News 2.3 Dev Update

[mossfoot]

Implementing a co-op system that requires ALL players to "long" travel to the same place in-game (regardless of the mode) in order to take part in co-op would be very dumb in my opinion. Most (if not all) online multiplayer games with co-op have a fast travel option, and Elite needs it too imho.

That said, I do respect those who have a very different option than mine



Question for you and those who don't want insta-travel for multicrew: Are you also against the "magically" repairing, restocking, and refueling ships in the game now? Today you can dock with nearly no health, ammo, or fuel and in under 10 seconds it can all "magically" be fixed lol!

Anyone who's ever taken their car in for some repair work knows how laughable that is!!!

Or even worse, are you against in-game re-incarnation? Like how you're "magically" re-incarnated hundreds of light years away after you die? If you're looking for realism then that is laughable too!

Now, I will concede it would be very cool if Frontier added "realism" servers for those of you who seem to want everything to be super realistic and happen in real time. Other games have options like this, although I've never been interested in them myself.

I'd also be fine if Multi-crew co-op insta-travel was limited to private groups, or some new type of "PvE" only servers.

And while we're at it, can I get the option to choose which of my ships I spawn in when I launch the game too? Fine if that only works in PG and Solo so as not to upset the Open + Realism crowd. Also ok if I can only choose those ships that I could have traveled to by commercial passenger liner when I was offline, just let me decide when I boot up the game.

In the end, requiring ALL owners of the game to "long travel" to the same place in ALL modes to take part in this new co-op option (multi-crew) would be a very bad idea, and I hope Frontier doesn't limit what could be a fun new feature by not allowing fast travel in ANY mode.

No one, not ONE of the people clamouring about the teleportation/telepresence for multicrew has explained to me why you can instantly respawn at a station after death.

All these magical teleporting players. They should be stuck in a emergency pod for a few weeks until someone else rescues them. And if they die out in the void, tough luck, might have to wait a couple hundred million years. Real time, of course. For realism.

I approve this ^^^ post.

Not only should they be in a pod but when scooped, they should be able to be sold into slavery at the nearest black market.

I've read a lot about "consistency" lately, to avoid the term "realism". But there is a heck of a lot that is not consistent in this game. That includes travel times in various modes to various places and other short-cuts to time-costing things.

Consistency. I've argued the same thing many times under another word - verisimilitude. Treating an unreal situation as if it was real.

I use that word because Richard Donner famously had it hanging up over his office door (if I remember the tale correctly) during the making of Superman, and it's part of the reason it was such a success. It's giving the material a level of respect, even if it's patently silly, and that helps you buy into the fantasy.

Same applies to ED, there we want things that add to the illusion, which is why some people balk at changes that they feel show the strings too much, even if it makes sense from a strictly gameplay standpoint (like the current multicrew debates).

The key, to me, is not necessarily forcing more realistic gameplay on us or pandering to the instant gratification crowd, but to do what is nessesary for the game, while never forgetting that plaque on Richard Donnar's door.

Approach it with an eye on this, and things should work out fine.

I think we should think of the crew feature as a temporary secondary account. As far as the captain is concerned, that crew has always been on the ship (at least since the last station) but are doing other things on board until called to the bridge.

I'm all in for immersion, but this is a case where any attempt at lore explanation only hurts things, not helps.

Case in point, ejecting. People have tried to argue the fact that zero time passes from ship destruction to getting a new ship to claim that we are all clones. There is no other way to explain the time issue.

Except in Elite cloning is illegal in the Federation, and the Empire only uses it in terms of organs. If you could clone people easily, then why didn't they simply clone the Emperor when he was assassinated? How can pilots afford it but not heads of state?

This so-called "fix" meant to explain an in game mechanic actually destroys the lore.

Yet the time issue exists. So what do we do?

IGNORE IT.

As far as lore is concerned, we eject, are rescued, returned to a station, revived, checked out by medical, given insurance forms to fill out, and eventually given a new ship. Lore wise it's hours or days later. The fact it is seconds in game is simply a necessary convenience.

Same thing with multicrew. You try to explain full VR telepresence across the galaxy in lore, you will only hurt the lore.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Implementing a co-op system that requires ALL players to "long" travel to the same place in-game (regardless of the mode) in order to take part in co-op would be very dumb in my opinion. Most (if not all) online multiplayer games with co-op have a fast travel option, and Elite needs it too imho.

That said, I do respect those who have a very different option than mine



Question for you and those who don't want insta-travel for multicrew: Are you also against the "magically" repairing, restocking, and refueling ships in the game now? Today you can dock with nearly no health, ammo, or fuel and in under 10 seconds it can all "magically" be fixed lol!

Anyone who's ever taken their car in for some repair work knows how laughable that is!!!

Or even worse, are you against in-game re-incarnation? Like how you're "magically" re-incarnated hundreds of light years away after you die? If you're looking for realism then that is laughable too!

Now, I will concede it would be very cool if Frontier added "realism" servers for those of you who seem to want everything to be super realistic and happen in real time. Other games have options like this, although I've never been interested in them myself.

I'd also be fine if Multi-crew co-op insta-travel was limited to private groups, or some new type of "PvE" only servers.

And while we're at it, can I get the option to choose which of my ships I spawn in when I launch the game too? Fine if that only works in PG and Solo so as not to upset the Open + Realism crowd. Also ok if I can only choose those ships that I could have traveled to by commercial passenger liner when I was offline, just let me decide when I boot up the game.

In the end, requiring ALL owners of the game to "long travel" to the same place in ALL modes to take part in this new co-op option (multi-crew) would be a very bad idea, and I hope Frontier doesn't limit what could be a fun new feature by not allowing fast travel in ANY mode.

Ok so lets be honest and not attack anyone regardless of view. SOME compromises have to be made if a game where the game covers 100,000s of LY

Regarding death respawn, i wixh people would not be silly and suggest months of downtime in space. No one would ever want that and that does not make me a hypcrite for still wanting timed ship transfer.

So to answer your question no i dont want months in space on destruction but a 2 min "sequence" to give the pretence of "not fast travel" absolutely!

I accept for coop MP to work it should offer something cor not meeting up. For now without npc crew what FD are proposing is the onky way imo but if ever we have npc crew as outlined in DDF/dev diaries then imo there are options, use your cmdr if you meet up OR take control of your mates crewmate if not.

I feel the same way about cqc. What we have now is ok in theory so available to all, but why not have actual proper cqc in real space in a system with a permit where you use real ships as well (need mechanics to revoke them to stop griefers

 

[Ignion]

I say keep teleportation in the game untill space legs are introduced. Otherwise every other solution does nothing to the player but waste their time.
Space legs is going to tie in alot of things in this game and I think the immersion crowd should just have patience untill then.
I know it sucks to wait, but untill then it should make the game fun to play and have a rather quicker pace when it comes to enjoying features such as multicrew.

 

[Blaize Meduenin]

I say keep teleportation in the game untill space legs are introduced. Otherwise every other solution does nothing to the player but waste their time.
Space legs is going to tie in alot of things in this game and I think the immersion crowd should just have patience untill then.
I know it sucks to wait, but untill then it should make the game fun to play and have a rather quicker pace when it comes to enjoying features such as multicrew.

As has already been mentioned in previous threads, there is a very simple way that should satisfy all. Use the tools that are coming in 2.3 anyway to ann non function npcs to bridge seats. Allow players to take over these npc crew for the multicrew functionality - all insta team features totally preserved, all lore/realism/consistance unaffected. PLUS all who want npc crew sitting in their bridge seats get what they want as well, win all round with nothing lost!

Also leaves window open for proper crewing up when space legs come.

 

[Toumal]

Race to the bottom argument.

Proof by exaggeration.

 

[zackmck]

No one, not ONE of the people clamouring about the teleportation/telepresence for multicrew has explained to me why you can instantly respawn at a station after death.

All these magical teleporting players. They should be stuck in a emergency pod for a few weeks until someone else rescues them. And if they die out in the void, tough luck, might have to wait a couple hundred million years. Real time, of course. For realism.

Yeah, i'd like FDEV to tell us too. Feels kinda cheap and arcady to get an insta-1up, wake up at the last station, with your fully equipped ship. Next time you have to gather green mushrooms too. At least they could have made something up like the time-compression stuff in frontier or some instant one-way-wormhole safety device back to the last station.

But i have a simple theory of my own. Due to ED playing in some kind of multiverse. When you die, you're just another version of you from a parallel universe. You're just beginning your journey at the last station with exact the same assets like the, now dead, you from the last universe?

 

[zackmck]

I say keep teleportation in the game untill space legs are introduced. Otherwise every other solution does nothing to the player but waste their time.
Space legs is going to tie in alot of things in this game and I think the immersion crowd should just have patience untill then.
I know it sucks to wait, but untill then it should make the game fun to play and have a rather quicker pace when it comes to enjoying features such as multicrew.

Either keep teleportation or don't implement it in the first place. There will always be those minorities who just want some instant-action. They don't want to meet up now, they won't meet up when space legs are introduces. They won't care about space legs. At least until there's some kind of ED's version of CS:GO. But even then, i think those people won't walk into an in-game arena, by space legs.

 

[JosiahD]

I don't think it's that hard to understand. They clearly want to encourage people to multicrew, if the rewards are high then people are more likely to stay for the ride.

But if say rewards were split 3 ways with 3 CMDRs, people will be like "nah the money's crap, what's the point, I'll just do it solo". The thinking is to try to remove barriers for people.

When you think about it, it's difficult to come up with a solution which does not prevent what you're talking about, while not placing a barrier that puts people off multicrewing.

Yes exploits are a concern for many people, loads of discussion over the forum about it, but it is hard to know what Frontier's policy on such money earning would be given Sothis, Draconis etc..

I suspect tweaks and/or changes will happen down the line. (or not)

I agree. However, this need for incentivisation just to get people using the feature suggests to me it doesn't stand up on it's own as viable or appealing content. If it's not attractive to play (and has enduring appeal) for the very fact that it's different and better allows people to play together and needs such incentive to incite people to use it, I can only wonder why it's even being added at this point. Instead of incentivising it by making it usable by everyone through inclusion of NPC multicrew and non-combat focused support crew stations like engineering and science, we seemingly get something only practical in combat and IF the player is flying a ship equipped with turrets AND a fighter bay. Which either excludes a lot of people or imposes constraints on their playstyle if they want to use multicrew. No wonder they feel it needs incentivisation through high rewards and instant drop in / drop out. Of course, we don't know what Frontier has planned for multicrew down the track, and hopefully we'll learn more about it during the livestreams this week as it would do much to reduce the cynicism.....but out of the box it feels a pretty pointless feature to me. The controversy it's stirred up is certainly at least something Frontier needs to speak to during the livestreams.

 

[BurnyBurns]

So to answer your question no i dont want months in space on destruction but a 2 min "sequence" to give the pretence of "not fast travel" absolutely!

Instant respawn across 10k ly is hampering your immersion, but waiting for 2 minutes is an improvement?

Quiet apart from the laughable concept of our ficitonal pretend Elite pilots always being able to escape. Whatever emergency escape mechanism is in those ships - going by what the game models: none - would have a failure rate. If the ship was intact and functioning well, it wouldn't activate in the first place. Failure rate because in a dogfight, canon shells, missile shrapnel, lasers would have a certain chance to pierce the cockpit and tearing your pilot to bloody shreds or destroy/fry the whole escape mechanism. The same when overheating near a sun and running your craft into the ground, the failure rate might even be higher, depending on the angle.

What is in the game currently, is nothing short of magical teleportation. And the two minute sequence is easily simulated for each individual, that requres it. Leave chair, fetch drink or stretch legs. Done. No need to shove it down people's throats who don't want it.

There will always be those minorities THE REST OF THE GAMING WORLD who just want some instant-action.

There, I fixed that for you. The only games that require any form of longwinded meetup times, are MMOs. And they usually have the grace to offer a quick from of transportation (mounts, sometimes teleport to points), so thex don't extend to the same ridiculous durations as in Elite. These game designers usually also had the sense to not balance travel times between classes by amount of loading screens the players have to watch. People literally asking for having hourclocks shoved down their throats is as far as I know unprecedented.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Instant respawn across 10k ly is hampering your immersion, but waiting for 2 minutes is an improvement?

Quiet apart from the laughable concept of our ficitonal pretend Elite pilots always being able to escape. Whatever emergency escape mechanism is in those ships - going by what the game models: none - would have a failure rate. If the ship was intact and functioning well, it wouldn't activate in the first place. Failure rate because in a dogfight, canon shells, missile shrapnel, lasers would have a certain chance to pierce the cockpit and tearing your pilot to bloody shreds or destroy/fry the whole escape mechanism. The same when overheating near a sun and running your craft into the ground, the failure rate might even be higher, depending on the angle.

What is in the game currently, is nothing short of magical teleportation. And the two minute sequence is easily simulated for each individual, that requres it. Leave chair, fetch drink or stretch legs. Done. No need to shove it down people's throats who don't want it.



There, I fixed that for you. The only games that require any form of longwinded meetup times, are MMOs. And they usually have the grace to offer a quick from of transportation (mounts, sometimes teleport to points), so thex don't extend to the same ridiculous durations as in Elite. These game designers usually also had the sense to not balance travel times between classes by amount of loading screens the players have to watch. People literally asking for having hourclocks shoved down their throats is as far as I know unprecedented.

So your solution to not being able to completely accurately block players for hrs and hrs on destruction is to make the game have fast travel?. That is the same as saying every raci g game has to be the equivalent of burnout if every nut and bolt is not accurately simulated of the car.

You just sound sour because
FD didnt implement instant ship transfer ... But you refuse to admit it is YOU in the minority hear.

Also you ignired my wuestiin about shoukd players have access to akl ships and all modules right from log in.... If not why not as it makes the game more accessable

The original game you flew the escape pod yourself but then every system had a station. Perhaps lore could expand and your escape pod due to having nothing on it gets a huge range?.

In the other games if that got destroyed you died and you could choose to save scum.

This meant the game could be punishly hard. Sadly this is one of the many saccrifices forced on us in the name of mmo

Ps i appologise for my awful typing on my phone

 

[zackmck]

...
There, I fixed that for you. The only games that require any form of longwinded meetup times, are MMOs. And they usually have the grace to offer a quick from of transportation (mounts, sometimes teleport to points), so thex don't extend to the same ridiculous durations as in Elite. These game designers usually also had the sense to not balance travel times between classes by amount of loading screens the players have to watch. People literally asking for having hourclocks shoved down their throats is as far as I know unprecedented.

Sorry for being not specific enough. I meant the minority of ED's players who want instant-action. I'm sure there are hundreds of other mmo's out there, with the same interchangeable game mechanic, more suited for those people.
And the other (intentionally?) misunderstanding of those people is, no one of us want another simple countdown. As stated several times by others, multi-crew-meet-up, delayed ship transfer, delayed death and even delayed repair/-load would be perfect opportunities for FDEV to implement additional game-play. I know for some people these days it's hard to imagine something new. It's easier to just consume an argue about it, but in general more game-play options equals more fun with friends. Right?

 

[greatsouls]

Consistency. I've argued the same thing many times under another word - verisimilitude. Treating an unreal situation as if it was real.

I use that word because Richard Donner famously had it hanging up over his office door (if I remember the tale correctly) during the making of Superman, and it's part of the reason it was such a success. It's giving the material a level of respect, even if it's patently silly, and that helps you buy into the fantasy.

Same applies to ED, there we want things that add to the illusion, which is why some people balk at changes that they feel show the strings too much, even if it makes sense from a strictly gameplay standpoint (like the current multicrew debates).

The key, to me, is not necessarily forcing more realistic gameplay on us or pandering to the instant gratification crowd, but to do what is nessesary for the game, while never forgetting that plaque on Richard Donnar's door.

https://images.moviepilot.com/image/upload/c_fill,h_470,q_auto:good,w_620/otgfagihcf77kfqwxgc1.jpg

Approach it with an eye on this, and things should work out fine.

I think we should think of the crew feature as a temporary secondary account. As far as the captain is concerned, that crew has always been on the ship (at least since the last station) but are doing other things on board until called to the bridge.

I'm all in for immersion, but this is a case where any attempt at lore explanation only hurts things, not helps.

Case in point, ejecting. People have tried to argue the fact that zero time passes from ship destruction to getting a new ship to claim that we are all clones. There is no other way to explain the time issue.

Except in Elite cloning is illegal in the Federation, and the Empire only uses it in terms of organs. If you could clone people easily, then why didn't they simply clone the Emperor when he was assassinated? How can pilots afford it but not heads of state?

This so-called "fix" meant to explain an in game mechanic actually destroys the lore.

Yet the time issue exists. So what do we do?

IGNORE IT.

As far as lore is concerned, we eject, are rescued, returned to a station, revived, checked out by medical, given insurance forms to fill out, and eventually given a new ship. Lore wise it's hours or days later. The fact it is seconds in game is simply a necessary convenience.

Same thing with multicrew. You try to explain full VR telepresence across the galaxy in lore, you will only hurt the lore.

I kind of agree with you. But then why we should again have to force our imagination to smear the missing pieces of the puzzle just for the sake of the immersion. We are already doing this by "communicating" with static picture, representation of the agents and the engineers. When will FD start filling up gaps in the game design instead off introducing new, by adding distant pieces in the form of new features, and leaving our imagination to do the job?!? Elite already has an arcade section -CQC. As some people already suggested, why don't FD just open CQC and create an arcade version of the universe? You don't want to spent months gathering credits to get from Sidewinder to your first Cobra? Or you want instantly to jump in the middle of the galaxy? Play in CQC. You want to feel the immersion in the game - play in the current Elite universe.
How about the other issue - each member of the crew getting the same amount equal to the earned credits? How long did it take us to get from the Sidewinder to our first Cobra, to the dreamed Asp Exp. and so on? With this new schema a starting up player can just join his friend's fully upgraded Anaconda and few hours later will have few millions credits. He/she doesn't even need to be in front of the PC. Just log in Elite, join you friend for a MC flight and leave the PC on. Cool... Is that even fair...

 

[sebinator]

The solution is simple:
Rewards and punishments stick.
The accessibility is just a poor and lazy implementation choice.
And if they really wanted to have people play together then at least be consistent about it. We have wings and money is split in three for three people. People have to be together in the first place. They can't just jump 20000ly to their friend just because they're in a wing.
And the results are clear. Multicrew, compared to wings is way overpowered, while wings are really only viable in groups of 2 at best.
Making elite an arcade game is not what I wanted from this. And it isn't what was promised to me. If you want instant teamplay, go play team fortress or something. I for one want to enjoy multicrew, not just have access to it across the galaxy.

The elite universe seems dead and disconnected through pictures on interfaces badly enough that you need to roleplay in your head to enjoy the game in the first place. Killing the fourth wall through such ridiculous implementations of features for the sake of accessibility is not helping in the slightest.

So I recommend this:
- Increase payout for wings.
- Don't allow people to perform multicrew without actually being close to transfer to the other ship. (same instances, if not even the same station)
- Have your crew actually do something (useful and realistic), even in a freighter or explorer.

Also there is a big problem for progression skip. Someone with their sidewinder and 2000credits can just join some anaconda who than proceeds to kill a bunch of dropships and clippers in a RES, get a few millions within an hour or two.

Also a punishment system is long overdue. People just sit outside the stations eravate and lhs 3447 and kill the new players in their fully engineered anacondas and ferdelances, feeling great about themselves, with no reason whatsoever except to ruin the fun for other people. They get merely a few thousand credits of bounty, where they have millions in their account. Not only that, they can just jump into a sidewinder, fly into the station wall and all their bounties are paid for, paying virtually nothing for the rebuy.
And now it is even EASIER for those people. What the are you thinking?
Solution:
- Harsh punishments for commander kills. around 100k - 200k per kill, perhaps proportional to assets (not bank account balance)
- Superfaction wide bounties for commander kills, not local.
- Bounties sticks even after death if not killed by another player.
- Easy to access bounty list with location and ship information
Although of course that would be abused as well. Those griefers would just have their friends kill them, and even get a big reward out of it.
- Bounty is subtracted from the commanders who are killed.
Issue fixed.

Agreed

 

[Six6VI]

Implementing a co-op system that requires ALL players to "long" travel to the same place in-game (regardless of the mode) in order to take part in co-op would be very dumb in my opinion. Most (if not all) online multiplayer games with co-op have a fast travel option, and Elite needs it too imho.

That said, I do respect those who have a very different option than mine



Question for you and those who don't want insta-travel for multicrew: Are you also against the "magically" repairing, restocking, and refueling ships in the game now? Today you can dock with nearly no health, ammo, or fuel and in under 10 seconds it can all "magically" be fixed lol!

Anyone who's ever taken their car in for some repair work knows how laughable that is!!!

Or even worse, are you against in-game re-incarnation? Like how you're "magically" re-incarnated hundreds of light years away after you die? If you're looking for realism then that is laughable too!

Now, I will concede it would be very cool if Frontier added "realism" servers for those of you who seem to want everything to be super realistic and happen in real time. Other games have options like this, although I've never been interested in them myself.

I'd also be fine if Multi-crew co-op insta-travel was limited to private groups, or some new type of "PvE" only servers.

And while we're at it, can I get the option to choose which of my ships I spawn in when I launch the game too? Fine if that only works in PG and Solo so as not to upset the Open + Realism crowd. Also ok if I can only choose those ships that I could have traveled to by commercial passenger liner when I was offline, just let me decide when I boot up the game.

In the end, requiring ALL owners of the game to "long travel" to the same place in ALL modes to take part in this new co-op option (multi-crew) would be a very bad idea, and I hope Frontier doesn't limit what could be a fun new feature by not allowing fast travel in ANY mode.

Some good points raised here, but again, if we're going to quote each other can we take the time to read all of what quoted posters have said in this thread instead of cherry picking for high-scores?

Personally I HAVE just spent the last FOUR hours trying to get a rego check done on the car today. You forgot waiting on third parties to show up with parts and moving vehicles to make room...

Also, if you look (although maybe not in this thread), I already encouraged additional delays for precisely these station services and I've suggested creative lore to SUPPORT INSTANT MC

Er, just not to absolutely anywhere in a 65,000LY range (Steam already lets you do the sight seeing tour, without buying the game), some semi-limiting parameters do need to be applied for balancing.

A neutron superhighway bypass, using new lore technology developed from the Jaques 22,500LY 'accidental' jump helps us all wing up faster between the bubbles and supports low ping Telepresence.

It also speeds up the massive human exodus to Colonia, which needs parts, supplies, and people to be moved AND creates a point of failure for everyone to appreciate and defend if something breaks it.

The option to spawn to any ship in your fleet is a BRILLIANT IDEA however, I'd prefer to be organised enough to hop a transport before logging off and sleep through the uneventful flight.

Unfortunately it's difficult to get around insta-respawn in an MMO, since everyone is on a fixed clock but an option to wait in space for rescue if there are other ships around could be quite good fun.

Especially with space legs. Imagine you're picked up by a CMDR who, on inspecting your career stats decides you'd make a good addition to their crew, and pulls your magic pockets seat to the bridge?

Imagine you're in a wing of 1xConda and 3xVipers. As the Vipers are destroyed the Conda picks up the pods, brings those pods to the bridge and the CMDR's can play as gunners or take out an SLF.

The real issue here is, some just want what THEY want, want it now and don't care how it works, whether or not that fits David's creative vision or what FDev have to do to make it so, it's "MY" game!

But it's not. It's David's game. Did you look and see what game he's trying to build?

 

[Six6VI]

Not only should they be in a pod but when scooped, they should be able to be sold into slavery at the nearest black market.

Agreed, but without legs yet, what gameplay follows that? Without NPC crew support to come looking for you, or Pilots Federation wide search and rescue mission fun and games to break you out of a hostile station, what happens next? Without some kind of automated galactic map marker so people can see you're in trouble in the middle of who know's where, how can the community come and help?

Some things are not yet supported, the game is not finished, it's barely started.

 

[Six6VI]

I think we should think of the crew feature as a temporary secondary account. As far as the captain is concerned, that crew has always been on the ship (at least since the last station) but are doing other things on board until called to the bridge.

/snip...

Same thing with multicrew. You try to explain full VR telepresence across the galaxy in lore, you will only hurt the lore.

Repped, good post but these two points seem a little contradictory, to me anyway. Steam already provides insta-sight-seeing: Friends List / Watch Game (Instant, 1080p, no ED purchase required)

The temporary Agent-Smith idea of taking over an NPC currently on board the target ship could work, but not if the NPC's don't get an escape pod, or you break the proposed crime-wipe unbalance.

See previous posts for how we might reduce the 22,500 year ping to Jaques.

 

[betc]

This sounds like a lot of fun FD, well done.

the insta teleportation is perfect. i really struggled to get my mates to play this game as it takes so long to fly to the same star system, let alone actually do something together that isnt clunky af.

hanging to go smashing things in the vette with two mates flying fighters. fun, sharing profits, no messing about travelling, can teach people how to pilot, no stealing profits off each other - this just sounds too good to be true. i really struggled to think how ED could be made 'coop fun', this seems like a bloody good solution

 

[mossfoot]

Repped, good post but these two points seem a little contradictory, to me anyway. Steam already provides insta-sight-seeing: Friends List / Watch Game (Instant, 1080p, no ED purchase required)

The temporary Agent-Smith idea of taking over an NPC currently on board the target ship could work, but not if the NPC's don't get an escape pod, or you break the proposed crime-wipe unbalance.

See previous posts for how we might reduce the 22,500 year ping to Jaques.

At this point we really need to wait till the live streams and beta to see what it actually IS before we can decide what needs fixing none of us really know how it's goi g to play out yet.

 

[Six6VI]

Quiet apart from the laughable concept of our ficitonal pretend Elite pilots always being able to escape.

Didn't play the original then? Escape pods were expensive, and you had to be quick enough to launch it but if you did, then you got an instant teleport to... Hmm, I don't know where, never managed to use one

Since it was single player, time passed relative to you being in some kind of hyper sleep and since you were the only one watching, it was irrelevant. If you did not have an escape pod all you got was "GAME OVER".

At which point you waited 10 mins while your last save point reloaded from cassette.

 

[Neil_Trayce]

[Umm, does it need to be said why letting a magical unicorn fly your ship is a bad idea?]

Actually it's good idea. Selling ships and outfitting could get permission locks. Simply as that and totally doable.

Explanation of possible implementation:
Data on the ships and modules that a person "own" are stored server-side and is updated only when that person buys and sells. Before selling data should be checked if the actor bought the thing in the first place.
Say, buying a ship could be combined with ship's naming and the timestamp. These factors could issue unique crypto signature for every ship possible. This signature could be stored server-side. All the client would need is to provide public key generated from commander's name (which is used as ID in the authentication process that, I hope for, is secure enough).