Slipstream Jumping For Wings

[CMDR Temunjin Boras]

Slipstream jumping could be added to enhance the experience of winging with other commanders. The general idea would be when you're flying in a wing and have a nav-lock on a teammate, you'd be able to piggy back on their high wake to avoid using your own FSD. After one ship gets low on fuel the group could rotate the nav-lock to another ship.

That brings a few things that might be interesting. The most obvious is how it conserves fuel and allows for faster wing travel. There's also the ability to share jump range so a heavy combat ship winged with a long distance trade ship could escort without being limited by the lower jump range of the combat ship. For blockade running a long range ship paired with a trader could punch a hole in defenses to make the experience more exciting. I'm sure there are other ways to use it too.

From reading some of the books it sounded like a thing that should exist in the universe. Already having nav-lock for wings makes it feel like less of a stretch to do something like this.

 

[Fake Newts]

I like the idea of wing jumps, and in a single player context something similar would open the door to escort-type missions, or even hiring an escort for yourself etc.

There will be complaints about your proposition to use it as a range extending tool, wouldn't bother me but be warned that others will not be thrilled about it.

 

[Tividar]

Could just add that feature to a wake scanner: e.g. let a successful wake scan allow use of the wake to frameshift without regard to your FSD.

 

[nemolomen]

But does it really work that way or is the wake just the leftovers/bi-product from the shift into either low or high performance of the drive? I'm thinking along the lines of the cloud of smoke you leave behind when burning rubber off the starting line...

 

[metatheurgist]

This is how Oolite works and how I argued ED should've worked from the beginning, just not only for wings.

In a small ship you can make a decision to give up the FSD for a bit more of something else, but then you have to hang around the port scanning wakes to see if you can "hitch" a ride to where you want. It adds something to the experience.

But it's clear Frontier don't want it working that way.

 

[varonica]

This is how Oolite works and how I argued ED should've worked from the beginning, just not only for wings.

In a small ship you can make a decision to give up the FSD for a bit more of something else, but then you have to hang around the port scanning wakes to see if you can "hitch" a ride to where you want. It adds something to the experience.

But it's clear Frontier don't want it working that way.

I think maybe a hybrid, a wing can jump as one, as long as all the ships have the capability of jumping that distance and it still uses fuel, but they remain as a group when exiting hyperspace so they keep together. There's no reason why one ship can't coordinate the jumps of all the ships in the wing.

 

[metatheurgist]

I think maybe a hybrid, a wing can jump as one, as long as all the ships have the capability of jumping that distance and it still uses fuel, but they remain as a group when exiting hyperspace so they keep together. There's no reason why one ship can't coordinate the jumps of all the ships in the wing.

You are supposed to be able to do that already, unless it's bugged.

 

[varonica]

You are supposed to be able to do that already, unless it's bugged.

Can you?

Oh well shows what I know, I don't do teams (wings).

 

[CMDR Nathan Atterlein]

Sounds great! It would allow for commanders to do similar fsd drops like what specops do, when entering a cz. Could potentially make up for bad instancing, and the inaccurate positioning of wingman navlock that puts you in n ls distance from your teammate.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Can you?

Oh well shows what I know, I don't do teams (wings).

That is why you have the option to do a "Wingman Nav lock" on a member of your wing, and it also possible todo a key bind to this...


So that is why when you are in a wing, you can get warning when you plot a route, that says something "exceed wing"

If you have locked to a wing member, and you are in state where you can jump, your ship will try to automatically jump to the same destination as your wing member. So when that player initiate the jump sequence, your FSD will now automatically initiate a jump.


There are lots of issues when we get down to the details. but the most annoying thing, is that it is slower to travel like this, as the lead ship, has to wait for the rest of the ship to arrive, and they need more time to get to jump, as we do not jump in unison. So it is often faster and easier for every team member, to plot their own course, to the destination...

 

[Fizzatron]

I think maybe a hybrid, a wing can jump as one, as long as all the ships have the capability of jumping that distance and it still uses fuel, but they remain as a group when exiting hyperspace so they keep together. There's no reason why one ship can't coordinate the jumps of all the ships in the wing.

I like this idea a lot but as long as a high wake drops you into supercruise at the destination the effect I believe we are looking for, the dramatic arrival of mulitple ships, is lost. We could ask for high wakes to drop us out into normal space but I imagine that those (myself included) who are just hopping from system to system en route to a further destination will not like that as it will add significant time to fuel scoop and then high jump to the next system.

A potential solution to that would be to allow us, before we high wake, to set the option to exit in supercruise for max efficiency, as is now, or exit to the nav beacon for some pretty dramatic entrances and shenanigan potential. For systems without a nav beacon we could drop at x distance from the star or for simplicity's sake only allow this feature in systems with a nav beacon. How you literally get around the star if the nav beacon is on the opposite side as you enter the system could be resolved with an additional dramatic sequence (or not) to handwave the problem away (see below), drop the same way as if it didn't have a nav beacon with a message detailing why, or add multiple nav beacons to ensure that one can be safely dropped into.

The below bit: The question may be raised about the fact we lock onto the main star's gravity well, not the nav beacon, but this could easily retconned by allowing for 'residual' velocity from the high-wake to be diverted to an appropriate nav-beacon via a secondary targeting lock established once the ship(s) have arrived at the main gravity lock target destination.