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

[Topinambour]

Adding a transfer time would only add one single thing: tedium. I don't see why any designer with half a brain would voluntarily want to add a form of tedium that brings litterally nothing to the gameplay, and very little to the realism (I mean, refueling is instant, buying cargo and outfitting too, so, what? Should I wait 48 hours when I buy 400 tons of cargo, so it's "realistically" delivered through the station and placed in my cargo racks? Hell no).

 

[Paineframe]

I'm really torn on this one!

For those still yet to vote, keep in mind that this will likely be a pivotal moment in the type of game Elite turns out to be in the future. Instant transfer could have a lot of potential impact upon current gameplay, both intended and unintended. Once that setup is in place, all future changes in the game after that point will likely rely on the instant transfer of ships. And once we have that feature, what's to stop other features being made more convenient?

On the other hand, I have never liked time-sinks of any type...Elite already has far too many of them. How much does time-delayed transfers help with those time-sinks? It makes them "easier" because it is automated, but they are still there. However, what makes Elite special for many people is it's simulated galaxy. A time-delay gives convenience whilst maintaining much of the current design philosophy of the game.

So - just for a moment, consider this poll as something larger than whether or not you want instant-ship transfers or not, because the result in either event could quite possibly have a heavy influence upon the future development decisions of this game.

The simulated galaxy is already, to put it simply, a big fake. There's no such thing, and there never really was. Whether it's the BGS, Powerplay, trade, instant repair/reload, station outfitting choices...anything we try to dig into ends up being so obviously gamey and artificial. There's no simulation here, just a stripped-down MMO with just enough appearance of substance to placate people more interested in playing Planetarium Simulator than making their mark on the galaxy.

 

[Lorddenny]

I voted for opt 2

BUT

I WOULD RATHER HAVE 1 or 2 mins per jump for added realism ( OPTION 3 ? )

 

[YinYin]

Most of all I want to see the final results on this (participation numbers and split).

 

[AstroCreep]

#VoteDelay

 

[Kimosabe_X]

I voted for having a (reasonable) delay in transfer, instant transfer had and still has some kind of bad taste to me, can't describe it better...

So thanks for taking the time and starting this poll

o7

 

[TomR]

Adding a transfer time would only add one single thing: tedium. I don't see why any designer with half a brain would voluntarily want to add a form of tedium that brings litterally nothing to the gameplay, and very little to the realism (I mean, refueling is instant, buying cargo and outfitting too, so, what? Should I wait 48 hours when I buy 400 tons of cargo, so it's "realistically" delivered through the station and placed in my cargo racks? Hell no).

I agree.

 

[Kyokushin]

I have one ask more to FD and Sandro.

Please make a poll about add a delay to switch a game mode from Open to Group/Solo, or a poll about 'should modes be splitted', or 'should be there other cmdr slot'

and then we will be at home.

 

[veryinky]

Don't give them any (bad) ideas.

Star Citizen was originally going to have cargo loaded by NPCs who'd manually put the crates and shipping containers into the ship while the player could watch. Then someone realized that while very immersive, this was also very boring after the 2nd or 3rd time. Now it's going to be instant.

I also would like to point out X Rebirth, which included walking in stations for immersion. And it is very immersive for the first time to get up from the cockpit seat, walk to the cargo bay out of the airlock, walk down the pad, go through a bunch of corridors to talk to a bunch of people to find someone who wants to trade or fix my ship or refuel it. Maximum immersion. Unfortunately for X Rebirth, maximum immersion gets very annoying after a while because you end up doing the same timesinks over and over while wanting to go do the thing you bought the game for in the first place. Fly a spaceship. The game recently got a patch that allowed trading/repairing/refueling from the ship's cockpit, instantly, less immersive but gets the player back to the fun part quickly.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Is there a way to read up on how it's planned to implement these transfers? Are there daily limits? What happens with cargo? Cooldown periods in between? I'd like to know that before I can tell anything how I feel about it.

 

[Heshinsi]

I am really glad FD decided to make this official poll and i have a hope a common sense will win, and there will be a DELAY.

Why stop at that. When your ship blows up, there should be a delay for rescue teams to find your lifepod, and then haul your     to your last station. But wait we're not done. There should also be a delay as you wait for your insurance to clear (all that paper work and assessment, it takes time I know right?), and then a further delay as you wait for your new ship to be inspected and released to you. I mean you guys want realism right?

 

[Caiburn]

Voted instant. It perfectly matches my playstyle (Ooo sweet canyons! If only my iEagle was here...) and my time constraints (family father with job).

 

[Ceeege]

I would highly like to see an option 3, that has the following formula inside:

Distance from origin in ly / jump range of designated ship in LY = Number of jumps * 1 minute

Since this is not here -> Option 2 for me.

Obviously this - and seeing your ships being transported in the Galaxy Map too (but maybe not in 2.2!)

 

[mossfoot]

I'm really torn on this one!

For those still yet to vote, keep in mind that this will likely be a pivotal moment in the type of game Elite turns out to be in the future. Instant transfer could have a lot of potential impact upon current gameplay, both intended and unintended. Once that setup is in place, all future changes in the game after that point will likely rely on the instant transfer of ships. And once we have that feature, what's to stop other features being made more convenient?

On the other hand, I have never liked time-sinks of any type...Elite already has far too many of them. How much does time-delayed transfers help with those time-sinks? It makes them "easier" because it is automated, but they are still there. However, what makes Elite special for many people is it's simulated galaxy. A time-delay gives convenience whilst maintaining much of the current design philosophy of the game.

So - just for a moment, consider this poll as something larger than whether or not you want instant-ship transfers or not, because the result in either event could quite possibly have a heavy influence upon the future development decisions of this game.

Probably the best food for thought yet.

 

[SafteyBot]

Waiting is not fun.
Playing the game is fun.
Ship transfer allows a player to use the ship they want, where they want (which is fun).
The point of ship transfer is to enable fun.
Lack of delay maximizes fun.

The cost factor keeps it from being used all the time.

 

[Deleted member 140600]

I voted for opt 2

BUT

I WOULD RATHER HAVE 1 or 2 mins per jump for added realism ( OPTION 3 ? )

THIS.

I would go for 10 to 30 minutes per jump. Don't make Elite the COD of the space.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

What if there was something like being able to pay an additional fee per jump to have an NPC fly your other ship(s?) and follow you where you go?

This wouldn't need to actually be represented in the gameworld in any way, that's just the lore explanation: They follow you and, upon entering a system, dock at the nearest size-appropriate starport with a shipyard, where you ship is available. If you don't terminate your contract with them, they keep following you (for money). Terminate it, and the ship stays put. Put in a restriction where they can't go more than 4 jumps without hitting a dock (they need breaktime) or they get frustrated and go back to the port-of-origin, which could help limit use for distant destinations.

 

[andrak]

I mean, not really. This is Frontier. It's very easy to get them to make things harder and more tedious than it is to get them to make things easier. For example, when Engineers dropped in Beta we were all stunned at how easy it was to get cool effects on your guns. "This is great!" "Lots of fun, very easy, awesome!" Then some people said "no the chance is too high, it should be more like 50% or 30%." Then we got 6%. They did that while still in Beta.

It took months to address the horrible, horrible grind. When the grind was horribly tedious, they dialed it back a little bit and removed a lot of requirements, but not before they tried to solve the problem by just giving you bigger space pockets (which, by the way, is not very immersive. How am I flying around with 400 Sulphur in my space pocket? [NB: I really like this implementation I am not actually complaining because only an idiot would complain about things that make a game more fun and less tedious]).

So I mean, generally Frontier is really really bad about this kind of thing and likes to leave it in place out of spite. Adding a delay is completely something that can be done later if instant doesn't work, but once a time limit is in and there are lore justifications for it, it will never be able to become instant.

I mean, just realistically speaking, once this is implemented it's likely final, which is why we shouldn't vote for the second worst option.

I feel like this is an American election - the thought of one candidate is unfathomably awful so instead we have to vote for another distasteful, horrible option. My vote about gameplay decision shouldn't be between one of two just terrible options. For many people the instant transfer is unconscionable, so making their alternative punitive to the people who want it to be instant is criminal.

But again, nobody should be surprised because this is classic Frontier. It's a shame, we were all celebrating that Frontier had finally started to prioritize actually having fun with the game with their two good decisions (instant ship transfer, printing fighters), and now they've backed off on one of them.



Anyhow I'm the galaxy where I can pay to have a ship transferred across the galaxy, but I can't pay a member of the pilot's federation to do it, because player to player money transfer is impossible in 3302.

Harder does not equate to more tedious.

 

[Vorxian]

A fairly simple question to answer for me. Logged in and voted.

No matter what kind of arguments are floating around, I just don't have 100 mins to wait in my limited play time.

For me it would be, call ship: log in tomorrow, almost like ordering on amazon and waiting a day to get it. If that's how it's going to be, then I can live with it. But most often, the buzz and desire to do something is impulse. Tomorrow, or 100 minutes later, I seldom are in the same mood, mind frame, or have the desire to do what I was going to. My goalposts move with my mood and how the day went. I might not want my mining ship tomorrow, i might want to shoot something. I might not want to shoot something tomorrow I might want to explore. In my heart of hearts, I play for today, not looking in the crystal ball for what may happen tomorrow.

Right now, I play a bit. Realise I would like my Clipper for some planet exploration (or whatever), and realise it's 400 ly away, i just think sigh, and not motivated to go get it. With FDEVS proposed changes, and instant ship availability the motivation wouldn't diminish for me.

Anyway my 2 cents. What will be will be.

 

[Mephane]

A delay is fine, as long as the delay makes sense -- 100 minutes to cross 200 LYs is silly slow. The absolute slowest that a ship capable of doing that run could go, even accounting for non-racing reaction times, is more like 12 LYs per minute. The bubble is about 200 LYs across, which gives:

200 / 12 = ~17 minutes​

With 5 minutes of overhead, that's 23 minutes to cross the bubble. And "realistically" it should be somewhat faster, more like 20 LYs per minute with +5 in overhead, which gives 15 minutes to cross the bubble.

And delivery by bulk transport should only be required if the ship in question can't go as fast. If the ship *can* go faster than the transport, then we should be talking about hiring 2 pilots and their Adder. 1 pilot flies your ship, and the other shuttles him home.

I guess the numbers will also be subject to balancing in the beta then. The important thing right now is that delay is on the table as an option. I am personally also not too picky on the exact numbers so long as they properly mitigate any "taxi all the things" meta.