Supercruising to another star system reveals design flaws

[korsobar]

It seems like when you are in supercruise your position is tracked locally. When you disconnect or return to the menu, you don't always end up at the same spot in the system you are in. In essence, to the ED servers your location in supercruise is meaningless. They just wait for your client to tell them which local instance you want to enter or if you have jumped to another supercruise instance (in another system). Seems like it would have been trivial to have a trigger that requests an instance change to a new system when your locally tracked distance from the star you are near is farther than a star you are aiming at. Oh well.

A bit off topic: if supercruise location is indeed tracked locally, I wonder how long it will be before someone figures out how to hack and spoof it for instant supercruise?

 

[Arkku]

You're just travelling from instance to instance with nothing persistent. USS are just dots appearing with no real representation. I think SC will be revisited down the line but for now it feels 'tacky'.

I think there is a more fundamental problem underlying this, i.e., USS and NPCs seem to be just "random encounters" with no reason to be there. I think most USS events should be scrapped altogether as they make the world just feel less real, not more (e.g., why is that convoy travelling in normal space at a speed that will literally take them years to reach any destination). Adding persistency would be great, of course, being able to see the same traders on their routes, perhaps even progressing to bigger ships over time, etc, but as a first step it would go a long way to just generate the NPCs and USS in a way that makes sense at that time (i.e., ships and cargo are realistic for where they are going, they actually proceed to a sensible destination if you follow them, and a pirate in a shieldless Eagle won't attack an Asp armed to the teeth).

 

[imashination]

Sometimes I just can't understand what you people want. "Rooms in space," indeed. Sure, sure. If your definition of "Room" is a bubble 1LY across with an entire solar system inside that we can fly through and interact with, I guess you're right. So sorry that FD didn't spend game resources supporting a mechanism for that microscopic number of masochists willing to fly in a straight line for 9 hours.

I agree, but im pretty sure you could do that in elite on the amiga...

 

[N-Zed]

I think there is a more fundamental problem underlying this, i.e., USS and NPCs seem to be just "random encounters" with no reason to be there. I think most USS events should be scrapped altogether as they make the world just feel less real, not more (e.g., why is that convoy travelling in normal space at a speed that will literally take them years to reach any destination). Adding persistency would be great, of course, being able to see the same traders on their routes, perhaps even progressing to bigger ships over time, etc, but as a first step it would go a long way to just generate the NPCs and USS in a way that makes sense at that time (i.e., ships and cargo are realistic for where they are going, they actually proceed to a sensible destination if you follow them, and a pirate in a shieldless Eagle won't attack an Asp armed to the teeth).

Frankly, the whole travel system is inherently flawed and overall is killing any sense of momentum, logic or reason.

 

[glynie]

For single player it would seem like a fairly simple fix to just do a hidden "jump" to the other system when you're about 60% there (not at 50% in case you turn around it would not jump back immediately). For multiplayer I imagine there will be all sorts of difficulties in cases where another player is nearby… perhaps all players within a certain distance from one another could be treated as a unit and make the "hidden jump" between systems together. Hopefully they would be far enough from players not part of the unit that it would usually go unnoticed that they suddenly disappear from one system.

But, yes, this is mostly something that would please me ideologically and technologically than something I'd expect to actually do in the game. However, the last time someone tried flying part of the way toward another system to bring said system within their jump range (e.g., 0.1 LY closer) it didn't work, either. That might be something that could actually be implemented.

Exactly the solution I was thinking of. You're not gonna notice a few seconds of freezing with nothing around you. Just load in the system as you do when you system-jump and place the player the appropriate distance away instead of next to the star. Sorted.

 

[Vatox]

It seems like when you are in supercruise your position is tracked locally. When you disconnect or return to the menu, you don't always end up at the same spot in the system you are in. In essence, to the ED servers your location in supercruise is meaningless. They just wait for your client to tell them which local instance you want to enter or if you have jumped to another supercruise instance (in another system). Seems like it would have been trivial to have a trigger that requests an instance change to a new system when your locally tracked distance from the star you are near is farther than a star you are aiming at. Oh well.

A bit off topic: if supercruise location is indeed tracked locally, I wonder how long it will be before someone figures out how to hack and spoof it for instant supercruise?

Well, that is one observation that could definitely explain the way SC works (or doesn't work as I'd hoped it would). Thanks for sharing. Indeed, it could produce some problems for the game in terms of hacking, etc. in the long run if it is not addressed properly.

Were you flying some sort of Supertanker? How much gas does it take for a 9 hour flight? Wow.

I made the journey on my Cobra which has 16 tonnes fuel capacity. I'm not sure what the exact amount of spent fuel was, but I believe my average consumption was about 0.6/h, which should result in a total of about 5.4 tonnes of fuel.

 

[Corwyn]

Well, to be fair, I knew the answer could probably be found here but I wanted to discover something for myself. Besides, I didn't really waste the whole 9 hours, I was flying AFK about 95% of the time. Still, I find it rather underwhelming that the devs have used such a design.

If you can do better, give it a shot.

 

[Thomas Jefferson Jones]

I think there is a more fundamental problem underlying this, i.e., USS and NPCs seem to be just "random encounters" with no reason to be there. I think most USS events should be scrapped altogether as they make the world just feel less real, not more (e.g., why is that convoy travelling in normal space at a speed that will literally take them years to reach any destination). Adding persistency would be great, of course, being able to see the same traders on their routes, perhaps even progressing to bigger ships over time, etc, but as a first step it would go a long way to just generate the NPCs and USS in a way that makes sense at that time (i.e., ships and cargo are realistic for where they are going, they actually proceed to a sensible destination if you follow them, and a pirate in a shieldless Eagle won't attack an Asp armed to the teeth).

Yeah ships traveling sublight in USS don't make sense, nav beacons also don't make sense in the context of the travel system FD have established (what are ships in sublight doing there?)

Resource Extraction sites in planetary rings don't make sense, assassinating targets by randomly running into the one person who has info about your target in the vastness of a particualr system doesn't make sense., - so placeholdery, - hope it all gets sorted.

A lot of these systems seem present because FD had no idea how to have ships encountering each other outside of interdiction processes, conflict zones and station zones, but its all so awkward.

 

[WalterHWhite]

The solution is simple, but it'll require you to see some kind of 'loading screen/progress bar' when entering the system. I think it's a fair point, albeit a real edge case.

 

[Tetsuko]

Words fail me to be honest. You are criticising ED now because its designers won't let you waste your life pointing at a dot on the screen for 10 hours straight? If you want ultimate realism in every respect then put the game away and go to work. Though even that probably isn't boring enough for you...

 

[Deleted member 38366]

-- Deleted --

 

[ICO_hr]

Words fail me to be honest. You are criticising ED now because its designers won't let you waste your life pointing at a dot on the screen for 10 hours straight? If you want ultimate realism in every respect then put the game away and go to work. Though even that probably isn't boring enough for you...

It is a technology problem not design one.

Edit: Actualy is maybe both.

 

[Snakebite]

I'm glad that I saw this thread, I was about to try that...

 

[Tetsuko]

Actually, what you just described, is exactly the way me and a buddy thought it would work. I hope they can introduce something in these lines.

Why? Just, why?

 

[vyrago]

There are also no puppies in this game. not one. design flaw methinks.

 

[Trinity Star]

I just went to Geras to pick up some rares, it drops you on white dwarf star and the other star is over 1m ls away with the station, one long trip!

 

[Morbad]

Were you flying some sort of Supertanker? How much gas does it take for a 9 hour flight? Wow.

I can do nine hours of SC in a Viper with a 4T tank, maybe in a Sidewinder or hauler with a 2T tank.

 

[Fen Harel]

Change the title to "Supercruising to another star system reveals design" and you're all set.

 

[starjump]

What a thing to say.

Its true though. Lots of forums would have given a warning for not searching. I think this particular topic was brought up as late as yesterday or today, and has been brought up many many times.
Anyway, wasnt my intent to crash the party and be all negative. Just that its usually a rule, to search, and especially since many that have been here a while see the same things over and over again on a daily.

 

[Vatox]

Why? Just, why?

As I mentioned somewhere, the game already appeared so well made in every aspect of the physics that I could feel, that I had developed somewhat unrealistically high expectations for things that most people really would not care about. But to answer your question, because it feels more immersive and I want to immerse myself fully in an experience that is so well made as ED.