2.2's Instant Ship and Module Transport - Yay or Nay?

[Cosmos]

Im in two minds over this.. Getting about can be a laborious process sometimes, so being able to move our ships about more easily is obviously better yet insta transfer seems a bit too arcadey in the way they plan to do it.

I can't help but think it will make the size of the various frameshift drives and jump ranges redundant. Just have an Asp with a high jump range for getting about, then summon said ship..

They could balance it by putting it on a CD.. You transfer one ship instanteously and you can't transfer that ship again, or another one for a given time..

 

[ThatFuzzyTiger]

Rather than shrouding your point in mystery can you please just tell us straight what this technical limitation is?

Answer takes too long and this threadnaught has no brakes! PM me if you want to talk at a more sedate speed.

 

[Commander Yeager]

I like the idea of using "the shore-leave" NPCs as ship transfer pilots. This could solve the whole problem. E.g. you could assign them to any stored ship they can use to do their own thing (this could even be extended to a feature where they report in and give you a cut of their earnings, because you have the risk of ship desctruction). To solve the problem of ship transfer, their job is also to only take missions around the player location, so you have e. g. 3-5 ships (and also NPCs) around, which you can access almost INSTANTLY. The other ships of course take a lot of time and credits to be transported by your NPCs.

 

[Privata]

Just a side step here for clarification. Despite the in game effect of instant transport, lore wise these ships aren't teleporting any more than we are when our ship blows up and instantly show up in a new ship. It's to streamline gameplay and not meant to literally represent events in the world. So don't take this as teleportation tech existing or your unique engineered ship being replicated exactly while the original is destroyed or anything. As far as the lore is concerned it's getting to you the old fashioned way.

If they change nothing my headcanon will be :
My ship is sent off way before I arrive at said station.

When I arrive at the other station I pay the fee , the fee I pay is towards the pilot who got to point A to point B for me.
The ship transfer option , I will treat as a confirmation that the ship I wanted has been transfered.

All in all , its not the worst thing ever , but it changes everything and removes depth.
However , if FD add more reasons to use every ship then it will be fine.

All I want is a counter ballance and a lore reason

 

[Sandysky]

Quite frankly. I feel so strongly against *instant* ship transports, that it is a pure game breaker for me.

If it is implemented then I'll simply click uninstall and walk away, lifetime expansion pass or not. (and no, I won't made a quit thread. lol, I'll just walk away)

 

[Privata]

Some of you guys are definitely overreacting. God forbid they fulfill their kickstarter promise and give us alts; I cannot imagine the outcry that would follow on this forum.

But is this what they told us? I would not agree , but I could be wrong.

They said ship transfer , and during beta I felt like it was the sort of game that would follow logic and lore

 

[Bomba Luigi]

While its true that there always was unrealistic stuff and has to be to some degree I would have like that FD at least tries to be beliavable, which not only since now they really don't anymore. At least in some aspects, in others not, which creates a weird game that proudly claims scientific accuracy and realism while it at the same time throws wizards and unicorns at you all the time.

Being a arcady game really isn't bad, I love arcade games, tough I think elite should stick to one and not try to do the both at the same time. Claming one and doing the other feels akward when playing.

 

[Lobstris]

Answer takes too long and this threadnaught has no brakes! PM me if you want to talk at a more sedate speed.

Sigh. Seriously. If you've got something of relevance, could you please share your thinking with the group at large so the issue can be debated? Even if you think it's a technical issue above all of our pretty little heads, I'm sure some might be able to follow what you are saying. Infinite-monkey peer-review and all that.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

But is this what they told us? I would not agree , but I could be wrong.

They said ship transfer , and during beta I felt like it was the sort of game that would follow logic and lore

Also they always said that gameplay will always overrule realism where necessary.

 

[faluc]

And those who think that the issue is entirely down to people being 'salty about realism' also should maybe have a think about what could possibly go wrong with a system which involves the person who's tricycle they just cut up on the side road, ten minutes before, suddenly pulling out a Challenger Battle Tank. Or if they've cornered a nice lucrative trading market in oil futures, and the jeep bowser one pad over suddenly turns into a supertanker.

OK let me elaborate. My point is that ED had little to no realism to begin with, so this transfer feature is just another small nail in the coffin of the dead realism, nothing to be upset about post-mortem.

My sense of realism finally went out the window when I could sell imperial slaves by the tens of thousands to the pirate faction, all the while being King ranked, without so much of a peep from the Empire.

So considering your example, seeing someone dock with a sidewinder and launch with a corvette a minute later doesn't even get a half raised eyebrow from me.

I need to point out that I still enjoy the game, but it is the 'lets try to get all the ships and upgrade them' type of game, not the 'lets have a grand adventure in a living realistic galaxy'. The amount of existing immersion breaking stuff already makes it impossible for me to suspend my disbelief. Therefore my opinion that instant ship transfer does not make things worse.

 

[jasonbarron]

* "ensuring fighters will literally never have to leave a system again via FSD" - how this is a problem?
* "players will be able to spawn A spec G5 modded battleships in very hard to reach places" - such places usually have no contacts to pew pew, how this is a problem?
* "stripped down Asp's one way in a single jump to a prime trading location" - you will have to jump back anyway? How this is a problem?

None of those are actual problems. Stop make stuff up

Ahem. For the record I am a forum daddy, so I meant to include myself in that statement. In fact, I decided to amend it after hitting post because I realized that it sounded insulting when I didn't mean it that way

On to your questions: 1-it's a problem for two reasons. We no longer have to compromise on how we equip our fighters. No more traveling around getting upgrades to the FSD, now we hardly even need an FSD, we'll just equip the lightest, cheapest pos we can find. Oh, and fuel scoops are going the way of the dodo, too. This all culminates in problem two, which is that it ruins the "feel" of the game. Now the galaxy will be populated solely by players who've ground out their quickyconda's as that's the only ship they'll ever need.

2-Sothis/Ceos/Maia/Robigo will beg to differ, I'm sure

3-The method I'm describing will be used to cut down on travel time dramatically.

Just off the top of my head; I'm not an exploitative type of player, and I'm willing to bet the min maxers out there are already dreaming of ways to make the best use of this mechanic.

 

[mossfoot]

If they change nothing my headcanon will be :
My ship is sent off way before I arrive at said station.

When I arrive at the other station I pay the fee , the fee I pay is towards the pilot who got to point A to point B for me.
The ship transfer option , I will treat as a confirmation that the ship I wanted has been transfered.

All in all , its not the worst thing ever , but it changes everything and removes depth.
However , if FD add more reasons to use every ship then it will be fine.

All I want is a counter ballance and a lore reason

Yeah, that works for me.

I'd rather have a time delay (they make us wait half a day to leave and join a Power, so why not a ship?) but clearly they expect players to be ADHD and need access to their fighter, mining ship, or space cow freighter right away.

[video=youtube_share;c9EBhaULToU]https://youtu.be/c9EBhaULToU[/video]

that said instant won't kill me personally. I'll use the same headcanon as you (I mentioned it earlier in the thread)

My only concern is potential game breaking uses of it (if ther are any) and how the abuse of it will make the universe a much smaller place.

 

[Yaffle]

* "ensuring fighters will literally never have to leave a system again via FSD" - how this is a problem?

They will be optimised to kill. Optimised to take out the weaker who have travelled using 'proper' game mechanics to get there, who have made compromises and played the game, not some crazy min-max-meta-killfest

* "players will be able to spawn A spec G5 modded battleships in very hard to reach places" - such places usually have no contacts to pew pew, how this is a problem?

It's more fish in the barrel for the seal clubbers to club. Carry cargo to a CG? You need to compromise. Want to gank a trader? No worries, just teleport the uber-optimised ship and kill away.

* "stripped down Asp's one way in a single jump to a prime trading location" - you will have to jump back anyway? How this is a problem?

Sothis, for example. Stripped out Asp to Sothis. Teleport in cutter. Stack missions in cutter, do missions slower than asp could but far more of them. Teleport Asp to final destination, fly back fast, teleport cutter, rinse and repeat. It removes all the balancing from the whole point of ship ranges.

At least with a delay you'd need to think ahead and plan, not just meta the whole thing all of the time.

 

[Connolly91]

Let's just do away with supercruise entirely then, shall we?

Pick a point in navigation, press a button, instant warp to it.

I don't care if this is FD's idea. It's stupid. Something being the decision of the game creators doesn't absolve it from being a stupid idea and you just have to look at the results of the poll to confirm that the majority of people are against instant ship transfer and Elite Dangerous would not have been made without the community and Kickstarter. So, unlike a AAA game dev, FD actually owe a lot more to their customers. They sold us a particular game or set of ideas in the DDF which caused us to back the game and basically fund the development of their game. So it being 'Frontier's decision, not yours' is a strawman argument.

How Ship Transfer should be done

You go to your shipyard which shows the number of ships you have and where they are. You can select each ship and request a pilot to fly the ship to your location, a transporter if you will. You pay a fee, and the ship transports in real time, but continues while you're logged off. Allow us to transfer multiple ships simultaneously so that although it will take 'real time', you only have to do it once if you want to relocate or codify your fleet at your home base. Hell, maybe we could add 'transporter' missions for players to do as well, as a way to fly ships that they otherwise wouldn't be able to.

 

[Trueno33]

Very relieved to see that the option for instant transfer is a minority. I hope that FD reacts accordingly

 

[Paineframe]

On to your questions: 1-it's a problem for two reasons. We no longer have to compromise on how we equip our fighters. No more traveling around getting upgrades to the FSD, now we hardly even need an FSD, we'll just equip the lightest, cheapest pos we can find. Oh, and fuel scoops are going the way of the dodo, too. This all culminates in problem two, which is that it ruins the "feel" of the game. Now the galaxy will be populated solely by players who've ground out their quickyconda's as that's the only ship they'll ever need.

People already do that. They equip their fighter for travel, take it to the best outfitting system near where they want to use it, and then strip it down for pure combat and travel the rest of the way to where they want to fight. It's always a laugh when a station goes down for some reason and a bunch of FDLs with 1ly jump ranges (1 ton tank, lightest possible FSD) find themselves totally stranded.

 

[warbaby2]

Seeing how much flak ED received for using time consuming systems like super cruise in the first place is doubly ironic now...

 

[Lobstris]

OK let me elaborate. My point is that ED had little to no realism to begin with, so this transfer feature is just another small nail in the coffin of the dead realism, nothing to be upset about post-mortem.

My sense of realism finally went out the window when I could sell imperial slaves by the tens of thousands to the pirate faction, all the while being King ranked, without so much of a peep from the Empire.

So considering your example, seeing someone dock with a sidewinder and launch with a corvette a minute later doesn't even get a half raised eyebrow from me.

I need to point out that I still enjoy the game, but it is the 'lets try to get all the ships and upgrade them' type of game, not the 'lets have a grand adventure in a living realistic galaxy'. The amount of existing immersion breaking stuff already makes it impossible for me to suspend my disbelief. Therefore my opinion that instant ship transfer does not make things worse.

And going round again, just because one aspect of realism in the name of gameplay has been compromised in the past, doesn't mean all semblance of realism needs to be abandoned. Likewise those who want realism should be prepared to accept that compromises need to be made for everyone's sanity. And the line 'not to be crossed' on all of the options is personal. I'm sorry that your willing suspension of disbelief has been broken. But: 'Two wrongs don't make a right!', 'Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater' etc. etc.

I agree with you that Frontier have really failed in some aspects of their own lore - witness Sandro this morning failing to grasp the question about 'special cabins for slaves' and turning it into a weird 'what you want torture chambers thing?', though in fairness the question should have been 'why are we still transporting Imperial Slaves as Cattle' now that we have 'passengers' on the horizon?

 

[cluelessforumuser65578]

Im in two minds over this.. Getting about can be a laborious process sometimes, so being able to move our ships about more easily is obviously better yet insta transfer seems a bit too arcadey in the way they plan to do it.

I can't help but think it will make the size of the various frameshift drives and jump ranges redundant. Just have an Asp with a high jump range for getting about, then summon said ship..

They could balance it by putting it on a CD.. You transfer one ship instanteously and you can't transfer that ship again, or another one for a given time..

+1 ive said this a couple of times but it just gets drowned out in all the whinge. it retains its intended purpose but prevents any cheesy exploits

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Sorry Yaffle, really not buying these arguments - most of those issues have nothing to do with instant ship transfer at all, but ship transfer in general. Also combat optimized fighters not using "special" FSD still would be able to travel far. How that's make it worse really not seeing it. Same with trade CG - ok, I will travel to place, teleport my combat ship - and it differs from me using same combat ship to travel there how? Unreachable systems? They ain't that many. With Engie mods even more so.

Most of all issues mentioned against *instant* ship transfer are basically issue with ship transfer in general.