Jump Medium! (Very small usage of fuel & relative traceability of jumps)

[Jaybeanstalk]

Here is the idea: Spaceships use a very limited amount of "Jump Medium" in order to use jump drives. This would be Purchasable at some stations, and if you lost all your fuel, you could "call" an npc ship to give you some. Jump medium would leave traces of itself when you jump, and a ship following you could scan it, with the scanner and get a general idea of where the person is. This would allow for better chases, with possibly jump computers being bindable to projectiles, making them leave a false trail, or some other may to hide your tracks.

 

[terra mining corp.]

only problem would be when exploring between galaxies where would you get fuel? this could apply to weapons such as missile/warhead also.

 

[Ithirahad]

only problem would be when exploring between galaxies where would you get fuel? this could apply to weapons such as missile/warhead also.

You wouldn't 'get' it; you would have to store a ton of fuel on board for that. The devs said it won't be so stupidly easy to go between galaxies as it is now... Fuel could be one of the main challenges.

 

[Darkkon]

I think this is a great idea first of all. Especially with the upcoming cargo update. I only have one question to pose though. How would it work with cloaking and radar jammers? if someone wants to go full stealth, they should at least have some ability to disguise or hide their jump trail. Not saying it should be easy to do, but it should be an option at least.

 

[Randomo]

I do like the concept, but details could be a little more refined.

 

[jayman38]

Refinement idea:
The "medium" left behind would allow scanners to get the jump coordinates that looks like a warp tunnel from the current (jumped-from) sector to the destination (jumped-to) sector. However, this trace would only last 3 minutes. Ships with Jam equipped would reduce that timer by a full minute, and ships with Cloak equipped would reduce that timer by another full minute. (Edit: Ships with these items equipped would be logically be designed with built-in medium-dispersers, to inhibit pursuers.) So a fully jammed, cloaked ship would only have a trace for a minute. Jammed ships without a cloak would leave behind a 2-minute trace. That might be enough to make a second jump at the destination to another sector, to escape pursuers, without completely denying pursuers altogether.

Alternative refinement idea:
A medium dispersal/recycler block that reduces the amount of time a jump signature remains trackable. This would have more of StarMade-feeling to it, because the number of blocks required could be in proportion to the number of jump modules in the ship. However, this tracking-reducing idea leaves jam and cloak out in the cold. Maybe have this only reduce the amount of time to track by another minute? And if it takes enough energy, make this an alternative dispersal to cloak, but they can't possibly work together on the same ship, so you'd always have a minimum of 1 minute to be able to track a jumped ship.

Maybe reduce the interval from 60 seconds to 30 seconds. After all, only pursuers will really want to track ships. Unless tracking "jump medium" reduces the amount of fuel that the pursuer uses. (Encouraging the use of piggy-back jumping and other convoy-type game mechanics.)

 

[FatCobra]

"I don't see the tracking as an issue. If you're cloaked and don't want to be followed just leave the sector via thrust before jumping so they don't even know if you've left the area. I see this similar to the way old diesel subs would work. They ran on battery when submerged (bellow periscope depth) which made them quiet. I think this would work well for cloaked ships too. If you're cloaked you need to move slower so that you are harder to find. If you decide you need to punch it then a "wake" to follow for a time would be cool.