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

[Boomer Kay]

Unfortunately, I can say I did try to run some of those missions, I avoided Sothis and Robigo, but there were other systems. I ultimately found it dreadfully boring and not worth the credits, so I didn't make near as much headway as others. Go figure. I certainly won't be using the ship transfer feature how it's being prophesied. Though I suppose the many must suffer for the transgressions of the few.

This is the data we have about "the many". (Really nice increase there in overall audience).
Average not even 12 hours, median 3 hours playtime.

That is the time players spend on the game and trying to convince them that
a) in those 3 hours they have much impact on the galaxy compared to a 30 hour a week player
b) they have to enjoy spending half of their playtime with redundant traveling or they "have no place here"
is rather weak.

 

[Dbrn47]

How anyone can not understand this is beyond my lowly human comprehension. Did I die? Is this Purgatory?

Some people would prefer the convenience over the realism. Some don't find it absurd at all. It's really not hard to understand the argument on either side, it's just whether we can agree or not and which side FDev will end up on.

 

[Yaffle]

Within my very quote, you missed the answer: These ships are owned by the transfer service, not the ship sales-people, explaining why you can't buy every kind of ship, but can transfer any kind of ship. Your transfer fee pays for materials required to "print" your ship components, offset by the fact that your original ship was stripped and kept for use by someone else at your old station.

But why can I only print a ship I already had? Why does it print it with wear and tear? how does it print my engineered modules? why can't I print resonating separators or medical equipment? 3D printing brings more bizarre twisted logic to the game that simply saying 'it takes time to move anything from anywhere to anywhere. What you do in the interim is up to you.'

 

[Shar]

I do NOT want any more delays when playing the game. When you have a fleet of 100 ships or so scattered around the bubble with special fits and dozens bought just for module storage things get complicated. All of my time lately (since rngineers) has been going to traveling from point A to B to fetch stuff and use the clunky buy back feature. ED has enough time wasting properties as it is and I would rather be having fun than worry about logistic problems and WAIT for them to happen.

Thats a mess you have created for yourself don't blame the game. with module storage, things should get easier for you after you restructure and get rid of the storage ships.

 

[PrometheusDarko]

Why are so many people so hell bent on ensuring that what little time the majority of players have is spent twiddling thumbs? I get maybe 2-3 hours on a weekend, less on a weekday. Why should my game-time be spent waiting for a ship to be delivered? This is a game, it's supposed to be fun.

 

[[VR] Marrs]

I'm sure new players will appreciate being able to transform their sidewinders in Cutters via that magic!

Come on guys... hyperbole. Stop it please. There are many good reasons to not want instant transfer without overly exaggerating everything. I know this is the internet... but try and restrain yourselves.

It's not hyperbole. Granted you need to have bought the ships in the first place but once you have and you have the money ... bam! magic ship!

Consider this. If it were really a magic ship in game i.e the transfer menu said 'transform' instead of 'transfer' what would be the practical difference? There would be none.

 

[Dbrn47]

you meant thoses ?
#2393
#2395
and the one i quoted : #2398

source: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...port-Yay-or-Nay/page160?p=4385854#post4385854

why are you dishonnest?

I'm not being dishonest about anything first of all. You are translating what I said into "you don't care about the game", which is farthest from the truth. Sometimes the realism stifles the game for me. The amount of time I have to put into the game to get anything out of it gets overwhelming and drives me from it. However, guess what, I always come back, sometimes it's just a break that's needed to break up that overwhelming feeling. You turned what I said into something that it wasn't, plain and simple. I still don't care about the realism argument when it comes to instant transport and I still don't believe it will have this game destroying effect on the game. I'll also repeat the fact that I will still be here, instant transport or not. I've been here without any ship transfer at all.

Hope this clears things up for you.

 

[CMDR Robyn Highart]

Some people would prefer the convenience over the realism. Some don't find it absurd at all. It's really not hard to understand the argument on either side, it's just whether we can agree or not and which side FDev will end up on.

Wanting convenience is not the same as being stubbornly obtuse and refusing to accept how this simply would ruin the game internal-rule-wise and lore-wise. I accept that people want a cheap fast experience. But that's not the game I paid to support and play. And there are plenty less realistic games out there that they can try, where they don't care for technological consistency or lore.

 

[Frambitam]

This is the data we have about "the many". (Really nice increase there in overall audience).
Average not even 12 hours, median 3 hours playtime.
http://i.imgur.com/n129Mq2.jpg

That is the time players spend on the game and trying to convince them that
a) in those 3 hours they have much impact on the galaxy compared to a 30 hour a week player
b) they have to enjoy spending half of their playtime with redundant traveling or they "have no place here"
is rather weak.

It's been said before, but transfer with realistic delay is already a HUGE QoL improvement. You don't have to make a 2 way trip. You don't deal with the tedium of taking a ship with horrible jump range large distances. It will continue being transported even when you're offline. You can do something else productive with that time in game. All we are asking is that the logistics of it is grounded in the internal logic of the game's universe.

 

[Earthshine]

To be clear up front, I've not really read much of the thread. It's very long and seems to grow at quite a pace...so I'm just leaving my 2p.

I voted instant is "OK". I can't see much difference between a delay and instant in practical terms. I know people are/will object to it from a realism standpoint but personally I think the vast majority of game-systems in this game are darned shaky when it comes to realism anyhow. I've always viewed it as having a realistic backdrop. I can separate in my own thoughts what is a convenience for a player of a game and what is a function of the game world itself.

Go back 20 years to FE2 and you see the stardreamer time controls. That was a convenience for the player so events could occur at a reasonable pace in the (for then) realistic backdrop. ED is multiplayer so we do not have that luxury - hence the "modern" FSD which is near-instant instead of i.e. up to a week transit time. I see instant transfer of ships as the exact same as this, from the viewpoint of a player not a denizen of the world I'm playing in.

Yes, it's quite illogical - how can you have something shipped instantly over hundreds...thousands of light years? After all, in the real world shipping things of any size long distance means loading it into a shipping container, loading that container onto a boat with many more and waiting a heck of alot longer than it takes you to e.g. catch a flight from A to B. Yet I don't see a poll option for it to take longer than it takes to travel from A to B - why?

For that matter, why are engineer upgrades instant? Why is outfitting instant?

 

[Dbrn47]

This is the data we have about "the many". (Really nice increase there in overall audience).
Average not even 12 hours, median 3 hours playtime.
http://i.imgur.com/n129Mq2.jpg

That is the time players spend on the game and trying to convince them that
a) in those 3 hours they have much impact on the galaxy compared to a 30 hour a week player
b) they have to enjoy spending half of their playtime with redundant traveling or they "have no place here"
is rather weak.

Interesting info there. Can't rep you again though.

 

[xXR34P3RXx]

i find it rather interesting and noteworthy, that it seems like all the people who had obsessively defended the 2.1 RNG blunder when it was released, are all now the ones who are whining over ship transferring.

Oh how the tables have turned. The Hypocrisy and lack of self awareness is astonishing. Hey, maybe you guys should just stop whining and accept the coming changes, like you told all of us who had problems with the RNG grindfest that was 2.1?

 

[warbaby2]

This is the data we have about "the many". (Really nice increase there in overall audience).
Average not even 12 hours, median 3 hours playtime.
http://i.imgur.com/n129Mq2.jpg

That is the time players spend on the game and trying to convince them that
a) in those 3 hours they have much impact on the galaxy compared to a 30 hour a week player
b) they have to enjoy spending half of their playtime with redundant traveling or they "have no place here"
is rather weak.

They also could, dunno, deside on a ship and what they want to do with and stick with it... silly thought, I know.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

So, is all this upset mainly about the immersion factor then?

Or worry about unstated/undefined exploits?

Or is it really about how it will save people time bringing ships from A to B?

Because, you know. I could have a combat fitted FdL on one side the core bubble (by this i mean the more central part of the bubble), fit a fuel scoop, and be on the other side of the core bubble in under 30 mins. And that's a rather extreme scenario. The only more extreme is people travelling to Jacques and back... but hey, i can imagine that's a godsend for some people out at Jacques in exploration ships, and wishing they could bring their mining ships in (with or without delay). Or another extreme example, a trip to Hutton.

So, ok, let's go back to my FdL scenario, but this time with full travel time delay on the summoning. I get there, summon, it takes 30 mins to arrive. Everyone happy with this? If not, why not? What about the trip to Hutton? Let's say FD code in a delay to arrival based on estimated SC travel time as well as jump time. 90 mins later, ship has arrived. Is everyone happy with this?

If not... ok, so you are not happy with ship transport at all then i presume?

If yes, then really, what does it fundamentally change? People could do their summons, bimble around for a bit, grab a bit of lunch, nip out to the pub for a quick one, log off for a bit to do chores around the house, whatever, come back, ship has (or ships have) arrived.

I'm in favour of a full delay myself, but really just because its a bit more "realistic" and I can't really defend it more than that... a preference. I'm certainly not understanding the outrage behind half the comments i'm seeing in this thread.

 

[JosiahD]

Why are so many people so hell bent on ensuring that what little time the majority of players have is spent twiddling thumbs? I get maybe 2-3 hours on a weekend, less on a weekday. Why should my game-time be spent waiting for a ship to be delivered? This is a game, it's supposed to be fun.

Why would you be waiting? You will clearly have gotten to that station in another ship to begin with so why can't you run with that while your preferred ship is in transit? <slaps forehead> Oh wait, it's because the 'taxi' will be equipped solely for travelling far as fast as possible and be useless at anything else, instead of using a more logical multirole or specific role that can be used as soon as you arrive to take part in whatever you were wanting to take part in....while your preferred ship is in transit.

 

[VerticalBlank]

Ok, let's try looking at that from a different angle then, shall we?

If ship transfer is an instant, one click, menu option, what does that mean for future plans for the game, like multi crew and walking around in ships/stations and on planets? Will we be even able to enter other peoples ships? What about hiring another pilot to take one of your ships to another location? No need for that if it can be done with one click in a menu, right? I think what people forget is, every simple convenience feature implemented now might very well infringe on the gameplay options implemented in season 3 and beyond.

...same goes for the suddenly remote controlled fighters, by the way. FD seams all to quick right now in implementing simplistic gameplay elements - and even explaining them in lore - for things many of us believed to be implemented in full later down the line. Personally, I find that more then a bit worrying.

As do I, and indeed Obsidian Ant made a similar observation earlier in this thread. It's almost as if Braben's team is actively trying to undermine his vision. Very worrying.

 

[Muetdhiver]

Wanting convenience is not the same as being stubbornly obtuse and refusing to accept how this simply would ruin the game internal-rule-wise and lore-wise. I accept that people want a cheap fast experience. But that's not the game I paid to support and play. And there are plenty less realistic games out there that they can try, where they don't care for technological consistency or lore.

People using (technological) consistancy as an argument here make me laugh :

• We have visible laser beams in space.
• We have non-newtonian flight mechanics.
• Cargo loading and unloading is instant.
• Repairing is instant. Boys, these are seriously fast mechanics.
• Installing a module is instant (If only changing the engine block of my car was instant...)
• We have very slow plasma projectiles that do not lose cohesion after a few milliseconds in the vacuum.
• We have projectiles that disapear past a certain range.
• Missiles and torps with a speed cap.
• Instant galnet news across the galaxy, but no way of accessing station prices in the same system.
• O stars that don't melt your shields and ship even at like 5ls from the surface.
• Vertical thrusters able to counteract 10g's, but one cannot use them to accelerate in zero g space...
• Should I keep going on ? XD

And then there is a feature you don't like and start to get picky on consistance and realism... please...

 

[Shar]

Printing your ship at the destination thats just silly, if for no other reason my ship is my personal thing, my bobble-head my yellow cushions the pictures of my naked girlfriend, for me that would destroy my sense of MY SHIP, It's not even what Fdev have envisioned anyway it's just some silly justification for how it could be accomplished.

If you keep going in that direction you may as well all lie in bed and imagine your flying around in a spaceship. As humans we need some attachment even to our imaginary space ships.

and the other fantasy explanations that stations have a duplicate of your ship, give me a break so every station has 50,000 anacondas out the back, these explanations are just bizarre.

I,m considering going back to Dungeons and Dragons online it's actually more plausible than this is getting. David B i,m sorry to say it but you have failed i watched your live streams over the last 3 night and i'm sorry to say this bears no resemblance to what you have envisaged.

 

[WeirdWizard]

Wanting convenience is not the same as being stubbornly obtuse and refusing to accept how this simply would ruin the game internal-rule-wise and lore-wise. I accept that people want a cheap fast experience. But that's not the game I paid to support and play. And there are plenty less realistic games out there that they can try, where they don't care for technological consistency or lore.

Let's be honest Elite does not, has not, and will not in the future, care about internal consistency, technology and lore. At least not beyond a few token gestures which date back to the pre launch vision. The moment they decided to make it an online game they sacrificed the idea of a truly believable and consistent universe and became about delivering what online games deliver. Which is a virtual world built for 21st century gamers to inhabit together.

That's not to say that with enough willing suspension of disbelief that you can't roleplay the ingame world as making sense, but one of the key things you need to do is disconnect the real world passage of time from the game world passage of time (which is one of the biggest issues with online games). Instant ship transfer is no different from reconciling the absurd speed that we can get around with ingame. If you want to RP the game universe making sense you just pretend more time has passed. Most people who play online games don't care about such things. They aren't roleplaying a space commander they are playing a game as themselves and they don't care if the game world makes sense or not, they just want to have fun flying virtual space ships around.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

It's not hyperbole. Granted you need to have bought the ships in the first place but once you have and you have the money ... bam! magic ship!

Consider this. If it were really a magic ship in game i.e the transfer menu said 'transform' instead of 'transfer' what would be the practical difference? There would be none.

It is hyperbole when the quoted post said "any" ship.

And as to your comment about transform instead of transfer, it would basically allow you to change a ship you do have into a ship you don't have. So its quite a world of difference.

Again, i see this as hyperbole, and not really addressing the core of the issue.