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

[Antares666]

Oh can you imagine the rage if FD just came out and said that after careful consideration, things will remain exactly as they are, no transfers...instant, delayed, or otherwise.

Thats exactly what FD should do really. This is not what FD should be focusing on right now anyway... plenty of other much more important and gameplay breaking issues that needs fixing...

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I would really, really like to celebrate April Fool's Day by having the whole server switch to 1.0 balance. I remember just having ground up enough money for a Viper, and me and a friend annoyed a guy in a Python enough to shoot at us - only he hit the station instead, and came back in a Sidewinder. Never seen someone so mad.

I loved 1.0 balance (just not the ai). Over 25 hrs in a sidewinder slowly upgrading it fully. Nowadays who would dream of that? I know there is no going back but that was some of the best time in the game for me

 

[CMDR Robyn Highart]

It's better than nothing. However it's incredibly lazy to simply make up an imaginary time, for the convenience of the devs and the "satisfaction" of the immersion masochists.

Just check if:
1. The ship can get there.
2. How many jumps it needs (ignore fueling as that's OTT)
3. Set an average time for each jump, probably ~20-30 seconds.

All the game has to do is plot a course with that ship, then multiply the jumps by the time. I cannot see why this is so         difficult to implement. This cuts the time of transfer by at least half, since you're not making two trips. In fact you're not making any trips, you're carrying on with playing the game, and your ship will arrive when it arrives. In conclusion, if it IS that difficult and you can't be bothered to do it properly, then don't do it!

 

[Barking_Mad]

As originally suggested elsewhere and modified a bit by me....

No need to break lore, no need to not have an instant ship, transport costs equalled by extra hiring price/damage/loss.

1) Write into lore a ship hiring company.

2) On the usual interface where you can see your stored ships, give a GUI option to 'Hire Equivalent ship'

3) On clicking 'Hire Ship' a ship is loaned to you at the station with a re-buy cost which is greater than your current re-buy cost.

4) When you have finished with the ship, return it to the station and give it back via the same UI as you took it from.

Bonus Ideas (more complicated and time consuming)

5) RNG in the modules so you don't get an exact copy of your own ship. Some may be better than your current ship, some not as good, perhaps based on station you are requesting hired ship from. Hiring the ship may cost more or less than your current ship.

6) Introduce a loan period by which the ship has to be returned. Failure to do so results in a bounty being put on your head.

 

[Mengy]

That's exactly the problem! But I'm sure FDev is painfully aware of how badly their game is doing. How badly their numbers have fallen. And I'm sticking to my guns: if this goes live and it isn't instant, I will never, ever ever again buy anything from Frontier. Period. I'll play Elite until I get sick of it, using up resources, but I will never contribute another dime to their coffers.

Uh, dude, FDev is actually doing very well lately? Elite's sales have spiked and so have number of players per day, I don't think you know what you are talking about? Elite is healthier than ever lately... :S


I voted for instant. Part of me thinks there should be a delay, but from a development and player satisfaction point of view the delay honestly doesn't serve much of a purpose that an instant credit penalty wouldn't serve just as well. Sometimes I feel that fun should trump realism in games, and this is one of those times.

 

[Kurr]

Well, if you will quit, I'm pretty sure the devs are working overtime right now to make the feature exactly as you wish.

Call off the poll, else Kurr will quit!

I distinctly said I wouldn't quit. I will continue to play and use up their resources. But I won't be buying anything else. Since I don't pay a subscription fee, I'm just dead weight at that point.

 

[CMDR Zhon Daeli]

Sensible balancing will be needed, of course. I think they were just spitballing some numbers to get the poll going.

Not the best approach because it can impact a person's decisions.

eg:
Option 1: Instant
Option 2: Delayed but it takes a month and a half.

vs

Option 1: Instant
Option 2: Delayed but it takes half the amount of time if you doing it manually.

 

[Monk]

I distinctly said I wouldn't quit. I will continue to play and use up their resources. But I won't be buying anything else. Since I don't pay a subscription fee, I'm just dead weight at that point.

Don't forget to have fun though. I mean, you don't have to play if you don't want to

 

[Mack]

Why is there an option 2 ???
IDK

 

[Monk]

Not the best approach because it can impact a person's decisions.

eg:
Option 1: Instant
Option 2: Delayed but it takes a month and a half.

vs

Option 1: Instant
Option 2: Delayed but it takes half the amount of time if you doing it manually.

Yeah, that's true. I was surprised to see a time put into the poll...but it seemed to me they hadn't settled exactly on how to time it and thus provided a ball park.

May have been better without it but then people would have been left to a much wider set of variables.

 

[askavir]

I distinctly said I wouldn't quit. I will continue to play and use up their resources. But I won't be buying anything else. Since I don't pay a subscription fee, I'm just dead weight at that point.

Well that is surely new, a player annoyed by the game, playing the game out of spite.

 

[Sysmon]

Pro instant ship transfer: Convenience.
Con instant ship transfer: Gamey.

Pro timed ship transfer: Adds a realistic mechanic to a service that makes sense: Someone else will drive your ship to the destination, but it takes time you can use doing something else while it happens = multitasking!

Con timed ship transfer: Inconvenient.

At the moment I'm out at Jacques after a 5-months or so exploration trip, coming there by traversing the Long Bar from the far end. After bumbling about in the neighbourhood for a bit, I parked my Asp "Betsy" and built a T-6 miner "Bumblebee" that I now put about it in.

There is a lonely feeling out there, even if I see other CMDRs once in a while, due to the 22 kly distance to the main bubble of humanity. I sometimes long to go back there, since my Python is parked somewhere in the bubble, since I've essentially missed all of the Engineers except for the beta testing. We do have the spiffy new mission boards and such at Jacques, but alas no missions. And the shipyard and outfitting opportunities are somewhat sparse on options.

However, I would never replace that feeling of isolation with a convenient instant mechanic. Because, then the feeling would be gone. There would be nowhere with a frontier feeling. Jacques is an extreme example, but the same can be said within the bubble: If one wants to work on the outskirts of it, there should be a bit of a frontier feeling. Having to wait a little for another ship to arrive will require a minimum of planning. Which I'm willing to do despite being one if those so-called "low on time" players that only have 2-5 hours a week to play in, if that. Elite Dangerous is just not the kind of game that should be trying to cater with instant gratification mechanics.

S

 

[Kurr]

Well that is surely new, a player annoyed by the game, playing the game out of spite.

Spite is a powerful force. And as long as I can still play traffic bollard and blow up people's super expensive ships, I'll be happy.

 

[CMDR Zhon Daeli]

Why is there an option 2 ???
IDK

Everyone paid the same for the game.. so equal voting rights? I dunno.. something like that.

 

[Javert]

Yeah, that's true. I was surprised to see a time put into the poll...but it seemed to me they hadn't settled exactly on how to time it and thus provided a ball park.

May have been better without it but then people would have been left to a much wider set of variables.

I think they are trying to give the idea that the time taken will be something close to what it would take to fly manually (or possibly even more) rather than a very short token delay.

 

[CMDR M. Lehman]

I have no strong feelings either way on this matter, but anything to avoid that "Well, your ship isn't actually transferred but 3-D printed at the destination station" nonsense. Such​ a can of worms that explanation is!

 

[Monk]

Spite is a powerful force. And as long as I can still play traffic bollard and blow up people's super expensive ships, I'll be happy.

That's the spirit! Adding spice to the life of Open. As long as you're happy and having fun, I think the game is a success.

 

[Zesty Crab Legs]

Well that is surely new, a player annoyed by the game, playing the game out of spite.

It sounds to me like he enjoys the game to an extent but not enough to pay for extras based on design decisions.

 

[CMDR Robyn Highart]

It's not inconvenient at all when compared to what we have. Seriously, I am certain that there would be like 3-5 people complaining on some dusty thread if they never said "instantaneous".

 

[kofeyh]

Sensible balancing will be needed, of course. I think they were just spitballing some numbers to get the poll going.

Sensible balancing would be nice. I am afraid I don't share your confidence that frontier are looking at a delay that is shorter than actually driving. Time will tell.