Had to think about this, but in the end I decided that:
- I definitely want both ship and module transfer in the game.
- A bit of a wait won't really be a problem. As long as we get a clear indication of how long the wait will be (an ETA countdown of some sort visible in the shipyard, for example), we can do other stuff in the meantime while waiting for the ship/module to transfer.
- Due to the above, I am very much against instant transfer. Plus it just feels wrong, regardless of the cost.
- The wait does not have to be equal to the time it would take for the ship itself to travel the distance. I'd be fine with it being around half the time an Anaconda would take to travel the distance, plus maybe a minute or two to avoid near-instant transfers for short distances - From an immersion perspective, this can be explained by having three pilots flying shifts for long-range ships, or having the ship loaded into a larger, longer-ranged, carrier for shorter-ranged ships (also incidentally explaining the cost of the transfer).
- For destinations within the bubble, wait times will never be severe if we use the above formula. Even a 400ly transfer would be less than 10 minutes if we ignore fuel scooping, use a reasonable 30ly/jump and 30sec/jump, plus a 2-minute 'startup' time - Just enough time to make a cup of tea, but no more than that. On the other hand, transferring to locations such as Jaques would still take a LONG time... as well it should. Given that, I see no reason why instant transfers should be necessary even from a gameplay perspective.
- I definitely want both ship and module transfer in the game.
- A bit of a wait won't really be a problem. As long as we get a clear indication of how long the wait will be (an ETA countdown of some sort visible in the shipyard, for example), we can do other stuff in the meantime while waiting for the ship/module to transfer.
- Due to the above, I am very much against instant transfer. Plus it just feels wrong, regardless of the cost.
- The wait does not have to be equal to the time it would take for the ship itself to travel the distance. I'd be fine with it being around half the time an Anaconda would take to travel the distance, plus maybe a minute or two to avoid near-instant transfers for short distances - From an immersion perspective, this can be explained by having three pilots flying shifts for long-range ships, or having the ship loaded into a larger, longer-ranged, carrier for shorter-ranged ships (also incidentally explaining the cost of the transfer).
- For destinations within the bubble, wait times will never be severe if we use the above formula. Even a 400ly transfer would be less than 10 minutes if we ignore fuel scooping, use a reasonable 30ly/jump and 30sec/jump, plus a 2-minute 'startup' time - Just enough time to make a cup of tea, but no more than that. On the other hand, transferring to locations such as Jaques would still take a LONG time... as well it should. Given that, I see no reason why instant transfers should be necessary even from a gameplay perspective.