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

[mossfoot]

I will say this. I always play in open. The absolute worst case scenario for me in terms of how it affects my gameplay is either playing solo or in a group of semi-like minded people.

i doubt this will happen because of the limits of my interaction with players in the first place outside of those on my friend list, but if it somehow manages to hurt my gameplay (or "mah immersion") then those will always be an option. But it won't drive me away from the game itself. I'll just add a self imposed rule that ship transfers can only happen at the end of a session.

 

[Trueno33]

If it was not presented at Gamescom and simply implemented in the game as a part of 2.2 enhancements, nobody will notice .

Yep, that's s good joke

 

[MyHammer]

Folks, be serious. This "ship transport" is only a small and quite non important bit of the whole game. If it was not presented at Gamescom and simply implemented in the game as a part of 2.2 enhancements, nobody will notice .
Sky is not falling, Earth is not falling to the Sun, there are no riots round the corner and tomorrow, you will need to wake-up and go to the work. Believe me, world is not changing and Armageddon is not coming.

I am not sure if you grasp the wider picture in this. This is a crossroads situation, the final decision by FD on how to handle this transfermechanic will lead the path either to continuing the original immersive spacesim gameplay (with certain compromises to playability) or it will lead to a more arcade style gameplay mainly for instant gratification players (aka mainstream). Of course, those who believe in the original idea will stand up now and raise their voices. Once the path towards mainstream is entered you will see soon other compromises to "fun gaming", taking away the soul of the game and vision of David Braben.

 

[PavelKCZ]

Well in the end I don't think, giveng the game as it is now, the compromises to the game due to *any* automated ship transfer are worth the benefit gained. Sure other people are not me, but I can't think of any time where it was that much of an issue to swap out a ship by flying around.

But in the end since Frontier have already done a bunch of work on this feature so it's very very unlikely to be pulled altogether.

Yes, this is my feeling too.

My theory is that FD plans to implement Thargoids (or any other Aliens) in form of battlefield area which will change relatively fast (during hour or two) and all those things (including Engineers) is just a preparation of in-game features.

 

[Sans Daring]

Well in the end I don't think as the game is now the compromises to the game are worth the benefit. But I guess it's possible changes down may make pulling a ship from long distance becomes more important to engage in stuff I don't know what (if anything) is planned.

But in the end since Frontier have already done a bunch of work on this feature it's very very unlikely to be pulled altogether.

Interesting today's newsletter puts an example that sounds very much a defense, a defense which serves one single instance I can think of in the game rather than all the other instances where it will not, and even then, I still feel, well Commander, a good pilot thinks ahead..." this is Elite. Surely ferrying your Eagle over to an event is part of the world, or having it hauled realistically as if it was an asset? Having it just appear because you forgot/didn't have time/didn't want to move it just feels so unElite. Here's the newsletter quote:

"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."

Again, another good reason for having the shipping from source not destination. You can have it shipped there if you wish for a fee, ready for when you make the trip.

 

[VerticalBlank]

This thread has convinced me that I can easily live without it. Really if it's not done well I'd rather it's not done at all.

Yup. Do it properly or not at all.

 

[lysan]

I know I'm not the only one who feels like this...

https://youtu.be/r8bgaLseoVs

Yeah, that's it! very well captured!

 

[MadDogMurdock]

I am not sure if you grasp the wider picture in this. This is a crossroads situation, the final decision of FD of how to handle this transfermechanic will lead the path either to continuing the original immersive spacesim gameplay (with certain compromises to playability) or it will lead to a more arcade style gameplay mainly for instant gratification players (aka mainstream). Of course, those who believe in the original idea will stand up now and raise their voices. Once the path towards mainstream is entered you will see soon other compromises to "fun gaming", taking away the soul of the game and vision of David Braben.

Yup, let's just open the Galaxy Map and choose before we even log in:

[video=youtube;UfplyRrMGkM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfplyRrMGkM[/video]

 

[VerticalBlank]

Taking away time as an investment is not always an improvement in gameplay.

For me, this has nothing to do with immersion and everything to do with paving over the wonderful feeling of scale, distance, and accomplishment that's possible in this game.

Well said. As a Distant Worlder I completely agree.

 

[bitstorm]

Again, another good reason for having the shipping from source not destination. You can have it shipped there if you wish for a fee, ready for when you make the trip.


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I prefer shipping from source but I think it's unlikely to happen.

The GUI for the ship transfer seem to be pretty much built.

For source you'd have to implement some way to select your target system into the shipyard, or ideally implement something into the system map.

This would probably be a reasonable amount of work, and given the context of a late 2.1 and a (potentially) corner cutting 2.2, I don't think a push system is likely at this point. Dunno tho.

 

[Khelder]

A lot has gone on in the thread and I haven't had a chance to catch up with all of it yet. But just quickly on this.

You're looking at one person. I'm thinking in terms of hundreds of thousands of transactions.

I have no problem hundreds of thousands of transactions. The software is designed to handle load like that. This stuff is tiny compared to other systems and we honestly aren't doing all that much.

* Where is arrival time stored, how does the server govern arrival time? Remember, the client cannot be trusted to hold the arrival time. As the server governs arrival time, it's going to need a queue for all these ships in transit otherwise there's going to be database blocking issues with all the ships being sent back and forth, that's going to need a scheduler. We're back to where we started.

Arrival time is stored along with ship data as an additional attribute. Arrival time is calculated at the TRANSFER action point. For simplicity, let's say current time (server/UTC) + 5 hours. That value is stored as a fixed datetime. No queues needed. Just a simple value.

* If you're going to query every ship that the player owns, then you're sending lots of queries where you should only be sending the relevant ones (i.e. the ones only for that shipyard) , now granted we could optimise it by limiting queries to say, the ship transfer window and once when you dock at a new station, but that still drives up the load significantly.

The queries are there already. The information has to come from somewhere. If you go into the shipyard (or galaxy map) you can see list of your ships with the current locations. The ones that have locations equal to the current station are swappable. Nothing new here. There would be a very small increase in data to provide the transit location and time. That's all.

* Notification queue? Nice. Now we have TWO queues, one scheduler (and a partridge in a pear ~treeeeee~ )

* Oh, and a messaging app that pushes the messages through, but that's going to need either an update to the UI or some extra additions in the existing UI to allow people to handle ship transfer notifications.

* What happens if the push fails? Does this force a disconnect due to data not received by the client and lack thereof of response?

I would suggest that all of this already exists. At least, that is how I would do it. The client already receives messages from the servers. Rather than have many disparate components all have functionality to send messages to the client, it would be a lot simpler to have a message queue. Some messages would have "not before" times, some would have "expiry" times.

That way, for example, the small little check server side that looks at your current combat points can issue a "Right on, Commander!" message to show rank increase. If the client had disconnected for some reason before arrival, there's a good chance (I would hope) that the message will be delivered as soon as you log back in.

Mail servers have been doing this kind of thing for years.

 

[Bacalao]

If this is all about travel across the bubble, can you explain to me how in God's name is it taking anybody an hour to travel somewhere? The bubble's extremes are approximately 600LY point to point if I recall correctly, you could literally travel from one side to the other in a Sidewinder in under an hour. Doing a run across the whole thing in a corvette or a very heavy, unengineered FDL are about the only circumstances you'd be looking at that sort of time and that's hardly common gameplay.

Somebody said earlier in the thread that it would help them travel 100 LY to a CG in their Vulture. I mean, is this really people's idea of a grave problem that needs to be resolved? My Vulture has more hull reinforcements than the average station, it's a flying brick, yet that would be somewhere between 8-10 jumps for it depending on system spacing. So, err, about 8-10 minutes including scooping time. Other than trading (which is irrelevant here for the reason you gave) I'd bet most players don't regularly do even a 200LY trip in the bubble and in anything other than a couple of outlier ships/builds you're looking at 20 jumps tops for that, which again is under 20 minutes.

Common Scenario: I'm in my little home system with my 20 outfit ships that I like to regularly switch between, I see a mission to move some goods 80Ly away, I take it. I get there and see another mission to move some stuff 80 more Ly. This is the first choice, do I go another 80 Ly (putting me between 100-150Ly from home, about 10-15 minutes of pitch, press J, throttle up mindlessly) or do I just go back home and look for more missions so that I have access to all my ships?
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Another Common Scenario: Everything is the same, I'm 80Ly away and see a mission to kill pirates, but I'm in my T6 having just delivered 40 tons of something or other....I could try to buy and outfit a vulture or FAS here, I have the cash, but I'm in an Agriculture economy...I could take the mission and go back and get my FAS, and then come back (160Ly round trip)...or I could just go home and hope for another mission of that type (the BH sounds fun at the moment after all this couriering)...so it's either waste 10-15 minutes 'pitch, press J, throttle up' to get to the activity, or go home.
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Third Common Scenario: I'm in my T6 or Asp or FAS and I do some data couriering now and again (vicissitude of being raised by a postman), and I see a sweet mission at this outpost to move 150 tons of stuff 75 Ly back toward home....but I need my Python to move it, nothing else has the cargo room to do that from an outpost, let me just go get that....oh wait, the mssion will be gone, let me just order it here and when it gets here I'll take the mission....oh wait, the mission board refreshed twice and it's gone...darn.
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If you want more scenarios I've got tons, it happens all the time that it would be nice to follow a trail of missions wherever they take me, just see where I end up and do whatever comes at me along the way, but I'm in a T6 or a Python fit for trading or combat and I see a good combat or trading mission and I'm fit for the wrong one, and there is no fitting options at that station, so I've got to go hunt all that down.....in effect, invest 10-30 minutes of my gaming time in tedium to get to the activity I want to do, to play the game part of the game rather than the chore part of the game (bless you if you enjoy that stuff and good for you, but some of us don't, we're just looking for an option to avoid it).
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Or, come 2.2 I can just transfer my combat ship and have it and play the game and have fun and enjoy it! Great! "BUT STOP BACALAO, you crazy codfish!" says some of the community "That isn't immersion friendly, you need to sit there in your T6 and wait for that FAS to arrive!". "But if that's the case there isn't any point in ship ordering, I'll just go get it." I reply. "Go do other stuff while you wait." They say. "I'm in my T6...there are combat missions here, which I'd like to do, but I'm in my T6..." I respond. "Well those are the consequences of your actions Bacalao, now go write "mah immersion!" on the chalkboard 100 times while your FAS is en route" they chastise.
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So you see, I would find the maximum amount of utility for ship transfer at sub 300 Ly distances and it's only real value is if it's instantaneous.

 

[Kled7]

I know I'm not the only one who feels like this...

https://youtu.be/r8bgaLseoVs

That is fantastic.

 

[Argus Leadhead]

I don't think it should be instant. Either a large percentage of the real time needed to move the ship or actual time.

Instant seems kind of cheaty to me.

Why move a combat ship with low jump range when you can just rig a hauler as a 30+ ly taxi then 'poof' your new ship is there.

I think we need "logistics contacts" or something. Not every station has them, and then you're basically hiring a company to move the ship for you at a price plus the time needed to move them. It makes sense that way, instead of trying to justify some kind of hand-wavium that explains how ships can be moved instantly across massive distances while other things don't follow the same hand-wavium.

 

[Lupis]

Common Scenario: I'm in my little home system with my 20 outfit ships that I like to regularly switch between, I see a mission to move some goods 80Ly away, I take it. I get there and see another mission to move some stuff 80 more Ly. This is the first choice, do I go another 80 Ly (putting me between 100-150Ly from home, about 10-15 minutes of pitch, press J, throttle up mindlessly) or do I just go back home and look for more missions so that I have access to all my ships?
-
Another Common Scenario: Everything is the same, I'm 80Ly away and see a mission to kill pirates, but I'm in my T6 having just delivered 40 tons of something or other....I could try to buy and outfit a vulture or FAS here, I have the cash, but I'm in an Agriculture economy...I could take the mission and go back and get my FAS, and then come back (160Ly round trip)...or I could just go home and hope for another mission of that type (the BH sounds fun at the moment after all this couriering)...so it's either waste 10-15 minutes 'pitch, press J, throttle up' to get to the activity, or go home.
-
Third Common Scenario: I'm in my T6 or Asp or FAS and I do some data couriering now and again (vicissitude of being raised by a postman), and I see a sweet mission at this outpost to move 150 tons of stuff 75 Ly back toward home....but I need my Python to move it, nothing else has the cargo room to do that from an outpost, let me just go get that....oh wait, the mssion will be gone, let me just order it here and when it gets here I'll take the mission....oh wait, the mission board refreshed twice and it's gone...darn.
-
If you want more scenarios I've got tons, it happens all the time that it would be nice to follow a trail of missions wherever they take me, just see where I end up and do whatever comes at me along the way, but I'm in a T6 or a Python fit for trading or combat and I see a good combat or trading mission and I'm fit for the wrong one, and there is no fitting options at that station, so I've got to go hunt all that down.....in effect, invest 10-30 minutes of my gaming time in tedium to get to the activity I want to do, to play the game part of the game rather than the chore part of the game (bless you if you enjoy that stuff and good for you, but some of us don't, we're just looking for an option to avoid it).
-
Or, come 2.2 I can just transfer my combat ship and have it and play the game and have fun and enjoy it! Great! "BUT STOP BACALAO, you crazy codfish!" says some of the community "That isn't immersion friendly, you need to sit there in your T6 and wait for that FAS to arrive!". "But if that's the case there isn't any point in ship ordering, I'll just go get it." I reply. "Go do other stuff while you wait." They say. "I'm in my T6...there are combat missions here, which I'd like to do, but I'm in my T6..." I respond. "Well those are the consequences of your actions Bacalao, now go write "mah immersion!" on the chalkboard 100 times while your FAS is en route" they chastise.
-
So you see, I would find the maximum amount of utility for ship transfer at sub 300 Ly distances and it's only real value is if it's instantaneous.

Or my scenario: I have ships in One Imps PP HQ, some at Eravate, and some in several systems around Eravate and i think one in Alliance space. This "immersion breaker* would save me so much time as i could send all my ships back to my home base in Eravate.

To me this mechanic alone would bring me back into ED.

 

[T1-Jafo]

Yes, this is my feeling too.

My theory is that FD plans to implement Thargoids (or any other Aliens) in form of battlefield area which will change relatively fast (during hour or two) and all those things (including Engineers) is just a preparation of in-game features.

Could very well be the case.

If in fact upcoming battles with aliens are a hidden reason behind the logic of implementing instant ship transfers, figuring most people would want to participate, then shortly after the aliens are first encountered, FD could introduce them as part of CQC.

This way, folks could jump in and battle it out against the aliens anytime they wanted, without disrupting the mechanics of the regular environment.

Just a thought . .

 

[Sans Daring]

I prefer shipping from source but I think it's unlikely to happen.

The GUI for the ship transfer seem to be pretty much built.

For source you'd have to implement some way to select your target system into the shipyard, or ideally implement something into the system map.

This would probably be a reasonable amount of work, and given the context of a late 2.1 and a (potentially) corner cutting 2.2, I don't think a push system is likely at this point. Dunno tho.

Don't disagree with any of that. I would suspect it would be easier to generate time modifiers at the destination point to the setup they're implementing that switch it round. It's just a shame, as it seems more natural you'd go to where your ship is and contract out a haulage to a new location than "summon" it.

Even with immersion delays for time etc, it's hard to imagine in world. Do couriers have to go and negotiate ship release with the station it's docked? Do the stations have their own haulage firms that just do the job on demand to anywhere in the bubble or beyond? Seems far fetched. It would be an excuse to put a gate on distance. If stations do run their own haulage for ships on request from commanders at other stations, surely they'd put a limit on destinations (or even affilations).

 

[lysan]

Or my scenario: I have ships in One Imps PP HQ, some at Eravate, and some in several systems around Eravate and i think one in Alliance space. This "immersion breaker* would save me so much time as i could send all my ships back to my home base in Eravate.

To me this mechanic alone would bring me back into ED.

however we can't have autopilot functions because <insert reason>.

 

[jasonbarron]

Before Gamescom I was saving up for a Thrustmaster Warthog & Slaw pedals and going over various schematics to change my comfy office chair into a pilot's command seat. Since Gamescom I've come to my senses.

All I can say is that whether we're talking about the designers of this new feature, or the people who agree with its implementation, you guys are playing/designing this game for someone other than me.

 

[Frambitam]

Or my scenario: I have ships in One Imps PP HQ, some at Eravate, and some in several systems around Eravate and i think one in Alliance space. This "immersion breaker* would save me so much time as i could send all my ships back to my home base in Eravate.

To me this mechanic alone would bring me back into ED.

What people are proposing in this thread will allow you to do exactly that. You just wouldn't get them instantly. Is having them instantly appear vs. appear after a realistic amount of time in a rehoming situation​ really the dealbreaker for you coming back to the game or not?