Void Thunder radically changed job presentation of hyperwarp

[grävling]

I am on android 2.5.75 which I think is 170 Void Thunder.

From my point of view the hyperwarp calculations have not been so much fixed (as the change notes said) as radically changed.

Up until now, the number you got when you were offered a job was 'how far away is the first part of the job'. So go deliver the Arbiter to meet with Char was a 1 jump offering.

Now, the number seems to be 'how many jumps, minimum (because some jobs have unknown sections) in total, will you have to make'. So the same Arbiter delivery job is now a 2 jump offering -- one to go visit, and one to return to Faen court. (If the unknown middle bit wasn't in the same quadrant as the initial meeting, it could have turned out to be longer, but it was known to be at least 2). Go 2 quads away, pick up somebody and deliver him here is now a 4 jump job.

Was this intended? Did somebody want this? Because knowing the minimum total hyperwarp jumps in a long mission was not something I was wishing for, whereas I am already wishing quite a bit for a way to sort jobs based on how far away the first hop is. 'how far away' is not ideal -- I would really like a sort function based on exactly where the first hop is, but only having to look at all the jobs that are wanting you to make a 3 hop jump (to see if anybody wants you to go someplace you are already going) was an improvement over having to read everything, which is what I am doing now.

What do other people think?

[unback]

i recall it being asked for yes, as in "is it worth to take that mission for its reward vs distance to cover".
i do personaly rether like the system as it adds shows the relative lenght of misson at 1st glance, where the details still have each step separated and what i understand you prefer is there pointed at 1st step.

of course you can always argue that "one could just add the jumps from details", but then checking one number instead of several is qol improvement imo.

[daveal]

I feel that the total number of jumps is a big improvement. Suppose one job is 3 jumps away but requires dropping off two jumps beyond that. That is much more work than a job which is a one way trip three jumps away, no return required. Of course once there are unknown steps, the number of jumps is not possible to compute; but it will really help for known jobs.

[grävling]

Jul 30, 2019 18:23:48 GMT -5 daveal said:

I feel that the total number of jumps is a big improvement. Suppose one job is 3 jumps away but requires dropping off two jumps beyond that. That is much more work than a job which is a one way trip three jumps away, no return required. Of course once there are unknown steps, the number of jumps is not possible to compute; but it will really help for known jobs.

Interesting. I am usually working out of a home quadrant (where a contact I am trying to cultivate lives, or this is where I load up on all those crop harvesters, or what have you). Thus from my point of view a job that is six quads away -- pick up this person/thing and deliver it there, job done is much less attractive than a job that is go 3 quads away and pick something up and deliver it back to this quad. The fact that they both are six quad jumps doesn't matter at all to me -- the one-way sorts of jobs I pretty much only want to do if I am already going to that quad on some other business. (Of course, some days you get a contact who wants you to deliver several people or things to the same quad, which can pay for the deadheading back if there is enough of them.) I am trying to avoid deadheading, not work.

I am finding that I have to read all the jobs now to find out if I want to do one, whereas before a significant number got culled unread -- 'There is nothing that begins 5 hops away I am interested it, because I can already tell it doesn't fit into my current job mix'.

[fallen]

You're the first and only voice asking for something else so far grävling. All other players who we have discussed with feel that a Mission offer should include in its summary the full price and the full travel distance.

Perhaps in this case, we should just add more detail to the summary.

[grävling]

Well, after giving it more thought, yes, more detail to the summary would be good. And I know what my particular itch is.

I like scheduling things. A whole lot. So what I was trying to duplicate was the Cyberknight experience.

Sit at phone booth (or in your own luxury pad, phone equipped ) find a job you want to do, call up the other contacts and see if
there is something they want done that makes sense to do at the same time, repeat until your job slots on your computer is full (or
you run out of jobs you want to do), go off and do it, repeat.

Now there is no way that the STF world is going to start sprouting V-chips for your favourite contacts, but it is still worth it to
go visit all the contacts in a quad if you want to do something -- like pick up more spy-war missions while the spy-war is still active --
especially things that are time sensitive.

But having to read the mission text of a mission you have already seen a zillion times before trying to pick out whether this is
something you want to do or not is not fun for me.

So what I would like as details on the summary is a set of pairs (Quadrant, Planet) or triples (Quadrant, Planet, Zone) involved in each
proposed hop. That would make things much more fun for me.

What do other people think?

Grävling (who has lots of time for thinking now, as I wait for my new tablet to be delivered)