***POLL NOW CLOSED*** IMPORTANT, OFFICIAL SHIP TRANSFER POLL

[xyphic]

Why is this so hard to understand???? Why would I spend time doing stuff I don't want to do in a ship I don't want to be in?

Well, you shouldn't have parked your other one so far away then, should you?

[I do, of course, get your point. However it's not the *only* point and there's clearly more to it than just this. Either way some people are going to hate the implementation, and all Frontier can do is try to figure out how to minimise the backlash (ironic given that they could have chosen not to implement it at all and would have had *less* of a backlash)]

 

[CMDR Zhon Daeli]

At the end of the day, it's a space game about space in the future. Your immersion had to stop somewhere.
I work 56 hours a week and shouldn't have to play <other parts of the game for> 100 minutes before I can fly My Cool Ship. I already spent countless hours grinding for it.

Then fly to your destination in your "Cool Ship" ..

 

[Paramemetic]

yes but you can still play in your ship while your other ship arrives or is that too difficuly for you to understand. If you don't want to use that ship to do stuff, don't take it out in the first place.

What if I told you that sometimes people who are doing one thing want to do another, different thing?

What if. . . what if I told you that sometimes people can't tell the future and predict what they will want to do with perfect accuracy hours into the future?

 

[ROSS-128]

I only posted in that thread because I was linked to it because it's goofy - I don't read this forum usually because I have other things to do in life. So the sample is self-selecting and skewed towards people who are interested in this particular issue. If we assume that people who don't post on the forums are generally happy with the direction the game is going, we can assume that the people who have posted in that thread are going to be the ones who care about the issue, and the people who didn't post, the vast majority, would have been fine with instant ship transfer.




Statistically speaking, none of this is true. For a population of 2 million a random sample of 2600 would give us a pretty good confidence level, but this wasn't a random sampling, it was self-selected. So no, you cannot have the confidence level you are expecting. Test design is the critical difference between statistical masturbation and actual research.



What Frontier has done is made an "official" poll using two extreme options because they couldn't use the self-selecting poll made on the forums or gather useful information from it. What they have failed to do is make the poll they have created here actually useful because most people do not follow through with polls that are emailed to them or bother to vote about issues that they do not care strongly about. So most people would likely be very happy with instant transfer, but will not vote because they trust Frontier to make the best gameplay decisions possible when designing the game (though I don't know why they have that faith at this point).

Because most people trust the game devs to design a game that is fun and cool and not lame and boring, they don't bother voting in polls about gameplay unless they are of the sort that is afraid of fun, cool gameplay because they use Elite as a reality-substitute rather than an entertaining video game. To the latter, it is very important that Simguru Braben not make a game too fun because if they are having fun, they will realize that it is not actually their real life, which is joyless and tedious as all real lives are.

Basically, the statistical methods being employed here aren't actually meaningful and shouldn't ever be used to influence actual game design, instead, simple tests should be employed, like "is it fun when we actually play it."

Sandro straight up said that they have tested it both with and without a delay, and a delay added nothing, when they actually played it. People who have not played it both ways are saying they would rather play it the not-fun way, but they cannot know that because they have not played it either way. Instead, they are worried about their immersion, which is a silly thing. I would rather gameplay decisions be made by people who have actually playtested it and not by biased polls.

Well too bad, I already called dibs on the Silent Majority so you can't have it.

It's pretty transparently obvious though that there are a lot of people here who don't care at all about the health or quality of the game. They just want their FDL to have a 60LY effective jump range, and they want it now. Because apparently absolutely nothing should ever stand in the way of maximum pew-pew.

 

[Jhyrryl]

If you're going to go for some realism, base your simulated travel times on actual flight times to Jaques. Looking at times from The Long Haul race, which utilized heavily laden ships, I'd say that taking a minimum of 10 minutes to do prep plus 1 minute per 25 LYs is a good rate. That's 18 minutes to prep a ship and move it across the human bubble, and a little under 15 hours to get it to Jaques.

 

[CMDR Zhon Daeli]

wow. a very spinless move by Fdev.

A shame as I admired their perceived steadfastness and clarity-of-design.

Looks like my FDL will never see space again if transfers are not instant or do not take a trivial amount of time.

It's spineless to ask your customers what they'd prefer?
You don't do much development, or even customer-centric work do you?

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

I am amazed that some folks are upset that Frontier have offered us a Poll on this. The issue has clearly divided the community with good arguments on both sides (even if most folks don't listen to them). This way we will have a fair vote from the community and as beleivers in democracy we must accept the result. If Instant wins, I will accept that as what everyone wants.

They'd be wrong though.

 

[Nine19CnynCrvr]

Explain how Escape Pods can travel instantly tens of thousands of lightyears while still fitting into the set parameters for ship travel...

I'll be sat over here. Holding my breath, turning blue.

You don't have to hold your breathe on my part. Those were the parameters FD set for us when our ship gets destroyed. I can't provide an answer for that. All I attempted to explain was the mindset behind keeping ship travel the way it is. If it turns out to be instant (which either method really wouldn't bother me, but I like the parameters they built the game around; NPCs are a different story) what's to stop players down the road from making the point of why can't we instant travel while in our own ships.

 

[TorTorden_VR]

Just fix wings already!

Who cares about an honestly forgettable feature when a core mechanic has been utterly broken since last patch.

 

[Bomba Luigi]

Currently, I have a screwdriver. I'm looking at a nail, and need a hammer though. I guess I'll ask for my hammer to be delivered to me. While I wait, I guess I can use my screwdriver on random stuff until my hammer arrives? HURR SO IMMERSIVE!

Its all part of choices you have to do, what ship you take, how you outfitt it, lots of that get lost when you can just take whatever ship you want out of your magic bag. Choices and having to deal with choices is a good thing in my book.

 

[stephen_usher]

Thanks for looking into this again Sandy,

One question, does it really take 100 minutes to normally cross the bubble? I'd imagine that it's less than half of that in a hauler, more 30-40 minutes, so maybe this should be the target, plus the loading/unloading time. Even hauling to Jaques should be "next-day delivery" at the very most.

It may help if the interface for requesting transfer were done via the contacts menu, having contracting the DHS (Direct Hull Service ) company to courier your ship. The more goods all at once the lower the overall fee. (Fixed administrative charge + cost per item - discount for bulk) This would in itself add colour to the game Universe.

If you could order ships to be moved from storage to an arbitrary destination rather than just the current location that would be even better.

e.g. You see a trading CG starting in another part of the bubble but you're in your Vulture 200 Ly away and your trading T7 is 100Ly in the opposite direction. Call up DHS and contract them to deliver your trading vessel to the CG destination. Meanwhile you fly over to the CG location and hey-presto! your trading vessel is just about to turn up! Cor! (i.e. more game play, time saved and believable... oh and adds planning.)

For those worried about time sinks, remember that once you've placed your order you can continue to play.

OK, I won't say, "Shoulda gone to DDF."

 

[wrathofnaan]

Personally I think we should have both. Why can't you implement a sliding bar where you have instant transfer but for large fee and at the other scale much smaller fee delayed transfer? Toggle the slider till your heart's content to get the sweet spot of time you are prepared to wait vs credits you are willing to spend? Or you implement a similar option to module grades: A,B,C,D,E each gives you time you wait and cost. A class is instant, E class is an hour for example. I think you can keep everyone happy this way. Well. Almost everybody. Another idea would be to hire NPCs to transport or fly your ship to a destination. The larger the fee the quicker and safer the flight etc. I won't be voting as i would like both options. However i will be happy with whatever the outcome of the voting is.

 

[CMDR Redcrest]

If your ship is so cool, and you grinded so much to get it, why would you need to transfer it? You'd already be flying it right?

Not necessarily. I flown T6's/T9's for mining to earn access engineers for example. So I can keep my heavily Engineered ship in the state I spent time crafting it into.
One play session I may want to fly about in my Courier and just mess around flying through canyons or spending time in a res whatever. In another session I might want to be mission running in my Python or bulk trading in my Conda.
If I've been in one ship but want to use the another one that's well away from where I am being able to transfer makes sense. Having and arbitrary wait time is just annoying for no sound game play reason in my view.

 

[jc4hokies]

Scenario 1: An exciting combat zone community goal begins 240 Ly away. I want to participate with my FDL.
Instant Transfer: Fly there in 5 minutes using a travel ship and begin fighting right away.
Delayed Transfer 1: Fly there in 5 minutes using a travel ship, order my FDL, and join the community goal next play session.
Delayed Transfer 2: Fly there in 20 minutes using my FDL and begin fighting right away.


Scenario 2: A player attacks me while trading. I want to retaliate with my FDL.
Instant Transfer: Get in my FDL, and hunt down the other player.
Delayed Transfer: Transfer my FDL, and hope the other player is still around an hour later.


Scenario 3: A mining mission is offering a rare material I need. I want to complete the mission before ending for the day.
Instant Transfer: Take and complete the mission with my dedicated mining ship.
Delayed Transfer 1: Transfer my mining ship, take the mission, and complete it later. Mining missions thankfully have generous timers.
Delayed Transfer 2: Try to outfit my current ship for mining, and complete the mission with a substandard ship.

 

[Paramemetic]

Then fly to your destination in your "Cool Ship" ..

What if I'm in one cool ship, and even at my main station, but I want to fly a different cool ship at my main station. I dock and go to get in my cool ship, but OH NO I left it at another station far away when I bought this cool ship. I really don't want to fly this ship I'm in because I'm in a PVP fit DBS but I really want to be in my hauler fit Cutter, there's a CG I want to participate in, but oh no I left my Cutter at the last CG in Fed space and I'm in Imp Space!

The Russians are hitting the CG hard and mysterious bad people are using Eagles to kill everyone and the CG is going to end in probably 2 hours, I haven't been able to play all week, all I need is one Cutter load of McGuffins and I'll get the reward! Yes!! I go to do a ship transfer . . .

"Your ship is requested, it'll be there in 90 minutes. Have a nice day commando! Consider flying the ship you're in right now instead of the one you want to fly, it's more immersive."

 

[SatansMittens]

This is great they finally listened to the community. Too bad it took a kind of meltdown from the forums to get them to listen. Maybe in the future this community communication will continue, but instead of reactionary they'll be proactive with us.

I for one voted for a delay. Not that I enjoy waiting for things but fsd range and time it takes to get places should matter and not be defeated thru new game mechanics

Would've been nice if this poll had been emailed to every player with an account though.

 

[ROSS-128]

Not necessarily. I flown T6's/T9's for mining to earn access engineers for example. So I can keep my heavily Engineered ship in the state I spent time crafting it into.
One play session I may want to fly about in my Courier and just mess around flying through canyons or spending time in a res whatever. In another session I might want to be mission running in my Python or bulk trading in my Conda.
If I've been in one ship but want to use the another one that's well away from where I am being able to transfer makes sense. Having and arbitrary wait time is just annoying for no sound game play reason in my view.

The wait time isn't arbitrary though. Traveling 500LY takes some time, even with an FSD, and that's just the way it is. That's like saying that your fuel tank is an "arbitrary fuel limit". Fuel has volume and mass, you can only carry so much, and that's just the way it is.

 

[Mephane]

I worry this entire poll is methodologically flawed, as many people have pointed out...

People who want a change are active participants. They're going to work to get the change they want. They're going to be paying attention to things regarding that change. Voter turnout will be very high among that empassioned constituency.

People who don't want a change may not have their voices heard, because they may not be paying attention to the issue. Its already been decided as far as they know, and they may not realize its even up for debate again until the vote is already over. In which case you've solved nothing, you've just switched the positions of both sides, and then the forums will be filled with an empassioned instant-transfer constituency pushing vocally to have the change reverted. At the very least, the vote should have been announced in advance so people could be aware of it and expecting it...

We shouldn't have to actively affirm that we want something left alone. It should be assumed that most people who don't express an opinion are satisfied with the existing status quo. Unless voting is mandatory for everyone, you're going to have a *strong, strong* sampling bias in these results.

edit: ESPECIALLY with the stated benchmark that the "instant" vote has to be an overwhelming majority to cancel the change. That's not fair. It should be the other way around - it should be the "delay" vote that needs a strong majority to demonstrate that a plurality of players want a delay, to compensate for the poll being skewed towards that side. An equivocal result should indicate a conservative outcome, ie keep it the way its been planned thus far.

There is one significant flaw in your argument:

The status quo is that there is no transfer at all.

Also, it is clear now that FD's internal stance is in favour of a delay, hence the poll as it is. I can empathize with anyone who has been looking forward to instant transfer, but I am of the firm opinion the negatives far outweight the positives.

 

[Pablo-Diablo]

What is the point of having it if it is going to take 100 mins to cross the bubble and cost money as well? I can cross the bubble much faster than that even in a ship with the worst jump range...
To all you instant haters out there think of it like you ordered your ship to be delivered before you came to your destination to keep your precious immersion levels up.

Or I have a better idea. What if you could only transfer your ship while being at the same station where that ship is docked? I.e. you cannot summon the ship to where you are. You'd have to go to where your ship is and order ship transfer from there to any station you want.

 

[veryinky]

WE WANT THE SHIP WE'RE TRANSFERRING, NOT THE SHIP WE'RE IN.

Suppose the poll was asking if we wanted to wait 5-100 minutes to refuel our ship. Using the "reward players who plan ahead" counter argument to timesinks would be that players should own multiple ships at every station and keep them fueled so they can keep "playing the game" while they wait.

So obviously, as far as people who want more timesink in the game are concerned if you want the ship you were transfering you should have already bought multiple copies of that ship (and any other ship you might want to fly) and put them in every station you possibly could ever want to visit. See? Plan ahead. That way if Fdev decides that repairing a ship's hull takes a day per % or loading cargo requires you to watch Fed robot or Imp slave ground crews physically haul canisters into your ship's cargo bay, you'll always have an other ship ready to do something else while you wait. Not the thing you want to do right now but something else that you didn't quite think was worth your time when you decided you needed to move a ship.

That or you'll just alt-tab or quit the game and play something else for the day.