Colonia Ferry Service

hack-wizard

H
With the exception of ships that are engineered for long range jumping in particular and maso-erm explorers like myself, just getting to Colonia from the Bubble is a royal pain. Additionally, it is essentially a no go for novices to the game, so I had an idea to fix that:

The Colonia Ferry Service

What this would be is a pair of dockable megaships that alternate jumping between the Bubble and Colonia once every month. Since this alone could lead to problematic situations (eg: someone who didn't know any better docking in the Bubble then winding up in Colonia when they next login and stuck for a month) I think the following conditions on landing and the megaships are warranted:

  • very basic services - like fuel, repair and restock, no outfitting, shipyards or contacts other than basic authorities
  • upon docking the commander will get a dialog explaining what this service is, the time to the next jump and the periods in which the ship jumps, as well as an explanation of how far the two points are so they realize how far they will have to go on their own to return in less than a month
  • In order to accept the terms of the ferry service (and actually dock) they will have to pay an amount equal to their current ship's insurance rebuy as a non-refundable "high risk fee". The reason for this is to ensure commitment of the commander to the trip, and to dissuade ... more cheeky commanders from continually undocking and redocking to clog up the pads.
  • If the fee is declined (by choice or due to not having the credits) the ship automatically undocks, otherwise the ship is immediately pulled into the hangar.
  • there should be a countdown to jump on the station services page starting 24-48 hours before the jump date, to ensure commanders don't jump the gun and launch before they have moved between the regions.
 

Lestat

Banned
Lestat
In my day it took months to get to Colonia. I seen players get there less than 107 jumps. So I have to say No to your idea.
 

hack-wizard

H
Sure, for people who have spent a tone of time and money into getting high end engineered modules. This is just giving people another alternative that has costs of its own, but your opinion is your opinion at the end of the day.
 

Lestat

Banned
Lestat
hack-wizard said:
Sure, for people who have spent a tone of time and money into getting high end engineered modules. This is just giving people another alternative that has costs of its own, but your opinion is your opinion at the end of the day.
Click to expand...
So your asking for a feature so they DON'T have to play the game. See open your eyes. This game about you flying your ship. Not you waiting to have a Ferry take your ship to Colonia while you play a different game.
 

Hooplah

Hooplah
Maybe it is for players who want to unlock all the engineers including the four in Colonia. But isn't flying there part of the requirement? Besides most systems in the bubble have a lot more resources than the basics found in Colonia. Meanwhile load up a bunch of gankers with dedicated PvP ships to go play there.
 
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Misty_Dark

Misty_Dark
why? Colonia is a far away place for a reason. Players who have decided to relocate made a choice, and if players relocated without actually doing some basic fact gathering about Colonia, then they have to own up to it.


All this would invite is for players that would not normally go there to end up here and arrive in their max engineered combat ships with a very bad jump range. and then when they get bored,they just hop onboard to get back "home" again.
To do that today would require ALOT more work, as they either have to fly this ship to Colonia, or make a taxi ship and then pay a huge amount of credits for having the ship, or lots of modules shipped to Colonia. And then they have to wait for ship/modules to arrive. I think it is 60 hours or so.
And now you are suggesting that you have to match the time before next jump and then basically in an instant be in Colonia... and all it would cost would be a "rebuy".





What is next? Mega ships that takes you to Sag A? Beagle Point? Formadine Rift?
 

varonica

varonica
hack-wizard said:
With the exception of ships that are engineered for long range jumping in particular and maso-erm explorers like myself, just getting to Colonia from the Bubble is a royal pain. Additionally, it is essentially a no go for novices to the game, so I had an idea to fix that:
Click to expand...

The entire point of Colonia is that it is a long way away, it's a target to attain, a misty land of hope and adventure, not a some boring bus trip! Next you will want a taxi or bus ride to Beagle Point. Colonia is like the end game bosses in a regular MMO, if it's to hard to get there, you aren't ready to go there!
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
I agree Colonia is a long way away, and that the journey is not particularly fun in itself (that's why I'm not coming back to the bubble)

However, I don't think it needs to be made any easier
1) Sure, the sub-2 hour record for Sol-Colonia required an extremely optimised ship *and* an extremely practised pilot *and* we don't count the planning time for their custom-plotted route in that two hours. It's the record time for a reason, and you shouldn't be expected to match it. But a bit of basic engineering, and a stripped down Asp, and you can do it in six hours easily if you don't stop to look at the scenery, four if you get a bit of practice at neutron jumps in.

2) There's nothing [1] out at Colonia which makes it a requirement to visit/move to from an in-game perspective. The only reason to go is that you like the concept. And one of the key bits of the concept is that it's a long way away and not straightforward to get to.

3) You can already pay - 4 rebuys rather than just 1 - to shorten the journey by 40% (and the way it shortens the journey makes it much more useful to novices in slower ships, than to experienced neutron-jumpers in fast ships)

4) From the psychological perspective, there are multiple bases on the route which can break the journey into segments no longer than about 5000 LY (and mostly shorter)

5) Instant travel with an intact ship between the two bubbles would make a right mess of mission balance - load up on 50 million in courier missions to Colonia before you depart, get on the ship, then get off at the other end and hand them in. Pays for the travel cost, too. Or use it to take half the journey time off long range passenger tourism.

6) The Squadron Carrier, depending on its capabilities, may well provide the ability for players to set up something like this - though at considerably greater effort. That shouldn't be pre-empted by a supercharged NPC version.




[1] There might in a few weeks be a couple of exclusive engineering blueprints, but they'll be fairly minor stuff and not of particular use to beginners anyway.
 

Winterwalker

Winterwalker
I'd say yes to the idea bearing in mind, that Megaship Gnosis has a max jump range of 500Ly. It really is surprisingly good fun to be transported to a different base of operations each week, even in unpopulated deep space, but it would take Gnosis 44 weeks to get to Colonia from the bubble.

I would NOT suggest giving megaships range greater than Gnosis has. 500Ly is already significantly further than any other ship in game.
 
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Cmdr. Numa

Cmdr. Numa
I have to say no. A trip to Colonia should not get more casual than it already is. And why else would you want to go there in a ship with low jump range, except to stir up trouble ? Low range ships are typically combat ships.
 

Nadreck

N
As others have said, it's not that difficult already, it just takes planning. I recently went there with 6 ships. There might be a problem with a really big, expensive ship with a low jumprange. While there I temporarily turned a Beluga into a freighter, an AspX into a miner, and transferred-in a special cheap-build Crusader for combat.

If we ever get Fleet Carriers: well, we don't really know how "hyperdrives" (not FSD's) are supposed to work. We know that Jacques got to Colonia in one jump, but not how long he spent in hyperspace. I'm guessing 61 hours, the ship-transfer time. So if you load up your Carrier and launch it at Colonia, perhaps you'll need to wait 3 days.
 

JetsonRING

JetsonRING
Nadreck said:
As others have said, it's not that difficult already, it just takes planning. I recently went there with 6 ships. There might be a problem with a really big, expensive ship with a low jumprange. While there I temporarily turned a Beluga into a freighter, an AspX into a miner, and transferred-in a special cheap-build Crusader for combat.

If we ever get Fleet Carriers: well, we don't really know how "hyperdrives" (not FSD's) are supposed to work. We know that Jacques got to Colonia in one jump, but not how long he spent in hyperspace. I'm guessing 61 hours, the ship-transfer time. So if you load up your Carrier and launch it at Colonia, perhaps you'll need to wait 3 days.
Click to expand...

I proposed this to FDev 2 years ago, a mega-ship able to carry a CMDR's ship to Colonia, sort of like the Spacing Guild Heighliners in Dune, with stops along the way at the support systems. A CMDR could buy passage for him/herself and his/her ship to any of the support stations along the circular route to Colonia or to Colonia itself, with the CMDR "locked inside" their ship and (after a specified number of days) finding their ship parked in a Hangar at one of the stations. The same as ship transport but the CMDR goes along with the ship and without having to fly the route there themselves and/or also without having to fly there first in one ship and call for a second ship to be transported.
 
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VR CMDR Novindus

VR CMDR Novindus
If you've been playing for any amount of time, you'll have come to realise that badges of honour in this game are for the most part related to how many times you can repeat the same set of motions, i.e. Jump, Honk, Scoop, Jump, Honk, Scoop, repeat without rinsing.

But there's sometimes a good reason for that. If you could get to Colonia in a single hop, there's nothing there that should draw your attention more than most any station within the bubble would.
The value is in the trip, which nets you ranking and credits, and perhaps some sight-seeing along the way if you're game.
The length of the trip itself is a journey that discourages most of the serial murderers who like to get their quick repetitive happies (not that I'm disparaging that), so you get more people playing in open and interacting with each other in Colonia.

As for alternate methods of travel, I'd prefer something more general and everyday usable, and which your own ship is capable of. I'd say that I wanted the ability to jump out to a specific body in a system (with certain limitations elsewhere hashed out), but then you'd get a stampede of people who'd be worried that it would make the meaningless journey to Hutton Orbital even more meaningless, because you wouldn't be staring at wallpaper for an hour and a half with hooks in your eyelids keeping them pried open so that you don't collide with the station as you will no doubt contemplate doing intentionally before the end.
 
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