Telepresence is not necessary.

[kpmop]

The ship transport vote did not include the majority of active players of whom do not post in the forum and so could not represent what they want. It's not even a representative sample either of the player base, just a sample of players who use the forum and were motivated to vote.

The ship transport vote included people who actually owned the game.

Re telepresence: they could simply have said "magic escape pod" handwavium. They probably wish they had.

Telepresence exacerbates already slightly broken things - KWS - how can you get bounty data from all possible jurisdictions etc?; instantaneous security response after committing a crime. It's a mechanism to get people playing multi-crew and these endless ******** ****** * *** ** ******* * ***** ****************** threads are getting really ******************************** tiresome. Yes I could just not read them but ...

 

[Kosmetas]

If multi-crew allows us telepresence to another ship why can't I telepresence into my own ships.... no matter where I leave them in the GALAXY?!?!?

 

[Lucifer Hate]

If multi-crew allows us telepresence to another ship why can't I telepresence into my own ships.... no matter where I leave them in the GALAXY?!?!?

Your question is 1 of the main reasons telepresence should never have been introduced

 

[space pilot]

If multi-crew allows us telepresence to another ship why can't I telepresence into my own ships.... no matter where I leave them in the GALAXY?!?!?

There has to be a living human on the ship to create a Life Force Conduit, so

 

[mbs357]

The problem I have with telepresence is that it reminds me of when World of Warcraft introduced the dungeon finder. What once was a moderately paced social adventure that, while sometimes frustrating, was also very rewarding became constant matchmaking and grinding. It feels like a similar flag has been triggered in Elite's development and that we're going down the same development path towards quick kicks and constant raiding instead of focusing on the little things that make the game great.

 

[shreddog]

They could have just scrapped the whole telepresence explanation. It's rather silly and don't serve any purpose. I get that it needs to be quick and easily accessible so people will use it, that's fine. Just scrap the telepresence and don't try to explain it lore wise. Who cares if a player instantly joins a ship, there's supposed to be a crew on these ships anyways, so really a player crew member would just be taking up their place.

I'd say the real issue is that there are no npc crew [sour]. I would love to at least have the hired SLF pilots sit in the available chairs in the cockpit/bridge. There's really no excuse to not include that now, they have all the assets needed..
But, maybe they're saving that for an upcoming expansion with some fleshed out npc AI and dialog?? *drool*

 

[Alric]

Yep telepresence is a terrible idea. Plenty of better ones were discussed long before they put it in.
The underlying game mechanic of being able to jump in to multi crew easily, I think they got right and I'm glad they went that way (hoping they add something other than instant action mode when you get there, though).

 

[mbs357]

I get that it needs to be quick and easily accessible so people will use it, that's fine.

I don't get that. I remember the same complaint with wings, and I don't get it. If you have a group, of friends especially, wouldn't you guys start to stick around each other if you're planning to do wings or multicrew? To bring back another WoW analogy, when my friends and all started playing together we didn't start on different servers and demand that Blizzard implement Dungeon Finder so we can matchmake crossrealm. We all started on the same server and we even tried to stay around the same level as eachother to make sure we could cooperate on quests as we went along. I don't understand how a group of friends who want to play the game together end up on opposite corners of the galaxy from eachother.

 

[knowles2]

What bothers me about telepresence is the can of worms it opens. Why fly in your ship at all if you risk dying and it can be done remotely?

Because the Anti AI act of 3055 specifically bans human ships from being able to function without physical human being aboard. This is stop AI from controlling human vessels.

Why cant I holo me there and do some of my business like grab missions?

Because stations have ban Holome projectors as they are detrimental to intersystem trade and thus bad for the economy.

If so, why use ships at all to explore?

Why do you go to sunny spain or go to Egypt to explore the pyramids, when you can just look at a picture on

why not focus on one big ship everyone can telepresence to?

Because people like owning ships, like people in our time like owning cars.

 

[Faybs]

What bothers me about telepresence is the can of worms it opens. Why fly in your ship at all if you risk dying and it can be done remotely? Couldn't we just remotely travel to SRVs and surfaces? What about stations? Why cant I holo me there and do some of my business like grab missions? If so, why use ships at all to explore? why not focus on one big ship everyone can telepresence to?

I don't know. Gameplay over logic is needed sometimes, but I wish it was done in a less slippery slope kind of way.

Exactly. It's not a bad solution to the problem it's trying to solve - if you ignore a lot of things that are already in the game. I suspect that they're going to have to retcon a few very fundamental lore items in the next few months.

 

[mmm]

Great thread, thank you OP.

I can't add much to this topic, but for me the best way to implement multi crew would be this: Let the player hire NPC crew as fighter pilots (like we do now) or as gunners, who basically operate turrets like they work now plus commands. Each NPC would fill one MC slot and players could teleport to these NPCs with the new multi crew matchmaking or with invites. This way we could finally get rid of the empty bridges aswell. And the teleporting is a non-issue. It's a game. You have to make this kind of compromises.

 

[Roybe]

I don't get that. I remember the same complaint with wings, and I don't get it. If you have a group, of friends especially, wouldn't you guys start to stick around each other if you're planning to do wings or multicrew? To bring back another WoW analogy, when my friends and all started playing together we didn't start on different servers and demand that Blizzard implement Dungeon Finder so we can matchmake crossrealm. We all started on the same server and we even tried to stay around the same level as eachother to make sure we could cooperate on quests as we went along. I don't understand how a group of friends who want to play the game together end up on opposite corners of the galaxy from eachother.

Because some players want to do something when their friends aren't on? I would do that in GW2 all the time...then just port over to where my friends are when they get on and play with them.

 

[Peter Thompson]

Because the Anti AI act of 3055 specifically bans human ships from being able to function without physical human being aboard. This is stop AI from controlling human vessels.




Because stations have ban Holome projectors as they are detrimental to intersystem trade and thus bad for the economy.

Why do you go to sunny spain or go to Egypt to explore the pyramids, when you can just look at a picture on

Because people like owning ships, like people in our time like owning cars.

The questions are rethorical. My point was not to ask because there is no explanation to them, but rather to point out that if you open up a can of worms, you'll have a million more questions like that, and a need for explanations to each of them.

 

[Faybs]

I don't get that. I remember the same complaint with wings, and I don't get it. If you have a group, of friends especially, wouldn't you guys start to stick around each other if you're planning to do wings or multicrew? To bring back another WoW analogy, when my friends and all started playing together we didn't start on different servers and demand that Blizzard implement Dungeon Finder so we can matchmake crossrealm. We all started on the same server and we even tried to stay around the same level as eachother to make sure we could cooperate on quests as we went along. I don't understand how a group of friends who want to play the game together end up on opposite corners of the galaxy from eachother.

ED is different though in that it encourages travelling and vastly different playstyles. What happens if you want some help in a combat CG but your buddies are halfway to colonia or have a hold full of bromellite? Telepresence solves that by just handwaving it all away. Can you be in a similar situation in wow, where you want to go on a raid but your friends are spread out all over the map doing different things?

 

[Iori]

Devs have made a very common mistake, which is trying to explain absolutely everything.

Some things, specially if done for gameplay reasons, sometimes is better to IGNORE them completely, rather than shining a big bright spotlight on it.

Oh, this doesn't make any sense as it is? LETS BREAK THE LORE WITH EVEN MORE NONSENSE TO COVER UP THE FIRST NONSENSE!

Trying to fix a problem by making it worse, like trying to clean with a dirty sponge.

 

[Weps]

Of course telepresence is not necessary. Instant multicrew could have just existed with the same "fade to black", "off screen" explanation which exists for ship destruction or SRV swap.

I get that development resources are scarce at the moment. This has been more or less obvious throughout the entire season. And I understand that even a proposition such as the OPs, elegant as it may be, would have probably required more resources than there are currently available (for a system to manage multiple player characters with different saves).

But when you cut corners too much, you end up doing more harm than good. That's what's currently happening with telepresence. Those that just care for instant multicrew couldn't care less about how it's explained. I've read the forums for the past weeks a bit and I've not seen one person defending telepresence from a lore perspective, only people defending the ability to instantly multicrew and to have fun easily, or people accepting telepresence because it came from FDEV, without actually explaining what they like about it. "Telepresence is a very cool SciFi concept", said no one ever. If this was done for the new PS4 crowd - talk about hit and miss. They have so much to learn about the game, it's not a gradual learning curve - does anyone think they will stop for a moment to appreciate the individual concept of telepresence?

So what telepresence ended up doing was only ing off the little minority which still cares about story and game world cohesion, and sending a subliminal, albeit untrue message, to those who still believe in the 10-year plan: "Still hoping for those space-legs? Might wanna think twice, we have holo-legs now..."

 

[Tarman]

Great thread, thank you OP.

I can't add much to this topic, but for me the best way to implement multi crew would be this: Let the player hire NPC crew as fighter pilots (like we do now) or as gunners, who basically operate turrets like they work now plus commands. Each NPC would fill one MC slot and players could teleport to these NPCs with the new multi crew matchmaking or with invites. This way we could finally get rid of the empty bridges aswell. And the teleporting is a non-issue. It's a game. You have to make this kind of compromises.

I like your idea for the ending of Empty Bridge Syndrome as well as being a classy delivery method for multicrew that still works exactly the same for the MC slots themselves and doesn't make waves with the gameplay or the backstory. For cost though, I'd like to see either cheap, pay-once-like-kit or even unpaid crew that can fill the role of mere vessel on your vessel, taking up space and looking pretty till they get controlled by one of your friends or someday in the far far future become REAL NPCs that can push buttons (but still totally get possessed).

Without that possession the bargain crew are just eye candy, which may still yet appeal to many many players who will never use the MC feature itself. Bargain crew also allow hosting captains under a meatpuppet system to avoid incurring extra crew cost just to hang out with their friends (unless they're already utilizing an existing paid crew). Plus, "there's a dood sitting there" is a pretty easy explanation to put into the lore. How we control said dood should not be explained because that's the gameplay angle that's outside 3303.

 

[krylite]

Great idea and thread OP. Teleprescence and holo-me is disappointingly the biggest break from the lore and "immersion" of the entire Elite history. We already have respawning to the last station after a ship blowup no matter how far away. But here's the main difference. FD did not elaborate on how this was explained and so far wisely left it to our imaginations. I prefer to think we all got recovered in occupied remlock escape pods. Just the time it took and the details of how and when were glossed over like a movie jumping along or story passing time for each personal player's story.

But with multicrew, we get the whole holo-me type-3-civilization galaxy spanning tech , the hologram forming on the crew chair, a menu system for facilitating multicrew which hopefully the framework is used for a host of other existing possibilities including hiring NPC crew. It would have been more exciting to see the multicrew members appear from behind the opening door in the back of each bridge and walk to and sit in the crew chairs. It could have been lore played where a cmdr took a passenger ship to the host's closest station or location and also pay a fee for doing so. Then later on this framework could have been expanded on for future spacelegs with cmdr's taking passenger trips aboard liners on an npc ship. There could be an option to take the whole trip visually through every jump on the way, or just "fade out" similar to respawning from ship exploding and assuming time passed by (and paying a passenger fee) for the particular player taking passenger transportation to the multicrew meetup station or location. Or like the OP idea, having a hirable npc temporarily assumed role at the meetup location.

Perhaps in the future a system of "witchspace" jumpgates similar to egosoft's X series among select popular or famous systems could help with player meetups. Or even the megaship idea where certain giant ships would make regular big jump runs and routes where player ships could land on the megaship and travel along similar to a galactic subway system. I'm usually very optimistic and favorable with FDev's progress and look forward to season 7 in the years to come. I'm just in the camp that an alternate to "telepresence" lore was a missed opportunity.

 

[Doc_Holiday]

Oddly enough this exact thing has been posted so many times I lost count. Every time it's an original idea (serious here, not intended as sarcasm).

If so many people could come up with this idea, which is so much better than the telepresence garbage and is a win win win for the entire community, you have to assume that someone at FD thought of this too.. seriously everyone wins! The instagratification crowd wins, the lore crowd wins, FD wins because for once everyone is happy.

There is absolutely no reason why this route should have been overlooked in favor of telepresence

 

[Deinonychus2012]

Telepresence dosent bother me, but it reallyyyyy riles some people up.

I still think the best way to go about it if they were to go down a different route is...Have other commanders embody crew members that you must have to be eligible for the system.

It would solve many issues, one being..How weird do big ships feel? I mean they call us commanders but we dont command anything, we are captains.

Im not a "meh immursion" guy but when i look around my clippers huge cockpit with the 2nd chair thats always empty and the side panels with placeholder info and sitting stations i just think......Well its like taking a bus to work instead of my car, it feels kinda ridiculous to be in ships the size of football fields with just 1 person on board.

So, give us AI crew in all the ships that are MC compatible and let other players embody them during MC, jobs a gooden .

This is something that kinda bothers me too. Even the recent settlement logs acknowledge that the large ships have several crew members.

For a comparison, let's use the Tartan-class patrol cruiser from Star Wars and the Imperial Cutter. While the Cutter is about 50 meters shorter, it seems to be very similar in size otherwise. The Tartan has a crew of 70, and can carry 50 passengers and 1000 tons of cargo. Proportioning that down to the Cutter, we can approximate the Cutter's capacity to be about 56 crew, 40 passengers, and 800 tons of cargo (which is at least possible in-game).