Loading and unloading ships

peteuplink

peteuplink
I've always wondered why there aren't any loading and unloading procedures in the Elite games.

Sometimes it can take a long time to reach a station, especially in the older games where it could take up to 10 days to reach your destination (speeded up of course), then you dock and it takes seconds to sell, buy and launch, and be back out in space again.

It's always felt a little odd to me that you're this space pilot who flies into a space station, docks, loads, unloads, and vanishes again in less than a minute. Now I guess you could explain it by saying that all the ships are fitted with some sort of matter transporter device so things are instantly beamed in and out of your ships cargo hold, but if that's the case why would you need to dock? Also it strikes me that most pilots must be really anti-social as they stay in their ships all the time.

I think it would be interesting if they could add some sort of loading procedure to the game play to add that little bit of extra immersion (obviously with the option to turn it on or off for people that enjoy faster game play). Get it right and you have a full cargo, get it wrong and you lose some due to damaged goods. You could also have the choice of doing it manually or having it automated by paying a small amount of credits.

They most probably can't do it with ED as the game appears to be set in real time, so if it was going to take 10 minutes to load your ship there would be no way to skip time forward if you didn't want to wait for automated loading.

I'm probably just over thinking it... :S
 

Amadeus

A
I've been thinking along the same lines.
If it took 1 second to unload 1 ton of cargo that would balance things a little for traders making phone number sized profits.
 

Raxxla

Raxxla
I like the idea, but it's would need to be on a much faster time scale, or just a load and unload sequence would be cool to have, even a fuelling sequence would be nice, but then you've got to make the assets work with all the ships. It's a possibility, but something that would come further down the road, as these are just cosmetic nice things to see.
 

VR jefranklin18

VR jefranklin18
peteuplink said:
I've always wondered why there aren't any loading and unloading procedures in the Elite games.

Sometimes it can take a long time to reach a station, especially in the older games where it could take up to 10 days to reach your destination (speeded up of course), then you dock and it takes seconds to sell, buy and launch, and be back out in space again.

It's always felt a little odd to me that you're this space pilot who flies into a space station, docks, loads, unloads, and vanishes again in less than a minute. Now I guess you could explain it by saying that all the ships are fitted with some sort of matter transporter device so things are instantly beamed in and out of your ships cargo hold, but if that's the case why would you need to dock? Also it strikes me that most pilots must be really anti-social as they stay in their ships all the time.

I think it would be interesting if they could add some sort of loading procedure to the game play to add that little bit of extra immersion (obviously with the option to turn it on or off for people that enjoy faster game play). Get it right and you have a full cargo, get it wrong and you lose some due to damaged goods. You could also have the choice of doing it manually or having it automated by paying a small amount of credits.

They most probably can't do it with ED as the game appears to be set in real time, so if it was going to take 10 minutes to load your ship there would be no way to skip time forward if you didn't want to wait for automated loading.

I'm probably just over thinking it... :S
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Ah, I thought you were going to suggest a white zone for loading and red zone for loading so something like this may occur (poor audio unfortunately)
 

Lobstris

Lobstris
peteuplink said:
Oh well... Guess there was only two of us thought it was a good idea. :rolleyes:
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No - some of us have thought about it before, but... If people think that super-cruise is boring and takes too long, how do you think people would feel waiting for a low-g fork-lift to shuttle backwards and forwards with one tonne palettes and canisters? Can you imagine the outcry? :eek::rolleyes:

Can we accept one thing sacrificed on the altar of fun, with the divine hammer of gameplay? :)
 

peteuplink

peteuplink
Raxxla said:
I like the idea, but it's would need to be on a much faster time scale.
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Lobstris said:
No - some of us have thought about it before, but... If people think that super-cruise is boring and takes too long, how do you think people would feel waiting for a low-g fork-lift to shuttle backwards and forwards with one tonne palettes and canisters? Can you imagine the outcry? :eek::rolleyes:

Can we accept one thing sacrificed on the altar of fun, with the divine hammer of gameplay? :)
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That's why I suggested having an option to turn it off. ;)
 

Schnittertm

S
Lobstris said:
No - some of us have thought about it before, but... If people think that super-cruise is boring and takes too long, how do you think people would feel waiting for a low-g fork-lift to shuttle backwards and forwards with one tonne palettes and canisters? Can you imagine the outcry? :eek::rolleyes:

Can we accept one thing sacrificed on the altar of fun, with the divine hammer of gameplay? :)
Click to expand...

It might be an option once (if) the expansion with first person walking around stations comes out, since you could go to the bar, barber, shopping mall, whatever while you wait for your ship to be processed (loading and unloading, fueling, maintenance etc.), but until then it would certainly be boring just waiting for a timer to count down.
 

Lobstris

Lobstris
Schnittertm said:
It might be an option once (if) the expansion with first person walking around stations comes out, since you could go to the bar, barber, shopping mall, whatever while you wait for your ship to be processed (loading and unloading, fueling, maintenance etc.), but until then it would certainly be boring just waiting for a timer to count down.
Click to expand...

That is a nice idea though - and strikes me as an ideal if station interaction can be made 'meaningful' - rather than just walking through cookie cutter corridors, looking for poorly animated and designed NPCs to talk to for specific tasks. Thinking more Mass Effect than X:ReBirth. :)

...be difficult to get right just procedurally generating content though. :(
 

Davevti

Davevti
I like the idea, having a mooch around the station while you wait, walking into a seedy saloon where elicit black market cargo could be scored or some questionable characters in the corner offering credits for bounties etc
 

Hamerstein

Hamerstein
Lobstris said:
That is a nice idea though - and strikes me as an ideal if station interaction can be made 'meaningful' - rather than just walking through cookie cutter corridors, looking for poorly animated and designed NPCs to talk to for specific tasks. Thinking more Mass Effect than X:ReBirth. :)

...be difficult to get right just procedurally generating content though. :(
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I agree, once we can walk around stations, having an in-game reason that made sense for mooching around the station/starport would sit better with me than (for instance) being forced to go talk to someone in the flesh because for some inexplicable reason it's not possible to make a phone call.

I wouldn't want the actual unloading/loading time to be particularly long though. Providing incentive to explore a station (a 5 minute wait for cargo) is fine - even if I then spent half an hour mooching about, forcing me to spend half an hour (for example) every-time I docked would be tedious and irritating.
 

Juniper

Juniper
David talked about exactly this during the Kickstarter as something he wants to see - he said that we would be able to watch cargo being loaded & unloaded, and possibly be able to even place cargo ourselves to make best use of our cargo bays... and help with smuggling etc.

When the walking on stations expansion comes in, it would make a nice little mini game perhaps.
 

Davevti

Davevti
I'd love to see something like this confirmed.....apart from the 'diy' part.....that's what slaves are for!
 

Defacto

Defacto
This sounds like a great idea to me. Overall, having stations feel more living, as well as varied, would be really nice.
 

Lobstris

Lobstris
Juniper said:
David talked about exactly this during the Kickstarter as something he wants to see
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No offence to DBOBE, but a lot of things were said in the Kickstarter that I thought 'yeah right... great *if* you pull that off'.

Still ponied up the cash though. :)
 

Memnoch

M
peteuplink said:
Get it right and you have a full cargo, get it wrong and you lose some due to damaged goods. You could also have the choice of doing it manually or having it automated by paying a small amount of credits.
Click to expand...
Oh no! This sounds horribly like some QTE. I loathe those things. I'm all for immersion and once we are able to get out of our ships and walk around it would be pretty cool to see robot craft moving cargo around to and from your ship.....but let's not turn it into a mini game. And can you imaging waiting as you watch 400+ cannisters get removed from your hold, then another 400+ being loaded on to it?

I think this might be one of those things that sounds cool till you look at the practicalities of it.
 

peteuplink

peteuplink
Memnoch said:
Oh no! This sounds horribly like some QTE. I loathe those things. I'm all for immersion and once we are able to get out of our ships and walk around it would be pretty cool to see robot craft moving cargo around to and from your ship.....but let's not turn it into a mini game. And can you imaging waiting as you watch 400+ cannisters get removed from your hold, then another 400+ being loaded on to it?

I think this might be one of those things that sounds cool till you look at the practicalities of it.
Click to expand...

Again, that's why I suggested allowing people to turn it off in the options.
 
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