Discovery Gaming Community

Good day, gents and gent-ettes.

If anyone is watching my recent RP-focused LP on my channel, they probably have noticed that when interpreting the game environment irp, I tend to uncouple certain aspects for the benefit of immersion. With episode 3 on its way, I will be touching on a few such instances, but I wanted to know if any one of you do a similar thing, or think it is a good idea in the first place.

The most prominent one for me is treating travel and movement between lanes or long distances in Freelancer as a sort of fast-forward mode, similar to how the game is portrayed in, just as an example, Mount and Blade. Interactions with other players and their characters, for me, are realtime, so is PVP or PVE. But I have an approach that says that, for example, the distance between two stations via trade-lane is enormous even for the technology portrayed in FL.
So I simplify and state that a single lane (without associating strict numbers on its length) is like taking a trip between cities IRL, so at around 1-2 hours of travel.
I also assume that travel between systems via jumphole or jumpgate is not instantaneous and roughly translates to a full day.
Regular cruising between two points is basically 1k = 1h. So a 30k cruise in open space would be 30 hours. This also explains why interruptions in a tradelane is dangerous for people taking it, when it flings you out of it in the hands of pirates, where the closest ring is almost 2 hours away.

My second approach to this subject is regarding credits. I treat any talk regarding credits as if the number is given in oorp brackets. The numbers associated with discovery's economy are purely game-balanced-focused and I never actually equate it to real world currency.
So when someone pirates a character, I automatically assume that it reads as:
"So how about you give me (//2 000 000$) credits and I won't give your ship a new port-side entrance?"
But again - only in certain circumstances. I want to believe that a supertransport is worth 150 000 000 million. I want to believe that the cargo it carries is worth a few million.
I do not, however, think that it is the money the pilot gets in profit or asks for mining, etc. It is purely based on the context.


So what are yours?

Agreed on all accounts.

Concepts like "lawless border worlds" and "distant Omicrons" make a lot more sense when you consider the actual inrp travel times (although I wouldn't put any hard numbers on it).

I am not sure all that is necessary immersion-wise. Unless all of the lore was retconned; Trade lanes are described as tech facilitating superluminal travel, and considering the distances in our own solar system as relating to the speed of light, it seems to me no travel between lane points would take more than several minutes. (From the traveller's point of view that is)

Likewise for gates, being artificial analogues of wormholes, should cut the distance between two points in space drastically.

Well obviously said superluminal aren't defined anywhere (I think?) but even at, say, 2c a journey across a system could take hours. I don't think there's much use in putting it into exact numbers since obviously everyone will disagree on which ones those should be, exactly, but suffice to say a lane would take a lot longer than the <30 seconds it does in game.

(03-07-2019, 11:17 AM)Karst Wrote: [ -> ]Well obviously said superluminal aren't defined anywhere (I think?)

TL Infocard Wrote:Trade lanes are used for superluminal travel within a system. Trade lanes must be entered from their origin point, usually located near key industrial, military, or civilian bases.

superluminal
/ˌsuːpəˈluːmɪn(ə)l/
adjective
denoting or having a speed greater than that of light

(03-07-2019, 11:17 AM)Karst Wrote: [ -> ]but even at, say, 2c a journey across a system could take hours

It takes 8 and a half mins for light to get from the sun to earth iirc. Double speed per your arbitrary calculation would make it four mins. If trade lanes took you at say, 10c, it'd be perfectly plausible.

Ingame mechanics wise, Tradelanes take you with 2500 speed as far as I know.

Considering the poor, unrealistic system design in FL, I've always considered the systems as merely the useful, core segments of the star system, with whatever else being off grid. But that's just me.
To each their own I guess, as there's scarcely a way to frame everything into a coherent model.

I honestly stick to the measures the actual gameplay provides for the lack of a community-wide consent. Luckily enough, inRP and inLore are two extremely different things, and while I to a certain point value the lore, it is the RP-layer where everyone interacts with another. InLore, travelling from O-49 to Omicron Psi would take weeks and months. InRP, it's ~30 minutes.

Similarly, I don't use meters and kilometers but M and K, since they don't necessarily stand for meters and kilometers but Freelancer distance measurement units. Flavor is good, and I do that in Discord/Forum RP mostly, but ingame I try to keep things as realistic and non-contradictive as possible.

(03-07-2019, 10:12 AM)Karst Wrote: [ -> ]Agreed on all accounts.

Concepts like "lawless border worlds" and "distant Omicrons" make a lot more sense when you consider the actual inrp travel times (although I wouldn't put any hard numbers on it).

I'd love to release something public regarding this. Unseelie and I have some thoughts on how long it actually takes to get from point A to point B in Sirius, depending upon use of lanes or not.