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

[matlars]

I would prefer some delay in the transportation of the ship.

also, there should be some kind of risk involved.

I request a ship to be moved, an NPC gets the contract (cheaper if inexperienced, expencive if higher combat status). The time it takes would be calculated maybe not realtime, but a % off it. Then there will be a $ chance of the ship beeing attacked on route. If the ship arrives, it might be a bit damage. Higher price, higher chance of a the ship escaping unharmed all the way.

It can then tie in to passenger missions too. All the NPC that drives ship around and are left stranded in foreign ports will needs to be transported back= passanger mission.

 

[kofeyh]

I can see a couple of problems with ship to.

It doesn't facilitate quick(ish) gameplay. No, I don't want "Ooh! A combat zone. I want to try that right now." But I'll concede that many will want to do that. I believe you can introduce a delay in transport (which at least pays some service to continuity) but still make the feature somewhat useful for those who want to change things up.

We still have to get to the location. Why are we going there to begin with? Presumably we've got some reason to be there, missions for example?

It makes fleet consolidation really painful. Moving a "fleet" from one station to another would be one thing. But if you have many ships flung across the bubble and want to consolidate those somewhere, it's still going to be really painful. Of course, it would still dramatically reduce the time required to do it manually. Again, with where that "line in the sand" goes, surely we can still have a delay to add some sense to the transaction while still making it really useful.

Choice is we rock up and instant deliver ships and space and distance and time has zero meaning; or we shave off minimum 50% of all travel; if 2-3 ships are in one location, then there's a pretty decent optimisation in time gained. Unless we have one of everything over hundreds of systems? Probably are some like that, so how did people cope achieving that in the first place?

Ship to also means a one-to-many outgoing relationship; whereas transfer in is a many-to-one relationship. So I can bring everything to me, but can't then spread ships out again without doing literally the exact opposite of flying to dozens of systems to retrieve ships. If they are currently scattered, what if you want to maintain that? Presumably if the fleet is distributed, that's done on purpose?

The idea is to make things a little more convenient, rather than make distance and time irrelevant.

Automated ship transfer, instant or not, is always going to be a bit of a shortcut. If we have it, we've got to accept that point. I think it can be made believable enough and useful at the same time.

Yes it is. Ship to means that it still requires some effort. But a heck of a lot less than otherwise; there's still huge gains without the "give it me now" mechanics we're all very happy to take on because of course it's fantastic. It really really is.

Like I said, probably not as trivial in mechanics, probably not liked as much by everyone? Sure. Much easier to instant transfer. But is it workable and not tossing endless amounts of the game's mechanics under a bus, yet still provides a crap-ton of convenience? Yes.

 

[WR3ND]

Why does it have to be "where will my ship be/where is my ship?" from the perspective of the code? Very basic implementations of this have been suggested that only involve locking your ship from use from a practical standpoint. Sure, we won't have a nice tracker on the galaxy map showing where my ship theoretically should be, sure the galaxy map still shows that ship as instantly transferred to where I wanted it, but it provides the basic functionality. Not to mention that, frankly, if this is the barrier you seem to be suggesting it is, then god only knows how they ever imagined they would implement some of the features that have been talked about for the future.

It's simple. It doesn't seem like it's really much of an issue because it isn't one. [up]

Does it complicate things a little over instant ship teleportation? Yes. Is it something that can't viably be implemented? I would certainly hope not, or FD have a lot more challenging problems they're going to be up against. But like I said previously, it's a moot point.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I'd rather see frontier make it ship to, not ship from. As has been raised a few times now.

Interesting idea, but my main reason for wanting it is bringing my ships together, which would be a royal pain with that variant.

 

[Ironwolf]

Well it's been a blast folks but enough said so i.m signing out, going to try out war-hammer total war for a couple of weeks been waiting for a good excuse, thanks sandy you have indeed achieved the impossible put me off elite at least temporarily.

To all my fellow commanders comrades and protagonists, love you all and fly safe. [heart]

Good Luck and Fly Safe too.
o7

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Some people are like that. I'll certainly be flying around in my various ships still. I'll only be using the ship transfer facility to help ship ships....

For example, in my home system, where my fleet is based most of the time.

I'll pop off to Shinrarta to get a new ship. Kit it out. Fly back in whatever i was flying, probably my explorer Cobra, and then call for my ship. Delay or not delay, it wouldn't change much. With a delay, i might have to wait... hmmm, let's say no more than 10-15 mins, unless its a really low jump range ship. Then i'll go jump in that and do what i wanted to do with it.

Or, i'm wanting to do some Engineer stuff, so i'll fly off to the engineer's base, probably in my dropship that is configured to do missions and stuff. Summon the ship i'm wanting to upgrade, and even with delay, i can get on with collecting the stuff i need for Engineers while i'm waiting (oooh... waiting 10-15 mins for the ship to arrive).

Sure, i can travel around in an Asp (although i currently don't own one and no plans to get one again... good ship, but i don't need one at the moment). It might make the Asp a bit more popular, but according to Inara, it is already the most popular ship by a good margin and set as the main ship for many people.

But majority of play anyway will still take place in my various ships, depending on what i'm doing. People are not going to be flying around in Asps for the majority of the time if they were not already doing so.

I am guessing from your comments then as well, you are totally against ship transfers? Because otherwise, as shown by my examples, instantanous isn't so different from full delay for a majority of situations, except on the lore/immersion front.

You can bring out extreme examples, such as Jacques, but they are edge cases, not regular gameplay.

.....but again, why is a time delay such a big ask then? I want a system that ties ship transfers to the quality of the FSD on the ship being transferred-whether that be by the size of the time delay, or by the maximum transport range (say max FSD range x10, for instance) of an instant transfer. Otherwise people will simply strip down the FSD's of their combat monsters to the bare minimum. Which to me is hugely imbalancing.

 

[Sandmann]

.....but again, why is a time delay such a big ask then? I want a system that ties ship transfers to the quality of the FSD on the ship being transferred-whether that be by the size of the time delay, or by the maximum transport range (say max FSD range x10, for instance) of an instant transfer. Otherwise people will simply strip down the FSD's of their combat monsters to the bare minimum. Which to me is hugely imbalancing.

Agreed. See my earlier comment about this being effectively FDev removing the balance factor of big FSD or big guns but not both, and everyone having a cheap transport ship with long legs and a combat ship with big guns and (effectively ) no FSD. There'll simple be no reason to install a big FSD in any expensive ship, or to have to balance your weapons, shields, & armour against the ability to jump. They might as well just install Babylon 5 style jump gates in every system with a station and be done with it.

 

[Khelder]

We still have to get to the location. Why are we going there to begin with? Presumably we've got some reason to be there, missions for example?

It might be players wanting to coordinate for future wing play. I might be off mining and want to bring in my (distant) Eagle for some canyon runs. I can't do these right away, but I can go to the closest workable station and kick off the transfer. When my ship arrives, I can use it.

Choice is we rock up and instant deliver ships and space and distance and time has zero meaning; or we shave off minimum 50% of all travel; if 2-3 ships are in one location, then there's a pretty decent optimisation in time gained. Unless we have one of everything over hundreds of systems? Probably are some like that, so how did people cope achieving that in the first place?

Ship to also means a one-to-many outgoing relationship; whereas transfer in is a many-to-one relationship. So I can bring everything to me, but can't then spread ships out again without doing literally the exact opposite of flying to dozens of systems to retrieve ships. If they are currently scattered, what if you want to maintain that? Presumably if the fleet is distributed, that's done on purpose?

The idea is to make things a little more convenient, rather than make distance and time irrelevant.

To me, the concept of shipping from or shipping to are the same in terms of continuity. The are both automating a process that you would normally have to do manually. The difference it makes in effort depends on which end you're closer to when you start.

Ship from does make it more practical to consolidate a fleet in a new location (which, to me, is a better purpose for ship transfer). Ship to may make it easier to spread out an existing consolidated fleet, but I'm really not sure why you'd want to do that. At least, I would wager that consolidation (or just simple relocation) would be the more common task. Perhaps it would be possible to have both?


I'd like to see balance where possible. I don't want to see insta-transfers that break continuity. Nor do I see the point in needlessly hampering gameplay. As I said before, if we have any form of automation, we are accepting the "shortcut".

 

[Leo Sagan]

Otherwise people will simply strip down the FSD's of their combat monsters to the bare minimum. Which to me is hugely imbalancing.

Which is my only problem with ships transfers. On 2.2 release, the "range" attribute disappears : every ship has virtually the max range in the game. After two years of refusing to slightly increase the range of the corvette because "balance", FD simply removes range from the game.

This is at best a massive oversight (errr guys I don't understand, why are they all flying haulers /asp / anacondas now ?) or a deliberate choice made by the same marketing genius who thought that CQC would make hundred of thousands players buy Elite Dangerous. I don't know which is worse.

 

[Sandmann]

This is at best a massive oversight (errr guys I don't understand, why are they all flying haulers /asp / corvettes now ?) or a deliberate choice made by the same marketing genius who thought that CQC would make hundred of thousands players buy Elite Dangerous. I don't know which is worse.

Maybe they have a huge backlog of refurbished, lightly used haulers that no-one wants to buy and they're eager to get rid of? Or possibly trying to create a market for their small ship skins?

 

[[VR] Marrs]

Yes there is. Think about player activity curves and you'll quickly get why there needs to be one.

Not sure what you mean. If you followed my link you'll see I'm not proposing having a timer. The database has already updated to move the location when you made the contract. All that would happen when you arrive is a flag would be changed from a 1 to a 0 to say that the ship was no longer en route. Unless all players arrive at their destinations at the same time I don't see how activity curves enter into it.

You appear to be saying that instant transfer is literally the only way this could be coded. There are solutions but you'll never see them if you already think something is impossible.

 

[Commander Blunthead]

Just sharing a random thought I had.

Have both instant and delayed.

Normal transfer : takes roughly the same time to get there as it would a player

Instant transfer : ship is available instantly, but with a multiplier to the cost so it will be several times more expensive. (multiplier based on amount of jumps? the ship needs to travel there?)

 

[Joe Akeem]

Just sharing a random thought I had.

Have both instant and delayed.

Normal transfer : takes roughly the same time to get there as it would a player

Instant transfer : ship is available instantly, but with a multiplier to the cost so it will be several times more expensive. (multiplier based on amount of jumps? the ship needs to travel there?)

Yea, I tried that idea some hundred pages ago. It's not bad but the instant mechanic still causes imbalance and...just read the last 50 pages or so.

There's a much better solution presented by Mephane that involves transfer to anywhere BUT your location and a 1000LY limit.

 

[CMDR GTR2014]

Some people are like that. I'll certainly be flying around in my various ships still. I'll only be using the ship transfer facility to help ship ships....

For example, in my home system, where my fleet is based most of the time.

I'll pop off to Shinrarta to get a new ship. Kit it out. Fly back in whatever i was flying, probably my explorer Cobra, and then call for my ship. Delay or not delay, it wouldn't change much. With a delay, i might have to wait... hmmm, let's say no more than 10-15 mins, unless its a really low jump range ship. Then i'll go jump in that and do what i wanted to do with it.

Or, i'm wanting to do some Engineer stuff, so i'll fly off to the engineer's base, probably in my dropship that is configured to do missions and stuff. Summon the ship i'm wanting to upgrade, and even with delay, i can get on with collecting the stuff i need for Engineers while i'm waiting (oooh... waiting 10-15 mins for the ship to arrive).

Sure, i can travel around in an Asp (although i currently don't own one and no plans to get one again... good ship, but i don't need one at the moment). It might make the Asp a bit more popular, but according to Inara, it is already the most popular ship by a good margin and set as the main ship for many people.

But majority of play anyway will still take place in my various ships, depending on what i'm doing. People are not going to be flying around in Asps for the majority of the time if they were not already doing so.

I am guessing from your comments then as well, you are totally against ship transfers? Because otherwise, as shown by my examples, instantanous isn't so different from full delay for a majority of situations, except on the lore/immersion front.

You can bring out extreme examples, such as Jacques, but they are edge cases, not regular gameplay.

I don't need to bring extreme examples to the case... I'm just thinking about exploits, BIG ones (i'm all up for ship transfers but it should take at least 1 hour ,but be dirty cheap in my opinion) why? Simple this brings foward thinking and planing , not the imediate "HEY this is a good combat mission, i want that!", but "Hey this sistem is in war, I want to participate!" , see the diference? the first one the guy will just do a mission and be done with it, the later the guy steps into the fight and might do 3-6 missions, because he found something WORTHY the wait. SO lets see in the later case , the guys calls his ship into the station where war is happening, he waits a day (in my opinion). While that he can still do a lot with his actual ship, since thats why he is flying it. The other day he could just do the combat... Then he finds out that the system is doing a lot of good activities that could give him profit... he would not saw that if he just imediate did a mission... maybe he could made a second base there? Maybe an outpost? where he could have a second combat ship there just in case...

making imediate ship transfers make having "bases" futile, makes people be more NOMAD , wich in most cases it's not a good thing, you'll never actualy participate in helping a sistem grow (only CGs)...you can even ignore the BGS completely... you'll never know the perks of having allied in a faction means(and the bonuses in missions)...

It's not a lore/history/"imersion" thing for me, its more of gameplay actualy, you GIVE UP a LOT for having imediate transfer.. from PVE and PVP points of view... AND look I for one like to PVP in a courrier that travels 15Ly and when in PvP soil , changes it to grade 2d FSD and 2T fuel... so i "would" be lots of interested in this new thingy!

 

[Wyaston Hypatia]

Automization of the transfer should be enough of a convenience, no? That's why I voted 'yes' and 'yes' but that it should take at least as long as it would manually (to any destination of your choosing that you have "unlocked" before so you can plan ahead and don't have to stick around wherever you are until the xfer is complete). Seems fair to me. You save the tedium of doing it manually but it should take the same amount of time or maybe even a little more (in-fiction explanation: the person moving your stuff is taking a "safe" route vs. a more dangerous direct route).

If they just gave it some thought and time, there's a little strategy game around the planning of route - possible now with the incoming filter system - and pilot choice - with the incoming pilot hire. You could choose the route -safe & slow v's quick & dangerous, the pilot - low level v's high skilled, cautious v's reckless. So chasing a Safe & slow route with a skilled cautious pilot ensures delivery of your ship in tip-top condition. A dangerous quick route with a high skilled and reckless pilot will get you your ship quickly with some damage. You get the idea. Of course having the ability to simply choose an option for the fastest & safest should be included for those not interested in the strategy.

Added....
Gameplay here - just a different type of game

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Autopilot is never coming... (It simply isn't needed like it was in earlier games)

Actually with ships crew I think it WILL come now and given recent announcements I am fine with it! How can we have teleportation and then argue the lore reasons for not having autopilot ? It would be a joke imo. That said with an npc pilot crew it won't even break the lore.

 

[Arubeto]

Yeah, I was totally stoked about 2.2 until this announcement. Talk about a disconnect. For the record, if Fdev were to release some memo saying "Look guys, we don't like this either, but the reality is that there won't even be a season 3 if we don't get us some of that casual cash because the coffers have run dry!" I'd probably choke back my revulsion and start getting ready to fall on my sword for the greater good.

Is that what's going on here? I don't know. I can't figure out why Fdev would want to cater to this crowd; if it's because they need to keep the lights on, then so be it, but if it's because somebody actually thinks this is good gameplay that fits in contextually with the world they've been establishing for the last two years, then I'm honestly going to be flummoxed.

The thing is: a time-consuming ship transfer would already be dramatic improvement over the current situation without any kind of ship transfer and would already cater a lot to the needs of casual gamers - without alienating those who still care about the believability of the galaxy FD created! I really don't understand why some people here say that if the upcoming ship transfer feature would not be instant it would somehow not improve or even worsen their current situation. Guys, a ship transfer of any kind, even if it wasn't instant, would already massively shorten the time it needs to get your hands on the ship you want, compared to the current situation! Why can't we have a compromise that would improve the situation we have now while not sacrificing this game world principle of ED where distances actually matter?

I want ship transport, too, very much so actually! But I don't want it to destroy the immersion FD has so carefully crafted up to this point and they themselves have often cited as an important aspect of the game!

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

It's cute to see people are quitting already over something that may break your little fantasy world.
It's a game.

Cool and I racing should be like burnout! And dcs shoukd be like afterburner.

Don't feed the trolls, people.

Sorry my bad.... people like the above always get me to bite. No one has an issue with literature sometimes being harder to digest than others, no one wants to simplify everything to the secret seven because "it's only fiction" so why dumb down all videogames to the lowest common denominator so people like vallion can handle it.?

 

[Joe Akeem]

A reminder to people with limited playtime (I'm one of you):

--> Even if the transfer would be in real time you still save 50% of that precious time by not going back and fetch the ship yourself. <--

The worst case scenario for you insta voters is still a great improvement.

 

[Boomer Kay]

A reminder to people with limited playtime (I'm one of you):

--> Even if the transfer would be in real time you still save 50% of that precious time by not going back and fetch the ship yourself. <--

The worst case scenario for you insta voters is still a great improvement.

Ok, we are turning in circles. I posted the info we have about player time some 1000posts ago.
Not sure everybody knows what a "median" average is. Basically means half of EDs players is playing for less than 3:20 hrs in two weeks.
FD should have much better data on that to see how much time saving is required to make their game a good experience for those players.