Because it's a terrible idea.
Why is this NOT the way it is?
- Thread starter CaoticFox
- Start date
OP, have you tried the Pause Game function recently? 
Why would it prevent that? Would it automatically undock people? If all slots are taken, there can be hundreds or people waiting. All the queue would do would be to get longer and longer. Everybody would be waiting for one of the 45 people, who just logged off and went to bed come back from work the next day and launch again.
So yes, the queue would change the game from "frantically click dock when somebody seems to launch" to "wait for some hours in line". Awesome gameplay.
Nope. It's a game, with only some aspects of simulation. Even the flight model has been hobbled for various reasons and is very 'gamey'. I made the mistake years ago of treating it like a sim than a game - it didn't end well. Once the realisation came that it's just a game - and unfortunately a multiplayer game with all the crud that entails - I became much more chilled about the whole thing.
Also, your idea wouldn't work anyway. The presence of a ship is generated by the presence of the player's game client in this P2P network schema the game runs under. FDEV would need to implement a client-server schema, and I think by now the vast majority of customers realise that that ain't gonna happen.
I do this sometimes. ED running on my monitor while I'm doing chores is better than any screen saver!
The other option is to dock, enter the hangar, and then log out - then at least our ship "disappearing" isn't quite so Marty McFly. I almost always dock or land on a planet before logging out.
You backed/bought the wrong game then. Did you not read the description?
Hellion would be more up your street imo.
I didn't back the wrong game. I was sold on Braben's vision. This game developed into the wrong game. I was paying attention from the beginning. This game has manifested just enough of what lit up Braben's eyes to keep me playing but I've lost hope over the last 4 years. It wasn't really bad until engineers came out. It's been getting steadily more cartoony/trendy/settling for placeholder/common denominator/poor ignored foundation/gamey/ etc. since then.
It's still fun but it's a knife in the side every time someone says "it's not a simulation, idiot". The sim crowd gave up and the gamey crowd appropriated the game and steered it in the opposite direction. The crowd has spoken but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it. We lost the greatest potential for "that" game when the console crowd got involved.
Too many compromises and we're in the minority and considered stupid for seeing sim aspects in an obviously gamey game.
Remember when 40KCR was a big payout? I liked that. If you didn't you'll never understand.
Years ago I used to play one of those 'free' games where you sent villagers out to source materials to build up your village. Eventually I managed to get my village up to a full blown castle. I was really proud of it and, to be honest, I'd made more than a few 'in-game purchases' to get it to where it was.
Then I went on holiday for a week.
When I got back it was a smoldering pile of rubble because other players realised there was no-one at home to defend it.
I do NOT want Elite to be like that!
I don't recall Braben describing his vision for Elite Dangerous as "a space-legs survival game". Like I suggested, Hellion fits that description much better.
I think that the way it IS is simply better.
I actually quite like the idea of slowly losing fuel if you log out in space but if you land at a station or on a planet to log then you dont - it could be the Elite version of "rest xp" some MMOs offer.
To be honest it would matter not one jot to me as I always land to log - im a little OCD like that. But it would add a little more thought to where and when one quits
To be honest it would matter not one jot to me as I always land to log - im a little OCD like that. But it would add a little more thought to where and when one quits
Yes, it would either automatically launch people or impound their ship. The whole point of queue is to keep traffic moving, not to stall it; there would be no purpose to it otherwise. I'm not sure what's hard to grasp...if there is only one way something can work, why repeatedly assume something other than that?
Personally, I'd have no time limit until all pads of a given size were filled, then the next docking request would start a first-in-first-out queue and the first one to have docked on that pad size would have three minutes to leave. If more docking requests come in the next longest person would the have three minutes to leave and so on. I'd also reduce the time to dock counter during full occupancy to a similar three minutes and limit the number of docking requests that could be issued in a given period of time. You would need a phenomenally high flow of traffic, probably more than instancing would even support, to need to wait more than five minutes for a pad, even if NPCs didn't automatically surrender theirs.
We should already have such a system, both because the current system where a handful of ships can completely lock out an outpost is absurd, and so logging out and back in isn't a required facet of 'gameplay' when someone is hogging a pad.
Space sim is a misnomer of a genre and relic from back when the genre first started (with games like the original elite), E
isn't meant to be a simulator in the likes of a military, flight or vehicle simulator. It means its more slower paced than arcade space games but with no intention to reach the kind of realism a true simulator would have. If it was a true simulator then many mechanics would be radically different and the playerbase would be significantly smaller.
yours and every other nay in this thread, hinge on inconveniences solely inflicted on the CMDR. NONE OF WHICH touch the mention of the opening line in OP. Simulation... its not about what is CONVENIENT for you as a player, its about REALISM.
a valid solution to WHERE TO LEAVE YOUR SHIP... which I intentionally didn't mention, else everyone's negativity would instantly be MOOT... lolIt's actually a game, not a simulation. Also I don't see in any way how it would enhance the game.
Nice try, but people would just switch to solo before logging off...
+1 Rep
Looks for gritty realism
Promotes parking your ship in an untouchable pocket universe
Edit: hrm, can't do sidelong glances with the new forum. This is like Discord, ruining my oldschool emoji faces. It is of sadness.
which is always going to be there... due to PVP v PVE playstyles... may as well make it a TOOL rather than what it is currently. Your ship could be automatically be SWITCHED to solo if you timed out of your "Queue".