The NPCs probably don't exist then and the player is suspended - but time moves on. Mission clock and bounty timers are ticking. And status decays.
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Pausing game while in Solo
- Thread starter Bugbear
- Start date
I saw pause button. There was pause.
Cradle2Grave
Banned
There is no pause.
Yes, the BGS continues. So why couldn't the Solo instance, that bubble containing 1 player and possibly a handful of NPCs that is not updating the BGS at that time, be frozen if the player wishes to pause the game? If the BGS will not be updated until something occurs that needs to uploaded, what effect would temporarily freezing that instance have?
Unfair
You could pause your instance and nobody else would be able to join it and kill you.
Seeing as the thread title is "Pausing game while in Solo" I'm guessing the OP made a typo in point 2 about pausing Open.
I've conducted a little experiment to see how often a Solo player instance calls home to the BGS:
1. In a ring type station, I requested launch and when my platform was moving I disconnected from the internet. I was able to launch, exit the station, see the NPCs pootling around and fly around the station for a while before getting booted to the Main Menu.
2. In SuperCruise I disconnected the internet and was able to fly around the system for about 30 seconds before being booted. (I'm guessing the game wanted to generate Signal Sources or something and called home.)
3. Entered a Strong Signal Source, disconnected internet, flew around 3 Elite NPCs that waited for about a minute before they zoomed away into SC.
4. Entered a Weak Signal Source, disconnected internet, saw 5 NPC sidewinders and 1 NPC Anaconda. Got engaged by the sidewinders, almost destroyed 1 when my shields dropped, booted to the Main Menu. (Guessing that either hull damage or NPC destruction needed uploading)
5. After being granted docking permission 6km away from ring station, disconnected internet, almost got to the landing pad before being booted.
From this, it looks to me that if the Solo player and all the NPCs in their instance were frozen, nothing would need to be referenced to the BGS server. A pause function could work. Mission timers and all the other gumpf would continue to tick along, but they do that anyway when you log off from the game.
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Back in Beta I made the mistake of hitting the Pause button, being presented with the Pause Menu, going off to attend to matters of the bladder and coming back to the ship re-buy screen. That's when I realised Pause wasn't Pause in Elite Dangerous
I've conducted a little experiment to see how often a Solo player instance calls home to the BGS:
1. In a ring type station, I requested launch and when my platform was moving I disconnected from the internet. I was able to launch, exit the station, see the NPCs pootling around and fly around the station for a while before getting booted to the Main Menu.
2. In SuperCruise I disconnected the internet and was able to fly around the system for about 30 seconds before being booted. (I'm guessing the game wanted to generate Signal Sources or something and called home.)
3. Entered a Strong Signal Source, disconnected internet, flew around 3 Elite NPCs that waited for about a minute before they zoomed away into SC.
4. Entered a Weak Signal Source, disconnected internet, saw 5 NPC sidewinders and 1 NPC Anaconda. Got engaged by the sidewinders, almost destroyed 1 when my shields dropped, booted to the Main Menu. (Guessing that either hull damage or NPC destruction needed uploading)
5. After being granted docking permission 6km away from ring station, disconnected internet, almost got to the landing pad before being booted.
From this, it looks to me that if the Solo player and all the NPCs in their instance were frozen, nothing would need to be referenced to the BGS server. A pause function could work. Mission timers and all the other gumpf would continue to tick along, but they do that anyway when you log off from the game.
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Back in Beta I made the mistake of hitting the Pause button, being presented with the Pause Menu, going off to attend to matters of the bladder and coming back to the ship re-buy screen. That's when I realised Pause wasn't Pause in Elite Dangerous
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How long does it take to hit escape and then exit to main menu ? Not long at all , and your game is then paused .
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If the Solo instance is not communicating with the BGS server then nothing is being tracked. From a technical perspective it's probably about as complicated to implement as it is in every other game that has a pause function. This is only for a Solo instance, not Group or Open.
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Well, here how about this: It's unfair that players in solo can pause the game but players in open cannot.
I see no reason for the game to be different in any way within the modes, with the exception how players interact with each other's instances.
I'm not sure whether fair, unfair, technically feasible or not, has any real bearing here.
It's simply a design choice that clearly - FD wants actions = consequences. Hence no save/reload function either even though that wouldn't exactly require technical genius, nor would it be as fair or unfair as any other game that allows save/reload in persistent universes.
Whatever mode - I like that Elite has this design choice - our actions have consequences, as I think anytime you read a thread about someone being afk while using the docking computer while flying an uninsured, unshielded ship will tell us.
It does't make your desire to have pause/unpause any less valid of course - but it seems clear FD has made a design decision to make players live with their actions, and if you could pause at any time, it would skirt a lot of scenarios where danger can turn deadly into easy evasion.
It's simply a design choice that clearly - FD wants actions = consequences. Hence no save/reload function either even though that wouldn't exactly require technical genius, nor would it be as fair or unfair as any other game that allows save/reload in persistent universes.
Whatever mode - I like that Elite has this design choice - our actions have consequences, as I think anytime you read a thread about someone being afk while using the docking computer while flying an uninsured, unshielded ship will tell us.
It does't make your desire to have pause/unpause any less valid of course - but it seems clear FD has made a design decision to make players live with their actions, and if you could pause at any time, it would skirt a lot of scenarios where danger can turn deadly into easy evasion.
There is a simple answer to this (again)
The Galaxy must move on, if you were to pause in the orbit of a planet - the planet must still keep moving and WILL RUN YOU OVER and yes the planets orbits all do work
the pause button however is just confusing and has no use whatsoever to anybody and should really be removed, if you want to "pause" save and exit to menu simple as
The Galaxy must move on, if you were to pause in the orbit of a planet - the planet must still keep moving and WILL RUN YOU OVER and yes the planets orbits all do work
the pause button however is just confusing and has no use whatsoever to anybody and should really be removed, if you want to "pause" save and exit to menu simple as
Probably they had removed the pause with intent to make players play longer.
Solo is unfair.
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That's why in my first post here I said:
...meaning that the Solo instance bubble would continue to move relative to system objects, just the player and NPCs would be frozen in position within it.
And for everyone else, consider this - in Solo mode you can take 4k resolution screenshots by using Alt+F10. Guess what happens to everything in the Solo instance while this screenshot is saved to disk? Everything pauses.
Now the action only pauses for the duration of the image being saved to disk, so if the target folder was on some really rubbish slow old external device that would take a couple of minutes to write to (something speed-wise like an old floppy drive) then I might be able to play without having to worry about real life intruding (as it does quite regularly on my play sessions).
If I'm in the middle of a dogfight, I don't like quitting out to the main menu to answer the door/telephone/family member.
If it has no effect on any other players, what would be the problem? Fairness? eeally?
Also,
Why? When the game unpaused, the situation would still be the same. I'm not asking for Neo powers here
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Just tried a further experiment with regards to my latest idea - I transferred the My Pictures folder onto a small memory stick, put it into a USB 2 port and set a 6Gb file to write to it (which would take around half an hour)
Flashed up the game in Solo mode, launched from the ring station I was at, waited until I could see a few NPCs then hit Alt+F10.
The game paused for approximately 65 seconds.
Everything then continued on as normal from where it had been. I requested docking then hit Alt+F10. The game again paused for about a minute, then continued as happily as before - the docking timer had also paused.
The galaxy didn't melt and I trust no one had their game disrupted at around 1115 BST?
Now I just need to find the worst memory stick ever and bind the 4k screenshot key to a controller button.
Edit: tried it in combat, worked perfectly.
Flashed up the game in Solo mode, launched from the ring station I was at, waited until I could see a few NPCs then hit Alt+F10.
The game paused for approximately 65 seconds.
Everything then continued on as normal from where it had been. I requested docking then hit Alt+F10. The game again paused for about a minute, then continued as happily as before - the docking timer had also paused.
The galaxy didn't melt and I trust no one had their game disrupted at around 1115 BST?
Now I just need to find the worst memory stick ever and bind the 4k screenshot key to a controller button.
Edit: tried it in combat, worked perfectly.
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So effectively FDEV can now release a single player game, if they can 'shadowban' someone and they are separated from the background sim why not release a single player game which does the same?
Of course you could make it so it updates etc for new ships and stuff BUT the game would just be single player no networking etc, it would finally allow FDEV to fulfill its Kickstarter obligations
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I asked this when the 'shadowban' was first mentioned - I was told that the shadowbanned are not separated from the BGS or segregated from everyone else. If I understood correctly, then the phantom zone is pretty much a Group mode for the shadowbanned with a flag set on the members to not affect the BGS. The BGS keeps ticking over and updates the galaxy as seen by the naughty folk, it just doesn't get updated by any actions taken by them.
So all they have to really do is detach the BGS updates then they have the single player version. Seems simple enough to me, if they can stop a player affecting the BGS then they should be able to stop the BGS being updated on the machine and et voila single player