Quantum Travel Times

[Man-0]

Hey Testies!

This is kinda just a rant about my personal opinion, I wanted to get input from the community and see what you guys think as well.
As of currently the average QT time traveling a distance of 50m Km (about the distance between Microtech and Crusader) takes anywhere from 4 minutes to 7 minutes roughly.
Even shorter trips on average take 4-6 minutes depending on the distance and QT drive used.
TBH the only reason I don't log on regularly right now is cause QT times feel wayyy too long, I realize that the game is tied to a depth of realism and they want you to really "feel" the distance
you are traveling, but when I have a 4-6 minute loading screen between every location I visit it starts to get really annoying.
I know it may be an unpopular opinion but i'd like to see shorter QT times maybe close to 2-3 minutes maybe 1-2 minutes on the faster QT drives.

I'd love to know what you guys think about it and whether anyone else is annoyed by the wait times.

 

[Cugino83]

If 4-5 minutes are long travel then you should have try them back when Hurston first appear: like 10-15 minute to tavale across form PO.
For intra system jump I think an avarage travel time of 4-5 minute is good, too short and it whon't "feel" the travel, too long and it became boring...

Also remember that travel time si also a "blanket" where to put "random encounter", like wreck, pirate assault, anomaly like asteroid and distress call and in general any sort of encounter that make the game "live", shorter them will mean that you jump, get eventually an event, and then pop up directly at destination... this will be neither fun or immersive...

 

[Ayeteeone]

@Man-0
You won't see shorter times unless CR has a significant change of heart about how he wants his game to be played.

As @Cugino83 pointed out, they used to be much longer. As the system developed, the QT drives have been adjusted to spread out travel speed vs fuel usage, and some are quite fast.

There are several reasons for it to be how it is.
1) CR's golden rule- choices have consequences
2) No loading screens
3) adds a sense of scale to the playspace (I guess the word immersion actually applies here)
4) means you NEED to makes some decisions beforehand about what you are going to do, and who you are going to do it with
5) You are passing through potential encounter areas, for which Tony Z's Quantum system is still in development
6) It affects everyone, meaning PvP, Pirate, PvE, and NPCs. Time becomes an important factor in every activity.

Time is generally a person's most valuable commodity. It's clear you feel that, given your post. So creating a system which requires a non-trivial time investment brings a type of tension to the game where some people will commit, rather than just bang-in-bang-out for a few minutes.

There are more nuances to this, and possibly more tweaks, like every system in the game. And many of these reasons overlap. In the end it's because that's the experience Chris Roberts is going for.

 

[Deroth]

I can't remember, have they ever said how the size of Stanton system compares to their planned size of other systems?
If it is average or small then I can see QT times getting reduced a little more once there are multiple systems, but if it considered a larger system then travel times could get increased.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Are you flying one of the faster drives, or one of the more efficient drives?

 

[maynard]

It's a friggin' game

I don't want to spend a large proportion of my limited available play time in transit limbo

when there's a conflict between 'realism' and fun smart game designers choose fun

 

[Shadow Reaper]

That's right. That's why we have five minute travel times rather than five years. Get over it.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

My guess is there may eventually be a ship maker who specializes in faster/fastest Quantum Travel. The ships will be garbo in every other respect, poor cargo, poor weapons, poor armour, poor shields, poor top speeds, poor manuverability - but hyperhot quantum travel that will leave every other ship in the dust.

And yeah, the old QT times where it took 15 mins + to go Oli to Hurston I do not miss at all. That said, 7 min + I just get up and walk away from my PC for 7 mins and go do something else. Gameplay, it is not - however in the final game i'm sure there will be other things to do depending on your chosen task, like check the local markets for prices, buzzing the local truckers on the CB radio, scanning your flight path for opportunities like ship wrecks or undiscovered jump points etc.

Stanton is supposed to be the smallest system that will be made with some of them eventually taking as much as 40mins to cross.

 

[Cugino83]

My guess is there may eventually be a ship maker who specializes in faster/fastest Quantum Travel. The ships will be garbo in every other respect, poor cargo, poor weapons, poor armour, poor shields, poor top speeds, poor manuverability - but hyperhot quantum travel that will leave every other ship in the dust.

Get this idea to Jared, it could have his "Gialappy" ship model approved... and we could have another SCL with Jared and Sara making the Gialappy ship's concept... it will be awesome!!!

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Get this idea to Jared, it could have his "Gialappy" ship model approved... and we could have another SCL with Jared and Sara making the Gialappy ship's concept... it will be awesome!!!

Cor, yeah hotrodder style made-to-order low volume kit-car style ships built around arrays of multiple Quantum drives to get maximum QT speed.

Low volume would mean player only with no NPC's flying them at all. With 90% NPC there would be no cap for players having them.

With the law of diminishing returns I can't imagine chaining more than 5 Quantum Drives will get much more return in the way of speed so setting that as a physical design limit would be a start - look at how they can be arranged for maximum space-field compression and design from there.

More drives means more fuel consumption so it isn't an iWin button, the faster you go the more it costs you in go-juice so there is a form of balance there too, over other ships. Also, you'd need to build them with Large Quantum Fuel tanks by default to be able to feed all those drives...

Interesting Gialappy thought there, stick a stamp on it and send it to CIG first-class. Actually, stick five stamps on it for MAXIMUM SPEED!

 

[Shadow Reaper]

The whole notion of deep space exploration has to be predicated upon long travel times. If the travel times aren't very long, there is nothing to stop every amateur from doing exploration on a daily basis.

The only way that exploration makes sense, is if you are specially equipped to go where others cannot, and that requires lengthy travel times.

 

[Sayora]

I Like where travel times are now. Not the 15 minute snooze fests from back in the 3.3.5 and 3.4. But still long enough that you FEEL that your covering a long distance. Getting the option for faster drives to cut that time down, or slower drives to save fuel or get more range. I think the system is near spot on in my never humble opinion. Eventually there will be things to occupy time during that travel too.

 

[Mich Angel]

Hey Testies!

This is kinda just a rant about my personal opinion, I wanted to get input from the community and see what you guys think as well.
As of currently the average QT time traveling a distance of 50m Km (about the distance between Microtech and Crusader) takes anywhere from 4 minutes to 7 minutes roughly.
Even shorter trips on average take 4-6 minutes depending on the distance and QT drive used.
TBH the only reason I don't log on regularly right now is cause QT times feel wayyy too long, I realize that the game is tied to a depth of realism and they want you to really "feel" the distance
you are traveling, but when I have a 4-6 minute loading screen between every location I visit it starts to get really annoying.
I know it may be an unpopular opinion but i'd like to see shorter QT times maybe close to 2-3 minutes maybe 1-2 minutes on the faster QT drives.

I'd love to know what you guys think about it and whether anyone else is annoyed by the wait times.

Just gonna say what some already said... to explain it in shortest possible way...

There is no loading screens you are actually traveling that distance in the game..

hence it take time and it 's not made like that to make it feel real.. it's how it is.

There are no instant fast jumping and once you're loaded in to PU there are no more loading screens inside the game.

And any distance you want to go in game on foot, in vehicle, in ship is real so be happy you even have QT or same trip would take years even decades.

CHEERS!

Side note: This is not COD or Star wars shooter or any other shooter like that..
Load in, fast run gun and shoot, fight, fast jump die re-spawn repeat.. This is not that kind of game and if that don't suit one person then this might not be the game to play.

JUST saying!

 

[Man-0]

So, just to clarify the QT times alone will not stop me from playing the game, there just isn't enough game play for me right now and the QT thing is just my biggest peeve.

It's a friggin' game

I don't want to spend a large proportion of my limited available play time in transit limbo

when there's a conflict between 'realism' and fun smart game designers choose fun

I agree 100%, I understand the vision that they are working towards and I appreciate every little detail that I notice in this game, THAT BEING SAID, At the end of the day ITS A GAME, and if it is possible for them to do, they should streamline every aspect of the game-play.

That's right. That's why we have five minute travel times rather than five years. Get over it.

The whole notion of deep space exploration has to be predicated upon long travel times. If the travel times aren't very long, there is nothing to stop every amateur from doing exploration on a daily basis.

The only way that exploration makes sense, is if you are specially equipped to go where others cannot, and that requires lengthy travel times.

I also somewhat agree with you, the vision is that the game should be as realistic as possible. However you need to keep in mind at the end of the day it is a game and the reason were playing the game is cause its much more convenient than real life. Imagine every time you blew up your ship it took them HOURS or DAYS to give you your small ship back. For a large or capital class ship, MONTHS. At some point there needs to be a line drawn.

my point is, If you have the player sitting for minutes at a time in QT then the gameplay becomes very repetitive very quickly and that takes away enjoyment from an otherwise amazing game.

There's already a ton of gameplay already in place that differentiates this game from others, No other game lets you fly your ship directly into an atmosphere and land and navigate out of your ship and physically move your player character into the area you're doing activities in. But that also means that other games can ignore all that "non-gameplay" stuff and get your straight into the action which is what most audiences are looking for. People are busy, people have friends and families and lives and not everyone has the opportunity to commit a couple hours a day to deliberate gameplay.

 

[Bambooza]

The whole notion of deep space exploration has to be predicated upon long travel times. If the travel times aren't very long, there is nothing to stop every amateur from doing exploration on a daily basis.

The only way that exploration makes sense, is if you are specially equipped to go where others cannot, and that requires lengthy travel times.

Not just exploration but also trade routes require a time commitment aspect to give the reward meaning. It also factors into pirate activity/military activity as you need time to engage and have a chance of defeating the target before their call for help arrives. Especially pirates need time to jump the target and secure the booty before fading away.

Yes right now QT time is dull because there are many gameplay loops missing, from ship maintenance, scanning, as well as instant action activities like interruptions and anomalies.

The other thing that is continuously overlooked is that there really is no need to do lots of QT unless you are doing trade/courier missions as there is lots of things to do within each planet system and the number of missions continues to grow. If you are doing trade/courier missions then the long QT time is part of the experience as well as opening up opportunities for pirate engagements.

So if you do not like the long QT time then why not do something else locally there is no reason to QT across the system repeatedly.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

"I command you, REVIVE!

It's alive! It's alive! Bwwwaaaaahahahaha!"

Time for a necro.

Okay so who here recalls being told that the larger the Q drive the faster, and that small and medium ships will want to catch rides with large and cap ships on very long explorations, excursions, etc?

I'm asking because I've been going with that presumption for years now, and suddenly while skimming the travel speeds found this is not currently true AT ALL. In fact the fastest drives seem to go to small ships.

#DPSCalculator

Star Citizen tools for DPS, damage, power and cooling simulations including an up to date ships and components database

www.erkul.games

I will own feeling upset about this since I have been planning to run little ships down with a Sentinel, and now it looks like I can't do that if they choose the right drive. Likewise I see very little reason to have to carry ships into distant theaters. What's the purpose of a Kraken? If the issue is just refueling, which is easier to cope with than transport; lets have a StarG or some such.

Something seems broken. Anyone know what this is about?

 

[Deroth]

"I command you, REVIVE!

It's alive! It's alive! Bwwwaaaaahahahaha!"

Time for a necro.

Okay so who here recalls being told that the larger the Q drive the faster, and that small and medium ships will want to catch rides with large and cap ships on very long explorations, excursions, etc?

I'm asking because I've been going with that presumption for years now, and suddenly while skimming the travel speeds found this is not currently true AT ALL. In fact the fastest drives seem to go to small ships.

#DPSCalculator

Star Citizen tools for DPS, damage, power and cooling simulations including an up to date ships and components database

www.erkul.games

I will own feeling upset about this since I have been planning to run little ships down with a Sentinel, and now it looks like I can't do that if they choose the right drive. Likewise I see very little reason to have to carry ships into distant theaters. What's the purpose of a Kraken? If the issue is just refueling, which is easier to cope with than transport; lets have a StarG or some such.

Something seems broken. Anyone know what this is about?

CIG has stated that, but I've always wondered about the viability of that.
Many people have brought it up to CIG that having the Q-Drives be slower the smaller the ship would negatively impact their viability as escorts as well as negatively impacting professions such as bounty hunters and pirates. It was brought up that the trade off should instead be that the larger the drive is the more fuel and heat efficient it is, which would also maintain the viability of ships like the Kraken.
So it is possible that CIG is now experimenting with changing directions on Q-Drive speeds, which could also have the benefit of making things easier on players just starting out traveling within a single system (they would get to their destinations quicker, but would have to refuel more frequently, netting similar economy end results while making travel times less intimidating starting out.)

 

[Shadow Reaper]

That was my first thought. Maybe the idea has morphed into the larger drives are more efficient and have huge increases in range. That is not reflected in the current stats yet either.

So I am stymied.

 

[BUTUZ]

Man if you think QT is bad in SC you should try playing elite dangerous! :S

 

[Sirus7264]

So i think a few big things people keep forgetting is Intradiction they need a chance for pirates to have the oportunity to pull you out of QT so they can try to kill and rob you. if QT was super short they would never have a chance to catch you and the ships with intracition would be pretty much useless. Another big thing to remember is during QT later in life you will need to do other things like organize your inventory, cook, fix stuff around your ships etc. Alot of that isnt in the game yet but it is coming so if they had no QT times you wouldn't have any opportunity to actually perform those actions.(Also it makes a great time to take a real life toilet trip.)