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

[Boomer Kay]

They also could, dunno, deside on a ship and what they want to do with and stick with it... silly thought, I know.

Oh, but wasn't one of the arguments that after this change you'll only see Asps and Anacondas in the game?
What ship do you think all those players will be flying? A jump-range limited Vulture that costs them half of their weekly playtime moving to a combat CG, which will be gone by the time they log in next week and replaced with a trade CG?

Maybe those little figures, as flawed as they are, help understand why FD in their "complete stupidity" considered instant transfer a good way to implement ship transfer? Because it helps a lot of players get some "quality playtime" instead of "redundant shippering"? (and maybe adding a cooldown is the more sensible approach, since it won't affect the weekend players, but will stop billionaire galaxy stomping .. I should join Communist Interstellar )

Makes sense?
Or are we going into class war? (I'm not a billionaire yet, so I'm with the poor and starving )

 

[Leo Sagan]

Still no reaction from FD ? Good, so we can fight over this 1000 pages more. Then the devs can post how poorly thought this was and offer a few changes to get at least some consensus. Keep feeding the trolls guys, we are almost there.

 

[Wyaston Hypatia]

Why are so many people so hell bent on ensuring that what little time the majority of players have is spent twiddling thumbs? I get maybe 2-3 hours on a weekend, less on a weekday. Why should my game-time be spent waiting for a ship to be delivered? This is a game, it's supposed to be fun.

Your fun≠my fun≠another's fun this is one core of the issues here. To increase your fun someone else is decreased. None wants their fun reduced so they fight for it.

 

[Magic Man]

Posted something about using 3d printing transport mechanic.

Was pointed out to me (thanks!) (and reminded me) that this is also a bad idea due to many reasons...

Therefore, no, am strictly against instant transport because of the numerous implications to game play and backstory that brings and will cause.

 

[CMDR Robyn Highart]

Let's be honest Elite does not, has not, and will not in the future, care about internal consistency, technology and lore. At least not beyond a few token gestures which date back to the pre launch vision. The moment they decided to make it an online game they sacrificed the idea of a truly believable and consistent universe and became about delivering what online games deliver. Which is a virtual world built for 21st century gamers to inhabit together.

That's not to say that with enough willing suspension of disbelief that you can't roleplay the ingame world as making sense, but one of the key things you need to do is disconnect the real world passage of time from the game world passage of time (which is one of the biggest issues with online games). Instant ship transfer is no different from reconciling the absurd speed that we can get around with ingame. If you want to RP the game universe making sense you just pretend more time has passed. Most people who play online games don't care about such things. They aren't roleplaying a space commander they are playing a game as themselves and they don't care if the game world makes sense or not, they just want to have fun flying virtual space ships around.

How do you reconcile the fact that every ship now has a max 60 LY jump range because of this? Well? Putting any decent FSD on a fighter is now redundant. Any station that doesn't stock everything or at discount is now redundant. This is not about "my roleplay is ruined, waaaah".

 

[MyHammer]

Why are so many people so hell bent on ensuring that what little time the majority of players have is spent twiddling thumbs? I get maybe 2-3 hours on a weekend, less on a weekday. Why should my game-time be spent waiting for a ship to be delivered? This is a game, it's supposed to be fun.

As already pointed out several times in this thread before: yes, it is a game, no doubt about it. But it should be a living, breathing universe with rules to experiance a consistant, believable gameplay, which would introduce, by incorporating game mechanics like instant travelling, a path leading to an ever more arcade style of gameplay, to which the majority in this thread stands up against. Apart from that, while your other ship is being transferred you can do whatever you want in your actual ship, the transfer screen wont be frozen until the ship arrives. For further negative impact on gameplay please read the various concerns raised already.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

[*]We have non-newtonian flight mechanics.

You could have stopped right there. Those who bring up the lore as justification for their arguments should consider this one for a moment.

Imagine how well the books would go down if a space combat scene went like this: "The CMDR accelerated to 400 m/s trying to escape his target. But no matter how much more thrust he applied, his ship simply would not go faster! He reached for the boost button, which would give him some extra speed, but it would be short lived, his speed would once again drop because... .erm...... NO, i can't write this! The critics will slay me!"

 

[CMDR Robyn Highart]

Haven't read all the thread.

My first reaction would be, absolutely no, totally against instant "transport" - still am. However, if, rather than transport, they build this as part of the 3d printing mechanic they are using to cover the ship launched fighters, then I'm more okay with it.

HOWEVER, FD, please do not implement this functionality under a "transport" heading - make it a paid choice to effectively scan, destroy and "re-print" your ship in the new location at a suitable cost based on the total cost of the ship and the distance away it is. It needs to be suitably expensive to prevent people simply using it as an easy way to move big ships across the galaxy.

It would be great if, alongside this mechanic, they introduced the traditional transport method we've been asking for since the start. Namely the option to have your ship remotely flown to your location, in real time, for a far more reasonable fee. This is something someone could then do and allow to "action" in the time they are not actively playing.

Keeps everyone happy.

That would be even more game breaking. It would make the trading economy absolutely useless. Adding such complex 3D printing would completely collapse any reason to transport technology, food, have wars, do anything but mine for raw materials and scoop fuel.

 

[Bomba Luigi]

So, is all this upset mainly about the immersion factor then?

Or worry about unstated/undefined exploits?

Or is it really about how it will save people time bringing ships from A to B?

Because, you know. I could have a combat fitted FdL on one side the core bubble (by this i mean the more central part of the bubble), fit a fuel scoop, and be on the other side of the core bubble in under 30 mins. And that's a rather extreme scenario. The only more extreme is people travelling to Jacques and back... but hey, i can imagine that's a godsend for some people out at Jacques in exploration ships, and wishing they could bring their mining ships in (with or without delay). Or another extreme example, a trip to Hutton.

So, ok, let's go back to my FdL scenario, but this time with full travel time delay on the summoning. I get there, summon, it takes 30 mins to arrive. Everyone happy with this? If not, why not? What about the trip to Hutton? Let's say FD code in a delay to arrival based on estimated SC travel time as well as jump time. 90 mins later, ship has arrived. Is everyone happy with this?

If not... ok, so you are not happy with ship transport at all then i presume?

If yes, then really, what does it fundamentally change? People could do their summons, bimble around for a bit, grab a bit of lunch, nip out to the pub for a quick one, log off for a bit to do chores around the house, whatever, come back, ship has (or ships have) arrived.

I'm in favour of a full delay myself, but really just because its a bit more "realistic" and I can't really defend it more than that... a preference. I'm certainly not understanding the outrage behind half the comments i'm seeing in this thread.

I'm one of the weird guys just carying about Immersion. Mostly I would like to have a Galaxy that makes sense and is believable, tough as many have pointed out I'm being a bit silly consdiering its littered with unbeliavable unrealisic stuff. It was always easy ignoring little gamey things here and there, some where very understandable to exist, now drawing a line is maybe strange - tough it probably has to do with me not really noticing how much arcady the whole game already is, since all the little thing here and there may happend but I never noticed how they piled up.
I needed one big Big change to noticed that finaly I guess and once you notice the Icebear in the middle of the room you didn't notice before its hard to act like hes not here, what has been seen cannot be unseen. I never cared for playing a Game, I wanted a experience!

Not sure what I'm saying makes a lot sense or is understandable, but I tried! And yes, those pointing out that screw me I'm not relevant are probably right, for business its probably wise for FD to ignore weird little me.

 

[VerticalBlank]

Precisely. The practical effect of instant transfer is you now have a magic ship that can transform instantly into any other ship. That's the reality of it.

Precisely. And the really shocking thing is that Sandro practically straight out said that that was the design objective.

 

[CMDR Robyn Highart]

You could have stopped right there. Those who bring up the lore as justification for their arguments should consider this one for a moment.

Imagine how well the books would go down if a space combat scene went like this: "The CMDR accelerated to 400 m/s trying to escape his target. But no matter how much more thrust he applied, his ship simply would not go faster! He reached for the boost button, which would give him some extra speed, but it would be short lived, his speed would once again drop because... .erm...... NO, i can't write this! The critics will slay me!"

Okay, so this galaxy has different rules on moving. They have nothing to do with ship teleportation. And if they do. Why can I not teleport wherever I want?

 

[Khelder]

So, is all this upset mainly about the immersion factor then?

Quite a number of people have said, "Leave immersion out of it." To me, personally, this is a major factor. There are so many instances where gameplay (or efficiency/simplicity) has taken precedence. Given the small difference that a delay would make in many cases (particularly if that delay was not a full travel time delay), I would push for this to err on the side of immersion/realism.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

What ship do you think all those players will be flying? A jump-range limited Vulture that costs them half of their weekly playtime moving to a combat CG,

Can't really design an online game with timed events work around people who only get an hour or two a week to play. You can try and accomodate them, but they can't haunt every design decision. Same as you can't design for people with no life who play 12 hours a day.

 

[Havoc4U]

​ok in regards to ship transfers try thinking this way....when you buy a ship & outfit it in a station it is poof!!! there!!! we are just assuming there's a big construction bay with lots of welders & lathes making the parts. What if really there are ship generating modules down there? The sort of modules that will be generating ships on your ship. Ok you want to transfer your BUILD from station to station what's to say what you are doing is transferring your BUILD blueprint complete with mods from where it is to where you are & it generates? It isn't actually the ship but the clone. All these ships are just clones anyways with mods. Does that help get your head around it now???

 

[WeirdWizard]

How do you reconcile the fact that every ship now has a max 60 LY jump range because of this? Well? Putting any decent FSD on a fighter is now redundant. Any station that doesn't stock everything or at discount is now redundant. This is not about "my roleplay is ruined, waaaah".

It doesn't need reconciling because it isn't true. The ability to request a ship to be delivered is entirely different to that ship having the best jump range regardless of how fast it happens or how much it costs. You still can't pursue someone jumping away in your low jump range fighter which is the only balance that I can see being relevant. But my post wasn't addressing people's balance concerns (which I just don't recognise as valid) but rather peoples concerns over the believablity of the feature.

 

[Slopey]

You could have stopped right there. Those who bring up the lore as justification for their arguments should consider this one for a moment.

Imagine how well the books would go down if a space combat scene went like this: "The CMDR accelerated to 400 m/s trying to escape his target. But no matter how much more thrust he applied, his ship simply would not go faster! He reached for the boost button, which would give him some extra speed, but it would be short lived, his speed would once again drop because... .erm...... NO, i can't write this! The critics will slay me!"

I can't think of any of the official ficton books which have newtonian flight mechanics referenced - care to name one?

 

[Magic Man]

That would be even more game breaking. It would make the trading economy absolutely useless. Adding such complex 3D printing would completely collapse any reason to transport technology, food, have wars, do anything but mine for raw materials and scoop fuel.

You have a very valid and logical point and also something I think I've brought up myself previously in a similar argument.
I therefore retract that comment

 

[Budski]

One more does make a difference if you don't stop it. How many lazy 'one more' game changes are there going to be before the whole thing is a joke. Instead of allowing one more, how about fixing the other immersion breaking nonsense.

 

[Dbrn47]

Wanting convenience is not the same as being stubbornly obtuse and refusing to accept how this simply would ruin the game internal-rule-wise and lore-wise. I accept that people want a cheap fast experience. But that's not the game I paid to support and play. And there are plenty less realistic games out there that they can try, where they don't care for technological consistency or lore.

I sure don't want a cheap fast experience, but I also don't need yet another thing that makes me stare at the screen waiting for it to get me to the parts I most enjoy. Games change over time as they continue to be developed, what works and what doesn't, how things are used or abused, etc. I've been on both sides of many changes in this game, some I feel were changed for the better, some I feel weren't better. I feel that we all sort of share a similar passion for the game as a whole, but it breaks down on the parts.

I simply would not use the ship transfer if it took the same amount of time as flying it myself. That's just me. I enjoy the game mostly as is but I'm not a fan of features I won't use and I have seen many many realism arguments on many topics for this game. Sometimes I want a little more game and a little less real. I don't like exploring in this game due to how "realistic" it is. I like finding things, not taking pictures of barren scenery. Granted, it was really cool when I only had access to the basic discovery scanner. That's how I've played this game though, if I inevitably don't like something, I simply do not participate in it. You're trying to fight for the integrity of the spirit of Elite and I'm just trying to play a video game that I enjoy.

If for some reason this mass of people we're expecting to abuse instant transfer abuse it. So be it, either FDev will figure out a solution or they won't. What others do in this game don't affect how I play the game. I understand what you're worried about, but I just don't share the same worry. I don't think that makes me stubborn, obtuse, ignorant, or any other word we can come up for me in this thread.

 

[Muetdhiver]

Precisely. And the really shocking thing is that Sandro practically straight out said that that was the design objective.

No, what he said was about lowering the barrier to enjoyable gameplay for players.

Some of which don't play anymore because of said barriers. And so don't post in that debate XD