On RtV today, Chris discussed the design goal of having smaller ships needing to make multiple jumps to reach further destinations then larger ships. Personally, I like this idea. However, using engine heat as the excuse/mechanic to accomplish this offends my sensibilities. I can’t believe a competent ship manufacturer would design a ship with such a flaw. They would either build in additional cooling or put in some sort of software failsafe to only allow jumps within the safe margins. Also, the overheating notifications are annoying. That doesn’t mean the concept of limiting jumps is bad, I just don’t care for the execution. I was able to think of three alternative solutions just off the top of my head, so I’ll explain my thoughts behind each as well as possible gameplay implications. Quantum Fuel - Limit the distance a ship can travel by the capacity of fuel it can carry. I realize that when Hurston and the truck stops were added, people were irate about the idea of having to jump from truck stop to truck stop to get from PO to Hurston. That doesn’t change the fact that this is a valid idea. It simplifies the problem to an easy issue of capacity. No additional gameplay mechanics or convoluted lore are required to explain why it takes multiple jumps to reach further destinations. Gameplay Impact: Player Cooperation - Refueling ships could be used to fly convoys of smaller ships across longer stretches of black between stops, allowing players to engage pilots of such vessels as “escorts.” Component Upgrades - Players could choose to extend their fuel supply by sacrificing missile racks (missile hardpoints only, sorry Connie) for fuel pods. Q-Drive Efficiency - Drive Grade and Classification could influence how efficiently your fuel is used. For example, a C Grade Civilian Q-Drive might burn through twice the fuel an A Grade Military drive would. Overclocking - In addition to increasing the wear on the drive, Overclocking could be used to decrease the spool and calibration time for each jump at the cost of increased fuel consumption. Drive Power/Energy - Drive size determines the maximum distance that can be traveled in a single jump. My thought here is that the Q-Drive “spools” up by loading power into a capacitor from the main power plant and Q-Fuel tank. The larger the drive (S, M, L, C), the more power it can hold, the farther it can go. Your fuel tank could hold enough to make a jump from Crusader to Hurston, but the drive itself likes the power to make it the entire way in a single jump. This is a better lore explanation of what is currently going on in 3.5, without that annoying “engines overheating” issue. Gameplay Impact: Navigation - Players would see where the drive would drop them out as waypoints that could be manipulated (drag and drop style?) allowing you to fine tune your course. After each jump, the next waypoint would be automatically loaded into the NavCom. All the player has to do is point towards the new Navpoint, wait for the engine cooldown to finish, spool up and jump. This could be used to create jumps to the correct side of a planet without spline jumping or to navigate around an asteroid belt. Q-Drive Efficiency - Higher Grade and Classification drives could have better (relatively) range than lower G/C drives. Perhaps even allowing a top tier S size drive to have very nearly the same range as a bottom tier M drive. Addition trade offs could be explored with this that may make installing a smaller drive appealing. Drive Range/Computing Power - Jump length requires computing power. The longer the jump, the harder the calculations, the greater the required computing power. The concept is simple enough. Each Q-Drive has a built in NavCom that makes the jump calculations for a specific destination. The larger the drive, the more processing power available. In addition, longer jumps would take more time to complete the “calibration” or jump calculation portion of the spooling process. Having less processing power, a Small drive would take longer to calibrate than and Medium drive would for the same distance. This is an interesting idea for me and probably my favorite of the three. Gameplay Impact: Player Cooperation - When executing a group jump, only the lead ship makes the calculation then shares it with the other ships in the fleet. The lead ship would take into consideration the fuel capacity of the other ships and plot the longest possible jump. This would allow smaller ships to “tag along” with larger ships on long jumps as long as they are slaved to it. A Gladius might not be to make a single jump from Port Olisar to Hurston on it’s own, but in a fleet with an Idris it could. Ship Balance - Larger, slower moving ships are pray for fast attack craft. With larger Q-Drives though, they don’t have to survive as long as a smaller ship because they can more quickly spool and calibrate for the next jump. Overclocking - Squeeze out extra range and calibration speed from your Q-Drive. The danger is that overclocking may cause the NavCom to burn out completely, leaving you stranded at the end of your jump. On top of increased wear of course. As I said before, any one of these solutions is more appealing to me then the drive “overheating” because of a design flaw. A creative combination of all three of these ideas might be even better. What do you think? Does the current system make sense or has one of my suggestions peaked your interest? Is there another solution that I didn’t consider that might work better? Let me know what you think the best way to achieve Chris' goal is and why.