Suggestion: Hyper-Factor (MetaDrive?)

[Chaparral]

I know what you mean. There's not much challenge in Netflix-based gameplay. Which also means in most people's eyes it's not something to take so much pride in. But there's another important aspect. "Space is big..." I leave it to you to fill in the rest of the quote from the Hitchhiker. I've played enough space games, where a solar system in the end felt like it was the size of a small city at best. In terms of game mechanics that worked perfectly fine. Everything was reachable in short time, space was crowded, things happened. Plenty of action, plenty of gameplay, which was perfectly fine for those games.

What was lacking was the feeling to really be in space. It could also just have been a big room some stars painted to black walls. Traveling times are something to contribute on this aspect. So yes, it indeed reduces the game aspect by reducing the density of action. But it adds to atmosphere, which also should not be forgotten.

I sincerely appreciate your balanced post. There are means to make a long distance engaging and feeling big beyond waiting. So many mechanics have been proposed, mini jumps, hyper cruise, systems/hull erosion, hypersleep, logging out and have the character travel while you are offline, multiple character slots etc. etc. Any of these would have the player actively engaged in the process - and communicate the scope of space.

Given the evolving nature of the game, I understand how people get attached to an initial iteration of a feature. In this case however - a sitting and waiting mechanic is a pretty embryonic conception of space travel.

 

[Velixar]

Seriously? I mention a popular example and you take it as the only far distant location in a system out of 400 billion of them? How stupid is that?

Try EDDB for a list near Sol.

View attachment 127212

As for the sadomasochistic rite of passage it has in the game, in no way does that justify the glaringly insufficient intra-system travel mechanic.

Here what stupid there is 68,000+ stations. Looking at station list almost 59,000 stations, planetary station. Under 10,000 Ls or less and you are complaining, add an extra 2,000 stations it still less than 20,000 Ls. That leaves 3,000 stations over 20,000 Ls up to 100,000 Ls and 4,000 stations above 100,000+ ls

So you are complaining about 7,000 stations. While you have 61,000 stations close to the main stars.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

Here what stupid there is 68,000+ stations. Looking at station list almost 59,000 stations, planetary station. Under 10,000 Ls or less and you are complaining, add an extra 2,000 stations it still less than 20,000 Ls. That leaves 3,000 stations over 20,000 Ls up to 100,000 Ls and 4,000 stations above 100,000+ ls

So you are complaining about 7,000 stations. While you have 61,000 stations close to the main stars.

No. As long as we’re continuing on the topic of what’s stupid, then squarely in that category is the act of responding to a comment without taking the time to understand it first, which leads naturally to stupid assumptions being made.

I used a popular distant location to demonstrate the deficiency in the current supercruise mechanic where long distance travel is concerned. That location happens to be a station, and so you then strangely reason off the poor assumption that I’m referring only to distant stations, whereas the failing of the current mechanic applies to all targetable location types, and I even provided a screenshot displaying distant planetary bodies to demonstrate that.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

If you really feel all ways are valid, think about what you are proposing. You are proposing something which would make my way invalid.

The game offers something you cannot appreciate: the feeling of travelling HUGE DISTANCES. OP's proposal is basically to make intra system travel more akin to instant teleport, nullifying my enjoyment and way of playing.

I am not denying the problem, I am disagreeing to the OP's proposal. As I said in my previous reply, adding content during travel is the way to go, not shortening the travel.

I’m not proposing instant teleport. I suggested a more skill based high risk mechanic with its own costs, to balance out a significant reduction in travel time for far locations. So Hutton Orbital would then take something like 25 minutes, which for any game is still a hefty time sink for a Point A to Point B run. But that 25 minutes would be more engaging.

I don’t think that would do too much to impact the vastness of space feeling, insofar as I think it’s reasonable to expect that level of patience from your players.

As for everyone’s playstyle being valid, that refers to how they play the game such as it is, and that is subject to change. I don’t think suggestions for changes should be wholly tempered by what every player likes to do, as that would be impractical to say the least. There should be some consideration however, where possible.

Other than that, as I’ve also mentioned, I’d be happy with having a variety of things to do while on long trips, particularly if EVA is implemented. Provided of course those things were not all inconsequential mini-games.

 

[Velixar]

I'm looking at the idea and there more reward than risk which makes for a tarable idea and all the player in the bubble pays a small repair fee. Even if it high cost people will wiggle around it by using AMFU and Hull repair.

We all know ideas like this if added will force all players to play that way to keep up with the others player's. Which will make players like me who likes the current setup leave the game.

 

[Chaparral]

I'm looking at the idea and there more reward than risk which makes for a tarable idea and all the player in the bubble pays a small repair fee. Even if it high cost people will wiggle around it by using AMFU and Hull repair.

We all know ideas like this if added will force all players to play that way to keep up with the others player's. Which will make players like me who likes the current setup leave the game.

Leave the game if a mechanic is added to diminish excessive SC travel times. You are kidding right?

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

Leave the game if a mechanic is added to diminish excessive SC travel times. You are kidding right?

I wonder what the response would be from some of these players if Frontier initially had developed a challenging and engaging supercruise mechanic that took 1/4 of the travel time it currently does, and then decided just recently in the last patch to switch that out for the supercruise that's actually in the game now. My guess is that many of those opposed to the reduction in time alongside a more interesting implementation would be just as opposed to the increase in time and the lack of gameplay.

 

[Sylow]

I wonder what the response would be from some of these players if Frontier initially had developed a challenging and engaging supercruise mechanic that took 1/4 of the travel time it currently does, and then decided just recently in the last patch to switch that out for the supercruise that's actually in the game now. My guess is that many of those opposed to the reduction in time alongside a more interesting implementation would be just as opposed to the increase in time and the lack of gameplay.

For a number of people here, you're absolutely right. According to them any change is to be rejected, no matter if it's good or bad for the game.

That being said, i also dislike this suggestion and most other suggestions around which would reduce travel times. Anything which quickly shrinks the galaxy is bad in my eyes. The feeling of "space is big" has to be maintained. I mean, the bubble and the galaxy already shrank a lot. At launch just crossing the bubble took a while. Between engineering and guardian equipment you now can cross it in very short time. In former times Sag A was an achievement. Now again, between engineering and guardian equipment, it's a tourist site.

And unfortunately i feel like most of the given suggestions would do the same on the supercruise part of the game. The given thread of "just move faster" is a great example of not cutting it.It wouldn't just shrink space, but also reduce the risk by making interdictions much harder. But even other suggestions like "minijump with a minigame where you can damage your ship" don't really convince me. And it's not just that people would work around it with repair limpets and AFMU.

My prediction would be that the very moment such a mechanic went into open beta, before anybody ever logged in and could take a look at it, a certain set up people here would start spamming the forum demanding the damage to be reduced or eliminated at all. And based on this overwhelming river of tears, FD would quickly give in once again.

Thus i think that "decide -which- star of a system you jump to" would be the maximum in my eyes. Based on how things run in the game, that would be logical to have. It would still reduce the perceived size of many systems, but it would make sense. Anything beyond that, at least in my eyes, would cheapen the aspect of size of this game. And size is the thing this game is most famous for, so i really think this shouldn't be risked lightly.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

For a number of people here, you're absolutely right. According to them any change is to be rejected, no matter if it's good or bad for the game.

That being said, i also dislike this suggestion and most other suggestions around which would reduce travel times. Anything which quickly shrinks the galaxy is bad in my eyes. The feeling of "space is big" has to be maintained. I mean, the bubble and the galaxy already shrank a lot. At launch just crossing the bubble took a while. Between engineering and guardian equipment you now can cross it in very short time. In former times Sag A was an achievement. Now again, between engineering and guardian equipment, it's a tourist site.

And unfortunately i feel like most of the given suggestions would do the same on the supercruise part of the game. The given thread of "just move faster" is a great example of not cutting it.It wouldn't just shrink space, but also reduce the risk by making interdictions much harder. But even other suggestions like "minijump with a minigame where you can damage your ship" don't really convince me. And it's not just that people would work around it with repair limpets and AFMU.

My prediction would be that the very moment such a mechanic went into open beta, before anybody ever logged in and could take a look at it, a certain set up people here would start spamming the forum demanding the damage to be reduced or eliminated at all. And based on this overwhelming river of tears, FD would quickly give in once again.

Thus i think that "decide -which- star of a system you jump to" would be the maximum in my eyes. Based on how things run in the game, that would be logical to have. It would still reduce the perceived size of many systems, but it would make sense. Anything beyond that, at least in my eyes, would cheapen the aspect of size of this game. And size is the thing this game is most famous for, so i really think this shouldn't be risked lightly.

I agree, it would have to be a very well thought through mechanic, and cautious in just how much travel time is reduced. Also, it wouldn’t be enough to risk damage or destruction to your ship. The mechanic itself should have a degree of difficulty that would make failure likely (though as a factor of skill and not RNG), thereby making it so that many attempts to reduce travel time through this travel option would fail.

With the existing supercruise remaining as is, it would create an option that would give the developers some leverage for pushback against calls to reduce damage or difficulty, as they could respond by telling people who would raise that complaint that players who don’t want the risk can opt to travel as they ever have.

 

[Kaocraft]

I'm still more in favor of making Supercruise interesting and engaging rather than giving us an even more boring tool to circumvent it.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

You're giving players an optimal solution to a problem. Ergo, anyone not using that solution is left to progress slowly and painfully. People will be told to 'git gud' in regards to travelling from point A to point B. If you want Supercruise sped up, make it universal.

It's not optimal though (assuming it's my suggestion you're referring to, and not the OP's). There would be risk of damage and destruction, as well as a skill requirement aside from that, which means that even if your ship is not destroyed, you could still just fail to successfully use the mechanic. Some people would rather not take the risk, depending on circumstance (explorer's coming back from a long trip with data, a commander with irreplaceable mission specific cargo, etc.), and so they can fall back to standard supercruise.

Having said that, it's all a compromise. To some players, the feeling of "the vastness of space" is an important part of the game, and is apparently, for them, only reflected, or at least primarily reflected by the amount of time it takes to get from point A to point B. Rejecting faster travel options on that basis is, to me personally, similar to objecting to the use of airplanes because they make the world feel smaller, and insisting on overseas travel by ship. The way I see it, the vastness of space in Elite is irreversibly preserved by the fact that there's so gorram much of it that you'll never see it all even if you lived many times the average span of human life. I don't need to spend half an hour and more just travelling to a destination to feel like I'm dwarfed by the galaxy.

But, there will be objections for any number of reasons, and Frontier can't please everybody, which is why they probably find it safer to just do nothing in many cases.

If this were a game with a dozen or more curated planets in relatively close proximity with a smattering of space stations around and between them, I could see justification for not even having FTL travel in the game at all. Something like the White Sun system in Firefly would qualify. But with 400 billion traversable systems, the current rate of acceleration and top speed of supercruise travel is simply insufficient, and is compounded further with slowdowns caused by surrounding planetary bodies and stars.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

I'm still more in favor of making Supercruise interesting and engaging rather than giving us an even more boring tool to circumvent it.

I don't think anything could be more boring than staring at a wallpaper for half an hour and more while doing literally nothing, when you want to travel to distant intra-system locations. Though I'd appreciate some interesting and meaningful things to do on board my ship while I wait, I'm also not opposed to almost any change to the travel mechanic that would reduce the travel time and require a little more skill, no matter how much like a mini-game it may feel.

 

[Velixar]

I don't think anything could be more boring than staring at a wallpaper for half an hour and more while doing literally nothing, when you want to travel to distant intra-system locations. Though I'd appreciate some interesting and meaningful things to do on board my ship while I wait, I'm also not opposed to almost any change to the travel mechanic that would reduce the travel time and require a little more skill, no matter how much like a mini-game it may feel.

Yet you have 61,000 station 20,000 Ls or less suited for your needs. You seem to ignore players that love those long distance over 20,000 Ls or more.

Note I never had to go more than 15 minutes to a station location.

 

[Velixar]

I don't think anything could be more boring than staring at a wallpaper for half an hour and more while doing literally nothing, when you want to travel to distant intra-system locations. Though I'd appreciate some interesting and meaningful things to do on board my ship while I wait, I'm also not opposed to almost any change to the travel mechanic that would reduce the travel time and require a little more skill, no matter how much like a mini-game it may feel.

Yet you have 61,000 station 20,000 Ls or less suited for your needs. You seem to ignore players that love those long distance over 20,000 Ls or more.

Note I never had to go more than 15 minutes to a station location.

 

[Velixar]

I don't think anything could be more boring than staring at a wallpaper for half an hour and more while doing literally nothing, when you want to travel to distant intra-system locations. Though I'd appreciate some interesting and meaningful things to do on board my ship while I wait, I'm also not opposed to almost any change to the travel mechanic that would reduce the travel time and require a little more skill, no matter how much like a mini-game it may feel.

Yet you have 61,000 station 20,000 Ls or less suited for your needs. You seem to ignore players that love those long distance over 20,000 Ls or more.

Note I never had to go more than 15 minutes to a station location.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

Yet you have 61,000 station 20,000 Ls or less suited for your needs. You seem to ignore players that love those long distance over 20,000 Ls or more.

Note I never had to go more than 15 minutes to a station location.

I believe I’ve already explained to you that stations are not the only targetable locations in a system, and that there are many planetary bodies well over 200,000ls away from the primary star of their system.

Also, I’m not ignoring players who like to spend a lot of time in-game just travelling from one point to another. I’m simply disagreeing with them that this is a good travel mechanic for the game overall. As I’ve said repeatedly, staring at a screen for over 30 minutes while doing literally nothing is not gameplay, and is not engaging. I don’t understand how anyone could defend that. Even most people who like the long travel times still say there needs to be more to do while waiting.

 

[Velixar]

I believe I’ve already explained to you that stations are not the only targetable locations in a system, and that there are many planetary bodies well over 200,000ls away from the primary star of their system.

We have 400,000,000,000 systems cater to your needs and my guess over a trillion planetary body to suit your needs.

Also, I’m not ignoring players who like to spend a lot of time in-game just travelling from one point to another. I’m simply disagreeing with them that this is a good travel mechanic for the game overall. As I’ve said repeatedly, staring at a screen for over 30 minutes while doing literally nothing is not gameplay, and is not engaging. I don’t understand how anyone could defend that. Even most people who like the long travel times still say there needs to be more to do while waiting.

Topic like this says otherwise. You and a small group ignore our view. Asking for some type of short cut or make our systems smaller. Note throttle up so your 30 minutes becomes 15 minutes.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

We have 400,000,000,000 systems cater to your needs and my guess over a trillion planetary body to suit your needs.

On what basis are you making assumptions about my "needs", or more accurately, my preferred playstyle and what I'd like to do in the game? I want to be able to travel to any part of the game world whilst having an engaging experience. I want to explore this masterfully generated galaxy while having actual gameplay interactions, and not staring at a screen doing nothing for long stretches of time. Those are my relevant needs, such as they are, and the current mechanic does not cater to them at all.

Topic like this says otherwise. You and a small group ignore our view. Asking for some type of short cut or make our systems smaller. Note throttle up so your 30 minutes becomes 15 minutes.

Again, incorrect. To ignore your view and the group of players who hold it would be to not address the existence of the group and the preference of its members. I've acknowledged that you exist, and that you prefer long travel times. So I've not ignored your view, I've disagreed with the need for what your view supports, and intimated that the game would be better overall if supercruise behaved differently, at least as an alternate option, and I've made suggestions to that effect.

Please make the effort to better understand the comments you're replying to, as this is now the third time that I've had to set our exchange back on course.