And I got an idea for an FSD modification, that would be real nice:
Experimental System Microjumping
- Set your destination by selecting it as usual
- Jump
- Cooldown for another microjump is ~ 4min
But it has a downside! Since it's experimental it only works properly in 30%. If it does not work you over/undershoot by a random distance based on the distance. So say you want to jump 12,000Ls and it fails, you end up at 9,000Ls away BEHIND the destination
*Urgh*
I'm allergic to suggestions of random travel. They are reoccurring unfortunately. There's enough RNG for the sake of RNG already and I'd like Frontier to keep as much of that bullshit as possible out of the game and tone it down/replace it with worthwhile game mechanics where possible.
Imagine you get hit with the RNG bat of asshattery during a microjump and land yourself somewhere in the void instead of where you bloody want to be. What's the game value that would add? Look, you have to backtrack five minutes in supercruise! FSD's aren't 100% reliable, see? (They are in their current function, so that would be novel. ) "
Ohh, this is reaslistic! I can feel the immersion! And having that happen to me the 200th time immerses me even more!"
? !
Personally I would feel being given the middlefinger by poorly implemented game mechanics that fail to make the world feel any more alive, but succeed in wasting my time.
Thing is, in order to make the game world feel alive, some form of RNG
has to be present. Ideally with biases, based on variables in the game world. System state, government, location in relation to stellar bodies. But if the dice decide between getting something worthwhile out of it or having wasted time, I would sometimes like to... strap the responsible game designer to a comfy chair and poke them with a soft cushion. For as long as the aggregated time of every single player whose time was wasted due to RNG. same for pure time waster mechanics (donation grind anyone?). I feel that in case of Elite, the respective designer might not live long enough to see the end of it.
Instead, I would like RNG - wherever it is used - to present the player with nearly equally compelling outcomes. Take the RES "spawn table" of wanted ships. Currenly, some virtual dice decides whether you get ships that are worth a damn or whether you get hordes of Eagles and Sidewinders, which don't pay for shit. What do you as a player think? "
Ohhh, all the high rank pirates are on vacation today. I'll just have to make do with not earning anything worthwhile while bounty hunting in this RES". Has anyone actually thought that? Or have people, once they learned how the game works, simply taken the FSD straight out of the RES just to drop back in moments later and see if the pirate lord's vacation has ended, so they can earn actual credits? Leaving slight issue of pirates with deathwishes seemingly being in abundance in E
's universe out of the equation for a moment, because the whole bounty grinding mechanic is absurd when one would take into account that humans lean towards self preservation.
How about rolling for the "flavor" of the spawned ships and giving each flavor a spawn table that leads to roughly equally worthwhile spawns? You're in an Empire system in war with a federation Faction? The spawned wanted ships are mostly Federation agents! And of course, they're using Dropships, FAS and Corvette's, rather than Clippers and Couriers. You're in some arbitrary High RES? Pirates belonging to a set of pirate factions, each with a bias towards certain ship types, a recognizable unique decal/paintjob, and a bias towards using Egineer'ed weapons with certain effects are spawned.
And voilá. RNG that makes the game world feel more alive and doesn't present you with the choice of getting what you want or having wasted your time.
