Cmdr James wrote:Yrol_Denjeah wrote:#2:
"A hyperspace cloud is created in the entry and exit points.
These can be analyzed by those wishing to intercept and destroy
the jumping ship, as a faster ship can reach the destination
sooner. Sometimes, more often with engines that have not been
maintained properly, mis-jumps occur"
Yup, I agree completely. But as you say elsewhere (not quoted) it isnt sensible to create the exit until the ship arrives or shortly before, or every system will be peppered with clouds. This is also (for those that care) not elite canon.
I just want to add that this is already part of Oolite. The witchcloud analyzer allows you to, well, analyze the entry cloud and lets you know where it goes and exactly when the ship will appear there. Of course we don't have faster engines, but you can choose an alternative route with more smaller jumps, and be in the destination system way before the ship that left the cloud. Obviously, this doesn't work if the destination system is the closest one in its direction, but as NPCs choose their destinations randomly, in many cases there
will be a shortcut for the purpose of intercepting.
Cmdr James wrote:Yrol_Denjeah wrote:Unless we are in a time of war in oolite, there should not be
many occurences of intentionally disrupted
hyperspacejumps that raise the probabilitylevel above
"legend has it, that 5 years ago, a pilot had a misjump"
Right, actually I think the probability for a maintained ship is very very low. I actually regard it as a "bug" that a player can trigger a misjump with the pitching thing. I know its canon, but it makes no sense to me, and even if it did, as is said elsewhere why is the place always full of thargoids? The explaintions in my opinion are weak. But still, its canon, and it is pretty core to the game I guess.
I think also this is basically how Oolite is working already (and all versions of Elite have always been working). By-chance misjumps
are fairly rare. Of course, from a gameplay point of view, they shouldn't be so rare as to be practically non-existent, so once every five years would be a little too rare, IMO. From my longtime playing experience I would estimate the chance to be somewhere in the vicinity of once in every 50 to 100 jumps, which I think is fine. It means that it
will happen to the player at some point, but it will always come as a surprise, not as something which you expect on every jump anyway.
I don't feel as strong as Cmdr James about self-induced misjumps, but I concede that it is a little odd that they can be triggered so easily. One would think that—once this possibility has been discovered—the drives would be upgraded to make them more foolproof. Or are there some powers-that-be who actually
want stupid commanders to end up in interstellar space? Truth is, we don't know.
Cmdr James wrote:Yrol_Denjeah wrote:2. make misjumps less AND more time expensive. inlcude a random factor that influences the time and distance. allowing for misjumps
that go beyond the 7.0 LY limit but then leave the ship damaged
( half depleted energycells, not working scanner for 20 minutes
until it recalibrates or so ) or the pilot ( blurry vision through an
HUD-overlay? wobbly shipcontrols?)
I have to say, I have thought about some of these points myself. It is not clear that a misjump should be deterministic, depending on which sci-fi you like it might even make sense for them to be able to chuck you backwards in time (not far or it will do weird stuff to the gameplay!). It does make sense to me that a malfunction would have a random element. I was also thinking that a misjump should cause more wear and tear than a normal jump (thats the bit measured by trade in value).
I also have to confess that I've toyed with the idea of making misjumps more unpredictable. Especially with the possibility to give a script control over the exit point. Very tempting from a scripting point of view, to be able to let the player re-appear at
any point on the chart. But honestly, I think that would be too radical. However, I still have a standing request that the exit point
along the line to the destination system should become scriptable. So the misjump wouldn't always spit you out at the halfpoint between your entry and your exit system, but let's say at only a quarter or 1/10 of the distance. This is actually sort of canonical, because it is mentioned (and even performed as a triggered misjump in Status Quo, therefore controlled by the pilot himself). That would add some unpredictability from the player's point of view.
