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[Mini S]

I don't read all of the post before but i use e burn as well as s burn. I use s burnt to approach the target fleet then e burn if they maneuver out of the way or s burt to a system and e burt to avoid that fleet that appears to be on an reverse plot and will tear me to shreds.

[Darloth]

I have another potential idea.

Why don't we remove its triggerable status, and just have sustained burn be a thing ships do whenever they're doing a sustained burn?

That is, whenever a fleet has been flying in one direction for long enough, they get an extra burn point.  Each additional burn point above the maximum 'nominal' burn would decrease acceleration/deceleration, and increase the amount of time flying in one direction necessary to get more sustained burn bonus.

Small changes in direction will drop a couple of points of this (presumably handled in-engine as a much larger amount of granular points, say, 1000s of sustained burn points that build up over time and drop when you change course) but probably just the very top end.  Large changes will fairly quickly dump all of your excess speed.

This makes maneuvering a little bit more of a skillful thing you can do, would work fine with the AI as it's something that just -happens- to every fleet (though would need to be simulated off-camera instead of actually tracking fleet direction), and it'd naturally lend itself to travel.

If you tune it right you don't actually need to set a maximum speed (though you could) - ships will just get faster and faster on reaally really long trips - but will almost certainly never get to silly speeds because each extra burn point will take, say, twice as long as the one before, and at some point they're going to need to maneuver, and at that much above your nominal burn speed (which could indeed be called your maneuvering speed) you'll drop lots of excess burn with only tiny adjustments.

Replace the sustained burn ability with a much less often used "Drop to maneuvering speed" ability, which just initiates an immediate deceleration to maneuvering speed, and you're done.

[nomadic_leader]

The lack of a fast(er) travel system can put off ALOT of potential buyers. The incursion of S Burn is one of the best additions to SS. Without it, many would not do the surveying and exploring part just because of the tedium and boringness of it

Probably true, but Alex is not paying us to be his business advisors. We are paying him (nominally) to make a game we want to play. Let's confine ourselves more to what's wanted by actual buyers - us.

It sounds like s-burn is too powerful (and exploration too easy) but I also don't want to see a bunch of obtuse rules like this 20 degree thing. Giving sburn a higher sensor penalty might balance is tactical use and exploration use, since you need to be looking out for derelicts to grab fuel from; etc.

But this whole thing is just weird. Slow ships should be slow. Something is fundamentally askew in the game: power vs speed vs maneuverability aren't balanced correctly; so instead of addressing it the game just gives us all these burn speeds and makes everything the same.  Also is it not weird that every fleet in the game has the same acceleration characteristics on the campaign map? That really limits things. Again, fleet movement characteristics should be directly copied from combat.

To make exporation less tedious there should be some fast but weak ships to use for that express purpose, without having to use slow tankers. Or give us fuel increasing hull mods. But on the other hand, from good authority I can say that exploration in real life is intrinsically tedious. It's stretches of nothing punctuated by mild interest, excitement, or despair.  It's not a loot pinata. If it were, there wouldn't need to be explorers. For a game to try to change so fundamentally the nature of a thing it is supposed to be simulating may just be unreasonable. Has the game playing public really become incapable of enduring anything less than constant excitement? How sad.

[Toxcity]

If I wanted to looks at ships pass by hyperspace, I would just get a screensaver. For the sake of gameplay what does making exploration take longer add? Fuel costs are already a good way to designate a ship for exploration; speed isn't necessary and could open up potential problems. Using real life as a reason to do something in a game like Starsector is insane. By that logic we should have to account for crew losses b/c some random crew members got a disease from Sindria.

As far as exploration and s-burn, there are two things which would make it seem a bit more of a prepared voyage. Making s-burn hyperspace only, so that there is a niche for e-burn and faster ships while in systems. This would also give fuel and supplies a bit more value, as they're needed to fully recover from e-burn. The other would be decreasing the amounts of fuel, heavy machinery, and supplies found while exploring. I like that it's there to help lessen the strain of exploration, but atm it allows explorations to last much longer than they prepared for.

[Dark.Revenant]

Sustained Burn should not be changed.  Rather, fleets (particularly enemy fleets) should have an ability that allows them to jam travel drive fields, disabling Sustained Burn in a certain radius when activated, costing some CR or something.  This could be used by intercepting fleets to be able to actually catch you, and would remove Sustained Burn as a tool for catching fleets that would normally be able to evade you.  This would also open up Sustained Burn for the AI to use, since the player would justifiably have this ability as well.

[Deshara]

personally I think eburn should be able to catch sburn on the short term

[Rigel]

-snip-

personally imo what darloth suggested feels like the best idea - simple yet effective. just keep the 20 burn cap. (it also gives a little "no friction in space" feel with it which is nice)

[Wyvern]

Fleets (particularly enemy fleets) should have an ability that allows them to jam travel drive fields, disabling Sustained Burn in a certain radius when activated.

This is a good idea.  Though, perhaps it should be a skill-acquired ability?  Patrols from major powers could be assumed to have that skill, but small pirate fleets generally wouldn't (and large pirate fleets, just activating the thing should give the player time to realize what's going on and run).

The other notion I was thinking about was to remove sustained burn entirely and, instead, allow re-activation of domain gates - letting the player pay a hefty fuel / CR cost to jump from any gate to any other gate that they've visited.  This'd be a natural extension of the tutorial's plotline, even.  I wonder if I can mod this in?  Hm...

[tinsoldier]

As a small first step, why not try increasing the time to accelerate/decelerate so it can't be gamed as much for hunting fast fleets and then e-burn can continue to be used as either an "emergency boost from standstill" or "emergency braking from s-burn".  If the latest hotfix also disables interacting with objects at speed, e-burn could have an additional use as the "oh *** stop stop stop staaaahhhhp" when you need it or you suffer blowing past things and having to double-back.

[nomadic_leader]

Sustained Burn should not be changed.  Rather, fleets (particularly enemy fleets) should have an ability that allows them to jam travel drive fields, disabling Sustained Burn in a certain radius when activated, costing some CR or something.  This could be used by intercepting fleets to be able to actually catch you, and would remove Sustained Burn as a tool for catching fleets that would normally be able to evade you.  This would also open up Sustained Burn for the AI to use, since the player would justifiably have this ability as well.

I kind of like this idea. It could be like the game Elite, where the sburn drive just automatically stops whenever you get near any kind of mass (planet or ship)

If I wanted to looks at ships pass by hyperspace, I would just get a screensaver. For the sake of gameplay what does making exploration take longer add? Fuel costs are already a good way to designate a ship for exploration; speed isn't necessary and could open up potential problems. Using real life as a reason to do something in a game like Starsector is insane. By that logic we should have to account for crew losses b/c some random crew members got a disease from Sindria.

As far as exploration and s-burn, there are two things which would make it seem a bit more of a prepared voyage. Making s-burn hyperspace only, so that there is a niche for e-burn and faster ships while in systems. This would also give fuel and supplies a bit more value, as they're needed to fully recover from e-burn. The other would be decreasing the amounts of fuel, heavy machinery, and supplies found while exploring. I like that it's there to help lessen the strain of exploration, but atm it allows explorations to last much longer than they prepared for.

Wow one can't make an argument from reality about video games without someone going full throttle to a strawman argument like "lol then why don't we have crew get homesick and catch cold to be more realistic. duh it's a game!" Cutting out some irrelevant details for the sake of gameplay is ok, but trying to simulate a thing while also cutting out the most fundamental, intrinsic part of that thing doesn't really work.

But, your idea of making sburn only available in certain areas (hyperspace vs real space) is an interesting one. And I do agree with you that the main problem with exploration right now is probably not sburn, but rather the excessive frequency of fuel and supply drops to sustain your fleet.

[Techhead]

On the one hand, I love that S-burn trivializes the burn rating of everything. Even the slow-as-molasses capitals can get Burn 20 and I don't have to bring tugs. It saves a ton of time/supplies and really doesn't have a whole lot of downsides beyond really poor maneuvering and lowering sensors.

On the other, I hate that S-burn trivializes the burn rating of everything. It's no longer a meaningful stat when it was a god-stat prior and it made the different classes of ships distinct. With Level 3 Navigation, you can get any ship in the game up to 20 and that just feels "off."

So, I'm torn. It really makes the game faster but it's "game-y" itself.  

I have similar sentiments, so I'm repeating my prior suggestion. (With a tweak)

Change S-burn from +10 Burn to x2 Burn. Leave the Navigation perk at +5 Burn. Un-cap the max burn level.

Before with the perk, everything hits Burn 20. Now things will vary from Burn 17 (for those fleets with Burn 6 capitals) to Burn 27 (for someone who goes all-out and only has Burn 11 frigates). And without the perk, your early game fleet is still probably going to be hitting Burn 18-20.

[Megas]

That would make ships with low burn useless as before.  Venture, scrap!  (D) ships with degraded engines, scrap!

[Toxcity]

I still think the best nerf (if one is needed) is to limit sustained burn to hyperspace.

I think it would be best to wait until the ability is fully implemented. Once the AI can use it, Alex will probably design an ability to disable or discourage it.

[FooF]

That would make ships with low burn useless as before.  Venture, scrap!  (D) ships with degraded engines, scrap!

Not entirely, just relatively. Yes, a Venture would be relegated to "only" Burn 14 but with Nav 3, it's up to 19. Considering that a week ago none of our large fleets were going above Burn 9, this is still an improvement. Frigates hitting Burn 27, though...that's crazy. Still, it gives specialization for traveling to the furthest reaches quickly.

If the AI doesn't get S-Burn, the player will always be faster except in a handful of edge cases, even with a change like Techhead suggested. I'm for it.

[SafariJohn]

Burn caps at 20.