Gameplay: Afterburner Sidegrades

[Neurotoxin]

My main inspuration for this post is from how I use fighters in PS1. When I'm pursuing or escaping an enemy, I will generally use my entire afterburner to create distance. However, when I'm just trying to get from Point A to B, I'll speed up to about 230 then tap spacebar to maintain that speed for longer.


The idea is for different types of afterburners or additional thrust sidegrades. Right now I can only think of three main variations:

Cruise - This is the weakest speed boost of the three thrusters, providing only a small speed boost, but it is able to be sustained for very long periods of time.

Engage - This is a moderate speed boost. It helps with traversing a continent or catching up to enemies in order to engage them.

Boost - This is a rapid speed boost, and can get you away from anything quickly (especially locked-on missiles) but only has a very short duration.

If you have more ideas, or want to put down solid math for how these would work, please by all means do so. I feel like it is a reasonable system to add, and adds an extra element of diversity to flight and air combat without unbalancing or hindering anyone.

[Femtobyte]

I have no real problems with this idea, I just fail to see how it could be implemented. Whats to stop a player from upgrading to "boost" and then just using his boost situationally? As you said just tapping on space-bar will get them across the map while boosting. And if they need to have that speed to get away from a missile lock then they have it equipped and they aren't limited by that cruise option.

[Notsononymous]

Personally it seems ridiculous to me to speculate about something this specific when it could already be implemented...

[Neurotoxin]

It wasn't in at E3 that I could see, so I'm going based on that.

[StarFault]

I just think that all of these should be available at the same time, as cruise is more of convenience thing (so you don't have to tap that space bar repeatedly), while boost is a more situational advantage. We could have these options unlocked with certs, so that those who don't want the convenience of cruise don't need to bother with it.