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

[mossfoot]

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..

+1

As I am very interested in the fiction of Elite (and hope to get my own book or books published someday for it... sigh...) that is a large concern for me as well. Reconciling in game mechanics and the fiction so far has not been a huge problem. But this has the potential to be. In my opinion.

 

[Mark Lock]

Reading comprehension, you lack it.



Where did you get that we could build 80% of an aircraft in a single go on one machine with that quote? Don't put words into my mouth unless you're going to make me sound cool man, c'mon.

Man, I know you can 3Dprint stuff, it is being used to create living cells as well, it is progressing a lot, problem here is , within the game we can't even communicate with stations to get market data, not even in the same system, why would a station lys away be able to send us plans to 3dprint our ship ?? The 3Dprinting thing falls apart, not even in Star trek you can move ships like that , and well teleportation exists in start trek but not here in ED ! They will basically destroy the lore and immersion to the game by adding this feature

 

[Julio Montega]

Man, I know you can 3Dprint stuff, it is being used to create living cells as well, it is progressing a lot, problem here is , within the game we can't even communicate with stations to get market data, not even in the same system, why would a station lys away be able to send us plans to 3dprint our ship ?? The 3Dprinting thing falls apart, not even in Star trek you can move ships like that , and well teleportation exists in start trek but not here in ED ! They will basically destroy the lore and immersion to the game by adding this feature

Fair point and with all that license reasoning they can only elaborate on the given info,
so we have to face the pilot's federation host manufacturing facilities everywhere
to circumvent license infraction, by providing the "rebuilding process" as a representative
for the CMDR in that case.

It spirals off, way off.

Simple solutions are best,
the simplest solution is to have the ship fly from a to b physically.
That might not apply to being easy to code, but people do not work on code,
but on feelings and perception.

 

[Arubeto]

if I have two hours to play Elite in an evening, I don't want to waste that two hours taxiing across the bubble just to pick up a ship. That's a ridiculous waste of time.

That's where time-consuming ship transfers would make your life easier: initiate the transfer, do anything you like with your current ship while your other ship is being delivered and then pick up said delivered ship at its destination without having to waste a single minute with the transport yourself.

 

[Lobstris]

Print based manufacturing has been part of the fiction for some time - it's hardly that big a stretch considering we're already looking at it.

Michael

Sorry I just don't get why there is any form of economy that involves hauling any form of machinery or advanced technology around as a commodity if it can just be printed by any outpost or facility. Resorting to 'licensing' as an explanation is unsatisfactory, because the technology is so useful (and supposedly ubiquitous), everybody and their dog would be clamouring for licenses, or competitors would be filling the market with other licenses that make roughly the same thing (can't license a Hoover? I bet Dyson would sell you one!) or they would be pirated left right and centre.

Worms. Can. Of.

Alien Isolation's vibe worked because it kind of stuck to the '70s retro sci-fi feel of the film. Elite's fiction worked better sticking to its '80s roots.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

As a self-anointed spaceship connoisseur, I disagree with your premise. I want to fly all of the ships all of the time In the current iteration of things, that means basically stockpiling them all at Jameson Memorial for outfitting purposes and then venturing out from there in one ship or another to go be a space pilot.

That usually means sticking in about a 100ly bubble around Jameson since going any further than that means I have to go all the way back to fly a different ship. I gotta fly different ships, all of the ships! My favorite system is over 100ly from Jameson Memorial and I don't go there often 'cause it takes too long to get there and back again unless I'm in my Asp or Hauler.

What instant ship transport means is that I get access to all of my glorious ships where ever I go!! I can actually go check out Achenar and get screenshots with all of the Imperial Ships! Sure I could do that now, but shuttling back and forth from Jameson to Achenar with every Imperial ship would be a massive waste of time.

I think I would also do CG's again with instant ship transfer. Normally I ignore them because they're way out from where I am and I'm essentially tied to the hip with only one ship! I can't be without my ships! I'm like a crazy cat lady, but with spaceships.

Ok, I think devolved into madness there at the end, but this is essentially why I'm so psyched for 2.2. Well, and ship launched fighters! I can fly ships around my ship! Shipception!

You can still do that with a reasonable delay to the transfer. Instant transfer breaks a lot of things, with missions being the main one.

 

[Mosait]

That's were time-consuming ship transfers would make your life easier: initiate the transfer, do anything you like with your current ship while your other ship is being delivered and then pick up said delivered ship at its destination without having to waste a single minute with the transport yourself.

Or, you could just not use ship transfer, and I'll decide what I want to spend my limited amount of time doing what I'd like with the help of the ship transfer mechanic.

 

[Hajile]

Yeah and when I think of weak areas of the game its exactly this kinda stuff that lets ED down. I realise there are often things the devs need to compromise on re time and resources etc but on this one if its worth doing, its worth doing well. Ship tansfer, whilst convienient, was never on top of my wish list. The problem they introduced with Engineers was no storage or ability to ship the modules about.

But hey FD always get it right don't they.. I mean lets look at CQC, and Powerplay.. What a waste of time and effort.

that's just it isn't... we have a big update, these updates bring with them features that are full of potential (powerplay, CQC, Engineers, wings) but then are crapped on by just missing the mark or fixing the miss with a bigger miss. it is almost like the devs keep rolling a critical failure.

 

[Jypson]

You can still do that with a reasonable delay to the transfer. Instant transfer breaks a lot of things, with missions being the main one.

How does it break missions?

 

[Cosmos]

Sorry I just don't get why there is any form of economy that involves hauling any form of machinery or advanced technology around as a commodity if it can just be printed by any outpost or facility. Resorting to 'licensing' as an explanation is unsatisfactory, because the technology is so useful (and supposedly ubiquitous), everybody and their dog would be clamouring for licenses, or competitors would be filling the market with other licenses that make roughly the same thing (can't license a Hoover? I bet Dyson would sell you one!) or they would be pirated left right and centre.

Worms. Can. Of.

Indeed, if we can assemble anything anywhere then all that would ever need to be hauled are raw materials. I think this ship manufacturing aboard ships is utterly ridiculous.

 

[Julio Montega]

Indeed, if we can assemble anything anywhere then all that would ever need to be hauled are raw materials.

Simple explanation, the economy dictates if these machines are present or not.
Sounds contradictory, righto?

Other explanation:
the pilot's federation hosts exclusive factories for ship
"reconstruction" on every applicable shipyard
as a representative with a special contract
for the sole purpose of convenience.
Sounds expensive, righto?

 

[Mark Lock]

Fair point and with all that license reasoning they can only elaborate on the given info,
so we have to face the pilot's federation host manufacturing facilities everywhere
to circumvent license infraction, by providing the "rebuilding process" as a representative
for the CMDR in that case.

It spirals off, way off.

Simple solutions are best,
the simplest solution is to have the ship fly from a to b physically.
That might not apply to being easy to code, but people do not work on code,
but on feelings and perception.

Yeahh, the license is another aspect, if everyone started 3dprinting their ships like this, ships' industry would crumble away ...

Yes moving from a to be is the best option with a small chance of being interdicted and destroyed by pirates to be fair, a Timer would simulate travel and maybe it could spawn near station like it had arrived and land like a normal NPC...

Autopilot already exists ingame and we can call ships from srv like that, then ship lands, ships travel could work in a similar way

 

[Jukelo]

So, if I'm reading this right, your problem with the application of 1200 year advanced-beyond-today 3D printing as the explanation for instant ship retrieval XXXX Ly from the source is really only there because they're dropping it now and didn't drop it 2 years ago as in-game lore?

Yes, that and the fact they didn't make any effort to actually incorporate it into the lore. Now it's just there, it exists on its own, detached from the rest of the game world's economy. You'd think a technology which allows us to create Nimitz-sized spaceships in the blink of an eye would be used for more than just building spaceships, and that most of the economy would revolve around it.

3D Printing, or Additive Manufacturing (as it's referred to on the industrial side of the house) is only getting bigger and bigger as the years go on. Not being able to wrap your head around it because it's not "good enough" for the game is a personal choice, not a game coherence issue.

No, you don't choose whether being forced to suspend disbelief lessens your enjoyment of a piece of entertainment. And please drop the attitude.

 

[Marak]

Thinking about instant ship transfer is strange - I don't like the instant bit... but I don't really know WHY I don't like it...

I think I'm too immersed.

 

[Arubeto]

Or, you could just not use ship transfer, and I'll decide what I want to spend my limited amount of time doing what I'd like with the help of the ship transfer mechanic.

Not going to work. I want ship transfer, too, just not like this.

 

[Weps]

I'll just leave this here, feel free to discuss it: [hotas]

[video=youtube_share;lWpa9acEeZs]https://youtu.be/lWpa9acEeZs?t=575[/video]

https://youtu.be/lWpa9acEeZs?t=575

 

[Darth Ender]

Since they are definitely putting it in the beta however they want it. I just hope they price it and balance it as it would be priced and behave in the release so it can be tested realistically and we dont have a repeat of the engineers testing issues.

It's one thing to make ships cheap enough so enough people can test it out. It's another to change a new mechanic so greatly that the testing doesn't even remotely reflect how it will behave in the release.

 

[Chazzie]

Well after reading the entire thread (so far) I feel I should throw in my two cents as well.

Does anybody remember when SRV's were added? Initially when you summoned your ship from your SRV it would arrive instantly, there was a (smaller) outcry then - so FD added a small delay based on distance traveled from your ship, which IMHO was a good thing and felt about right.

So, honestly what's the difference here? If you add a delay, don't make it extreme - if not, please consider a GALNET post on 'Jumponium fuel at stations' that other posters have mentioned in this thread - those ideas are the best ones I've read as far as handwavium is concerned.

To be fair this is only my opinion, not that I think it matters as this reply will go south quite fast I think.

 

[Parmo]

I can't say I'm impressed with FDs response re all of this. They are digging their heels in over what is obviously a very unpopular solution to the problem. As much as we need a ship transfer system of some variety I can't help but think this is a cheap and dirty way to do it. The devil is in the detail of course, the impact of which won't be felt in beta but later on, and I forsee unintended consequences.

I think one of the main issues here is that it goes again any rational sense of suspension of disbelief. Rather than increase the number of ships we see out and about I think its going to effectily further remove players from the game world with the Asp E becoming the defacto getting about ship and a few other ship achetypes, used here and tehre. You can kiss goodbye to seeing much of the ship variety we have now.

Whilst I can understand the reasoning behind it, its cheap to implement and easy to test, its actually doing us out of a more nuanced gamet of gameplay as is the insta module transfer.. We could be having to haul our modules about, have them being stolen or destroyed in transit, and actually plan ahead to where we may want ships to be.

What is propsed by the devs is in my view the easiest and quickest (laziest) implementation there could be. Another example of which is the way we are serially interdicted by AI based upon our rank and ship rather than a system which is far deeper and believable.

I agree in the greater part with your sentiment sir.
FD said it listens to the 'community' but it what it hears is another matter. How the community 'talks' and how FD 'listens' I have no good idea. We have seen the responses though.
FD saving face is also an issue as you suggest, it's only natural but not professional.
Well their testing may have been easy, but we will become the testers soon enough and our responses will be measured (listened to?) - this last is an assumption.
How can we play the beta so as to send a message to ED that this solution is not welcome?

 

[Mark Lock]

Sorry I just don't get why there is any form of economy that involves hauling any form of machinery or advanced technology around as a commodity if it can just be printed by any outpost or facility. Resorting to 'licensing' as an explanation is unsatisfactory, because the technology is so useful (and supposedly ubiquitous), everybody and their dog would be clamouring for licenses, or competitors would be filling the market with other licenses that make roughly the same thing (can't license a Hoover? I bet Dyson would sell you one!) or they would be pirated left right and centre.

Worms. Can. Of.

Alien Isolation's vibe worked because it kind of stuck to the '70s retro sci-fi feel of the film. Elite's fiction worked better sticking to its '80s roots.

License is a thing, you can't 3DPrint your ship as you don't have a license to reproduce it, you can't make your own Crysler cause the project is covered by copyright and IP laws, Only Crysler factories can produce that car, not your mechanic who can well 3dprint parts to repair it but not the car itself