Im not so sure it has to be scaled down. Time compression allows for significant travel in a short period of time. I dont thin multiplayer as to cater to the "action now" group, because multiplayer would be meant to add a more social/interactive suppott to the single player campaign experience. Meaning, if you dont like single player, you likly wont like multiplayer.
Multiplayer isnt meant to change the feel of the game. Its not meant to provide the typical frag-fest experience, but only offer the ability to truly wolf-pack within the already well established single-player experience.
In my vision, the game should generally feel as isolated as it does in single player, until you run into or coordinate group action.
Time compression is the key feature that is required to give players the freedom to engage targets in a timely manner. My initial time compression plan was to force on a players within sector, sensory or proximity to only time compress to the lowest setting of any player in the sector, sensor or proximity range. I still think that will work, but I think its acceptable to create a sort of "warp" option, that allows you to travel to a patrol area quickly without fear of being hampered in travel time due to inadvertant run ins with other players.
I think one should be able to time compress for long travel distance, but click an option called "reposition" that will ignore units while traveling inbound to the destination waypoint. So I could sort of "warp" there, but not really, at high compression like we canin game now, and then only be hampered by player encounters within the sector, sensor or proximity of the destination waypoint.
In addition, while "repositioning", my sub will not transmit sensory return(visual, radar, sonar) to other players for whom Im passing by within sensory range. That way players wont get weird sensory anamolies as other players zip through at "warp" speeds during their "repositioning".
Lastly, when th eplayer is outside sensory range of other players, "repositioning" would not ignore contacts like air units or lone warships(hunter killer groups, single DDs) that are not within sensory range of players. Such run ins against ant-sub threats are critical experiences during one's patrol and there shouldnt be a way to exploit the "repositioning" to by-pass these threats while transiting. However, task forces, convoys, lone merchants would remain ignored until arriving within proximity to your destination. Once out of "resposition" mode, everything works like normal.
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