Escape Pods' success chance dependent on shuttle's distance to CentCom

[Gerhazo]

Currently, using an escape pod while the shuttle is in transit has a chance of you catching up to it and possibly being able to climb on board.

However, it causes some oddities.
For instance, the escape pod can seemingly in an instant catch up to the shuttle that's been in transit for a long time.
Some players make use of this to avoid all the shuttle chaos, at cost of risking the general escape pod RNG, which also brings the next point,

The risk of using escape pods is that they may destabilize and instead suffer catastrophic failure, being a sort of penalty you receive for not making it on the shuttle. It is purely RNG and even though it isn't supposed to be fair, since it's meant as a last resort, I think it would feel better to be able to influence these chances by your actions somehow.

This suggestion proposes making the escape pods' success chance depend on the distance of the emergency shuttle to CentCom.

In practice, this should mean that boarding an escape pod not long after the shuttle has left should give you fairly solid chances of catching up to it.
Conversely, the closer the shuttle is to arriving at its destination, the lower your chances would get, with trying to get on at the last second being very unlikely.

For antagonists hijacking a shuttle, it would mean having to deal with one early wave of people trying to catch up, rather than sporadic appearances.

This would hopefully make the pod RNG more predictable, with any pods being taken arriving at the shuttle early and with better odds, while a pod catching up while the shuttle is seconds away from centcom should be very unlikely to occur.

[Cal]

This is a fantastic idea, I'm all for it. I'm kinda sick of trying to use 3 emergency pods and they all blow up as I barely missed the shuttle, haha.

[Drewmajor11]

This is a fantastic idea, I'm all for it. I'm kinda sick of trying to use 3 emergency pods and they all blow up as I barely missed the shuttle, haha.

Yeah I'd agree with this I used 3 escape pods as a fire elemental and all 3 blew up or destroyed themselves on me or just stopped and the last one was disassembled lmao.

[Technature]

This is a good.

Punishing people as little as possible for missing the shuttle by 3 seconds is a good and should be a thing.

[THISISANICEGAME]

That is a good idea, also, add something to the pod's description saying they only work if the shuttle is in transit, I have seen a bunch of new players take the pods while the shuttle is on station thinking they would arrive safely at centcomm and I myself did it when I was new.

[Jakson]

Personally I use the escape pods when the station has been getting bombed and there is a 80% chance the shuttle will get next, so I wait until 45 seconds till CentComm and board a ship that is filled with gibs.

This change wouldn’t exactly favor that though, but it seems realistic. Personally, I wish they had a 75% chance of success, granted such a low number of escape pods.

[BatElite]

That is a good idea, also, add something to the pod's description saying they only work if the shuttle is in transit, I have seen a bunch of new players take the pods while the shuttle is on station thinking they would arrive safely at centcomm and I myself did it when I was new.

I tried adding something hinting at that a while back, but I'm not sure newbies examine everything they meet. Especially since the shortcut isn't obvious.

[Rilor]

"Yeah this is a good idea, and how hard could it be to code?" -famous last words

[Technature]

That is a good idea, also, add something to the pod's description saying they only work if the shuttle is in transit, I have seen a bunch of new players take the pods while the shuttle is on station thinking they would arrive safely at centcomm and I myself did it when I was new.

I tried adding something hinting at that a while back, but I'm not sure newbies examine everything they meet. Especially since the shortcut isn't obvious.

We could give a pop up warning saying that the pod will probably crash in a firery hell if used while the ship isn't in transit and ask if they really wanna use it.

[Rilor]

That is a good idea, also, add something to the pod's description saying they only work if the shuttle is in transit, I have seen a bunch of new players take the pods while the shuttle is on station thinking they would arrive safely at centcomm and I myself did it when I was new.

I tried adding something hinting at that a while back, but I'm not sure newbies examine everything they meet. Especially since the shortcut isn't obvious.

We could give a pop up warning saying that the pod will probably crash in a firery hell if used while the ship isn't in transit and ask if they really wanna use it.

maybe only if it isnt in transit yet?

[Technature]

To be fair re-reading this, it's not obvious that that's what I meant. My apologies for not being clear on that.

[BatElite]

If the escape pods need extra clarification (or we just don't have them launch prematurely) I don't mind. Should be easy to do.

In the hijacking spirit, what if leaving the warp thing also tossed around everyone on the shuttle? Then anyone trying to do the "haha I broke the window behind the table you can't get to me" woudl get flung off before landing.