System to system travel using SC rather than Hyperspace = Hypercruise?

[ebbrell]

Like people have said, this will need a lot of work. FDev use the hyperspace jump as a section load. The next system items and the planetary rotation caclulation s for the single system are loaded and processed.

If supercruse could get to the high speeds it wouldn't be slow, but nothing would load unless the engine is modified a lot.

Personally I want FDev to focus on other things such as all the items in beyond and atmosphere landings and walking around your ship.

 

[babelfisch]

If a serious thread is started on faster than light obstacle dodging, I want to be there. �� ��

We are already doing it all the time in super cruise.

Wouldn't it be a bit dull? I think we're imagining whizzing through a starfield when realistically we'd barely see any movement at all.

Isn't staring at a loading screen right now a bit dull?

There is no reason you couldn't add all the fluff from the current loading animation.

 

[babelfisch]

Like people have said, this will need a lot of work. FDev use the hyperspace jump as a section load. The next system items and the planetary rotation caclulation s for the single system are loaded and processed.

If supercruse could get to the high speeds it wouldn't be slow, but nothing would load unless the engine is modified a lot.

Personally I want FDev to focus on other things such as all the items in beyond and atmosphere landings and walking around your ship.

 

[Raumfahrer Spiff]

I'd give it a solid yes. Or at least some iteration of it. I've always wanted a "Star Trek" cruising-through-a-starfield kind of effect, to better show off the scale of the galaxy, and your position in it.

It could be balanced however it needs to be to roughly end up with similar travel times to what we have now, but it would feel a heck of a lot more interactive, and it would be a lot easier to orient yourself as you go from system to system.

Not to mention how much it adds in the way of possible anomaly side-tracks and opportunities to get lost in *deep* space with no fuel.

It would be absolutely fantastic for the explorers, and pretty much anyone who finds the really long-range trips a bit too tedious with all the monotonous jumping.

 

[NMS]

Since it would mean Frontier would have to rewrite the entire game and it would take a massive amount of resources that are better spend expanding the actual game and useful content, i would say no.

Agree

For now, just add an autopilot and everything would be fine.

 

[Raumfahrer Spiff]

I dunno, for me an auto pilot feels like the exact opposite of what this concept is supposed to add. It's to make travel will more interactive, not less.

And it's probably hyperbolic to say they'd have to rewrite the entire game to squeeze it in along side the old Hyperspace Jump as another option.

 

[NMS]

Autopilot would be an option, if you not want, do not use it.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

Raumfahrer is spot on the money, this concept is meant to add more interaction with travelling not make travel an AFK thing, however I dont have a problem with it being added as a balance, so we take the current travel mechanism as a median, on the side of putting more interaction (not repetitive pressing jump key) into it with hypercruising, and at the other end of the interactivity spectrum we create a jump computer that can jump honk scoop align jump honk till it reaches destination.

@NMS I'm just curious what you'd have your autopilot do with regard to interdictions? Surely you wouldn't expect the autopilot to flight the battle for you? And would you have the autopilot supercruise to starports and hand over to docking computer? I honestly think if you want the autopilot to do either of those last two suggestions you're probably better suited to a different game such as eve.

 

[The_Pinder]

No it would be terrible. SC is boring enough so doing that in the vast darkness of interstellar space would be even more tedious. Also people seem to think it'd be a dodging minigame when in fact for most of the galaxy there'd be no course correction because stars are so massively spaced, and if you tried it near the galactic core the speeds you'd need to travel at would make it impossible to dodge anything anyway.

 

[Mengy]

Wouldn't it be a bit dull? I think we're imagining whizzing through a starfield when realistically we'd barely see any movement at all.

I think it would be very interactive and engaging actually. Currently hyperspace is just a jump tunnel effect you watch for 15 seconds between stars. The hypercruise concept is just turning that into something you can control and interact with by changing your speed or changing direction to avoid gravity wells (or drop into them). Fuel use would be a huge concern during hypercruise and you'd need to be careful to not run your tanks dry while traveling between systems. Hypercruising out on the galactic rim would especially be hair raising as you'd have to be very careful to not attempt to fly somewhere you didn't have enough fuel to reach.

Nah, hypercruise could convert traveling through space from a boring loading screen you just watch into an actual interactive gameplay mechanic. I think it would make space travel much more enjoyable in Elite.

I also think it will never happen, it's just too big a change now, but I still love the idea.

 

[Bounder]

This is actually an interesting thread.. and I get where you're coming from on the idea.

I just suddenly got cracked up thinking about a star dodging mini-game at speeds thousands of times beyond the speed of light...

Constant state of wide-eyed panic. LOL

...LOL back in the olden days (before Elite) there was a fantastic little 3D shooter called Encounter on the Atari (i had the 800XL) - each level was a 3D field scattered with 'obelisks' you had to drive around, dodging and hiding behind, whilst taking out enemies who were shooting back at you. They'd also periodically launch heat-seeking missiles at you, so you'd have to slam it into reverse and run away / hide.. but after successfully completing each level, there was this really cool hyperspace sequence that took you to the next level.. and it was basically dodging stars, at ludicrous speeds. Hit one, and you'd never make it to the next level. Here, found a vid of it:

[video=youtube;_Sd4ujPJKQ8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Sd4ujPJKQ8[/video]


...the trick to surviving these hyperspace segues was to only touch the joystick if a collision was imminent; basically resisting the urge to just throw the stick around trying to swerve a course through. As i would later learn, the same basic trick to race driving (minimal input, small corrections). Great fun tho, very addictive game for its time.

I don't know about making the hyperspace sequence a minigame in Elite, tho - i'd just prefer it if the game had been build around a real 3D galaxy, and the hyperspace sequence took you sailing past all the intervening stars, the same way it works in Noctis, Celestia and Space Engine et al. Not necessarily lasting any longer, just cementing the impression of an actual contiguous 3D galaxy, rather than Elite's traditional loading screen animation...

 

[babelfisch]

No it would be terrible. SC is boring enough so doing that in the vast darkness of interstellar space would be even more tedious. Also people seem to think it'd be a dodging minigame when in fact for most of the galaxy there'd be no course correction because stars are so massively spaced, and if you tried it near the galactic core the speeds you'd need to travel at would make it impossible to dodge anything anyway.

Please read the thread.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Ye, I'd like that. Seeing the constellations move apart. See Nebulas slowly unfold. And getting rid of the loadscreens I've seen a thousand times already would be welcome.

 

[NMS]

@NMS I'm just curious what you'd have your autopilot do with regard to interdictions? Surely you wouldn't expect the autopilot to flight the battle for you? And would you have the autopilot supercruise to starports and hand over to docking computer? I honestly think if you want the autopilot to do either of those last two suggestions you're probably better suited to a different game such as eve.

At least for me, autopilot could only work between systems(only systems can be defined like destination, no stations or planets) . The interdiction mechanics remains the same, if someone interdict your ship, the autopilot stop from works and you regain the control of your ship, and the game follow the normal gameplay, until you can again enter in autopilot mode.

 

[JLS1981]

...LOL back in the olden days (before Elite) there was a fantastic little 3D shooter called Encounter on the Atari (i had the 800XL) - each level was a 3D field scattered with 'obelisks' you had to drive around, dodging and hiding behind, whilst taking out enemies who were shooting back at you. They'd also periodically launch heat-seeking missiles at you, so you'd have to slam it into reverse and run away / hide.. but after successfully completing each level, there was this really cool hyperspace sequence that took you to the next level.. and it was basically dodging stars, at ludicrous speeds. Hit one, and you'd never make it to the next level. Here, found a vid of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Sd4ujPJKQ8


...the trick to surviving these hyperspace segues was to only touch the joystick if a collision was imminent; basically resisting the urge to just throw the stick around trying to swerve a course through. As i would later learn, the same basic trick to race driving (minimal input, small corrections). Great fun tho, very addictive game for its time.

I don't know about making the hyperspace sequence a minigame in Elite, tho - i'd just prefer it if the game had been build around a real 3D galaxy, and the hyperspace sequence took you sailing past all the intervening stars, the same way it works in Noctis, Celestia and Space Engine et al. Not necessarily lasting any longer, just cementing the impression of an actual contiguous 3D galaxy, rather than Elite's traditional loading screen animation...

That's great lol...

And I agree, I LIKED that about No Man's Sky.. everything is seamless and you could actually fly from one star to another (it would just take a ridiculously long time)... And when you arrived, it wouldn't be empty like it is on Elite.

I still believe that there's potential somewhere between the No Man's Sky galaxy and Elite.

 

[Raumfahrer Spiff]

What are the highest jumping ships at nowadays? ~70ly?

You can cruise past a lot of stars over multiple 70 light year gaps. Especially depending on which galactic neighborhood you're in.

The better your FSD and the lighter your ship, the faster your interstellar speed. Just like now.

Ideally it would be balanced in that way to make the overall travel times roughly similar to what is possible with our current ships. Every ship should mostly still take the same amount of real time to get to any given location as it does now.

For people with the more long range centric ships, they could bypass 100s of light years worth of jumps between needing to fuel-up.

I would envision you still need to plot a route just like you do now. For gameplay restrictions, fuel management, and "for your flight computer to make the necessary calculations for such immense spatial distortions, using the stellar gravity wells as dampeners and navigational points of reference" (as well as providing the game a chance to selectively load in the impending systems without needing the same kind of loading screen we need now.) If you go off course and drop into a system outside of the current flight plan or even interstellar deep space, you'd have some sort of emergency hyper-drop sequence that would serve as the normal-space/supercruise loading screen.

I could see the flight mechanic working somewhat similar to a cross between the interdiction mechanic and the supercruise flight model, giving us an optimal course to follow, and a "danger zone" from diverging too far from the course, or also perhaps too near some new interstellar anomalies they could invent (hello codex!).

And that's just one way it could be done. I could see a bunch of ways they could make it functional, fun, and balanced.

 

[Silver Taffer]

Just one thing to say, 0.22Ly Hutton Orbital.....’Nuff said

 

[S3B4ST13N]

I think it would be very interactive and engaging actually. Currently hyperspace is just a jump tunnel effect you watch for 15 seconds between stars. The hypercruise concept is just turning that into something you can control and interact with by changing your speed or changing direction to avoid gravity wells (or drop into them). Fuel use would be a huge concern during hypercruise and you'd need to be careful to not run your tanks dry while traveling between systems. Hypercruising out on the galactic rim would especially be hair raising as you'd have to be very careful to not attempt to fly somewhere you didn't have enough fuel to reach.

Nah, hypercruise could convert traveling through space from a boring loading screen you just watch into an actual interactive gameplay mechanic. I think it would make space travel much more enjoyable in Elite.

I also think it will never happen, it's just too big a change now, but I still love the idea.

Couple that with space-legs and a whole bunch of activities you can do on your ship if you have the correct facilities installed (science/biolab etc).