Should 'grav-well' feature be removed?

[Axeface]

The 'grav-well' feature to me seems like a left-over from Rebirth - In Rebirth it fit a lot more into the intended game design, but in X4 does it still fit? Now firstly I want to say that I like Rebirth and its combat balance more than X4, and wish X4's was more like that, however, I think that perhaps X4 would be better off if this grav-well feature was turned off - or even remade/re-imagined.

As for the name 'grav-well', I think that is the generally accepted name for this feature - however IIRC in Rebirth it was actually explained as an auto-maneuvering system (I cant remember where I saw this, but I did) where you ship uses its thrusters to keep up with the large object nearby, rather than the large object having a gravwell that holds you in place. Personally, I MUCH prefer the former option - and think that there might be scope to actually remove the current system entirely and build a new system around the latter idea.

With the latter idea I could imagine having a hotkey to turn on this system and our ships then use their thrusters to try to keep up with the closest large object automatically. If our ships arnt agile enough or if the player messes around with the ships ability to keep up too much with their own maneuvers, we would just not be able to keep up. As a side effect, no, no more sitting next to a capital in travel-mode.

Lastly, why was this system first made in Rebirth? It was made to help the player attack capitals that were VERY dangerous, but in X4 capitals are no longer as dangerous. Personally after much thought I feel like this different approach would be much more graceful, would make sense and would give the player a new and cool option in combat but with drawbacks and weaknesses - it would give agile ships a new breath of value, and might also solve a few very 'glitchy' situations that arise due to the current approach.

Thoughts?

[GCU Grey Area]

Find it quite useful myself, although I never use it while attacking enemy capitals. Flying slowly in close proximity to an enemy capital ship just isn't my thing - prefer zooming around it at high speed (often peppering it with boost-launched torpedoes). Can't do that if I'm being dragged along within spitting distance.

The situations where I do find it handy is if I want to remain in close formation with one of my own capital ships, essentially acting as an extra big turret or if I want to use it as cover. Incidentally, the latter approach works particularly well with Teladi capitals - that dome section works remarkably well as a shield (in the medieval sense of the word). Have also found it useful for docking with capital ships while they're in travel mode. Consequently would prefer the feature was not removed.

[LameFox]

I don't really understand its purpose. Maybe for spacesuits it would make sense if you wanted people to EVA on a moving ship and do... something? But that gameplay doesn't exist. For other things, players don't really need it, the capital ships that it affects simply aren't that hard to outmanoeuvre that it takes a magic field letting you park in their blind spot.

And of course the AI cannot make intelligent use of it whatsoever.

[dtpsprt]

I'd gratefully agree with removing it providing other things happened simultaneously to "balance" things out.

Like boarding times should be revised. It's ridiculous to have to wait for 15-20 minutes in SETA for the Marines to breach the hull of a trader. And at the same time the ship moves at 6000 km/s, impossible to follow closely, most possibly in a Xenon trap in Hatikvah's Choice or the Void.

[LameFox]

I'd gratefully agree with removing it providing other things happened simultaneously to "balance" things out.

Like boarding times should be revised. It's ridiculous to have to wait for 15-20 minutes in SETA for the Marines to breach the hull of a trader. And at the same time the ship moves at 6000 km/s, impossible to follow closely, most possibly in a Xenon trap in Hatikvah's Choice or the Void.

What difference does grav well make to that, though? If you don't disable the ship before boarding, floating along with it will not accelerate the hull breach. If you do disable it the grav well doesn't matter.

[dtpsprt]

I'd gratefully agree with removing it providing other things happened simultaneously to "balance" things out.

Like boarding times should be revised. It's ridiculous to have to wait for 15-20 minutes in SETA for the Marines to breach the hull of a trader. And at the same time the ship moves at 6000 km/s, impossible to follow closely, most possibly in a Xenon trap in Hatikvah's Choice or the Void.

What difference does grav well make to that, though? If you don't disable the ship before boarding, floating along with it will not accelerate the hull breach. If you do disable it the grav well doesn't matter.

The suffer the rep penalties when boarding traders/miners... Unless when the player does "criple" a ship to be boarded during a mission has the rep loss removed to the faction ordering the mission, the player been treated as "mercenary" and not responsible. Besides, to keep the ship in "safe" sectors while the boarding operation goes on, the engines would have to be shot down again and again increasin rep loss (as things are right now) exponentially...

How do you follow a ship that has double or triple your traveldrive speed and jumps in jump gates/accelerators to protect it after your Marines are on top of it?

[Axeface]

I have no idea what all of that has to do with the OP.

How do you follow a ship that has double or triple your traveldrive speed and jumps in jump gates/accelerators to protect it after your Marines are on top of it?

You dont? The entire premise of that is ridiculous as far as im concerned anyway. Boarding is a system that is woefully underdeveloped (and woefully easy to exploit), but thats a subject for another thread.

[LameFox]

The suffer the rep penalties when boarding traders/miners... Unless when the player does "criple" a ship to be boarded during a mission has the rep loss removed to the faction ordering the mission, the player been treated as "mercenary" and not responsible. Besides, to keep the ship in "safe" sectors while the boarding operation goes on, the engines would have to be shot down again and again increasin rep loss (as things are right now) exponentially...

How do you follow a ship that has double or triple your traveldrive speed and jumps in jump gates/accelerators to protect it after your Marines are on top of it?

I tap it on the shields every now and then so it cannot travel drive lol. Grav well would keep leaving me at gates anyway, and sometimes fails during travel drive...

But if you start out in a safe place anyway, why not just lower its hull without shooting off surface elements? Then your marines will board quickly and you need not follow it for 20 minutes. If it goes into a bunch of Xenon you may not be able to save it anyway so this is probably safer.

[Falcrack]

This feature is useful when I want to dock a small ship on a moving capital ship. I think it therefore ought to stay in.

[adeine]

I think the best thing to do would be to disable it for hostile targets.

There's reasons to have it for friendlies (EVA, docking/undocking, escorts,...) but it's just cheesy/easily abused offensively.

[chew-ie]

I'd like it to stay & being improved as I totally share Egosoft's vision on the geometry gameplay

[dtpsprt]

I have no idea what all of that has to do with the OP.

How do you follow a ship that has double or triple your traveldrive speed and jumps in jump gates/accelerators to protect it after your Marines are on top of it?

You dont? The entire premise of that is ridiculous as far as im concerned anyway. Boarding is a system that is woefully underdeveloped (and woefully easy to exploit), but thats a subject for another thread.

I agree that boarding should be a wide discussed subject. I mentioned it as an example for the use of grav-well and if you noticed in my fisrt post I'm not against your idea but it can not be singularily implemented. Other things (boarding among them) should be readjusted and others should be introduced or removed.

[TheDeliveryMan]

It's needed when you want to land on a fast moving ship. You first tap into the gravity well, then you slowly manouver to the landing pad.

It's also needed when launching from a fast moving ship. There it is a little bit less noticable but without it you would immediately crash into the structure of the moving ship.

[KextV8]

I honestly think It has annoyed me more times with random collisions and knocking me out of travel than it has benefitted me.

[Raptor34]

I like it so I don't have to bother with actually maneuvering when clipping off a ships subsystems.

[Imperial Good]

The feature is required for smaller ships to interact with bigger ships at speed. Otherwise docking and undocking would not be possible at anything but the slowest of speeds.

A good example of this would be an erlking. Currently you can dock your S ship on the erlking while it is flying around at 500 m/s odd quite easily by first attaching to the gravity well of the Erlking and then making your way to the docking pad. Without the gravity well it would be near impossible for such a ship to dock on the Erlking at that speed, since the ship can only reach that speed when in travel mod or boosting and even then your speed control is not fine enough to make the required adjustments for docking, even if the Erlking is going in a perfectly straight line.

[Nanook]

I would prefer it to be a toggle-able option like docking that the player could turn on and off as needed. Too many times I've flown close to a big ship that I did not want to dock at, yet I was grabbed by its so-called 'grav-well' when it was least convenient. So yes, it's necessary, but it should be able to be turned on and off as needed. IMHO.

[NightmareNight91]

Yes, I've hated it since x4 released.

[Baddieus]

It's gravity ... you can't turn it off ... smaller mass is pulled towards larger mass and that is actual fact.
To remove this would take away from the space immersion that I currently enjoy flying around in.
You don't notice it around stations because they are stationary and you are piloting around them.

=Baddieus=

[Falcrack]

It's gravity ... you can't turn it off ... smaller mass is pulled towards larger mass and that is actual fact.
To remove this would take away from the space immersion that I currently enjoy flying around in.
You don't notice it around stations because they are stationary and you are piloting around them.

=Baddieus=

The amount of gravitational force that would be generated by even the largest of ships in X4 would be so miniscule as to be practically nonexistent.