2.2's Instant Ship and Module Transport - Yay or Nay?

[mossfoot]

I like the ship/module transfer feature very much, but it does seem at odds with normal travel times. I haven't read this whole thread, so forgive me if this has already been proposed...

I think Frontier should use the same 3D printer technology that they just announced to produce replacement fighter craft. Your distant ship would be destructively scanned, the resulting data would be sent via the same faster-than-light communication channels used for Galnet, and the ship would be printed in a bay, while you watched (kind of like how hard-point modules are replaced). It should take a short amount of time (say 1-2 minutes) and should be fairly expensive, since all-new materials would have be used. Only stations with a moderate level of technology would have these printers and only some of those stations would have the facilities to print large ships.

I think that having some limits would help integrate the feature into the game without "breaking" the feeling of reality.

I also like the idea of having some Community Goals to gather materials to help build these ship-printers, say at Jaques Station. In addition, this same technology could be used to create modules which are not normally stocked at a particular station (for an extra fee).

There's a number of reasons this wouldn't work logic wise to me.

You spend $6 million credits on a ship, but only $300,000 credits to have it duplicated half way across the galaxy in every detail - including one-of-kind-unrepeatable Engineer experiments... and your original is, what, destroyed? With same said unique Engineering parts in it?

In what way is this not a money losing situation for everyone providing this service for you?

I suppose you could say it uses whatever logic our Insurance policies use, but then I'm of the opinion that Engineer upgrades should be lost upon destruction anyway, as well as Power Play parts if you are no longer working with said faction (but I'm masochistic that way)

 

[Rocky-451]

The feature isn't out yet and people want it nerfed already. I like the instant transfer idea, if only to compensate for the time sinks we have elsewhere, like supercruising. (Speaking of supercruise, there was a recent thread where the great majority agree that its time should be reduced, so maybe the FDev should pay attention to that too. [wink]) Remember you still have to fly to your destination first and not everyone has a Conda with a modified FSD (or care to have one).

As for the fear that instant ship transfer will "unbalance" the gameplay, a lot depends on how common the facility will be. If you want to call your combat ship to the CZ in your current system but the nearest ship transfer facility is a couple of systems away, you would need to jump there, grab the combat ship, and fly it back (good luck if you'd downgraded its FSD). Plenty of time sinks already without the need to ask FDev for more.

 

[Red Anders]

* Inconsistent SRV hanger sizes: cargo racks double in size for each class increment, yet SRV hangars need two class increments (quadruple the size) to double the number of SRVs.

Nothing inconsistent there at all. Check the mass of an SRV bay compared to the capacity of the cargo rack you could fit in the same slot. Now picture the SRV. Not exactly a convenient shape is it? It's physical size compared to goods which are packed efficiently for storage that's the issue with SRVs.

 

[Phord Prefect]

Because now an e.g. heavily armed and armored FDL with undersized FSD crosses the Bubble just as easily than an Asp Explorer stripped down for long distance travel. You just keep a stripped-down "travelling" ship to cross the distance, and after flying it somewhere summon your less jump-capable ships that would normally be tedious to cross large distances in. That circumvents the normal choices in ship purchase/design. It also circumvents the danger of interdictions that ships that need large amounts of jumps to travel long distances would normally face. As for price tags, Robigo Billionaires wouldn't care what it costs to summon their battle wagons.

Very well put. +1.

Not personally a fan of this hand wavium ship transfer at all. Bad idea imo. And I get to fire the game up on weekends. If I'm lucky.

I dont buy this ad nauseum argument about not having enough time to reach vettehood. Or cutterdom. I'm more of a journey man myself... less about destination.

Way to make your sandbox smaller FD.

 

[Iori]

Yes,
No,
Ship transfer should take as long as it would normally take (and be quite expensive for ships).
For modules and cargo you should be able to set a "home base" to send and store all your modules and some cargo, so when in a station you buy a new module, you have the option to either "sell the old module" or "send old module to home base".

Reasons for ships taking long and being very expensive:

Taking long - Discourage downgrading FSD in all ships but one.
Being expensive - Make traveling around on your own still the preferable option so it doesn't become irrelevant.
You are essentially paying a reasonable amount of money, for saving the time to go all the way back to your other ship and grab it yourself. (I think it is a good compromise)

Reasons for home base modules instead of module transfer to you:

Feel like you have an actual storage space somewhere to increase immersion.
Not having all your stuff and modules scattered around which would be a headache.
Solve the engineers cargo "problem".

I think the way I proposed those features would enrich the experience without sacrificing anything.

 

[Red Anders]

Don't project your own circumstances on others. I can easily make 5 hours a day if I wish to, and that's after 10 hour work shift. It's "not even remotely" difficult. You can hardly do anything significant in this game in less than 3 hours a sitting anyway.

Errr. I didn't say 'nobody can do it'. I said that no way in hell is it the average. Which is what the person whose post I was actually replying to said.

 

[TESI303]

TlR

Another pair of votes:

Transportation - Yay!

Instantaneous - Booh - it should, in my opinion, take as long as it would take the ship to do it - and cost the CMDR a fee for the time of the NPC pilot that brought it and also fuel, repairs... For modules, it could be quicker and cheaper - but it would take the time that a ship capable of carrying the module in a module bay of the correct size would take - also including a transport fee.

pretty much this. ^

should take as long as it would take the ship -- depending on its (unladen) jump capability at the time -- to get there if piloted by the commander.


Imagine a pvp/powerplay situation.

You find out that an opposing group is undermining one of your systems -- thats almost on the other side of the human bubble as you and your buddies are at the moment.
You hop into your station stored long range modified and outfitted ASP, make a couple of jumps to the undermined system with your buddies, beam over your short range, gun laden warships, and go to town. Then fly back the same way.

Little to no consequences and immersion breaking. Might as well create a Battlefield like spawn mechanic and get it over with.


It should all take the right amount of time.
I could be ok for setting a maximum cap of a couple of real time hours. Flying a Corvette from the bubble to Jaques might take days?/weeks?/month? -- so 7 real time hours (just for instance) wouldn't be too bad of a concession in that case.

 

[Red Anders]

I remember when 100ly felt like an achievement. Now it's all Jaques this, and Jaques that...

I remember contemplating my first trip to Maia as if I was heading to Beagle Point. In the last 6 weeks I've jumped a shade under 90,000 LY.

 

[Ozram]

I remember contemplating my first trip to Maia as if I was heading to Beagle Point. In the last 6 weeks I've jumped a shade under 90,000 LY.

Yup. In wanting everything instant and gamey we shrink the game.

 

[Willa Allason]

A more immersive idea would be a logistics service with a fleet of massive carriers (like the one from the artbook) which can hold 1 large ship and a number of medium and small ships. These ships would be engineered with massive jump range FSD drives of 100ly or so and could get anywhere in the bubble in 20 minutes max, but would not offer out-of-bubble services. They would be sub-capital ships and incapable of docking.

- In 2.2 this just means a timed wait of 2-20 minutes and a charge related to the size category of your ship (set charges for small medium and large ships, with large ones carrying a large premium.)
- In 2.3 you can see your transferred ship warp in and land at the station at the appointed time.
- In the future the carrier ship could actually be added to the game. Imagine trying to assault one of those things to steal a Fer De Lance...and it launches all the ships it is carrying to defend it!

 

[Ozram]

A more immersive idea would be a logistics service with a fleet of massive carriers (like the one from the artbook) which can hold 1 large ship and a number of medium and small ships. These ships would be engineered with massive jump range FSD drives of 100ly or so and could get anywhere in the bubble in 20 minutes max, but would not offer out-of-bubble services. They would be sub-capital ships and incapable of docking.

- In 2.2 this just means a timed wait of 2-20 minutes and a charge related to the size category of your ship (set charges for small medium and large ships, with large ones carrying a large premium.)
- In 2.3 you can see your transferred ship warp in and land at the station at the appointed time.
- In the future the carrier ship could actually be added to the game. Imagine trying to assault one of those things to steal a Fer De Lance...and it launches all the ships it is carrying to defend it!

Be awesome if they had to physically make the trip and were subject to interdiction. Convoy escort and assault missions come to mind. Pay one price for a risky delivery and another with added insurance.

 

[bkrownd]

Errr. I didn't say 'nobody can do it'. I said that no way in hell is it the average. Which is what the person whose post I was actually replying to said.

What I'm saying is I think you're defining "average" as your own experience, when it isn't.

 

[Thelan]

The transfer service should have a 1000 LY distance limit.

When used, it should plot a route on the map and then calculate the time delay based on ~1 minute per jump.

If the ship transported lacks a suitable hyperdrive or has a jump range less than 10 LY, the jump range for the route plotter should be calculated as something like 15 LY (as it's hauled in a freighter).

Insta-summon is just as silly as the magic random mission encounter NPCs.

 

[Loboguará]

A better solution for "immersion" (I've got a grudge for this word and I blame Skyrim nexus mods) and really much better fitted was to implement the option to be a passenger. So instead of the ship magically popping in the station you are in, you can pay a modest tax to embark a Beluga/Orca to go to any other station you have a ship docked. In the transition, a nice in game footage of the chosen ship departing and engaging FSD, then the screen goes black with our ship spinning, like when we load the game, change ships etc... And boom! There we are.
Fast travel... Yes... Its fast travel, but to get your ship to where you want it to go you need to fly it there. You do not get your ship wherever you are, but you can go wherever you have ships without flying one.
This makes much more sense to me, and add "immersion". So, if I want to go to jackes with all my ships I need to get them there, but to go back I didn't need to buy a "taxy" ship and fly back, I just buy a ticket inside the new passenger cabins... Really nice.

The way FDev want to implement this mechanic is kinda problematic. It need to be well balanced. But it is a way to shorten the "travel time" for who have limited time to play (because some peoples have lives... Great grafics, but sh*tty game play) So if you dislike it, don't use it, but it is really a great thing for those who haven't time to "go from A to B" now whe can have a travelling ship to go wherever we want fast, and "summon" our combat focused ship that jump just 10ly whenever needed.

 

[carazvan]

The more I think about this I think the best method might be to keep the 'instant' option of the travel but make it cost exponentially expensive with ship tonnage and distance.

This would make short recalls simple (anything under 100Ly) but anytime you'd want to do anything like across the bubble it'd hurt and if it's exponential with the rampup around 1000Ly something like summoning an anaconda to Jacques would cost a little more than the number of atoms in the universe.

 

[JosiahD]

The more I think about this I think the best method might be to keep the 'instant' option of the travel but make it cost exponentially expensive with ship tonnage and distance.

This would make short recalls simple (anything under 100Ly) but anytime you'd want to do anything like across the bubble it'd hurt and if it's exponential with the rampup around 1000Ly something like summoning an anaconda to Jacques would cost a little more than the number of atoms in the universe.

Makes more sense to me to simply not have it as insta-teleport/transport to begin with. If we can insta-teleport/transport ships, why have cargo runs at all? Couldn't cargo (and the newly introduced passengers even) simply be insta-teleported/transported now without even having to travel?

 

[carazvan]

Makes more sense to me to simply not have it as insta-teleport/transport to begin with. If we can insta-teleport/transport ships, why have cargo runs at all? Couldn't cargo (and the newly introduced passengers even) simply be insta-teleported/transported now without even having to travel?

I myself even voted for the No transfer option for ships, Storing modules at local starport I think makes sense but again no transfer.

If transfers will be implemented (which they will seeing that they spent time on this and implemented the mechanic for it) I'm trying to see what good balancing you could place on it.

There's two aspects to this:

1) How do you keep the 'instant' satisfaction that some people will want but not break all sense of scale ?
* Think the answer here should be a time delay proportianal to the distance and ship FSD

2) How do you keep someone from ordering their giant ships over from one side of the bubble to the other or from the bubble to Jacques?
* the answer here has to be price or a gating mechanism similar perhaps to the maximum 1000Ly plotting range for starjumps now.

 

[Loboguará]

Makes more sense to me to simply not have it as insta-teleport/transport to begin with. If we can insta-teleport/transport ships, why have cargo runs at all? Couldn't cargo (and the newly introduced passengers even) simply be insta-teleported/transported now without even having to travel?

This is just a game mechanic. Its just there because we have lives outside the game. And some of us havent time to fly a FAS jumping 15ly from 40 ceti to 17 draconis (as I did today and it was boring as hell). The "teleport" doesn't exist "in game" as wen we load our ships, we do not need to wait the crew fill up the stock, neither to entirely redo the hull when we change from stock to military grade. Its game mechanic. Intended to ease our game time. Not to be super duper realistic.

 

[Ozram]

This is just a game mechanic. Its just there because we have lives outside the game. And some of us havent time to fly a FAS jumping 15ly from 40 ceti to 17 draconis (as I did today and it was boring as hell). The "teleport" doesn't exist "in game" as wen we load our ships, we do not need to wait the crew fill up the stock, neither to entirely redo the hull when we change from stock to military grade. Its game mechanic. Intended to ease our game time. Not to be super duper realistic.

That's sort of the point though. Your combat fit isn't supposed to get there as fast as a travel fit. FAS can get much better range with engies though. I got mine to just over 20 LY. Not that that will matter anymore which is a real shame for ship balance.

 

[[VR] Marrs]

This.

Why would I bother having to wait and pay to have my ships moved for the same amount of time it would taken me to start of with?

Because at the moment to transfer 10 ships to the same system means taking 20 journeys and at the end you have an extra ship somewhere else. With a delivery service there would only be 9 virtual deliveries and 1 real one so even if the virtual ones happened in real time you would still save half the time.

I still say that sending your ship rather than bringing it to you is the answer here. Moving 10 ships from one location to another by sending them ahead would mean you have 10 virtual journeys basically happening simultaneosuly. You would then have 1 real journey to your destination where you would find all your ships waiting for you. There would be no waiting for a timer to count down and crucially there would be no breaking of immersion.

(Technically some ships should take longer than you to get there but I think that can be ignored for what is a good compromise, or explained by the fact the ship doesn't have to haul your fat a## around so can travel faster than usual)