A ship transfer alternative - free and instant only for what's available in shipyard/outfitting.

[clinton]

I don't really mind the insta-ship transfer. I know it's unrealistic, but so is FTL travel without weird time travel effects, and spontaneously being spawned back at a station after being blown up in deep space 100s of LYs away.

Anyway, I don't want to get into that debate. But if things are going to change, here's a suggestion:

Make ship and module transfer FREE, but only for modules and ships that are available for purchase at the shipyard and outfitting.

In this case, there's nothing magic going on, shipyard X simply gives you the module/ship and shipyard Y (which the module/ship was at) simply takes ownership and transfers the funds. It could just be an agreement that all shipyards have (like they all agree to accept credits).

If you have a stored ship in another system, and your current system sells that ship but not all the modules, you get as much as the ship as possible, but the modules the current system doesn't stock get replaced with E-rated modules (which must be paid for). The modules that could not be "transferred" stay at the old system.

This has a number of interesting consequences. Firstly module and ship transfers are free, because you're really just buying/selling the module (and there's no resale penalty currently anyway). But you can't transfer engineer enhanced modules. And you better go to a decent shipyard or you won't be able to get your modules or even ships transferred.

When it comes to "actual" transfers, that is, where the module must be actually transferred not just provided from stock in the shipyard/outfitting, these could have a cost/delay, however, there should be a way to "pre-order" these transfers, from outside of both the source and destination systems.

So anyway, that's my compromise suggestion. Free instant transfers when the ship/module to be transferred already is in stock in the current shipyard, paid/delayed transfers when they actually need to be "shipped".

This all being said, I'm not too bothered by the insta-transfers across the board, but if it was going to be changed I think this would be a good approach.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I proposed the same mechanism in the megathread, would seem a hell of a lot more logical to me.

But we'll disregard modules (enginered or not) availability because that would become a nightmare.

Your move Slopey

 

[clinton]

Indeed, if Frontier wanted to take a cautious approach, they could in 2.2. only introduce ship/module transfer for ships/modules that are available in the shipyard/outfitting, and otherwise disallow other transfers.

Because transfers of modules/ships in stock will be free, they don't have to worry about balancing pricing.

Players will still have to ship their engineered modules around, but with module storage this will be a lot less fiddlier. And balance concerns will be addressed largely because players will only be able to transfer modules they could otherwise buy.

This could be a very safe and cautious approach that would be easy to implement, see how the player base uses it, before adding in a more extensive system to transfer non-stocked modules through paid for physical transfers.

So if you turn up with your Type-9 to a combat zone, you'll probably be able to get a Vulture, but if it's not available in the shipyard you might have to settle for some other ship. Also, you won't be able to transfer over your super engineered Vulture instantly, for that you'll have to physically fly it over. But as long as you go to a half decent shipyard, you'll be able to transfer a decent ship instantly and for free.