Just an idea of mine, but, if you jump/warp out of a battle, or away from an enemy, they should be able to see the general direction you went (Not a line, but a cone, from where you started being the smallest point, outwards, so they cant track your exact location). This could be used to find hidden bases/carriers, to give an advantage if someone decides to run. You could be able to buy some gear for a ship that widens the cone, giving more options, but not make it disappear all together. Just an idea of mine!
Well… since an entire starsystem is one seamless environment, you can just look at the ship and see where its going, as you’ll be able to watch it accelerate into warp and fly across the system.
Stealth and detection is a big area of gameplay that might require some experimentation to make interesting.
I certainly don’t see the value in being able to track people across an entire system with a ship’s piddly radar system. Once a player reaches warp and gets far enough away it should disappear.
As for a warp signature pointing in the direction of the ship’s last known heading, one idea could be something vague like a glowing undulating streak similar to the way earth ships leave a turbulence wake from the propellers.
and just like a wake it would gradually fade over time so you would know how long ago the ship went to warp.
Suggestion
Terminate useful sensors tracking, an arbitrarily short/long time after a ship goes warp. That arbitrary margin will determine the accuracy of the eavesdropping ship’s prediction of the warping ship’s trajectory.
Player-dispatched NPC sensors (akin to today’s maritime buoys) could help improve that data.
Would certainly be cool if ships with special sensors (scout role ships for example) could detect (see) warp trails.
The way the ship shined in the trailer while in warp was sick (visually). Just putting that out here.
Yes, that was well done, but I thought that would be the way jumps would look. I even implemented the whole flash transition thing in the warp prototype - but for beginning or ending a jump.
I think that just showing the streak would be sufficient for warp. If that is visible from far away then players moving on warp would be spotted just by virtue of being on warp. So if I can see a warp trail from perhaps 20 seconds away, then I have ample time to react. Pursue. Flee. Reposition. Hide. If warp trails are one second long then I may only see a pale dot at distance, but I’ll be able to see something.
I’m not a big fan of the whole sleuthing thing for tracking a warp trail. For starters, it makes it too easy to chase someone down. If you weren’t around when they warped away, you don’t get to chase them. If you are there, then either chase them and stay within 20 seconds for visual tracking or rely on some sort of sensor system and track them at a longer range - if possible. The other reason for not doing sleuthing is that it’ll be expensive in data terms. Every time I turn on warp I create data that the server has to track so that others can sleuth it. It may be that players will try to do all sorts of gratuitous warping in an area in an attempt to mask their true warp direction.
As a ship can maneuver in warp, seeing the “general direction” he warped isn’t that useful. Furthermore, the minimal speed to reach warp would encourage pilots to initiate warp in the direction they where already flying.