The FSD-leaper

[Friedenreich Xante]

I am thinking about a module that allows skipping of intermediary jumps and bringing you directly to the last scoopable OR inhabited star you can reach with your current tank fill.

It basically enables the FSD to load several consecutive jumps in one go, let's say up to 5 (subject to debate), just to have a cap in case of economy route plotting.

This is NOT an increasement in jump range. Your FSD MUST be able to reach every star on the route without injection or FSD overcharge. You won't scan even a star of the systems you skip (if they haven't been discovered yet, they won't even be procedurally generated) and there won't be any economy in fuel. The FSD may sustain damage from this treatment.

It's just the hyperspace "loading screen" appearing just onces instead of up to five times. I guess this will also reduce the load on the server, but that's not the aim. It just saves you several "hyperjumps" aka system loading screens.

It requires a module that takes up an optional slot, like the FSD booster. I can imagine it to be linked to Guardian unlock. Alternatively, I could also imagine it to be an experimental effect implemented by an engineer, though I guess this would make it too easy to get. But either way, we must be able to switch it on and off.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

It would certainly take some of the monotony out of travel, but it would speed it up by quite a bit too, as you'd have 1 loading screen instead of 5(or however many it can skip).

 

[Friedenreich Xante]

It would certainly take some of the monotony out of travel, but it would speed it up by quite a bit too, as you'd have 1 loading screen instead of 5(or however many it can skip).

Those for which the journey is the goal are free to equip another module instead of this one, that's the aim

 

[Non Grata]

Won't this either be affected by the increased fuel consumption with longer range jumps, or totally override the intention of that mechanism or am I not getting it right?

 

[Friedenreich Xante]

Won't this either be affected by the increased fuel consumption with longer range jumps, or totally override the intention of that mechanism or am I not getting it right?

This is NOT an increasement in jump range. Your FSD MUST be able to reach every star on the route without injection or FSD overcharge.

So no, this won't increase (or lower, for that matter) your fuel consumption either. It has strictly no effect on fuel consumption. Five jumps of 20ly will take as much fuel as before, they will however be "condensed" into one single jump. The FSD kinda makes ricochets on the stars and stops automatically either if it reached the fith star or the last scoopable or inhabited star before the fuel tank is exhausted.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Wouldn't this be equivalent to "time accelerated travel" ?

You i.e. make that 100LY (within Fuel Range) 5-in-1 Jump and arrive at your Destination within the normal ~20sec any individual jump would have taken?

btw. I'd be totally okay with it (literally skipping "flyover Systems"), provided there's a downside.
For example : you don't arrive conveniently at the Main Star in the Target System but at an increasingly (number of skipped Jumps + Range LY) large Ls Distance somewhere in the Target System.

As in : it's a faster way (real time) to arrive in a Target System by skipping intermediate Jumps - but you end up having to fly Ls Distances in that Target System due to lets say lack of Hyperjump precision over this distance.

(I only say this because that was a "Manual FTL jump" idea I still have floating in my head - go longer distances (fuel permitting) but arrive at a potentially crappy position within the Destination in order to have a realistic downside, so it doesn't simply become Meta and completely replaces existing travel mechanics)

[ obviously this might touch Exploration a bit, i.e. able to reach distant Stars which otherwise would be outside Range for a single boosted Jump ]

 

[Friedenreich Xante]

Wouldn't this be equivalent to "time accelerated travel" ?

You i.e. make that 100LY (within Fuel Range) 5-in-1 Jump and arrive at your Destination within the normal ~20sec any individual jump would have taken?

btw. I'd be totally okay with it (literally skipping "flyover Systems"), provided there's a downside.
For example : you don't arrive conveniently at the Main Star in the Target System but at an increasingly (number of skipped Jumps + Range LY) large Ls Distance somewhere in the Target System.

As in : it's a faster way (real time) to arrive in a Target System by skipping intermediate Jumps - but you end up having to fly Ls Distances in that Target System due to lets say lack of Hyperjump precision over this distance.

(I only say this because that was a "Manual FTL jump" idea I still have floating in my head - go longer distances (fuel permitting) but arrive at a potentially crappy position within the Destination in order to have a realistic downside, so it doesn't simply become Meta and completely replaces existing travel mechanics)

[ obviously this might touch Exploration a bit, i.e. able to reach distant Stars which otherwise would be outside Range for a single boosted Jump ]

To answer your first question: yes.

I like the idea of being dropped in a random spot in the arrival system, but this is only a downside to bubble travellers. Explorers don't care where they drop, unless they need to scoop. The FSS works as well from 1000 or 1000000 ls away. Also, I wouldn't want to put the traveller at risk of running out of fuel because he had a long supercruise to reach the fuel star.

The downsides I proposed were FSD damage and module space usage. Also, you cannot use neutron jumps or FSD injections. And you get no exploration credit at all for the systems you skip (whereas flying through normally gives you at least the scan of the main star). I'm not sure it needs any more downsides. Ah yes: the "grind" to get one: I proposed it to be a tech broker module, Guardian stuff and such...

 

[space voyager]

Gankers will NOT agree with your proposal. I personally would like to see such mechanics.

 

[Para Handy]

Oh look mommy - another autopilot thread!

 

[Friedenreich Xante]

Gankers will NOT agree with your proposal. I personally would like to see such mechanics.

Even the best gankers rarely manage to interdict a commander who is just transitting a system, unless he is very slow at hitting "J"

Oh look mommy - another autopilot thread!

View attachment 159691

It does not make your ship fly itself, does it? It's nothing remotely similar to the automated docking computer or the supercruise assist. If you don't hold your stick on departure and on arrival, just like with any hyperjump, you're cooked.

Speaking of autopilots, I'd love in contrary if we could actually control our ship in hyperspace and aim it ourself at a specific star. But I digress.

 

[Para Handy]

It does not make your ship fly itself, does it? It's nothing remotely similar to the automated docking computer or the supercruise assist. If you don't hold your stick on departure and on arrival, just like with any hyperjump, you're cooked.
....

I am sorry but you are skipping the intermediate systems, completely and totally:

I am thinking about a module that allows skipping of intermediary jumps and bringing you directly to the last scoopable OR inhabited star you can reach with your current tank fill.

It basically enables the FSD to load several consecutive jumps in one go, let's say up to 5 (subject to debate), just to have a cap in case of economy route plotting.

This is NOT an increasement in jump range. Your FSD MUST be able to reach every star on the route without injection or FSD overcharge. You won't scan even a star of the systems you skip (if they haven't been discovered yet, they won't even be procedurally generated) and there won't be any economy in fuel. The FSD may sustain damage from this treatment.
........

So in effect you are autopiloting from one system to another many "jumps" away - the jumps don't even happen in game you just "pretend" they did.

Sorry - this is just another "I am bored travelling in space, give me something to do it for me..." thread.

 

[Old Duck]

Despite my dislike of exceptionally long jump ranges, I actually support the OP. This assumes that fuel efficiency follows the current model - the further you jump, the less efficient the FSD. Which means if you can normally jump 5 times before refueling at max jump range, then this would allow you to cover the distance of 3 jumps going from a full to empty tank.

The other factor that balances the OP's request is that you'll now have to fill up an empty tank with every jump, so it's all about trade-offs. It feels balanced to me, removing the "grind" of jumping while still making the player work for his jumps. Heck, I'd support this as an engineered special effect, no extra module needed!

 

[Friedenreich Xante]

I am sorry but you are skipping the intermediate systems, completely and totally:



So in effect you are autopiloting from one system to another many "jumps" away - the jumps don't even happen in game you just "pretend" they did.

Sorry - this is just another "I am bored travelling in space, give me something to do it for me..." thread.

If your prefered game is looking at loading screens, you can skip this module alltogether personally I don't feel like I'm doing much when in hyperspace, so to me this suggestion gives actually more active time ingame.

 

[Old Duck]

I am sorry but you are skipping the intermediate systems, completely and totally:

So in effect you are autopiloting from one system to another many "jumps" away - the jumps don't even happen in game you just "pretend" they did.

Sorry - this is just another "I am bored travelling in space, give me something to do it for me..." thread.

I take it you always use economy route plotting then, yes?

 

[Ezren]

It's not an increase in jump range, it's just that you increase how far you go in one bigger jump.

 

[Sylow]

So no, this won't increase (or lower, for that matter) your fuel consumption either. It has strictly no effect on fuel consumption. Five jumps of 20ly will take as much fuel as before, they will however be "condensed" into one single jump. The FSD kinda makes ricochets on the stars and stops automatically either if it reached the fith star or the last scoopable or inhabited star before the fuel tank is exhausted.

It actually will increase your effective range. At the moment people usually set the route to fastest. That means the ship will do long jumps. The longer the jump, the more fuel you use per LY traveled. It makes sense to use the faster route. Each jump takes time, so the higher fuel efficiency will be eaten up by having to jump so much more often.

If traveling always is one jump screen, no matter how many jumps it includes, i'd rather put my setting to efficient. Sure the route that once was 15 jumps now is close to 50. But it's only one jump screen, anyway.

To explain how wild this woudl be: i don't have the thread at hand any more, but i think we once had one here, who build an Anaconda with all fuel tanks and showed that it was possible to fly that ship to Colonia without even once having to use a fuel scoop. Efficient route FTW. It took him quite some time to do that. With this suggestion in place, Colonia suddenly would be only one jump animation away. I don't think that this would be a good idea, sorry.

 

[Northpin]

It sounds interesting.
But it should have some drawbacks as in:

• you plot a skipping jump - basically the plotter selects the farthest scoopable star that you will able to reach with a full tank while using all the fuel and maximum jumps (no economy plotting with skipping jumps)
• you arrive at that system with an empty main tank and at a distance from the star that is a LS multiplier of the number of jumps skipped.

Let's say 10000ls times 7 jumps, 70000ls.

Miss-calculate your fuel consumption and the amount of fuel in secondary tank and you'll get stranded, at the mercy of nearest Fuel Rat.

You'd still need to fill the main tank before the next jump and you'll need to pay attention on your secondary tank - so i'd say one would not be able to chain skipping jumps.

Now that i read it again, it sounds fancy... but i'd rather have Carriers first

 

[Friedenreich Xante]

It's not an increase in jump range, it's just that you increase how far you go in one bigger jump.

Well this explanation is a bit misleading, as it's not a bigger jump. I'd compare it more to the Hyperspace skipping in Episode 9 of Star Wars. It's ricochet on stars.

It actually will increase your effective range. At the moment people usually set the route to fastest. That means the ship will do long jumps. The longer the jump, the more fuel you use per LY traveled. It makes sense to use the faster route. Each jump takes time, so the higher fuel efficiency will be eaten up by having to jump so much more often.

If traveling always is one jump screen, no matter how many jumps it includes, i'd rather put my setting to efficient. Sure the route that once was 15 jumps now is close to 50. But it's only one jump screen, anyway.

To explain how wild this woudl be: i don't have the thread at hand any more, but i think we once had one here, who build an Anaconda with all fuel tanks and showed that it was possible to fly that ship to Colonia without even once having to use a fuel scoop. Efficient route FTW. It took him quite some time to do that. With this suggestion in place, Colonia suddenly would be only one jump animation away. I don't think that this would be a good idea, sorry.

That's why it's capped to 5 jumps, if you read the OP No colonia in one jump, even less on economy route plotting, sorry

 

[Para Handy]

I take it you always use economy route plotting then, yes?

Nope - but I have to manually negotiate every system I jump through. This proposal skips all those systems totally.

If ever they do introduce a h-jump autopilot I hope they at least pay lip service to the intermediate systems and not go for a magic-leap like this.

 

[Sylow]

That's why it's capped to 5 jumps, if you read the OP No colonia in one jump, even less on economy route plotting, sorry

Subject to debate. Means, once FD would even consider this, it will be debated up to 100.

Still, the range increase i described will happen. Perceived distances will be divided by the number of jumps the thing could cover. I still am in the "space is big" corner, and the number of jumps basically, for us, determines how big it actually is. So in effect, thanks to some upgrades (mostly engineers), the galaxy already shrunk in the last years. We don't really need to shrink it even more. We don't need to go to the other end to find something interesting, either, there's still enough to be found not too far from the bubble.

Just leave in an odd and unusual direction and you might still find unexplored systems merely 1500 LY out. And the fact that i can say "merely 1500 LY" is just my point. That distance by now is not far any more. It's already a leisurely cruise for many ships. No need to reduce that any more.