JabbleWok wrote:JoshParnell wrote:
As for intra-system jumping, sure, I don't see why not. If you can use your jump drive to jump into other systems, I certainly don't see why you couldn't use it to jump between planets!
There may be circumstances where you don't want it to happen e.g. it would be too easy for a bunch of warships to just 'appear' beside a space station, blast it to pieces and disappear again. The whole universe would be at the mercy of the ruthless to the extent that it unbalances the game.
A good excuse to avoid this is that FTL jumps require 'flattish' space i.e. a good distance up the gravity well. In other words, far enough out from planets and other massive bodies where space-time is less curved. That would mean that jumps would only happen some way from where most stations and population centres are, and sub-light-speed travel (still fast though) would be the norm around planets.
I see what you mean - if ships could freely jump wherever they wanted in-system, it could really increase the damage caused by large attacks, as of one faction against another. As you said, a fleet could just jump in on top of their target, making things like defense platforms, patrols, and blockades largely useless.
I think I like your suggestion that there be a limit to how close to large bodies like planets one could jump, due to the curvature of space. This would give a station or planet time to rally its NPCs and defenses to prepare for the incoming forces. This compromise would still allow intra-system jumping, but would limit the game-breaking danger of attack forces jumping on top of their enemies with no warning.
Gazz wrote:Space only feels big if you experience any travel time at all. If you show the player that this space is there and that he can go there and do things.
I agree. Freelancer, while awesome, really lacked a sense of scale. It made it too easy to traverse interstellar and interplanetary space in a heartbeat with jump gates and trade lanes. Since we won't be modelling interstellar space, jump gates and drives are fine - but I reassert my suggestion that trade lanes should
NOT be available everywhere, and that they only be used in civilized systems where their cost can be justified.
Trade lanes made a lot of sense in Freelancer because you
couldn't upgrade your engines. All ships had the same top speed. As far as I know, you'll be able to upgrade your engines in LT, and practically no two ships will have exactly the same top speed or acceleration.
In light of LT's emphasis on unique ship design and upgrades, ships should be required to fly between planets under their own motive power, at least in In less civilized or poorer systems. This would place more emphasis on players' ships, as upgrading your ship's engines will let you go between planets more quickly where there are no trade lanes, and maybe reaching the point where your ship is almost as fast without a trade lane as within. This would provide gameplay that's much more rewarding and deep than hopping into a trade lane and letting it do all the work.
It will also give players a better sense of how big space is, and help them appreciate the upgrades they make to their engines, as they can now make a trade run in, say, 10 minutes that took them, say, 20 minutes before they improved their engines/got a faster ship.
Allowing trade-lane-less flight to be a practical way to travel will also enhance the player's sense of freedom, as trade lanes won't be the only practical way to get between two planets (as they are in Freelancer). It will make space seem the trackless and free frontier that it is, rather than the channelized series of roads and routines that is our actual existence on Earth.
MURDER!
