[Suggestion] Ferry Passenger Routes

[Tryst]

I can see a lot of thought has been put into this.

The only thing I wouldn't really agree with is the bomb threat and hijackers etc. Not only does this impose a limitation on pilots since we don't have the ability to get out of our seats and deal with it personally, it also may cause a bit of upset considering current events around the world today. It's a scenario I'd stay well clear of right now. Let's just presume security in the terminal is advanced enough so anyone carrying explosive devices or weapons of any kind will be caught and dealt with before they get on your ship.

Scenarios that require detours or require you to turn back a jump or two are fine, it's something you have control over and a choice about. The same goes for wanted passengers. However, things that happen on board between passengers is outside of your control since you can't get out of your seat to deal with it personally. If we could, I wouldn't think twice about spacing them if they got too far out of hand, it's just a short walk to the airlock at gunpoint and won't upset the schedule too much. Plus, it sends a strong message to anyone else thinking of causing trouble, upset the pilot and you'll be spacewalking the rest of the way and 1,000+ Ls is a long way with or without a suit.

A little RP would add an on-board announcement when you select the launch button. "Ladies and gentlemen, we will be taking off shortly, all passengers are advised to remain in their seats until we are clear of the station."

 

[JimSan]

I can see a lot of thought has been put into this.

The only thing I wouldn't really agree with is the bomb threat and hijackers etc. Not only does this impose a limitation on pilots since we don't have the ability to get out of our seats and deal with it personally, it also may cause a bit of upset considering current events around the world today. It's a scenario I'd stay well clear of right now. Let's just presume security in the terminal is advanced enough so anyone carrying explosive devices or weapons of any kind will be caught and dealt with before they get on your ship.

Scenarios that require detours or require you to turn back a jump or two are fine, it's something you have control over and a choice about. The same goes for wanted passengers. However, things that happen on board between passengers is outside of your control since you can't get out of your seat to deal with it personally. If we could, I wouldn't think twice about spacing them if they got too far out of hand, it's just a short walk to the airlock at gunpoint and won't upset the schedule too much. Plus, it sends a strong message to anyone else thinking of causing trouble, upset the pilot and you'll be spacewalking the rest of the way and 1,000+ Ls is a long way with or without a suit.

A little RP would add an on-board announcement when you select the launch button. "Ladies and gentlemen, we will be taking off shortly, all passengers are advised to remain in their seats until we are clear of the station."

That was mostly there as an example as couldn't think up anything better for a Worst type event, would hope that Frontier could think up far more suitable scenarios which would still be as risky.
However there are some methods to interact with troublesome passengers from the cockpit (till spacelegs is added anyway), here's some examples:

Spacing them is always an option, though you'd also lose any other passengers in that compartment and have to live with that choice.
Ejecting the Compartment, slightly better than the above, they might calm down after realising they're stuck.
Calling for Security Assistance, I would very much like an option to call the police to be able to intervene, perhaps boarding your ship via shuttles carried in SLF bays or some form of ship-to-ship docking ritual.
Heavily Bribe the Trouble-marker, with enough money they may shut up and sit down till you make it to the next stop in the route, then you can kick them out.
Comply with their Demands, hopefully they won't ask for anything too drastic.

Again these are just examples of how to deal with them from the cockpit, and I do agree that there should be a RP element added to this line of work, announcements from inside the ship (from flight attendants) and also from outside the ship (station announcements to anyone within hearing distance) about the route would make it feel more lively (maybe options to control volume would also be useful as well).

You'd definitely need a message for bumping into another ship / the starport. "Apologies ladies and gentlemen, the spaceline will compensate you for the inconvenience at the next starport". And a HUD message for yourself with payout deduction instead of a fine. Being a contractor and all.

This could work very well with anything under the normal Ferry Routes, those for Tramp routes they might just not give you any tips.

 

[JimSan]

Well it has been a while since I've posted any updates in this thread, mostly been trying to work in multicrew into the profession but other than manning the guns, there isn't really much that I can think of which multicrew could help in bulk passenger routes, but as always would like to fear more feedback and ideas to further improve this suggestion for Bulk passenger routes or if possible improve passengers in general.

One idea I did have is to have a temporary livery change once accepting a contract for a ferry route, this is akin to how mass transit vehicles today have matching liveries for what company they belong to, while ships in Elite are privately owned, a temp livery with it's own decal could let others know what company they are doing a contract for, while this sounds like a lot of fuss over something basic, you could have some benefits for using the companies livery, perhaps they could pay you extra to advertise them, perhaps using it would give you extra rep with that company, but once your contract ends with them then your livery would be reverted back to what you had before.

But perhaps you like the livery? (even unsightly ones) but want to use it outside of the contract? well they could be offered as rewards for getting in the companies good books and they'll allow you to use it elsewhere, perhaps this could also provide positives and negatives, not sure but it would allow pilots a way to earn liveries for free though.

 

[CMDR Spadino]

Great!

Great work, JimSan, amazing suggestion ! I'm totally into that, all my support to this. [up][up][up]

 

[IiliI PEL IiliI]

Stands up.......claps!!! This is an awesome idea with so much thought....I would LOVE.....YES IM NOW USING CAPS.....LOVE TO SEE THIS IN THE GAME!!!

Why hasn't FD responded to this thread yet????????

 

[JimSan]

Here is another (rather poorly made) mock up of how an event could be handled when you have to communicate with someone from one of the Cabins, rather than going through the Comms panel at the top (which could just alert you to the message from the Cabin) the process could be handled via the Contacts panel with a tab for internal contacts (which I forgot to add to the mock up), then you would be given choices on how to handle the situation.

As for two of the choices, there would always be a random chance on how well it'll go, perhaps the criminal has a receiver in their possession so that any attempt to contact the Police will alert them and they'll either demand more or do their worse, perhaps trying to bribe someone who isn't interested in money will most likely anger them rather than make them calm down, there could be small hints in their profile to let you know which they wouldn't mind, or warn you before making a mistake with someone who really wants you to do what they demand.

 

[IiliI PEL IiliI]

http://www.altimit.co.uk/ed/pax/ferry-comms.png

Here is another (rather poorly made) mock up of how an event could be handled when you have to communicate with someone from one of the Cabins, rather than going through the Comms panel at the top (which could just alert you to the message from the Cabin) the process could be handled via the Contacts panel with a tab for internal contacts (which I forgot to add to the mock up), then you would be given choices on how to handle the situation.

As for two of the choices, there would always be a random chance on how well it'll go, perhaps the criminal has a receiver in their possession so that any attempt to contact the Police will alert them and they'll either demand more or do their worse, perhaps trying to bribe someone who isn't interested in money will most likely anger them rather than make them calm down, there could be small hints in their profile to let you know which they wouldn't mind, or warn you before making a mistake with someone who really wants you to do what they demand.

Pfj !!! Splitter lol

 

[JimSan]

Have added links to the original post to highlight the expanded ideas to the original idea, though have realised they might work better at the top of the post but we'll see how it goes first.
Mostly bumping this thread in effort to get further feedback, I would very much appreciate more so we can all further refine this potential role which would better portray how bulk passenger transport should be and weed out anything which might lead to being an issue or just plain boring (though this is meant to be a relaxing profession till something goes wrong for the most part).

Also a thought, perhaps something which could add a nice event would be a wealthy passenger decides to treat all others on board and throw a party (random chance if all the passengers agree, people need to get to work without people trying to party on the bus you know), possible ask you to make it a sight seeing mission during that leg of the route (between two stops) for some extra cash.

But yes as others have wondered why Devs haven't responded, well I would love to discuss this idea with them to know what can and can't be done with the current mission system and work on work arounds, I do understand they are busy (with 2.4 and 3.0) and have many hundreds (or thousands) of bug reports/suggestions/rants/memes to read per day, and so am happy to wait my turn and further work on this when I get an idea which might improve upon this.

 

[[VR] Marrs]

Got bored and figured I'd try and create some typical commuter route Announcements using a text to speech site, these are to give more of the impression that there is more than just you in the ship, these announcements are not for the pilot but for the passengers. These would mostly apply to Ferry route missions from clients not Tramp routes.
Also I do apologise for the links to the mp3s, not sure how to embed them into the forum post, a little warning, they might be a tad bit loud.

In Flight Announcement
A Typical in flight announcement to inform the passengers which stops are next on the route, can feature both the client which gave you the mission in the first place (in the example, it'll be Barnard's Star Ferries), would also include the ship model and registration (using my Python as an example, deLacy Python Juliet Indigo Mike), it'll then tell the passengers and remind the pilot which is the next stop in full detail (Mars High in the example) and then end with a little extra fluff.

Docking Announcement
Now this is what you'll hear inside a starport (typically one with an atmosphere), like with most train stations they will inform all awaiting passengers which platform or landing pad in our case, now it'll include a rough time of departure (say +5 mins at time of arrive inside the port) before continuing to inform about the route, then there could be a little bit of fluff (example is the trolley service) before repeating the main details of the route again, this could be something that all commanders inside the port can hear, maybe giving prospecting pirates a little info on the route.

Docked Announcement
Now that we are docked, the announcer welcomes all the new passengers before repeating the route, then they go off to give a little safety warning, in our example they warn to keep all belongings to themselves and to report anything suspicious, this could give a audible warning to knowledgeable Ferry commanders about what they could expect during this leg of the route, but you would never know for sure, just a hint to what you can expect.

Ready Announcement
Now finally this would go with some door closing warning beeps but I couldn't find an appropriate one (apparently South West Trains door closing chime is hard to find), but it's just to let the commander know that all passengers are on board and it's now safe to depart to the next stop, another one which I could of done would be to inform the passengers and the commander that the route terminates there, informing that the contract is complete etc.

ha ha, love these! Great work. I'd love it if we could hear cabin chatter as well like you get in FSPassengers
and hear them screaming when the ship gets attacked

 

[JimSan]

ha ha, love these! Great work. I'd love it if we could hear cabin chatter as well like you get in FSPassengers
and hear them screaming when the ship gets attacked

Cabin chatter would be good, however there is the slight problem that for the most part, we're the only crew on board, though perhaps you could add in the option to use hire-able NPC crew be able to assist in keeping the passengers happy on larger vessels or long haul routes (aka Hutton Orbital), then you could get something like that, maybe even tell you how the passengers are feeling about your flying or if there's any concerns etc. Screaming when the ship gets attacked should definitely be be in.

 

[Olivia Vespera]

Oh yes! I support this without reading this.

I will read this but consider it bookmarked!

Let me live out my passenger liner dreams!

 

[duckofdeath]

Very nice idea, indeed!
Hopefully the whole BGS interaction will get similar, more roleplay-like interaction in 3.0. These deeper, career-like jobs could apply to a lot of things. Like, troop transports and logistics in wars, helping with more complex, dynamic community goals.

 

[aymerix]

Love It! Want it!

 

[Lyronix]

Very good thought out suggestion. I hope FD looks into this.

 

[OldSchoolPlayer]

Great to see that a lot of thought went into the suggestion. I am not sure how they would implement it given their current resource and priority constraints.

 

[JimSan]

Great to see that a lot of thought went into the suggestion. I am not sure how they would implement it given their current resource and priority constraints.

True, they do have quite a bit to work on in the near future, however this can always be a long term goal to implement, from the current suggestion, I think Tramp routes would be the most easiest to add with (hopefully) only a modest amount of work between Hub systems then expand from there.

At each hub (a hub being defined by a particular population size, let's say five million people for now), you'd have a variable of how many passengers does this hub generate per tick, then you could have some working out of how many of these passengers want to go to hubs within say 20ly, then any left over would go out to any hubs within 40ly and so on till you have assigned all those passengers.

Let's start with that beginning number of five million, say that out of all of them only 5% have work out of system, leaves us with 250,000 passengers, lets say there are four hubs within the 20ly limit.

$dist = 20
$pax = $pop / 20;
$hub1 = rand(1,$pax)
$hub2 = rand($hub1,$pax)
$hub3 = rand($hub2,$pax)
$hub4 = rand($hub3,$pax)

if $pax != 0 ($dist = 40)

or something like that till prob 100ly, I'm rusty with my PHP-fu and mixing in something else entirely, but you get the idea, they already have passengers giving new missions during flight so that part is mostly covered, maybe needing some extra additions to allow more in depth communication with the passengers would help both passengers and other missions in general, but with the Hubs now being defined then you have the basis of adding in other bulk passenger missions on top of that before working on scheduled Ferry routes.

Though I do know I have no knowledge of how complicated this entire system would be for Frontier to implement.

 

[JimSan]

Think I've been going about my method for working out tramp commuter routes somewhat wrong, just remembered how many stars there are within a 100ly radius (too bleeding many), think the above could still work but only keep it within 50ly as otherwise there would be quite a lot more work to be done, with a hub defined as anything with more than five million peeps which can keep the number of hubs down, but anything left over after the end could just get cycled through again per system tick without having to extend the range.

We could also quickly implement local commuter routes as well using a variation of the tramp routes, but working more with the map filters, let's say your start system is Industrial and you have 25,000 which want to work locally (<20ly), these folks don't want to work at an industrial system since they live in one anyway, so we'd filter through each economy type and assign what passengers we have to them. Then calculate where the nearest of each of those economies is to your start, if it's beyond 20ly then they won't get assigned to there, something along these lines.

START
$tech = rand(1,$pax)
$agri = rand($tech,$pax)
$mine = rand($agri,$pax)
$tour = rand($tour,$pax)
and so on.

IS $system = [economy] >= 20
YES = assign pop to this system.
NO = reassign pop back to START

or something like that, again my coding is quite out of date and most likely mixed with numerous languages, intra-system routes would work something along the same lines but it dishes passengers out between the stations your not currently at or something around those lines, as for long passenger routes, was thinking for some of them they could be hand-crafted in the route people would take, these would be the large and heavy traffic routes between the largest of hubs (could also be named, eg. The Correllia Run or the likes) and you could start anywhere along it's route, then have procedural generation routes built from those mega-hubs and from smaller ones so it looks like a framework. These larger fixed routes would also give pirates a known route they could hang around to hunt passenger systems for hostages to fleece to the black market, trying to think up more ways to implement this feature in a workable and timely manner while also keeping to the general idea.

 

[Ronzer]

Im so wanting something like this. I really dig passenger missions, especially transfer ones. This sort of thing makes a lot of sense. Not everyone has a starship, or is licensed to pilot one. And how you have it here, raises it a few levels. Makes it a whole separate experience.

Cheers!

 

[Stellar Gambit]

out standing idea - I think it's a great working idea, but it really takes off when you suggest that in a war zone, these ferries could be used to evacuate refuges on mass, and import aid workers. Especially when you consider that not everyone will be wanting the refuges to leave, and aid workers to come in - putting these ferries at great risk where they might need to wing up with friends.


100% this should be part of the game - top top quality idea.

 

[JimSan]

First of all, still been working on this idea, just slowly thinking up what else could be added to make the entire prospect of Ferry Passenger Routes more interesting and add more gameplay options, however I have thought about how to make it use some of the pre-existing content as well to add more to this idea, namely both Multicrew and Wings, between the two of those Wings has more options as you could have Winged Ferry Passenger events (which I'll come to in a bit) however Multicrew... for now I've yet to work out how Multicrew could be used to benefit a bulk passenger ship in anything other than in a combat role which is already covered by current mechanics so adds little else, have also been working on trying to expand upon the types of passenger events which I briefly went into in the original post to flesh them out and add more variety in them, these can be Solo or Winged events, some of them might be more likely in Wings but again will go into that in the Winged Events section.

Neutral events

• Sick Passenger: As I mentioned before, a passenger on board has gotten sick (bad in flight meal) and must be taken to a Medical Centre for treatment, you could either take them to a High Tech station which would be the most ideal outcome, take them to any other station which is not too bad, or you could gamble on their illness, either they would just be sick (in Zero G) and complain, or they could be seriously ill, and die, both would be bad Rep for you.
  
• Wrong Flight: A Passenger has boarded the wrong flight and is a little distressed, perhaps you could take them to where they wanted to go? take them back to the previous stop? maybe compensate them for a trip to where they want to go? or you could just drop them off anywhere and let them work it out for themselves, tis their own fault for not paying attention.
  
• Forgotten Luggage: Similar to the Wrong Flight event, but this time it's their luggage, surely you should go back for it, or you could pay for what they have lost (could be high cost) or pay for shipping, or again let them work out the problem on their own, next time they'll hold on to it tighter.
  
• Rowdy/Disgruntled Passengers: You know the sort I'm on about, the ones that ALWAYS have to complain, make a fuss or just have to get the last argument in or just plain bother you over the comms because they don't like your piloting, perhaps giving them a couple of credits will shut them up? yelling tends to work sometimes though might make them worse, or you could give them the boot at the next station, the choice is yours.
  
• Boarder Control (False): While I know this might be touchy subject given the current situation, however it shouldn't be discounted as it is a legitimate issue with anything transporting people, but this one is harmless (but you don't know at the time), you'll have a police ship hail you to ask to check the IDs of your passengers, you mostly have a few options, either allow them (and possible move onto the Confirmed version of this Event) or try to bribe them to leave you alone, might not work so perhaps you could run? well that'll get them very suspicious of you and when they do nab you and find out you've got no one they're interested in, you'll get fined for wasting police time.

Bad events
For starters, would like to mention I'm still trying to work out some Bad events which aren't bad enough to go in the Worst events, possible could include Powerplay elements at this level but not sure, open for suggestions.

• Wanted Passenger: As mentioned before, Police track you down and inform you a passenger on board is wanted, you could either let them attempt to capture them (if they fail, the Wanted person takes over the Police ship which promptly shoots the one who gave them up, eg. You), you could accept a Bribe from the Wanted person but get a bounty on you as well or try to flee to a system outside that Police's jurisdiction.
  
• Boarder Control (Confirm): Same as before, but after the Police make contact with you, one of those stowed away makes contact with you, hoping that you'll see their side of things, you could do the same options as before, run or bribe but this time if you're caught your charged heavily per person that stowed away on your ship, but maybe the risk is worth it if they offer whatever they can (possible large amount of mats, not sure).
  
• Passenger Fight: Things have heated up and now the passengers are going at one another, what is a pilot meant to do to get them all to shut up and sit down? perhaps pay them? normally works, maybe let them go at one another till they get bored? maybe not if things get outta hand and someone dies, give them all the boot? solves things for you at a cost to rep, maybe but just maybe doing a high gee spin will get them all to shut up? could work but you'll prob injure someone in every cabin and lose a lot of rep, but it's worth a shot, right?

Worst events
Won't go much into these as you can pretty much guess what it's about.

• Assassin: As before, someone wants a passenger to have an early retirement, either fight, pay off, run or hope the Police arrive.
  
• Hostage: Gunman on board, being a problem, pay them off, stall for police intervention, follow demands, gamble their bluff or eject into space, but it'll cost you Rep if things go wrong.
  
• Bomb Threat: Nearly the same as above however the risk is more than Rep/Passenger count, if it goes off that cabin is completely destroyed and also 10% of your hull (not sure if total hull or what you got atm)
  
• Kidnapping: Perhaps you're transporting a lot of high paying passengers in first class cabins, maybe they might be worth something, more or less like an Assassin but they'll just disable your ship, shoot a limpet at you which forces out the highest quality cabin (First/Lux only) from your ship and runs off with it, defend yourself and your passengers or just space the cabin and let them fend for themselves.
  
• Slavers: Like the Kidnapping but they want EVERYONE, slavery is a thing in the Elite Universe and what better way to getting Slaves is when they're already in space on a mostly defenceless passenger ship, again disable ship, limpet sent to hack your ship to eject all cabins into space, they'll just leave you there to repair and deal with the consequences.

Now then, all of the above is mostly written for Solo Passenger Commanders but can work in wings as well, however I've been trying to work on specific Winged Events, things which would only happen when you've got a wing of passenger ships, well for starters I wanted the events to take into account what ships are in the wing, it'll only look into if they ship is built for passenger/hauling or not, those which aren't are considered as escorts, Wings more inclined with Haul/Pax ships or more with Escorts should get events which took that into count, perhaps more combat heavy for Escort Wings while Convoy Wings are more likely to get border control or Slavers, Hybrid (50/50) Wings could either get a low end mix of either type or their own set of events to take into account of the general mix of ships.
However at this time I'm not sure of unique Winged missions (again suggestions are welcome) other then more heavier versions of Soloist events (like a whole fleet of Slavers) but will get round to working on them, hope this does sound interesting and again do hope that Frontier can make improvements to Passenger missions which take into account for Passenger routes rather than the current Taxi like missions we have currently.


Oh and nearly forgot, was thinking of Tramp routes also using the route planner tool in the galaxy map to determine a Tramp route, as in you set out a route first, then head back to the Tramp route services and click on a button to 'advertise' your route to passengers and they'll board accordingly if they want to go to the systems you're jumping to etc.