Travel Methods

[avarusbrightfyre]

So, like the auto dock and cruise assist, those that want auto route jump,
just add it onto cruise assist where you can turn it on or off.
That way both sides have the option to use it or not.

I wasn't really talking about an autopilot feature, thought that certainly could be one solution. I'm more talking about a new type of FSD that reduces the number of jumps require. Or even better that interstellar super cruise option that was proposed. It doesn't have to necessarily be completely hands off, just not so grindy. I think Lysette's idea of a module could be applied, as well. Maybe not a new type of FSD, but a new module that improves the way the FSD works. I'd be pretty open to that.

 

[Lysette]

i understood your proposal as a direct flight to the destination in a straight line, if it is in fuel range. Without to use the jump mechanics at all - is my interpretation of it wrong?

 

[avarusbrightfyre]

My original thought was a change in mechanics, very similar to how Arsen described it previously in this thread, but I settled on what you just described because I understand that changing the mechanics probably isn't likely to happen. It isn't my preference, but I'm not going to die on that hill. A more direct jump system is good enough for me.

 

[Spacegamejunkie]

No, options should not come with trade offs, that is why they are called Options.
Just give those of us the option to run a route on auto,
and those who want to do it all manual, the same.
There are times I like to do the manual jump boogie, But also times I want to fast dance to the destination.
Either way should be a choice players can choose while playing.
And it has nothing to do with social justification.

 

[avarusbrightfyre]

I'm sorry

No, options should not come with trade offs, that is why they are called Options.
Just give those of us the option to run a route on auto,
and those who want to do it all manual, the same.
There are times I like to do the manual jump boogie, But also times I want to fast dance to the destination.
Either way should be a choice players can choose while playing.
And it has nothing to do with social justification.

I'm sorry, I honestly don't remember bringing up tradeoffs in our more recent posts. Is there a specific post you're referring to?

 

[Spacegamejunkie]

Not you, avarusbrightfyre
It was Lysette, who thinks there should be some trade off, for a auto route system.
To which I disagree.

 

[avarusbrightfyre]

Not you, avarusbrightfyre
It was Lysette, who thinks there should be some trade off, for a auto route system.
To which I disagree.

Yeah, I get your point, but I just don't remember what post you're referring to. It's helpful to use the quote or reply feature so the original post is included for context.

 

[Lysette]

yes, i mentioned it - in form of the slot size required for that module - like size 3 or 4 for example. Disagreeing is perfectly fine though - we all have our opinion about the matter by different reasons. i don't see it as an auto-jump though, but as a straight line to the destination kind of tool, given the destination is in fuel range. So no way to interrupt it. In a way it would be like ship transfer, which isn't interrupted as well.

 

[Starshot_Jigawatts]

I like the way elite travels as far as systems, they just need improved. Jump range increased big time because it's a joke right now without neutron or injection. And SC speed/time fixed somehow.

 

[Lysette]

i like it too - this suggestion is more for the more experienced players, who want to travel well known routes in a new way. As a tool for everyone from the start, it would not benefit the game IMO. Jump range for beginners is not too bad as well - my little sidewinder jumps 23ly with just 1 FSD upgrade and has a range of roughly 200ly without having to refuel (with 10 fuel units).

 

[CMDR DragonHorn]

There's a game I keep referring to: Starsector. So, there, when you jump from system map (say, Supercruise), you enter Hyperspace, which in ED functions like a fancy loading screen tunnel, where you're invulnerable and can only be pulled by Thargoids, which is scripted event happening in very-very few places. In Starsector you actually travel inside hyperspace on your own, with pretty cool thing, such as "dark clouds", some of the them are quite stormy and can knock you off the course, damage your fleet in the process. While you travel, you can as easily be ganked and initiate combat.

Personally I don't really want it to be a thing in Elite. Too much coding and rewiring whole game. But I just wish more travel methods were possible, as we definitely need alternatives.

I'd be super-happy if there was no speed cap in Supercruise, or well, much higher one, or maybe different kind of FSD, that allows you faster SC travel between systems. Also for Economic Jumps to have any place past beginning of the game, literally so Fastest with Jetcone Boost weren't one and only best travel method. Also for Fuel Tanks to actually be useful. In 99% of regular deep space travel builds, having big Fuel Scoop completely invalidates any reason to have extra Tanks. Also to have any means to actually plan or manage the jumps, better plotter, list goes on and on...

 

[Tikanderoga]

So if I get this right, Instead of jumping from system to system, You start at point A, check your range, say 300Ly, pick a star, then engage the friendship drive. Instead of junk-honk-scoop, you'd just have the tunnel of witch space, from which you could be pulled by pirates and other players. Also this tunnel would then last for x minutes if I understood that right?
While I see the immersion point in this, I also see how this would encourage even more netflix and movie watching.

Currently, to cover the 300Ly, a good explorer ship can cover that in 5 jumps without any Jumponium or Neutron Star. That takes roughly 5 minutes.Arrive, honk, scoop, charge and jump.A good average of 1 minute per star.
In your system, would that mean, that I'd only have to jump once, watch witch space for 5 minutes while I get there?
Based on no interdiction by NPCs, ruling out other players by playing Solo.

 

[Lysette]

seems I just suck at swinging around a star to jump again, whilst you all need just a minute for it - ok, i will practice a little more.

 

[Spacegamejunkie]

Am I the only one who thinks that at this time in the future,
Ships would not have a Auto Route Jump system for long distance travel ?
Seems to me, that would be one of the first implementations to the navigation AI.

 

[Crapulous]

This is a personal opinion post and I in no way expect any change to result from it. It's more of a "what if" kind of thing rather than a call to action, perhaps resulting in a rational discussion between the pros and cons of different versions of travel. Sometimes just ruminating over different ideas generates some pretty cool results.

I personally have never been a big fan of the "jump" version of interstellar travel. My first online space game was Eve Online back when it was new, and one of the more irritating parts of it was having to jump from one system to another and then travel across a system to get to the next gate. Elite removed part of that irritation by not forcing us to travel through each system to get where we're going, and I feel like that was a good decision. However, one good thing about the Eve system was the fact that you were highly likely to be attacked by other players depending on where you were because you were forced to constantly be in a state where others could get to you fairly easily if they really wanted to. In Elite, you're not really in any danger until you reach your destination system and have to supercruise, because you basically stick close to a star and you're out of an enroute system before anyone can really get to you. Pretty boring.

I sort of wish that they had gone with a more Star Trek version of travel. Something like a big instance for interstellar travel that drops you into individual system instances once you arrive at your destination. That sort of thing would make it more possible for people to find you in the middle of your journey and increase the feeling that you're never really safe, which for me at least would generate the sort of looming sense of danger I used to feel back in my Eve days. It would also remove the repetitiveness of jumping over and over between stars, which is one of the primary reasons I tend to get bored and stop playing, because if you're on a single monitor you're stuck just sitting there manually travelling because you'll run into a star if you tab out to maybe watch a video or research something game related. With a more warp drive type of setup, you can just select a system in your fuel range, hit the warp drive, and then sit back and relax, only stopping when you need to fill up again or reach your destination...or when someone yanks you out of warp to rob you.

As I said, this is more about having an interesting discussion and maybe hearing some cool ideas than expecting any change. I understand the lore has established jumping as the norm, but maybe some other improvements might be teased out by thinking about things in a different way.

So if I understand correctly, your original idea is a warp drive that can perform a single jump equal to the total range of your ship given its fuel reserves and FSD capabilities (basically removing the max fuel per jump limit on FSDs). Plus player hyperdictions

The later idea is basically supercruise between star systems at ludicrous speed.

While I think it could be interesting to have other modes of travel, I don't personally like any of these suggested. Why? Because the current system encourages players to congregate in specific places, thus making those places special; whereas the suggestions offered above would do away with that. Think about it... if you wanted to go seal-clubbing, do you go to Deciat (and thus congregate with all the other noob gankers) or do you go to any of the stars on the approach to Deciat (and thus disperse all of the gankers over a wide area)? If you wanted to blockade Felicia Winters' pledges, do you go to Rhea or do you go to one of the other stars around Rhea? If you could hyper-dict a player from almost anywhere, it doesn't really matter where you are. You could be attacked wherever you are, so nowhere would feel particularly safe or particularly dangerous relative to anywhere else; and thus every place feels about the same.

My point is, these places stand out because they hold the potential for greater danger due to the player traffic they attract. Spreading that danger potential around means nowhere would stand out, in this regard at least.

So far I've only used combat examples, so how about an exploration one? Would Colonia feel like a remote outpost if you could get there from Sol in just 22 jumps of 1000 Ly each? And if you could travel between Sol and Colonia in 22 jumps, would people still hang around there for anything other than pinning an Engineer blueprint once? Or would it be just another cluster of stars you could get to with little effort?


You seem pretty fixated on the repetitiveness of the jump sequences, without really thinking of the larger context of the game as a whole. I do agree that this is pretty tedious game play; but I don't agree that it is without purpose. You could look at it as "gentle" encouragement to think of ways around it, by either finding faster routes (jumponium, Neutron Stars, Fleet Carriers, etc) or setting up game play loops for yourself that avoid having to jump so much.

Nevertheless, it's fun to fantasize so how about this... when Stellaris originally launched it featured not one, but three modes of interstellar travel: a warp drive, a system of "hyperspace lanes"; and a wormhole generator. So how about we do something similar in Elite?

The warp drive was similar to the hyperspace jumping we have now, so we're good there

Hyperspace lanes were a system of, well lanes, that were fixed and pre-generated at game start and connected one star to the next one. Whereas a warp drive let you go from any star to any other star within range, hyperspace lanes allowed travel only between linked systems; so for example, if Sol linked to Maia, and Maia linked to Yuanjia (in Witch Head Nebula), you could get from Sol to WHN via this route, but not traveling directly from Sol to Yuanjia. Also you would have to enter hyperspace at the edge of the system you were in, and on the same side as the direction you were traveling in. FDev could introduce something like this to Elite by making a kind of Interstellar Initiative where the goal is for players to find these hyperspace lanes and, once found, anybody could use it.
Since you still have fixed start and end points, individual locales would still important.

And lastly, wormhole generators... this one might be a bit trickier to implement. The way it worked in Stellaris was, you would build the structure at the edge of a system. Once built any friendly ship could use it to jump to any star within range; they could also use it to jump from any star in range to the wormhole generator, even if the starting point didn't have a wormhole generator of its own.
I guess one idea for implementing it would be a kind of a local mini-CG where doing tasks for the local minor faction could result in progress to constructing one of these. Doing it this way would give players a choice as to where to build them, thus preserving the special-ness of places where players would like to congregate.

Looking at the bigger picture, this approach would provide a community-supported method of travel (wormhole generator) and a solo method of travel (warp drive), with a kind of blend of the two with the hyperspace lanes.

What do you think? It's much more involved than your original idea, but it does provide some context and content for the player base.

 

[Spacegamejunkie]

So if I understand correctly, your original idea is a warp drive that can perform a single jump equal to the total range of your ship given its fuel reserves and FSD capabilities (basically removing the max fuel per jump limit on FSDs). Plus player hyperdictions

The later idea is basically supercruise between star systems at ludicrous speed.

While I think it could be interesting to have other modes of travel, I don't personally like any of these suggested. Why? Because the current system encourages players to congregate in specific places, thus making those places special; whereas the suggestions offered above would do away with that. Think about it... if you wanted to go seal-clubbing, do you go to Deciat (and thus congregate with all the other noob gankers) or do you go to any of the stars on the approach to Deciat (and thus disperse all of the gankers over a wide area)? If you wanted to blockade Felicia Winters' pledges, do you go to Rhea or do you go to one of the other stars around Rhea? If you could hyper-dict a player from almost anywhere, it doesn't really matter where you are. You could be attacked wherever you are, so nowhere would feel particularly safe or particularly dangerous relative to anywhere else; and thus every place feels about the same.

My point is, these places stand out because they hold the potential for greater danger due to the player traffic they attract. Spreading that danger potential around means nowhere would stand out, in this regard at least.

So far I've only used combat examples, so how about an exploration one? Would Colonia feel like a remote outpost if you could get there from Sol in just 22 jumps of 1000 Ly each? And if you could travel between Sol and Colonia in 22 jumps, would people still hang around there for anything other than pinning an Engineer blueprint once? Or would it be just another cluster of stars you could get to with little effort?


You seem pretty fixated on the repetitiveness of the jump sequences, without really thinking of the larger context of the game as a whole. I do agree that this is pretty tedious game play; but I don't agree that it is without purpose. You could look at it as "gentle" encouragement to think of ways around it, by either finding faster routes (jumponium, Neutron Stars, Fleet Carriers, etc) or setting up game play loops for yourself that avoid having to jump so much.

Nevertheless, it's fun to fantasize so how about this... when Stellaris originally launched it featured not one, but three modes of interstellar travel: a warp drive, a system of "hyperspace lanes"; and a wormhole generator. So how about we do something similar in Elite?

The warp drive was similar to the hyperspace jumping we have now, so we're good there

Hyperspace lanes were a system of, well lanes, that connected one star to the next one. Whereas a warp drive let you go from any star to any other star within range, hyperspace lanes allowed travel only between linked systems; so for example, if Sol linked to Maia, and Maia linked to Yuanjia (in Witch Head Nebula), you could get from Sol to WHN via this route, but not traveling directly from Sol to Yuanjia. Also you would have to enter hyperspace at the edge of the system you were in, and on the same side as the direction you were traveling in. FDev could introduce something like this to Elite by making a kind of Interstellar Initiative where the goal is for players to find these hyperspace lanes and, once found, anybody could use it.
Since you still have fixed start and end points, individual locales would still important.

And lastly, wormhole generators... this one might be a bit trickier to implement. The way it worked in Stellaris was, you would build the structure at the edge of a system. Once built any friendly ship could use it to jump to any star within range; they could also use it to jump from any star in range to the wormhole generator, even if the starting point didn't have a wormhole generator of its own.
I guess one idea for implementing it would be a kind of a local mini-CG where doing tasks for the local minor faction could result in progress to constructing one of these. Doing it this way would give players a choice as to where to build them, thus preserving the special-ness of places where players would like to congregate.

Looking at the bigger picture, this approach would provide a community-supported method of travel (wormhole generator) and a solo method of travel (warp drive), with a kind of blend of the two with the hyperspace lanes.

What do you think? It's much more involved than your original idea, but it does provide some context and content for the player base.

You come up with some great ideas,
But I am only saying, add a Auto Follow Route to Destination, Jumping mechanic to the game.
So that I can do other things while traveling long distances, even if only enjoying the view,
without having to Babysit each and every jump.

Even using the Ship transfer system to take you to your destination would be a good option.
Where you pick your destination, then enter cryo sleep, and wake up when you arrive.

 

[Lysette]

well, I'm not likely to use it anyway, but a similar mechanism to the transfer system would be ok imo - maybe in offline mode at the end of the playing session, that one is at the destination when playing again - eventually just to systems already visited before. Don't know if the game keeps long time records of visited systems or not.

my personal opinion is - if I'm not in the mood to fly spaceships, then I'm just playing something else or do something irl. And if I'm in the mood, I don't mind swinging around stars with every jump.

then again, overcoming distances is a big part of the game - like going to deep space for weeks and back - that is an achievement due to distance covered.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

The travel mechanics in Elite Dangerous are perfect and so cannot be improved.

If you don’t like how it works, don’t play the game, and especially don’t suggest ways to make things better.

Any kind of suggestion is silly, but particularly if basing the suggestion off travel mechanics from other space games or movies. Why don’t you go play the other game instead of trying to bring learnings from it to benefit ED? ED is not that other game!

Admit it, you just want fast travel. Fast travel is the Devil because space is big.

Why don’t you just watch something while doing the repetitive jump-honk-scoop loop? It’s not the game’s job to entertain you.

Why don’t we just have an autopilot for everything in the game? The botters will thank you for it.

You don’t understand the established lore or the science behind the travel modes in the game, to which gameplay considerations should definitely take a back seat.

Let me grab some popcorn.

The above summary is dedicated to anyone brave enough to have made a travel related suggestion on these forums, or even broached the topic. I salute you CMDR. o7

 

[Crapulous]

You come up with some great ideas,
But I am only saying, add a Auto Follow Route to Destination, Jumping mechanic to the game.
So that I can do other things while traveling long distances, even if only enjoying the view,
without having to Babysit each and every jump.

Even using the Ship transfer system to take you to your destination would be a good option.
Where you pick your destination, then enter cryo sleep, and wake up when you arrive.

This sounds a lot like the Apex Interstellar (and maybe physical multi-crew) that will come with Odyssey, at least in an abstract sense.

FDev doesn't seem too keen on adding this sort of automation mechanic you suggest (see also: loading of tritium in fleet carriers, plotting of routes using FSD boosts, and in fleet carriers, etc.). I would hazard to guess this is because it brings us to being one step removed from simply doing away with the travel mechanic entirely.

Here's a thought experiment: Let's say you wanted to get a Corvette to the California sector from Sol, because of a combat CG happening there tomorrow. There's a number of ways of going about it. You can get there faster by using a Guardian FSD booster if you give up a module slot that might go to an HRP instead. You can use neutron boosts, if you are willing to chart out a path that takes you close to those specific types of stars. You can use jumponium if you farm up the mats for it.

With the system we have now, navigation is an active process that requires preparation and forethought on the part of the player. With the addition of this Auto Follow Route, none of this is necessary: just set a course for the destination and log off, or alt-tab. I get that a lot of what I mention above is tedious to some players that just want to get to their destination, but as I mentioned in my earlier post that tedium is not without purpose.

Also: I have to ask, what view are you enjoying on these long distance trips? Aren't you just jumping from one star to the next as soon as the FSD cooldown is up?

 

[Crapulous]

There's a game I keep referring to: Starsector. So, there, when you jump from system map (say, Supercruise), you enter Hyperspace, which in ED functions like a fancy loading screen tunnel, where you're invulnerable and can only be pulled by Thargoids, which is scripted event happening in very-very few places. In Starsector you actually travel inside hyperspace on your own, with pretty cool thing, such as "dark clouds", some of the them are quite stormy and can knock you off the course, damage your fleet in the process. While you travel, you can as easily be ganked and initiate combat.

Personally I don't really want it to be a thing in Elite. Too much coding and rewiring whole game. But I just wish more travel methods were possible, as we definitely need alternatives.

I'd be super-happy if there was no speed cap in Supercruise, or well, much higher one, or maybe different kind of FSD, that allows you faster SC travel between systems. Also for Economic Jumps to have any place past beginning of the game, literally so Fastest with Jetcone Boost weren't one and only best travel method. Also for Fuel Tanks to actually be useful. In 99% of regular deep space travel builds, having big Fuel Scoop completely invalidates any reason to have extra Tanks. Also to have any means to actually plan or manage the jumps, better plotter, list goes on and on...

You know I just started looking into what the supercruise speed caps actually are. I'm not that far along with it yet, but from what I gather it is based on distance from the local star and that star's radius. Within 140 Ls there is a big drop off in the speed cap. Beyond 140 Ls, if you are traveling away from the star it's just a linear function with distance as the input variable; if you are traveling towards the star, it's a power function of the form:

Speed Limit = 0.25 * Distance^Star Radius

There's still a lot of testing I need to do, though. Including figuring out what that orange disk is in the orrery view and if it has any impact on anything whatsoever (got any ideas?).

As for lifting the speed caps (whatever they might actually be), since I like to tinker with ship builds I think it would be cool if you could build specifically for faster speeds with some trade-offs in other areas. For example, making your supercruise speed cap related to the rating of your FSD and how closely your ship is to its optimized mass; so you'd have to decide between longer hyperspace jumps or higher supercruise speeds (or supercruise acceleration)


As for fuel tanks, I'm actually in a situation where that might be useful to me right about now: jumping from neutron star to neutron star. Since you can't refuel at these stars, I have to add in an extra regular jump after every 4-5 boosted jump to get more fuel. If I had a fuel tank that let me get 10 jumps before having to refuel, that would cut the number of extra jumps needed in half

A bit of a niche use-case, but useful if you are traveling in the right places.