The 7LY Limit - New approach

[Holygun]

I've thought about a way to expand the 7LY limit:
Why not treating fuel as a product, like wines etc?
This approach, coupled with a new device called i.e. 'auto-refueller' operated by the keyboard, would transfer fuel from your cargo hold to the ship's fuel tank, allowing space-hopping. That means only the bigger ships can do several hops, as the small ones (pirates) have little cargo holds.

Just consider that hyperspace flight is the most time consuming task, rather than witchspace (I mean, in-game time). Make the 'auto-refueller' available only for high ranks if that's possible, and/or very expensive and that's it!
Does it makes sense to you, commanders?

[milinks]

I think its a good perspective on a long discussed idea. I have to apologise that i am of the old school approach that the 7ly limit was put there for good reason. In that it causes a pilot to have pateience and forgoe the get rich quick "cheats" that are so available for modern games. I just think that the ideal of modern games is to get to the end as quickly as possible, irrispective of the actual gameplay itself. I think that the restrictions of the 7ly limit give the game depth, as it causes the pilot to make tactical decisions and force him/her to go to systems that they wouldnt ordinarily choose to go because of the limitations, which creates the realism, such as the restrictions of space flight today, Again i applaud the thought into this, but any change would detract from the gameas a whole, kinda like the domino theory really, once you knock into one, the rest will surely follow

[Wolfwood]

As someone who recently also suggested a way to make some ships able to carry more fuel than standard, I must say that I've also seen the wisdom in the decision to restrict it to 7LY period. It's much more fun having to visit systems that you'd normally skip right over on your way to somewhere else.

[Holygun]

But the 7LY limit IS still there! Only you save the go-to-station/ refuel bit!
And as I state, it could be allowed just for the higher ranks, or certain ships/ missions.

[Lucidor]

I have suggested things like this before, and apparently it's a no-go.

Maybe a faster jumpdrive could be installed as an expensive option? So you could go more quickly to the sun and refuel.

[Wolfwood]

But the 7LY limit IS still there! Only you save the go-to-station/ refuel bit!
And as I state, it could be allowed just for the higher ranks, or certain ships/ missions.

Indeed, my suggestion was to have the 7LY limit but allow some ships to have fuel for an extra jump. So it is basically the same thing.

But, as I said, I've seen the light and now I think the 7LY limit is there for a reason and makes the game more fun.

In fact, we need to have some sort of space lane between the witchpoint and the sun as well - currently that is the fastest way to trek from system to system (to refuel at the sun) and one would assume that other pilots (NPC) would have figured it out as well.

[Selezen]

In lieu of Giles replying to this, let me AGAIN state that changing the 7LY limit would ALTER THE BALANCE OF THE GAMEPLAY.

It would make the trade routes irrelevant and remove half of the challenge of the game. Either that or it would make it practically impossible to make a profit, especially if you had to make two or more jumps to get to a decent world to trade, and you were caught by pirates a couple of times and lost equipment etc.

The 7LY limit is fine. It makes a nice game and balances off the distance travelled against the amount of profit made rather nicely.

Can we sticky something along these lines?

[Lucidor]

Things to do while going to the sun:

1. Take a nap
2. Make some tea
3. Spaceship embroideries
4. Edit the shipdata.plist of your ship. :^) (Don't make it too fast or you will crash into the sun while decelerating)

[Ramirez]

But the 7LY limit IS still there! Only you save the go-to-station/ refuel bit!
And as I state, it could be allowed just for the higher ranks, or certain ships/ missions.

In fact, we need to have some sort of space lane between the witchpoint and the sun as well - currently that is the fastest way to trek from system to system (to refuel at the sun) and one would assume that other pilots (NPC) would have figured it out as well.

Doesn't the distance between the witchpoint and the sun vary quite a bit? I've found it's usually quicker to fly towards the planet, even taking into account a detour to avoid traffic. Only on a few occasions do I arrive and the sun happens to be close by.
I did wonder if this is linked to system size and indicated by the blobs on the system chart but I'm not sure if this is how it works. When I'm at the extreme end of my range it's useful to be able to tell whether I'll be able to sunskim or whether I need to reserve some fuel to negotiate traffic nearer the planet.