Supercruise - Why?

[ADCKnight]

I'd just like to point out that this guy is complaining about the lack of realism to FTL... no one really knows what travelling FTL looks like, all we have are THEORIES that seem to contradict each other and change when whatever scientist happens to be on tv at the time. Stop complaining about the lack of realism in a work of fiction.

 

[OnePercent]

space is moving with your ship so photons are slowed down before they hit your eyes, relatively speaking.

I like supercruise, but I don't like the non-seamless entry and exit which is a side effect of a networked, instanced approach to multiplayer and is also sadly a by product of floating point limits in our computer technology (e.g. the ability to render in real time very large scenes yet rendering extremely small things relatively speaking)

I also don't like extreme distances of time consuming travel, so either Increase our acceleration and deceleration time to react to points of interest or Increase top speed of supercruise.

all in all it should be FD's focus to solve these problems however it is not worth completely redesigning the current superluminal mechanics.

 

[Varrag]

Discovering new POI are based around explorer game play such as scanning and triangulating return signals to locate things and sending off probes etc [...] Explorers discover things because they’re actively trying to and other players can benefit from these discoveries.

I... actually liked this. Was this concept a victim of supercruise?

 

[LKx]

This is the 5.7 quadrillionth thread about this topic, going aaaalll the way back to the DDF before this was even a pile of code.

Microjumps were the original proposed travel method. Then many people rightly pointed out the total waste of time making the entire galaxy to scale if you never actually traveled through ANY of it ever.

This. It makes you feel the distances to some degree.

However, i could use in-system microjumps from star to star, but only when you've actually scanned the exact orbit of the corpse

 

[jabokai]

I... actually liked this. Was this concept a victim of supercruise?

A victim of improperly implemented exploration, rather than supercruise i think. That could still exist with supercruise and would actually even be more fun with it.

 

[Tinman]

I would like to see the acceleration and deceleration sped up, the "gravity" effects lessened and an "autostop at destination" added. But it's a vital part of the game although I can understand why some would, inevitably, prefer the point to point thing.

Good thing they have every other space sim ever made (more or less) to play that uses that approach then!

The freedom of movement across a system (and later flying across and landing on planets) supercruise gives is an essential part of Elite and have been in the previous versions too in different incarnations (Torus drive, time acceleration). That they even thought about doing it "EVE-style" originally in ED still boggles my mind.

 

[jabokai]

Good thing they have every other space sim ever made (more or less) to play that uses that approach then!

The freedom of movement across a system (and later flying across and landing on planets) supercruise gives is an essential part of Elite and have been in the previous versions too in different incarnations (Torus drive, time acceleration). That they even thought about doing it "EVE-style" originally in ED still boggles my mind.

I do agree with you - the game would be terrible with the original POI proposal implemented. But I can also see why some would rather skip Supercruise - it needs (IMHO of course) a bit of speeding up and, most especially, the autostop. I stress IMHO again - I realise plenty of people like it exactly the way it is.

 

[Winterwalker]

I could see a value in adding in-system jumps with minimum distance of eg. 200Ls
(and HIGHLY ELEVATED RISK of hitting the local astronomical object on arrival)

I like supercruise ... though I AM an exponent of adding option to autocruise to arrival point, so you can read Galnet, fiddle with ship settings and the like .. I realise that's not everyone's cup of tea, but I'd like to have a cup of tea, every now and again, omg yes WHILE travelling (it's a bit like walking around inside my ship).

Key thing (if ur not sure about SC) is to think about "how else" would you travel across system? Imho the DDF deserves a medal for coming up with it. SC gives outer space good scale, is only tedious if you decide it is, allows LOVELY fly-by views of planets, and lastly .. I suspect SC is here to stay! (I also think it's a long way to the shops .. but that's nothing compared to space.)

 

[Whiterose]

I quite like SC as a decision maker. Whilst exploring seeing a triple system with some possible terraform planets 500,000Ls away poses the shall I or shant I question, which adds more realism than just pressing a button and appearing there. It also makes a decision for me when I am trading, i.e avoid X because it is too far away. It is also perosnal choice depending on what is too far, for me 100K when trading is the limit, exploring 250K is the limit for TC's, but an ELW I woudl go up to 500K.

 

[Vingtetun]

First of all, I love this game. Seriously. I've played nothing but ED in the last few weeks and I cleared my save today just so I could enjoy the early game hours again. Of course I know many things can be improved and that eventually with more gameplay content being added this will be a great universe to get lost in. Even though it saddens me that those will probably come as paid expansions/DLC (and because this game is REALLY expensive here in Brazil) I understand that such are the times we live in and I'm kind of looking forward to it - I'll gladly pay for them. Also, despite a bunch of design choices I disagree with, I learned to enjoy even those, as they fit together nicely in ED's universe and setting.

Except for supercruise. I hate it. Hate, hate, hate it.

If one day I stop playing ED, is because of supercruise. As I bought the game after launch I didn't followed the developing process but I seriously cannot understand how supercruise ended as the mandatory way of travel in-system. At first I thought that there was some design reason behind it, I even found this little gem in older posts that gave me some hope, but after hours digging in the forum to try and understand why this atrocious thing was left in the game to no avail, I was baffled. Of course, I can understand some players liking it, hell, it even makes sense that explorers have to do it (even so the way that Supercruise is presented is ridiculous: you can't see things normaly travelling at the speed of light or above it, photons that hit your retina travel slower than you - but I digress) but I cannot believe I'm the only one who wish that it was possible to simply jump in Hyperdrive to discovered planets/stations. I get that some players like sightseeing; fine, then explorer ships could be lighter and faster, able to reach really high speeds that are not FTL, and they would sightsee the hell of the galaxy, leaving us, BH and traders to jump around. Hell, I don't know. Anything would be better than Supercruise - literally, even if SC was to be stay exactly as it is, with micro-jumps, it would be better. People always go on about how there's no perfect game and such, well, I feel that ED could be perfect when all promised content are added - and supercruise removed.

But I didn't created this thread just to rant. I honestly would like to ask the community why? What gives? Does the majority of players like Supercruising around? Was there, at some point during development, any questioning about it, like someone saying that it was boring, lacking realism or anything? I mean, it does break many of laws of physics. Is there any plans to add the possibility of micro-jumps or (what I feel would be better) free jumping between celestial bodies? Can I hope for one day being able to jump directly to a station in my jump range or should I just resignate myself to how things are now?

I enjoy supercruise. I like flying around with the camera, taking pictures of the sights, lining them up just right. I like the idea of having to travel distances between objects in space rather than just jumping. So - yes, I'm in the "like supercruise" camp. I DO feel there may be a place for adding jumps between stars in excessively large systems - or to Hutton ;-)

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

I... actually liked this. Was this concept a victim of supercruise?

Don't think so. I think it was just another victim of not enough development resources to do everything, a self-imposed deadline to hit, and not scoring highly enough on the priority list. There is a lot of good stuff in the DDF exploration threads, but it will be quite difficult to add on top of the rudimentary place holder we have today.

 

[Zieman]

I do agree with you - the game would be terrible with the original POI proposal implemented. But I can also see why some would rather skip Supercruise - it needs (IMHO of course) a bit of speeding up and, most especially, the autostop. I stress IMHO again - I realise plenty of people like it exactly the way it is.

Better acceleration and deceleration would be nice, so you could reach the 2001c limit while cruising to a distant target, let's say half a million Ls away.

Making gravity whip manoeuvres possible in supercruise would be cool.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

I could see a value in adding in-system jumps with minimum distance of eg. 200Ls
(and HIGHLY ELEVATED RISK of hitting the local astronomical object on arrival)

I like supercruise ... though I AM an exponent of adding option to autocruise to arrival point, so you can read Galnet, fiddle with ship settings and the like .. I realise that's not everyone's cup of tea, but I'd like to have a cup of tea, every now and again, omg yes WHILE travelling (it's a bit like walking around inside my ship).

Key thing (if ur not sure about SC) is to think about "how else" would you travel across system? Imho the DDF deserves a medal for coming up with it. SC gives outer space good scale, is only tedious if you decide it is, allows LOVELY fly-by views of planets, and lastly .. I suspect SC is here to stay! (I also think it's a long way to the shops .. but that's nothing compared to space.)

For the sake of accuracy, the DDF did not come up with supercruise. We merely rejected, almost unanimously, the initial design intention for 'rooms in space' with mini jumps to PoIs. It was FD that came up with the idea of supercruise, and they were immediately inundated with praise for having nailed it - conceptually, anyway.

The actual implementation of supercruise was again, all FDs. Personally, I don't think they nailed the implementation of it, though it is certainly not awful. All IMHO, of course.

 

[Dorohedoro]

They need to improve the dissengage system, is a pain in the head and so tedious after 150+ hours of play.

 

[Muzz UK]

I think those wanting supercruise removed are just typical of todays MMO crowd.... I want loads of power for nothing attitude.

Why not remove supercruise and start with a choice of any ship at any point in the galaxy then... infact lets just automated everything like combat, trading and missions so you don'[t even have to do anything.

 

[Jason S]

The alternative offered at the time:

- Open your map
- Hot spots appear on them
- Click to "jump" to it
- You fly around normal space only

Is that what you would have preferred ?

That was FD's original idea - hot spots which meant no "freedom" to roam - and the DDF at the time unanimously said no thanks so FD came back with Super Cruise.

You're welcome

I would have preferred the hot spot option as the game time would have had a higher proportion of fun bits unless you find SC the fun bit. I only find SC fun in the final part going around the planet or when interdicted.

They should have had jumps to the planets and other hot spots and then super cruise from planet to station where interdictions can happen.

FD should have stuck to their original idea of hot spots rather than going with the hard core minds.

- - - Updated - - -

I think those wanting supercruise removed are just typical of todays MMO crowd.... I want loads of power for nothing attitude.

Why not remove supercruise and start with a choice of any ship at any point in the galaxy then... infact lets just automated everything like combat, trading and missions so you don'[t even have to do anything.

You are missing the issue that SC takes most of the game time and for many is rather boring. It has nothing to do with MMO crowd or gaining power quickly. If jumps were used then profits could be reduce to make progression the same. What it is about is the time taken by a rather simple and repetitive activity.

 

[jabokai]

FD should have stuck to their original idea of hot spots rather than going with the hard core minds.

Well, that's one opinion - the vast majority were against the POI system at the time - there was a serious backer revolt over it! I suspect, despite the fact SC can be improved, that would still be the case.

 

[Leper Messiah]

I would like to see the acceleration and deceleration sped up, the "gravity" effects lessened and an "autostop at destination" added.

This!! So much this!! The painfully slow acell, decell is awfull IMO. And the autostop could be a module add on?

Sadly I think it's just a contrived mechanic for the "pirates".

 

[neXib]

Most of the questions of this nature don't seem to really grasp the concept of the game. Everything takes time, and everything you do is a time v.s money consideration. Things need to take time for the game to even exist. And the mechanic of supercruise is quite good in my book.

 

[Riedquat]

I dont like supercruise at all, I believe it takes away from the gameplay in a big way and is a major contributor to the 'empty' feeling that many people use to descirbe the game.

You fly through systems in a matter of minutes or seconds even without any danger.

I would of preferred the micro jump as in the first Elite, travelling through space was so much fun, whilst carefully scanning the stars for potential enemies, you'd see a blip/s on the scanner and had no idea what it was until you got closer.

I really like games where you have to plot your route carefully, travel and interact with your vehicle, such as flight or naval sims, they are very immersive indeed, I would of love to have seen this in the game in some shape or form.

I think Supercruise just caters for the masses, its a compromise between normal travel and mmo style 'fast travel', leaning more towards the fast.