Time for a FSD update

[Duckfather]

Why? Taking a capable combat ship somewhere a long distance should be tough in my opinion. Being able to take a combat fitted Corvette etc some few hundred Ly should be hard to do. Although, having said that, I'm an explorer normally and view a few hundred Ly's as a trip to the cornershop. I have a fully kitted and Engineered Corvette at Colonia for example. Just in case

Making travel easier and faster is the slippery road to ruin in most MMO's I've ever played! Just my two penneth though. Your experience and ideas may differ

 

[Mengy]

I don't think distance is the problem, it is the repetitive jumping and the lack of things to do whilst travelling, if it was all seamless SC or star trek style (As I imagined before Alpha) There could have been scope for a lot of content in the spaces in between each system or just out in deep space, anomalies, derelict ships, course plotting, abandoned bases etc, would have loved to be travelling at 5000c and seeing a blip on long range scanners 0.3LY out, a secret base, or derelict ships.

This. Jump ranges don't really need to get any larger than they are now, but travel itself needs to be improved so that it's not so boring.

I've always liked the concept of having "dark systems" about the galaxy, systems with stars so dim they haven't been seen by stellar cartography before, or even rogue planet systems without a star at all. Jump points which aren't on the galaxy map but can only be accessed via the left navigation panel. There could be a mechanic where if you are in close proximity to them (say within 100lys or so) then you get a warning pop up on the HUD stating something like "UNKNOWN GRAVITY WELL NEARBY" or something like that. The only way to actually jump to them would be to physically select them on the nav panel and manually jump to them.

Having phenomena like that to come across while traveling through space would be nice.

 

[jasonbarron]

My issue is the implication it has on everything else. This very week someone broke the 2 hour mark for record time from Sol-Sag A*. I myself hold a 6h 35m record for the Sol-Beagle trip. Lets not forget when the first mass race to Sag A* took place, the original Buckyball A* class the record time was 8h 43m odd. We are now over an 80% reduction in travel time, it's enough.

Wait, did I read that correctly??? You've been from Sol to BP in under seven hours?

 

[NW3]

Hmm... Maybe some fairly rare black holes with intermittent accretion disks that provide a very significant jump range boost but also are rather dangerous? This way they can't just all be mapped out and used all the time, but can be well worth finding when you do find them.

I think I like the sound of this the best, at least regarding further stellar type boosts.

Plus, how awesome would it be to see something like this in the game?

Spoiler

https://i.imgur.com/EHK37VG.jpg

I'd look for them just for that.

Agreed. I've also wished for this exact feature. I think Sag A* should be extra dangerous and give an even bigger boost than "typical" black holes. Maybe the effect could be scaled by the black hole's mass.

 

[MrFailfactory]

Wait, did I read that correctly??? You've been from Sol to BP in under seven hours?

Unless my math is wrong, that's an average of 10k light years per hour. A 70 light-year Anaconda runs at a bit under half of that pace(ish).

That's quite a good neutron highway plot, and excellent use of it, I would say. Nice work, Alex

Riôt

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Wait, did I read that correctly??? You've been from Sol to BP in under seven hours?

Correct, the current long range race records are:
Sol - Sag A* = 1hr 55min (Cmdr Alot)
Sol - Colonia = 1hr 47min (me)
Sol - Beagle = 6hr 35min (me) <- Via sag A* at 2hr 25min mark

With the new engineering mods and a better pilot I suspect that the 6h mark can be shredded as well. For 25Kly to Sag A* and the 22Kly to Colonia both Alot and myself averaged 12,500Ly/hr, over 65kly to Beagle as MrFailofactory said I only averaged 10kly/hr (yes your maths is correct ) so there's definitely room for a challenger there!

The statistic I love out of the Colonia race is average time per 1Kly = 4.8 minutes... Ludicrous speed!

But yeah, custom featherweight ship with 72T fuel tank, custom pre-flown route planned out to be as neutron efficient as possible and thats what is possible.

 

[RagingxPenguin]

^^
Welp
Point proven. Ranges are fine.

 

[Brrokk]

I like the galaxy being very big. I'm contemplating a trip to Sag A* but it feels like a major undertaking and I'm procrastinating. I'm learning about neutron boosts and weighing up whether they're too risky. I would be sad if all this became irrelevant because a new huge-boost FSD became available.

 

[WR3ND]

...

Do you know how many jumps you guys made? I'd be curious what the average jump ranges were too.

Cheers, and congratulations.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Did you see Eds slight slipup with Guardian tech? You might be happy.

 

[Mugur]

The fact that someone with a prepared ship does such a record is wonderful, but that's not the point here. The fact remains that with a war ship you have under 20ly. Is it ok? What about A classing a ship and put some weapons, shield boosters, other stuff on it (muti-role). Do this in an Anaconda and instead of the 60ly for an explorer build you will have around 30 or less.

Besides that, great idea to actually be guided while jumping and jumping and jumping towards an anomaly or something out of the ordinary.

 

[WR3ND]

The fact that someone with a prepared ship does such a record is wonderful, but that's not the point here. The fact remains that with a war ship you have under 20ly. Is it ok? What about A classing a ship and put some weapons, shield boosters, other stuff on it (muti-role). Do this in an Anaconda and instead of the 60ly for an explorer build you will have around 30 or less.

Besides that, great idea to actually be guided while jumping and jumping and jumping towards an anomaly or something out of the ordinary.

Yes and no. Engineering for FSD jump range and boosts can be applied to all ships more or less regardless of ship build. Star boosts are the only thing to watch out for since they can cause some damage, but there's no need to bother with them really if you're just going relatively close by (within a few thousand light years) looking for Thargoids or similar.

Current attainable FSD Engineer range boost is +61.2% optimal mass, and its fairly easy to get it and apply it to your ships.

...

I generally go exploring in a fully combat loaded Vulture anyway, but that's just me.

No worries getting out to the Skull and Crossbones Nebula and back.

Spoiler

I've been all over this quadrant of the galaxy just about in that ship numerous times.

 

[jasonbarron]

Correct, the current long range race records are:
Sol - Sag A* = 1hr 55min (Cmdr Alot)
Sol - Colonia = 1hr 47min (me)
Sol - Beagle = 6hr 35min (me) <- Via sag A* at 2hr 25min mark

With the new engineering mods and a better pilot I suspect that the 6h mark can be shredded as well. For 25Kly to Sag A* and the 22Kly to Colonia both Alot and myself averaged 12,500Ly/hr, over 65kly to Beagle as MrFailofactory said I only averaged 10kly/hr (yes your maths is correct ) so there's definitely room for a challenger there!

The statistic I love out of the Colonia race is average time per 1Kly = 4.8 minutes... Ludicrous speed!

But yeah, custom featherweight ship with 72T fuel tank, custom pre-flown route planned out to be as neutron efficient as possible and thats what is possible.

Damn. That's pretty fast.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Do you know how many jumps you guys made? I'd be curious what the average jump ranges were too.
Cheers, and congratulations.

For those times above:
Sag A* run = 115 jumps (217ly average per jump)
Colonia run = 107 jumps (205ly average per jump)
Beagle run = 354 jumps (183ly average per jump)

Not sure what Alot was rocking for the Sag A* but looking at the average it's the best the current engineering offers. My Conda comes in at 62.32Ly on a full 72T tank (pre 3.0 so I will be able to eek a bit more out of it with the new engineering bits).
I must say I do love the statistics side of things like this.. I may be an odd person.