It's quite boring for me to fly through those amazingly huge systems for half an hour without meeting anybody.
I've been in a (mostly)vanilla FL server before, which had a cruise speed of 600, and even with the size of those systems-- a lot smaller compared to the ones we built-- it was quite fun and did not feel too fast.
It will surely be a bit easier than deleting all those big systems. And exploring those systems for fun will also be... less not so fun, in my opinion.
I mean, just as I was writing this post, because I was bored while flying 80k through Omicron Mu, I died to the mines near Zeta hole, which happens nearly all the time, lately.
Increasing cruise means that scanner/select range should also be increased (you won't like someone who will pass 5k near you in few seconds and you won't be able to even select him). That will kill TL piracy. Also TL speed. And remember, bumping into asteroid in lf with 500+ cruise can be deadly.
In fact, none of those concerns above actually happen, as I had been where it worked perfectly.
Let's assume that they became somewhat troublesome a little bit, such a change of cruise speed would only happen after a patch, and a patch usually is able to adjust everything related to this change properly.
The entire economy would have to be changed, would you like to go around re-adjusting all the prices of every single commodity? The reason it would have to be changed is because it would take less time to get everywhere which means that people would be making more credits per length of time than previously.
Also pointed out above, piracy would go be wiped out altogether (not that there is a particularly high level of piracy at the moment), someone would fire a CD at a transport but the transport would already be out of range, and then by the time the pirate managed to cruise after the transport, it would be out of selectable range making it impossible for the pirate to chase after the trader.
That's not even including how impossible it would be to travel though any system with an asteroid field in it (freighters/fighters already get bounced around like crazy, imagine making that two times worse).
Implementing a change that you have suggested would not simply require a small patch, it would require, a complete re-work of the economy, a complete change in the player vs player system in regards to scanners and cruise disrupters as well as cruise charge times and it would also require changing the layout of every single system with an asteroid field in it.
(11-01-2014, 12:49 PM)Danny-boy Wrote: The entire economy would have to be changed, would you like to go around re-adjusting all the prices of every single commodity? The reason it would have to be changed is because it would take less time to get everywhere which means that people would be making more credits per length of time than previously.
(11-01-2014, 12:49 PM)Danny-boy Wrote: Implementing a change that you have suggested would not simply require a small patch, it would require, a complete re-work of the economy, a complete change in the player vs player system in regards to scanners and cruise disrupters as well as cruise charge times and it would also require changing the layout of every single system with an asteroid field in it.
I do not know how you can assume that the current economy is a perfectly balanced system that playing with the cruise speed and adding it some 200-300 more will make it extremely imbalanced.
Who's using that cardamine route to Alpha now? I do not know of many. And that route has so much potential with an amazing activity bottleneck with the name of Tau 23.
Who can say that smuggling is on par with using the lanes now. Anyone will tell you how much easier it is to make hundreds of millions with just mining, no need to waste so much time with any other route.
I do not think that the economy will be effected much, in fact, I think it could get a bit more interesting.
I don't think you need to be changing those prices much which are already quite out of balance anyways.
(11-01-2014, 12:49 PM)Danny-boy Wrote: Also pointed out above, piracy would go be wiped out altogether (not that there is a particularly high level of piracy at the moment), someone would fire a CD at a transport but the transport would already be out of range, and then by the time the pirate managed to cruise after the transport, it would be out of selectable range making it impossible for the pirate to chase after the trader.
Last time I checked, the lanes were much faster than 600, or if you feel that 600 is too much, make that adjustment to be less than that, like 500.
It could depend on the position of the holes and such, and surely the lane trading could be effected a bit, but not as much as you'd think for the reasons I've already written and you yourself have said as well.
I can also easily see why you assume the piracy would be effected too much, like CDing and targeting, because you are imagining that this boost in speed is too much for your reflexes. It really is not. You'll be flying the same speed as your target, and your target will not be gone from your sight within seconds like you think.
Still, the visible range one of the cargo scanners might need a bit of an upgrade, which is not a hard change at all. Not even comparable to the other solution we have... which is "making some systems smaller, and removing some of them."
(11-01-2014, 12:49 PM)Danny-boy Wrote: That's not even including how impossible it would be to travel though any system with an asteroid field in it (freighters/fighters already get bounced around like crazy, imagine making that two times worse).
Again, this is a myth. Really, how do you fly your ships? I've never had a problem with any bouncy rocks on my path unless if I was flying a really huge capital ship.
Do you think that 600 cruise will totally flash you uncontrollably from one edge of the system to the other or something?
The autopilot itself will have no problems avoiding rocks on your path, let alone yourself manually dodging them like usual.
Please, mod your game in single player and check it out, you won't die. Believe me. I think your fears about this is a bit funny.
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Besides these, I think it's time to care a bit less about the 'balance' which we already do not have at all, and more about fun.
It's getting harder to get interaction, and feel that 'rush' of playing the game lately, and I think we really need ways of making reaching from one place to the other easier.
A considerable part of our universe have no trade lanes at all, and strangely enough, they are still large enough for us to consider even going to those places. I myself always think if I'd have the patience to go check out that rare activity in omicrons, thinking even if I could reach there in time, I'd be too bored to get back to where I was once again.
As for the CD problem, I did not feel the CD speed was problematic even with those vanilla CDs, which do not even have a blast radius. But Disco CDs are quite spastic, so the patchers might need to check that out, indeed, if it will work.
And the piracy in those circumstances was not affected at all. The lanes were as always important, because simply they are way too fast and still takes you to places faster, compared to a bit of a boost in your cruise.
Quote:“I do not know how you can assume that the current economy is a perfectly balanced system that playing with the cruise speed and adding it some 200-300 more will make it extremely imbalanced.”
Very simple maths, if you double the speed at which everyone travels, then the time it takes to get somewhere is ½ of what it previously was.
Although to be fair, it isn’t as simple as that, because if people still use trade lanes then you have to work out how long they are cruising for compared to how long they are in lanes for etc, so balancing things would become very awkward.
Quote:“Who's using that cardamine route to Alpha now? I do not know of many. And that route has so much potential with an amazing activity bottleneck with the name of Tau 23.”
Yeah, and with your proposed change that pretty much what everyone will do, it will be just like when Cardamine was buffed, which was stupid. Smugglers will simply avoid the lawfuls in the area by taking the Omicron -> Sigma route rather than the Omicron -> Tau route. They will also be able to do this in a much quicker time than previously.
Quote:“Who can say that smuggling is on par with using the lanes now. Anyone will tell you how much easier it is to make hundreds of millions with just mining, no need to waste so much time with any other route.”
You’re right, mining which involves interaction does make more money than anything else on the server, *sarcastically* ‘OH NO! We need to interact with other people to be able to make a high profit! That’s not fair, let’s change it so we can go cruising off into the distance and avoid any and all interaction.’
Quote:“I do not think that the economy will be effected much, in fact, I think it could get a bit more interesting.”
Maybe for the first day it will be more interesting, then everyone will get bored because no one uses the lanes anymore because cruising everywhere is just as efficient, just the pirates will have no idea where you are unless they sit by a jump hole/jump gate. *sarcastically* ‘Yeah, that sounds fun, no interaction except for at jump holes/jump gates.’
Quote:“I don't think you need to be changing those prices much which are already quite out of balance anyways.”
The economy is actually for the most part quite balanced, this change would screw up everything and mean we would have to start from scratch.
Quote:“Last time I checked, the lanes were much faster than 600, or if you feel that 600 is too much, make that adjustment to be less than that, like 500. It could depend on the position of the holes and such, and surely the lane trading could be effected a bit, but not as much as you'd think for the reasons I've already written and you yourself have said as well.”
This quote makes no sense in the position that you have placed it within your answer and does not refer to my paragraph on piracy, but ok.
What reason have I stated that suggests that trading with the lane will not be affected all that much? I suggest re-reading my post.
Quote:“I can also easily see why you assume the piracy would be effected too much, like CDing and targeting, because you are imagining that this boost in speed is too much for your reflexes. It really is not. You'll be flying the same speed as your target, and your target will not be gone from your sight within seconds like you think.”
I’m not talking about reflexes here, what I’m talking about is if the transport is in say a serenity/anything other than a huge 5ker and I’m in a gunboat/whatever else, then they will move out of range of the CD before it has a chance to hit them, and then I would have to try and cruise to chase after them, but by the time my cruise engines have finished charging and got to full speed the target would be more than 10k away from the pirate, making it impossible to actually see where they are.
Quote:“Still, the visible range one of the cargo scanners might need a bit of an upgrade, which is not a hard change at all. Not even comparable to the other solution we have... which is "making some systems smaller, and removing some of them.”
Well we know that the detection range is easily changeable, I’m not sure about the 10k selection range, but I find it feasible that changing this feature would indeed be easier than changing every single system to make them smaller. Though the problem isn’t just this alone, when you combine this with all the other problems that arise with pretty much doubling the cruise speed we start to see a whole mountain of problems occurring.
Quote:“Again, this is a myth. Really, how do you fly your ships? I've never had a problem with any bouncy rocks on my path unless if I was flying a really huge capital ship.”
Clearly you have never flown a freighter/fighter through Tau-23, you are likely to hit at least one rock, even with near perfect flying, and that in turn will bounce you off a million and one other rocks.
Quote:“Do you think that 600 cruise will totally flash you uncontrollably from one edge of the system to the other or something?”
Pretty much, yes.
Quote:“The autopilot itself will have no problems avoiding rocks on your path, let alone yourself manually dodging them like usual.”
Again, you have clearly never flown through Tau-23.
Quote:“Please, mod your game in single player and check it out, you won't die. Believe me. I think your fears about this is a bit funny.”
I’m not modding my game in single player, I fly a freighter through tau-23 quite often, now adding + 200 cruise speed isn’t going to make the issue better, it will make the issue worse.
Quote:“Besides these, I think it's time to care a bit less about the 'balance' which we already do not have at all, and more about fun. It's getting harder to get interaction, and feel that 'rush' of playing the game lately, and I think we really need ways of making reaching from one place to the other easier.”
And being able to cruise away from any situation, not having to use trade lanes at all is going to make for more interaction? No, the pirates already have to try and guess what lane you will be using, with this in mind they will have to randomly guess which sector you will be in – that’s going to lead to less interaction, not more.
Quote:“A considerable part of our universe have no trade lanes at all, and strangely enough, they are still large enough for us to consider even going to those places. I myself always think if I'd have the patience to go check out that rare activity in omicrons, thinking even if I could reach there in time, I'd be too bored to get back to where I was once again.”
That’s why the universe is being made smaller as a whole, it will take you less time to get to where pews are going on or to explore new places.
Quote:“As for the CD problem, I did not feel the CD speed was problematic even with those vanilla CDs, which do not even have a blast radius. But Disco CDs are quite spastic, so the patchers might need to check that out, indeed, if it will work.”
This seems like another CD problem other than what I was on about, but you’re right, shooting a CD and watching everything turn red is most definitely not fun.
Quote:“And the piracy in those circumstances was not affected at all. The lanes were as always important, because simply they are way too fast and still takes you to places faster, compared to a bit of a boost in your cruise.”
Yes, but if cruising somewhere becomes almost as efficient as a lane, as you are suggesting then people would rather cruise somewhere because in the grand scheme of things trade lanes are not that much faster than cruising somewhere and the added benefit of cruising is that the pirate will have absolutely no idea where a trader is, that leads to less interaction not more.
This change encourages people to move away from the lanes, when what we want to do is encourage people to be using them, this makes it easier for pirates to find a trader by massively narrowing down where a trader is likely to go.