Small ship jump drive

While I agree with this, the easy fix would to be to have the small ship jump drive have a high cost of energy to charge. A wattage input that would require something like a large reactor or a large battery capacity to survive the charging stage.

EDIT: A small ship large reactor mind you-

But docking to a large ship would allow a small drive to charge quickly. Maybe just increased activation time, shorter range, and lower energy efficiency is fine.

Yeah but then you'd be transferring power from the large station, which needed to have been built, which needed to have stable power income for the said large ship battery/reactor if you wanted to recharge the large ship batteries if it has any, or uranium for fueling reactors. So things still work out.

maybe rework large jump drives so that small ships in close proximity jump with it? It might make it more fair.

All for a small grid jump drive with lesser range, and high power draw. I would also like to see a "short range" slim downed large grid jump drive. Been wanting to make slim/sleek large ship but the current jump drive is just so massive it.

I meant con to it

How about, a single one time use jump drive that is burnt out after use, it could loose all but one of its components.

Adding SK to small grids added gameplay. Players can now start with small grid spawn craft and need to work their way up to LG craft. Prior to that, there wasn't any need to make SG craft other than "well, I kinda want a small ship to put inside my big ship" but that's a very rare requirement (even though we all do it because it's cool), as it is generally more useful just to have another LG ship externally docked to your "main" ship.

Having to work up from SG to LG has a purpose: only LG craft are jump capable. This is 100% Marek's vision for SG and LG roles in the game, which he has stated explicitly on several occasions.

To provide SG craft with jump capability means you would never need to build an LG ship, which makes the game easier and removes depth, because it eliminates a major step required towards getting jump capability -- building a large grid ship.

So in this case, adding Jump Drives to SG craft would not expand game play. It would do the opposite, unfortunately.

I respectfully disagree,

The game is like a box of digital LEGO, each new block is a world of possibilities. Not everyone builds in large grid (myself included) and this being an open ended game, you make your own fun. More options wouldn't reduce the possible game play that one can get out of the game.

On an unrelated side note, the biggest difference between a Tie Fighter and an X-wing, both being small ships, is that the X-wing can jump.

Hi there!

I respect your perspective and appreciate that everyone makes their own fun. However the addition of SG jump drives, while adding to your fun, would detract from the fun of those that currently follow the progression path of "you need to build LG vessels in order to use jump drives." Of course some people will make their own fun and build LG anyway because LG vessels are fun. But it would objectively remove an element of progression from the game. Since you build mostly SG, it would open up elements of the game to you, but for others it would do the opposite, so it's not a net-positive change.

I think your perspective would be comparable to someone asking for jump drives to work in gravity. This opens up possibilities, however at the same time, it reduces the progression of the game such that players no longer need to get to space in order to use jump drives.

In a conversation like this, I think a nice solution is to add a world-configuration option to "enable SG jump drives" or (for my hypothetical example) "enable jump drives in gravity." That way players can fine-tune the game to match the way they want to play, just like adding spiders, wolves, cargo ships, or even scripting.

Regarding your unrelated note, I'm pretty sure the X-wing can jump as well, can't it? :) But in the Star Wars universe, there are externalities that mean there are reasons for building different sizes of ships. Most of those externalities do not exist in the Space Engineers universe, so they can't drive players to build LG vessels when they don't really need to. As you said, though, it's unrelated. :)

If I may debate your point,

Going from SG to LG is an illusion, you can build a Jump Drive platform in space, connect your SG ship to it, and jump (as I have done). This does not eliminates the resource gathering, and traveling back and forth to finish the construction. Once the Drive is built, then you have the distance and power considerations. Jump with your SG ship batteries on Auto and on disconnect, watch your sweat and tears plummet into the surface of the nearest planet/moon upside down (as I have done *facepalm*). There is a lot to learn with every technology that you add to your vehicle.

I would argue that the progression is still there, the ultimate goal is to travel to other celestial bodies, and the journey to get there is perhaps the main PvE (or single player) aspect of the game. But we cannot forget of the PvP side that a lot of people enjoy (not me). Allowing SG ships to jump during a possible interdiction could mean the difference between losing your ship and cargo or making it in one peace to your destination. On a scenario like that, power considerations are still present.

What about fleet combat? If your mothership jumps, you don't have to be stranded in the battlefield. You won't be able to catch up to them on one jump, but you may be able to live another day, and later regroup with your fleet.

I'm sure there are may scenarios to imagine, but having an SG Jump Drive won't suddenly make LG ships obsolete, nor less effective, nor less durable, nor less desirable, nor less fun.