Roleplaying eh? You actually see NPC ships flying in and out of the stations all the time. However, you
*never* see capital ships storing corvettes in their hold, and you
*never* see them flying up to stations.
If people want to buy 55LY and then sit and wait at a station, that is a personal choice to be lazy, because they were trying to exploit the transfer mechanic. It's not a requirement of gameplay. However, Frontier won't keep it that way regardless whether it's instant or has a time delay. As soon as they allowed ship transfers of any kind they opened the door to the 55LY Anaconda shuttle meta. They will eventually concede that the 55LY Anaconda meta will make all jump ranges irrelevant, and they will likely make all jump ranges the same via some new tech advancement lore.
So the core argument here is really, should there be a time delay. Not, why do I have to wait? Not unless you frequently switch from trade to combat to exploration. In which case, why not fly a multirole ship? But I am guessing you just want this exploit option to get your FDL/Corvette to a combat CG faster anyway.
So because NPCs do it, our ship is doing it to? I see all those NPCs flying in, yet didn't see them in supercruise. I see ships in supercruise drop out at the station just ahead of me but don't see them there. There isn't a consistent continuum of events in Elite, we all accept it, to argue that said nonexistent continuum would be disrupted by this feature is nonsense. Jump range isn't a balancing factor, as admit by yourself and adds very little to the gameplay for anything outside of buckyballing, the balancing factor will be credits. Credits = time, I'd rather it not have to spend it twice, once doing something I like to get the credits, a second time doing nothing waiting for what I paid for.
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Combat CG travel really isn't an issue, spending an extra 20 minutes getting there and being there for the course of the week, not a problem. Moving 3 or 4 ships 250 Ly to Elvira however is and once I'm there I can order my ships and wait because I'm there to get them modded. Or go look for missions and stuff, maybe finding something to occupy my time, probably not, in truth there would be no activity I was doing that was anything more than a mask to tick that timer down. More likely to jump there in my 55Ly anaconda and log out or play on my phone or watch something on Netflix while my timer ticks down (getting supercruise flashes now).
Been loitering in the mega thread mate, no need to, all the arguments, counters and possible 'new ideas' I, (and others), have read 3, 4 or 5 times. Explain this 'full potential' to me? - honestly, there is no potential to build on instant transfer, none, with delays there are, NPC's, players and more that could be intergrated. And instantaneous makes the least sense possible, it really does, I am really struggling to see what bloody sense it makes at all.
I would invite you to actually read it. It's one of my shorter arguments. There isn't really any immersive sense in it being instantaneous, but there is a ton of gameplay sense.
The consequences I'm referring to have nothing to do with realism, it is a matter of balance, as it was explained a thousand times in the threadnaught. You didn't, as far as I know, provide a way to prevent the fact that haulers / asps / condas will become the virtual carriers for specialized ships, making the range of the ships a useless feature and introducing an unseen imbalance in the game.
A simple cooldown would solve this problem, and yet you refuse it : why ? Can you explain what scenario needs multiple instant transfers in a game session, when this feature is supposedly introduced to help casual players who play maybe 3 hours a week ?
In fact, a cooldown wouldn't change anything for casual players (still instant delivery) but would prevent exploits.
I know you, you're not an exploiter so, really, I don't understand why you can't even discuss this option ?
Of course he can't, there is no reasonable answer and they all just ignore it and stamp their feet.
EDIT - I've added most of the stampy feet insta-kids to my block list which I have named "Kanja Club". It's so much more peaceful now.
I addressed it with the following, though I'm not sure in which thread: what exploit? Arriving faster somewhere? Marginally increasing your credits per hour on a 1 way trade route? Sothis? The problem with Sothis is not the time it takes to get there with an empty hold, it is apparently a phobia of biowaste of such galactic proportions the system is attempting to ruin themselves financially to get rid of it.
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Aside from that, a cooldown is as gamey as instantaneous travel and will only serve to frustrate in those cases where you want to do a couple of activities in a couple of ships quickly (I have no idea what length of CD you're referring to so I'm not sure, but I suppose I'm pretty schizophrenic with my ships, 3-4 ships in a couple hours of play is really common). I can imagine it now "I'm sorry Mr Bacalao, but you've used your daily delivery, we don't want anymore of your credits until tomorrow." If you want to put a cap on it, put a cap on it with the currency that drives the galaxy: credits. Worried about Sothis 'exploiters'? Make it suitably expensive that any increase in profits are eaten up by the expense of transferring out your Cutter/T9. Exponential curves for cost vs distance are not difficult to calculate. I mean I really couldn't care less about credit earning exploits, that bird flew the coop a long, long time ago.
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Instantaneous travel admittedly does not make sense, it is not sensible or immersive, but when immersion/sense are irreconcilable with gameplay
in a game gameplay wins, particularly when the individual can still choose to forgo the immersion/sense breaking aspect for their own gameplay.
Hola bacalao, I hope you dont mind if I copy paste a reply that I wrote yesterday about your post descrbing common scenarios, just in case you missed it
As I see it you are describing the process of instant gratification there. Why should you have everything, everytime? For the same reason some people become compulsive buyers (better if they have the money ) in real life.
But this is a game and the point games is to present us with challenges. The bigger the challenge, the bigger the "delayed" gratification when you overcome it. It is in the spirit of any good game. The real fun comes with the personal achievement of a more or less difficult goal.
And I'll give you an example. During the recent dangerous games I had been working with a cobra mk3 and for the next cg i needed more cargo capacity. I was pretty far from my home system, so I resorted to buy a T6 in situ.
I hadnt flied a T6 for ages and I liked it. After the games I kept it and i am enjoying it very much doing long range missions. It's a lovely smuggler.
In this example buying the T6 wasnt that much of a challenge, but I was happy to find a smart way to adapt to circumstances. And I found unexpected fun that I wouldnt have had if I had just summoned my python. I made discoveries and learnt a few things too
I believe that games are fun, but the good ones make you smarter
Yes, and I believe I replied, this isn't instant gratification. Two different things going on here. Instant gratification is wanting something for nothing this instant, this is a matter of utility. Waiting with your thumbs twiddling for something is not a challenge, travel is not a challenge in Elite. It is a hurdle in the way of most of Elite's gameplay with a few notable exceptions (exploration, buckyball, some early game trading).
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I've done the same thing as you, with the very same ship actually (love that plucky little T6) and it can occasionally be fun to jump into something different because you haven't anything else at your immediate disposal, but more often it's a pain to find the ship you need locally and fly around to likely areas that will outfit it decently, spending probably 30 minutes (or more if you're unlucky) to outfit it well enough to do the job.
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If you like doing that, keep doing that, I don't want to take that away from you. But I don't, it doesn't add anything to the game for me, it in fact discourages me from taking part in those activities at my disposal I would otherwise (with available tools) take part in.