Jumpdrives got me into X3, highways just dropped me off XR, and we're legion

[sd_jasper]

Or why don't just limit the jumpdrive range at 3 or 4 systems?
I agree it's too powerfull to alow player to jump from one point to the far edge of the map in 1sec. But if we limit the range of the jumpdrive, you have no more this problem.

Remember the map and layout of the universe is very different from the old gird of boxes. We don't know enough about the new map, but using X Rebirth as an example, you can get from any system to any other by passing through no more than 3 gates.

The base+DLC of XR is "only" 8 Systems. These systems have a total of 25 sectors which have nearly 200 zones. The systems are linked by 18 gates IIRC, (9 linked pairs), which means that there are multiple paths from to/from most Systems. So, such a limit would still allow jumping "anywhere".

I'm not sure if X4's map will have the same designations, but based on the talk of Gates, Orbital Accelerators, and Highways, I'm going to guess we are still using the System-Sector-Zone. But really, till we get our hands on the game, I don't know if any of us can really know what impact removing (or adding back) the JD really will have.

[Simpelton]

Or why don't just limit the jumpdrive range at 3 or 4 systems?
I agree it's too powerfull to alow player to jump from one point to the far edge of the map in 1sec. But if we limit the range of the jumpdrive, you have no more this problem.

No - there's still a problem. It would still trivialize strategic elements of the game. Can't think of a single faction in X3 which controlled sufficient contiguous territory to prevent a jumpdrive with a range of 3-4 sectors from allowing a fleet to jump directly from outside the borders straight into core sectors. That means any pretense at defending the borders is utterly irrelevant - so no strategic depth to the game. Even a jumpdrive with a range of 0 (i.e. only to other gates in the same sector) would have this problem of making it trivially easy to avoid border defences - e.g. fly through gate, see hostile fleet, jump to far side of sector, fly through gate... (repeat until you get to wherever you wanted to go without engaging the enemy at any point).

What we need is jump inhibitors. Such that you could be allowed to jump into any sector that was friendly, but unfriendly sectors could block your access unless you sneak an illicit jump beacon into the sector.

I agree, if you've ticked off the Argons, being able to jump multiple destroyers straight into Argon Prime is ridiculous.

Right now the deployment of hostile ships in x3 makes no sense. They are way too spread out and if an enemy decided to concentrate their forces attack, there's nothing they could do about it. What factions should be doing is keeping scouts and satellite coverage in their sectors and jumping a massive heavily armed rapid response force into a sector to respond against any hostile incursion. Decisive strikes vs rapid response would be the order of battle.

On the other hand, if hostile factions could deny jump access to their territory, dispersion of force becomes the correct strategy because the greatest threat is then faced by the border territories which must then be guarded against both brute-force attacks and illicit jump beacon smuggling. All of a sudden the AI strategy actually makes some sense. Throw in the idea that attackers couldn't jump in and defenders possibly could, and the static borders you see in the world as it is make a lot more sense -- unless a faction has been critically weakened or their armed response force has already been crushed, such as happened to the Boron in the Split-Boron War, systems aren't going to change hands very often.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

On the other hand, if hostile factions could deny jump access to their territory...All of a sudden the AI strategy actually makes some sense. Throw in the idea that attackers couldn't jump in and defenders possibly could, and the static borders you see in the world as it is make a lot more sense -- unless a faction has been critically weakened or their armed response force has already been crushed, such as happened to the Boron in the Split-Boron War, systems aren't going to change hands very often.

You'd also need to prevent jumping out of hostile space to friendly space to prevent cheesing the system. I.e. arriving, focusing file on one ship, and jumping out after it pops before your ships pop.

[Simpelton]

I don't think so, if only because that's actually a very ticklish kind of operation with a very large opportunity for failure, and would depend very heavily on the enemy being within shooting distance of the gate as you moved back in in the conventional way. And on your ability to wear the enemy down faster than he can reinforce, in a tactical situation where time is not on your side.

Unless you're talking about being able to drop a jump beacon the first time you enter, and then jump to the beacon at will, it won't work at all, and if you do drop a jump beacon, then retreat with all or part of his force, your enemy has a very simple recourse. He can destroy the beacon and whatever you left to guard it before you arrive back in system.

In fact a failure to do so, either through inability to defeat your guards, or through incompetent neglegence, is probably a defeat condition in that scenario, and properly so (this I would not call "cheese" unless the enemy is not programmed to try and destroy unauthorized jump beacons, and even then is that cheese or bad programming?).

Basically, if you're not jumping into hostile sectors, then the ability to jump out isn't a gamebreaker so much as a loss-prevention mechanism.

[Ringkeeper]

one think with jump drive: don't forget the fun/annoy factor.

Imagine to fly f.e. from Kingdom End to Queen's Harbour... once maybe fun, twice not really, later just annoying.

If you need 1 hour to fly there you can't play much "fun" stuff if your time is limited (which normaly is if you have family/work/school/friends etc).

Not to talk about trade options ... uh, they are out of ore and i have full storage ... fly, fly, fly, oh, someone was faster, cause i needed 1h.

[linolafett]

one think with jump drive: don't forget the fun/annoy factor.

Imagine to fly f.e. from Kingdom End to Queen's Harbour... once maybe fun, twice not really, later just annoying.

If you need 1 hour to fly there you can't play much "fun" stuff if your time is limited (which normaly is if you have family/work/school/friends etc).

Not to talk about trade options ... uh, they are out of ore and i have full storage ... fly, fly, fly, oh, someone was faster, cause i needed 1h.

You will not need to fly for an hour straight. Thats what the travel drive is good for. An argument for the highways, too.

Trades are reserved for you already in space (if you have planned it) no npc will then take away your deal. Like in Rebirth.

[MrFiction]

Highways can be useful if done properly. The only place I liked them was in HoL where it made sense. A big problem with the highways is the fake traffic spawning causing constant bouncing and ejecting from the highway.

[gbjbaanb]

I agree, if you've ticked off the Argons, being able to jump multiple destroyers straight into Argon Prime is ridiculous.

Right now the deployment of hostile ships in x3 makes no sense. They are way too spread out and if an enemy decided to concentrate their forces attack, there's nothing they could do about it. What factions should be doing is keeping scouts and satellite coverage in their sectors and jumping a massive heavily armed rapid response force into a sector to respond against any hostile incursion. Decisive strikes vs rapid response would be the order of battle.

TBH the argument "but nothing stops you jumping a fleet into enemy sector" is stupid. If you tick off the Argons and jump a fleet in, the Argons will use their own fleets and static defences to blow you to little bits. That's what stop you doing it, not some artificial concept of jump drive badness.

[gbjbaanb]

I like the idea of making the game more strategic, and I think removing jumpdrives and adding player teleportation is interesting.

But for the record, you can have deeper tactics and strategy with jumpdrives, they just have to be much more limited than they were in X3.

- You can do things like make jumping cost more fuel/make fuel more scarce, which adds more supply logistics to jumping.

- You can give jumping a cooldown, making jumping itself a limited resource within a given period of time.

- You can require some kind of infrastructure to facilitate jumping (e.g. beacons), deploying which would be strategic choices.

- You can have only certain types ships be able to jump, making ship choice and fleet composition more involved.

Or any combination of the above.

All of the above would also add programming complexity and likely limit the AI as well. Not to mention possibly need additional testing and balancing which is more resource-intensive.

The programming cost of making a jump drive use more fuel is insignificant, as is upping the cost of buying a jumpdrive, or giving it a cooldown. Beacons are no different to the existing gates.

So all in all, it would make no difference to the game.

Making JDs expensive and/or use fuel, or even restricting what ships could mount them, or even specifying small JDs for corvettes and big but restricted ones for military would ensure NPCs and players could not mount a JD on a transport whilst letting them still be used for smaller supply and player ships. Though I have no problem with JDs on transports, the cost of them should mean that you wouldn't put them on because then your ROI would be astronomical and you'd make no profit.

[Graaf]

Imagine to fly f.e. from Kingdom End to Queen's Harbour... once maybe fun, twice not really, later just annoying.

You will not need to fly for an hour straight. Thats what the travel drive is good for. An argument for the highways, too.

You still have to fly through 26 systems to get to your destination. That gives you an average of 138 sezuras for every system. If you're flying the stock Mercury at 100m/s, it would give you about 13,8km per system. That is barely enough distance to clear the gate. You won't even cross the smallest system with that limited amount of time. And I'm using the "small box" systems from X3 here.

The only way to cross that distance in an hour using an Ore Transporter is through the Xenon Hub.

Trades are reserved for you already in space (if you have planned it) no npc will then take away your deal. Like in Rebirth.

That doesn't make it better. Why would I want to fly 27 systems if I could possibly sell it in CBNW or CBSE? Because I made a deal and now I have to watch paint dry until it is completed?

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

gbjbaanb wrote:

If you tick off the Argons and jump a fleet in, the Argons will use their own fleets and static defences to blow you to little bits.

This may have been true of X3, but the Argons are no longer a single entity.
They no longer have race response fleets or any other magically produced defenders. Each faction will have fleets but they have to move to defend an enemy action, if they are destroyed then replacements have to be built. This requires resources and friendly shipyards.

So you want to attack an Argon faction, you can plan ahead and first of all cripple their supply lines. Reduce the resources actually getting to shipyards. This should work properly in X4 as everything is built out of the underlying economy.

Attack/cap their trade ships and steal those resources for yourself. Thus reducing their trade fleet and their ability to build more.

When you move to attack you know that the enemy cannot just jump in reinforcements. This gives you time to wage a war of attrition.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Imagine to fly f.e. from Kingdom End to Queen's Harbour... once maybe fun, twice not really, later just annoying.

You will not need to fly for an hour straight. Thats what the travel drive is good for. An argument for the highways, too.

You still have to fly through 26 systems to get to your destination. That gives you an average of 138 sezuras for every system. If you're flying the stock Mercury at 100m/s, it would give you about 13,8km per system. That is barely enough distance to clear the gate. You won't even cross the smallest system with that limited amount of time. And I'm using the "small box" systems from X3 here.

The only way to cross that distance in an hour using an Ore Transporter is through the Xenon Hub.

You're also using the X3, which I'm pretty sure you understand makes the false comparison pointless.

Trades are reserved for you already in space (if you have planned it) no npc will then take away your deal. Like in Rebirth.

That doesn't make it better. Why would I want to fly 27 systems if I could possibly sell it in CBNW or CBSE? Because I made a deal and now I have to watch paint dry until it is completed?

It doesn't sound like you understand how Trade Deals works in XR. I'm sure you're aware of the free XR v4.00 demo, if you wanted to test your assumption.

[Simpelton]

gbjbaanb wrote:

If you tick off the Argons and jump a fleet in, the Argons will use their own fleets and static defences to blow you to little bits.

This may have been true of X3, but the Argons are no longer a single entity.
They no longer have race response fleets or any other magically produced defenders. Each faction will have fleets but they have to move to defend an enemy action, if they are destroyed then replacements have to be built. This requires resources and friendly shipyards.

So you want to attack an Argon faction, you can plan ahead and first of all cripple their supply lines. Reduce the resources actually getting to shipyards. This should work properly in X4 as everything is built out of the underlying economy.

Attack/cap their trade ships and steal those resources for yourself. Thus reducing their trade fleet and their ability to build more.

When you move to attack you know that the enemy cannot just jump in reinforcements. This gives you time to wage a war of attrition.

Which is all rendered meaningless if you can just drop a massive force into their key sectors and obliterate their shipyards one by one. Not that hard to do in X3, even with magical race response fleets. A horde of expendable fighters to keep the enemy fleet busy, and then enough bombers or missile frigates to reduce the shipyard in a couple volleys. Simple.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Simpelton wrote:

Which is all rendered meaningless if you can just drop a massive force into their key sectors and obliterate their shipyards one by one.

So first off this massive force has to be built and paid for. It has to come out of the underlying economy. Assuming you didn't just cheat them in.

So your going to need quite a large empire to do this, its going to take some time. Or your going to have to spend a lot of time capturing and refitting all of these vessels. Even then, they still need to be produced somewhere, so that's going to mean a lot of time and resources to build them.

Then there is no just drop a fleet into key sectors. You actually are going to have to fly there. Potentially flying through a lot of enemy territory to get there. On top of this stations can have some very powerful defenses of their own. Destroying one is not going to be easy.

I recall a thread in the X3 forums where someone documented their attempt to destroy one of the races. He built a massive fleet as you suggest, IIRC it did not end well.

[Graaf]

Imagine to fly f.e. from Kingdom End to Queen's Harbour... once maybe fun, twice not really, later just annoying.

You will not need to fly for an hour straight. Thats what the travel drive is good for. An argument for the highways, too.

You still have to fly through 26 systems to get to your destination. That gives you an average of 138 sezuras for every system. If you're flying the stock Mercury at 100m/s, it would give you about 13,8km per system. That is barely enough distance to clear the gate. You won't even cross the smallest system with that limited amount of time. And I'm using the "small box" systems from X3 here.

The only way to cross that distance in an hour using an Ore Transporter is through the Xenon Hub.

You're also using the X3, which I'm pretty sure you understand makes the false comparison pointless.

AFAIK both Kingdom End and Queen's Harbor are not part of Rebirth. The only things not properly place in the above quote's are "Travel Drive" and "Highways".
But are you telling us both of those make it able to transfer through a system within 138s?

Trades are reserved for you already in space (if you have planned it) no npc will then take away your deal. Like in Rebirth.

That doesn't make it better. Why would I want to fly 27 systems if I could possibly sell it in CBNW or CBSE? Because I made a deal and now I have to watch paint dry until it is completed?

It doesn't sound like you understand how Trade Deals works in XR. I'm sure you're aware of the free XR v4.00 demo, if you wanted to test your assumption.

No, I don't. But apparently it is too difficult for you to explain it to me.

[MegaJohnny]

AFAIK both Kingdom End and Queen's Harbor are not part of Rebirth. The only things not properly place in the above quote's are "Travel Drive" and "Highways".

It's not "only" travel drive and highways, though. Those are the ways you go fast in X4.

[Varyah]

No, I don't. But apparently it is too difficult for you to explain it to me.

I can help you out: you can at any point in time decide to cancel the deal and sell your cargo elsewhere. The system just prevents NPCs or your own NPC controlled trade ships to fulfill demand before your cargo arrives. In essence you get a contract to deliver fixed amount of cargo at fixed price that you can cancel without repercussions. Only profits allowed.


On the topic of jumpdrives. I think we have established that for anything besides trading it doesn't really matter if you have a jumpdrive or a teleporter (unless for excessive role playing reasons you never want to change ship). It may require more time and resources to setup since you have to position your favorite ships with respective loadout in all relevant sectors; on the upside the NPC pilots can keep them stocked with missiles and stuff, repair them while you already teleported elsewhere which you'd have to do yourself via flying somewhere or jumping in a supply ship when going with a jumpdrive. Want to control all sectors militarily? Build large fleets for each sector. Things may just become more expensive or larger in scope which may be a good thing unless it becomes a stupid grind.

What remains is TRADE. Moving cargo is something teleporter can't provide. The obvious solution is to balance trading such that local trading is profitable enough. Does it really matter if each of your NPC controlled trading ships only visits 2-3 zones/sectors or does every ship need to fly through the whole known universe (while you aren't even watching)? As for building stations for trading: Build production in places where it is locally profitable instead of one giant complex that supplies the whole universe.

As long as it is similarly profitable to run local trade routes without jumpdrive as running global trade routes but with jumpdrive, honestly, what is the difference? And even if there is a extremely profitable sink on one side of the universe you can only supply from the other side, why not build a station close to the sink producing that stuff, then make it self sufficient on the resource side and increase profitsss even more? And if it was just a one-time thing, why bother?


As for highways, I don't find them particularly interesting. But I think it is a good decision to go for larger systems (more room for content, most X3 sectors were just tiny) which need some form of fast transportation method that doesn't bore you to death (which unfortunately highways do sometimes), even with jumpdrive you have to fly to a station. From a technical perspective it is a much easier computational task to give the computer controlled ships fixed corridors to fly through instead of having completely free path finding, especially in densely populated zones. Sure, you could make the highways invisible and non-interactive for the player, but this may be a purely aesthetic problem with the introduction of the travel drive.

[Graaf]

No, I don't. But apparently it is too difficult for you to explain it to me.

I can help you out: you can at any point in time decide to cancel the deal and sell your cargo elsewhere. The system just prevents NPCs or your own NPC controlled trade ships to fulfill demand before your cargo arrives. In essence you get a contract to deliver fixed amount of cargo at fixed price that you can cancel without repercussions. Only profits allowed.

So you can spend all your time flying over to the station just to sell it before you arrive because you see a better deal. Why should that be allowed? Someone expected that delivery.

[spankahontis]

No, I don't. But apparently it is too difficult for you to explain it to me.

I can help you out: you can at any point in time decide to cancel the deal and sell your cargo elsewhere. The system just prevents NPCs or your own NPC controlled trade ships to fulfill demand before your cargo arrives. In essence you get a contract to deliver fixed amount of cargo at fixed price that you can cancel without repercussions. Only profits allowed.

So you can spend all your time flying over to the station just to sell it before you arrive because you see a better deal. Why should that be allowed? Someone expected that delivery.

In a Free Market Space Sim, how would turning away a deal be policed?
Would there be a Legal Team Feature where they would send a lawyer to sue you for breaking a Contract?

But I agree that a simple reduction in Reputation that would effect prices would suffice. Hardly anything to be bothered about.

[Graaf]

No, I don't. But apparently it is too difficult for you to explain it to me.

I can help you out: you can at any point in time decide to cancel the deal and sell your cargo elsewhere. The system just prevents NPCs or your own NPC controlled trade ships to fulfill demand before your cargo arrives. In essence you get a contract to deliver fixed amount of cargo at fixed price that you can cancel without repercussions. Only profits allowed.

So you can spend all your time flying over to the station just to sell it before you arrive because you see a better deal. Why should that be allowed? Someone expected that delivery.

In a Free Market Space Sim, how would turning away a deal be policed?
Would there be a Legal Team Feature where they would send a lawyer to sue you for breaking a Contract?

But I agree that a simple reduction in Reputation that would effect prices would suffice. Hardly anything to be bothered about.

Then why not use the old "first come, first served" principle?