unlock? Screw that nonsense.
Unlock speed limit and gravity for everything
- Thread starter amadeus1171
- Start date
The speed limit is in game due to networking issues, it will never be lifted unless the WWW suddenly gets a LOT faster.
Simple fact is as you get faster you start to outpace the rate at which the network can accurately report your position, your game client already uses some predictions based on speed and vector the further out these two variable get the more chance there is players will be rubber banding and teleporting all over the place.
So get used to the speed limit, it's pretty much a permanent fixture and will have to stay in game.
The gravity well of a planet effecting your ship is based on the supposed way that the FSD works, it's a good mechanic, if you use it right you can use it to sling shot around large objects and get a decent speed boost.
Simple fact is as you get faster you start to outpace the rate at which the network can accurately report your position, your game client already uses some predictions based on speed and vector the further out these two variable get the more chance there is players will be rubber banding and teleporting all over the place.
So get used to the speed limit, it's pretty much a permanent fixture and will have to stay in game.
The gravity well of a planet effecting your ship is based on the supposed way that the FSD works, it's a good mechanic, if you use it right you can use it to sling shot around large objects and get a decent speed boost.
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I think of it as:
Our ship computers won't let us fly any faster than a certain speed (even with FA off) because it would be too dangerous near a station or in an asteroid field.
Our ship computers won't let us fly any faster than a certain speed (even with FA off) because it would be too dangerous near a station or in an asteroid field.
Hello, Amadeus1171. 
Whilst I'm definitely on the side of simulationy things generally equalling more goodness, I fear you haven't put forward a particularly compelling case, in this instance. It seems like the only really interesting thing this idea offers is a diegetic explanation for the flight model, which seems a fairly limited benefit when set against the cost of it's development. Perhaps if you were to consider further and discuss more kinds of new gameplay that this might enable, it might gain more traction.
Bear in mind that - as you're probably aware and as I understand it - ED's current conceptual paradigm is intended to be one of real-world-achievable, near-future technology, or at least as far as the devs can get away with it. No AG tech currently exists in game - this is why we have rotating space-stations, no tractor beams and no inertial dampeners. I think you'll need a very strong argument to get gravity generators into ED.
I can see some useful applications coming out of this - modules for increasing or decreasing mass-lock being the most obvious - but it doesn't really seem like enough for the work involved. It needs better and more innovative ideas, I think.
- - - - -
In the absence of this idea, there are a number of ways to articulate reasons for the flight model, reasons which don't conflict with the current conceptual tech model and which don't require the development of new modules and systems.
PlungedSphere34's idea of computer limitation makes sense. I envisage some ancient, ludicrously-overpowered bureaucracy, senile with centuries of unchallenged power, imposing all sorts of random and inexplicable limitations on our ships' behaviour. In the spirit of naming conventions seen in earlier versions of Elite, I'll call it the AE35 Installation-Manual Finance And Quality-Assurance Symposium, or AIMFAQAS for short.
Can't understand why our ships have a speed limit? It's a rule imposed by AIMFAQAS.
Can't turn your ship quickly enough on the yaw axis? AIMFAQAS.
No idea why your favourite weapon / ship / other thing suddenly got nerfed half-way to oblivion? AIMFAQAS.
Works for me!
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Alternatively, we could simply say the galaxy is filled with some mysterious substance that arbitrarily inhibits the real-space movement of any object that's travelled through hyperspace, something which applies to most things we can interact with in game - and to almost everything that everything else is made from.
Presumably, the jump into and out of hyperspace - or even into the strange seemingly-FTL-state seen in SuperCruise - would create large amounts of exotic entangled particle-pairs, one half of which would be in real space, the other in hyperspace.
It's pure SF, obviously, but it's not too hard to imagine such a material imposing strange effects on our ships and other things, once they re-enter a more normal sub-light frame of reference. Given the numbers of players and NPCs running around, it presumably wouldn't take too long for such particles to saturate the known galaxy.
This theory has the added benefit of perhaps providing the beginnings of an explanation for why laser beams vanish into nothing after travelling only a few kilometres. It'll take a contributor somewhat sharper than myself - and better-travelled in physics - to explain precisely why, however.
I'm not certain what to call the curious material. Handwavium seems a little bit on-the-nose, as names go. Perhaps Insidium - that's quite a nice name, I think.
Whilst I'm definitely on the side of simulationy things generally equalling more goodness, I fear you haven't put forward a particularly compelling case, in this instance. It seems like the only really interesting thing this idea offers is a diegetic explanation for the flight model, which seems a fairly limited benefit when set against the cost of it's development. Perhaps if you were to consider further and discuss more kinds of new gameplay that this might enable, it might gain more traction.
Bear in mind that - as you're probably aware and as I understand it - ED's current conceptual paradigm is intended to be one of real-world-achievable, near-future technology, or at least as far as the devs can get away with it. No AG tech currently exists in game - this is why we have rotating space-stations, no tractor beams and no inertial dampeners. I think you'll need a very strong argument to get gravity generators into ED.
I can see some useful applications coming out of this - modules for increasing or decreasing mass-lock being the most obvious - but it doesn't really seem like enough for the work involved. It needs better and more innovative ideas, I think.
- - - - -
In the absence of this idea, there are a number of ways to articulate reasons for the flight model, reasons which don't conflict with the current conceptual tech model and which don't require the development of new modules and systems.
PlungedSphere34's idea of computer limitation makes sense. I envisage some ancient, ludicrously-overpowered bureaucracy, senile with centuries of unchallenged power, imposing all sorts of random and inexplicable limitations on our ships' behaviour. In the spirit of naming conventions seen in earlier versions of Elite, I'll call it the AE35 Installation-Manual Finance And Quality-Assurance Symposium, or AIMFAQAS for short.
Can't understand why our ships have a speed limit? It's a rule imposed by AIMFAQAS.
Can't turn your ship quickly enough on the yaw axis? AIMFAQAS.
No idea why your favourite weapon / ship / other thing suddenly got nerfed half-way to oblivion? AIMFAQAS.
Works for me!
- - - - -
Alternatively, we could simply say the galaxy is filled with some mysterious substance that arbitrarily inhibits the real-space movement of any object that's travelled through hyperspace, something which applies to most things we can interact with in game - and to almost everything that everything else is made from.
Presumably, the jump into and out of hyperspace - or even into the strange seemingly-FTL-state seen in SuperCruise - would create large amounts of exotic entangled particle-pairs, one half of which would be in real space, the other in hyperspace.
It's pure SF, obviously, but it's not too hard to imagine such a material imposing strange effects on our ships and other things, once they re-enter a more normal sub-light frame of reference. Given the numbers of players and NPCs running around, it presumably wouldn't take too long for such particles to saturate the known galaxy.
This theory has the added benefit of perhaps providing the beginnings of an explanation for why laser beams vanish into nothing after travelling only a few kilometres. It'll take a contributor somewhat sharper than myself - and better-travelled in physics - to explain precisely why, however.
I'm not certain what to call the curious material. Handwavium seems a little bit on-the-nose, as names go. Perhaps Insidium - that's quite a nice name, I think.
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