The Galaxy - Is its size now considered to be a barrier to gameplay by the Developers?

[[VR]tailgunner30uk]

The low priority is that it is a quality of life feature, as opposed to new gameplay, although in this case it does significantly impact gameplay.

Michael

Either way, it isn't a high priority for me. I have had to ferry a number of ships on a couple of occasions, over a relatively short distance, not something I want to do often. I therefore based all of my ships at a single station and fly back to get the one I want. There are issues around mining, exploration and 'fighters' that are of significantly more interest to me. But that, as they say, is for another thread at another time.

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

 

[andrak]

We're still discussing that - currently the idea is to limit it on cost, but a hard cap on distance cap on it is being discussed - say 10 light years ;-)

Michael

If there was a cap on distance, say 500 LY, that would go a long way to making this "feature" more palatable.

 

[simonharrison]

We're still discussing that - currently the idea is to limit it on cost, but a hard cap on distance cap on it is being discussed - say 10 light years ;-)

Michael

OK thanks. A distance cap would definitely make this feature much less of a problem to me.

 

[Javert]

Everyone is going to use their longest jump range ship for the initial journey by default. So the initial journey will always be the shortest one possible.

So there is absolutely no reason to keep jump ranges arbitrarily short for certain ships anymore. Not unless you want to annoy players who must dock and switch ships and pay a fee every time they circumvent their ships limited range, which will be EVERY time they go anywhere over 50LY away.

I've seen a good solution to this from the other thread - new breakthrough in fuel technology means that all ships with purchased fuel have the same jump range which is as high as the current long range vessels. Sorry can't remember who posted it. Fuel scooped fuel would still be the same as today.

 

[Darth Ender]

Camp 1: We want things to take time because it adds value to what is being done. We want the activities spent during that time to be engaging and entertaining and skillful.

Camp 2: We want to skip everything that currently isn't engaging or entertaining to do what currently is (well is at least somewhat engaging. Not sure who thinks space trucking or mining is fun).


Why does FD think that solutioning for Camp 2 is the correct course of action? is finding a solution for Camp 1 too difficult? Solving for Camp 1 actually fixes a problem in the game for everyone. Solving for Camp 2 is an easy workaround for a subset of players.

Just wondering because it doesn't make a lot of sense to say that you're concerned with gameplay primarily and dont dive into the actual problem that makes people want to accept an "instant transfer" solution ....and that is that travel is entirely boring, non-engaging, skill-less and the only effort FD has shown in dealing with that is RNG interdictions, many of which dont make any logical sense in the game.

if travel depended on skill, engaged the player and was even half-way entertaining, there would be no justification for a "instant transfer". It may even make some travel take longer but it would be time spent "playing" the game and not reading a book or watching tv or posting on the forum waiting for the load screens or supercruise to end. I'd like to see the journey not continue to be actively ignored in favor of just the destinations. If that's the path FD wants to be on then just give all ships the same jump range and - then instant transfer isn't undermining the ship balances at least and we can begin working on making sure exploration doesn't take any time next. God knows that gameplay is suffering from too many jumps.

 

[Colonel Kenney]

Here's a tip for all you people that do want instant ship transfers.

Go and do something else for a period of time. Bounty hunt, do an engineer upgrade, boil the kettle.

Don't ruin it for the rest of us.

How could someone ruin your experience?

The only people I can see who could be impacted would be PVP people who are pirates and prey on people.

So lets say you follow me to a station and I manage to get in. I go in transfer to a new ship, I come out and fight. Whats wrong with that? Isn't that what you want? Instead people will actually want to PVP more.

Personally I don't and don't feel the need to because of the matchmaking system being so shoddy. So I only play in Mobius anyway. So there is no way instant ship transfers can ruin anyone's experience except those who are trying to prey and disrupt other people's playing experience.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Distance cap certainly would give more balancing options for devs. Consider this please.

 

[simonharrison]

Instant ship transfer. It's the new Brexit!!

 

[CrazedHatter]

In this instance the convenience was the overriding factor. That and keeping the feature within a sensible budget - complicating it unnecessarily introduces more points of failure and for a relatively small quality of life improvement, it's not worth the risk. The instant transfer also provides positive aspects to how players can interact the game - it gives them greater freedom to participate in wider aspects in what's going on. We did of course consider the downsides, and other ways of doing it - Sandy in fact was very much in favour of a delay, but it was felt that this weakened the utility of the feature. The point was to allow more freedom with ship use, not add additional barriers.

Michael

My only issue with it is that it removes the personal feeling of owning a starship - of building it and customizing it to be yours... and hey, what about personal effects stored on the ship? I don't care about the mechanical side of it, but it utterly ruins the meta aspect of the game and in having true ownership of the vessels you fly, I haven't been playing recently and honestly with the RP aspect taking such a heavy hit I may not be back.

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

Camp 1: We want things to take time because it adds value to what is being done. We want the activities spent during that time to be engaging and entertaining and skillful.

Camp 2: We want to skip everything that currently isn't engaging or entertaining to do what currently is (well is at least somewhat engaging. Not sure who thinks space trucking or mining is fun).

Hey being reasonable is not allowed. Stop it.

 

[Darth Ender]

How could someone ruin your experience?

The only people I can see who could be impacted would be PVP people who are pirates and prey on people.

So lets say you follow me to a station and I manage to get in. I go in transfer to a new ship, I come out and fight. Whats wrong with that? Isn't that what you want? Instead people will actually want to PVP more.

Personally I don't and don't feel the need to because of the matchmaking system being so shoddy. So I only play in Mobius anyway. So there is no way instant ship transfers can ruin anyone's experience except those who are trying to prey and disrupt other people's playing experience.

or we can take your example and flip it so it means exactly what you say it doesn't.

I take my aspx fully engineered or stripped down conda with 100ly jump range and get to jaques. I instant transfer my heavy combat ship and camp out in the system and kill everyone else playing or attempting to do the same thing before they have a chance to bring their big ships in.

My otherwise large ship would have had a 20ly range and taken 5-6 times as many jumps and way more than that in time (assuming i'm not doing it in one continuous non-stop sitting) and probably convinced me to spend my time elsewhere.

so you're wrong.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

How could someone ruin your experience?

The only people I can see who could be impacted would be PVP people who are pirates and prey on people.

So lets say you follow me to a station and I manage to get in. I go in transfer to a new ship, I come out and fight. Whats wrong with that? Isn't that what you want? Instead people will actually want to PVP more.

Personally I don't and don't feel the need to because of the matchmaking system being so shoddy. So I only play in Mobius anyway. So there is no way instant ship transfers can ruin anyone's experience except those who are trying to prey and disrupt other people's playing experience.

Sad person takes his Conda of many lightyears to Jack. Transfers his FDL of many guns and starts blasting explorers. When bored, buys sidey, suicides to bubble and transfers all ships back.

In effect this feature tells explorers to stay in private or solo for ever since 2.2.

 

[Ziljan]

I've seen a good solution to this from the other thread - new breakthrough in fuel technology means that all ships with purchased fuel have the same jump range which is as high as the current long range vessels. Sorry can't remember who posted it. Fuel scooped fuel would still be the same as today.

That was probably me

So yes the increased range would only work on tanks that were filled at a station, not at a star. So it wouldn't impact exploration outside the bubble. It's like saying they have jumponium on tap at stations. But its a secret recipe that isn't made public.

 

[Mephane]

We don't anticipate some of the apocalyptic scenarios being described to oppose this feature - it will change things certainly, but in a positive way. It hasn't reduced the scale of the galaxy, the facility is limited and most of the galaxy doesn't have access, and you still have to make the initial journeys.

Michael

You guys don't believe in a taxi meta after 2.2? After the smuggling > all money making meta, after the heat > all PvP meta, you still think that it is fine that essentially the best ways to travel is now to just fly in a long range taxi ship and have your main workhorse ship sent after you all the time?

You guys don't believe it completely warps trade CGs so that you must play the taxi meta or you have no chance to be in the top percentages, because it's much faster to source the trade goods in sufficient quantities that, as opposed to flying the way back to where you buy the stuff in a interstellarly slower ship?

You guys are confident that powerplay, which is competitive by nature, makes the use of the taxi meta mandatory because if the players in your power don't do it, the opposing power can undermine/fortify/etc. much faster than your power?

You guys don't think that short jump range downsides of many ships should matter any more, and travelling be normalized to taxi ship with the best jump range a player can afford? (If you say yes to this, then please just go ahead and buff the jump ranges of Viper, FDL, Corvette, Eagle, Python etc.)

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We're still discussing that - currently the idea is to limit it on cost, but a hard cap on distance cap on it is being discussed - say 10 light years ;-)

Michael

If you want to keep to at least somewhat in check, the price should consider equally the distance, the total current worth of the delivered ship, and the actual jump range of the ship. And no cap on the price. If that means sending a Corvette to Jaques costs a billion credits, so be it.

 

[Mark Lock]

I don't understand this choice really , it dumbs things down and breaks the gameplay at many levels if you allow people to teleport ships to the station you are at, it's too easy like that and makes having a Galaxy this big completely pointless since you can teleport your best ship wherever you are even if it has bad jump range, you can jump to systems with conflict zones in an Asp and then teleport your FDL easy, it doesn't make any sense, it could also be used to grief other players, you are around in ASP and you see an enemy player in an Eagle, time to teleport my Anaconda !!! Don't you see how gamebreaking it is ??? Don't you see it breaks realism??? Can't you just make a ship capable of transporting other ships ? Mabye simply add a module people in bigger ships can use to ferry ships around instead, it would not be fair if you go to Jaque Station and then can teleport all your ships with lower FSD range, no point at all, you are basically adding a way to completely bypass ship's range limits....

It doesn't make any sense!

 

[Niamhy]

We're still discussing that - currently the idea is to limit it on cost, but a hard cap on distance cap on it is being discussed - say 10 light years ;-)

Michael

no offence, 10 ly would make the whole thing pointless. Make it the distance from Cubeo to Maia, and that's fine

 

[Kicks]

no offence, 10 ly would make the whole thing pointless. Make it the distance from Cubeo to Maia, and that's fine

I think you just got trolled. This is Michael Brookes....

 

[Mephane]

Actually thinking about it further, a very small max distance could prove interesting. If you can, say, send a ship only up to 3x its actual jump range (explain it with the fuel tank being drained and the pilot moving it wont scoop or buy fuel for you), that means to send a ship with a bad jump range over a long distance you have to make several in between stops, and won't just go 200Ly in 5 jumps in modified Asp and have that FDL sent all the distance in one go.

Edit: It would also mean it is still worthwhile to keep as good an FSD as possible on your specialized combat ship.

 

[Julio Montega]

A fair point, but to design the game based on that to the detriment of everyone else isn't good either.

Michael

Indeed a very fine point.
After all we players can only give you feedback and an insight on how we see features.
You as developers can estimate how players are going to use these features you are going to include,
based on our feedback and the thoughts we have.

A lot of players said, they use the feature to consolidate their fleet somehwere.
Other players said, they will use the feature to get to a cg and get a ship for the cg theme in.
That is how we are going to use the feature, what develops from there is to be left seen.
Without a limiting factor, this element will become a key element on how E: D is played
and tactics will evolve accordingly.

It is a feature that will impact every single thing we do in the game,
from powerplay undermining to combat, from cg attendance to bringing ships to the engineers.


----
Any word on the FGS/Keelback and hangars? (limited number of internal slots, etc.)

 

[Colonel Kenney]

or we can take your example and flip it so it means exactly what you say it doesn't.

I take my aspx fully engineered or stripped down conda with 100ly jump range and get to jaques. I instant transfer my heavy combat ship and camp out in the system and kill everyone else playing or attempting to do the same thing before they have a chance to bring their big ships in.

My otherwise large ship would have had a 20ly range and taken 5-6 times as many jumps and way more than that in time (assuming i'm not doing it in one continuous non-stop sitting) and probably convinced me to spend my time elsewhere.

so you're wrong.

No I'm right. There is a distance limitation to ship transfers.

So what if people are camping ahead of time. Deal with it. What if they just radioed to more of their faction / crew to be ready for you. Thats part of the pvp culture you want to be part of. Deal with it.