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

Self destruct. Freedom. Button is the right hand menu down the bottom. Solved. You wake up at the last station with a nice shiny replacement ship. Of course there is a cost. Right?

Yes. Potentially months of exploration data for a bug. If there was an intent from FD that ending up in a star was a valid potential outcome from an action, they would have programmed it such that when you were in the star you got rather hot, rather quickly. And died. (Of course, those that believe that the magic escape capsule is an in-game mechanism might be hard pressed to handwave their way around how you managed to get out of the star to restart).
 
All very well and good but do you really think FDEV have the abillity to create that, have you seen the content in game? hell were only just gong to be getting passenger missions, and your talking about missions created solely so they can implement a system for transporting ships. Aint never gonna happen.

Hey, a guy can dream can't he?

Also I think the first stage of just calling instant ship transfers a rental could be easily implemented with no serious coding changes. That would save (or salve) the lore and immersion issue while retaining the instant need of other players. I'm trying to work a compromise here. If everyone is just going to stake their own side, large swaths of the community are going to be unhappy. This explanation and implementation is workable, ship rentals have been requested before and fleet management tools are desirable. This can also lead to added gameplay rather than a dead-end solution, which instant ship transfer as proposed is, there's really no added gameplay value.

Or you know I could just shut up because it's never going to happen. But then I like to ask for more and get a bit less than settle for less and get even less.
 
Hey, a guy can dream can't he?

Also I think the first stage of just calling instant ship transfers a rental could be easily implemented with no serious coding changes. That would save (or salve) the lore and immersion issue while retaining the instant need of other players. I'm trying to work a compromise here. If everyone is just going to stake their own side, large swaths of the community are going to be unhappy. This explanation and implementation is workable, ship rentals have been requested before and fleet management tools are desirable. This can also lead to added gameplay rather than a dead-end solution, which instant ship transfer as proposed is, there's really no added gameplay value.

Or you know I could just shut up because it's never going to happen. But then I like to ask for more and get a bit less than settle for less and get even less.

But it doesn't save the lore, to my mind, anyway. Where does that engineered module come from in the rented ship? Why does every shipyard just happen to have a ship exactly like the one you have lots of LY away, especially when it is a ship they do not normally sell? What happens when you fly off in the rented ship and never return it, or, indeed, never return to where you got it from? What happens to your original ship? It just creates different lore problems. Expecting folks who want consistent lore to accept a solution that makes no sense lore wise is not the solution. We would be better off with no attempt to pretend there is a lore reason than one that does not work.
 
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But it doesn't save the lore, to my mind, anyway. Where does that engineered module come from in the rented ship? Why does every shipyard just happen to have a ship exactly like the one you have lots of LY away, especially when it is a ship they do not normally sell? What happens when you fly off in the rented ship and never return it, or, indeed, never return to where you got it from? What happens to your original ship? It just creates different lore problems. Expecting folks who want consistent lore to accept a solution that makes no sense lore wise is not the solution. We would be better off with no attempt to pretend there is a lore reason than one that does not work.

Right, I'll just go away now.
 
Please don't. It is to everyone's benefit if we can come up with a real compromise. But I have not found one.

Indeed! The rental idea is not bad, but should be made into that: Leasing a ship for a limited amount of time. The selection available should depend on system size and randomised factor such as potential already rented out ships etc. And the ships could be in all sorts of conditions and degrees of modification.

Just as with rental cars, the perfect model might be there, but is probably rented out (or broken down).

:D S
 
The only problem I have with the size, is that it's too small ... (huehuehue) ... 6.5hrs to cross the entire BREADTH of the galaxy? Really? It takes me longer to drive from Johannesburg to Cape Town. :/
 
Please don't. It is to everyone's benefit if we can come up with a real compromise. But I have not found one.

I can only put it this way: Whether we like it or not we are currently getting a magic ship transport, they can call it 3D printing or anything else but the outcome is the same. Somehow, in a universe without FTL communications, the shipyard is making a perfect clone of a used ship with mods and then, incomprehensibly, dismantling or selling the original ship. For me that creates major lore problems and only makes one side happy. I think rentals, if done correctly, are an easier pill to swallow.

The rental compromise gets the ship in the hands of the instant side by taking what should be a naturally occurring rental market and getting them a ship now. Yes, you have to accept that the ship is functionally equivalent to the owned ship, I would prefer it to be a close model with similar but not exactly the same specs but I fear that's a bridge too far and would require recoding on FD's part. I don't see an issue with the rental facility having modded ship components in principle, they may be used ships with mods or "aftermarket" mods commissioned by the rental facility.

As to the original ship, if you are renting you still own your owned ships. Your owned ships still show up on the galaxy map. FD would write the code that once you transferred from a rented ship to an owned ship the rented ship is returned. Again I would like to see a future enhancement that applied fees to the transaction with fines and theft charges for not returning at the end of the term but that might take FD sometime to implement, if at all.

As to your owned ships, and the fact that the "instant" ship is a rental, you still need fleet management. By solving the instant need with a rental, proper fleet management could be added to move ships from any port to any other port for a low cost, it's slower than instant and likely in bulk so that's a trade-off.

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Indeed! The rental idea is not bad, but should be made into that: Leasing a ship for a limited amount of time. The selection available should depend on system size and randomised factor such as potential already rented out ships etc. And the ships could be in all sorts of conditions and degrees of modification.

Just as with rental cars, the perfect model might be there, but is probably rented out (or broken down).

:D S

That is exactly what I want, a lease period. I could foresee fines and a wanted status for failing to return on time. The issue there, today, is that FD will being dropping this in beta and likely in the release. For now, I'm willing to accept the compromise of simply calling instant ship transfers a rental with an unlimited time period, for promotional purposes. Once you switch to an owned ship the rental is returned. Down the line FD could have time to tweak the system.

In the mean time, without taking a compromise with a possible future, we are going to have to accept magic ship transport or 3D printing as an explanation with no future.
 
In the mean time, without taking a compromise with a possible future, we are going to have to accept magic ship transport or 3D printing as an explanation with no future.

I suspect we will end up with the no explanation at all. Like with the 'bag of holding' for materials, etc. As Sandro has said, sometimes not even trying to come up with lore is best. Instant sucks big time, but it is slightly less horrible to me for it to literally be like magic (note Clarke's third law, here), than something laughably awful like the 3D printing story. Not that 3D printing per se is necessarily awful - I am fully prepared to admit that that far into the future we may well have something akin to the 3D printing that is postulated. But, of course, as lots of people have said, if we did have pervasive 3D printing technology, then the whole fabric on which the Elite world rests - a world where real people fly spaceships around to deliver cargo - collapses. (And that is without even going into the 3D printing of 'glass canons' for the ship launched fighters feature. How heavy are those ships? And the garage is supposed to have the materials in it to print around 8 copies? It would probably have to take up the whole of the cargo bay - though, of course, it will end up being a Tardis)
 
I suspect we will end up with the no explanation at all. Like with the 'bag of holding' for materials, etc. As Sandro has said, sometimes not even trying to come up with lore is best. Instant sucks big time, but it is slightly less horrible to me for it to literally be like magic (note Clarke's third law, here), than something laughably awful like the 3D printing story. Not that 3D printing per se is necessarily awful - I am fully prepared to admit that that far into the future we may well have something akin to the 3D printing that is postulated. But, of course, as lots of people have said, if we did have pervasive 3D printing technology, then the whole fabric on which the Elite world rests - a world where real people fly spaceships around to deliver cargo - collapses. (And that is without even going into the 3D printing of 'glass canons' for the ship launched fighters feature. How heavy are those ships? And the garage is supposed to have the materials in it to print around 8 copies? It would probably have to take up the whole of the cargo bay - though, of course, it will end up being a Tardis)

I suspect you are right about no explanation at all; I can't agree with Sandro's comments though. A plausible explanation that leads somewhere is a better explanation than no explanation that leads nowhere. The rental explanation's only real drawback is that it ties FD's hands into creating a fully implemented rental system in the future and preferably a fleet management system. I would bet ship rentals are a request they are aware of. I can see if they don't want to open that door but if they leave it up as it is with weak or lame non-explanations they force the community to make things up, things that naturally follow from those non-explanations and they might find the community clamoring for those additions as well. Why can't we have X if they can do this in-game kind of things?

I'd rather they just call instant ship transfer a rental rather than 3D printing which seems to be the de facto non-expanation; it's more plausible than creating an exact copy of a highly complex machine from raw materials. The 3D printing of SLFs isn't a big issue to me but I prefer the IKEA flatpack idea although I'm sure I'd get my ship destroyed before I could assemble my 1st one, just like all my IKEA furniture.

Added: It might go nowhere but I should probably detail and submit my ship rental/fleet management ideas to the suggestion forum as a possible alternative to instant ship transfers. They can reject it, ignore it, or consider it but I will not be silenced!! :rolleyes:

I'm just about to get off work so I'll have to do it later though!
 
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Right, I'll just go away now.
Don't do that, you have just as much right to post your opinions and ideas as everyone else.
Sorry if my reply seemed a bit harsh, i'm just a little disillusioned with the whole thing.
Ship Transfers perfectly plauisible, instant ship transfers just silly.
If i can "Clone" Any ship in any station, then why cant they do the same with modules, if they do do it so ships are "Cloned" then you should only be able to pick up a cloned ship at a station that sells that ship.
and it should take say 20mins to clone that ship. Instant just feels so Cheaty, instant gratification.
As ED keep saying they have a great framework for the game, but its just so shallow right now, the way they implement things seem really rushed and not well thought out, they hype it up so much (with help from the hardcore fans).
which just leaves me feeling disapointed.

Hey look at this new thing we put in its great, and it usually is pretty good the first few times, then it becomes just so tedious, its not fun.

I like having to plan and fly back to pick my ships up, it requires a little bit of logistical thinking, just being able to click a button and my ship suddenly appears is silly,

Why not just have any ships you have shrunk and keep them in a little cupboard on whatever your current ship is, then you have an Enlarger that re-enlarges one of your models and shrinks your current one.
Surley if instant transfer is possible then that is too, just rewrite science as you go along, it hasn't stopped them before.
 
I was talking about the lack of consistant design here and in other threads. But maybe i am wrong to a certain degree...

The way the things are implemented dont seem to be rushed in, if you really look. There is thought and direction in the concept, but the direction doesnt go, where the original Elite gamer and space sim enthusiast wants it to go. The way is now focused on the type of gamer, that wants instant action and da stuffz n' lolz instead of playing a solid space sim with choice and consequence. If this continues, i may have invested in the wrong game.
 
Why not just have any ships you have shrunk and keep them in a little cupboard on whatever your current ship is, then you have an Enlarger that re-enlarges one of your models and shrinks your current one.
Surley if instant transfer is possible then that is too, just rewrite science as you go along, it hasn't stopped them before.

Yep.

- We can magic up missiles/cannon shells etc. in our ship with no power cost or module to do so.
- Iron (and many other elements) can only be found, never bought or sold.
- Thrusters that magically increase in power only when around planets, but no way to use that effect in space.
- The Rebuy screen and Insurance have no explanation (especially with Engineered modules now in play).

Science, immersion and verisimilitude have long since left the building.

CMDR CTCParadox
 
Yep.

- We can magic up missiles/cannon shells etc. in our ship with no power cost or module to do so.
- Iron (and many other elements) can only be found, never bought or sold.
- Thrusters that magically increase in power only when around planets, but no way to use that effect in space.
- The Rebuy screen and Insurance have no explanation (especially with Engineered modules now in play).

Science, immersion and verisimilitude have long since left the building.

CMDR CTCParadox

While i agree with your post, gaining speed close to planetary masses isnt illogical at all ;)
 
I would prefer to see ship transfer used with existing or new features, such as using the NPC system coming up as a way to move your ship/s instead of what we will be getting.
 
Sorry I'm not sure I follow what you mean.

CMDR CTCParadox

Orbital mechanics. The closer you get the center of gravity, the faster you move. If you are interested in the physics, check the web for the Oberth effect and the Oberth Kuiper Maneuver.

Edit: This effect is used for slingshot maneuvers, for gaining a higher apogee in non circular orbits and reaching escape velocity in a fuel efficient way f.e.
 
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Orbital mechanics. The closer you get the center of gravity, the faster you move. If you are interested in the physics, check the web for the Oberth effect and the Oberth Kuiper Maneuver.

Edit: This effect is used for slingshot maneuvers, for gaining a higher apogee in non circular orbits and reaching escape velocity in a fuel efficient way f.e.
I understand orbital mechanics. Just wasn't sure how your comment related to my post.

I just meant that a cutter can hover on a 9g planet but it's ventral thrusters can't generate that much thrust in space.

CMDR CTCParadox
 
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It has been thought out, and discussed at length, and we believe that it provides more benefit to the game in its current form - it will certainly be interesting to see how things progress in beta :)

Did you not think to include the player base in this discussion? After all we are passionate, educated, literate, have brilliant ideas, and pay for the whole party.

I know FD are not a democracy, but to ignore the people who actually play your game is quite absurd.
 
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