It would probably actually feel more unnatural to go from zero to full quickly.
First thank you for taking time to respond.
I don't fully agree that it would feel unnatural, here are some examples of it and from my point of view it doesn't seem bad.
http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/256666563/movie_max.webm?t=1467765984 Time at 4.27
https://youtu.be/CbWmFv0yZ2E?t=7 Here is another example of more or less how it would feel if the charge up time was around 5-6 seconds
The kind of warp drive effect you're thinking about (going to assume Star Trek) takes a lot of smoke and mirrors to make feel "right".
I understand, as mentioned before it probably takes more tinkering, but I believe that simple effects such as distortion can be used to great effect here. All you would really need to do is 1. Give ships a slightly different engine burn that they leave behind. 2. Add a "start up" effect as the ships charge up(which could be something like the space in front of the ships being distorted and pulling the front of the ships into the "vortex" so to speak. Here is something similar
https://youtu.be/LSRTn-BoFYE?t=315 Notice how the nose of the ship gets distorted during the charge up.
Plus it'd likely be more boring sitting there waiting for a timer than if you're slowly accelerating, even if the end result is the same. Finally, "low acceleration" is an important feature of making sustained burn work balance-wise.
It really depends on just how long the charge up phase is I imagine somewhere between 4-10seconds to be my first bet.
I mean, I get what you're saying, but it sounds like what you're suggesting is an entirely different mechanic that bears only surface similarities to this one.
Oh I am just throwing ideas out there and trying to get a better feel for your mindset and the reason for your choices. I would certainly enjoy if there is some effect to simulate the warp feeling, but that is a luxury.
I would certainly enjoy charge up from fullstop to full speed more than gradual (as long as the charge up isn't very long) but that's just my taste.
Customization with added mods that effect only sustained burn, would be nice for me personally, but I don't know how it would effect the game balance over all since I haven't put a lot of time into considering that.
Sustained burn applies fleet-wide, though. So it would be something like, "+2 to the burn level of *this ship* while sustained burn is active", which could be useful on slower ships, yeah. But with stuff like this, you always have to ask, "why?".
Sure, it could be done, and it'd probably work. But there are literally millions of things like that. "Augmented Engines" already broadly covers "so, you want a hullmod that increases burn level" (and I'm not entirely sure it's a great idea to have in the first place, could go either way on that). Why add more customization detail specifically here, especially if it's something that can work to erase differences between ships?
Why add more customization detail specifically
here? Customization in general is more pleasant for the player since it gives them more options but it makes it harder for the dev to balance everything out neatly.
With customization to burn level for instance, some players might want to explore and travel quickly between systems, traders for example, or explorers. Having an extra variable between ships can add more depth and with mods in this specific field can either make already fast ships at sustained burn excel even better at it or perhaps a fleet has a ship that is relatively slow burn wise to everything else but can be brought up to speed with others just so your feelts minimum is bigger during sustained burn. Some players might not mind that and focus on other mods, it's about giving players choice in the end.
Also you can notice the post above me already mention some other examples of why it might be nice to have.
And is it important enough to clutter up the game with? Every piece of content you add has a price beyond the effort it takes to implement it.
Again just throwing out ideas and wishes. I trust the game dev to know at the end of the day what is worth the time and effort to implement and what isn't.