P2P in-system-jumps with BSs

[Lennox]

So ye. Hi.

The last days I've been thinking about the Battleship class in Disco, their purpose, their advantages, disadvantages and what not. One thing I was thinking about was how to accelerate Battleships to faster-than-light-speed. In Freelancer we have the lanes, which accelerate pretty much everything you manage to get through. Now if you have a look on the SP campaign, it seems like the Battleships do hold the ability to accelerate to ftl-speed by themselves. The Osiris for instance makes it to travel to the badlands of Omicron 92 without a jumpgate or jumphole. While nobody of us knows what really happens behind the scene, I am just going to assume the ship went there by itself alone.

So here is what I am thinking right now:

Some ships in the class of a BS are just big and difficult to move. Their speed of those is slow and more static than those models in the lighter classes. So let's take the Liberty Assault Carrier for instance. It's quite a big ship right now, compared to the Liberty Dreadnought. While it's smaller relative fits into a lane and can use it properly, if you know how to do it, the Carrier might have more problems with that. Although, even if it's hard, it's not impossible to bring a Carrier through a lane.

But again. If we take a look at the SP campaign, we do not see BSs or other capital ships using the lanes. But I only want to focus on the BS class here. So if I am going to assume, the capital ships under the category "Battleship" have the ability to move faster than light on their own, the problem with lanes wouldn't exist anymore. And at the same time, you can plan own routes and are not dependent on the lanes.

My idea I want to share is(yes, I only want to share it, not more), to give BSs an ability, which allows to 'cruise' as fast as the lanes accelerate other ships. With the same speed. Assuming that speed would be 1500 m/s, a Battleship would charge its ftl-engines for say...1-2 minutes before jumping to ftl-speed. The charging would work just like the charging of the normal cruise speed, just that it takes more time and you can travel pretty much anywhere with high speed. The charging and the cruise itself wouldn't be disruptable, but it also should be made sure, there aren't enemies right infront of you. There would also be a cooldown time of the ftl-engines, so you can't use it again right after you jumped. -By saying P2P, I mean, that you can't control your ship while it's cruising with ftl-speed. Once on ftl-speed, you can't turn your ship anymore, you just fly straight to the location you moved the nose of your ship to.- In addition to that, there could be fuel used for such a jump. Since such fast travel takes energy, there would have to be an additional commodity, supporting the jump as long as possible.

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Hypothetical scenario:

You are at Manhattan with a Liberty Carrier and want to jump to West Point. You make sure everything is alright and that your nose is directed at the direction in which West point lies. You charge the engines for 1-2 minutes and go on ftl-speed. You successfully arrive at West Point and are happy about that. Unfortunately, you see a lot of pirate bombers heading straight towards your location and you turn around into the direction of the Missouri to escape and call for help. While you charge your ftl-engine, the enemy ships bring two Scyllas infront of you and start shooting your ship. Although, they can't break your hull and you go on ftl-speed. Unfortunately you crush into the two Scyllas and your ship drifts off it's course, heading somewhere else instead of the wanted location. You are angry about the fact you lost fuel for nothing and have to correct your movement. You deactivate your ftl-engines and hope the enemies won't find you before the engines are charged again. By bad luck, they find you before your engines could cool down and start shooting you again. Facing bombers and two Scyllas right now, you open fire while waiting for your chance to charge and try to drive them off. You make it to win some time and charge the engines, moving the ship in position again, to get to Norfolk. But because the charging of the ftl-engines needs so much energy, your weapon systems shut down and you are without protection. By the overwhelming firepower your ships collapses and explodes in a sheer firework.

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While it would make sense for Battleships to use features like that, it could also open new ways of tactical thinking and opportunities as well. I am not going to say it's more realistic, but it would be thousand times better, in my opinion, than battleships using lanes, dependently. It's something interesting to think about, since some problems might not exist with this variant of space travelling. Of course, there are always pro and contra.

I had fun thinking about this. What do you think? Tell me your opinions about it and pro, contra and what not.