Now you're just trying to score points. If we didn't think the addition was worthwhile in its current form then we wouldn't have added it.
Scoring points or not, you'll find there are a great many players who agree with his assessment. I was about to post something similar -- perhaps not worded in the exact same way -- but he beat me to the punch.
Now can I be cheeky and ask a favour? Now that it's been verified that time and development cost was a strong factor in implementing instant ship transfer, is there any chance we can stop trying to shoehorn this feature into the fiction?
There are already mechanisms in game that step out of the universe of the player's character and into the realm of the player herself. The most obvious is the instant reconstruction and resurrection of a ship and pilot at the rebuy screen. No in-fiction explanation is necessary for this because it's obvious that, in the absence of enforced global iron man mode, it's necessary for gaming reasons.
Then there are all the things that happen at the starport; ship outfitting, ship exchange, buying and selling cargo, refuelling and rearming. All take place instantaneously. Very few players question this because -- at least until we can walk around and do other stuff -- it would be interminably dull to stare at the ship interfaces for 10-15 minutes at a time. So while these things being instant isn't a requirement, it is of benefit to the player. And again, no in-fiction explanation is needed.
Now that we've established that bubble-wide ship exchange at the Shipyard is coming, and will be instantaneous, can't we just write that off as a gameplay benefit without trying to shoehorn it into the lore? Because honestly all this talk of licensing and instant 3D printing across interstellar distances is seriously eroding my ability to suspend disbelief. There may be a sound technological basis for extrapolating this sort of manufacturing into a
general predicted vision of the 3300s but you simply
can't drop it into the already established
ED universe without undermining the politics, economics, hell even the very
raison d'être of having owner-operator starship pilots plying the space lanes in the first place.
As an author and curator of
Elite lore surely you of all people must see that? By trying to justify in-universe what is clearly an out-of-universe convenience for gamers you are making a rod for your own backs, not to mention those of any future fiction licencees. Or is Drew really going to have to incorporate instantaneous 3D printed ship transport into
Premonition?
Please, Michael, think twice about this. At least meet us halfway. If we accept that instantaneous Shipyard-to-Shipyard transfer is a thing in the
game, please don't force us to have to accept it in the
fiction as well. The former has a clear if not universally embraced benefit, the latter doesn't. And despite what the contents of the threadnaught might suggest, I'm sure that a great many fans of
Elite (both the game
and the fiction) would agree that one is a whole lot easier to accept than the other.
Whatever your response to this (and ignoring it is a perfectly valid response!) thanks for taking the time to post in this thread. We have been somewhat starved of official forum feedback since Gamescom and your replies are appreciated even if their content isn't always to everyone's liking.