Full Circle?

[Cory Trese]

Have we come full circle, Captain?

Today the database contains several hilarious requests:

- Stop Navigating After Encounters
- Straight Line Navigation

These two "features" share a common bond -- they represent an older iteration of Star Traders RPG. Both of these were once vilified, hunted and destroyed.

This is very amusing to me, to hear someone ask "people make navigation stop after combat" because it did -- for a loooonnnng time. And you hated it.

Anyway, I like the symmetrical nature of what just happened and find it pleasing. Good day.

[koles]

Cory - i suggest do it as option in menu and anyone could do it like he want

[Cory Trese]

If I do add it, it will be an option.

The problem with options is that they stack. Every new option I add is another set of permutations for all related options and this introduces bugs.

[gearheadwhat]

An option would be an excellent idea I wasn't around for the stop nav after encounters

I could see it stopping after neutral encounters would be annoying, but after hostile ones would be amazing

But that may be impossible/difficult to code.

I wasn't around back then to see the 'old' way of doing it, not sure what I'd like more. I suppose it's probably best how it is, but it would be a nifty option to try out.

[slayernz]

I've been through both experiences and definitely would have liked an option to be able to stop navigation after encounters ... or even just encounters that resulted in damage.

Another option for stopping would be if the target destination goes outside of your ship's calculated range. For example, you have a target that is 25 AU away, and when you start, you have about 27AU worth of fuel. However, due to some micrometeorites and a stray drifting hat, you end up with 3 damaged sails. The result is that you have 18 AU to go, but your range has now become 15AU. Auto pilot should stop so you can assess whether you need to go to stop for repairs/supplies or just keep pushing on.

The follow on rule here would be that if you don't have enough fuel to complete the journey and you start auto pilot, then the auto pilot should assume you know what you're doing and keep going regardless.

[leuthesius]

Im curious as to why someone would villify straight line navigation.....

[slayernz]

If you were doing a journey from De Valtos Prime (1,1) flying to Galantia (30,0), the distance is about 29AU in a straight line. However, flying in a straight line means you effectively go through only 1 green sector.

Flying a different route flying past Gama Javat II, Endividius, Thonas 035 then Galantia equates to around 29AU again, but you fly through 26 green sectors.

So assuming you have a ship that burns through 0.5 units of WF per red sector and 0 in green sectors, you'll have a difference of around 12.5 units of fuel and no time benefit whatsoever.

So yeah - straight-line navigation is not all it's cracked out to be

[leuthesius]

I'm curious as to why green sectors use less fuel than red sectors...?

[Cory Trese]

because they are managed by the Factions and have various fuel saving accelerators, gates, reduction in debris, etc.

Also they provide trade routes and a structure to the map. Imagine how dull the game's map would be if it was a flat 2D space with no variance.

Why do we have Stars and Dead Planets? Same reason, really -- to add playability to the game's map. Map design was a big part of ST RPG since the core map is so central to the game's play

[slayernz]

There is a large under-paid class of janitorial captains that are paid fractions of credits to sweep the green sectors clear of dust and debris. They also clear up the twisted shards of ship debris from combat.

So when you fly through red-space, you've got to dodge all of this crap. Also, in red space, you've got more chance of bad encounters, so as a good captain, you're actively doing the ducking, dodging, and weaving to avoid detection.

[leuthesius]

That would all make sense if red and green sectors had any difference in encounters. Because I'm flying the Royal Cruiser, with the 25% Sail + and +4 probe, even with full crew my ship barely sips water, and that counts for red sectors too. I get just as many encounters in green as red (that's why I want straight line pathing as an option).

[Cory Trese]

leuthesius -- I cannot argue with your perceptions, I can only look at the "Encounter Rate Table." The math / simulator shows the straight line pathing offers no mathematical advantage to the PC (average of a 100,000 turns.)

Local streaks and hot number generators can make short run randomization appear to be non-random. This is the nature of human perception of numbers.

That isn't to say I am not looking to see if SLP is a possibility, but I'm not going to sacrifice other features to provide something that probably would only be used by a tiny fraction of the game's players.