A lot of time is spent in game traveling from point A to point B, particularly for traders. The 3000m clearance and the occasional Ion storm create some variety in this time sink, I wanted to throw a suggestion out there that would also add an element of twitch to navigation, which is really a different take on fuel:

- All ships would be equipped with a warp core that automatically recharges over time, and can become depleted by jumping.

- When it comes time to jump, holding down the activate key causes two tic bars to criss-cross the clearance meter. The further apart the tic bars are when the activate key is released, the more the warp core is depleted during the jump. If the activate key is released exactly when the two tic bars meet, the warp core is not depleted at all.

- The mass of the ship would be a cofactor of the warp core depletion, therefore it would be more important for a trader laden with heavy cargo to time his/her jumps carefully.

- If a player times a jump such that he uses more warp core charge than is available, the jump fails.

The point would be to give traders something interesting to do while navigating halfway across the universe without being too serious an obstacle.

A skilled twitch jumper could go on indefinitely, while a panicky jumper could jump ~4 times instantly and have to wait a minute tops (or less if they timed the next jump correctly) before jumping again.

Sounds like unnecessary annoyment to me.

very intersting idea, but I'm not sure about the implementation.. my initial gut feeling is: "a radical new paradigm that no one's thought of before? coool!"

buut, I could immediately imagine pie rats being VERY unhappy about this; maybe that's another reason I like it :@

I like it. More twitch is good. This doesn't seem annoyingly hard.

Because of the number of jumps required to get anywhere in VO, it would get old fast I think.

Make flying seperate to battery consumption? Maybe fuel based?

yeah this would remind me of Mario golf or something like that. Too much twitch is not good.

i thought twitch was the heart and soul of VO ('cept 4 those afk miners)

i'd imagine it would happen fast... you know, like under a second (it could be ship specific), and you'd only have one shot (no pendulum action). ideally it would be a subconscious twitch element, and some would be better at it than others.

there would also be a time and place to pay attention to it and a time not to... like traveling-across-the-universe jumps versus emergency combat jumps.

Yes twitch is at the heart of VO, but from that to making everything into a twitch minigame ...

I don't know that doesn't sound all that much fun to me

In my oppinion, instead of adding 'things to do' while travelling from A to B, why not just reduce the time it takes to get there. The faster you get to B, the less you have to sit around 'in transit'.

I would love to be able to turn off the WARP transition 'movie' ... so when I jump it would go to the transition screen, and then I pop back in my cockpit ... much faster.

Something similar for LAUNCHing form stations would also be good.

Too bad the warp transition is part of the game. There was a time when it was no more than a movie, but you are currently vulnerable to attack during the time it takes to warp out (and warp in... which is less sensical). And trust us, there's good reason for that (it wasn't always the case).

I like the idea behind the idea, although the implementation itself seems a little bit more like busywork than bordom reducing, and having a depleted jump core would just be irritating.

What about these:

1. Timing could effect your battery expenditure during a jump. Meaning, if you're jumping around storms, and you learn to time your jump activation, you arrive with more battery power available, allowing you to immeditately jump again. This would be good for losing pirates, but at the same time, if you just hit the jump like normal and deplete your battery, nothing would actually change from how it is now. It would offer traders (and racers I guess) a slight skill based advantage.

2. What if your accuracy timing a jump was related instead to your heading into a sector? So if you time a jump in the correct window, you'll arrive closer to your destination. So, for example, a trader wants to jump out right on top of a WH to speed his travel time. This could be effected by more than just a timing bar, but also heading out of the sector, with a compass helping get the correct heading and distance for an optimum jump. Further, your ships speed and mass could be taken into account, so that with experimentation and some basic math, traders could learn to jump from spot to spot on a dime, allowing them to arrive right outside a docking port, or right on top of a wh, while still allowing non calculated, point and click travel as well.

mm.. here're some more ideas for debate,

: the closer you are to the center of the wormhole area, the less energy you need to jump

: jumping "on top of" (within x meters of) someone else's opening WH takes far less energy

I like the "drafting" idea of the 2nd one, thurisaz. The prey, however, may not ;)

I'm in favour of this idea (the twitch jump one). It's a bit reminiscent of Gears of War's active reload.

It would have an interesting effect on the deneb run.

Yea, I feel as if jumping, and getting to 3000m is a "time-sink", as phaserlight so eloquently put it, and should be a fun experience, rather than, well for lack of better words, meaningless and dumb.

It is only a time-sink if you are alone and not being attacked. If the latter is the case, it serves as a gameplay mechanic to assure that no-one can just run away.

Still, it is a time-sink in all the other (far more numerous) cases. Thus the idea is still valid, very much so.

I like the idea as Impavid sugests, at least the first point. The second point sounds more iffy, specially about appearing really close to stations and such. The sectors seem to have several "arrival areas" that vary in distance according to the direction you jumped into the sector from (top, bottom, etc.) I'd think a good jump would just put you in a better position wihtin the appropiate "arrival area". Some wormholes are pretty far from the most commonly used "arrival area" (like Odia B-13 heading to Sedina or Sol II B-15 heading to Betheshee) and that seems fine; a person jumping properly will maybe gain 2k in distance, but a person that knows just from where to jump into the sector (like racers) will gain more than that.

that would get real fucking annoying....

No, not really. When in a hurry, you already tap the 'enter' button rapidly to try and jump as soon as possible. This would add a bit more meaning and adrenaline to jumping.