Revisit the idea of instantaneous transfers

[Shurimal]

My favourite saying from my time in the military: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs - you obviously haven’t grasped the seriousness of the situation

Certainly worthy of becoming the 71st Maxim

If you could transfer ships and modules from A to B while yourself sitting in an anonymous asteroid belt at C, probably no-one would notice the transfer time on them very much either.

Precisely. That little QoL upgrade would make life so much better. Maybe add an "Express" tier for ship/module transfer: lower time limit 2 or 3 minutes, upper time limit at 10 minutes, maximum service distance 300...500 ly, 5...10x more expensive than the "Snail Mail" option

 

[Screemonster]

My game has never been enhanced by waiting out a timer.

Switching ships should be like switching loadouts on suits.
It'd save so much pointless faffing around keeping track of what ships and modules are where.

Hell, if ship loadouts were a thing as they are on foot, we wouldn't even need as much module storage - you'd never need more than eight HD shield boosters, for example, if you could just engineer them up and once you have them apply them to any loadout you choose. Yes you can technically do this now if you keep all your stuff in the same place but it's a lot of faffing around in the outfitting menu.

"immersive" is always the last cry of someone who can't call a mechanic "fun".

 

[rootsrat]

My game (...)

(...) the last cry of someone who can't call a mechanic "fun".

Fun is subjective.
I could say an inverted thing about you, because "my game" is "fun" in a different way.
Don't tell me how I should enjoy "my game" thankyouverymuch.

 

[PilotB]

That's quite different from teleportation with a free choice of destination.

Death is how we teleport and the setup is incredibly cheap and simple to do. Over time Colonisation will give us even more of the galaxy available to teleport to and from. You do have to visit once but that seems like a sane and normal limitation to long range travel.

 

[anShpan]

"immersive" is always the last cry of someone who can't call a mechanic "fun".

Sure, IRL people also frequently prefer fun over immersion, like: instant vs espresso / cappuccino, microwaved vs freshly baked, quickie vs passionate.

What I would personally consider as a huge QoL improvement is an NPC-operated FCs Colonia-Bubble, Colonia- Sag. A, etc. I would gladly just take a ticket on such ferry per each my ship (module/whatever) that I would like to take there and then just log-out into RL till arrival of FC at destination.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Death is how we teleport and the setup is incredibly cheap and simple to do. Over time Colonisation will give us even more of the galaxy available to teleport to and from. You do have to visit once but that seems like a sane and normal limitation to long range travel.

Relocation on death, to a nearby (or not so nearby, in the case of a rebuy that necessitates a visit to a detention centre, or if the rebuy was incurred far from the nearest inhabited system) dock is a necessity in the game - as one needs to start in ones replacement ship docked somewhere. It still doesn't offer a free choice of destination on rebuy.

Fast travel to anywhere that one has ever visited has long been a desire of some players who don't seem to enjoy a core aspect of the game they bought - noting that its absence is a welcome (lack of a) feature to some other players.

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

Fast travel to anywhere that one has ever visited is a feature in Starfield, and one of the most heavily criticized ones.

 

[Robert Maynard]

My game has never been enhanced by....

I expect that each player has their own list of things about the game, and player behaviour, that don't improve their experience of the game. The only common point for different players may be that they play the same game.

"immersive" is always the last cry of someone who can't call a mechanic "fun".

Limitations are a part of games - as to remove them all would likely remove the game itself.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Fast travel to anywhere that one has ever visited is a feature in Starfield, and one of the most heavily criticized ones.

Travel in that game is awful compared to this game - it's effectively what this game would have been if Frontier had not come up with SuperCruise after feedback from the DDF, i.e. we would have been restricted to point to point jumping between POIs in each system.

 

[Shurimal]

My game has never been enhanced by waiting out a timer.

That depends on what the timer is for, doesn't it? Case in point: the need to hold down the alternative "use" key for a few seconds to do illegal actions. I'll bet my Asp that if there was no timer, there would be much salt on forums about accidentally hacking a terminal in front of a settlement guard and being murdered to death/failing a mission as a result

Also, funnily, I don't see much complaining about the FSD charge-up time and 5-second countdown. I'll bet my other Asp that I've spent more time waiting after these timers than I've spent waiting for all my ship/module transfers combined And, unlike with ship transfers, I can't even go and do something else in the game at the same time.

 

[Screemonster]

That depends on what the timer is for, doesn't it? Case in point: the need to hold down the alternative "use" key for a few seconds to do illegal actions. I'll bet my Asp that if there was no timer, there would be much salt on forums about accidentally hacking a terminal in front of a settlement guard and being murdered to death/failing a mission as a result

Also, funnily, I don't see much complaining about the FSD charge-up time and 5-second countdown. I'll bet my other Asp that I've spent more time waiting after these timers than I've spent waiting for all my ship/module transfers combined And, unlike with ship transfers, I can't even go and do something else in the game at the same time.

In all those cases there's a time pressure to justify it. Waiting for your FSD to charge while under fire and whatnot.

That's a far cry from "lmao just log out of the game and come back when it's done".

Sure, IRL people also frequently prefer fun over immersion, like: instant vs espresso / cappuccino, microwaved vs freshly baked, quickie vs passionate.

What I would personally consider as a huge QoL improvement is an NPC-operated FCs Colonia-Bubble, Colonia- Sag. A, etc. I would gladly just take a ticket on such ferry per each my ship (module/whatever) that I would like to take there and then just log-out into RL till arrival of FC at destination.

There is no way in hell you're comparing "getting up from my desk and doing my laundry because the game is basically paused" to a freshly-made proper coffee.

 

[anShpan]

There is no way in hell you're comparing "getting up from my desk and doing my laundry because the game is basically paused" to a freshly-made proper coffee.

No, and I never did. Having proper coffee is especially delicious while wearing closes after proper laundry.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

There was discussion about instant transfers in Elite some time ago, that people said they like wasting time waiting for something to come in. Now that we have the instantly deployable ARX ships, it makes less sense that things can't be available quicker. If someone really has a problem with things transferring immediately, they can impose a timer on themselves and wait for it to count down so they have the joy of waiting for something.

please god no. let's have invincible ships whilst we are at it after all players can always voluntarily self destruct. !
my view is doing something yourself should always be the most optimal way of doing it.
I DO see your point about the ARX ships ..... I really hate those as well. I think it undermines the game completely . however I can kind of ignore them by not buying them so I never see them in game.
(they have free rebuys as well using your logic ALL ships should be free rebuy - to be fair, they kind of are if you do PP (guess what ... I don't like that either )

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Do you want them to add a 3 hour cooldown on death while someone hand builds you a new ship or are you OK with the station creating a new ship from thin air for that but not for people who want to use it?

back when the game launched I fully supported the idea of a short period where you floated in space and waited a few mins to be recovered. not real time obviously but just a nod to remind us that elite is not meant to be about casually losing your ship but something to try to avoid at all costs
I also supported the idea of possibly having to wait for your insurance ship to be delivered BUT with an entire missionboard full of jobs where ships were supplied. (and where the better you look after the supplied ships the better jobs your got offered)

I also liked the idea that engineered gear would not be replaced under insurance but you got a personalised USS where you could go to your wreck and salvage your stuff.

that said... as a compromise which would maybe help without breaking the 4th wall. I think being able to send a ship TO a destination as well as ordering it FROM a location may help you without screaming "videogame magic".
elite has enough of that as it is imo

 

[Screemonster]

please god no. let's have invincible ships whilst we are at it after all players can always voluntarily self destruct. !

That's a ludicrous slippery slope comparison and you know it.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

In all those cases there's a time pressure to justify it. Waiting for your FSD to charge while under fire and whatnot.

That's a far cry from "lmao just log out of the game and come back when it's done".

Exactly. The length of the timer is entirely unimportant if that time is filled with doing stuff related to that timer, especially if the length of the timer can be influenced by doing those things.

SCO was a great change to supercruise, not because it shortened supercruise times (though it did) but because it changed the optimal strategy for the "middle minutes" of supercruise from "travel in a straight line and don't touch anything" to "fly the ship, watch your heat, watch your fuel consumption, time the cut-out properly to transition into final approach".

The data download timers in Odyssey were shortened from the original minutes when it became clear that the originally-expected gameplay (hide and keep moving around to stay hidden while guards patrol) was actually a minority case for data download, and the timers were just pointless standing around in the more common cases of:
- power up a shut down base, there's no-one else about to interrupt anyway
- the alarms are disabled and everyone in at least the building if not the entire base is already dead, who's going to stop you?

If they could make the ship transfer timer possible to shorten by doing tasks related to it that would be very different - maybe requesting a ship transfer generates some signal sources, where you need to drop or scan beacons and deal with pirates and bring some Tritium for the ship carrier to refuel. Do all three tasks and the timer completes instantly, do two (because maybe you don't have the ship to do all three yet, that's why you're calling a transfer) and it's still probably enough time saved that the remaining timer is done by then, or just go and do something else and let it tick over in the background and take longer.

Obviously that's a lot of extra coding around a feature that anyone making heavy use of would be advised to just get a Fleet Carrier anyway, I don't think it's likely to happen. But that sort of interactive timer isn't a problem at all. It's the ones where "log out and come back tomorrow" is in terms of in-game time played actually a faster way to get your ship than playing the game...

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

That's a ludicrous slippery slope comparison and you know it.

it's the same logic as putting a manual timer for those who want ship transfers so I stand by it.
what about the zero rebuy on all ships then? is that a fairer comparison as the ARX ships have that.

imo if you want your ship faster than transfer then go get it yourself. having instant transfers removes any need to think about your build. combat ships may as well all have the tiniest FSD as you can just fly anywhere in your long range bubble hopper and then magic in your combat ship.

I like transfer times as it means there is a good use case for a jack of all trade ships that can do everything albeit not that optimally so you can crack on with stuff whilst your apex ship is delivered

 

[marx]

Monkey's Paw, I wish for instantaneous ship transfers!
Frontier adds that, and you have to pay for it with Arx.

Unfortunately, plenty of MMOs have already done this exact kind of skip.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

what about the zero rebuy on all ships then?

You can pretty much get that with Powerplay already if you build up a few ranks. No rebuy cost anywhere in your Power's territory, no rebuy cost outside it if you were killed by another Power agent (which covers a lot of the more dangerous NPCs, and almost all the more dangerous players)

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

You can pretty much get that with Powerplay already if you build up a few ranks. No rebuy cost anywhere in your Power's territory, no rebuy cost outside it if you were killed by another Power agent (which covers a lot of the more dangerous NPCs, and almost all the more dangerous players)

indeed and I mentioned that in my 1st post. I don't like that either!. At the same time I do like the added buckets that power play gives me to fill so don't want to ignore PP.
i would happily trade in my zero rebuys for some skins and ship kits to earn instead with my ranks