Supercruise Travel Time

[Echo Wake]

It takes time to travel to places in Elite. Some places only takes a few seconds to a few minutes while others take hours...

We have seen Frontier add module slots to ships before, like for planetary landings, so why could they not add another module slot to all ships for a Supercruise Engine (SCE)? Every ship would essentially have two types of engines, one for jumping to other star systems (Frame Shift Drive or FSD) and a second one for Supercruise travel.

The FSD drive when upgraded allows us to travel greater distances, so why not have a dedicated engine for Supercruise that could reach top speeds faster and can go beyond 2001C.

We all have the same Supercruise engine currently. We all travel at the same rate in Supercruise with the maximum speed being 2001C. So there would be no downside in adding this slot in as we are all on the same playing field if it were to come out. Then you could choose to upgrade the Supercruise engine (SCE) much like the FSD, but instead of jump range, you are going for faster Supercruise times.

This could add to game play as well, allowing additional things that trade vessels could utilize to avoid interdiction, allowing them to run away faster. This does not make them immune to interdictions but makes it harder for pirates and murders to snag weaker vessels.

Also, its not like pirates and murders won't upgrade the supercruise engines (SCE) so essentially there is not much change if both ships are running better SCE's.

All we would be doing is cutting down on some travels times. This still allows game play for pirates and murders allowing them to catch you in supercruise without the instant travel between planets and stations in the same system.

 

[VR Golgot]

Travel times need a big retune, no doubt.

Speed increase could work, but I'd like to see more aspects. IE a stealth pay-off for slowness potentially. Or use of planetary 'shadows' to mask approaches. Something the adds strategy & utilises the system geographies ideally.

I think risk/reward is the way to go though potentially. Better transit speeds but with the payoff of higher visibility / risk of damage or depletion of resources etc.

My attempt to keep all camps happy was a risky tether jump to secondary stars (see my signature). Using the orrery to plot the route, having system variance mean something, potentially shredding your hull if you got it wrong etc.

Fingers crossed they do a big pass on transit times / travel gameplay one day :/

 

[Riverside]

I've always thought the supercruise flight model was a bit simplistic, reminiscent of the original (1984) game but I'd like the thruster module to affect turn rates at least even if acceleration rates remain unchanged for gameplay consistency.

Upping the acceleration rate at higher velocities would be good, not sure the 2001c cap needs to change (rule of cool plus we hardly ever reach it in every day flight).

 

[Bigmaec]

Only if it's an optional where I can fit another hrp instead.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

Instead of reducing time travel why not adding something to do while traveling? the issue is the time sink. Even 2 minutes can be boring if you have to stare at the display

 

[dxm55]

Actually, the FSD upgrades should also speed up SC speeds.
Not sure why it doesn't.

Probably room for FDev to add more grindy crap in future just to get this.

 

[Lestat]

It takes time to travel to places in Elite. Some places only takes a few seconds to a few minutes while others take hours...

You had your throttle on to low? Nothing takes Hours or are you using flight Assist which doses not go max speed? We have The Bubble has over 65,000 stations. All at different Ranges. 90% of them are Short Distance close to the main star and you are complaining about 10% of them with 5% of that is long distance. Please use some common sense when you fly. If the location is too far for you don't fly to it an easy fix. This goes with Exploration, Trading or even Combat. A Lot of players like the vastness of space.

We have seen Frontier add module slots to ships before, like for planetary landings, so why could they not add another module slot to all ships for a Supercruise Engine (SCE)? Every ship would essentially have two types of engines, one for jumping to other star systems (Frame Shift Drive or FSD) and a second one for Supercruise travel.

The FSD drive when upgraded allows us to travel greater distances, so why not have a dedicated engine for Supercruise that could reach top speeds faster and can go beyond 2001C.

We all have the same Supercruise engine currently. We all travel at the same rate in Supercruise with the maximum speed being 2001C. So there would be no downside in adding this slot in as we are all on the same playing field if it were to come out. Then you could choose to upgrade the Supercruise engine (SCE) much like the FSD, but instead of jump range, you are going for faster Supercruise times.

This could add to game play as well, allowing additional things that trade vessels could utilize to avoid interdiction, allowing them to run away faster. This does not make them immune to interdictions but makes it harder for pirates and murders to snag weaker vessels.

Also, its not like pirates and murders won't upgrade the supercruise engines (SCE) so essentially there is not much change if both ships are running better SCE's.

All we would be doing is cutting down on some travels times. This still allows game play for pirates and murders allowing them to catch you in supercruise without the instant travel between planets and stations in the same system.

I could see interdiction be not a thing anymore with this idea.

 

[Hell Razor5543]

There is one reason why FDev may not do this. David Braben OBE and Ian Bell are fans of the Science Fiction film "2001: A Space Odyssey". There are a couple of clear pointers to this; the music the Docking Computer plays is "The Blue Danube Waltz" (which was the same music that played during the docking sequence in the film), and another pointer is the top speed in Super Cruse; 2001C.

However, that was talk in the past about micro Jumps, for systems where there is a long distance between the Primary and Secondary (and so on) Stars.

 

[Skip Rockbounder]

Iv'e suggested before that the re-introduction of acceleration in supercruise according to what ship you have could/should be the way to go,
for example...
Cobra III (in Frontier) 20g Acceleration, 7g Deceleration
Anaconda had 6g A, and 3g D
Eagle (mk III) 28g A, and 15g D
Now while the stats above would need careful application and adjustment it could add interesting gameplay for not just pirating but for those that wan't to just switch off auto help and make their own decisions on where to apply the retro, perhaps even (as we used to in frontier) spin the ship 180 deg and slow down at full thrust forward!

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I could see interdiction be not a thing anymore with this idea.

Interdiction is already only really possible at the start or end of a trip anyway (unless a player is lurking at midway, but faster speeds wouldn't affect that) once you get to the sort of distances (>5000Ls, say) where people really start to notice the supercruise distances.

Conversely even in a nearby (~1000Ls) target there's a good minute or so where the optimum gameplay is to hit full throttle, line up, then not touch any controls for a minute. Combined with the same "don't touch the controls" around hyperspace entry in safe environments, the inevitable hyperspace loading screens, and so on even with relatively nearby stations if you do A-B trading you can easily spend more time with hands off the controls than hands on [1].

As SenseiMatty says, what's needed is not necessarily a shortening of travel times (which are already very quick compared with the previous games) but something to do on them rather than spending most of the time hands-off.

One option might be remote access to station services - mission boards, commodity markets, read the local news items, etc. Basically as you fly in a dead straight line at top speed, you queue up actions on the station you're heading for. When you get there, they all get applied - restock, commodity sell/buy, mission hand-ins, mission acceptance, etc. - and you can take off again almost immediately (assuming that you reach the station fast enough for your actions still to be valid - if you get there and someone else has already bought all the Palladium you were planning to buy, it'll stop there and bring up a warning). You can continuously be doing things in flight, without the flight itself being any quicker.



[1] And that's even with manual docking and launching, and fast manual supercruise approaches. The people with supercruise assist and advanced docking computers can basically do the entire thing hands-off.

 

[Lestat]

One option might be remote access to station services - mission boards, commodity markets, read the local news items, etc. Basically as you fly in a dead straight line at top speed, you queue up actions on the station you're heading for. When you get there, they all get applied - restock, commodity sell/buy, mission hand-ins, mission acceptance, etc. - and you can take off again almost immediately (assuming that you reach the station fast enough for your actions still to be valid - if you get there and someone else has already bought all the Palladium you were planning to buy, it'll stop there and bring up a warning). You can continuously be doing things in flight, without the flight itself being any quicker.

Your ideas are pretty good. If they add walking minor repairs with wear and tear for exploration. Or a party with a group of people Holo Me. Or Self Modifications to SRV and SLF or the ship itself. The limited base of course. Those ideas are great. Or have us be able to look at the Blueprint. Instead of the Engineers make the modifications. We talk to them. They suggest something and we tweak that part our selves.

 

[VR Golgot]

what's needed is not necessarily a shortening of travel times [...] but something to do on them rather than spending most of the time hands-off.

This is the nub of the issue. Whether it be ship piloting or in-ship activities etc.

Personally my preference is weighted towards piloting skill & enhanced use of 'space geography' / cat-&-mouse strategy etc. But with menu diving etc being related to that and filling in other gaps.

There was a thread that eventually got good on this. Had a go at summing up the arguments here: Micro Sun Jumps: Adding content, not shortening the journey

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

I could see interdiction be not a thing anymore with this idea.

You just need to rework the FSD Interdictor removing some limitation.
Anyway I would not increase the maximum speed but I would change the acceleration profile. You could have a boost button that works only if throttle is at 100% or 0%. At 100% increase acceleration and at 0% increase the deceleration. The boost should also be available only when SC speed is higher than 100c so you are sure that you only use it to travel long distances when you are already far from a star and this would leave the interdiction scenario unchanged.
It should uses fuel like hell so you only use it for short boosts and if you really need it.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

As SenseiMatty says, what's needed is not necessarily a shortening of travel times (which are already very quick compared with the previous games) but something to do on them rather than spending most of the time hands-off.

Space legs may help a lot in this.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I'd like to see smaller ships have faster SC speeds, would help newbies against gankers as well and create more of a choice between small ships vs big ships when making deliveries.

However, overall, SC speeds are pretty decent and we can fly most places within minutes. Its rare you need a flight time of more than that unless you set up home in a system with a very long flight time to the station.

 

[dm06]

The FSD drive when upgraded allows us to travel greater distances, so why not have a dedicated engine for Supercruise that could reach top speeds faster and can go beyond 2001C.

One thing which concerns me: traveling 600Ls near star takes longer than 50000Ls far away from the star. Which makes me think that the issue is not just acceleration but also max speed value. And it seems to me that the max speed is somehow related to gravity around.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

And it seems to me that the max speed is somehow related to gravity around.

Of course it is. This is how FSD works. In fact you always need to fly as far as possible from a star when you want to explore several planets in the same system. In general I try to follow the planet orbits and keep the stars at 4 o'clock so slightly behind me.

 

[Kaocraft]

Supercruise needs a do-over. It's not the travel time that's the issue, it's the dull simplicity of it all, and upgrades won't fix that. People constantly whine, and continue to whine, about Jump ranges all the time and that's because no amount of upgrade will ever be enough, and the reason it won't be enough is because ANY amount of boring is too much.

Make Supercruise feel like something other than "waiting". That's the one and only right answer.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

I'd like to see smaller ships have faster SC speeds, would help newbies against gankers as well and create more of a choice between small ships vs big ships when making deliveries.

This is already partially a thing. With the Imperial Courier I can reach a starport with 3 second ETA instead of 6 seconds. The Couriuer is agile enough to spin around the starport at much higher speed. You can save some time doing this. But in general I agree with your point. Small ships should be very competitive with small deliveries.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

I suggest to open another thread with suggestions with things to do while in Supercruise. Maybe we can find something really interesting that would kill the long journeys time.