I think there might be a Space Loach setting the timers on these.
Your HGE Will Self-Destruct in 48 Seconds. Good Luck With That...
- Thread starter Ralph Vargr
- Start date
Always finding something to complain about lol.
Gotta churn out them threads...
Deleted member 38366
D
Makes for some interesting "expeditious approaches" though 
The closest HGE timeout call I had was arrival within 2 Seconds remaining. And I had to use all tricks in the books to make it happen over 4500Ls
PS.
Quite happy about my HGE frequency, so losing one to a Timer seems a non-issue. Repeatedly had to visit a Mat Trader due to HGE-induced "Materials Storage Full" already. Can't complain about that.
The closest HGE timeout call I had was arrival within 2 Seconds remaining. And I had to use all tricks in the books to make it happen over 4500Ls
PS.
Quite happy about my HGE frequency, so losing one to a Timer seems a non-issue. Repeatedly had to visit a Mat Trader due to HGE-induced "Materials Storage Full" already. Can't complain about that.
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I'm not at all a fan of these timers, and I don't understand their necessity. Imagine if James Cameron found a shipwreck using his sonar and then had to tell his submarine crew, "You've got 5 minutes to get down to that wreck before it disappears forever." Just another immersion-killer for no good reason.
I guess the alternative would be frequent crashes due to out-of-memory errors. This wouldn't be as noticeable in a pure singleplayer game, but ED isn't one.
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I think my justification for the timeouts would be, that a rescue team has already cleared the area.
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You don't really think those USS signals have any kind of server-side presence, do you?
Different thing though. What we're detecting is trace amounts of energy left over from whatever created them in the first place, and energy dissipates over time (curse you, laws of physics!). So while the stuff in the Combat Aftermath (say) in theory exists forever, our ability to find it does not.
Would you prefer to only have a fixed set of USS available to you until you have visited all of those? I think this is a different immersion-killer if nothing happens in a (populated) system until you have cleared the map. And if new events happen but old ones remain, you only have to wait a finite amount of time until there is nothing but USSs in a system.
I guess an alternative to the number would be a graphic of the signal which loses coherence over time.
You didn't answer my question. The timer has nothing to do with server memory. It's just an arbitrary mechanic.
Given that this universe is farcically unbelievable in the first place, it wouldn't hurt to limit the timers to something vaguely achievable, instead of wasting people's time ing around with the 2D scan-a-mole minigame only to find out that you have 15 seconds to traverse half a light year in supercruise.
I speak primarily as an explorer, so when I'm outside the Bubble in an unexplored system, the idea that these wrecks are just minutes old is very immersion-breaking. I use my headcanon "eraser" to ignore the timer and image these as very old wrecks of would-be explorers who met their end out in the black ages ago.
I suspect the timers are in reality Frontier's attempt of adding game-play through urgency, but with RNG it's either too long to be urgent or too short to even bother. Now if you want some real gameplay, instead of expiration timers there should be other ships in populated systems, say pirate ships, that are also attracted to these signals, and you've got to get there first and get out before the pirates (or police) show up. Remember the pilot episode of Firefly?
I quite agree.
However, it always seems that HGE's spawn with reduced time periods.
I can run across entire systems for encoded or degraded sources (with time to spare), but dutifully checking the FSS each time I leave a signal source, any HGE will have appeared with a truncated timing sequence.
I'm perfectly happy to leave it as-is. Just because the game is unrealistic in places (because, you know, game) doesn't mean there's a good excuse to make it even more so. And it's not like the USSs that are there when you drop in are the only ones - new ones appear and can be found using the old ways.
Sounds like your typical Frontier "if it's rare, make it a pain" chucking-numbers-at-a-dartboard-until-one-sticks routine.
I can't be bothered with any of that crap. In December I was just finding whatever Grade 5 source killed only a triple-digit number of neurons dead, grinding it, and trading them in. Who has time for this nonsense?
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Ah, that's interesting, and might indicate a bit of tweaking is needed.
Can be found using the old ways?
What do you mean please?:S
I am confused.*
*As usual.
Can be found using the old ways?
What do you mean please?:S
I am confused.*
*As usual.
The old 'fly away from the star and see what turns up' method. At least I assume that still works.