[Suggestion] Finish non combat wait states during Jump trave

[CaptainQuirk]

Yeah.. Take the movie avengers (just saw it), and add commercials. It doesn't get better. Trust me.

No, a film with adverts isn't more enjoyable.

But you know what is more enjoyable than a film with constant action? A film that isn't constant action.
We're not saying this game would be better if, after every battle, there were 30 seconds of soft-drink adverts, we're saying the game is better if there are both parts of pitched battle, and parts of a more sedate nature. Which is exactly how every good action film works.

Exactly. And I didn't make the commercial analogy, someone else did, I just used it to further my point.

[Gorlom]

Yeah.. Take the movie avengers (just saw it), and add commercials. It doesn't get better. Trust me.

No, a film with adverts isn't more enjoyable.

But you know what is more enjoyable than a film with constant action? A film that isn't constant action.
We're not saying this game would be better if, after every battle, there were 30 seconds of soft-drink adverts, we're saying the game is better if there are both parts of pitched battle, and parts of a more sedate nature. Which is exactly how every good action film works.

I didn't make the commercial analogy, someone else did, I just used it to further my point.

NomadWanderer is the one that brought up the commercial analogy and he is hung up on that. I'm not quite sure if it's a straw man argument or just a miscommunication induced fallacy.

Either case it's something he should stop falling back to when he can't make a real point. Hopefully he takes some time and contemplates on the difference between a Michael Bay movie and an action movie with a plot jammed in between the explosions, and why some people might prefer the latter.

[Ighalli]

Hopefully he takes some time and contemplates on the difference between a Michael Bay movie and an action movie with a plot jammed in between the explosions, and why some people might prefer the latter.

There are plenty of interesting non-combat things that happen in this game that help the pacing. You get to choose where you're jumping next and sort of plan out your entire route through the system, you decide which branches to take on the sector map, consider how to spend your scrap, and you make choices in most of the encounters. These are the good moments of non-action. These things are interesting and I love them! On the other hand, watching my guys fill up progress bars is not interesting.

Try this experiment: play 'ideally' in that you fix all damage in non-threatening situations and you move your crew back to the same stations before jumping to try to level them up (and make sure the correct guy is actually at the console when your crew gets large). As you play, count exactly how many extra mouse clicks you're making to do something that's zero risk and zero cost and benefits you. I will do this in my next game, but I'm confident that over the course of the entire game you'll have clicked a couple hundred of "extra" times. (Unless perhaps you're having a great run of things and are only being hit very rarely.)

Imagine if there was a 30 second movie of the stars rushing by whenever you jumped that couldn't be skipped. That's what watching my crew repair stations after a battle is to me, except that I have to move my guys repeatedly to get it over with.

There could be a start of game button in the hanger next to Easy and Normal called "automatic repairs." I know it's another UI element and that's bad in it's own right, but there is no reason both groups can't play the way they enjoy.

[NomadWanderer]

What is the difference between:

post battle/event 1 aftermath (repair 3 modules)
post battle/event 2 aftermath (repair 2 modules, heal 1 crew member)
post battle/event 3 aftermath (wait for Ion counter to zero, repair 2 modules, heal 1 crew member)

All three of the above are the same. There's no decisions to be made, no opportunities to show player skill, nothing other than wait. (I guess you could maybe say #2 and #3 have decisions in what order to perform them, but who cares..).

In a no danger situation, where there is no time limit, there is no reason why repair, heal, ion, should be fast forwarded, non existant. Making the player sit, wait, and watch an aribtrary counter is just not fun.

People can go on and on about the value of mixing in the absence of fun to make other parts more(decisions/tension/etc), but the truth remains that there is nothing you can do but (needlessly) wait during parts of this game.

[Gorlom]

What is the difference between:

post battle/event 1 aftermath (repair 3 modules)
post battle/event 2 aftermath (repair 2 modules, heal 1 crew member)
post battle/event 3 aftermath (wait for Ion counter to zero, repair 2 modules, heal 1 crew member)

All three of the above are the same. There's no decisions to be made, no opportunities to show player skill, nothing other than wait. (I guess you could maybe say #2 and #3 have decisions in what order to perform them, but who cares..).

You are wrong here. There is a decision to be made: you determine which crew member performs the repairs and receives the experience for the skillup. You seem to conveniently forget that crew members has a repair skill in addition to the piloting, engine, shields, weapon and melee skills.

Just because you don't put any thought into the decision doesn't mean there isn't one to be made.

[NomadWanderer]

You are wrong here. There is a decision to be made: you determine which crew member performs the repairs and receives the experience for the skillup. You seem to conveniently forget that crew members has a repair skill in addition to the piloting, engine, shields, weapon and melee skills.

Just because you don't put any thought into the decision doesn't mean there isn't one to be made.

I put a lot of thought into the decision.

If you want to choose your helms man to repair sometimes, and your weapons officer othertimes, and your shield operator the third time thats fine.. You are right it's a decision, I think it's silly decision, but whatever.

I'm going to choose to have those people focus on their jobs (driving the ship, shooting bad guys, protecting the ship), and designate another crewman to be on damage control.

The damage control guy (the guy that's going to concentrate on skilling up repairing) is going to do all of my repairing.

I'm not sure there is really any other choice.

And that's just with engineering. Lets talk about healing your crew before jumping. Are you suggesting it's more fun to wait and watch the bars go up? There's less of a decision with healing then there was with repairing. Do I heal my crew before the next fight or no?

What about ion stun? Do I go into the next battle stunned or wait it out?

There's counter statements that these activities aren't just dull points of sit and wait for the game, but I don't agree. Ion Stuns, Healing crew, and even Repairing, can and should happen faster/instaneous if the ship is out of danger.

I think this is the way you allow some automation, as well as polish some other rough spots.

Personally (and this applies to some other aspects of the game) there should be some modifications to the crew tab. The crew tab should have a blank spot per ship module that can be operated by a crew member. You drag a crewmember to that spot to denote them as 'Chief _____'. This means they have seniority when they are in the room with multiple people, and you don't have to juggle people in and out of the room to get the Best pilot/shooter/shielder onto the appropriate station.

This also allows you to make up jobs for things that don't have dedicated stations.

A Chief doctor. (he gets skill ups when he's in the medbay and hurt people come in and get healed. He provides an additional healing bonus to the medbay.)

It also allows you to automate things like post battle repair. The designated repair guy (a.k.a Chief Repair Tech) handles it.

[CaptainQuirk]

There could be a start of game button in the hanger next to Easy and Normal called "automatic repairs." I know it's another UI element and that's bad in it's own right, but there is no reason both groups can't play the way they enjoy.

This is a good idea. Not something I'd use but certainly always a good idea to give people the option of playing how they want.

I think it would be a massive overhaul though to make repairs automatic and I don't know whether the devs are going to want to do that at this late stage. Maybe it'll be in a patch or expansion down the line but I don't think you'll see it before launch.

Interesting discussion nonetheless. Let me give a quick example of a game I am playing right now: Mass Effect 3. I'm not up to the ending yet, so don't spoil it for me but one of the things I've noticed is they've taken ALOT of the non-action stuff out of the game. No searching everywhere to find codex entries. No talking to randoms on the citadel or getting many side quests etc. I understand that the galaxy is under threat and everything is urgent, but it's still a Mass Effect game, not a Gears of War game.

I feel the game as a whole has been diminished somewhat by focusing too much on the action and the combat and not enough on the stuff outside of that, something which I would hate to see happen to FTL because it has so much potential.

[OrangeBottle]

Why do people keep suggesting that jumps are instant repair buttons? They're not. They're meant to take you from one node to the next, not instantly repair your systems and instantly heal all your crew.

[NomadWanderer]

Why do people keep suggesting that jumps are instant repair buttons? They're not. They're meant to take you from one node to the next, not instantly repair your systems and instantly heal all your crew.

We are talking about trying to eliminate 'dead time', time where you are sitting there waiting for a timer to decrease, with no real decisions/actions for you to do.. Or at most the only action is to move person A from room 1, (repair), to room 2, (repair), and then room 3 (repair).

The same applies for healing/ion stuns. Are you really going to press the jump button without moving your little guys to the medbay to get healed first and then back to their stations, or letting the ion stun run out?

I've got 70hrs logged on FTL, and (slightly) disappointingly, some of that time is sitting there staring at a timer with no choices/nothing to do.

[CaptainQuirk]

We are talking about trying to eliminate 'dead time', time where you are sitting there waiting for a timer to decrease, with no real decisions/actions for you to do.. Or at most the only action is to move person A from room 1, (repair), to room 2, (repair), and then room 3 (repair).

I've got 70hrs logged on FTL, and (slightly) disappointingly, some of that time is sitting there staring at a timer with no choices/nothing to do.

I still disagree with your points. I've got tonnes of hours racked up on World of Warcraft, a helluva lot of which is travel time (where you basically can't do anything) but I don't want them to remove the travel system. I've got tonnes of time racked up on StarCraft, C&C and the Total War games but I don't want to be given a billion resources at the start so I don't have to bother with the 'boring' bit.

Repair is just a fact of the game and I don't want to see it removed just because some people don't like waiting an extra 20 seconds before they jump to the next screen. If anything I'd like to see crew stuff fleshed out and improved even more. More crew content and more stuff for your crew to do between jumps.