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

[shadragon]

Any addition that does not fit with established game mechanics will undermine the very thing it is supposed to improve.

Ship transfer - Yes.

Instant - No.

To do this right, there must be a delay and I propose the following. If you call for a ship, the costs Sandro outlined remain. ie. You pay to have the ship transferred to the station you are in. The farther they need to fly and the larger the ship class, the more it costs. An NPC pilot takes your vessel and flies it from where it is to where you are. Each jump I make in-game from system to system takes me 30-60 seconds. I don't think a minute per jump is onerous as a delay. So if you are 20 jumps from your destination, that's 20 minutes to get your ship there.

If the ship you want has no fuel scoop, then the delay should be two-three minutes per jump as they will have to stop off at stations and get gas along the way. If going to Jacque and you have no fuel scoop on the ship you want then that journey is not possible because there are no stations along that route. To make any given trip, the ship must have proper gear installed. The logic is, if you were in that ship and couldn't make the journey then an NPC pilot could not take it either.

Then there is Supercruise. If I'm in Hutton Orbital and call for a ship I have to be prepared to wait 90 additional minutes, in addition to the interstellar transit time, for it to transit there once it gets to Alpha Centuri. Hutton can only handle small and medium ships. That should mean you can't call for a T-9 or Conda to that location also.

My system will demand the ship must be physically capable to make the jumps required. For example, if you left your ship with an 2E FSD installed, your jump range is 3.12 LY and if the nearest star is 6.7 LY away then the ship stays where it is. It cannot physically make the jump, it stays put until you go back and install a proper drive.

With this system the player needs to keep their ships operational, they need to have then equipped properly and if not, they can't call them. The lower the quality of ship modules installed (FSD), the slower it will take to get it to you (more jumps required), if at all.

Flying a DBX or Asp to a distant location then having all your ships magically appear is not logical, requires no planning and will (in my opinion) actually hurt game play in the long term.

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

Right, no ragequits here either. Just stunned disappointment. My complete lack of desire to play though after the announcement surprised even me though... I figured I couldn't be alone in this. Just wanted to make sure

Immersion is REALLY important.

I logged on last night to fit out my new Python (bought whilst under the influence) but needed to travel about to find the right modules. There didn't seem to be any point and I just couldn't be bothered. I logged off to watch some telly instead.

 

[Pauciloquent]

We have to wait 30 seconds when recalling a ship on planet surface but ship transfer will be instant... hmmm...

 

[znôrt]

They are bad liers, you mean...

Anyhu, there is a clear disconnect there.

well, we might ask sja. too bad she doesn't hang around much anymore

 

[VerticalBlank]

I logged on last night to fit out my new Python (bought whilst under the influence) but needed to travel about to find the right modules. There didn't seem to be any point and I just couldn't be bothered. I logged off to watch some telly instead.

Not just me then.

 

[bitstorm]

LORE IDEA: Maybe there are wormholes in the space stations?

 

[Arubeto]

I think if you'd asked anyone before last week how it should be done, you'd have got an answer similar to what you suggest. It's what I'd have envisioned.

That's the really sad part about it: when ship transfer was requested again and again in the past by the community, universally everyone asked for it to consume a realistic or at least reasonable amount of time. Literally no-one - and I was following these discussions quite thoroughly because the idea of ship transfer very much appealed to me - asked for instantaneous transport. In fact, most people said something along the lines "of course ship transfer shouldn't be instant but take an appropriate amount of time and cost a fee corresponding to the transported ships size and transfer distance". FD got the idea of pricing right, but how they got to think that instant ship transport would be a "fun" gameplay idea while all their dedicated fans begged them for months and years to not make ship transport instant is beyond me.

 

[znôrt]

I logged on last night to fit out my new Python (bought whilst under the influence)

1. of what?
2. care to share a bit?

 

[WR3ND]

i find it rather interesting and noteworthy, that it seems like all the people who had obsessively defended the 2.1 RNG blunder when it was released, are all now the ones who are whining over ship transferring.

Oh how the tables have turned. The Hypocrisy and lack of self awareness is astonishing. Hey, maybe you guys should just stop whining and accept the coming changes, like you told all of us who had problems with the RNG grindfest that was 2.1?

You weren't paying very close attention then. It's easy to demonize people you don't agree with and jump to these sort of irrelevant and inaccurate conclusions. Try to rise above that.

 

[warbaby2]

This is the "We made tiny planets with tiny distances between them for gameplay reasons" guy?

True, but that was before they made over 110 mil on "donations", now they have procedural planets in realistic sizes and real time - well, everything really... from atmosphere entry down to manual loading and unloading of cargo. Judging from the GC demo a couple of days ago, the scope and scale of the persistent universe seams to have grown quite a bit.

 

[CMDR Robyn Highart]

LORE IDEA: Maybe there are wormholes in the space stations?

Think for one second maybe

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

That might be nothing but Newsletter of summary of Gamescom presentation has interesting quote to describe ship transfer:

At the launch of The Guardians 2.2, Commanders will now be able to move their ships from one starport to another throughout the galaxy.



If you desperately want to change into your Anaconda, but then realize you’d otherwise miss a key Elite Racers event if you don’t get your Eagle, then you can now head over to Starport Services, and have the ship transported to where you are via the Shipyard menu.

There's one word missing in this paragraph.

 

[Ziljan]

My idea is that the game mechanic

a) Plots a route (in "economic" mode) to the destination and calculates the time based on that
b) Does not allow transfer if no possible route can be found (e.g. jump range to small).
c) Naturally, this would also mean ship transfer has a maximum range of 1000 Ly, which conveniently means that no, you cannot travel in your empty grade 5 Farseer'ed Anaconda to Jaques and then have your FDL delivered there.

This idea is the WINNER. Add a timer based on Jump Range and Fuel Scoop quality, and it's golden.

 

[Tacyon]

The sci-fi idea I had prior to seeing the details was for some sort of autonomous flight control method (ship's computer?) that would be very detrimental to humans (or any biological material) and would allow for faster and more efficient movement of hulls. A computer never sleeps. Will navigate the most efficient, unlimited range route. And never make a mistake flying into a star while recharging their ocular input devices . This could also cover no crew or cargo along for the "ride". Fuel and maintenance consumptions could also account for the costs and would scale with type of hull and distance transported. Other than just saying it costs "X" amount and here you go.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

My idea is that the game mechanic

a) Plots a route (in "economic" mode) to the destination and calculates the time based on that
b) Does not allow transfer if no possible route can be found (e.g. jump range to small).
c) Naturally, this would also mean ship transfer has a maximum range of 1000 Ly, which conveniently means that no, you cannot travel in your empty grade 5 Farseer'ed Anaconda to Jaques and then have your FDL delivered there.

This idea is the WINNER. Add a timer based on Jump Range and Fuel Scoop quality, and it's golden.

Concur, all around.

 

[Bacalao]

Funny, people don't want instant transfer because it's too gamey, breaks immersion. But then they don't want autopilot because "you're supposed to play the game", yet not having autopilot is extremely unimmersive...make up your minds people.
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Gameplay wins, waiting for gameplay doesn't. Gameplay is why we have a WWII era flight model, max speed limits, supercruise, voice comms, galnet, CQC, hyperspace jumps, BGS updates, no commodity info, 1Mm dropout distance, etc. Add a wait time that is more than trivial (which adds nothing to the immersion or gameplay) and you'll have people just logging out, which is of course the least immersive thing you can do in any game.
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In this instance gameplay and immersion are irreconcilable. Get over it. Play the game.

 

[jasonbarron]

My idea is that the game mechanic

a) Plots a route (in "economic" mode) to the destination and calculates the time based on that
b) Does not allow transfer if no possible route can be found (e.g. jump range to small).
c) Naturally, this would also mean ship transfer has a maximum range of 1000 Ly, which conveniently means that no, you cannot travel in your empty grade 5 Farseer'ed Anaconda to Jaques and then have your FDL delivered there.

As some others have said, I think friend Mephane wins the Internet for today.

 

[MickyG1982]

LORE IDEA: Maybe there are wormholes in the space stations?

Actually, with that:

http://www.sharoma.com/frontierverse/wormholes.htm

It was indeed a bug caused by limitations in the hardware of the time but...

 

[Yaffle]

Funny, people don't want instant transfer because it's too gamey, breaks immersion. But then they don't want autopilot because "you're supposed to play the game", yet not having autopilot is extremely unimmersive...make up your minds people.
-
Gameplay wins, waiting for gameplay doesn't. Gameplay is why we have a WWII era flight model, max speed limits, supercruise, voice comms, galnet, CQC, hyperspace jumps, BGS updates, no commodity info, 1Mm dropout distance, etc. Add a wait time that is more than trivial (which adds nothing to the immersion or gameplay) and you'll have people just logging out, which is of course the least immersive thing you can do in any game.
-
In this instance gameplay and immersion are irreconcilable. Get over it. Play the game.

Of course nobody can play the game right now because there is no instant ship transport?

The point repeatedly made is that you can continue to have fun playing the game while an NPC somewhere gets in your ship and flies it. While that is really hard to code we make do with assuming that's what is going on and it travels while you play the game. Just as you can today.

Mephane's post reconciles the two - ship transfer, faster than a taxi, half the effort, game still works as a coherent ruleset, gameplay preserved. Job done.

 

[Tuub t Tute]

True, but that was before they made over 110 mil on "donations", now they have procedural planets in realistic sizes and real time - well, everything really... from atmosphere entry down to manual loading and unloading of cargo. Judging from the GC demo a couple of days ago, the scope and scale of the persistent universe seams to have grown quite a bit.

At the risk of going Off Topic, this was one of the bullet points of the 3.0 slide show:
"

• The tech allows for IRL scales but is being reduced for gameplay reasons. We're looking at a 1/10th scale of distance between planets. Planets are 1/4th scale in size