Wings feedback + Suggestions

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
Ok, I'm fairly new to ED, and very new to wings, as most people don't even reply to hello, let alone wing requests.
But here's some feedback on the current state of things from a newbie perspective.
First off, Instancing! Me and 2 others had major issues getting in to the same instance while in a wing. That just shouldn't happen, ever. We even joined wings several 100ly apart and met up. So it wasn't that we was all in the same place, but different instance to begin with.
The Nav-lock issue is annoying too. If you get left behind for any reason, and try to catch up. You will just keep randomly dropping out of SC until you turn it off.
And lastly, my most important suggestion, is wing jump ranges.
Either, nav-locking should restrict all ships to the ship with lowest jump range in the current system. Or, nav-locking should actually buff jump ranges so everyone can fly together. Because 'science'. Lol it can be worked out as an average or something.
As an example, a Python trader ship can jump at least 13.8ly from my experience (none). But my combat FDL which was running escort could only manage 12.3ly. Either nav-locking should restrict the Python down to 12.3ly, buff the FDL to 13.8 or meet roughly in the middle at 13.05ly.
Either way, wings needs some love. Lol

Thoughts?
 

Kisvakond

Kisvakond
My mates and I have been using nav-lock and we like the idea. However it could see some improvement. It's working like an FSD wake analyzer, one wingman jumps and the everyone else in the wing can follow him/her. If the others aren't following the first one asap, they will fall behind in the next system because the first wingman already gained speed in supercruise after arriving. Additionally, since the following wingmen can only charge their FSDs when the first one left, there's a time gap inevitable. The more jumps your wing makes, the bigger that gap becomes (as the leading wingman's FSD wake will be out of range after 2-3 jumps), up to a point, where the leader can't be followed for the next jump. Followers will have a different FSD charging time as well.

Nav-lock would be really an awesome way for team flight with only some minimum changes like:
* Ships that have at leat one slave ship (-> someone nav-locked it), would have a route planning option (checkmark) that calculates with the least jump range of the nav-locked ships
* FSD charging and jump is synced (-> all nav-locked ships charge/jump at the same time) if the slave ships are in close formation (given proximity and a direction not inappropiate for the target system), considering the slowest FSD charge of the wing. The leader initiates the charge/jump (in case all ships can jump etc.), otherwise a warning informs why unsuccessful.
* Option (e.g. in wingman menu) to limit acceleration so that all the nav-lock ships can keep up.
* Auto-drop from FSD in case nav-lock master/slave wingman is interdicted.
* These close-formation functions could be enabled/disabled on demand.

All these would make it awesome! :D

Cheers
 

Kisvakond

Kisvakond
CMDR Byr Goefin said:
Hey, maybe your lead could use a little common sense and wait for people.

Just sayin'
Click to expand...

It's not the lead's fault. The current implementation has some issues, that I'm about to report. After a couple of jumps the bug makes it impossible for me to follow the lead even if he's waiting..

The suggested changes above are of minimum effort (I'm a swdev).
 

CMDR Byr Goefin

C
Kisvakond said:
It's not the lead's fault. The current implementation has some issues, that I'm about to report. After a couple of jumps the bug makes it impossible for me to follow the lead even if he's waiting..

The suggested changes above are of minimum effort (I'm a swdev).
Click to expand...


So? I am an IT Architect.

the problem is not programming, it is misuse.
 

Kisvakond

Kisvakond
Another funny thing to mention with nav-lock flights and destination SC drop-outs. When wingmen are nav-locked to the lead and the lead exits SC when reaching the destination starport, followers will be dropped out 20 km away from the station, no matter how close they were. This is annoying because you have to boost to the station if you want to catch up with your friends. This behaviour forces followers to switch targets to the destination station just before arriving. I that case you drop out about 8km away as usual.

I could image dropping out e.g. 8.5 kms or 9.0 kms as well. Why 20km? :(
 

CMDR Byr Goefin

C
Kisvakond said:
From my side I've provided constructive feedback (-> bug in the current implementation) and suggestions for improvement (-> end-user experience).

Let's stick to the original topic.

Best Regards
Click to expand...
\

That is where we disagree, you are misusing the feature, it is not a bug.

Just because it does not work the way you want it to, it is not a bug, and you should know that.

It is a feature enhancement request.
 

Kisvakond

Kisvakond
Hey,

Just two things.
1. Just take a look at the very next post (-> bug report).
2. Read the title of the thread. The object of the thread is to make comments about the wing features, not the people giving feedback.

Have a nice day.
 

Kisvakond

Kisvakond
Kisvakond said:
...
I could image dropping out e.g. 8.5 kms or 9.0 kms as well. Why 20km? :(
Click to expand...

Well, yesterday I had my first pointless death purely because of this. I dropped out of SC in nav-lock, 20 km away from the station an 12 km away from my wingman, who was docking already. 20 km is outside the no-fire zone so guess what. Pirates. 20 km away from a friendly station. Before I was realizing what happens, I was shot to pieces. The wingman didn't have a chance to come back and help out. Normally when you drop out 20 km away you boost, thus losing you ability to turn... The point of flying in wings is having extra protection compared to solo flight.

Another issue that makes me turn off nav-lock, dropping me out with Safe Disengage at 8 km, in the no-fire zone.
 

Kisvakond

Kisvakond
Suggestion to wingman trading (I think some others might have already mention it but the forum search either didn't like this topic, either no serch results, no relevant results or search term too short etc.).

I would try out mining with my buddies, but the 5% trade diviend is not too much for our friends sitting and waiting in fighters. It's not so common to find painite or osmium that can give a fat share to wingmen on the Bulletin Board.
Another thing we want to test out is splitting mining tasks between ships (one cuts with superb mining lasers and one with big capacity, collects/refines).

So straight to the point: having the ability to change the trade diviend (e.g. +/- 5% options in the wing menu) would be possible? It is up to the wing creator to decide how much % is given to wingmen.
Even if this would impact the game ecnonomy (as does any exploiting, bugfixing, nerfing etc.), the diviend could be capped ( e.g., (100 / (count(wingmen))) % ). Any rational reasons against it?

There is already a way to transfer funds (playing catch-a-canister :D) so we might as well play it the rational way, letting players doing profit, to decide how much profit they want to share with wing members.

This would promote the role-playing part as some don't like c-a-c and just happy with mining in some asteroid belts.

Any thoughts about this one?
 

Duedy

Duedy
I had a thought. if while in wings a player with the higher Jump range can increase the range of a wingman when jumping together.

It would work like this. A lead ship can only overdrive their FSD for ships smaller than itself. Ie No explora build asps helping Corvettes jump 30 ly. but an asp explora can help an eagle or hauler jump 30ly.

The follower lets say can jump 10ly on 1 ton of fuel (keeping maths simple). the lead can jump 20ly for 2 tons of fuel. The follower in the wing selects FSD tethering. The lead selects a system (20ly away) to jump to and engages fsd then both enters jump and arrives together 20ly away.

The trade off is this. The lead ship has to cover the extra distance of the follower in fuel + (10% follower fuel use to both ships) so the lead ship to make the jump needs 2 tons for their jump 1 ton for lead ship over jump the additional 10ly and an extra 0.1 ton for overcharging FSD Totaling 3.1 ton of fuel for lead and 1.1 ton of fuel for follower. Also FSD cooldown is longer than normal, maybe same as failing interdiction or emergency drop out.

Structural integrity is hit abit for each jump to represent the extra stress on the ships.

Each lead ship in a wing adds to leads fuel use.

This means 2 identical followers for the same jump would cost the lead ship 6.2 tons for the jump and 1.1 ton for each follower.

Alternatively the 10% extra could be scaled with class of drive on both ships. So A class 10% scaling up E class at %15.

The lead ship fuel indicator will show the additional fuel cost as a different colour on the fuel gauge.

What do you guys think?
 

MONTItheRed

M
WING HYPERSPACE JUMPING

In my experience the wing nav-lock is working as intended. During the new year's fireworks CG, a friend and I were able to do over 1000 Ly of jumps in wing without dropping instance, outpacing, or dropping nav-lock.

PREP FOR DEPARTURE
In wing, designate one CMDR as lead, all other wingmen nav lock this CMDR.
Before jumping, the wing forms up with lead at point, all players reduce throttle to idle and start charging FSD. All wingmen should get a blue alert saying something to the point of "high energy FSD wake detected".

DEPARTURE
When lead has hyperdrive fully charged, query wingmen.
When all wingmen check in as FSDs charged, lead throttles up and jumps. All wingmen then throttle up and jump on lead's FSD wake.

ARRIVAL
Lead drops into supercruise, immediate pitch up away from star to avoid over heating.
Lead orients towards next jump, idle throttle, and charge FSD.
Wingmen drop into supercruise, orient on lead, catchup, idle throttle, charge FSD.
Repeat departure procedure.

I look forward to any questions, comments, concerns on this.
 

MONTItheRed

M
WING INSTANCING
If you are having trouble getting into the same instance as a wingmen, the simplest solution I've found is for one wingman to drop out of supercruise fully (normal space instance has finished loading and the lead can maneuver), then the other wingmen drop into that instance using nav lock.

The reverse can also be done by jumping from normal space into supercruise.
 

Kisvakond

Kisvakond
Hmm... interesting that you can charge your slave FSD for jumping with no actual target system. We tried exactly this with my friends and we didn't manage that (in ED64 PC).

Can you show us a video how it works for you?

For me, it only works like in this vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_jpvl0I9WA

Mster/slave FSD charges are happening sequentially, not simultaneously. For large FSD drives, it can take a while. :(

This is how it's done in the official video tutorial and even there, the followers' FSD wont start charging until the lead jumped, because the wake only appears after jump.
The follower does not have the next system locked as he's the slave so the FSD can't be charged for a jump but only for SC.

But if you can show as a hack that work as you describe it, please let us know! :)

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Duedy said:
I had a thought. if while in wings a player with the higher Jump range can increase the range of a wingman when jumping together.

It would work like this. A lead ship can only overdrive their FSD for ships smaller than itself. Ie No explora build asps helping Corvettes jump 30 ly. but an asp explora can help an eagle or hauler jump 30ly.

The follower lets say can jump 10ly on 1 ton of fuel (keeping maths simple). the lead can jump 20ly for 2 tons of fuel. The follower in the wing selects FSD tethering. The lead selects a system (20ly away) to jump to and engages fsd then both enters jump and arrives together 20ly away.

The trade off is this. The lead ship has to cover the extra distance of the follower in fuel + (10% follower fuel use to both ships) so the lead ship to make the jump needs 2 tons for their jump 1 ton for lead ship over jump the additional 10ly and an extra 0.1 ton for overcharging FSD Totaling 3.1 ton of fuel for lead and 1.1 ton of fuel for follower. Also FSD cooldown is longer than normal, maybe same as failing interdiction or emergency drop out.

Structural integrity is hit abit for each jump to represent the extra stress on the ships.

Each lead ship in a wing adds to leads fuel use.

This means 2 identical followers for the same jump would cost the lead ship 6.2 tons for the jump and 1.1 ton for each follower.

Alternatively the 10% extra could be scaled with class of drive on both ships. So A class 10% scaling up E class at %15.

The lead ship fuel indicator will show the additional fuel cost as a different colour on the fuel gauge.

What do you guys think?
Click to expand...

Is this some sort of hyperspace drafting? :)
 

Kisvakond

Kisvakond
MONTItheRed said:
WING INSTANCING
If you are having trouble getting into the same instance as a wingmen, the simplest solution I've found is for one wingman to drop out of supercruise fully (normal space instance has finished loading and the lead can maneuver), then the other wingmen drop into that instance using nav lock.

The reverse can also be done by jumping from normal space into supercruise.
Click to expand...

I have to do this several times normally, before it fixes itself. Sometimes I give up trying. I wrote this into my bug report (see previous posts), and the workaround, too.

Thanks for the tip anyway! :)
 

MONTItheRed

M
CMDR_Cosmicspacehead said:
And lastly, my most important suggestion, is wing jump ranges.
Either, nav-locking should restrict all ships to the ship with lowest jump range in the current system. Or, nav-locking should actually buff jump ranges so everyone can fly together. Because 'science'. Lol it can be worked out as an average or something.
As an example, a Python trader ship can jump at least 13.8ly from my experience (none). But my combat FDL which was running escort could only manage 12.3ly. Either nav-locking should restrict the Python down to 12.3ly, buff the FDL to 13.8 or meet roughly in the middle at 13.05ly.
Either way, wings needs some love. Lol

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I don't think that wing jumping should boost up to the highest range because then max range asp explorer could drag a max cargo Type 9 35-Ly or so.

I don't think wing jumping should limit to the lowest range either because then being in a wing is penalizing the players.

Kisvakond said:
Is this some sort of hyperspace drafting? :)
Click to expand...

Lave Radio discussed tailgating and wing hyperspace jumping in an early episode before the game was released. I don't think it was ever implemented.

I do think that hyperspace drafting should be added to the game. Similar to fish riding the wakes of bigger fish, drafting in cars, or birds riding the updrafts from other birds; hyperspace drafting could increase either the efficiency or range of the draftees. Increases could either be a fixed value (+5 Ly for instance), a percentage value (+20%), or some average of those in the wing. This would be useful for larger ships with fighter escorts.

The idea of lead absorbing the fuel requirements of their wingmen hold promise. I think it could get fuel expensive in a wing of four though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom