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

[Weps]

On the issue of time and distance, let me just start by saying that I would be ok with faster transit times as a compromise, if this would appease the "instant" crowd.

But I can't help seeing light-years being thrown around like cheap change. We're talking about light-years here! I've always thought that the size of the bubble was something really cool which FDEV managed to pull off with procedural generation. You have something akin to a city at your disposal, yet you are willing to throw away all that to shrink it to the size of a children's playground because you want to go on the merry-go-round and throw sand from the sandbox in the other kid's eye at the same time.

The size of the galaxy and ensuingly that of the bubble is the one thing which is absolutely unique to Elite. No other game has pulled it off in a meaningful manner. NO OTHER! And you're kicking that around for some cheap thrills?

By all means, feel free to ask for cheap thrills. I am not saying there shouldn't be any.

Ask for a higher density of combat zones and RES.
Ask for better ship availability.
Ask for better Engineers balancing so that you can just buy your ships wherever and play with those without mods.
Ask for CQC to tie in to the main game (that's coming, right?).
Ask for more parallel CGs.

 

[V'larr]

Hi Sandro,

Do we need to be in the destination port to initiate transfer? If we are going down the bulk transport mechanism rather than the assimilated and reprinted route, then is it possible to initiate ship transfer prior to us setting off to our destination ourselves. This way there is a delay if you initiate transfer when you get there but its reduced if your ship is in transport in parallel to your good self.

He already answered it elsewhere (forgive me for not pulling it up); essentially they'd like to, it's just not in the cards as of right now - but it would be something they would put a future ETA on, most likely.

 

[WR3ND]

Hi Sandro,

Do we need to be in the destination port to initiate transfer? If we are going down the bulk transport mechanism rather than the assimilated and reprinted route, then is it possible to initiate ship transfer prior to us setting off to our destination ourselves. This way there is a delay if you initiate transfer when you get there but its reduced if your ship is in transport in parallel to your good self.

For the record I voted delay, I would be against anything excessive but I do feel instant transfer is a leap too far with suspension of disbelief. Its divisive though what ever you do will be wrong, just wanted to say good luck, we're all counting on you.

It's my understanding that you would need to be at the station you want ships and modules transferred to, but Sandro did mention that additional feature options such as this are being considered as well, but would likely come at a later time.

Also, ninja'd... though I think it was mentioned in this thread. Just cycle through the dev posts by clicking on their icon.

 

[SentineI]

FWIW, I vote "instant transport"... with the possibility of FDev adding a delay later, once we see how it effects gameplay (or not). I suspect that the fears are mostly misguided and/or exaggerating the effect on most people, and the only way we'll know for sure is to see how it effects the actual game (i.e. basically being scientific about it).

 

[{SAS}Stalker]

Thanks chaps, I admit to not reading 21 pages.....

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Hi Sandro,

Do we need to be in the destination port to initiate transfer? If we are going down the bulk transport mechanism rather than the assimilated and reprinted route, then is it possible to initiate ship transfer prior to us setting off to our destination ourselves. This way there is a delay if you initiate transfer when you get there but its reduced if your ship is in transport in parallel to your good self.

For the record I voted delay, I would be against anything excessive but I do feel instant transfer is a leap too far with suspension of disbelief. Its divisive though what ever you do will be wrong, just wanted to say good luck, we're all counting on you.

See his answer here https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...RANSFER-POLL?p=4472591&viewfull=1#post4472591

TLDR not in 2.2, but he likes idea.

 

[kofeyh]

a) See post #21 in this thread. 100 minutes for 300 ly including logistics of getting the ship into the bulk freighter and out of it at the destination. In a ship with 20 ly jump range those 300 ly would probably take around 30-40 minutes depending on how far away from the entry point the destination station is (and how fast the CMDR can jump).
Yes, it is (much?) slower than doing the transfer yourself.

Ok, so one hour and forty minutes to traverse 300 LY; 3 LY (average) per jump. For reference, a stock sidewinder is 7.5 LY, so frontier isn't aiming very high.

b) Even if players initiate the ship transfer at the end of a play session it will have an effect on the way the game is played and it would require planing and compromises.

Not really. If I want a ship somewhere tomorrow, I just ship it the night before. And ignore the delay, because I'm not in the game to experience it; I can't imagine ever wanting to trigger a set of ship moves and remove them from play for N duration; because that actually does require planning and does have consequences.

Frankly I will just work around the delay; I suspect many will, because it's much lower friction and conserves the time available for active, engaging activities. To me? Not the end of the world. I don't really care. It's just another obstacle to work around.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

Hi Sandro,

Do we need to be in the destination port to initiate transfer? If we are going down the bulk transport mechanism rather than the assimilated and reprinted route, then is it possible to initiate ship transfer prior to us setting off to our destination ourselves. This way there is a delay if you initiate transfer when you get there but its reduced if your ship is in transport in parallel to your good self.

For the record I voted delay, I would be against anything excessive but I do feel instant transfer is a leap too far with suspension of disbelief. Its divisive though what ever you do will be wrong, just wanted to say good luck, we're all counting on you.

In the currently proposed implementation, yes.


However, please see Sandro's earlier answer to a similar question, below...

Hello Commander Marrs!

Hi Sandro, what are FDev's feelings about sending a ship from your current location to a remote destination, rather than bringing a ship from a remote location to you?

Personally I quite like it, but it's outside of the current remit for 2.2.

*If* we end up with timed deliveries, it sounds like the kind of thing we could consider in the future (no ETA no guarantees! ).

 

[BigFW]

Buy an AspEx, outfit for exploration.
Jump to system.
Magically summon your army of undead zom... I mean, ships.
???
Profit.

At the end of the day whether there is a delay or not you are still summoning your army of ships. There's just a bit more magic involved when its instant

 

[Globusdiablo]

In a game where two of the core components are travel (distance) and time, I really can't see the question...

Go play something else if you don't like it...

Fly safe all

 

[Duedy]

I have the solution and the solution is instant. WHY?

1. allows people to play their way, RL time gaming limitations waiting for a ship to arrive to do your own thing, kills games. Its a pain with the current go fetch on game enjoyment, even to the point I have moved ships and that's all as I had RL work to go to.

2 Easier to code less chance of a bug which ship will go missing or timer getting screwed up and ship sits in limbo at time 00:01.

3. Players wanting a delay can use their tablet/phone timer to add their own immersion. After all Fuel rats have their own awesome site to allow players to call for help, only the fuel transfer limpets are actually ingame mechanics, rest is out of game.

 

[kofeyh]

But I can't help seeing light-years being thrown around like cheap change. We're talking about light-years here!

Before 2.1 and engineers, I'd have agreed. Now? Distance is pretty meaningless when jump ranges are in the high teens, for FDL, Corvette and so on; and they are the worst offenders. When a Python can make 30LY, an Asp 50LY and an Anaconda 65+LY, 300 LY in 100 minutes stands in (very) stark contrast.

The numbers still look bad for even stock ships. Quite a few have responded suggesting the delay is a little on the nose. I get that transport ships aren't going to built by Enzo Ferrari, but still.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

FWIW, I vote "instant transport"... with the possibility of FDev adding a delay later, once we see how it effects gameplay (or not). I suspect that the fears are mostly misguided and/or exaggerating the effect on most people, and the only way we'll know for sure is to see how it effects the actual game (i.e. basically being scientific about it).

FD won't walk back from instant. If it instant, it WILL stay instant.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

thats the reason the poll is tied to your account.
if 85% of players who vote, vote for a delay but the total number of people who vote is only 5% of the total people who have it installed and actively play the game.
then it should be instant (as frontier originally stated it would be)

that's why Sandro said in the OP "As with all polls, it would take a significant majority of a large voting base for us to take the results as anything more than interesting anecdotal evidence"

they are not gonna change it to a delay if only 5 people vote in the poll and they all vote for delay. (how you got that impression in the 1st place I'll never know)

the way I read that is it's gonna require a large number of installed and active user votes for a delay mechanic (not just forum members) to change the descision already announced from GC (instant)

Personally i voted for a delay but if the poll turns out to show that most people want instant transfer (or that not enough people care to even vote and we get instant anyway) then im ok with that.
it won't stop me playing, I just won't use the feature and won't play in open anymore because other people have an advantage in being able to transport their modded little fighters anywhere they like in a second

it effectively shrinks the galaxy and makes a lot more of it accessible by ships that really shouldn't be able to get there.
i prefer my vast galaxy to remain vast.
I could live with it if you could only transport a ship to a place it could get to under its own steam (for me instant transfer of any ship is a step over the line of reality/gameplay)

Sandro actually said the opposite to that in his first post. He stated they are now leaning towards implementing it as a delay - but will only implement instant if a significant turnout and majority vote instant. Otherwise the delay it will be...

 

[NeilF]

Not at all.

The proposed transit times shown in the OP are based around 3ly per minute, which is already 3-4 times slower than the worse jump range ships.

Is that what you understand, "there should be a delay of 5 minutes minimum, 100 minutes to cross the human bubble, edge to edge," as meaning?

So how long would a transfer to Jaques be then?

Why doesn't it simply state that (eg: Xly per minute)? And also mention it seemingly doesn't matter what ship you're transfering.

The idea transfer is slower than manually flying the ship isn't ideal IMHO, but it's better than it being far quicker!

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Before 2.1 and engineers, I'd have agreed. Now? Distance is pretty meaningless when jump ranges are in the high teens, early twenties for FDL, Corvette and so on; and they are the worst offenders. When a Python can make 30LY, an Asp 50LY and an Anaconda 65+. 300 LY in 100 minutes stands in stark contrast. The numbers still look bad for even stock ships.

Quite a few have responded suggesting the delay is a little on the nose.

Season 1 commanders and commanders who don't feel they need extra edge strongly disagrees with you.

 

[AzazelT]

Obsidian, what is your opinion on this matter? Are you for or against it? If you already said, im sorry, i didnt read all 2000 posts.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Obsidian, what is your opinion on this matter? Are you for or against it? If you already said, im sorry, i didnt read all 2000 posts.

Look into his posting history. He did have a post on this.

 

[NeilF]

I have the solution and the solution is instant. WHY?

1. allows people to play their way, RL time gaming limitations waiting for a ship to arrive to do your own thing, kills games. Its a pain with the current go fetch on game enjoyment, even to the point I have moved ships and that's all as I had RL work to go to.

2 Easier to code less chance of a bug which ship will go missing or timer getting screwed up and ship sits in limbo at time 00:01.

3. Players wanting a delay can use their tablet/phone timer to add their own immersion. After all Fuel rats have their own awesome site to allow players to call for help, only the fuel transfer limpets are actually ingame mechanics, rest is out of game.

The problem is instant transport affects other people too (in OPEN).

Instant will mean people will all too often be flying around in their taxi ship, arriving at a location and then insta-transporting the ship they really wanted to take there.

It also means a trader can get their combat ship immediately and go out looking for the pirate who just took 10T of gold off them.

It also just risks simplifying down the gameplay experience so you don't have to bother thinking, weighing up options. eg:-

Let me tell you a bit of gameplay I did over the weekend... And then let's consider how "immediate" and "delayed" might affect it?


Heading back to a CG, I passed right through an Engineers system I'm current crafting with, and then on to the CG at LFT 133 to do a few runs on the Gold related CG. I would have like to have done a few bounty hunting runs in LFT 133 but I didn't have an appropriate ship there.

With Instant Ship Transportation

• Fly to LFT 133 and do some Gold runs.
• Call over my bounty hunting ship (instantly) and use it.

With Delayed Ship Transportation

• Consider if while flying though my Engineers system if its worth me stopping off at the engineer to call some of my other ships over there, so they're there next time I arrive?
• Fly to LFT 133 and call my bounty hunting ship over.
• Do some Gold runs.
• My bounty hunting ship has now arrived so use it.

 

[Alec Turner]

*If* we end up with timed deliveries, it sounds like the kind of thing we could consider in the future (no ETA no guarantees! ).

Well if that if isn't another really good reason to vote for delayed ship transfers then I don't know what is. It's like Obsidian Ant said (at least I think it was Obsidian) much earlier, this could be a decisive moment in determining which way FD decide to go with future developments. Simple instant gratification gameplay vs. deeper immersive content.