Ship Transfer Costs - These Prices are Nutty!

[JerryLove]

Well as a major contributor in the thread in question and the debate I would call it a half truth, there were many varied reasons for folks wanting a delay, to pretend it was nearly all about immersion is disingenuous at best. But I'll tell you what, lets pretend for a second that it was 'all about immersion', can you remind me why that is a dirty word in gaming now please?

It's a dirty word because people keep using it to excuse poor game mechanics.

That might be OK in a proper simulator; but the "don't break immersion" ship sailed in 1.0.

So while "more immersive" is good; it does not trump all other considerations.

Assuming the hull is available at the location you want it at.

Or in the vague vicinity.

The point of ship moving was (for me) things like re-home-basing my fleet.

I'd rather spend my limited time exploring, trading, and fighting than taxing one ship after another.

So people expect to be paid millions of credits for hauling biowaste and gas, worth a few thousand credits, a few hundred light years, but won't pay millions of credits themselves to have ships, worth upwards of hundreds of millions, moved over approximately the same distances? Weird...

Tell you what: bring back high-value hauling and I'll stop complaining about ship transfer prices.

But since we are *not* getting paid mega money for hauling brown gold; how about not charging us so much for ship transfers.

Also: why does it cost more to have someone fly my ship than I charge for the services of my ship. He only gives up his time; I give up my time and my ship.

 

[CylonSurfer]

In all honesty, it's not just #24, it's pretty much the entire forum. Especially if Frontier decides to introduce a QOL feature.

"Instant transfers.." - "but it's not fair to meeeeeee or my immmeeeershuuuun.."
"Long range hauling that pays well.." - "but it's not fair to meeeeeee because I don't leave the bubble!"
"NPC bounties that pay well.." - "but what about my traaaaade roooouuuuteessss..."

There's a theme that crops up every time Frontier threatens the immersion or senseless grind that's seemingly favored by the old guard.

Gotta love those extra letters in the words dude. Let me try some.

Neeeeeeed innnnnnnnstttttaaaannnt.

Iiiiiii waaaaaannnnt it nooooowwwww

Waaaaaa Waaaaaa Waaaaaa.

Mmmmmm.

It really doesn't belittle anyone's point of view or make your argument anymore valid. The intentionally misspelt one really messes with my reality man. I mean eeaaaality. (was that enough extra letters? I'm really not sure of the correct etiquette)

I don't think the chicken is a happy chicken. They are usually so good at spelling, something must have ruffled his feathers.

 

[careBear1]

Can someone explain why ship transfer must (necessarily) cost anything at all. Without reference to …... someone has to fly it for you, nothing in real life is free, good means there must be bad etc etc childishness. A time delay or limit on the frequency of use I can understand for game play reasons. Cost – do not get it.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Even I agree there.

And yes, I know how close the KS came to failing. SC had all the hype and it (the ED KS) was poorly timed and viewed as a bandwagon attempt by a lot people, myself included.

In the end, I'm glad I bought into the game before release though, if only because it's allowed me to watch it grow (with the downside of watching this forum become more and more toxic).

For the record i know i am a mouthy git! Esp when it comes to elite 4 a game i waited 20 years for...... and see it seeming veer futher and further away from the game i expected. It killed me when i saw sandro totally confused as to why imperial slaves would be in anything other than a cargo can .So far tho i am massively happy with 2.2 for me everything is an improvement over 2.1 even ship transfer.. i agree prices are on the high side tho this CAN be tweaked.

Had FD gone instant and cheap (some wanted FREE) therenis no tweaking that, and no gameplay can come of it. FREE instant transfer is a dead end with no possible gameplay loop. What we have now has potential to build on.

But anyway i am waffling a bit, over all tho, the point of my reply here.... over all i think toxic is a bit harsh.

Stubborn, opinionated and protective of the original dev diary \ DDF vision...... sure i will give you that but toxic i think would imply i would not happily share a beer with anyone on this forum if we met in our meat suits and for me at least that is not the case. At the launch party in duxford i have never met a nicer bunch and i hear the same is true of all the meets.

 

[JerryLove]

Remember that elite invented immersion in games

LMAO. Seriously? Invented immersion?

 

[Theodrid]

It's a dirty word because people keep using it to excuse poor game mechanics.

That might be OK in a proper simulator; but the "don't break immersion" ship sailed in 1.0.

So while "more immersive" is good; it does not trump all other considerations.

Again that word, 'keep', this is one mechanic, no others have been decided by a vote like this one nor do I expect many more to be. Why does it have to be a zero sum with some of you guys? - 'we don't have immersion in area A so you can't possibly want or need it in area B'. Your last point is correct and guess what, it hasn't trumped everything else, not by a long chalk, it has to be a mixture but there also has to be a line in the sand both for the developer and the playerbase.

 

[Martian Successor]

Remember that elite invented immersion in games

Uhm... okay.... I highly doubt it but...... oookay.

and did everything it could to remove silly game elements such as ''points'' and ''lives''
Fast and cheap transfer is a step back in that direction.

You mean silly game elements such as highly skilled Engineers rolling dice to determine the quality of something as trivial as tweaking the innards of a highly sophisticated space faring vessel and never being able to replicate their work? Elements such as ships spawning right before your very eyes, dying in an SRV and miraculously being transported back into your ship, NPC vessels talking about your tasty cargo of 1 ton of biowaste or even an empty cargo hold, a bounty spawn camp farming profession, a military ranking system that never realistically regards your actual rank anywhere in the universe, etc, etc.

I hate to break it to you but Elite Dangerous is not the bastion of fake life simulation you appear to think it is/wish it was.

 

[Privata]

It's a dirty word because people keep using it to excuse poor game mechanics.

That might be OK in a proper simulator; but the "don't break immersion" ship sailed in 1.0.

So while "more immersive" is good; it does not trump all other considerations.



Or in the vague vicinity.

The point of ship moving was (for me) things like re-home-basing my fleet.

I'd rather spend my limited time exploring, trading, and fighting than taxing one ship after another.


Tell you what: bring back high-value hauling and I'll stop complaining about ship transfer prices.

But since we are *not* getting paid mega money for hauling brown gold; how about not charging us so much for ship transfers.

Also: why does it cost more to have someone fly my ship than I charge for the services of my ship. He only gives up his time; I give up my time and my ship.

We get paid very fair prices.
For example in lore an outstanding bounty is about 1.500crs

Ships are ment to be expensive and very important. it is ment to take a long time to get a good ship , and a good ship is ment to be a bragging right.

On top of that we are ment to start with only 100crs not 1000crs (what the old games did and the kickstarter claimed)

I think the over the top rewards we started to get during 1.2 and beyond are not intentional.

 

[unity100]

I think you may be tainting rationale a bit with your opinion there. by your logic, every NPC up until last week should have been poop-hauling. there would need to be sufficient demand.

economically, extreme prices cannot happen without extreme demand and limited supply. if there was sufficient demand for poop hauling, sufficient number of poop-haulers would haul poop to bring the price of poop-hauling down. high prices would last only for a period, then go down to acceptable levels, and that would be perfectly fine.

but if the price for poop hauling went outside boundaries of reality, that wouldnt be alright.

I don't see where you're pulling the 70% number from, either, based on the numbers we were given:

Viper 4 - 122k
Cobra III - 138k
Vulture - 340k
AspX - 500k
Orca - 1.1m
FDS - 1.1m
FAS - 1.3m
FDL #2 - 1.3m
FGS - 1.9m
Python - 1.9m
FDL #1 - 2.1m

I don't have the patch downloaded yet to check for myself, but these prices are not 70% of purchase price, by a long margin.

im taking the reports which people give in regard to what costs they encounter. they might be different than what you see around.

People ship cars around the world. It is very expensive to have them shipped.

actually, it isnt. if shipping a car cost ~70% of its final value - or any decent amount of that value whatsoever - no one would ship cars. shipping cars is actually quite cheap through massive ships.

It is cheaper to have someone drive them for you, but then they might crash it into a tree while putting the 5000 miles on the clock.

and no one would hire a random punk on a street corner to drive their car. it wouldnt be too different from uber - people hiring other people (captains) with enough reputation.

If you want your car somewhere in about the same time that you could drive there, then it will need putting on a plane. This can cost more than the car.

excuse me but this analogy doesnt make any sense.

if you said 'put your car in a truck', it would be more reasonable. you are comparing different classes of vehicles. no higher form of travel is available in space - there are only spaceships, and we are hauling spaceships.

and no one would attempt to put a spaceship into another spaceship to haul it - the thing can already fly itself, moreover it can defend itself. it would be idiotic to put a fully armed anaconda inside a 'ship shipping ship' and carry it over long distances with much higher costs and put it in danger.

you just put a crew inside the anaconda, you fly it as its captain would fly it, which would be much safer since attacking a fully armed, empty-cargo-hold ship does not make any sense.

 

[Privata]

LMAO. Seriously? Invented immersion?

In video games ; yes.
The manual had a full section talking about how close your moniter was to the ships moniter to set you in the universe.

It was the (if not one of) the first games to be about your immersion rather than a goal (the only goal was creds and reaching elites)

 

[Martian Successor]

They sure did: https://www.gov.uk/log-in-file-self-assessment-tax-return

When you complete it, you are allowed to go to the pub and have a well deserved beer. [yesnod]

That's too much immersion for my liking. I'm going back to that game where you could throw a nuke and make the cold war hot

 

[JerryLove]

Again that word, 'keep', this is one mechanic, no others have been decided by a vote like this one nor do I expect many more to be.

That's irrelevant to the question I answered.

'we don't have immersion in area A so you can't possibly want or need it in area B'.

No one said anything of the kind. In fact, in my quote you are responding to, I said "'more immersive' is good"

Because immersion is regularly broken, the argument "if we break immersion here we break immersion for the game" doesn't carry weight.

That means that we want to balance "immersive" as one element of the whole.

Just as ED doesn't require your commander to sleep, nor go to the bathroom, nor wait real-world months while your ship is being built; so too might you not have 61HR transfer delays to get your ship out to a station.

"Does this provide better game play" is the consideration we should be looking at. Adding to immersion is one aspect of that, but not the only one.

 

[Imo]

We sometimes wish to get a feature into Elite. A feature Frontier may not like to see in the game. To make everyone happy - as a compromise - they add the feature in a way that makes it mostly useless. That's the trick. [hehe]

 

[Privata]

Uhm... okay.... I highly doubt it but...... oookay.


You mean silly game elements such as highly skilled Engineers rolling dice to determine the quality of something as trivial as tweaking the innards of a highly sophisticated space faring vessel and never being able to replicate their work? Elements such as ships spawning right before your very eyes, dying in an SRV and miraculously being transported back into your ship, NPC vessels talking about your tasty cargo of 1 ton of biowaste or even an empty cargo hold, a bounty spawn camp farming profession, a military ranking system that never realistically regards your actual rank anywhere in the universe, etc, etc.

I hate to break it to you but Elite Dangerous is not the bastion of fake life simulation you appear to think it is/wish it was.

You are very hostile , there is no need for that. you can disagree or outright hate me without being rude about it.

Engineers is a mixed bag.
However the engineers in lore produce changes to the weapon. they give you the resault regardless of if they did it right or wrong its up to you if you use it.
Think of the weapons and upgrades like overclocking but a billion times more complex.

Now thats the lore part.

The gameplay however , I agree is dumb.
But I never mentioned it , I never even called it ''skill-based''

But elite , is a game about immersion and life-sim. its not because you dont manage a poop-o-meter or something that its not a lifesim.
The game is about you as a member of the pilots federation and your life within the elite universe.

Now as for the other things , everything apart from the SRV are still heavy WIP and will change.

The SRV magic respawn is (a word I cant use on the forum) and was not what was ment to happen , but for no logical reason it was dumbed down to be more casual. I hate it , but its not too bad as you can RP that you made it make to the ship. (or something like that)

NPCs need a lot of work (currently they are brain dead and easy) but the ultimate plan is to not have farm zones and all that (like mentioned in many livestreams)

 

[Theodrid]

That's irrelevant to the question I answered.


No one said anything of the kind. In fact, in my quote you are responding to, I said "'more immersive' is good"

Because immersion is regularly broken, the argument "if we break immersion here we break immersion for the game" doesn't carry weight.

That means that we want to balance "immersive" as one element of the whole.

Just as ED doesn't require your commander to sleep, nor go to the bathroom, nor wait real-world months while your ship is being built; so too might you not have 61HR transfer delays to get your ship out to a station.

"Does this provide better game play" is the consideration we should be looking at. Adding to immersion is one aspect of that, but not the only one.

I think we largely agree to be honest, probably just not on the ship transfer thing. See for me and others, (and I realise this is just my opinion version), the instant transfer thing was pretty huge, it wasn't a 'tinkering round the edges' kind of mechanic, it was a massive step away from the 1:1 galaxy, it was a step too far. Solely speaking for myself I am going to be peeved if Frontier do not take the opportunity that delayed transfer presents them with at some time in the future, that being missions and visuals that instant could never offer. Instant was very much a one trick pony, offered no future possibilities in terms of a deeper game and would have caused issues, those mentioned and no doubt some unforeseen. Assuming any changes are not massive I am all for Frontier looking at delivery times and costs and tweaking where necessary.

What I typed was relevant to your post, people do not 'keep using the word 'immersion' to excuse poor game mechanics'. My point about zero sum was in reply to 'immersion sailed in 1.1', if I missed your meaning beyond 'immersion went then so you can't demand it now' please clarify.

 

[S.H.A.D.O]

I just paid 630,000cr to move my Python to me, I'm not rich by any means but I think the price and time are fine. its a luxury and not something you'd do every day.

(for the record my total cr right now is: 8,324,980)

 

[unity100]

I just paid 630,000cr to move my Python to me, I'm not rich by any means but I think the price and time are fine. its a luxury and not something you'd do every day.

(for the record my total cr right now is: 8,324,980)

distance? ship loadout?

 

[sos4biz]

The transfer pricing is absurd to say the least, 50 Million credit to move an Asp and 1.3 Billion credits to move a Cutter to Jaques, these really need to be reduced, I don't mind the wait of 61H, but this pricing makes it a joke.

 

[Privata]

That's irrelevant to the question I answered.


No one said anything of the kind. In fact, in my quote you are responding to, I said "'more immersive' is good"

Because immersion is regularly broken, the argument "if we break immersion here we break immersion for the game" doesn't carry weight.

That means that we want to balance "immersive" as one element of the whole.

Just as ED doesn't require your commander to sleep, nor go to the bathroom, nor wait real-world months while your ship is being built; so too might you not have 61HR transfer delays to get your ship out to a station.

"Does this provide better game play" is the consideration we should be looking at. Adding to immersion is one aspect of that, but not the only one.

Immersion is not the same as realism (at least not to me)
Needing to sleep and all that is in my mind done when you are offline. (there is a bed in nearly all the ships)

What we currently have is a mix.

Wait times are short , but without taking you out of the game as they still simulate the idea of ship transportation. so in that end they are not long either. (as they still count down when not online)

Some features like real time cargo loading was cut (a shame but I can understand)

I think you are right for saying "Does this provide better game play" is key but I say that its just as vital as asking ''does this conflict with our lore , books and does it take you out of the game''

However magic ship transfer was not just an immersion killer , it ruined all sense of ship role and powerplay ship meta.

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The transfer pricing is absurd to say the least, 50 Million credit to move an Asp and 1.3 Billion credits to move a Cutter to Jaques, these really need to be reduced, I don't mind the wait of 61H, but this pricing makes it a joke.

But jaques is on the other side of the galaxy.
Being there in a bare ASP alone should be seen as a achivement and reward.

Soon there will be a full shipyard a jaques anyway

 

[sos4biz]

Instant ship transfer would not really have been an immersion killer despite what a lot of people said as it is cleary present in other aspect of the game, Loadouts, Cargo, Fuel to name a few, but to then say YES we will have a delay and then attach to it unrealistc prices is an insult, this needs to be revised ASAP.