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Warp Drive - Add jump calculation timer and bring back Lua control


Paxon57

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So You can no longer control warp drive with Lua
Apparently it was because of emergency jump systems people made to avoid being pirated while hauling long distance and going afk and it was unfair for pirates.
I believe the change is stupid because now it's unfair for everyone else but pirates, you have a warp drive and you can't even use it to run away?

So here I'm suggesting my solution:
Add jump calculation timer to warp drives.
The timer should last like 1 minute or 90 sec, not sure how long, that time will have to be balanced.
During jump calculation players cannot change their velocity (so cannot thrust or brake, however should be allowed to rotate), if they do the countdown will be canceled.


Introducing that timer would make it most fair for both sides, it would give pirates a window to catch the hauler and fire on it (and that activates combat cooldown that is already in the game) and if the pirates are not able to catch the hauler in time it will jump away. And ofc make it possible to initiate that timer with Lua, you shouldn't except people to non stop sit in front of the PC during let's say 90 minute flight between planets.

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This is a good idea, especially if the timer depends on the ship's mass. It makes sense and improves balance if a smaller ship can get away faster than a large ship.

 

Any efforts to introduce balance by nerfing Lua automation are fundamentally misguided. It's just another way of adding un-fun grind to the game. Watching a sensor display for hours on end is even more painfully boring than mining. Forcing the player to choose between expense, boredom and death is not an interesting choice.

Instead balance should come in the form of trade-offs in ship design. Conventional atmospheric/space flight already has some nice trade-offs between cargo capacity, agility, armor, and firepower (although certain aspects are very broken). The same sort of trade-offs should apply to warp flight. EVE has some nice mechanics involving align time, warp disruptors and warp core stabilizers.

 

For example, it should be possible to build a large freighter which takes a long time to enter warp but has a well shielded warp drive and plenty of armor making it difficult to disable. To counter that PvP players would need to bring either a lot of firepower (for a quick kill) or several specialized electronic warfare ships.

Equally viable should be the tactic of building small, nimble "blockade runner" ships which can't carry a lot of cargo but can out-maneuver all but the most specialized pirate vessels.

Another tactic would be to invest in very powerful sensors. If you can see the pirates coming from further away, it gives you more time to enter warp before they can get in range. To counter that the pirates would need to build smaller ships (which are inherently less capable in a fight) or invest in expensive stealth systems.

 

As you can see there are tons of opportunities for balance which don't involve intense boredom.

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