at Tier 6 and after the first 20 seconds and the last 70, no action was needed from me for 10 whole minutes. So I came here to post, I watched youtube videos, I prepared me a Sandwich, listened to the knowledge base 2 times, finished the first part of Asimov's "The Gods Themselves" and fell asleep twice. I even went on Open to see if I had something else to do but, just like the NPC interdictions, the PvP Gankers were only at the entry point and at the destination point, so even with them around I had around 10 minutes to do nothing.
So for an accumulated time of almost 12 hours for a week I "played" the supercruise part of the game which consisted of me doing absolutely nothing because I wanted to support a specific superpower. Thus, Desert Bus could have given me more gameplay for the same amount of time played.
That would only truely apply if you were constantly speeding or are an incompetent driver, if you are on a long straight road with everyone travelling at or near the speed limit the vast majority of the time you would be doing nothing except keeping the vehicle in question going straight. With a lot of cars these days that is unlikely to be much of a challenge most of the time.
That is not the fault of SC mechanics if you chose to do that, more the fool you if you repeatedly bang your head against a brick wall despite it hurting. Ultimately, you have a choice, no point complaining about the consequences of that choice. It is not as if it is an unknown variable.
I think you got it wrong, I wasn't talking about me so the "you are the only one to blame" argument that you have been using the whole thread is not necessary for this case. I was not talking about how much "I suffered" doing my runs because I didn't, the CG thread was fun to read and write on, Asimov's is always a good read and I prepare good sandwichs.
This thread is a criticism of the super-cruise mechanic.
Therefore, I was talking about the mass amount of game time, hundreds of accumulated hours maybe, that was used by several players in a game mechanic (SC) that had next to no gameplay value whatsoever, to accomplish an important objective for the game and the future of the story (stations and mega-ships were rewarded to each supper power according to tier reached), a mechanic so dry, dull and empty, that becomes the loser one against a gameplay comparison to Desert Bus.
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