The Jumpdrive...yes that one

[dholmstr]

Now over some time I've seen discussion about size and usage of space, and how to get around the big vast. Many times (maybe always) the Jumpdrive pops up. For good reason.

May one ask of Egosoft to once and for all decide to use or not. I'm not for or against but this having it and not having it from game to game, different patches/iterations. Then a different type of jumpdrive in XR that was a step back in evolution, the old one jump trough gates cross the galaxy, the new within system only. Thats more lore and what not.

Shall we have it or not? Lets remember it all began with -the- jump.

[Alan Phipps]

They already did decide once and for all, here.

It has been argued about at length by players since, such as here.

[dholmstr]

Good one. Shall read.

[Falcrack]

I agree with the removal of jumpdrives for small ships. But, given the reality in X4 where L and XL ships take FOREVER to navigate from gate to gate, due to being unable to use highways and having to navigate behind gates every time, I would absolutely be in favor of adding jumpdrives for L and XL ships. The linked discussion was from a time before the release of the game, when it was not apparent to all how much of a pain it would be for these larger ships to navigate in comparison to smaller ships that could use the highways.

One key argument egosoft listed against jumpdrives was that it was too easy to use it to circumvent enemy defenses. I'm sorry, but there are simple solutions to this. Such as, making it so you have to be on friendly terms with the sector owner in order to jump to a gate in the sector. Perhaps jump modules on stations, which are targetable only by friendly craft and which have to be constructed, as opposed to jump beacons which were too easy to deploy and use in X3.

[Tomonor]

Jumpdrives are so 2017.

[Shepp]

Don't forget the pole here. I've never understood what folks have against jump drives. It's not even like its a concept that Egosoft made up. I for one think they should be brought back for L and XL ships.

[Tomonor]

Don't forget the pole here. I've never understood what folks have against jump drives.

Literally nothing. It's just that Egosoft has decided to balance the game this way.

In a perfect X game, I would imagine jumpdrive to be as unreliable as it gets, would eat up insane amounts of fuel (and money), and the ships would need to travel greater distances in the wormhole/hyperspace network to get to their destination (jump tunnel's lenght added up until target star system thus there's still time invested for traveling). However, all these points would still barely scratch the surface of balancing. The problem lies in large amounts of armadas popping up in a sector in mere seconds, nullifying the war's frontlines and linear strategic elements, resulting in a relative chaos. Hence the removal of jumpdrives, the requirement of strategic asset placement, the addition of the extended transporter system and the continuous ring highway network to ease up the multiplied travel times.

Even if it's the wrong general direction for an X game, it's at least understandable.

[Shepp]

Don't forget the pole here. I've never understood what folks have against jump drives.

Literally nothing. It's just that Egosoft has decided to balance the game this way.

In a perfect X game, I would imagine jumpdrive to be as unreliable as it gets, would eat up insane amounts of fuel (and money), and the ships would need to travel greater distances in the wormhole/hyperspace network to get to their destination (jump tunnel's lenght added up until target star system thus there's still time invested for traveling). However, all these points would still barely scratch the surface of balancing. The problem lies in large amounts of armadas popping up in a sector in mere seconds, nullifying the war's frontlines and linear strategic elements, resulting in a relative chaos. Hence the removal of jumpdrives, the requirement of strategic asset placement, the addition of the extended transporter system and the continuous ring highway network to ease up the multiplied travel times.

Even if it's the wrong general direction for an X game, it's at least understandable.

You describe jump drives in X games like something that has never existed. I was perfectly fine with they way they were implemented in X3 and XR. Neither was perfect but they did the job. I also have to disagree with your whole "strategy" reasoning. Having jump drives doesn't eliminate strategy. It just makes what is effective different from the way it is now; where all of the forces are bunched up on fronts.

[Tomonor]

You describe jump drives in X games like something that has never existed. I was perfectly fine with they way they were implemented in X3 and XR. Neither was perfect but they did the job. I also have to disagree with your whole "strategy" reasoning. Having jump drives doesn't eliminate strategy. It just makes what is effective different from the way it is now; where all of the forces are bunched up on fronts.

Well then. We agree to disagree.

[MakerLinux]

I don't mind so much about jump drives as a mechanic, I think the current highways and player teleport already do a lot on it, but since they are integral to the lore at least a defanged / nerfed version of them should exist, maybe for bigger ships like carriers only. As the dude in that discussion said, consistency is really important for immersion, and you can't just drop a technology like that from the lore just because it's convenient to the intended mechanics.

[idofwsl]

How about let a new kind of station module teleport ships？

[EmperorDragon]

I accepted the removal of jumpdrives in X4 due to strategic reasons but, since the AI can do gateless jumps in the form of random encounters (which Egosoft staunchly intend to keep in place regardless of player pressure), jumpdrives can just as well be added back in. Gateless jumpdrives that is, if the AI can do it, so should the player.

Being able to set up frontiers, blockades, chokepoints etc. made the removal of jumpdrives a viable design decision but, that viability is rendered completely pointless if enemies can simply gateless jump past all your defenses (defenses that don't shoot at enemies anyway) right into your immediate vicinity. If that is how the status quo will remain, then give the player access to gateless jumpdrives too.

[Tomonor]

I accepted the removal of jumpdrives in X4 due to strategic reasons but, since the AI can do gateless jumps in the form of random encounters (which Egosoft staunchly intend to keep in place regardless of player pressure), jumpdrives can just as well be added back in. Gateless jumpdrives that is, if the AI can do it, so should the player.

The key there is that random encounters don't simply make ships jump - they make them appear in the middle of nothing so they can waddle back to do their business. They aren't jumped for their target destination but are randomly chosen to be teleported next to you so you don't feel alone.

How about let a new kind of station module teleport ships？

Apart from screwing up the lore even further, it would still trigger the issue for the sole reason jumpdrives were removed.

[EmperorDragon]

The key there is that random encounters don't simply make ships jump - they make them appear in the middle of nothing so they can waddle back to do their business. They aren't jumped for their target destination but are randomly chosen to be teleported next to you so you don't feel alone.

i.e. They are gateless jumping to my location, plain and simple, and they don't even use any sort of energy to do so!

What's more, they have full intel about my whereabouts without even having satellite coverage in the area or doing a recon run. I am basically their jumpdrive beacon.

I know it's more technical than that but, from a gameplay perspective, it's simply a case of the player being such an omnipotent presence that everyone likes to use nonexistent jumpdrive tech to gateless jump to the player every time the player wants to fly somewhere. They're like the paparazzi.

[Red-Spot]

Would not mind a (very expensive) system where a fleet can be set up to be able to 'jumpdrive' to a location but at such cost it can only return home using regular flight.
Potentially through the use of carriers (or special type ships).

[Kadatherion]

While I do miss the jumpdrive *immensely* from a player QoL perspective, I agree it should have no place in a (small, way too small for it, btw) universe with dynamic wars and sector conquests. Ok, these wars still don't work as intended, but supposedly they will. You don't want your map becoming a confused checker mess with the Argon conquering a HOP sector far from the "front", surrounded only by other enemy sectors and so on: it'd play and look very random. Basically, the absence of jump drives is needed to actually have any semblance of war "fronts" or "supply lines". And sure, you could have it for the player faction only, but... yeah, that would definitely feel too unbalanced and "cheaty" now that the player really is supposed to be able to wage real wars himself.

Unfortunately this absence also aggravates other issues: for instance, you got to have alternative ways of "fast travel" to avoid even the most menial tasks becoming long, boring endeavours, which is why we have the highways... but because of how highways work and are implemented, the universe ends up feeling even smaller than it actually is.

Honestly, I think the only real solution that wouldn't just move the issue around would be to deeply reconsider sector layouts while also increasing the universe size / number of sectors. Highways should connect clusters of stations IS only, and these clusters themselves should be much more far apart than they are now. What really feels "wrong" now is that you can jump onto an highway one side of the galaxy and get to the other side of it almost without doing anything else, as many gates themselves are *inside* the highway network, you get everywhere in a minute, hands off: it doesn't really feel like you "travelled" all that much.
Basically, a Freelancer kind of layout is what would be needed: highways would maintain their role of connecting IS areas to facilitate gameplay and avoid *too long* travel times, but going from one sector to another would actually feel like it should, and the galaxy itself would feel much bigger. Gameplay on the average would slow down a bit but that would be good as well, imo, the game as it is now is in many aspects way too steered towards instant gratification.

This could also open some more chances to have an use for big ships. A bit like Freelancer, more "stationary" ones could work as "mobile stations" in deeper, frontier space that's less connected to the main arteries (I mean, we can dock to AI cap ships, that's cool: how about we actually make it serve some purpose, any purpose, while we are at it? Some limited trading, maybe a few fringe themed quest givers?), and as more corners of the universe would be less serviced by the "instant highways", giving them much better travel drives than small ships could finally make them a bit useful for the player as well.

Seriously, not having a jumpdrive isn't strange at all. It's the universe layout that's totally bonkers.

[Shepp]

The method I put forth in the poll thread that I linked I suggested that instead of jump drives jumping to any gate; they could only jump to beacons placed by whomever. That way you would have to send someone to a place to put a beacon there before other ships could jump in. If someone places a beacon you don't want in your system, try and destroy it before the invasion jumps in.

I'll also say that I'm with Emperor Dragon on the encounters mechanic. I'm not sure how the argument can be made that jump drives are lame and lore breaking. When you have ships magically appear near you so you have someone to run into in the middle of nowhere.

[graphicboy]

I'm not sure how the argument can be made that jump drives are lame and lore breaking. When you have ships magically appear near you so you have someone to run into in the middle of nowhere.

So much this. Whatever. It's literally 3 lines of mod code to make a ship warp instead of travel.

[Olfrygt]

I agree with the removal of jumpdrives for small ships. But, given the reality in X4 where L and XL ships take FOREVER to navigate from gate to gate, due to being unable to use highways and having to navigate behind gates every time, I would absolutely be in favor of adding jumpdrives for L and XL ships. The linked discussion was from a time before the release of the game, when it was not apparent to all how much of a pain it would be for these larger ships to navigate in comparison to smaller ships that could use the highways.

One key argument egosoft listed against jumpdrives was that it was too easy to use it to circumvent enemy defenses. I'm sorry, but there are simple solutions to this. Such as, making it so you have to be on friendly terms with the sector owner in order to jump to a gate in the sector. Perhaps jump modules on stations, which are targetable only by friendly craft and which have to be constructed, as opposed to jump beacons which were too easy to deploy and use in X3.

Well, remove the highways and let L/XL fly into the middle of gates once again....ez solution. Jumpdrive for XL only could be an idea (a nice idea to make carriers usefull). But only if they remove the mapwide teleport. If feels wired that jump drive gets removed but the player alone can jump from system to system.

Honestly i hope they remove the highway and teleport without adding the jump drive again. Highways should only be used to connect sectors of the same star system. Instead of flying into a accelerator u should fly a few seconds up to a min in a highway and see far out planets coming closer to u.

[csaba]

To keep the strategy element they could use a modified version of XR's capship jumpdrives, where large ships can jump to the neighboring sector to a beacon. Just instead of landing in the middle of the sector the ships should appear behind the gate that connects to the starting sector.

- This will fix ships flying through gates to their deaths 1 by 1
- This also gives capships a much needed retreat option
- Would speed up their travel time just enough so it's not a logistical nightmare


The only issue is that ships can skip sectors this way. Like Xenon Ks showing up in Grand Exchange. This can be solved with a 5 minute cooldown on the jump drive and factions building defense platforms next to the entry points so no 1 ship can just bunny hop the universe.