Feature Suggestion: Short Range Jumpdrives for L+ Ships

[Kalanur]

I know, I know, Egosoft has repeatedly said that there will be no jump drives but hear me out first, please.

My suggestion is to add a jump drive with the range of 1 system and have it consume energy cells.
Why? L sized and bigger ships currently need way more time to fly through the universe than smaller ships. The biggest reason for that is that the bigger ships have to fly behind the gate every time to enter it from the other side than the smaller ships. With the current pathing, this takes way too long (especially when you are in the sector) and makes some ships kinda useless in remote systems because of the extremely long travel time. I guess it was done this way to prevent collisions in front of the gate.
Make the charge/recharge time as long as the duration it would averagely take a ship to travel through a sector (but with taking the front of the gate) and let it consume energy cells on every usage, which would benefit the war-only-fueled-economy with a peaceful addition. Alternatively, you can make a different ware like in X:R with the fuel cells.

Another idea would be to increase the size of the gates so bigger ships can enter the front without problems or ghosting near the gate, which would totally kill immersion.

[Max Bain]

I think there are better solutions for the issue that L sized ships are less useful than smaller transports.

The point why I like the removal of jump drives is very simple: Logistics. With jump drives logistics is unimportant. It does not matter how far away the trade station is and if there are dangerous sectors between. This removes an important aspect of the space game where distances are huge (or should be). Traveling around should always play an important factor for the balance and you should not be able to just jump over dangerous systems. Sure, you could balance this a bit over the energy cell costs, but they are produced so fast and out of nowhere that this will be no factor in late game.

Other solutions could be:

• increase capacity of L freighters/lower capacity of M/S freighters
• increase travel speed of L freighters/slow down travel speeds of M/S freighters, so that they are better for longer distances
• remove super highways where only S/M ships can drive (I for example use a mod that does this and it works perfect)
• a mix of the above

[chew-ie]

I share the opinion of Max Bain in this point.

The jumpdrive should stay a thing of the past and should never be used to provide a quick fix.

The "problems" of L sized freighters should be addressed differently. A lot more freight capacity, fewer to no highways and a better gate pathfinding would be my top 3.

[Kalanur]

I don't think they would ever remove the highway because it would change so much that savegames aren't compatible anymore, even though I agree that it would help here and in other areas.

I never talked about the old school jumpdrive which could teleport you around as long as your energy cells allow. I am talking about an alternative to "jump" from one sector to an adjacent sector. You could even make it that you must be near the gate to jump, so you still have to travel through the sector but more pathfinding AI friendly. Everything to avoid this flying around the gates.

Similar technology already exists in the game. We can send ships to other universes and teleport a person around the whole universe without any costs or downtime. I would rather have the Boron research on a jump drive for ships even if it's less effective than the teleporter he researched

[Buzz2005]

ship would still need to travel to a gate a then jump to the next sector?

you just want for ships to not take long going through gates and that does not need jump drives, just a better script

[Duncaroos]

[energy cells] are produced so fast and out of nowhere that this will be no factor in late game.

This right here. One energy cell module can support so many functions it is crazy. I installed 2 at my first station and sat in awe watching the amount of cells being generated!

[NightmareNight91]

I'd rather see them implement 2 separate gates in systems, 1 for large ships only and 1 for s/m ships. That way you won't get large ships bumping smaller ships around ( since we can't have collision damage..). This would allow large ships to go straight through the front of the new L gates. Speeding up travel time by quite a bit.

[Derp]

I thought this thread was going to be about the tactical short jumps that capships would make in XR, which I really liked. It let caps be ponderous and tough enough to feel like big ships, but also able to reposition themselves when needed.

[mr.WHO]

I think jumpdrives should be a thing used by Terrans (gate & beacon dependent) and Khaak (point to point JD) excusively.

Both lore wise and gameplay wise it would make the most sense.

[Sandalpocalypse]

Having to go behind the gates really screws things up for the ship classes with the worst turning in the game.

They should just retcon gates to much larger, maybe twice the diameter. Big enough to have exit and entrance lanes for L/XL.

[eXalt!]

They should just retcon gates to much larger, maybe twice the diameter. Big enough to have exit and entrance lanes for L/XL.

This is a very interesting solution! then you can just move the highways towards the bottom or top of the gate and its done.

[Axeface]

Having to go behind the gates really screws things up for the ship classes with the worst turning in the game.

They should just retcon gates to much larger, maybe twice the diameter. Big enough to have exit and entrance lanes for L/XL.

They could retcon it so its more like a mass relay in mass effect, you dont have to pass through the circle, just be fairly close to the anomaly for your ship to link up to it. The range of ships jumping through a gate could be much much larger without the need to actually go through the disk. Could add some cool sounds nad effects to show ships quite far from gates syncing with it.

[mr.WHO]

Gate retcon would be the best - make it so big that the highway could go thought center while capships could enter/exit left & right or above & below.

I was very impreses how big the gates in "The Expanse" series are comparing to even biggest human ships.
The is no point in make the, so big in X4, but simple increase of diameter like 4 times would solve all problems.

[Axeface]

Gate retcon would be the best - make it so big that the highway could go thought center while capships could enter/exit left & right or above & below.

I was very impreses how big the gates in "The Expanse" series are comparing to even biggest human ships.
The is no point in make the, so big in X4, but simple increase of diameter like 4 times would solve all problems.

Wouldnt need to increase diameter of the actualy 'anomaly' disk, just the area where L and XL ships can 'grab' onto it. EG, S and M ships could still need to go through the actual gate, but perhaps L and XL ships could park themselves relatively near it, stop, glow blue and then disappear? Theres lots of options for effects to make this look cool and try to imply that the larger ships can sync with the gate anomaly, but mechanically - L and XL ships can jump from a much much larger distance than smaller more agile ships that have to travel through the gate.