Horizons A very tangible reason for why storage is a bad idea

[vetarditus]

Without better knowledge of how the program works, any issues with cargo storage is an unknown. We can only guess what obstacles surround the storage of such data and the code that manages it.

My suggestion to the engineer upgrade commodities problem of cargo-blocking on ships, was that we be able to deliver cargo to Engineers in advance of using it.

Unless pre-delivery of cargo to Engineers is possible, upgrading ships with cargo-dependant mods is impossible on ships without cargo racks.

Module storage is another issue.

As long as we cannot store modules, module rebuy cannot have depreciation in value. Also, if we can't deliver to Engineers in advance, then the only alternative is takes modules as cargo and swapping from cargo to outfitting and back.

A solution to both could be two changes.
Store ships with cargo (this defines a maximum on what can be stored).
Transfer modules from outfitting to cargo and back.

Why?

You could buy a Class 5A Frame Shift Drive in a Cobra Mk III and "equip as cargo" (20T), take it along with the materials needed and the 1 x Magnetic Emitter Coil as cargo to an Engineer for the Level 5 FSD upgrade.
Return to your home station and "Transfer cargo to outfitting"
Swap to another ship, such as a Federal Assault Ship (which may have no cargo racks) and equip from outfitting as you do when you sell and rebuy currently.

Any of these options would resolve some of the current road-blocks and don't differ wildly from what we already have in the game.

Can it be done or not? Only the devs can say.

Unless frontier invented their own kind of computers (which i doubt), the practices of implementing game logic and storing game data are limited and predictable. (but i guess you can never know if human stupidity is at work and they wrote all the program code backwards or whatever)

Regarding your suggestions from a dev point of view:

- The difficulty of implementing storing ships with cargo is the same(if not slightly more complex) as implementing an actual storage.
- Swapping modules into cargo and back is pretty complex (and unnecessary).

Given they already have the ship storage implemented, doing a similar tab for storage of cargo and modules is just copy/pasting existing work with little modifications. Therefore I believe that the issue is not technical, but rather a marketing issue or content release scheduling issue. We don't need to think up creative workarounds or suggestions because the most intuitive and expected form of storage is already perfectly achievable.

While I agree that it's up to the devs on what can be done, to be honest the issue is not can they do it, but rather when they will do it (coupling it with some DLC like they did with Engineers perhaps).

 

[CMDR Zhon Daeli]

Storage data would (sensibly) be kept to a single table that references:
the CMDR,
the item being stored,
the quantity and,
the location

eg: ID, MATERIAL_ID, CMDR_ID, LOCATION_ID, QTY

ID - Table record index
MATERIAL_ID - Foreign Key to the Materials table (a table of all materials in the game),
CMDR_ID - Foreign Key to the Commanders table (a table of all CMDRS in the game),
LOCATION_ID - Foreign Key to the Locations table (a table of all stations/outposts/settlements in the game),
QTY - Quantity (number of materials in storage)

When a CMDR docks at a station, and selects the "Storage" subitem from the Station Services menu, the client will tell the server, "hey guy, I need a list of whats being storagededed for 'CMDR_ID' at 'LOCATION_ID'. Should the database have sufficient indexing, the actual query shouldn't take more than a second to process, and a second or two more to send the result back, at which point, the client will build the list and display it to the user.

In addition, Amazon servers are scalable, meaning they can increase/decrease virtual hardware requirements on the fly to cater for any anomalies. Space would not be an issue, nor would the size of the DB affect performance (if indexed and set up properly).

There shouldn't be any technical issues.


Disclaimer: Our power is out and I'm very, very bored.

 

[Pville_Piper]

Horse Hockey! Storage can be handled by storing the items on your computer like your configuration settings and other things. And it can be very easily kept secure there as well from cheaters who might try to add to it just like you can't add engineering affects to your ship without doing the grind and RNG.

 

[vetarditus]

Without better knowledge of how the program works, any issues with cargo storage is an unknown. We can only guess what obstacles surround the storage of such data and the code that manages it.

My suggestion to the engineer upgrade commodities problem of cargo-blocking on ships, was that we be able to deliver cargo to Engineers in advance of using it.

Unless pre-delivery of cargo to Engineers is possible, upgrading ships with cargo-dependant mods is impossible on ships without cargo racks.

Module storage is another issue.

As long as we cannot store modules, module rebuy cannot have depreciation in value. Also, if we can't deliver to Engineers in advance, then the only alternative is takes modules as cargo and swapping from cargo to outfitting and back.

A solution to both could be two changes.
Store ships with cargo (this defines a maximum on what can be stored).
Transfer modules from outfitting to cargo and back.

Why?

You could buy a Class 5A Frame Shift Drive in a Cobra Mk III and "equip as cargo" (20T), take it along with the materials needed and the 1 x Magnetic Emitter Coil as cargo to an Engineer for the Level 5 FSD upgrade.
Return to your home station and "Transfer cargo to outfitting"
Swap to another ship, such as a Federal Assault Ship (which may have no cargo racks) and equip from outfitting as you do when you sell and rebuy currently.

Any of these options would resolve some of the current road-blocks and don't differ wildly from what we already have in the game.

Can it be done or not? Only the devs can say.

Unless Frontier invented their own computer systems (which they havent), the practices of implementing game logic and data structures(for storage) are predictable and commonly known.

Regarding your suggestions from a dev's stand point:
- implementing storing cargo with ships is similar more complex than just doing an actual storage (let's say UI is just a clone of the commodity page, and the data storage format is similar to the shipyard ship storage) as they need to shove the new code into an existing feature rather than starting a clean new tab
- converting modules to cargo and back is pretty complex (and unnecessary)

I find it sad that players are goaded into putting lots of hard work and time thinking up suggestions for features that aren't difficult to do at all, imagining mountain-high obstacles and impossible scenarios when really, they're just saving the feature for some marketing schedule or DLC (you know, like how Engineers is Horizons only).

But alas, what I am trying to say is the storage we want and expect will come. The reason we don't have it now isn't due to technical issues or they need help in designing it, but rather scheduling/marketing issues. It'll probably come in the next DLC.

 

[Nerwan]

Horse Hockey! Storage can be handled by storing the items on your computer like your configuration settings and other things. And it can be very easily kept secure there as well from cheaters who might try to add to it just like you can't add engineering affects to your ship without doing the grind and RNG.

No, that wouldn't work very well.. Right now all the game state is stored on the server which means you can log in on Any PC and start at the same point.. Anyway, Storage isn't a big deal anyway, it's a very small amount of information.. Just a small array of numbers. The reason they haven't done it yet won't be related to bandwidth/storage costs. It'll be related to the development/testing cost.

 

[vetarditus]

Opps, wrote 2 posts as I didn't realize the first post was held up for inspection. Peace.

 

[Pville_Piper]

Anyway, Storage isn't a big deal anyway, it's a very small amount of information.. Just a small array of numbers. The reason they haven't done it yet won't be related to bandwidth/storage costs. It'll be related to the development/testing cost.

Agreed... The data on your ship is most likely much larger. And limit it to one location adds just one line to the equation.

 

[vetarditus]

At some point you'll feel massively crippled when the game starts being generally developed around storage..

You mean like now with the cargo requirements for engineers.

 

[Arkadi]

Luckily pilots federation has granted me the right to fly a space-ship. The Feds paid me in and I since that time am in debt. I am not a free man. I am a space-slave, much like it was back home in the Empire, where I was a planetary slave. I dont have the right to own anything as long as I dont pay back my depts... 10 years of playing ED is minimum prequesite.

Maybe then I get full citycenship and the right to own some lockers somwhere.

Get a perspective folks. The spacepilolt is not entiteled to own cargospace. This is all for the mighty trader-companys who own the stations, the star-systems with all people and cattle and plants and gas and rocks and ofc the space-ships and theire pilots.

 

[DragoonKnight]

I just remembered my micro-economics class in college after I read the following links:



This was posted by Agony-Aunt in response to a request for Player Economy. The coorelation with storage is the link between hoarding and the game's ability to keep running smoothly, i.e. server response time and game lags. The trade off is something one should consider before this is implemented. People are inherently pack-rats. I mean that when we think we are going to need something, i.e. socks for example, we don't buy just one pair, we buy several because, we can't wear the same pair every day. But some people when they need a blank cd buy 50 instead of 10, because they say in their minds that I might need them. This is a hoarding mentality.

The problem with this mentality and a video online game is that there is only so much bandwidth and so much server space and virtual memory (cloud storage) to handle the mass of stuff in the game. When this is compounded with several hundred thousand players all collecting "stuff" and storing it, well... you see instantly where this can lead. The last posted link in the quote from Agony-Aunt is an outline to the paper discussing the Ultima Online economy and the problems that crept in to the game's performance factors. Something to consider.

You clearly don't know what you are talking about. Several hundred thousand users is nothing.

A game running on 20 year old technology is not really a good example or explanation of why player storage will not work. Every game has always implemented limits on how much storage players get and even if frontier were to provide storage for 100 modules and 1000 commodities, the affect on system performance would be insignificant.

1. Each module or commodity takes up relatively little space in your save file and frontier's database. Storage on the server is not the issue.

2. Storing 1 unit of a given commodity vs storing 100 units of the same commodity doesn't require 100 times as much space. It actually uses the same amount of space in your save file. Storing 0001h vs storing 0064h is the same thing. Just takes two bytes to store the quantity of a given commodity.

3. Storing modules would require more space as you would have to store all the stats for the module, but again this is a small data set that need a to be stored. Multiply by 100 (for 100 modules) and you still end up with kilobytes worth of data. Not even megabytes.

4. Storage would not require any additional bandwidth. It would only be called on request when a player is accessing it in a station. Wouldn't take anymore bandwidth than it does for the game to display a list of your ships. It wouldn't affect any other players.

 

[Eloy]

Don´t forget: When FD introduces storing with a limit for good reasons, these reasons will be forgotten by the community in 6 months.
Then an endless moaning could start why we have such a stupid limit etc etc.

Storage for ship modules ONLY.
MAYBE allow commodity storage in parked ships only ...

I would even offer module hauling missions ... hey FD, why not?

 

[Flavourless]

Allow ships to be stored in shipyards with limpets and cargo. Job done.

 

[znôrt]

The problem with this mentality and a video online game is that there is only so much bandwidth and so much server space and virtual memory (cloud storage) to handle the mass of stuff in the game. When this is compounded with several hundred thousand players all collecting "stuff" and storing it, well... you see instantly where this can lead.

this leads to the vast majority of mmorpg out there all having several types of storage without any issues.

the truth is frontier really shines at ingenuity and originality, but game design and engineering areas are quite lacking.

The last posted link in the quote from Agony-Aunt is an outline to the paper discussing the Ultima Online economy and the problems that crept in to the game's performance factors. Something to consider.

if you don't do it right of course it's not going to work. see: almost any other game.

 

[Cybermykl]

Believe it or not, storage was one of the most hated aspects on EVE to me and probably one of the main incentives to leave that game. At some point I ended up collecting and sorting all my stuff and was spending a huge portion of my game time with shifting my ships for nothing else than this purpose. Too much micro management is just not my thing. It's probably worse if you're a solo player but I am and not eager to change this anytime soon. And don't tell me "you don't *have* to use it if you don't want". At some point you'll feel massively crippled when the game starts being generally developed around storage. Storage management can be quite addictive for a while but as with most drugs it has the potential to burn you out over time.

You mean like now with the cargo requirements for engineers.

z

This is what I was elluding to as well. It exemplifies the "hoarding" mentality created by storage system in general. I used Ultima Online as an example. But, to all, thanks for the enlightenment about the "ins/outs" of server/bandwidth role in programming. We all want a positive experience in the game and I for one don't need more things to keep up with. Interesting was the use of different ship classes to store modules. I'd like to know how this is accomplished. Thanks to all for your imput.

 

[Henri]

everyone in fully decked out cheese fer de lances that are untargettable and can one shot kill a cariolis.
how fun!

 

[rrobes]

The main attraction to me about storage is the ability to fly CLEAN, no cargo. That eliminates one of the most annoying aspects of the game, being hounded because you have 1 item of Engineer stuff, by the "tasty cargo" crowd, either by interdictions or when at beacons, RES, anywhere.

I want to be able to dictate the terms of engagement, accept or refuse combat, develop a tactical advantage, etc., no cargo allows that and brings us back to the pre-Engineer times when I could fly my FAS fully tanked with HR modules.

Storing ships with cargo doesn't resolve the having to fly with cargo. It also does not allow easy cargo transfer between ships.

My suggestion: sell cargo racks, the same as for ships, of varying sizes, 8, 16, 32, 64t and so on, and allow them to store modules as well, each module=1 ton. Set an upper limit if needed.

Mats are fine as they are, if anyone needs more space than currently allowed, they need to prune some of their mats, no need to have 100 iron, nickle or other common items.

 

[Shar]

One point that need to be considered is we are ONLY looking for commodities storage for engineers, If fdev were to drop commodities from engineers we would not won't or require this.

 

[Alpha087]

Look at it this way, we can already store modded equipment in unused ships. I have a full loudout of modded weapons and extra modded shield boosters stored in an Anaconda that I never fly for example. It's already something that can be done. Having a limited place for me to just store those modded pieces of equipment without having to jumble ships around and fiddling with selling/rebuying shouldn't really have that much of an impact. Limit us to one station to be used for storage per account at any given time and limit the amount of things we can put in there. So long people can swap around and try different loadouts without having to constantly remod the same weapons repeatedly.

But let's see how the updates to detailed surface scanners, improved rolls and reduced blueprint costs that are upcoming do first. We may not need storage nearly as much of obtaining rolls is made that easy.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Storage is a must. A friend of mine talked to me about his problem of Engineer commoditiy rewards, he can not use any combat ship as it has 0 cargo, he can no longer use small ships as they exceed the 100 cargo limit (usually) now he is stuck in his Cutter/Anaconda as these are the only two ships available to store more than 230 tonnes of cargo.

If bandwidth is a problem, FD has to work. Other games get this job done, with storage, with loading times, with a good MP cpnnection, ED shouldn't be an exception. Otherwise it is just low quality.

 

[lomac]

I just remembered my micro-economics class in college after I read the following links:



This was posted by Agony-Aunt in response to a request for Player Economy. The coorelation with storage is the link between hoarding and the game's ability to keep running smoothly, i.e. server response time and game lags. The trade off is something one should consider before this is implemented. People are inherently pack-rats. I mean that when we think we are going to need something, i.e. socks for example, we don't buy just one pair, we buy several because, we can't wear the same pair every day. But some people when they need a blank cd buy 50 instead of 10, because they say in their minds that I might need them. This is a hoarding mentality.

The problem with this mentality and a video online game is that there is only so much bandwidth and so much server space and virtual memory (cloud storage) to handle the mass of stuff in the game. When this is compounded with several hundred thousand players all collecting "stuff" and storing it, well... you see instantly where this can lead. The last posted link in the quote from Agony-Aunt is an outline to the paper discussing the Ultima Online economy and the problems that crept in to the game's performance factors. Something to consider.

Yeah, and on top of that no other MMO in the world has ever had player storage (like bags, banks, and guild banks) and on top of that as soon as any tried to add those features it totally brought the game to a crawl...

You have no idea what you're talking about friend.