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I personally think that Skunk shouldn't have jump drive at all.... The reason why im saying this is because it would make uneverse somewhat small. So warp drive or boost would be best idea. XRM mod did simular thing with small ships and than you realize how X3 uneverse is huge. Jump drive would just kill that impression

I'm very glad to see movement away from the highway system (figuratively and literally). A few things to look into to adapt NPCs and the player to a less highway-intensive world:

1) Carriers. Allow small ships to maintain at least some presence in highway-less space. They would also be invaluable for the transportation of fighter groups across zones and sectors in an efficient manner, and as a general organizational tool for commanding such forces.

2) Improved boosting/jumping behavior within capital ship groups. Capital ships within a squad should operate as a more cohesively while traveling. Follower ships waiting for the lead ship to reach its destination and then playing catch up is hardly desirable group behavior. Subordinate ships should boost at the same time or only shortly after their leader so they all reach their destination at roughly the same time. An up-scaled anchoring (i.e. "gravity well") system adapted for capital ships within a squad would be useful here. All of the above goes for jumping, as well.

Bernd wrote:Jumpdrive: I would really like to avoid making all jumpdrives much more powerful, e.g: by allowing them to jump anywhere that you have been before, because this brings a lot of balancing problems: You basically devalue traveling overall (why dont just all ships simply jump directly to their target when trading?), circumvent all risks etc.

The idea with limiting the jumpdrive to beacons, is that we can still have strategical planning. Factions could block or capture beacons and allow or disallow traffic from / to there.

Well you can limit its use simply by its cost and requirements e.g. requiring a powerplant from a top tier capital class ship(s).

Point to point jumping where the player selects the co-ordinates is more of a tactical gameplay mechanic, could be quite useful to suprise a player as well if performed by a foe but yes I tend to agree that due to reasons of balance you can't have too many instances of this. Personally I wouldn't have it on the skunk rather as a reward for the players first carrier class ship. Then of course you have to consider being able to command the carrier effectively which is another topic and I'll stop there.

Bernd wrote:Jumpdrive: I would really like to avoid making all jumpdrives much more powerful, e.g: by allowing them to jump anywhere that you have been before, because this brings a lot of balancing problems: You basically devalue traveling overall (why dont just all ships simply jump directly to their target when trading?), circumvent all risks etc.

The idea with limiting the jumpdrive to beacons, is that we can still have strategical planning. Factions could block or capture beacons and allow or disallow traffic from / to there.

So the most important change will be to possibly add a jumpdrive to the Skunk. IF we decide to do this, it goes without saying that it is not easy to get that.

SETA on the other hand is, like many pointed out, something that can usually be combined with anything else. You dont mind it because nobody forces you to use it but it allows different ways of playing the game...
Sounds nice at first.
The catch with SETA is first of all performance: Running the universe faster means that the engine has to do more in a shorter time. And that does not mean more graphics.

You are right, that I dislike SETA as a solution. One here made a good point: We should not design the game around SETA. The game must be fun without SETA but yet sometimes a method of accelerating time can help improving your game experience nevertheless.

Highways: They are great for high density regions and can make traveling more interesting wherever you are not trying to have exploration. But we overused them in Rebirth and put too much emphasis on the skill involved to be faster. So one thing we are playing with right now is speeding up some highways quite a lot.

-Bernd

Yes.

I'm generally against expanding jump drives, be it by allowing smaller ships like the Skunk to use them or allowing point to point jumping.

A big part of strategy is figuring out how to best utilize a finite amount of resources. When you can jump from any point to any point instantaneously you undercut the most fundamental and valuable resource in the universe: time. Strategy loses a lot of its significance when travel - i.e. distance over time - is trivialized like that.

X3AP was a perfect example of this, even without bringing point jumping in to the picture. Sure, the game world was massive in physical dimensions, but a common complaint with the game was the universe didn't have the proper sense of scale, it felt small. There were over a hundred billion cubic kilometers of space within the AP universe; the moment you acquired a jump drive you could cross it in 10 seconds.

A5PECT wrote:I'm generally against expanding jump drives, be it by allowing smaller ships like the Skunk to use them or allowing point to point jumping.

A big part of strategy is figuring out how to best utilize a finite amount of resources. When you can jump from any point to any point instantaneously you undercut the most fundamental and valuable resource in the universe: time. Strategy loses a lot of its significance when travel - i.e. distance over time - is trivialized like that.

X3AP was a perfect example of this, even without bringing point jumping in to the picture. Sure, the game world was massive in physical dimensions, but a common complaint with the game was the universe didn't have the proper sense of scale, it felt small. There were over a hundred billion cubic kilometers of space within the AP universe; the moment you acquired a jump drive you could cross it in 10 seconds.

Which is a fair point, so the crux of the matter is what (if any) ships should be allowed to do it, and what restrictions do place as opposed to not doing it at all. Then it becomes highly strategic... Imagine the possibilities in your pilot role in the skunk where you were to place hyperspace inhibitors at strategic points to guard or funnel a specific threat? Even players less inclined towards combat could setup defenses to trap an aggressive threat e.g. they jump into a minefield or next to an array of turrets

It has to be experimented with there is a balance to be had here you could quite easily impact other areas of the game negatively if you're not careful I'm in full agreement there.

...and btw isn't it nice to have a sensible discussion

I'm OK with jump drives being restricted to L and XL ships but I'd like to see the Trade ship paradigm of 'bigger hull = less specialised' reversed. Medium Traders then being like a a minivan you don't mind chucking anything suitably wrapped in the back of, up to XL Traders being the lumbering specialists in the vein of super tankers or container ships.

E.g. M Traders, the weakest, gaining Universal cargo to become an entry-level ship that can do anything but with existing limitations (overall speed (but sped up a bit since so slow compared to fighters), defences). A fighter weapon-class turret (not lethal but might break up some attack runs or occasionally hit missiles) would be icing on the cake but I digress.

L Traders then being tougher, overall faster due to jump drive (but perhaps slower in-zone) and offering mixed, non-universal storage (e.g. Container + Energy). XL Traders then being restricted to single ware types (e.g. Container only), or possibly some Scaldis-like, seperate storage areas.

Hi... imho the things that needs to be implemented in the next release are as follow:

1) CARRIERS: I've read other peoples say that and i agree with them. The Carriers are a tactical asset that i think ANY space simulation sandbox game MUST HAVE. Carring squadrons of fighters around the universe and deploy them where they are needed is "visually" awesome and the thinking needed to plan how to use them and which fighter ship to carry is great.

2) POINT TO POINT JUMPDRIVE FOR CAPITAL SHIPS: Is a great thing to deploy a tactical assault on enemy forces. The feature can be limited by requiring a lot of time to charge the jump engine (maybe a couple of minutes) and a lot of fuel to operate (as others have already wrote). Also add some Jump Inhibitor Beacon that force the player (and other ships) to use the main engine in specific areas. Those Beacons can eventually be destructible and placeable by player allowing a larger choise of tactics... but... at first, it's ok even if they are indistructible.

I'll stop here for now. I've a lot of whishes but i think those two are the most doable...

Bye...

P.s. Sorry for my bad english

For the highways redesign - I'd like them to be faster (as Bernd already stated), but also to be linear (like Trans-Orbital jump accelerators).
The whole concept of curvy highways looks fancy but rudiculous.
I don't hope for this to be in XR as it would require heavy zone redesign, but for next game it would be greate.

As for jump drives - all we need is an ability for player to buy/build/deploy jump beacons.

The current jump beacon system has one big problem - if you're hostile with the faction that has a station next to the beacon you esentally cannot use it anymore.

Also someone pointed good idea tha ship should be able to jump from one beacon to any other in the system even if this would require more fuel and jump time (this would also to some extend help fixing the problem of hostile faction, like PMC blocking the jump beacon)

mr.WHO wrote:The current jump beacon system has one big problem - if you're hostile with the faction that has a station next to the beacon you esentally cannot use it anymore.

[...] (this would also to some extend help fixing the problem of hostile faction, like PMC blocking the jump beacon)

I wouldn't consider this a problem at all!!!
Jumpdrives overcome easily enemy borders and territorial areas. Making ships jump to any point in space (or jump at all, in the first place) removes any strategic gameplay in that regard.

No pushing through enemy lines and enemies can attack any of your zones/sectors at will.

Also trading is basically useless with jumpdrives if ships can jump to any point, why don't stations just teleport their wares to other stations automatically? Hell, it would be waaaaay cheaper, immeadiatly available on demand and removes the need for ships and crew.

IMO jumpdrives should be removed and limited by a great margin, they are part of the travelling problem like highways are.
There is no reason using small ships at all in current XR.

No offence but I think this is a terrible idea.

I think another solution would be to add more alternative routes through a system, like how you could often circumvent an enemy faction in X3. If you could get around that PMC bloodbath zone it wouldn't be a problem, and you could still set up blockades and choke points.

DO you think they will be able to releae 4.0 and the DLC till Christmass?

Seeing that it took them almost 5 months to get 3.60 I do not have high hopes.

mr.WHO wrote:DO you think they will be able to releae 4.0 and the DLC till Christmass?

Seeing that it took them almost 5 months to get 3.60 I do not have high hopes.

I don't know if they want to but it would make sense I guess.

They will probably have been working on future things for Rebirth (e.g. for 4.0) and a new game, alongside stuff for 3.60, so I don't think the 5-month period can be used as measuring stick. Summer holidays will have factored in too. They could theoretically switch their priorities around away from a sequel for a bit too.

Sparky Sparkycorp wrote:
mr.WHO wrote:DO you think they will be able to releae 4.0 and the DLC till Christmass?

Seeing that it took them almost 5 months to get 3.60 I do not have high hopes.
I don't know if they want to but it would make sense I guess.

They will probably have been working on future things for Rebirth (e.g. for 4.0) and a new game, alongside stuff for 3.60, so I don't think the 5-month period can be used as measuring stick. Summer holidays will have factored in too. They could theoretically switch their priorities around away from a sequel for a bit too.

i also think EGO is aiming for a Christmas Release for the DLC. reason: we still have the unconnected Gate in Silent Night - that Joke is far too good to waste it

but thats just my personal opinion, no inside knowledge involved

In my opinion, it would be good to get rid of all "magical teleport structures".
I always found the idea of gates, accelerators, beacons or highways, very wierd, outdated and overused.

IMO the only devices used for travelling, should be ones that are installed on your ship:
jumpdrives, boosters, frameshift drive, FTL device.

Or, leave the "external travelling devices" like gates/highways be the way they are now, but make them optional. Using on-board devices would be good if you wanted to travel long distances quickly, but external devices like gates or highways would be more efficent for short-distance travelling.
That would be probably the best way.
(Of course, on-board travelling devices have to consume fuel; unlike external ones, that don't require you to do anything else but entering them).

IMO the only devices used for travelling, should be ones that are installed on your ship:
jumpdrives, boosters, frameshift drive, FTL device.

And basically end up with boring Elite Dangerous where you have a lot of empty space to fly but nothing to do? No thanks.

I hope you're right, Uni

I think that current XR system is actally quite good in it's objective to eliminate the need for SETA.
That way the next boring / too long part of the game is usage of highways.

I end up having my personal jump ship to jump and boost simply because I can just point the destination and do the empire management while my giant taxi do the rest.

IMO switching to boosters/jumpdrive instead highway system is good as it reduce the boring and repetetive part.

We only need to improve that system:
- for sure some kind of intrediction for boosters and jumpdrives is needed (device / missile / ship / all of these).
- expansion of jump beacon system (some kind of unoffical jump beacon net for pirates to stay off the grid).
- posibility of buying your own jump beacons (probably crazy expensive)
- add cooldown for both boosters and jumpdrive so that the ship could not jump again immediately after previous jump.
- for bigger fleet some kind of tanker ship would be nice

mr.WHO wrote:- add cooldown for both boosters and jumpdrive so that the ship could not jump again immediately after previous jump.

there already is a cooldown time for both.

with JD you easily notice it when jumping more than once (its the wait time before the JD charges up again) and for Boosters overheat and cooldown also exist, but they may not be noticeable because Boosters rarely overheat in vanilla (with some mods it may happen if they have more extensive use of boosters)

regarding the JB System: my approach to Pirate JBs are unfocussed Jumps which (ab)use a random Object in the Destination Sector as temporary JB (the bigger the object the more likely it is to be selected, but all are possible)

regarding the JB System: my approach to Pirate JBs are unfocussed Jumps which (ab)use a random Object in the Destination Sector as temporary JB (the bigger the object the more likely it is to be selected, but all are possible)

I like it! Such blind jumps would definetly make the game more interesting (especially for Pirate characters).

As for JD/Booster cooldown - I didn't knew it but I'm very happy it's already there. Just need a bit more tuning to the time and it's all OK.

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