Update 18.04 | Python MK II

[V'larr]

There has to be a floor that is reasonably easy for everyone to reach, for balance purposes. The floor is just over 15 seconds (probably the full standard duration of the witchspace animation), currently, no matter how fast one's system is or how low one's settings are. If it were significantly shorter, then those with powerful systems would have an unassailable advantage in distance travel and pursuit.

For example, with settings that significantly harmed loading times (which I often use away from nebulae where they don't have this negative effect), I've been in situations where I went from being able to escape from essentially any encounter with a high-wake then forced drop as usual, to occasionally not even finishing loading the system until after those chasing my CMDR were already there.



If I'm not enamored with the idea a long SC trip at the time, I can and do select destinations that don't involve them. That's part of the point; one is rarely required to make those longer treks. There are more stations than I've ever been to that are within a couple hundred LS of the parent star.

On the other hand, I suppose one doesn't need to jump frequently either.



I've spent ~270 hours in witchspace on my CMDR in the live game since the gamma reset. I would not be surprised if I've spent two or three times as long in SC, but I'm doubtful it's much more than that. Most of my flying is done in normal space.



Honestly, I feel more in control with a HOTAS in pretty much any scenario. No matter how much I try, even if I eventually get pretty decent with KBM, I never really feel like I've got the same connection to the ship...probably because I don't. With a full HOTAS setup, all six degrees of motion have their own analog axis (if not more than one) and I never have to move my hands or feet from them. Fine aim is sometimes tricky with the thousands of hours I've got on these old controls, but for anything else the ship is almost an extension of my body.

If anything SC interferes with that a bit as many of the controls don't work in SC.

I'm pretty dubious that witch space duration would be deliberately inflated solely for PvP scenario & Buckyball balance purposes? It's a stretch - much more likely it's just a technical-limitation-safety-net, both for server/connection chicanery and any client-side optimization issues, and the supposed benefit for PvP thing is just sort of a happy accident (and this is of course presuming no interference from anything else that could interrupt chasing players from system to system - instancing/packet/socket/multi-waking/block-feature, I'm probably missing a few more).

Bit of a tangent to a tangent here, but I do miss the way the witch tunnel looked in the olden times, I never understood why it got changed. Would duration stuff have been part of the reason why they did see fit to mess with it?

Anyhow - if it is true that witchspace has indeed been artificially lengthened more than necessary for most players, then in my book that could be about as bad, design-choice-wise, as keeping us stuck with the supercruise travel rate cap we've had up until now.

If you, a self-professed short-jaunter, can acknowledge you probably have spent more time in supercruise, then my point there is how much more that is for average folk - let alone any of us with a particularly obsessive approach to exploring

~
side-note:
With how non-intensive anywhere in supercruise is, can you be sure that some higher graphics settings would have that severe an affect on your load time for jumping into a new system and that it wasn't some network hiccup? I mean after Odyssey... who really knows anymore, but performance-wise - even on my prior machine and the 'gaming laptop' I had before that, I don't recall that kind of experience; only station interiors and surface/Odyssey things. (And if so, what settings are the culprit? share with the class and all that)
~

To be blunt, I am flatly opposed to the idea that good gaming involves a design that you are supposed to avoid things, and that should mean they be intentionally tedious to mess with. Why include all these destinations and playable spaces in the galaxy, if you would just effectively make them unplayable through timegating?

Think of the impact to come on Inara, the BGS, and future CGs, with so many more accessible markets - or how many more systems you might bother putting your name on a far-off moon to 'sign the guestbook' for other players to enjoy if they ever stumble across and take a peek, when each such visit doesn't take you 30 minutes to an hour extra?

I see many more tangible upsides to not leaving things in a state such that players are generally compelled to avoid things that are in the game, and few-to-none at all to
maintaining that kind of status quo. Let it become a worthwhile option and possible new destination, rather than something nobody should consider doing in the first place. Y'know? Kinda goes for many things in Elite (knocking on wood that the biggest offenders get knocked out of the park later this year [or likely into the next, if being real about it]).

A sort of a give and take, then, with the HOTAS-in-SC theory, that's fair enough. I've stuck with KB/M all this while, and while I think I have fine-tuned things nicely (Fdev, when oh when are you going to make sensible default bindings for newer players?), it can get tricky to do complex maneuvering, and I don't see myself competing for the next big flawless reddit canyon racing video any day soon. Like you point out though, precise aim is an upside.

 

[Jack Brolin]

Apart from the slight Thargoid war breaking, this was a good update. SCO really opened up the galaxy. Nice work.

 

[Shurimal]

Yesterday I had a mission 135000 ls away from the main star. SCO is the perfect way supercruise travel times can be shortened. It's precisely the "something to do" in transit since you can't just activate it and twiddle your thumbs until you get there—you need to apply it carefully to not overheat, run out of fuel or overshoot your destination. IMO the best addition to the game in the 4.0 era

 

[Morbad]

I'm pretty dubious that witch space duration would be deliberately inflated solely for PvP scenario & Buckyball balance purposes? It's a stretch - much more likely it's just a technical-limitation-safety-net, both for server/connection chicanery and any client-side optimization issues, and the supposed benefit for PvP thing is just sort of a happy accident (and this is of course presuming no interference from anything else that could interrupt chasing players from system to system - instancing/packet/socket/multi-waking/block-feature, I'm probably missing a few more).

I'm not sure why such a safety net would be needed. The hyperspace animation can be extended indefinitely to handle delays, client side or otherwise. The only reason I can think of to have a minimum floor for it's duration is gameplay. PvP and Buckyballing are hardly the only situations where hyperspace travel can skew outcomes, just the more dramatic ones.

Anyhow - if it is true that witchspace has indeed been artificially lengthened more than necessary for most players, then in my book that could be about as bad, design-choice-wise, as keeping us stuck with the supercruise travel rate cap we've had up until now.

I don't feel that a player's hardware should influence their travel times. Some sort of floor for the duration of hard transitions, where such transitions are required, has to exist in a multiplayer game.

If you, a self-professed short-jaunter, can acknowledge you probably have spent more time in supercruise, then my point there is how much more that is for average folk - let alone any of us with a particularly obsessive approach to exploring

Average folk are probably short-jaunters as well. Players who don't like long SC trips quickly learn not to take them. I'd wager the main difference between me an these more average players is total time spent played.

That said, I'm sure there are significant number of players who have spent a lot of time in SC and are frustrated by SC travel.

With how non-intensive anywhere in supercruise is, can you be sure that some higher graphics settings would have that severe an affect on your load time for jumping into a new system and that it wasn't some network hiccup?

Yes.

Network hiccups in loading new systems generally don't cause the frame rate to fall during hyperspace transitions. The overwhelming bottleneck is the generation of the skybox from the galaxy map. This is quite repeatable and very testable.

what settings are the culprit? share with the class and all that

These are the main culprits:

    <GalaxyBackground>
        <High>
            <TextureSize>4096</TextureSize>
        </High>
    </GalaxyBackground>
    <GalaxyMap>
        <High>
            <HighResNebulasCount>4</HighResNebulasCount>
            <HighResNebulaDimensions>1024</HighResNebulaDimensions>
            <HighResSamplesCount>112</HighResSamplesCount>
        </High>
    </GalaxyMap>

A certain distance from nebulae, rendering the GalaxyBackground/skybox is easy almost anywhere, dependent mostly on the texture size alone. However within a certain range of nebulae, they become treated as high-res and dominate the work that has to be done to draw the skybox.

The settings above are about the highest I can run on an RTX 4090 in an area with all four high res nebulae rendered before it starts to negatively impact loading times. Slower cards usually need to go lower on the nebulae count, dimensions, and/or texture size. Sample count should not be reduced much (the default is already higher) or noticeable visual artifacts start to emerge...it's better to reduce their count or dimensions to save performance.

If you go to an area with sufficiently close nebulae like Barnard's Loop or Colonia then start jacking up these settings, you'll eventually reach a point where hyperspace loading times are significantly inflated. Likewise, if one's hyperspace animation is above that 15-18 second floor, reducing these figures will probably speed it up.

To be blunt, I am flatly opposed to the idea that good gaming involves a design that you are supposed to avoid things, and that should mean they be intentionally tedious to mess with. Why include all these destinations and playable spaces in the galaxy, if you would just effectively make them unplayable through timegating?

I don't think they are intentionally tedious (the lack of stuff to do in SC is almost certainly an omission, or a side-effect of other cuts, not a deliberate design choice), nor do I believe long travel times make things unplayable.

Think of the impact to come on Inara, the BGS, and future CGs, with so many more accessible markets - or how many more systems you might bother putting your name on a far-off moon to 'sign the guestbook' for other players to enjoy if they ever stumble across and take a peek, when each such visit doesn't take you 30 minutes to an hour extra?

Travel time is a constraint like any other. It's obvious that without the constraint things would be different, but such a difference is not automatically desirable. A lot more people would go to Beagle Point if all you had to do was click on the galaxy map and teleport over...but Beagle Point exists precisely because it was originally a pain to reach. If you want an SC specific example, I recall a CG that took place 250k ls from the system entry point, which was a long enough trip to strongly disincentivise high-waking to escape battles; it radically changed the tactics of those I was playing with and against. This is the kind of variety I would lose (and indeed have already lost as 'QoL' features have erased a large part of the game I once enjoyed) if travel was always quick and easy.

Personally, I like that some places are out of the way and difficult to reach. I'd like the nature of that difficulty to involve more than just time (the lack of interactivity in longer SC trips is a problem), but time is better than nothing, as it provides a sense of scale and pacing.

 

[CMDR VitalyNcr]

Is Venom Claret Paint Job unique and obtainable only with the pre-built Python Mk II Stellar (and will always be that way)?

 

[aRJay]

Is Venom Claret Paint Job unique and obtainable only with the pre-built Python Mk II Stellar

Currently yes.

(and will always be that way)?

Maybe.

 

[SergMx]

Sorry, I haven't followed the whole thread but I want to ask a simple question.
For example: I bought a Stellar (Python Mk2) for 33k, and decided to start the game again, change my nickname and reset my progress (if I'm a newbie, I have no progress).
I will immediately have my Mk2 ?

 

[Jack Winter]

Yes, just like anything else you've bought with ARX.

 

[Saltyseadog]

I bought my Python MKII standard version at Explorers Anchorage after reaching Sagittarius X in my fleet carrier. Now I am on my way to Colonia and use the Python MKII in the meantime for scanning, mapping and exploring surrounding systems to my carrier. On returning to my carrier I found that I never need to repair the Python MKII as I did with my other ships but thought this was maybe a bonus of the build. The last two days on entering a new system I get a series of messages along the lines, " fuel at 20%", "fuel running low", "out of fuel" etc. However I have plenty of fuel and as I wait for the DSS to scan the ship my fuel scoop is filling up the tank, so I am thinking this must be a bug or something. I did a search here on the subject but found nothing so rather than open a new thread though I might ask on this already existing one?.

 

[vlazet]

Did anyone notice a silent arx price increase for the standard python mk2? it was announced to be priced at 16250 but now it's selling for 16520. Did someone at fdev switcha a couple digits around?

 

[Aleks Zuno]

Did anyone notice a silent arx price increase for the standard python mk2? it was announced to be priced at 16250 but now it's selling for 16520. Did someone at fdev switcha a couple digits around?

If I check my Arx history using the "User portal", the Python 2 entry always was −16520, if it helps to know!

 

[vlazet]

If I check my Arx history using the "User portal", the Python 2 entry always was −16520, if it helps to know!

https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/python-mk-ii-updates-gamestore
said it's going to be 16250
Plus the same number was mention in a miriad other websites, so it's stuck in my mind.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/python-mk-ii-updates-gamestore
said it's going to be 16250

I see that! I think that the announcement always was 16250, and that the store page and actual purchase always was 16520.

 

[SergMx]

I think in August this purchase will disappear from the store, I wonder if Stellar will stay there ?

 

[Aleks Zuno]

I think in August this purchase will disappear from the store, I wonder if Stellar will stay there ?

Both the normal and the Stellar are also pre-built starships, though—my guess is that Frontier would retain the ability to buy the standard deployable Python 2, despite the Shipyard access becoming available to all. Almost certainly the Stellar remains, that being a simple combat pre-built starship with special paint and kit.

I guess further that Frontier probably would not worry about reducing the price to account for the Shipyard access being not exclusive; probably it just becomes 16520 Arx for a deployable Python 2. If I was Frontier and I wanted to reduce the price, I would have chosen the final price then reduced it gradually each month; for example, if the final price should be ~10000 I would have made it ~14000 this month, ~12000 next month then finally ~10000 in August.

 

[vlazet]

I see that! I think that the announcement always was 16250, and that the store page and actual purchase always was 16520.

be as it may, it's a problem for their marketing team. The lower price was announced and widely publicized but then quietly and with no explanation changed when it hits the store. This sort of tactic is called "bait-and-switch" which is illegal in many countries. Fdev's only saving grace it's arx and not actual money making this a grey area, otherwise they might found themselves in court for such shenanigans.

 

[Jumpin' Jack Flash]

Hi

be as it may, it's a problem for their marketing team. The lower price was announced and widely publicized but then quietly and with no explanation changed when it hits the store. This sort of tactic is called "bait-and-switch" which is illegal in many countries. Fdev's only saving grace it's arx and not actual money making this a grey area, otherwise they might found themselves in court for such shenanigans.

Whatever the reasons, Frontier aren't doing themselves any favours in not correcting the obvious discrepancy.
Quote :- "However, if you cannot wait until then you can get 3-month early access to this ship on 7 May from the store for 16250 ARX."

It's now June 16th.

Jack

 

[Kimosabe_X]

Ah cooome oooon, it's just another little typo...

/s

 

[aRJay]

I think in August this purchase will disappear from the store, I wonder if Stellar will stay there ?

As the Python Mk2 is an Odyssey ship Horizons(live) players can only get it from the Arx store. The Stellar is much more likely to go if either of them do.

 

[SergMx]

As the Python Mk2 is an Odyssey ship Horizons(live) players can only get it from the Arx store. The Stellar is much more likely to go if either of them do.

I don't get it.
Regular PythonMk2 will be available for regular credits and no one will spend ARXs on it.
Stellar will be bought with ARXs to reduce the insurance for the ship when it is destroyed.