Why do you mode-switch (question to people who actually do that)

[Deleted member 38366]

No later after I...

...fly to a Boom Economy in my Cutter, hoping to get some profitable Boom-time Haulage Missions. But find no single one. Or only "Ship too large".
...I check Passenger Missions and they look good, so screw the Haulage Missions.
...I then return to the same place in a Passenger Ship. Only to see... no nice Missions anymore. But there's three super-sweet Haulage Missions now. Headed all to the same System and onto a Large Pad. *gnah*

About that's when I lose my nerves and mode-switch, hoping to at least get any suitable Mission, just so my 2 trips weren't entirely wasted.

 

[Stealthie]

The only times I mode-switch are at places like Dav's Hope, and at the Thargoid bases in order to get the links to spawn correctly.

On which note, it might be nice if FDev got around to fixing that.

 

[AtrociKitty]

I find it absolutely fascinating anyone is able to justify to themselves that bouncing in and out of the actual game via the menu is some sort of game "mechanic". It would be immediately clear to any person who had never played Elite before that this wasn't a desired or designed behavior, but rather taking advantage of the way FDev servers generate missions. I won't deny that board flipping has not been officially denounced, but anyone acting like it's how the game is supposed to work is only fooling themselves.

 

[Dbrn47]

I find it absolutely fascinating anyone is able to justify to themselves that bouncing in and out of the actual game via the menu is some sort of game "mechanic". It would be immediately clear to any person who had never played Elite before that this wasn't a desired or designed behavior, but rather taking advantage of the way FDev servers generate missions. I won't deny that board flipping has not been officially denounced, but anyone acting like it's how the game is supposed to work is only fooling themselves.

Definitely not a mechanic, nor a desired way of playing, but unfortunately it is where we are at with how the game works if you are looking for efficiency or less time spent traveling. So long as we can stack missions and the board is RNG, people will flip it for maximum gains per trip. With no guarantees that any station will have something you are interested in taking, the preferred way of checking each station in system or another system doesn't feel very good either.

 

[VonBlade]

I find it absolutely fascinating anyone is able to justify to themselves that bouncing in and out of the actual game via the menu is some sort of game "mechanic". It would be immediately clear to any person who had never played Elite before that this wasn't a desired or designed behavior, but rather taking advantage of the way FDev servers generate missions. I won't deny that board flipping has not been officially denounced, but anyone acting like it's how the game is supposed to work is only fooling themselves.

And if FD had kept the 2.4 mission board system as it was in the beta, nobody would do it. There were dozens of missions to pick from. Then they nerfed it back to normal. Maybe if the mission board mechanic worked properly in the first place people wouldn't need to tweak the system. But it works, just like "why do people hyperjump instead of flying there". It's part of the game. It's not external tool assisted.

 

[Imgran]

Thanks.

To to clarify my point: IMHO board flipping isn’t playing the game because there’s no real-life analogue to it. It’s using an aspect of game functionality to overcome a perceived limitation of the mission boards. I agree that Frontier could fix this by either generating more missions overall, or by allowing us to choose a type of mission and have the boards populate appropriately. Until then the only way around it is either to do as I do (visit different stations to gather missions), or mode flip.

What I would say, though, is that the boards shouldn’t be 100% convenient 100% of the time. Sometimes you fly empty.

THe boards shouldn't be 100% convenient 0% of the time.

It's one thing to fly empty, it's another to go through the boards and find 0-2 passenger missions going to the station you're headed towards when they both have a population in the millions -- and for this to happen consistently even when you have favor with the station.

There's no answer to board flipping IRL because you can use other methods for finding work than browsing Craigslist. Have an agent pounding the pavement for you to use up your precious man hours and transport capability. Learn how to get around obstructionist middlemen and make your pitch right to the guy. Use the grapevine network. That kind of thing. The mechanisms for doing that aren't even remotely in the game, instead we just get a gague to fill up.

If you want an analogue to board flipping, it's usuing the informal grapevine network to find the jobs people don't post right away and get in ahead of any work orders, etc.

 

[Stealthie]

And if FD had kept the 2.4 mission board system as it was in the beta, nobody would do it. There were dozens of missions to pick from. Then they nerfed it back to normal. Maybe if the mission board mechanic worked properly in the first place people wouldn't need to tweak the system. But it works, just like "why do people hyperjump instead of flying there". It's part of the game. It's not external tool assisted.

Except that people DID continue to do it when 2.4 went live, which is what caused the mission board to have a meltdown and forced FDev to reduce the number of missions again.

It's naive to think that people will just accept missions from the board if sufficient are provided.
As long as people know they CAN get different missions by mode-flipping they's ALWAYS do it.

All that happens is that, instead of taking 3 or 4 missions, mode-flipping and then taking another 3 or 4, they'll take 20, mode-flip, abandon the worst missions they have and replace them with better ones.
And then the mission-generator has a coronary.

 

[Glock_N_Load]

Because I can.

 

[Frame Farmer]

and mode-hopping kills my immershun (yeah I said it).

I may have a distorted view of the mode-hopping impacting my immersion--but to me it eventually felt like an actual part of the game.

So much of Elite (for me) takes place on second, third and forth screens, my role-playing mind just reasoned it as 'budget-minded trucker trolling different distribution hubs using 'OEM methodologies' rather than ponying up for the high-end transponder (that doesn't exist)--I just had to reboot that part of my system to load each new hub. As I was never leaving my physical cockpit and the same ship cockpit was in view once all was said and done it oddly felt 'real.' Now I must add a dis-qualifier--I sport an Obutto cockpit with four screens where Elite the game runs only on the 55" 4K in the middle--so my immersion had left the primary screen some time ago (for better or worse).

That said the idea of being able to view the missions at other stations from a distance (meaning at other stations, in-transit, etc.) seems like something we have today [logistics], so I am not certain why it does not exist in this future we share.

Thanks for asking!

 

[Roybe]

I look at mode jumping in 2 ways...

Got a blocked pad from someone....jump away!

The other way, is it acts like an independent truck driver job board. In real life, a lot of independent truckers use a system that lists pick up and drop off jobs. They pick their jobs, are assigned the route, and do their thing.

If there are no jobs currently listed, they just keep refreshing the page, looking for something to pop up that matches their delivery needs...

Changing modes is just an 'F5' for the jobs board. It works, there is nothing stopping anyone else from doing it.

 

[Dbrn47]

Except that people DID continue to do it when 2.4 went live, which is what caused the mission board to have a meltdown and forced FDev to reduce the number of missions again.

It's naive to think that people will just accept missions from the board if sufficient are provided.
As long as people know they CAN get different missions by mode-flipping they's ALWAYS do it.

All that happens is that, instead of taking 3 or 4 missions, mode-flipping and then taking another 3 or 4, they'll take 20, mode-flip, abandon the worst missions they have and replace them with better ones.
And then the mission-generator has a coronary.

That's too bad if true. Really, all I ever wanted out of it was just to be able to take either a full cargo hold of missions or a full stack of combat missions. The payouts were secondary to that plan... I just wanted a full roster of whatever I felt like doing for the day with minimal trips back to stations and minimal supercruise time overall. Unfortunately I just get so bored with, what is actually the biggest part of the game, travel. I know, it's terrible since the game is about flying spaceships, but flying in straight lines in an idle fashion for so much time, to and from stations, just feels dull to me.

 

[Delilah]

Except that people DID continue to do it when 2.4 went live, which is what caused the mission board to have a meltdown and forced FDev to reduce the number of missions again.

It's naive to think that people will just accept missions from the board if sufficient are provided.
As long as people know they CAN get different missions by mode-flipping they's ALWAYS do it.

All that happens is that, instead of taking 3 or 4 missions, mode-flipping and then taking another 3 or 4, they'll take 20, mode-flip, abandon the worst missions they have and replace them with better ones.
And then the mission-generator has a coronary.

We should be careful here not to blame individuals for Frontier's poor design and implementation of the mission system. Fixing missions in a manner that provides far more missions and far better rewards is the root solution.

 

[PuffyEichhorst]

Has been mentioned a couple of time before, so my 2cts:

For me it's as simple as economic works. I have the big ships and i want to use them as they should be intended to work, otherwise they are useless. Just having the bigger, less maneuverable ships to fly without having the benefit to gain the money you can expect flying one of these big babies, doesn't make sense.
And i am not loading up completly just untill i think the time money ratio is fair.

And flying around to collect missions would be like: Flying around with only 1/4 of the potential of the ship, cause if i look around in other stations, i wouls accept missions that take me to them-or its a bigger loss.
Finish the missions at the station, but there are never enough missions to replace them and accept much more...

 

[two quiet suns]

If only FDEV would either put a refresh button on the mission board!
I often wonder how much server resource is spent when players mode switch?

 

[GreyAreaUK]

If only FDEV would either put a refresh button on the mission board!
I often wonder how much server resource is spent when players mode switch?

I've got it in my head that mission generation was surprisingly non-trivial, but I can't find the post so take that with a pinch of salt.

 

[CMDR Goro]

Cause mode swithing is currently only way to utilise big ships.

 

[Alec Turner]

Full disclosure ... I mode switched this morning. Sorry but those darn Thargoid Links were just not appearing on the ends of their little tendrils. I reckon' this is a bug so I'm prepared to mode switch to "fix" it.

 

[Aekero]

I've done it, I don't like it but I'm bad when presented with shortcuts. The times I've done it were for very specific purposes i.e. extremely fast rep or money. I suppose the major reason is time. Take away the ability to flip back and forth and I'll be happy even though I'm guilty of doing it.

I suppose part of the problem is I get to caught up with the reward. I ground rep for both the cutter and vette, and even that took took dozens of hours each. Not board flipping would probably multiply my time spent by at least 5-10x, if not more. To say that, yeah, maybe it should take 2-300 hours for the rep for a cutter is valid, but it seems like every other person has a vette or cutter. (even if they don't use them)

I'm honestly not even sure why board flipping exists in the first place, if a station is out of missions it's out of missions. Time should be the driver for mission refreshes.

 

[GG7]

That's too bad if true.

Its not true.

Some always have to blame other players for making different gameplay choices than them and this is yet another of the more lame "Strawman" arguments to perpetuate "their internal mythology".

The mission board slow downs being referred to had NOTHING whatsoever to do with board flipping. The mission delivery system had server issues for several days after that update. Frontier support even responded to it at the time on here.

[rolleyes]

NEXT!

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

To refresh the missions, or dock at busy outposts.