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

[Cosmo]

Ah, but it would reinforce the lore that that is how they are delivered. Don't confuse gameplay with lore.

There's not a single Star Wars movie where ships can be teleported or 3D printed instantly. Do you know why? Because it doesn't exist in teh Star Wars universe. It's called consistency and keeping it believable.

The lore behind death is we should eject and make out way to the nearest station, get out of our capsules, and apply via insurance for our replacement ships, which wouldn't be delivered instantly (in lore). And yet, we respawn with a click in an identically fitted ship, fitted with the same impossible to reproduce engineer modifications.

That's how it should be, but they didn't implement it yet. I rather have Eve Online cloning which realistically explains what happens when you die. You have life insurance and your conscience is transferred into a cloned body.

That is how you make and design a proper sci-fi universe. Not these lame cheap excuses to please people who have no patience.

 

[Winterwalker]

All good, i,m not talking about anyone in particular, those of you that raged against the 10% know who you are, just reflect on this point.

For sure .. an example of when 'the community' (umm..) definitely got it wrong that one, imo.

(( There are NPC outfitting engineers out of work, all over the galaxy. Have you noticed how the interdiction piracy has gone up, since these salty space dog engineer types were laid off?? Just because nobody wants to pay a fair price for a trained mechanic to professionally fit and commission their internal modules for them! Think of the radiation leaks. THINK of the destituted children ... ))

 

[Genar-Hofoen]

So what, it was realistic not game breaking but everybody was min-maxing and did not want there play style upset, face it we cry foul when it suits us. we did not care about realism then because it was going to cost us something.

I wasn't upset at the 10% module stuff at all, I just thought it made more sense to be able to store modules to fit them into new ships at the time. It makes even more sense now - I don't want to lose another engineer-modded FSD like I did last week due to the servers misbehaving right at the moment when I was trying to transfer it to another ship of mine using the current dodgy way of doing it. Now, that was upsetting!

 

[Julio Montega]

Why not? Implement it as is for now, then in a future update we get a plausible reason for the delivery in universe.
Plus it would look cool seeing capital class signature size wakes appearing near stations to deliver the ships.

Could even get Amazon to sponsor 34 century one-click next-second deliveries LOL!

It would be a shortcut again,
and let us be honest.
When missiles were abused as ganking/griefing weapons they got nerfed to oblivion,
because it was easy and convenient.
Then nearly 2 years later, after an incredible amount of effort on giving feedback we got the
result we have now.
But the issue nagged a lot of people, for nearly 2 years.

This is an example, and i think there are a lot more of those,
like depths of activities and the amount of options for players in them.

Another easy path is another sour taste that will stay for some time.
Why bother with the feature if time allows only an implementation the forum
is rising up against on criticism and arms?
To me that is shortsighted, consequent, but shortsighted.

I remember the discussions about gimballed vs fixed vs turrets,
open vs private vs solo, discussions about engineers and powerplay.
Now the size of the resonance this small QOL feature generates,
it almost feels as large an issue as the aforementioned discussions.
Is that necessary?

 

[zimms]

Have you tried eating 3D printed models? And i don't think even in 3302 they will have 3D printed hydrogen... or biowaste. Even if they did... what would they be doing then with all that excess Biowaste that isn't being delivered because everyone is just printing biowaste... erm, or are they using biowaste to produce the 3D printed food?

Oh gods, Solyent Green is Biowaste!

Heard of food cartridges? They are a thing in Elite.

 

[Javert]

Heya Mike,

I assume by the current 'fiction construct' we're thinking about '3d printing' our ships in their hangers or some such. I have to admit that I liked the idea of NPCs transporting our ships in say Lynx Bulk Carriers. Give them an 'advanced' (and crazy large) drive which explains why they can jump so far, so fast. (Possibly the same drive that Capital Ships have, since we see their jump is is incredibly different from our own.) This doesn't fully explain why it is instant, since even if the jump itself was instant the ship being transported would need to undock, fly to the Carrier (parked up near the station), land and then the same in reverse. I recon that'd take me 5 mins easy to do, but frankly I am happy to call 5 minutes 'instant' for the sake of gameplay. Even if we just keep it fiction with no in game representation, having a theoretical carrier would let me pretend that it is still MY ship. Possibly more importantly down the line, it is still my dirty underwear in my cabin in my ship! This is why she has all the bangs and dents she has and she isn't some pristine freshly printed anonymous and replaceable component. Naturally later down the line we could see Bulk Carriers at stations with ships flying to them which would give more life to the space around stations and potentially it could add even more gameplay down the line.

Sincerely, Ben - aka Cmdr Eid LeWeise

So actually I debated this a bit with a few others and we extended it a bit:

- Such huge ships have FSDs that are extremely expensive - too much for any normal pilot to have, and can only be in very large ships.
- Such huge jumps have serious medical side effects on humans. Therefore these ships have to jump on their own.
- Ships don't have an autopilot as such, but they have tugs that pull them away from the station. They then jump on their own and are picked up by tugs at the other end. (avoids the problem of why can't we have an autopilot if this ship has it).
- Cost of using such transport is quite high so these ships don't have a monopoly on transport of general cargo and commodities.

 

[goemon]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that entire situation you've described above require cargo to be transferred with the ship?

Something MB already said wouldn't happen? I don't participate in PP but I know the basics. Could you perhaps explain this a bit more if I'm getting the wrong idea?

actually no, because the cargo is transferred in the first run (with the cargo ship).

in terms of normal trading:
1. fill up trader with high profit goods
2. fly trader to sell profits
3. summon travel ship
4. return to source station with travel ship
5. summon trader
6. repeat

---

because fortification requires transporting fortification material from the 1 headquarter to the control system you are fortifying (which might be 80 ly away), this is more of a problem for powerplay then for bulktrading (there is rarely a reason for traders to trade more then 20 ly away. in 99℅ of trading situations the time-saving doing as above can be easily countered by transfer costs. CGs might be different, though (when supplies close by go rapidly down).

 

[jprelph]

Easiest way would be to limit each ship to say 2 moves per 24Hour period that would short circuit most exploits.

Nope, because a cargo specced T9 and an Asp are cheap when you've got a few billion sat in the bank. Nothing to stop someone having 10 each of those stocked up at Rhea, lets them move 10,000t using that method in any one day.

The easiest way is to put a time delay in so that the return journey is no quicker (or even a bit longer) than just heading back out in your T9. A 5 minute delay for a 100ly trip would stop it being worthwhile. It's also a LOT less contrived than saying "OK, you can print this, but only 2 per day of each ship type, because..."

 

[Cosmo]

It would be a shortcut again,
and let us be honest.
When missiles were abused as ganking/griefing weapons they got nerfed to oblivion,
because it was easy and convenient.
Then nearly 2 years later, after an incredible amount of effort on giving feedback we got the
result we have now.
But the issue nagged a lot of people, for nearly 2 years.

This is an example, and i think there are a lot more of those,
like depths of activities and the amount of options for players in them.

Another easy path is another sour taste that will stay for some time.
Why bother with the feature if time allows only an implementation the forum
is rising up against on criticism and arms?
To me that is shortsighted, consequent, but shortsighted.

I remember the discussions about gimballed vs fixed vs turrets,
open vs private vs solo, discussions about engineers and powerplay.
Now the size of the resonance this small QOL feature generates,
it almost feels as large an issue as the aforementioned discussions.
Is that necessary?

Seconded. Also this other space-game (SC) does not have fantasy instant ship delivery. They know how to make a proper immersive and believable universe. [up]

 

[nrage]

That reduces the depth of the game significantly. Part of the game is all about compromises - how you spec your ships so that they can fight and survive but still have jump range or hauling capacity. If you can instantly swap to a perfect ship for any mission type

No, no. You can swap into any ship you have already spent the time and effort building. This may be the perfect ship for that mission, in which case, well done you for building it ahead of time with all that time/effort you spent. Just because you can move your ships around does NOT mean you don't have to work to get them in the first place.

... then it makes missions easier and you no longer need to take the time/effort to balance your ships. Your FdL can have a 2ly jump range because it never needs to jump anywhere and your T9 can be an absolute glass-tanker because you've just halved the risks (you only need to fly it in one direction half the time).

Combat ships should not need to jump. I mean, ideally I would load my combat ship IN my T9 or similar, but we're not there yet. If you want to make a glass-tank T9 be my guest, my guess is you will still lose it too often for this to be viable.

 

[Dipso]

So actually I debated this a bit with a few others and we extended it a bit:

- Such huge ships have FSDs that are extremely expensive - too much for any normal pilot to have, and can only be in very large ships.
- Such huge jumps have serious medical side effects on humans. Therefore these ships have to jump on their own.
- Ships don't have an autopilot as such, but they have tugs that pull them away from the station. They then jump on their own and are picked up by tugs at the other end. (avoids the problem of why can't we have an autopilot if this ship has it).
- Cost of using such transport is quite high so these ships don't have a monopoly on transport of general cargo and commodities.

Closes I've seen to a "plausible" explanation. Still sounds like a contortionist act though.

Honestly my biggest gripe is not the immersion,(I'd rather prefer a non-explanation as some of the attempts make me cringe) its the game-play ramifications. It nullifies having to choose between FSD range on a ship and other attributes, and it has potential to be abused in several ways. The only way to be properly safe from those ramifications is to either make it so costly or put other strick limits on it like only 1 jump pr day etc as to make it more useless then a time limit would.

A time limit / delay ads another balancing vector that can be used to find the sweet spot between convenience and exploit-ability / cheapening of game features.

 

[Cosmo]

actually no, because the cargo is transferred in the first run (with the cargo ship).

in terms of normal trading:
1. fill up trader with high profit goods
2. fly trader to sell profits
3. summon travel ship
4. return to source station with travel ship
5. summon trader
6. repeat

---

because fortification requires transporting fortification material from the 1 headquarter to the control system you are fortifying (which might be 80 ly away), this is more of a problem for powerplay then for bulktrading (there is rarely a reason for traders to trade more then 20 ly away. in 99℅ of trading situations the time-saving doing as above can be easily countered by transfer costs. CGs might be different, though (when supplies close by go rapidly down).

Aha see there are so many potential exploits with instant ship transfer.

 

[nrage]

I would have thought that the intention behind the feature did not include encouraging players not to play in Open.

Too many negatives in that sentence. It's an added benefit of this feature that less players will head off to solo to avoid gankers, they may decide to take them head on instead. Then the ganker "easy" target becomes a "fair" fight and I really like that idea, personally.

 

[Shar]

Well the cost will define the impact of this feature since it the only mitigating factor, i would say this, anyone who can buy a 500,000,000Cr ship should be paying big bucks to move it.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Aha see there are so many potential exploits with instant ship transfer.

It does rather sound as if there will be reduced opportunities for PvP piracy - as the player will only need to fly cargo on the more profitable leg of the circuit.

 

[Zambrick]

Oh man, now you've done it! I demand FD implement Lynx Bulk Carriers and LRCs ASAP!

I know, the lore says they can't jump far, but since we are messing around with lore anyway, just do it!

What lore do you speak of? The one that they write on an ongoing basis? I doubt the vast majority of the people out there spouting off about Lore has played any of the old games or read the books. Also how many hundreds of years have passed since these ships were first created? Do you think perhaps improvements or modifications have been made in a couple of centuries?

 

[Robert Maynard]

Too many negatives in that sentence. It's an added benefit of this feature that less players will head off to solo to avoid gankers, they may decide to take them head on instead. Then the ganker "easy" target becomes a "fair" fight and I really like that idea, personally.

.... only if the player can actually be bothered / considers themselves as having a chance against / wants to reward the gankers with some slightly more challenging PvP....

Not all players want to get involved in PvP.

 

[nrage]

This explanation doesn't make any sense if ship delivery is instant. Because why can ships be delivered or 3D Printed instantly? BUT cargo must still be delivered the old-fashioned way?

The game and Elite universe will contradict itself.

MB already explained this. In Elite power is cheap and manufacturing things in bulk is cheaper than 3D printing. 3D printers are a general solution (they can print many things) but it's always cheaper (for bulk construction) to build a specific solution (up front cost) and then use it many times over (lower production costs per unit). This is why there are stations manufacturing things which need transporting, because those goods would undercut any supply of printed stuff, even if it was printed locally.

 

[Cosmo]

MB already explained this. In Elite power is cheap and manufacturing things in bulk is cheaper than 3D printing. 3D printers are a general solution (they can print many things) but it's always cheaper (for bulk construction) to build a specific solution (up front cost) and then use it many times over (lower production costs per unit). This is why there are stations manufacturing things which need transporting, because those goods would undercut any supply of printed stuff, even if it was printed locally.

A cheap excuse, that's what it is.

It does rather sound as if there will be reduced opportunities for PvP piracy - as the player will only need to fly cargo on the more profitable leg of the circuit.

Yes instant ship transfer also damages the need for cooperative play and PvP.

 

[Julio Montega]

It does rather sound as if there will be reduced opportunities for PvP piracy - as the player will only need to fly cargo on the more profitable leg of the circuit.

I think you got it right there.
PvP piracy isn't a big one those days, afaik.
It is a shame, seeing a whole profession drift off.

Same can be said for PvP, as it should be clear,
that the active PvP crowd is not interested in doing CQC style combat,
but large scale warfare, wing combat and cooperation.
Involving gameplay is desired, not arcadey blasting.

But then again, who am i to ratify this,
as i mostly steered far away from those activities since a long time now.

I'd love to look into the plans for E: D, it seems the addition of another possible
career, transporting passengers, finally is introduced. How does this shape the
game? Broaden the audience by another feature?
What is the goal to achieve for E: D, get a wider audience
or go into detail?

Is there anything a dev can comment on this?
I'd love to know.