Read by Council Retain more new players - fix vanilla jumps

[MacThule]

Want to see the SM player base increase? Make it not a tooth and nail fight just to move around in vanilla. Let servers downgrade jumps if they want - don't torture new players in vanilla.

It's been a while since I visited a multiplayer server with vanilla jumps and nothing to start but the little starter kit (no admin spawns, no $1B starting creds, no carebears camping spawn to help ppl). Pure tedium. Had 2 hours to play, spent 90% of that just moving from spot to spot to gather basic materials.

Whew... that is not fun.

Once you have gates and chain drives and a bunch of money its fine. If there's a faction you can join great. If you have nothing and no faction to join... I imagine a majority of new SM players log into multiplayer servers, spend 4-6 hours trying to get off the ground and give up forever writing it off as a tedious waste of time.

Fix those vanilla jumps, please! They need to be interstellar, not intra-system. They're barely FTL.

Moving & navigating shouldn't be the primary challenge in a "game" where you're in a bloody space ship...

 

[HolyCookie]

I don't see your problem in multiplayer servers, but I do see the problem in singleplayer, damn that was hell.
It's like you play space engineers and want to go to a planet..... soooooo long.

can you explain a bit more about the multiplayer server? or is that just a player being alone like in single player? and how would you fix the problem? because just buffing them doesn't really change a lot, you still need to charge them. I've heard of a suggestion that a special block would increase the jump length, and the normal jumpdrive block would increase the speed. What do you think of that?

if your final conclusion is buffing the jumpdrive length, i suggest to post it at the balance thread.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

The number one complaint I'm hearing from new players is the power reactor system, not jump distance. Still, I would like to see better jump drives.

 

[Lecic]

The problem with buffing jump distance is that it will likely have negative consequences once RTS elements start showing up. Instead of spotting an enemy navy invading from another galaxy and having time to prepare, you have much less time because they're going 1, 2, 3+ systems at a time. There are ways to make the early game more enjoyable that won't ruin the late game.

 

[HolyCookie]

The problem with buffing jump distance is that it will likely have negative consequences once RTS elements start showing up. Instead of spotting an enemy navy invading from another galaxy and having time to prepare, you have much less time because they're going 1, 2, 3+ systems at a time. There are ways to make the early game more enjoyable that won't ruin the late game.

please, tell those ways, if they are travel related tho.

 

[Lecic]

please, tell those ways, if they are travel related tho.

Not travel related; they're giving things for people to do early game. A starter ship and plenty of quest opportunities with decent rewards should keep people occupied until they want to get involved in other parts of the game.

 

[kiraen]

I never play multi-player.
I start a new universe every patch.
It's not that hard to get one jump computer, one jump module, and the logic to auto-charge.
Frankly, I don't see the problem.

 

[NTIMESc]

Had 2 hours to play, spent 90% of that just moving from spot to spot to gather basic materials

It sounds like the problem is lack of available resources, not difficultly traveling. The real problem, for me, comes back to the tiny scale of planets and asteroids, and thus, the scarcity of local resources. Scaling planets and asteroids up in their current state isn't really an option, but buffing jump drives will just give players more incentive to spread out even farther.
Perhaps once better NPCs and passive resource gathering are implemented, some of the tedium will be eliminated, assuming it isn't too difficult or time consuming to put together a small crew starting out.

There is also hope that the next iteration of planets will solve the local resource problem, (if they can be optimized enough make them 30,000 times larger :-D)

P.S. I wouldn't consider buffing the salvage multiplier to be a solution, unless salvage beam power was also nerfed. (i.e. make it take longer to mine a block, but you get much more from it)

 

[Ithirahad]

Personally, I found the travel mechanic more annoying than the travel itself. A warp drive would fix that bit; even if it was a bit sluggish at least it would not require holding down a mouse button all day.

 

[HolyCookie]

Personally, I found the travel mechanic more annoying than the travel itself. A warp drive would fix that bit; even if it was a bit sluggish at least it would not require holding down a mouse button all day.

Warp drive? What difference would that be to jump drive? (as in I don't know what a warp drive is)

 

[Ithirahad]

Warp drive? What difference would that be to jump drive? (as in I don't know what a warp drive is)

You charge the thing up, and it keeps flying at fairly high speed, and doesn't load the sectors it passes through, until either you reach your waypoint, you right click the computer again, you run out of power, or you hit a sector with a jump inhibitor in it.

 

[HolyCookie]

You charge the thing up, and it keeps flying at fairly high speed, and doesn't load the sectors it passes through, until either you reach your waypoint, you right click the computer again, you run out of power, or you hit a sector with a jump inhibitor in it.

so instead of sitting there, you'll be flying there? like the time would you need to charge a jump drive would be the travel time for the warp drive? I kinda like that idea, forces people to be interfered by others, makes inhibitors a lot more useful, and hey, traveling becomes more than the danger of jumping in a sun.

Why do you prefer waiting while moving over standing still at a safe spot? (maybe you can come with another good reason to add this)

 

[Ithirahad]

Why do you prefer waiting while moving over standing still at a safe spot? (maybe you can come with another good reason to add this)

It's more fun. Who likes sitting there holding a button and charging something, then 2 seconds of a really awesome effect, followed by sitting there holding a button again?

 

[HolyCookie]

It's more fun. Who likes sitting there holding a button and charging something, then 2 seconds of a really awesome effect, followed by sitting there holding a button again?

I guess cookie clickers would love it :P

Could you make a suggestion thread with this whole idea stating the disadvantages and advantages and reasons why we should have this? this thread is more about fixes some travel issues/resource issues. I think the idea of warp drive is way more appealing than jump drive as it allows people to take you out of warp.

 

[nightrune]

What's the balance with warpgates then?

 

[Lord_Greyscale]

What's the balance with warpgates then?

That the (potentially many) ships using them DON'T have to have a percentage of their own mass (and the resulting Volume) dedicated to jump/warp drives.

Meaning you'd have shuttlecraft with no jumprives making inter-galactic/inter-system/inter-planetary jumps, all thanks to a few(thousand) stargates strewn about the universe.

 

[Ithirahad]

What's the balance with warpgates then?

They're a ton faster, and hopefully once Fog of War is implemented they'll be a great way to sneak away...