How Open-only would balance ED
Didn't the Stellar Forge use to fit on a floppy disk?
Each system is just a seed with some notes on who has scanned/mapped what.
I wouldn't be surprised if the whole client, server software, plus the entire saved stellar forge and BGS states were smaller than some modern AAA game installs.
The nice thing about procedurally generated worlds, is that you don't need to store the whole Stellar Forge on your hard drive. You only have to store whatever data you generate as you play. If you stay in six systems, for example, you only have to store whatever has changed, faction state wise, from the systems you play in. Everything else, from the orbital configurations of the planets in a system, down to individual rocks on a planet's surface, are generated on the fly as needed, and discarded when they're no longer needed. That's the whole point of procedural generation.
The problem with offline mode is that the factions within the galaxy are pretty much static unless players interact with them. Its player activity that causes factions to change states, and the supply and demand of commodities to change (assuming that Frontier removed the chains off of the Economic Sim, of course), which in turn affects the missions that generate at a station. If no player visits a system in a while, everything slowly settles back into its starting equilibrium, as determined by the Stellar Forge.
To simulate the dynamic galaxy we see in Elite: Dangerous, Frontier would need to basically create a player simulation model, with hundreds of thousands of AIs making decisions on the fly. If Frontier was going to devote that kind of resources, IMO it would be better served to create persistent NPCs for the online part of this game, because that kind of thing negates one of the main attractions of a single-player game for most people: the fact that the game universe literally revolves around the player.
Those NPCs would hide in Solo and we'd be right back where we started
You expected something else?
Be that as it may from my perspective there's several difficulties with it. One, Elite trumpets (rightly, imo) that Commanders can play their own way. That's a great thing, but the removal of solo, forcing open onto the whole playerbase forces people to play in a certain way that they wouldn't necessarily otherwise have chosen.
The other element to all this is that we probably all to varyingly greater or lesser extents come to the game looking for something different from it. One of the big draws for me is escapism. IRL I work in a role which unfortunately involves dealing with some fairly toxic people from time to time. I get verbal abuse and threats of violence here and there as part of the day job. I'm sure other folks here also have day jobs that are stressful in their own way. Unsurprisingly, I come to the game looking to enjoy being way out in the black far away from toxicity. I have to deal with enough toxicity IRL; I don't want to have to deal with it during my leisure time, and foisting open only on people necessarily forces them to have to put up with griefing, ganking, etc. I realise that it's just a game, etc etc, but ultimately people are sinking valuable time into it; it shouldn't be, necessarily, a stressful experience for one group just because another group thinks that's how the game 'ought' to be.
Now don't get me wrong, Open also means I can be open to all sorts of brilliantly positive stuff too, and I'm sure at some point I'll get stuck in. But the point is, we all currently have the choice to either engage with PVP or not. Foisting open only on people removes that choice, and I think it would be unwise both from a gameplay and from a player experience point of view.
Right now, we can all currently take from the game whatever we want without forcing things on people. That's one of Elite's biggest selling points imo.
Finally, one thing that tends to get overlooked when thinking about open-only is bandwith. There's going to be a lot of players out there who, like me, live in fairly remote parts of their countries. I obviously have internet but it's far from perfect and I have fairly limited bandwidth. One of the reasons I tend to play in Solo is that I know my connection can usually handle it. I doubt if it was open-only I'd be able to.
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I don't think that we'd need the full granularity of simulating every single one of the NPC pilots out there, a lot of the same effect can be achieved by abstracting NPC traders into generic "trade fleets" that are then have their various trades distributed amongst appropriate local systems. Further granularity could be achieved by further subdividing trade fleets into rough groups, such as "long-haul traders", "short-haul traders" and "militarised traders" which would then favour particular systems (such as only militarised traders bothering to trade in anarchy systems).
That being said, having proper persistent NPCs and wings, even if it is just 100,000 of them spread throughout the bubble, would go a long way to helping a sense of identity for individual factions and regions.
Overall, considering how the BGS is the biggest and most accessible plot in Elite, it has certainly been ignored over the years and could really do with some significant work.
Because he wants to kill them.
Foolishly, I did. Well I'm not going to reply to any more off-topic responses or strawmen (and this thread is full of strawmen) even if directed at me. If you all rather discuss PvP rather than the topic of no long lines where there should be long lines, have at it.You expected something else?
Sooo... One of you want additional timesink with mundane mechanics (queues? REALLY?!), and another one wants orthodox gameplay using only in game tools which are of pitiful quality, obscure, and unreliable on purpose.
Yes, I can see this working flawlessly.
I would prefer open only in general! The actual risk from gankers is not as great as the annoyance of actually being ganked. Lets face it though the three modes of the game are here to stay. To mitagate the more cheat mode aspects of solo and PG, I have long advocated seperate save points for the three modes, ships, credits, ranks etc. all seperate. This stops the parallel universe problems, as it makes it pointless using the modes to circumvent unconvient aspects of the game.
The OP makes a good point about docking queues as a limiter to accessing the port etc. I would also suggest that stations and even hangers should have a max ship capacity, that is persistant over the three modes. This would also help in simulating real markets, there might be a risk of player groups trying to take all the hanger space. So, you could still have an infinate amount of ship storage space (for stored ships and logout cmdrs) but a limited amount of space for cmdrs ingame.
![[VR] M4st0d0n](https://d2aefvhu2f0gi9.cloudfront.net/data/avatars/m/182/182772.jpg?1569064854){kind=avatar}
Technically solo was put after they ditched offline mode, but didn't want to alienate backers who wanted it.
Having balance by forcing people to wait for a landing pad is the typical MMO nonsense those backers didn't want to get in their spaceship simulation.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
That is not the case, technically or otherwise.
The three online game modes we have now were all announced at the beginning of the Kickstarter with Offline mode being added about halfway through.
Other people have mentioned that ED needs a proper economy, which I totally agree with. Right now we can all go to our parallel universes and get our own private Walmart during the Black Friday deals with no lines at all, which is not realistic. OTOH, I freely admitted in the OP that I too have no desire to wait in line, thus I took the easy way and switched to PG. If the game was Open-only, then I would be forced to either wait in line, or go to another system that's not as crowded (just like I might go to Target instead of Walmart on Black Friday to avoid lines).
However, back to the balanced economy - if all of us were in our own "phase" where we can't see each other (typical sci-fi trope), but there was just ONE Walmart, this would also balance the game. In this scenario there wouldn't be any lines, but all the PS5s would be disappearing off the shelves as other people in their own little phase instances grabbed them, and soon Walmart would be empty. In fact, without lines it would empty out SOONER.
Now I get it, most people don't want this either. They just want free and easy credits with no realism whatsoever. Heck, right now I'm in the same boat! But the game is less because of this, and I think that's kinda sad.. Just my 2c.
I'm willing to give you funding for your carrier, if it can be done legally...
It can! PM me and I'll explain how. It requires a fleet carrier of your own, however (unless you want to mine a Cutter full of LTDs and give them to me, but that sounds painful).I'm willing to give you funding for your carrier, if it can be done legally...
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Can I give you a T-6 load of fish?Other people have mentioned that ED needs a proper economy, which I totally agree with. Right now we can all go to our parallel universes and get our own private Walmart during the Black Friday deals with no lines at all, which is not realistic. OTOH, I freely admitted in the OP that I too have no desire to wait in line, thus I took the easy way and switched to PG. If the game was Open-only, then I would be forced to either wait in line, or go to another system that's not as crowded (just like I might go to Target instead of Walmart on Black Friday to avoid lines).
However, back to the balanced economy - if all of us were in our own "phase" where we can't see each other (typical sci-fi trope), but there was just ONE Walmart, this would also balance the game. In this scenario there wouldn't be any lines, but all the PS5s would be disappearing off the shelves as other people in their own little phase instances grabbed them, and soon Walmart would be empty. In fact, without lines it would empty out SOONER.
Now I get it, most people don't want this either. They just want free and easy credits with no realism whatsoever. Heck, right now I'm in the same boat! But the game is less because of this, and I think that's kinda sad.. Just my 2c.
My T-6 is too pretty to carry fishCan I give you a T-6 load of fish?
