Nav Comp upgrade

[Xenephon]

So here's the thing. 

I can see that the game has the potential to be enjoyable, but my enjoyment is tempered by the micromanagement that I have to do to travel around the map, which makes it frankly unfun 

I understand that you need to feel your way out into the deep dark depths of space in order to map and explore your way around the hazards, and to find viable wormhole terminii, but once I have done that why can I not jump directly to a location I have mapped already, and back to Sol directly?

I can't see how having the arbitrary 16LY limit on a jump adds anything useful to the game.  Its not like you can be intercepted in deep space, so its just a time killing filler.  This is particularly exacerbated by the fact that you can only buy minerals and gases in Sol, and its the only place you can currently buy stations, hulls and recruit personnel.

Allowing you to target a Nav Comp location directly will not make the travel time any less, nor will it reduce the fuel cost, it will just eliminate the micro-management effort and allow some more forward thinking and strategic planning.

By all means, make this a VIP feature - I am all for supporting freemium games - but please consider reducing some of this game behaviour that only detracts from the game's appeal.

Xenephon

[sinaarrgghh]

One thing that would be nice would be for the nav comp to not allow you to enter a star more than once, this should be easy to do. (for example if it's a mysql database underneath use the replace into command)

Maybe have the explored regions pre-entered as well?

[JamJulLison]

The thing is I can see the navigational computers having a limit on distance. Especially on creating wormholes. You got to create and open the entry wormhole and the exit point. Remember these are artificial wormholes. Likely any further then 16 ly they start to become unstable. The time it takes to jump has to do with how long it takes for your navigation computer to calculate the jump. The higher your Wormhole Gen, the faster the processor on your navigational computer I guess or something like that.  Meaning shorter calculations.  With FTLs it is a similar thing. Though FTLs form wormholes that aren't as big in range. So the FTL isn't as powerful as the wormhole gen but are needed for short range jumps cause apparently the Wormhole Gen isn't capable of anything less then a lightyear. lol

[sargas]

the wormhole generator cannot jump less than .01 0.1 LY, but can jump any distance from .01 0.1 LY and greater₁...







(edit - it's long been my escape point whenever I enter a system)
¹(second edit - oops)
(third edit - the default seems to be 0.12 LY)

[Xenephon]

I am sure that we could come up with endless reasons to have a limitation on our imaginary technology, and I like the colourful suggestions in previous posts from a flavour perspective

What I am suggesting though is that having a limit for no specific game mechanic reason does nothing but add micromanagement that adds no gaming value.

Xene

[JamJulLison]

I got an idea. How about advanced Wormhole Gens? For the ship they are put on, the ship will have double the jump range. This bonus is only applied once though so you can't increase the range more then they by putting on multiple Advance Wormhole Gens.

[sargas]

sounds like possible 'alien tech' that will come into play with the promised aliens in much the same way the CRM's and EJMO's came into play with the 'nest' upgrade...

[Dadds]

probably nothing wrong with what xene is asking for, except for the concept of jumping, ohhh, lets say 200ly. OK get your wormhole tech up to a large number and that figure isnt too daunting to jump. if you had engines that can do a 15min jump per 16ly (pretty fast and not outside of the realms of possibility) then to click on a star 200ly away would only take you just over 3hrs to accomplish. (3 and 1/8th) In a game where we get frustrated at a few minute timer that is a long counter to wait for. by manually setting in all the waypoints would probably take longer in reality,though it wouldnt feel as long to wait. And if your ship is sitting in an unsafe zone all that time waiting for a counter to run...that is another thing. i can see how this could take some of the tedium out of bringing your ships back home though, on an autopilot style of operation. Set the coordinates into the nav computer and send all the crew into cryogenics as it auto pilots back to base. There should be a penalty put in place though for changing your mind mid counter, such as loss of fuel which is burned up generating the worm hole

Management, or micro-management, is never fun Xene. Not sure where you are in the game, but try managing a dozen ships, plus corp ships, plus corp members and their needs, as a leader....and keep everything straight in your head with what every one of your holdings is doing. It gets complex and administratively boring at times. Some people thrive on that sort of tedium...i for one wish all the paperwork would go away so i can get back to captaining lol

[Xenephon]

Yes Dadds, that's entirely my point.

For games like this, micromanagement is (generally) bad, and is definitely a barrier to entry for new players.

I have 6 ships, one of which I sent off exploring out to the 4 ring (with Tech X WHGs).  Once I got there I realised that I would have to manually pilot each of my ships through all of the intervening space if I wanted to move my base of ops.  Then to sell stuff, buy new crew/minerals, buy stations, etc, I would have to do it all over again time after time.

That was two weeks ago, and I still haven't done it because the thought leaves me cold as a form of "entertainment", which is what I regard games as.

I wouldn't mind a 20h+ timer to get my ships to and from Sol - I can work around that in what is a pretty slow paced game - but let me set it once and come back when it is ready rather than forcing micromanagement for the sake of it.

Xene

[JamJulLison]

The micromanagement of the wormholes doesn't bother me.  A limit to wormhole creation range is realistic. Plus similar things have been shown in sci-fi.  Even in the Star Wars novels there are cases of ships having to make multiple jumps for various reasons.  Don't let the daunting task get you down.  Once your used to  doing it it won't be so bad.  Especially once you have mined a huge planet and discover what a chore it is to unload 1 mine at a time.  Trust me that there is way too much micromanagement. lol