Warp Drives. The game needs them. (Fast Travel)

[Errors2149]

So, i have been playing starbase sparsely over a few months right now, yet, for a game about space. it certainly fails to fill my inner hunger for space exploration.
Instead i shut down Starbase and go directly to EVE online, Avorion, Elite: Dangerous, Empyrion, The like.
And at this point, i would not say that this is due to any inherent monotony doing mining, trading, or exploring.
The raw cost of TIME. is the problem.
Travel time is time spent doing nothing.
An MMO that forces players to do nothing. is a bad MMO.
I could go on about how many times i've wanted to do an activity in starbase yet found myself unable by time constraints.
but you, dear reader, probably already know the woes of the 150m/s speed limit in this game, so i'll cut straight to the point.

Frozenbyte has made an Infinite universe spanning huge distances and given players no way to cross it.
The world is simply too large, and lacks any method of making it smaller.

We need warp drives. not just for capital ships. for all ships.


How would Warp drives work? How should they work?
Keep it simple.

A Warp Drive should allow the ship to travel straight forward in planetary distances.
A Warp Drive should consume battery power relative to the ship's mass.

By planetary distances, i mean practical distances within the vicinity of planets. this could be 1000km max.
The distance of the warp should be able to be set by yolol. allowing for precise jumps to target locations.
This simple system allows warp drives to be easily used manually. giving them a low skill floor.
This also allows the warp drive to work in tandem with an autopilot system. using ISAN to align with the target destination, configuring the warp distance, and then initating the warp automatically.


The battery consumption should be completely linear with ship mass. simply to encourage greater diversity of ship design.
The battery consumption should however not be so prohibitive as to require any excessive amount of batteries.

Warp drives should be intended to make a flourishing planetary economies viable. with goods being able to be easily distributed around an entire planet.
Yet their low maximum range still leaves interstellar jump gates as the best method of interplanetary travel.

Warp drives will mean more people going to and from stations, more people doing work. and less people travelling AFK in deep space. making the game feel significantly more alive.

Sorry for the long post. I hope you appreciate my suggestion.

 

[ChaosRifle]

literally already a thing, its on PTU, they are called capital ships. the entire point of civilian caps is precisely this

 

[Askannon]

One thing to add/clarify: capital ships will be able to carry other ships.

The limiting factor will be people who venture in the classic ships to other moons and then sell the coordinates

 

[Cavilier210]

Capital ships are just gate keeping content with a ridiculous resource grind...

 

[Locutus_vonBORG]

Capital ship and the PTU server are just annoying, I play Starbase in the normal game, a PTU currently makes no sense. There are too few players online and for new features you have to switch to the PTU.

Why not use the normal game as a test system, Starbase is not in EA anyway, with all these bugs and missing features?

Then more players would participate and keep the game alive. Only as it looks at the moment, there are rather less and less players in the game.

 

[anton_stezhkin]

Capital ships are just gate keeping content with a ridiculous resource grind...

I think they are more an attempt to give the players a reason to cooperate.

 

[pavvvel]

We need warp drives. not just for capital ships. for all ships.

I don't think it's possible for the next year.
Because it would be extremely difficult to implement the ability to intercept ships that are at warp.

Basically, it's just another gameplay proposal disguised as something "good", but in fact it's an attempt to bribe the developers for PvP evasion mechanics.

No, no and no.

 

[anton_stezhkin]

I don't think it's possible for the next year.
Because it would be extremely difficult to implement the ability to intercept ships that are at warp.

- Exactly. and if there is some "warp monitor" i't will never be easy or rewarding task to catch a single ship.
On the other hand with current CS mechanics you know that in a day or so a hudge CS will arrive and this will encourage PVP. Becuse
1 - you know there will be ships to hunt.
2 - you have time to get ready.
3 - they know that you know.
I expect much dakka in the first moments after the CS arrives. I hope the SZ of a miner capital ship is small enough to make it possible. I mean if the SZ around the ship is big - they can just mine inside and never fight. So it should be small.

 

[anton_stezhkin]

What I dream of is Capital ships actually moving (or at least turning around) between warp jumps. Not fast, maybe 10-20m/s but still tihs will be impressive to watch.

 

[Cavilier210]

I think they are more an attempt to give the players a reason to cooperate.

That really doesn't help. If they want to force cooperation then get rid of player factions entirely.

 

[anton_stezhkin]

That really doesn't help. If they want to force cooperation then get rid of player factions entirely.

why so?

 

[anton_stezhkin]

Just watched the latest news from @Kenetor . They are planning something called respawn-transfer chain. LIke you can teleport your endo to stations. If there is a ship docked on the station this will act almost like the warp-drive thing you wanted.

 

[pavvvel]

Are you pretending you don't understand?
we still don't even have mouse control. and you talk about warp.
You're asking for an exit timer... so no one can find your ship. You're asking for warp so another player can't find you...
that seems like trolling.

 

[anton_stezhkin]

Are you pretending you don't understand?
we still don't even have mouse control. and you talk about warp.
You're asking for an exit timer... so no one can find your ship. You're asking for warp so another player can't find you...
that seems like trolling.

It seems you don't understand my vision.
- I'm not against if another player finds me for a fight when I'm online. This is a game about shipfights, right?
- I'm strongly against of having my ship messed up when I'm offline.
- I like every idea that reduces time of autopiloting from point A to point B. It saves my time. It makes it esieer for the palyers to find each other for interactions, including PVP. It reduces the time cost of loosing a ship. The less time you loose with the destruction of your ship the more fun is the PVP. The quicker you find an oponent, the more fights you have.
- Warping reduces time the ships spend in space with owner offline.
I did not ask for warp. I said single-ship warp is bad.

 

[anton_stezhkin]

we still don't even have mouse control. and you talk about warp.

- the devs know. The devs are working on it. Why talk about mouse-control?

 

[pavvvel]

- the devs know. The devs are working on it. Why talk about mouse-control?

You know exactly why I wrote that.
But you pretend you don't know and clutter up the thread, over and over again.

I only wrote it as an example that there is more important work to be done. So that you don't distract the developers with your ideas on how to kill the game and evade other players through game mechanics rather than your wits and skills.

 

[MrFaul]

I get your frustration with the long travel times but your ship level warp drive really doesn't fit into SBs core idea being a MMORPG.
And as mentioned so often there is already a fast travel mechanic with cap ships and probably insurance transfers that at least allows your "mind" to wander.
IMO that is enough.

Generally MMORPGs need time sinks otherwise what would keep players retention. SB focus is on player economy to shorten a lot of those things but this early it is non existent in the game.
Dialing in a game economy is a enormous task, and if your main Gameplay loops are not finished totally pointless.
So all we can do is wait.

You are have every right to lamemt that travel is currently very unproductive.
However other games have those too.
In future you can use the time to craft stuff and gain research points (which gets probably a complete rework too) once the "all purpose" cargo crates arrive.
I just hope we get some better tools in the mean time. E.g. Buy orders would be really nice.

 

[anton_stezhkin]

But you pretend you don't know and clutter up the thread, over and over again.

Ok, lets assume I'm a regular troll. Why do you keep reacting to my provocations? You are a hardcore starbase player. You are supposed to be smart. You are so smart that you can even avoid your ship detection in a gas cloud! Why can not you avoid a troll on a forum?

 

[Cavilier210]

You know exactly why I wrote that.
But you pretend you don't know and clutter up the thread, over and over again.

I only wrote it as an example that there is more important work to be done. So that you don't distract the developers with your ideas on how to kill the game and evade other players through game mechanics rather than your wits and skills.

Mouse control of... what?

 

[ivangrozniy]

- the devs know. The devs are working on it. Why talk about mouse-control?

To be honest this really shows a lack of awareness.


The very first thing you want to get right is flight control. That means mouse. That means joysticks. That means hotas support. You can have the most exceptional fuel rod system in place but it doesn't matter when input controls are terrible. Who makes a space game and releases it in early access with control inputs being an afterthought? Like.. what??