Grav Drive Mechanism

[OnePercent]

Similar to Elite: Dangerous, perhaps a method for preventing atmo-diving/sundiving would be to upgrade the grav drive mechanism into a semi-warp style drive, where the AI will travel towards its targets in a fluid fashion as the same before, and then designate all celestial objects with an invisible 'exclusion' zone around it, upon an accidental AI malfunction, the ship will collide first with this 'exclusion' zone instead of the planet itself, rendering the occupants unharmed as the grav drive 'cools down'.

Grav drive wouldn't be as fast as the warp drive, but it has a distinct bonus compared to rocket driven space craft. So this is an idea to change the mechanics of how a grav drive behaves in relation to its surroundings rather than its arbitrary speed.

[danthemanisme95]

I think a better method of implementation is to include an upgraded grav drive as a third maneuver option that can "collide" with gravity wells and bounce off of them achieving a similar goal to your point.

[OnePercent]

Is the purpose as some form of progression requiring another special resource?

[danthemanisme95]

It could but I was just thinking another patent like warp

[Deantwo]

I don't think changing how gravity drive works is really necessary.

Could just make it as a new FTL drive type. There is no requirement that says that all FTL drives have to be for interstellar travel.

Not sure Hazeron solar systems are really big enough for the Elite: Dangerous's Supercruise to be needed. But I guess you mostly want it because atmos-dives are almost impossible with it.

[OnePercent]

Not sure Hazeron solar systems are really big enough for the Elite: Dangerous's Supercruise to be needed. But I guess you mostly want it because atmos-dives are almost impossible with it.

This and I proposed the change occur to Grav drives, specifically just the crashing into the boundary rather than a planet or star part, because grav drives aren't an FTL drive and are already a nice distinct classification of a tech drive system. 

Though it would be cool to add a 3rd propulsion option and use something like flomentum as the resource for it.

[QuakeIV]

It would be kindof nice if there was something equivalent to skip around in system that is slower than warp and harder to accidentally smash into planets with.

I don't think its actually needed, but it would be nice.

[Yukondano2]

I see the appeal. I'm reminded of the cruise drive from Freelancer as well. In that game the tradeoff was it had a short charge time and shut down your weapons. If you wanted a faster option to navigate a star system just so you can get around easier, I wonder if an artificial gate system could work? In other space sims these are just glorified level loads but, I could see use for a large stationary gravity field that just fires ships that pass through it, with either a receiving gate or enough time and space to decelerate. That, or something like Freelancer's trade lanes, which I guess would be the same thing plus shielding for asteroids (not that they matter) and more controlled acceleration and deceleration.

I'm getting off track from your idea, though, which is more of a way to prevent atmosphere dives. The AI should be able to avoid that on their own, I'm not sure coming up with a new feature is the right solution as much as just getting the AI to stop committing suicide is the right path. I bring up the gate idea because it would force the circumstances of travel into something a bit more structured, so the AI just has to worry about traveling a clear path of space-road. Otherwise, just improve AI pathing and figure out why their object avoidance craps the bed sometimes.