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

[Red Anders]

If they made it so that the player hauled the ships around as missions for other player you would be adding to the immersion of elite dangerous as well as give the players more ways to create emergent gameplay.

Emergent gameplay like me taking that mission and then flying your A-rated Anaconda into a star for a laugh?

I know, I know, I'd have to pay your insurance as part of the mission. I can think of players who would see that as the best 15m they ever spent.

 

[Levianova]

1 minute for every 10 lightyears, and a base rate of 5 minutes for departure and docking times +administration.
further out you are more will cost and time.

 

[Vasious]

There's a delay when you recall the ship and from orbit it can cover that distance FAST... But mostly, there's a delay.
Edit: sorry I misread your post. So, if you drive from one dock to another your ship is already instadocked at the next station?

Because frontier can't "store" the ship in orbit. Where it should be. That's not really an excuse for more of the same.

There is a delay because the game basically has to reinsert the ship back into the same instance. It's done this way for the same reasons we get instant travel. It's just easiest.

That is because your ship entered orbit and then landed.
I agree though, that has elements of teleportation, but it's time and distance limited and only involves your current ship. So I think the comparison fails, sorry.

But my ship is docked at a ground port, and in the underground hangar, when I drive off.

At no point does it take off, like you see when you drive too far from it when you land outside away from a ground port.
Nor does it have to land when you arrive at the next ground port, it is already in the underground hangar, and only appears there when you request docking with the ground port from your SRV

 

[Gimi]

But my ship is docked at a ground port, and in the underground hangar, when I drive off.

At no point does it take off, like you see when you drive too far from it when you land outside away from a ground port.
Nor does it have to land when you arrive at the next ground port, it is already in the underground hangar, and only appears there when you request docking with the ground port from your SRV

As I said, I agree that there are elements of teleportation there. But given the time you spend in your SRV going to the second ground port, that it's limited to a single planet and that it is limited to the ship that you are currently using I think this particular mechanic works fine and that there is a substantial differences between this and Instant ship transfers between systems.

 

[Joe Akeem]

The initial thought behind the request for transfer was to relocate your fleet. Go check all the old threads about it. Sandro misinterpreted that as fast travel.

 

[Miklos Atreides]

That is one scenario. The one that you percieve as "the most common"?
Again: median playtime as far as we know: 3 hours in 2 weeks. Go for the mean playtime? 11 hours in 2 weeks.
Imagine the "casual weekend captain" (and then imagine more than half of the playebase being in that corner rather than the trillionaire with 200 anacondas parked all over the bubble) flying his Vulture from the Bounty CG to the trading CG (which takes already between 1/3 to half his playtime), and then moving his T7 from the other side of the bubble to the trade CG
and having to "wait" another 10-30 minutes for that to arrive in "a realistic way". Half of that commanders playtime is spent doing absolutely nothing to contribute to his in-game goals.

So players aren't panalised at all if waiting for their ship compared to the status they have today.
They will still benefit largely from getting their T7 after 45 minutes copared to jump 32 jumps to current location of T7 grap T7 and jump 49 jumps back
to the community goal you mentioned above. This is what they need to do today and having my beloved T7 to reach full capacity I can use my ASP for
already 2 runs to lay down the base for participation in this CG. I do not see any harm to casuals here.

"Money for nothing and the chicks for free" mentality, I suppose.

Regards,
Miklos

 

[Sylow]

After reading more of this thread I still feel everyone is missing the point it is not about Instant ship transfer it is about the break of the forth wall of this game mechanic.

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But that's the easiest part to work around: Actually your CMDR knew where he would be going to and knew he would need another ship there at some time, so he already in advance, before starting his trip, actually booked the passage. Only due to technical limitations of the game, it is implemented the way it is. Fourth wall only slightly cracked, not broken...
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That being said, while I understand the points for a delay in the transfer, the two important points against it are:
1. As already often mentioned: gameplay. Just another "wait for some hours" mechanic is not really improving the game or the fun of it.
2. Insta-transfer is easier to implement and more reliable. As soon as you set it up on a timer, you have a plethora of issues to expect. The first two on my mind are link problems and server downtimes, but it's not hard to come up with more issues (especially on a P2P structure) and still forget a number of other possible problems. It's not hard to imagine what would happen in the forums once the first cutter or corvette was lost during transfer due to a bug...
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So considering how little a time delay would add to the game, how much it would take away from it and how much more effort it would require to harden a time delayed transfer system on the games chosen infrastructure, the insta-transfer clearly is the more reasonable choice.
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[Frambitam]

Also, I haven't seen this posted here yet. From the guy writing the upcoming offical ED novel.

 

[Mephane]

The initial thought behind the request for transfer was to relocate your fleet. Go check all the old threads about it. Sandro misinterpreted that as fast travel.

You mean how he misinterpreted loot&crafting as "roll RNG for what materials drop, then roll RNG for the mod quality, then roll RNG whether you get Thermal Shock"?

 

[darkless]

This is factual, no matter how much some people want to twist it into something else.

This disagreement is between (primarily) 2 camps; camp #1 likes to run marathons and likes space to be full of bigness.These CMDR's like to have to think ahead about how to properly balance their ships for travel/defensiveness/combat efficiency and don't mind taking the time necessary to manage their fleets and move them manually. They also don't mind supercruise, or hyperdrive jumping. In fact, in many cases they think this adds to the fantasy of being in space flying their version of the Millennium Falcon. Camp #2 does not like bigness and wants to effectively shrink it down to a more manageable size. Camp #2 wants gameplay similar to what one poster said about liking the idea of being able to stop in at a station, see what missions on the board grab his interest at that moment, dial up the appropriate ship from his fleet, do those missions, stop at another station and do the same thing, but this time a different style of mission and a completely different kind of ship. This kind of gameplay makes many (this one, at least) members of camp #1 want to projectile vomit.

The above dynamic is just a simple difference of opinion about what parts of the current game are "fun" and don't even scratch the surface of the problems inherent with insta transport.

My mind keeps going back and forth between David Braben's sparkly eyed enthusiasm about science and Sandro's casual dismissal of the concept of science in favor of handwavium.

Repped. As a casual gamer with limited time due to real-life commitments, I'm mostly in camp #2 with a few splashes of camp #1

 

[kofeyh]

But my ship is docked at a ground port, and in the underground hangar, when I drive off.

At no point does it take off, like you see when you drive too far from it when you land outside away from a ground port.
Nor does it have to land when you arrive at the next ground port, it is already in the underground hangar, and only appears there when you request docking with the ground port from your SRV

Your ship is "stored" at the last used port and shifted to the next out of convenience. I mean we can go around in circles for an entire week picking plot holes in elite, this doesn't really change that the developer is entirely arbitrary over what convenience excuse does or doesn't exist to hand wave outcomes.

We can't have auto-pilot yet our ships can self-drive to/ from our instance. Again, holes everywhere. You aren't making any new points, just exampling that the developer is arbitrary in which hills they will defend and which they will knock over out of expedience.

Instant travel will simply be the next hole. Because it suits the narrative. Doesn't mean we should ignore it because who cares? Just encourages the developer to invest less time in the next mechanic. And the next. And the next.

It's a game. A game where Sandro has endlessly defended engineers and refused to dampen the RNG in engineers down to sane values, because it's important. And the next it's instant ship transport because who cares. It's all entirely arbitrary.

We have a game that obsesses over jump ranges and compromises in ships. There is an an unhealthy fixation on RNG. And yet has no issue adding instant ship transport because why not.

Sandro isn't one for consistency.

 

[Metharius]

Soooooooooooooooooooooooo can I load my cutter with delicious cheap slaves, fly to another station in my sidewinder: instant teleport my Cutter and sell all my delicious cargo for massive amounts of even more delicious credits in absolute safety?

I likey!

You do realize slaves aren t exotic dancers ?

They are nasty [mad]

 

[Mephane]

Your ship is "stored" at the last used port and shifted to the next out of convenience. I mean we can go around in circles for an entire week picking plot holes in elite, this doesn't really change that the developer is entirely arbitrary over what convenience excuse does or doesn't exist to hand wave outcomes.

We can't have auto-pilot yet our ships can self-drive to/ from our instance. Again, holes everywhere. You aren't making any new points, just exampling that the developer is arbitrary in which hills they will defend and which they will knock over out of expedience.

Instant travel will simply be the next hole. Because it suits the narrative. Doesn't mean we should ignore it because who cares? Just encourages the developer to invest less time in the next mechanic. And the next. And the next.

But the issue is, instant travel not only opens a pandora's box of many "if we have instant travel, why not also X?" question, but also has terrible gameplay ramifications in and of itself, as I have outlined above it'll be a boon for min-maxers to basically have every ship, every specialized loadout, everything available everywhere at the press of a button.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

The initial thought behind the request for transfer was to relocate your fleet. Go check all the old threads about it. Sandro misinterpreted that as fast travel.

I doubt development misinterpreted the request - they were clear. It is more likely that they chose the implementation to satisfy the request (which it does) and to be as cheap as possible. Then they may not have realised the (pretty obvious, I must say) consequences, or realised them, and decided it was still OK.

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Edit:

I was one who asked for ship transportation, without thinking through all the consequences. Something I have criticised FD for doing in the past with promises they made without due diligence, and then reneged on (starting with offline mode). Of course, those consequences are more obvious now than they would have been in the early days of the game, or in the DDF days, which makes it all the more surprising (well, sort of, I am actually not really surprised at all, since this appears to be a 'make it cheap and damn the consequences' decision) that having come up with a sensible proposal to the DDF, FD end up with this.

 

[lysan]

This is factual, no matter how much some people want to twist it into something else.

This disagreement is between (primarily) 2 camps; camp #1 likes to run marathons and likes space to be full of bigness.These CMDR's like to have to think ahead about how to properly balance their ships for travel/defensiveness/combat efficiency and don't mind taking the time necessary to manage their fleets and move them manually. They also don't mind supercruise, or hyperdrive jumping. In fact, in many cases they think this adds to the fantasy of being in space flying their version of the Millennium Falcon. Camp #2 does not like bigness and wants to effectively shrink it down to a more manageable size. Camp #2 wants gameplay similar to what one poster said about liking the idea of being able to stop in at a station, see what missions on the board grab his interest at that moment, dial up the appropriate ship from his fleet, do those missions, stop at another station and do the same thing, but this time a different style of mission and a completely different kind of ship. This kind of gameplay makes many (this one, at least) members of camp #1 want to projectile vomit.

The above dynamic is just a simple difference of opinion about what parts of the current game are "fun" and don't even scratch the surface of the problems inherent with insta transport.

My mind keeps going back and forth between David Braben's sparkly eyed enthusiasm about science and Sandro's casual dismissal of the concept of science in favor of handwavium.

Yes, you got it right, I think and that is with a smile, David Braben said, you guys sort out the gameplay, I will make sure the Galaxy is correct
However if you add too much tombola game mechanics in a 1:1 galaxy simulation, it will all fade away, because you won't see it.

There must be a foundation of game rules that can't be bend, at least some consistency in the mechanics. When we travel it take time and it should take time, it's how we spend that time that is important. If you just sit and wait for you to exit warp jump, so that you can rotate align and hit "J" to jump to the next star, then it becomes repetitive. So with on hand on Uranus tinkling the rings and the other hand on the joystick ready to hit jump as you warp out number 200 time is considered FUN? but it's clearly not fun to move your fleet around because you need to be able to jump into any ship at any time because of game play, and the other is ok because......[wacko]

 

[MyHammer]

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That being said, while I understand the points for a delay in the transfer, the two important points against it are:
1. As already often mentioned: gameplay. Just another "wait for some hours" mechanic is not really improving the game or the fun of it.
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Its very subjective what players consider to be fun and what not. In this case for one fraction, which is currently the majority here, it is part of the gameplay to have a most consistent, coherent and plausible experiance in regard to travelling the galaxy, where insta transfer has no place at all, unless some mad scientist invents stargates within the game or the like..

 

[Sylow]

Soooooooooooooooooooooooo can I load my cutter with delicious cheap slaves, fly to another station in my sidewinder: instant teleport my Cutter and sell all my delicious cargo for massive amounts of even more delicious credits in absolute safety?

I likey!

.
Sure you can do that. You just have to make sure that your sidewinder has the same cargo capacity as your Cutter, as cargo still always is transferred to your active ship and you can not switch ship unless the ship you switch to has enough free cargo space for what your current ship is hauling.
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Its very subjective what players consider to be fun and what not. In this case for one fraction, which is currently the majority here, it is part of the gameplay to have a most consistent, coherent and plausible experiance in regard to travelling the galaxy, where insta transfer has no place at all, unless some mad scientist invents stargates within the game or the like..

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Maybe. But as some others already mentioned, if we need more realism, then please also add 3 minutes of time delay (no launch possible) for each ton of cargo being loaded or unloaded from your ship, and several hours of waiting time (again no launch possible) when your ship is being repaired. (Not based on percentage, but simply several hours of waiting time. No matter if your FSD is at 5% or 95%, it still takes several hours to dismount and disassemble it to replace the damaged parts. )
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When that is being done, we can start talking about consistency...

 

[kofeyh]

But the issue is, instant travel not only opens a pandora's box of many "if we have instant travel, why not also X?" question, but also has terrible gameplay ramifications in and of itself, as I have outlined above it'll be a boon for min-maxers to basically have every ship, every specialized loadout, everything available everywhere at the press of a button.

The developers don't seem to see the problem with this. They are delivering what they believe people want. Just like they did with engineers. And I am sure there will be more hills that the developer will defend endlessly, and others that will be bulldozed.

There's precious little point arguing ship transport now. We are so close to Beta that any major changes would only occur in a later update. Again, much like engineers.

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Sure you can do that. You just have to make sure that your sidewinder has the same cargo capacity as your Cutter, as cargo still always is transferred to your active ship and you can not switch ship unless the ship you switch to has enough free cargo space for what your current ship is hauling.
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Maybe. But as some others already mentioned, if we need more realism, then please also add 3 minutes of time delay (no launch possible) for each ton of cargo being loaded or unloaded from your ship, and several hours of waiting time (again no launch possible) when your ship is being repaired. (Not based on percentage, but simply several hours of waiting time. No matter if your FSD is at 5% or 95%, it still takes several hours to dismount and disassemble it to replace the damaged parts. )
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When that is being done, we can start talking about consistency...

How about commanders can't log out, regardless of what is happening until any combat situation is resolved, and any missions delivered without the ship say exploding due to being shot at, or crashing into a star?

Want to explore, well the ship experiences the loss of fuel regardless of whether you are in game or not and it might run out if you take a couple days break. And explode.

Its very easy to mock mechanics when it suits the moment. Doesn't make it sound any less stupid.

Note that I am not mocking instant travel. I will use it frequently. I am just disappointed of all the things frontier could have decided to trivialise, it's instant travel.

 

[Gimi]

The developers don't seem to see the problem with this. They are delivering what they believe people want. Just like they did with engineers. And I am sure there will be more hills that the developer will defend endlessly, and others that will be bulldozed.

There's precious little point arguing ship transport now. We are so close to Beta that any major changes would only occur in a later update. Again, much like engineers.

My personal opinion is that this is an argument to scrap the whole thing. But I guess that is not going to go down well with a lot of players.

 

[Ozram]

The developers don't seem to see the problem with this. They are delivering what they believe people want. Just like they did with engineers. And I am sure there will be more hills that the developer will defend endlessly, and others that will be bulldozed.

There's precious little point arguing ship transport now. We are so close to Beta that any major changes would only occur in a later update. Again, much like engineers.

I have two hours tonight where I was planning on spending in the Combat CG (been great fun btw) but somehow this whole games con has left me a bit meh. Think I'll go to bed early instead.