Change FTL mechanics

[Lecic]

If this suggestion were implemented, we could have fights in the FTL stream. That would be awesome

why would you want to do that?

 

[Snk]

Is that an actual question? Fights with backgrounds of pretty colors in the confines of a tube

 

[Mariux]

I think it could be changed to simply make you able to jump further the longer you charge the jumpdrive, but the longer you charge it, the less efficient the power consumption gets. You would also need some power to "sustain" the charge to avoid being able to jump too far.

Just my random idea

 

[Snk]

No. Then you can instantly jump from one place to another place instantly. You just charge from home territory and fly halfway across the galaxy. There's no fun to that

 

[Lecic]

Is that an actual question? Fights with backgrounds of pretty colors in the confines of a tube

Meh.

If I wanted to do that, I'd make a plexglass tube in a sector with a cool looking random background.

 

[Ithirahad]

EDIT: NVM

 

[Snk]

Meh.

If I wanted to do that, I'd make a plexglass tube in a sector with a cool looking random background.

But they don't go anywhere. You could fight, shut down the FTL stream and end up halfway across the galaxy in a fight for your goddam life. That would be epic.

 

[RedDragonflyxx]

I am having trouble understanding your second point. What do you mean by not having a long spin up period and still be in normal space? And what what takes two minutes that you are upset about?

And Vanhelzing, if you didn't have one block operating two different ways, it would force people to edit their current builds.

I don't mind current FTL jumps, but they do feel like a change sector command. This gives you a greater feel of traveling, and allows for you to do other stuff while you travel.

Sorry for the late reply... life happens
When I said long spin up I mean having to wait 60 seconds+ to charge up the drive and start moving. People are suggesting 2 minutes which really defeats the purpose of FTL IMO.

A configurable period in FTL would be good for immersion, a time where the ship is flying but you aren't in the core, so 1/2 of "normal" speed to get to a location should be nice and encourage players to walk around while heading to a destination, like walking to the shuttle bay in transit or organizing your cargo. The only issue is small ships don't have an interior, so maybe make a heavy speed bonus for small scouts?

Oh and in transit FTL fights with warped space and random ion clouds... epic

 

[aceface]

It's always annoyed me how FTL works. I've always liked long journeys; they've always included a sense of serenity for me.

After FTL came out, I learned to embrace it. I adopted the mechanics and made it crewable, to fit my own play style. I like it, but stopping and starting kind of annoys me. I would like to present my suggestion for making it a little more elegant:

When press "t" And click on the FTL computer, you get two options: Sustained FTL field and momentary FTL field. Momentary FTL field is current mechanics, but sustained FTL keeps you in the FTL stream until you reach your destination. That seems a little overpowered, but it isn't.

Say in momentary FTL, it takes a minute to charge your FTL engines. It jumps 50km each time, and your destination is 400km away. In sustained FTL, divides the distance to your waypoint by the power of your FTL - in this case, that would be eight. Then it multiplies that by the amount it takes to charge your drive - so, eight minutes. You'd be in the FTL stream for eight minutes straight. Also, it would take double the time to charge your FTL.

This still seems a little overpowered, because even a shuttle could stay in the stream for a long time and slip passed FTL lines and never be detected. However, your ship would be drained of power as you traveled through the FTL stream, equivalent to the standard drain from momentary FTL. Every time you had a power outage, 5-30 seconds would be added to your journey, depending on your ship mass. And once you had a power outage, your power bar would automatically reset. So if you had a tiny shuttle with the FTL stats depicted above, and you ran out of power every minute, that would be forty seconds added to your journey. Here is a representation of this hypothetical journey:

Jump 1(1 min) -Power drain (5s)- Jump 2(1 min) -Power drain(5s)- Jump 3(1 min)-PD(5s)-Jump 4(1min)-PD(5s)-J5(1)-PD(5s)-J6(1m)-PD(5s)-J7(1m)-PD(5s)-J8(1m)-(PD5s).

In order to prevent being infinitely stuck in an FTL stream, (Unlikely - your power drain would have to be much faster than your FTL drive) you could exit it at any time and it would deposit you an appropriate distance from your target. Also, if you passed through a system owned by an enemy your FTL drive would automatically stop.

I personally don't see it being too overpowered - the current system can still get you away pretty easily by warping to a waypoint. I like the idea a lot :D

 

[Snk]

Sorry for the late reply... life happens
When I said long spin up I mean having to wait 60 seconds+ to charge up the drive and start moving. People are suggesting 2 minutes which really defeats the purpose of FTL IMO.

A configurable period in FTL would be good for immersion, a time where the ship is flying but you aren't in the core, so 1/2 of "normal" speed to get to a location should be nice and encourage players to walk around while heading to a destination, like walking to the shuttle bay in transit or organizing your cargo. The only issue is small ships don't have an interior, so maybe make a heavy speed bonus for small scouts?

Oh and in transit FTL fights with warped space and random ion clouds... epic

Im still really confused. I was only suggesting a long wind up time for starting a sustained FTL jump. The current FTL mechanics would remain with my suggestion.

 

[Snk]

*bump* I miss watching the stars

 

[RedDragonflyxx]

*bump* I miss watching the stars

That would be nice, like an autopilot thing that lets you walk around and do the things you need to do on a starship (once said tasks get implemented: a finished crafting system, prep shipments of contraband, maybe some improvements to your design...) Even if you don't have those things to do you can always sit in your awesome chair and watch the stars, planning your next jump. This travel time would be useful, balanced, and (eventually) seamless.

Since you had trouble understanding and I keep getting off this subject (schoolwork and other games and travel) here's a list of properties for my FTL variant:
*Short/no spin up
*Phases your ship out of real space, can see outside world with blur and low res (to not break the GPU)
*Can be interdicted
*Can target any sector
*Travel time can be spent out of core

 

[Snk]

That would be nice, like an autopilot thing that lets you walk around and do the things you need to do on a starship (once said tasks get implemented: a finished crafting system, prep shipments of contraband, maybe some improvements to your design...) Even if you don't have those things to do you can always sit in your awesome chair and watch the stars, planning your next jump. This travel time would be useful, balanced, and (eventually) seamless.

Since you had trouble understanding and I keep getting off this subject (schoolwork and other games and travel) here's a list of properties for my FTL variant:
*Short/no spin up
*Phases your ship out of real space, can see outside world with blur and low res (to not break the GPU)
*Can be interdicted
*Can target any sector
*Travel time can be spent out of core

Please take your own suggestions to another thread. You are having trouble understanding, and I think it's kind of rude that you respond once every two weeks and don't bother to read my suggestion. I'm pretty much suggesting an autopilot for FTL, but it keeps you in the jump stream.

 

[Valiant70]

Also, if you passed through a system owned by an enemy your FTL drive would automatically stop.

I really hate the idea of that happening. At least require the enemy to fire something in the general vicinity to pull you out of warp if they want to.

Every time you had a power outage, 5-30 seconds would be added to your journey, depending on your ship mass. And once you had a power outage, your power bar would automatically reset. So if you had a tiny shuttle with the FTL stats depicted above, and you ran out of power every minute, that would be forty seconds added to your journey.

I think it more reasonable to simply drop out of warp if you run out of power.

 

[Snk]

I really hate the idea of that happening. At least require the enemy to fire something in the general vicinity to pull you out of warp if they want to.



I think it more reasonable to simply drop out of warp if you run out of power.

Then any ship that doesn't have an infini charge FTL would fail.

And if that doesn't happen, than a ship could slip through enemy territory and pop up behind enemy lines incredibly easily.

 

[Ithirahad]

I really hate the idea of that happening. At least require the enemy to fire something in the general vicinity to pull you out of warp if they want to.

Umm, I don't think that's possible; I think the whole point of being "at warp," rather than just traveling super fast in regular space, is that stuff in between doesn't have to physically load. It's fairly easy, though, to monitor or determine corresponding sector position (For, say, dropping someone out in the right place) based on travel time and direction, but enemy AI firing something to stop your warp would require actually loading the sector with the AI mob in it.

 

[Valiant70]

Umm, I don't think that's possible; I think the whole point of being "at warp," rather than just traveling super fast in regular space, is that stuff in between doesn't have to physically load. It's fairly easy, though, to monitor or determine corresponding sector position (For, say, dropping someone out in the right place) based on travel time and direction, but enemy AI firing something to stop your warp would require actually loading the sector with the AI mob in it.

Think outside the box a little - if you really want AI to be that annoying (I seriously don't) just check the sector for AI in possession of such a device, and have a random chance that you'll be dropped out of warp. If you are dropped out, the sector would load, but the enemy with an interdiction matrix would have said matrix on cooldown.

If there's no way to check for a matrix in the save without loading the sector fully, then just assign a new variable to the sector save that is true if a valid interdiction AI is present when the sector unloads, and false otherwise. The engine can just grab that variable as the ship passes by. I'm sure Schema is fully capable of implementing this if he wants to, and it just adds one bit of data to each sector. That's really not much.

 

[Snk]

Think outside the box a little - if you really want AI to be that annoying (I seriously don't) just check the sector for AI in possession of such a device, and have a random chance that you'll be dropped out of warp. If you are dropped out, the sector would load, but the enemy with an interdiction matrix would have said matrix on cooldown.

If there's no way to check for a matrix in the save without loading the sector fully, then just assign a new variable to the sector save that is true if a valid interdiction AI is present when the sector unloads, and false otherwise. The engine can just grab that variable as the ship passes by. I'm sure Schema is fully capable of implementing this if he wants to, and it just adds one bit of data to each sector. That's really not much.

I think that hitting enemy faction space and dropping out of warp only then would be the best solution.

 

[Valiant70]

I think that hitting enemy faction space and dropping out of warp only then would be the best solution.

Nope.

 

[Snk]

Nope.

And why not?