Travel Mode/Combat Solution?

[warchild421]

Highways makes no sense from a defensive position.

If the game started with very minimal highways, mostly in the Capital system and secondary systems, that would make a lot of sense. Then over the course of the game the Empires would try to make Highway networks connecting all their sectors. There would not be a round the galaxy race track for the enemies to slide right on through.

Programming the AI to build good highways might be tough. If they make "Pre-planned" highway locations the AI wants to build once conditions for them are meet it, they wouldnt have to worry about making smarter AI in that accord.

Once that happens then the Player could be allowed to make Highways where they want as well.

[Warnoise]

So, Travel Drive is great. Zipping around sectors, hitting the breaks at just the right time to drift/crash into the docking bay. The problem? Its a little too great. Some examples:

"Man I don't really feel like fighting today."
Mash shift+1

"But wait, it's not working because I took damage! What ever will I do!?"
Holds boost for 3 seconds then continues to mash shift+1

"Oh no a massive Xenon fleet, I'm screwed!"
Fly's THROUGH 3 K's and swarm of fighters at 4000+ m/s

This is the core of what breaks the immersion for me. I have a feeling I'm not alone in this opinion. Though, I'm not sure if egosoft see the travel drive as having some issues or working as intended.

Another issue is I can't really think of a perfect solution. Some people have suggested the idea of interdiction software but if its a thing that is triggered by the player I have little faith the AI would use it properly if at all. I feel it would have to be a radius/bubble sort of thing. Disabling travel mode when a ship enters that radius automatically while active. In a perfect world, I would like travel mode to change speeds dynamically when close to objects (ships/asteroids/stations i.e elite dangerous.) But I feel it may be out of the realm of possibility when it comes the games hard code, engine limitations ect.

Truly though, I'm just not sure. What do you guys think of the current state of travel mode? Does it need to be change/tweaked/overhauled?

I have spoken about this since the release of the game. The solutions are there, but Egosoft is too busy fixing the millions of bugs that still haunt this game.

[Falcrack]

I'd vote for interdiction generators that you can drop like satellites, which disrupt travel drive for all hostile units.

[XTC0R]

+1 for a mechanic to avoid travel drive abuse.
A jammer for ships and/or jammer satellites. I also like the fuel Idea. But I guess that's much more complicated to implement but would be a very interesting game mechanic.
Also not a fan of highways. At least not the complete ring. Maybe just separate them for each faction. I disabled them in my game.