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

[CommanderTickles]

It has to take a reasonable time to transfer ships,otherwize you could take a fast taxi asp somewhere quick and then have your battleship dreadnought instantly available when you get there, time to move ship should be proportionate to that ships actual jump capacity.

 

[CMDR Zhon Daeli]

I still think it should be by ship mass * distance = time delay.

So like .. Corvette at 2149.6t (laden) * 65,000 ly = 139,724,000 .. seconds? Dunno how I feel about waiting for a Corv to take 4,43 years to get to me. :>

 

[Barking_Mad]

That's an option too. I'm interested to know if Frontier have considered this kind of approach.

Sandro said this had come up, would be possible but no eta / guarantee etc.

 

[Tsao Nima]

Or a fuel scoop.

Someone hasn't gone big game hunting with their 'vette, I see!

 

[Canthor]

What about the players that don't use the forums? They do exist and without having any stats on hand I would hazard to guess they are actually the crushing majority. How can a voluntary poll coming from the forums really reflect what players want?

Ah. Now we talk. Why not adding a feature INSIDE the game to make polls, wrapped in LORE stuff, to conclude a resolution? Example for this poll: New inventions made, two results, one is costly and instant, the other less costly but useful - have comdrs in game vote for it. Could be used for any other poll in the future as well ;-)

 

[veryinky]

I still think it should be by ship mass * distance = time delay.

I disagree. The limiting factor is the bulk freighter that presumably carries it. Which means hangar bays and it's destination, small/medium/large landing pad and how popular the destination is. Sothis and Jaques are two of the most popular locations in the galaxy right now, these places would logically receive the most bulk ship transferring freighter ship. On the other hand, asking for a ship to be transferred to B Arlai JH-9 which only had 2 ships pass through it today would be a lot more expensive since it'd be the equivalent to a chartered flight.

In short, it should be cheap and fast to travel to the popular hotspots in the game, like CGs or well known systems where bulk freighters would be most seen in the first place.

 

[Monk]

Wow, I'm awful late to this party...but *thank* you for taking the time to reconsider transfers being instant! Whatever the outcome is, the fact you went and made an official thread and official poll and are reaching out to players to get as clear a picture as possible of what we would like, means a lot!

(As to the rest of the thread's members...well, there's at least 1300 posts I haven't read so I hope I'll be forgiven for not going back and reading through it [blah])

That's okay, the same arguments are bound to circle around, again, and again.

 

[Tsao Nima]

Ah. Now we talk. Why not adding a feature INSIDE the game to make polls, wrapped in LORE stuff, to conclude a resolution? Example for this poll: New inventions made, two results, one is costly and instant, the other less costly but useful - have comdrs in game vote for it. Could be used for any other poll in the future as well ;-)

Yes! Yes! Do this! It'd be rad!

 

[kofeyh]

IMHO this make sense. I always thought that ship transfer, when it will be implemented, will be something what will be used rarely, maybe twice or four times per year, when player will need to move his/her fleet to some new home.
I never thought that ship transfer should be some tool for shuffling ship positions three times per day or every evening.

The example given during the livestream now seems more laughable than it was. No-one is going to call another ship to respond to some immediate change. Not when it might be 1-3 hours.

Ships will move when people aren't playing. Which ironically makes the concept of delay, seem a bit redundant. Anyway. Any real delay means timeshifting use outside of actual play.

 

[CMDR GTR2014]

I voted! Thanks for putting this up. I'll put my reasons!

I voted for the delay.

The reason is that because Elite is not inherently a competitive game, it's not a twitch game. It's a game about immersion, #1. Much of this immersion is designed around the idea that this is a dangerous, unregulated universe. As a pilot, we have these huge expensive ships, and we stand apart from the vast majority of the population of the universe. We have a lot of freedom, but a lot of risk. Our lives are dangerous.

It's about choice, and the weight that each choice carries.

It's about the choice of what ship you choose to take, what tool you bring with you to the job.

Ship transfer on its own mostly just means that your choices carry less weight in many situations. With transfers being instantaneous, the choice of ship no longer carries any weight, aside from cost.

Cost is definitely relevant, as weight to be placed on a choice, but it's a bit of a trap. It means that you always have the option of just "waving away" the risk at any point with cash. This does not add to the game. Commanders with loads of cash already have this option largely available. They can just buy more ships.

I'm starting to tangent a little bit, but I'll just wrap up with this. money as an end-all-be-all weighting for the cost of a decision does not add appreciable tension to the immersion of the game experience. It only amplifies the feeling of 'grind'. It doesn't add "character," and every feeling should add character.

I like to reference a statement put forth by Valve back in the earlier days of TF2 when they were doing balancing of the characters and adding new items. Whenever they'd add a new item, like the flare gun for pyro, for instance, they would make sure that they weren't just giving the character a new ability JUST to make them more powerful. The idea was always to add choice to the player, but not necessarily make them more powerful. Furthermore, the choice offered to the player should always be in-line with the character's existing style. They could have given the pyro a regular gun as an option, and just tuned it so it was balanced... but this would be against the essence of his character.

I feel the same way about Elite. Having instantaneous ship transfer WOULD make things easier to the player, but they do NOT fit with the "essence" of the game. They weaken the feeling of the game in general. Yes, you can explain it away with pseudoscience technobabble how you want, but from a gameplay sense, it is anti-elite. It reduces the weight of choice and the feeling that it's just "you and your ship" and the consequences that come with the choices you make.

Adding the time delay means that even the players that have more than enough money are still playing the same game as everyone else, and the players with less money who are making smaller shipping transactions are still playing the same game they were beforehand. It adds convenience, in that you don't have to make the whole jump yourself, you can take a break from the game and come back and your ship is there. It also adds immersion, because you get a feeling that there are things happening even when you're not at the pilots seat. Having the delay ADDS to the feel and immersion to the game, rather than reducing from it.

Claps! Perfect text... this is just perfect!

 

[Angrymog]

(Potential) Delay voters, what would you think about having to wait an hour or two for your cargo to load or for your escape pod to be ferried to your respawn point? How about having to manually put in your insurance claim?

 

[Tsao Nima]

...Uh is someone deleting posts? I'm trying to look at sources for quotes and they're not in the thread anymore.

 

[Barking_Mad]

I voted! Thanks for putting this up. I'll put my reasons!

I voted for the delay.

The reason is that because Elite is not inherently a competitive game, it's not a twitch game. It's a game about immersion, #1. Much of this immersion is designed around the idea that this is a dangerous, unregulated universe. As a pilot, we have these huge expensive ships, and we stand apart from the vast majority of the population of the universe. We have a lot of freedom, but a lot of risk. Our lives are dangerous.

It's about choice, and the weight that each choice carries.

It's about the choice of what ship you choose to take, what tool you bring with you to the job.

Ship transfer on its own mostly just means that your choices carry less weight in many situations. With transfers being instantaneous, the choice of ship no longer carries any weight, aside from cost.

Cost is definitely relevant, as weight to be placed on a choice, but it's a bit of a trap. It means that you always have the option of just "waving away" the risk at any point with cash. This does not add to the game. Commanders with loads of cash already have this option largely available. They can just buy more ships.

I'm starting to tangent a little bit, but I'll just wrap up with this. money as an end-all-be-all weighting for the cost of a decision does not add appreciable tension to the immersion of the game experience. It only amplifies the feeling of 'grind'. It doesn't add "character," and every feeling should add character.

I like to reference a statement put forth by Valve back in the earlier days of TF2 when they were doing balancing of the characters and adding new items. Whenever they'd add a new item, like the flare gun for pyro, for instance, they would make sure that they weren't just giving the character a new ability JUST to make them more powerful. The idea was always to add choice to the player, but not necessarily make them more powerful. Furthermore, the choice offered to the player should always be in-line with the character's existing style. They could have given the pyro a regular gun as an option, and just tuned it so it was balanced... but this would be against the essence of his character.

I feel the same way about Elite. Having instantaneous ship transfer WOULD make things easier to the player, but they do NOT fit with the "essence" of the game. They weaken the feeling of the game in general. Yes, you can explain it away with pseudoscience technobabble how you want, but from a gameplay sense, it is anti-elite. It reduces the weight of choice and the feeling that it's just "you and your ship" and the consequences that come with the choices you make.

Adding the time delay means that even the players that have more than enough money are still playing the same game as everyone else, and the players with less money who are making smaller shipping transactions are still playing the same game they were beforehand. It adds convenience, in that you don't have to make the whole jump yourself, you can take a break from the game and come back and your ship is there. It also adds immersion, because you get a feeling that there are things happening even when you're not at the pilots seat. Having the delay ADDS to the feel and immersion to the game, rather than reducing from it.

+1

as I'm on mobile.

 

[Monk]

(Potential) Delay voters, what would you think about having to wait an hour or two for your cargo to load or for your escape pod to be ferried to your respawn point? How about having to manually put in your insurance claim?

But this is about ship transfers.

 

[Antares666]

To begin with I was really anti-instant ship transfer and said as much on these forums. However after listening to Sandro on Lave Radio I changed my mind and now support instant transfer. I do not believe it will be game breaking at all and will allow more time to actually play the game and enjoy it. It will allow many players, who don't often have lots of time, to experience more that the game has to offer.
Any delay to ship transfers will end up just being annoying as it will be an arbitrary delay that prevents you from enjoying the game how you want to play it. If it is a delay of minutes it will just be frustrating and if it is a delay of hours then it will still prevent people from enjoying some of the richness of the game if they only have short periods of time when they can play.

This should not be an issue in the first place...Is ship transfer THAT essential that people cant play the game without it?

If their current concern is to make the game enjoyable for people with less available time to play, fine, its their choice. HOWEVER, if that is the case, travel time is actually one of the LEAST time consuming tedious tasks in Elite. If that's their objective then they need to scrap the engineers entirely, get rid of material farming and make everything buyable somewhere, ditch mining, increase mission payouts A LOT and reduce equipment price significantly... If thats what they're aiming for just be honest about it, pick a crowd and do what pleases that crowd the most. Hell, if the crowd FD wants to please doesnt like to "spend time flying" just drop the "ship transfer" mask entirely and add actual Fast Travel.

Done, now here's a game where you can do a whole bunch of stuff in a 1hour session... The question is, is that really the game YOU WANT IT TO BE?

Now I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with FD trying to get to a more casual audience (which is obviously larger in numbers and in the end its all about the $). I'm cool with that, just dont disguise it as anything else and do it already... FD cant please both crowds, so they either please the casual player and lose the rest (which were the ones that got Elite to where it is in the first place) or stick to the more faithfull and dedicated players with more time to spend on it (albeit in lesser numbers) and lose the casual player. Trying to please everyone will only result in not pleasing anyone...

Blizzard made this choice with WoW without camouflage. They made traveling to dungeons and raids irrelevant, they made it cross server, along with a series of other tweaks directed at the more casual player. And it worked out fine for them. Obviously most of the vanilla players left, but a choice always has consequences. And FD needs to make theirs...

FD, make your choice and go with it. In the end its up to Us the players to decide if we want to keep playing it or not.

 

[Dracco]

Personally I like the idea of being able to hire a bot or even a real person to fly my ship to me in real time, for a price. This eliminates a lot of the current arguments about this topic, and even possibly allows for a new job to open up for commanders who want to earn money this way. Sure, its going to require a lot of coding, testing and bug fixes. But in the end you have an awesome feature of the game that I believe everyone will benefit from.

 

[Osbo89]

I've been playing this game since beta and as far back as I remember we've been asking for ship transfer and as far as I see it we hoped the ED would put it in the game at some point but never thought about "instant ship transfer" I expected a delayed transfer system of sorts so to hear they were going to put in instant transfer of ships and module's I was not happy with it so with this poll of course I've voted for delayed time but which ever way it goes I will still play the game.

 

[TyXo]

That would be logical and require one millipea of effort. Something Frontier is dropping from the agenda.

Are you sure ? I don't know about how the game code is structured. But, you already have the values in game, you have the ship mass, and you have how many light years away from a position you are. All you gotta do is to multiply the ship mass by the distance on delivered throught the route planner algorithm (which already gives you the correct distance from point A to B) and it gives you the time delay in seconds

timeDelay = playerShipMass * distance;

simple math and it isn't hard to implement once you already have both values (I've done something like that in one of my games )

 

[Ian Phillips]

...Uh is someone deleting posts? I'm trying to look at sources for quotes and they're not in the thread anymore.

Off Topic posts are being removed.

 

[Moonax IRL]

(Potential) Delay voters, what would you think about having to wait an hour or two for your cargo to load or for your escape pod to be ferried to your respawn point? How about having to manually put in your insurance claim?

Change the record and think of something original, such things are placeholders.