A brief summary of NavHS:
Ben Motz in tepprog asked me to write down a "_brief_" summary of my suggestions about NavHS. Unfortunately the possible features are so much that it's very hard to do it brief. So I'll take another approach: I'll present a list of the main advantages (and relative drawbacks) of NavHS, trying to explain quickly how they work. For further informations you may find the detailed description here. If you have still questions just ask me.
1) Ability to see constallations changing in front of you. Of course it is the smallest point and it applies only if we decide to show your travel in a "warp" style instead of an "dark space" style; but I think that for people who likes the perspective of exploring new frontiers it might be very interesting.
Main drawback: may be difficult to program (but I think not, after speaking with John Jordan). Passive waitings are not a problem, since the stardreamer might be used also for HS travels.
Conversely, if we decide for a "black space" appearance, we might obtain a more practical (but less romantic :-)) potential, like the ability to hide bases in HS or the possibility to insert an alien race living in HS in the plot.
Main drawback: maybe there are already too much things in the plot.
2) Possibility to follow people in HS without the certainty given by the "hyperspace cloud analyser". With InstHS you can follow very simply a ship in HS; just click on the hyperspace cloud analyser and get the destination coords; with NavHS you can still follow ships in HS, but it is a real chase, which can have positive or negative outcomes; and of course it might happen to you to be on both sides: you might be a chaser who wants to follow a ship in HS or conversely someone who wants to avoid other people to know your destination. Generally you would achieve the objective of following people using the variation of your hyperspeed, the mass of your ship, fake routes, equipment, and a (very small) random components. (see the complete description of the model for further details). I'm also working on a way to use solar systems to help in evasive manouver, but I still need some time to complete it.
Drawback: just the same as the advantage; following ships in HS is more difficult; for someone it may be an advantage, for others a drawback.
3) Wider range of informations and questions. With InstHS the only useful informations to locate a certain position in the deep space are precise coords; with NavHS, combining it with an intelligent galactic map display, you might work on partial informations like: "I saw a ship behaving in a strange way around that star" or "I saw him following a certain route", or similar. Some informations may be useful also for chases (in case you have lost the ship you were following you might ask "did you saw a ship heading that route?").
Main drawbacks: increase in complexity (both for players and programmers) and requires the player to reflect much more on the infos he gets (well, I think it is an advantage, but many people think the opposite :-)).
4) Possibility of HS combat. The opinions about it are quite different; the main suggestions are: a) Piloting in HS is Elite-like (inertialess). Phases system might be used to do the combat more complex. b) Piloting in HS is Realspace-like (inertial). Some additional equipment might be required to fight in HS.
Main drawback: HS combat might change the balance of the game, so that the accent of the game is moved too much towards the HS combat which should be not too important. Probably the best way to correct this problem is to use the HS simply to intercept ships and dragging them out of HS; after, a realspace combat would be required to capture or destroy the ship.
5) Possibility to do unexpected stops. Suppose you are travelling to a system; during the travel a battle takes place, and you got damage. In InstHS this means that you already were in your destination system and you have been attacked during the planetary approaching manouver; your best chance is to continue the planetary approach. With NavHS battles may take place in deep space; this means that you may be intercepted very far from your destination system, so you may need to do an unplanned stop on a nearby system to repair damage. This system works at its bnetter extent if coupled with a realistic slow and unreliable FTL comm infrastructure; in this case you may have gathered a lot of infos on your destination system, through rumors and speaking with other ship captains, but probably you won't have done the same for all the other systems in the area.
Major drawbacks: well, I can't think of any, but probably someone will find.