I want to share my thoughts on the current jump mechanic because it honestly feels broken or poorly explained. According to the description, a 500k jump engine should mean the jumpship can emerge up to 500k away from the jump point. However, my actual gameplay experience shows otherwise.
I did a squadron jump test 10 times, and the arrival distribution didn’t make any sense based on that 500k limit. Out of those 10 tries, 8 times the ships appeared below 300k, 1 time between 300k–400k, and only 1 time between 400k–460k. It never even came close to the advertised 500k maximum.
The mechanic doesn’t match the description at all. If the engine is rated for 500k, the probability should favor the higher range. There should be a transparent percentage breakdown for the arrival distance. For example, it would make much more sense if there was a 70% chance to land between 400k–500k, and only a 30% chance to land anywhere below that. Right now, it just feels misleading and frustrating to use.
The jump radius is the maximum range at which the ship will appear, not the guaranteed distance.
The technology is called “Max Squadron Jump Radius” and the description of that technology says “The maximum distance in thousands of kilometres at which a ship equipped with a jump engine with this technology will emerge from a jump point”
The randomisation of the distance between zero and the maximum is to add more uncertainty to jump point assault and defence. Given the maximum range of energy weapons, a guaranteed 500k emergence distance (for example) would limit the options of the defender and give too much benefit to an attacker.
I agree the randomization element isn’t strictly laid out in the description, but that is true of most of the game as there is no manual. However, ‘maximum’ within the name and description should indicate it is not a fixed distance.
The randomisation is purely linear from 0 to max distance. Ten is not a sufficient sample size to determine the effectiveness of the randomisation.
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