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

[JosiahD]

50% want fast ship transfers. But reading this forum thread makes you believe all hate it. I guess it's the same peeps posting over and over again =)

Not necessarily.

But I do think it's quite telling that where Newsletter 138 talks about ship transfer, there is NO mention of it being instant. Methinks Frontier are already beginning to reconsider insta-transfer/transport/teleport....and a good thing too.

 

[Wyaston Hypatia]

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.

The fallacy here is that all players with short play time want instant transfer but all those with long play time want slow transfer. There just isn't any data to suggest that. It might be so but we don't know.
I can think of a scenario where having a short play time means that transfer time is immaterial. If I'm going to log of in 5 mins, and play again tomorrow, what real difference does it make if the transfer is instant or delayed 1hr. Id be playing with the new ship tomorrow.

 

[Xender]

One on the simplest solution for transporting ships by players without adding huge freighters are convoys! One player is leader of convoy and all ships (without pilots) add to convoy will follow him. This ship can't attack or something. This ship can only fly, FSD hump and auto dock on final destination. Ofcourse convoys will need protection so wing players can protect transported ships. Simple, clean and it allow to move many ships at one.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

.....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.

Its not a big thing to ask. I voted for a full time delay, but only because of immersion. I won't die if there is no delay though. It doesn't make a big difference for the most common scenarios, and the edge cases are not as terrible as some people are trying to portray.

I'd basically say, if FD can add a delay without significant effort, and no technical challenges, then they should do it. If not, then just explain to the community about those challenges and that its one of the reasons for not having a delay, and we can move on and just accept it.

 

[Angus]

Future psuedo-Forklifts should not be weaponised.

#dockyardworkersforpeace

classical reference:

"Get away from her, you beach!"

which also sums up how I feel about gamey mechanics like instant ship access being brought to Elite Dangerous - its been called a Dad's game, better that than a kid's game.

 

[SomeIrishLad]

It seems the only way to balance instant transfer is to make it expensive. I think that is unfair and only benefits wealthier players. I don't have much credits because I spend most of my time exploring. I think it would be much fairer for ship transport to take time but be affordable.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

is there a chance do you think that FD have no intention of instant transfers (hear me out)

when bargaining with people it is normal to low ball on your 1st offer, and the "seller" will do the opposite and at the end both parties feel they got a bargain. Perhaps we have a similar logic here.

FD perhaps know that the Elite purists will complain if ship transfer is even equivalent time wise to doing it yourself. They know the purists who want to do it themselves as it is the "right" way will feel hard done by if it is quicker to get it automated.

its the same reason why some have said they do not mind the docking computer so long as it is not the optimal way of docking - which clearly it isnt.

HOWEVER Perhaps FD also know that casuals will not tolerate ship delivery taking longer than they could do it themselves, but ultimately would accept it maybe taking half as long as getting a taxi, flying to the stored ship and bringing it back .

So perhaps this is all just mind games... they come up with this, frankly absurd idea..... the purists moan, FD then backtrack and say "ok we have listened to the community who we respect" and ship transfers will now take "xamount of time per LY distance needed to travel" which is perhaps what they wanted in the 1st place but now, the purists will tolerate it because it was not as bad as it could have been, and the casual players will like it because it is better than what they have now, and those who do not read the forums will be for ever oblivious.

those who say "too much work" well, i am no coder, but, we have missions with a timer on them, so how is that different from a ship delivery with a timer on.

ok probably not but its at least a theory

 

[Miklos Atreides]

but think about the reason, why you want to switch a ship - you want to switch the role/play style. you are investing your hard earned credits and the first thing you see is a timer. so most people who are forced to watch the timer growing will not go back to the previous tasks, no - they'll hit the quit button and come back after the ship has arrived, or next day, or maybe week. this kind mechanic would actually force this kind of behavior and I'm sure frontier is aware of that. the instant-transport is not something they decided about during their morning coffee break.

But sometimes decisions are made in the coffee kitchen for real. I am working in IT for 30 years now and know whats going on. Sometimes decisions are even 'putted in' on the golf course.
And people don't need to wait until the timer drops to zero. they can go on and do a different thing meantime. But shouting "Mom, I want to have my candy" and getting some sweets instantly
is not always the best way.

Regards,
Miklos

 

[lysan]

is there a chance do you think that FD have no intention of instant transfers (hear me out)

when bargaining with people it is normal to low ball on your 1st offer, and the "seller" will do the opposite and at the end both parties feel they got a bargain. Perhaps we have a similar logic here.

FD perhaps know that the Elite purists will complain if ship transfer is even equivalent time wise to doing it yourself. They know the purists who want to do it themselves as it is the "right" way will feel hard done by if it is quicker to get it automated.

its the same reason why some have said they do not mind the docking computer so long as it is not the optimal way of docking - which clearly it isnt.

HOWEVER Perhaps FD also know that casuals will not tolerate ship delivery taking longer than they could do it themselves, but ultimately would accept it maybe taking half as long as getting a taxi, flying to the stored ship and bringing it back .

So perhaps this is all just mind games... they come up with this, frankly absurd idea..... the purists moan, FD then backtrack and say "ok we have listened to the community who we respect" and ship transfers will now take "xamount of time per LY distance needed to travel" which is perhaps what they wanted in the 1st place but now, the purists will tolerate it because it was not as bad as it could have been, and the casual players will like it because it is better than what they have now, and those who do not read the forums will be for ever oblivious.

those who say "too much work" well, i am no coder, but, we have missions with a timer on them, so how is that different from a ship delivery with a timer on.

ok probably not but its at least a theory

I don't think they are that speculated they are not politicians, mostly nerds, however good point.
Next question would then be, why not a Auto Pilot? my point where is the consensus in implementing instant ship transfer and not a auto pilot? It doesn't make sense to me.

 

[kofeyh]

but think about the reason, why you want to switch a ship - you want to switch the role/play style. you are investing your hard earned credits and the first thing you see is a timer. so most people who are forced to watch the timer growing will not go back to the previous tasks, no - they'll hit the quit button and come back after the ship has arrived, or next day, or maybe week. this kind mechanic would actually force this kind of behavior and I'm sure frontier is aware of that. the instant-transport is not something they decided about during their morning coffee break.

Frontier have two options; instant ship from. Or instant ship to. Either way, it'll be instant because look at this thread to get an idea of all the people lined up to crucify frontier if it's not instant since frontier helpfully decided that was the best approach. The latter requires a bit of planning, the former is press a button and game on.

The game already tracks where our ships are. It knows where we are. It knows which stations all our assets are at. It's literally just effecting a duplicate at the destination station and binning the original ship record. This is not a "move". It's a state update between the server and client and hey presto ship appears. Whether we pull or push fundamentally comes down to do we want at least some validity to the concept, or just magic because it's easier?

They went this route because it's simplest to understand, leverages existing code and they probably assumed people will like to be able to suck ships in to where they are. Well of course they will. It completely removes large chunks of travel time at a single button push. Easiest sell, ever.

Just because it can be done this way, doesn't mean a huge amount of thought went in; the live stream was basically awkward looks and that's the reason. As in; there isn't one above people asking for it, so they added it. Time has been spent elsewhere; this was just a bit of a QOL improvement that's blown up because it throws virtually all reasons for why ships are limited in the way they are, under a bus because apparently ain't nobody got time for that.

When even the lead developer decides "actually? it's just easier to instant summon ships" you know there's a problem. It's okay though. We can 3d print ships! We can't have autopilot though because that'll break the game; apparently our ships some how magically fly themselves without an autopilot when we land on planets. Perhaps it's space fairies?

.. it's all be said before a thousands times by now. I am quite certain Beta will be fascinating in how many people find awesome ways to use ship transport.

 

[Weps]

I'd basically say, if FD can add a delay without significant effort, and no technical challenges, then they should do it. If not, then just explain to the community about those challenges and that its one of the reasons for not having a delay, and we can move on and just accept it.

Yes, I'm waiting impatiently for that to happen. I don't know if I have to love or hate FDEV right now, post snarky or cordial remarks on the forums. And while I wait, I'm forced to twiddle my thumbs! I want instantaneous stance-taking on the forums FDEV!

 

[Wyaston Hypatia]

is there a chance do you think that FD have no intention of instant transfers (hear me out)

when bargaining with people it is normal to low ball on your 1st offer, and the "seller" will do the opposite and at the end both parties feel they got a bargain. Perhaps we have a similar logic here.

FD perhaps know that the Elite purists will complain if ship transfer is even equivalent time wise to doing it yourself. They know the purists who want to do it themselves as it is the "right" way will feel hard done by if it is quicker to get it automated.

its the same reason why some have said they do not mind the docking computer so long as it is not the optimal way of docking - which clearly it isnt.

HOWEVER Perhaps FD also know that casuals will not tolerate ship delivery taking longer than they could do it themselves, but ultimately would accept it maybe taking half as long as getting a taxi, flying to the stored ship and bringing it back .

So perhaps this is all just mind games... they come up with this, frankly absurd idea..... the purists moan, FD then backtrack and say "ok we have listened to the community who we respect" and ship transfers will now take "xamount of time per LY distance needed to travel" which is perhaps what they wanted in the 1st place but now, the purists will tolerate it because it was not as bad as it could have been, and the casual players will like it because it is better than what they have now, and those who do not read the forums will be for ever oblivious.

those who say "too much work" well, i am no coder, but, we have missions with a timer on them, so how is that different from a ship delivery with a timer on.

ok probably not but its at least a theory

In which case they got it the wrong way round. They should have started high to be beaten down to a low number. By starting at Zero, they've introduced a possibility that nearly no one was entertaining previously. Now a (undetermined) proportion don't want anything else but zero.

 

[Angus]

Howzabout:

Instant teleporting. But teleporting is a 'push' not a 'pull'. Just as trivial to code (for those, like me, who think that is the driver behind the decision). But no magic needed (or, rather, much less magic), because you can pretend that it is traveling during the time you take to travel to your destination.

Its a very good idea, but I think the frustration would be finding yourself suddenly in need of a different ship at a location and having to travel to the required ship's location and back to make it happen. So the convenience factor of the basic idea would be diminished.


Would it be very hard to program a visibility timer for invisible hangars? Is it that different from the mechanics that enable players to come across certain events at certain times in missions?

It seems to me (and I admit, I am John Snow here) arranging for your ship to be transported with a time factor included would be like the player just accepting a time and place mission that he doesn't actually participate in. He just has the option to collect the ship after the "mission" is completed.

 

[Goose4291]

Instant ship to a destination kind of makes sense. That way you still have to fly to the station in the first instance. (So technically there is still a time delay like people seem to want).

 

[Cosmo]

I'd basically say, if FD can add a delay without significant effort, and no technical challenges, then they should do it. If not, then just explain to the community about those challenges and that its one of the reasons for not having a delay, and we can move on and just accept it.

I won't accept instant ship transfer without a plausible explanation. I would still be against it, because it breaks my immersion. A short delay would be enough.

Instant ship to a destination kind of makes sense. That way you still have to fly to the station in the first instance. (So technically there is still a time delay like people seem to want).

It doesn't make sense. Abra kadabra, presto, voila ships magically appear at the station.

 

[Boomer Kay]

Frontier do indeed have all of the play-stats, regardless of whether the player is playing through Steam or not - I suspect the quoted median fortnightly playtime is based on Steam?

It's even worse, it's based on steamspy and just an indication that considering my own playtime "casual" compared to the forum average, there might be a large group of players who only enjoy ED as weekend activity. And while for my forum-average playtime a delayed transport is acceptable and can be worked around, for the weekend commander that might just not be enough.

If we look at the changes to engineers and how drastic they were, we always seem to assume they were based on a few complain threads in the forums and not on in-game accumulated data FD has access to that shows them where the modding progress really is vs. where they think it should be according to their planning (in regards to Xeno encounters f.ex.).

Thing with those few numbers we have is always that they get brought up when they serve the own cause but get completely ignored or discussed away as soon as they hinder it.

Whoever wants to come up with real suggestions to improve the transport mechanic has to take the weekend commander into consideration and I'll not let anyone get away declaring his own preference "the best way to do things".

The cool down suggested and the better visualization, by making you decide where you want that ship at the start of your voyage and then just "pop" it there once you do arrive ("stateless" in between and just discarded if you log out or go somewhere else) are imo such possible improvements.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Howzabout:

Instant teleporting. But teleporting is a 'push' not a 'pull'. Just as trivial to code (for those, like me, who think that is the driver behind the decision). But no magic needed (or, rather, much less magic), because you can pretend that it is traveling during the time you take to travel to your destination.

imo this would be better, however i could imagine the rage when kid comes home from school/dad comes home from work to learn snotty little brother/son has sent all your ships to Jaques leaving you broke and in a sidewinder at sol with no way to get them back other than to fly there

in fact.. i vote for it, it will be hilarious (only joking)

 

[Boomer Kay]

imo this would be better, however i could imagine the rage when kid comes home from school/dad comes home from work to learn snotty little brother/son has sent all your ships to Jaques leaving you broke and in a sidewinder at sol with no way to get them back other than to fly there

in fact.. i vote for it, it will be hilarious (only joking)

It would still (have) to be tied with you actually flying there. So your ships would not end up somewhere you are not.

Just like the current mechanic, but with a little "transit in progress" that is tied to your own travel time.
Could be tied into the lore with Jacques new drive technology that can move entire station sized objects very far / fast. (There were even galnet articles about new drive research).
Not available to the end user, just for specialized corporate transportation.

 

[VerticalBlank]

Why have a 1:1 scale galaxy, then implement instant ship transfers.
Why FDev, why?

Nailed it.

 

[Weps]

in fact.. i vote for it, it will be hilarious (only joking)

Someone will do this just for the fame and drama. Game news and article sites would pick up the story just because it makes a good title: "Player accidentally sends his whole fortune across the galaxy - epic adventure to reclaim it. Read more on xxx.com."