Deploy-able Escape Pod

[CMDR Spadino]

Actually, I'm a player which also read and follow the game lore. I have almost all the licensed book of Elite and also the awesome and truly inspiring Drew Wagar Oolite saga. In the lore, and in previously Elite incarnations, the Escape Pod was a real thing, deploy-able and meaningful. I understand that the current incarnation of Elite is following a slightly different game mechanic, sometime a bit more arcade (which is not to regret, even if I'm not an arcade player), and of course it already have many mechanics implemented and solidly accepted by the community.
The current insurance model works very well, take that the CMDR always survive. There's many really interesting game mechanics improvements involved in a new feature like the one I'm proposing, but even with no substantial work, a deploy-able escape pod would add immersion and fun to the game, even more after the 2.2 release, which add more dangerous events and assassins stars.

My propose is really simple:

1) In the role panel - the one on the bottom - there's space (on the right, maybe?) for a new menu (Emergence?). That menu could have a simple "Deploy Escape-Pod" option, or maybe also transfer the Reboot/Self Repair and Self Destruction routines to that. (Sweet! [yesnod])

2) At first, it could be just a place-holder, but a simple implementation could lend to a straightforward mechanic:

a) Escape-Pod successfully deployed: the rebuy screen appear, as it is now. You can choose for the insurance or the stock sidewinder.
b) Escape-Pod NOT successfully deployed: a new screen, when you can choose between the stock sidewinder and clear the saved game.

3) When you have catastrophic ships failure, as at white dwarf and neutron star, there's no way to escape. You'll cannot deploy the Escape-Pod, ever. It shows the "b" screen. You can continue to play your CMDR, but you loose the ship FOREVER. No insurance will do the trick. :O

For the escape pod to be successfully deployed, you MUST deploy it before your ships is destructed. Just simple as that.

This simple improvement will let the current players the chance to continue to play as they do - with a little more thrill and fun - and give the Ironman mode players extremely more fun and meaning to their RPG and self-fiction immersion.

What about?

 

[CMDR PlungedSphere34]

No. No. No. Not like. I'm sorry but, why? It's not adding anything interesting or fun. Again, I'm sorry.

 

[Lngjohnsilver1]

Not a grand idea. I suppose this is where the 'this is not a real life simulator' check comes in. Nobody will want to play a game of this expanse and magnitude where if they die - they lose everything! It's an interesting game mechanic idea but not a great one for a game like this where players devote years of gameplay to the experience and can lose it due to a simple error.

 

[Zan]

Liking the key concept, since an actually deployable pod for sure would provide extra immersion and game depth.

I'm not really sure about how this could be implemented though. Even the solution you propose doesn't quite do the trick imho:

b) Escape-Pod NOT successfully deployed: a new screen, when you can choose between the stock sidewinder and clear the saved game.

If this is the case of critical failure, then poor commander should be dead. So can't see the sense of carrying on with a stock sidewinder, cause the statement

You can continue to play your CMDR, but you loose the ship FOREVER.

clashes with the dynamic of the insurance: ability to choose stock sidewinder -> cmdr is alive -> ship he/she was flying was insured.

Permanent death would be more coherent, but that's way too hardcore. Plus

For the escape pod to be successfully deployed, you MUST deploy it before your ships is destructed. Just simple as that.

...yes and no. In combat situations I think an auto-eject preservation mode should/could be enabled.

As I said, I like the concept, but I also think we'd need a convincing implentation dynamic since it's a delicate one.

 

[Moesis]

I get where you're coming from with this, however, this shouldn't be anything other than an option. i.e. auto eject still a thing for us commanders unless we turn that off. Problem with that is not many would use it IMO, and I doubt frontier would do it, based on that alone. I'm also not too sure about the random chance of failure, and this shouldn't be buried in a menu IMO so should have a keybind.

What could be interesting however and would possibly make this mechanic popular enough so it's worth frontiers time to implement, is if we had this mechanic, this could also be linked with crew. You manually eject, so do they, (you all live, and you then have to rescue them after respawn) you don't manually eject, neither do they, so if auto-eject setting is active, you survive but they don't, (and if the auto-eject setting is not active, you all perish, setting is only really there for those that want hardcore). Suddenly everyone (with crew on board) has a decision to make based on if they want crew to live, but you might also be ejecting too early, opening up later gameplay possibilities like boarding abandoned ships, should the attacker stop firing in time.

 

[Hydrino]

This would fall under the original FD idea of Iron Man mode and discussed in the Design Discussion Forum pre-release. The player would have a set amount of time (say 5 seconds) between their hull reaching 0% and having to eject. Failure to hit the eject key would mean the commander died permanently or would be placed into non-iron-man mode permanently (player choice).

I think FD took a look and decided it wasn't worth the development time to implement, but it could still be on "the list" or a list, somewhere for future re-consideration.

 

[CMDR Spadino]

I know this is a very controversial topic. By the way, I stripped down the main concept to a very bare implementation, just to have something solid witch starts with. I think that the idea to have this linked with crew members is fantastic, giving at the same time immersion and depth (not sure for an "only key binding", why not both?).
For a later implementation, which hopefully give us chances to board ships, an escape pod - which could be deployed too early - is a fabulous add on.

The ironman mode is not needed in this case. Player could play the same as now, but they will benefit from a new mechanic, which open many new possibilities.
I strongly believe that is something worth think about.