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

[spatula]

I voted- and think it's really cool this was brought to a vote!
But I think there should be a middle ground and this wasn't an option - where's my third party candidate!

Maybe it could be handled this way:

"Instant" - Very Expensive - Ship arrives in 5 mins or less anywhere via Experimental FTL
- A group of Ex-Sirius Corp Engineers run this underground service using experimental FTL Drones and can deploy them quickly to any station and attach to a ship, but charge an arm and a leg because it's illegal tech and slightly damages space itself, but NBD.
- Maybe only certain stations can have these contacts and are scattered about, like engineers, maybe slightly more common. This would create jump-hubs which could be hotspots for player activity.
- Ship will arrive fast, but a chance of hull damage, adding to cost, as well as a chance of the ship/component acquiring a negative perk that you would need to visit an engineer/materials to remove. (debuff)
- Maybe you can purchase additional insurance to make it more expensive and reduce damage costs or time with a veeeery expensive option for "instantaneous".
- Chance to be hunted by NPCs tracking the trail of your experimental warp signature to fine you (this would be so coooool, how about a component for "fake wake" that could throw off pursuers?)

"Shipping" - Regular Pricing for Small Ships / More Expensive for Big ones - Ship arrives in 5-100 mins depending on distance via Barge/Carrier
- A mercantile company specializing in barge-style transfers which uses shipping lanes and carrier jump mechanics and is legal to use
- Would be cool to see unknown signals added with giant ship-carriers modelled out and jumping into systems like giant industrial space whales
- Minor chance of some hull damage from the jostling and small chance of getting a negative component perk you need to see an engineer about

and maybe also down the line you could have a third option:

"Pilot" - Cheap/Variable - Hire an NPC pilot to bring your ship to you - 5-100 mins depending on distance/hired NPC rank
- Only have to pay fuel/pilot.. but, a chance that a pilot might steal your ship! The cheaper the pilot, the more the odds, based on your ship value or faction rank/standing.
- Purchase insurance at a premium to lower the odds, or have some character/faction mechanics to lower/raise the chances.
- After a few hours, you get a message saying your ship turned up at X station and there's an impounding fee and SOMEONE has to settle it (ie. you)
- Or maybe there's a very small chance the NPC keeps the ship for themselves for a longer period of days before selling, but doesn't know about the tracker you installed... and you now have to hunt down and disable your ship to get it back... but if you blow your ship up, gotta pay the insurance...

Anyway, that might be cool, to have some options and then possible perks/debuffs as a result.

Also, let's see some Pirate/Casino stations happening frontier. I want to be able to space gamble in a pirate casino pls.

 

[CMDR Robyn Highart]

Everything you mentioned is actually in instant's favor. Logic/internal consistency with other game mechanics (outfitting, repair, refueling), lore: hyperspace drives and bulk freighters, gameplay: literally the core instant argument, BGS has been proven to be mostly static, CGs is an other reason for instant so no idea why you listed it beyond hiding it in the middle of your list for padding, player group/player interactions: not possible while waiting unless you're referring to chatting in [local] while docked.

Or maybe you were being sarcastic in your sarcasm? A trojan horse argument? I say this considering you were pointing out all the things wrong with the delay timesinker arguments in one list. There's no other logical reason why you'd put CGs and gameplay in your list.

Outfitting/repair/refueling. As to that, well there is nothing there. But there may be in the future. In this case you would be sitting and looking at a loading circle. There are no animations or space legs.

Bulk frieghters: Is that so? Do such advanced drives exist? Show me the source please. Otherwise explain why on earth all these huge projects that Humanity is carrying out require pip-squeak ships to help.

Instant crowd's Gameplay: INSTANT INSTANT FUN FUN FUN, ONLY HAVE 10 SECONDS EVERY SUNDAY TO PLAY, INSTANT, CHEAT=FUN, EFFORT=/=REWARD

My Gameplay: People still need to do outfit ships to travel. If they want to move their ships, it's for relocation, not having any ship they want regardless of loadout teleported to them at their whims.

CGs BGs and player groups: Can you read the megathread pls. Too late at night. to write essay.

 

[Kestril]

I can't help but think "why not both?"

An "express" option that loads your ship into a jumpdrive-freighter to deliver instantly (or in a trivial amount of time, say less than 5 min) at a premium credits cost.

And a budget FSD-freighter option that scales time with distance.

This still allows Commanders to plan and manage their fleet to some extent, but doesn't totally lock-out the commander than needs the ship now. Perhaps limit the instant boat to mapped starlanes (after all, jump-drive equipped Jacques DID get lost out in the black). That'd give explorers some new routes to chart. Literally the best of both worlds.

If it's "one-or-the-other" I'd pick instant, hands-down for reasons discussed to death in the threadnought. But, as I'm thinking on it, I'm puzzling as to how it's become so divisive.

Pictured: Sandro and David discussing ship transfer mechanics.

 

[Tsao Nima]

Lol! You will claim voter fraud? The game you describe above is not one I would like to play and thankfully does not accurately reflect elite dangerous as perceived by many of us who enjoy it. If that's how grindy, frozen and boring you think it is, the. Instant transfers won't fix that. Why are you even here?

Because he bought a game and cares enough about it to play it. Maybe you don't agree with him but that doesn't make him a bad person any more than me disagreeing with you makes you a bad person.

Seriously. There's barely any space games as it is and you tell people that are dropping at least 60 bucks to get out, we don't want you here. Real growth strategy there.

 

[Sphinx2k]

For that price it sure as hell better be instant!

Spoiler

http://i.imgur.com/XTgE6ch.png

See Sandro's original post, costs will be reduced if time is involved.

 

[MrFailfactory]

Personally, in addition to the real-time transfer, I think it should cost somewhere in the neighborhood of what the insurance on the ship in question is at the time the request is made.

It's really unfortunate that there really is no way to provide a player contracted service with this, but there are way too many issues to handle to make that worth it.

Riôt

 

[CMDR Robyn Highart]

I can't help but think "why not both?"

An "express" option that loads your ship into a jumpdrive-freighter to deliver instantly (or in a trivial amount of time, say less than 5 min) at a premium credits cost.

And a budget FSD-freighter option that scales time with distance.

This still allows Commanders to plan and manage their fleet to some extent, but doesn't totally lock-out the commander than needs the ship now. Perhaps limit the instant boat to mapped starlanes (after all, jump-drive equipped Jacques DID get lost out in the black). That'd give explorers some new routes to chart. Literally the best of both worlds.

If it's "one-or-the-other" I'd pick instant, hands-down for reasons discussed to death in the threadnought. But, as I'm thinking on it, I'm puzzling as to how it's become so divisive.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/c4b8f12016e305d4b6d36ae8d7c5d3af/tumblr_mkws36UgVu1ry10fwo1_400.gif

Pictured: Sandro and David discussing ship transfer mechanics.

Great idea. Rich get to cheat.

 

[Kestril]

Great idea. Rich get to cheat.

did u not read about mapped starlanes?

You played yourself.

 

[Tsao Nima]

Great idea. Rich get to cheat.

That's exactly how real life works though!

 

[jasonbarron]

Great idea. Rich get to cheat.

No no, that's what you little paupers always fail to grasp...it isn't cheating if you're rich

 

[relayer]

The QoL improvement is to reduce the delays associated with manually having to fly to another station to get your ship. Even with a delay, it's a massive QoL improvement. It's not a 100% time reduction, but it's sizeable.

+rep 8 chars

 

[Maruun]

Hey there Sandro,

Vote placed.

I think it would be really good to have these sort of official polls on a regular basis, even weekly via the newsletter. I am sure there are a lot of the community who would like to engage on such things. There are often hot topics on the forums that may benefit from a structured poll and I would expect there are a lot of things the dev team would like to ask the community, whether that be for an upcoming patch or just spit balling ideas that are floating around the office. Earlier gauging of community opinion may help ensure better experiences at patch/fix/update times.

I bring this up as I have seen times in the past where earlier community engagement may have resulted in less negativity or confusion when an update arrives... and this (already looking ahead) is one good example of it!

It is great to see you and the team looking into these concerns, but hope it becomes a more regular thing.

Cheers.
AD

Absolutly not, its fine for controverse stuff like this one. But please not on a regular basis it grinds everything down to a snail pace. People think they want something until they dont want it when they have it.

Again Important they will not consider this vote if its not overwhelming. Meaning they will not bend their plans for a vocal minority so the more people vote the more likely they will consider it

 

[spatula]

Great idea. Rich get to cheat.

Isn't that realism?

 

[GG7]

I hope they take into account that if the time delay folks end up with instant, they'll live with it. If the instant folks end up with time delays, some of them will stop playing entirely.

Seriously? This feature has not existed in the game to date. Why would anyone stop playing because a new feature that provides an option no one has ever had before takes some time to complete?

If they stop playing over something that ridiculous, then they are leaving the game for a lot more reasons than that.

 

[Ozram]

Because he bought a game and cares enough about it to play it. Maybe you don't agree with him but that doesn't make him a bad person any more than me disagreeing with you makes you a bad person.

Seriously. There's barely any space games as it is and you tell people that are dropping at least 60 bucks to get out, we don't want you here. Real growth strategy there.

Your arguments are valid and I tend to agree. I'm not asking him to leave though, I'm genuinely confused as to what he likes about the game as what he is complaining about is largely the core of what ED is built around. I also never called him a bad person, nor attacked him in any way at all, just the validity of his argument and it's justifications.

 

[xXR34P3RXx]

Oh look, see we already have the "instant gratification" crowd moaning about the poll being "rigged". Utterly pathetic.

I haven't actually voted yet tbh, nor did i say whether i supported instant or delay, i was merely making an observation.

Sure seemed to trigger you though, so how many accounts did you use to vote?

 

[CMDR Robyn Highart]

That's exactly how real life works though!

I should get more money then, my teleportation kit hasn't arrived yet.

 

[Osmanthus]

Using a delay doesn't reduce tedium, it just changes the cause (unless delay scaling function is badly designed in which case welcome to pain); for example, when you go to the mission board and there's a 10-second delay for it to come up, then another to accept a mission, it feels tedious. The mission board used to take even longer to load and update, but reducing the time it takes doesn't mean you stop thinking "ugh hurry up". In fact making the delays small enough can make the problem worse, since now they're not noticeable except as an annoyance.

How is it not less tedium to have a mild delay with delayed ship transfer than to have a huge delay with manual ship transfer? Remember we're talking about delay relative to the current game state, which has no transfer.

 

[Ozram]

Using a delay doesn't reduce tedium, it just changes the cause (unless delay scaling function is badly designed in which case welcome to pain); for example, when you go to the mission board and there's a 10-second delay for it to come up, then another to accept a mission, it feels tedious. The mission board used to take even longer to load and update, but reducing the time it takes doesn't mean you stop thinking "ugh hurry up". In fact making the delays small enough can make the problem worse, since now they're not noticeable except as an annoyance.

It rewards planning, among other things like removing the need to taxi your ships saving you all that precious time and risk of doing it on your own.

 

[relayer]

Anyways, this poll is essentially for naught because the rabid fanboys are going to use their multiple accounts to rig the voting process for the delay side.

Well, I only have one account, and the "rabid fanboys" seem to be the ones throwing a fit and insinuating an economic blackmail position to get what they want, which would mean the insta-travel magic genie ships.

BTW, I don't find supercruise as a grind because I am flying a spaceship. Perhaps it's not needing all the Engineer lvl5 upgrades immediately, or a trillion credits right now, or why-should-I-have-to-think-about-building-a-ship-where-are-the-cookie-cutter builds?

I didn't buy this game to replay Halo. I bought it because it is Elite.