ED game mechanics that are now pointless :(

[Faded Glory]

It was about different running costs for different ships based on whether they were in game called high performance or not

I can understand that these 'mechanics' (personally, I'd just call them things) could be used to make ship choice more involved. I wonder though whether FD really want to put more things in the way of the player using the content of the game that they want to. Players tend to want it all in this game (hence that there are ships referred to as 'endgame'), and there are none (or few) of the trade-offs required when outfitting ships in ED, especially when you add engineers into the mix, that were a feature of the earlier games.

To me, other than the silent running part of the OP, none of the other things really add to gameplay, I don't see how credit sinks could. I'm all for more depth in decision making, but I think I'd rather see it directed towards things like system security levels actually being important when determining risk and mission rankings being a much more realistic guide to the level of challenge to be faced.

 

[Jazzy]

Joining the Navy's - In what world can I be in every nations/factions Navy... Oh today I am admiral of the Russian Navy, Tomorrow I am Pacific Fleet Admiral of the US 6th Fleet.... Like hello!

Should of had to pick one and stick with it (Ability to quit and change if required for groups of players etc) But I never enderstood why we can be on both Federation and Empire Navy's.....

 

[Valethar]

Adding more credit sinks in a game with no meaningful economy only punishes the people who aren't billionaires and/or exploiters. Those people that make regular use of Sothis/Ceos style credit farms, etc.. have enough cash that they wouldn't be bothered a bit by increased costs. New players, and the folks that don't use questionable credit farming techniques are just going to end up frustrated and either buy a ticket on the exploit train, or move on to a different game.

3 years ago this would have made perfect sense, and FD should have stood their ground instead of caving to the pressure. At the very least, they should have made adjustments that made actual sense, instead of knee jerk hammer swinging and calling it a day.

At the end of the day, this is a space sim, not Investment Portfolio Simulator. As long as there's no real economy in game, credits are relatively meaningless, since they only really affect the player that 'owns' them. Adding more sinks is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Even Silent Running is mostly pointless now. When i smuggle in my Annie as soon as i hear "Scan Detected" i just pop a heatsink. Breaks the scan for 30 or so seconds. Don't even need to rig for silent.

Smuggling in an especially large ship should be extremely hard-without highly specialised equipment. Smuggling should be idealised for small to mediun ships.

 

[Noctover]

Smuggling in an especially large ship should be extremely hard-without highly specialised equipment. Smuggling should be idealised for small to mediun ships.

Totally agree man, i had a shieldless Cobra for the job but now i realised i don't need it, which is sad....

 

[DefiledDragon]

Well, it doesn't (and shouldn't) simply be a flat price increase. That would add zero gameplay.
I'm thinking more along the lines of adding some variety. For example, make fuel costs depend on the economy type and system state.
Military or tourism system? High fuel costs. Extraction? Low fuel costs.
Add in system states of war, boom and bust, and the changes multiply further.
This adds another wrinkle in planning your journey between systems.

Yeah, that makes sense because it, well, makes sense. Back in the day the cost of fuel was tied to the size of your ship and made no sense whatsoever as it was all the same fuel. A bit like paying 20p per litre for petrol in your motorbike, but £1.00 per litre for the same petrol in your transit van.

Making the game world more believable should be a consistent goal for FD and your suggestion would fit within that philosophy. Going back to the way things used to be would not and I'm not keen to see those nonsense mechanics reintroduced.

 

[DefiledDragon]

I'd like you to not speak for the majority of players until you get some hard numbers. I'd actually really enjoy intricately repairing my space-faring vessel. I already played Space Invaders, and even Galaga! Elite can afford to be a bit more complex.

You are in the minority. That's not opinion. It's a statement of fact. When video games were technical, challenging and punishing they were a niche market. Now that they're easy, accessible and designed with drip feed reward mechanics they're a multi billion pound industry. That's not coincidental. I appreciate where you're coming from, I'm a hard core sim player (Falcon 4, Steel Fury etc...) but I can recognise that I am the minority.

 

[CMDRvenerian]

I disagree, having more money sinks for fuel or docking is not going to add anything to the game in terms of gameplay. This is not what this game needs. It needs more voice acting, more well written scenarios and missions, fix mutlicrew (still uber buggy) add content for explorers (accretion disks, comets, rogue planets, black dwarfs, super novas etc...) an refleshing of power play to integrated in the actual game universe instead of having it being a side arcade game. There are plenty of other things to tweek that would actually bring content.

 

[Han Zulu]

I disagree, having more money sinks for fuel or docking is not going to add anything to the game in terms of gameplay. This is not what this game needs. It needs more voice acting, more well written scenarios and missions, fix mutlicrew (still uber buggy) add content for explorers (accretion disks, comets, rogue planets, black dwarfs, super novas etc...) an refleshing of power play to integrated in the actual game universe instead of having it being a side arcade game. There are plenty of other things to tweek that would actually bring content.

Agree.

This game is now basically a blank canvas where whole stories could be played out through "mission" of sorts. Pick up a mission of finding a mission person, or solving a crime, or such. (space legs would help though)

 

[Darkfyre99]

This would be terrible for explorers.

I disagree.

There's a definite "living off the land" mechanic that is lacking in Exploration, and as a result, a Hauler can be just as effective as an Anaconda as an exploration vehicle. More so, when you take into account cheaper price. I had high hopes for this when Horizons and synthesis was introduced, but unless you're going for some extreme jumps or are extremely reckless, it very rarely comes into play.

If a robust wear and tear mechanic comes back into play, and an AFMU, the upcoming repair limpets in 2.4, or another module like a repair bay, can counteract the effects, then we'll see more diversity in exploration ships. The more "must have" modules there are for exploration, the less jump range becomes the all important criteria for selecting a hull, and the more important other factors, especially available modules, become.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

fuel is the commonest thing in the universe. this is why its dirt cheap. even a colony or terraforming world - worlds which are importing everything basically- produce hydrogen. there are fuels scoops. boosting fuel price will do nothing - except stop trading. heres why.

lots of people in ships will need to dump something for the fuel scoop. the only thing a lot of people in smaller ships can dump is the cargo rack. they only have one. gone a lot of missions, and welcome to massively increased grind - especially if you introduce docking fees. it may not be possible to get out of sideys for new players if fuel and docking eats all the money they need to make on cargo to get out of that ship. if the grind gets worse fewer will bother trying - meaning fewer will bother playing.

big ships need more fuel introduces the same problem - killing trading. its fine to overcharge massively to refuel big ships beased on hiking the fuel cost and/or just making them need however many times more you want to make 1 jump. downside? no more space for cargo racks. no more trading because they have to fit extra fuel tanks. exploring takes a massive hit because scooping now wastes countless b oring hours. during which you can do nothing productive. trips outside the bubble become extremely dull unless in small ships with lower range, and no space for an srv hangar. no thanks.

most of the ideas seem to be like that. and it ignores the effect on the rest of the economy - if they model that REALISTICALLY then all prices of EVERYTHING everywhere will jump massively. outfitting, new ships, commodities all become much harder to move around from the factories. that fuel cost hike will feed through to prices. how will a sidewinder noob be able to afford anything even if the fuel cost isnt killing their game? they wont be able to afford to by biowaste even.

fine you have billions you dont know what to spend on OP so you talk about mechanics and pay lip service to how it wont affect new players - but it will unless they break the economy model to prevent it feeding through, a MASSIVE immersion breaker. as things get too much it would increase tensions among systems and the powers beyond breaking point. you are basically going to need to look at venezuela for the result of the changes you want.

EDIT: i wouldnt mind a servicing 'service' if it also cleaned up and made the cockpit and pilots seats look brand new after. wear and tear inside the cockpit. but we already have usage wear. my hull integrity was down to 32% from 100% just doing the run to hutton orbital. 170k cost to repair roghly.

 

[SentineI]

This would be terrible for explorers.

Did you even read my proposal? (The one he was agreeing with.) I specifically mentioned how it could avoid causing big problems for Explorers. (Yes it would still affect them, but probably only enough to add a bit of excitement to their day, if FDev got the balance right.)

 

[SentineI]

Totally agreed. All of these "OMG THE GAME IS TOO EASY" things seem to stem from people who already did the grind, and now wouldn't even care if all those things got implemented.

Seems like you also overlooked what I wrote in my OP, where I paid specific attention to minimise the impact on those with smaller ships (i.e. the less rich & typically less experienced).

BTW, you are also wrong. I am not rich (and do not grind)... although I'm not poor either!

On the other side: small ship mining SUCKS. And all of those costs are straight costs, they're still not meaningful to people with billions in assets, but they want costs that WOULD be meaningful to new players.

Not a problem. ANY change to the game tends to require rebalancing other aspects of the game. If any of my proposals had a significant effect on miners, then the obvious solution is to reduce other costs that miners have (EDIT) or increase the profitability of mining (or else make my proposals more complex/subtle, so as to avoid affecting miners onerously).

And the obvious way to make my proposed changes is GRADUALLY, with every point release. So if some (small) change starts to cause (small) problems for a particular type of player (or ship), then FDev have the time needed to think of solutions.

 

[Darkfyre99]

To me it's mostly about setting limitations to form meaningful gameplay. But this has to be done by FD who's the one and only gamemaster here. The game often feels to me as if the gamemaster would be hiding from doing his job for some strange reasons (while missing out on all the fine salt to harvest.. ). Either this or the game is deliberately hold in permanent beta mode where it kinda makes sense that credits are losing their sense.

Personally, it feels like Frontier is a new gamemaster in the "Monty Haul" phase of their development: giving away everything for free to their players so they'll think they are doing a good job. An actual good GM rewards clever strategies, good role playing, effective cooperation, and outside the box thinking.

The flip side of that is that a good GM also isn't afraid to apply the consequences of idiotic strategies, repeatedly out of character behavior, inner-party conflict, and lazy thinking.

 

[Marklar_]

Seems like you also overlooked what I wrote in my OP, where I paid specific attention to minimise the impact on those with smaller ships (i.e. the less rich & typically less experienced).

BTW, you are also wrong. I am not rich (and do not grind)... although I'm not poor either!


Not a problem. ANY change to the game tends to require rebalancing other aspects of the game. If any of my proposals had a significant effect on miners, then the obvious solution is to reduce other costs that miners have (or else make my proposals more complex/subtle, so as to avoid affecting miners onerously).

And the obvious way to make my proposed changes is GRADUALLY, with every point release. So if some (small) change starts to cause (small) problems for a particular type of player (or ship), then FDev have the time needed to think of solutions.

What you need to do is to explain why in the world all of these changes and re-calibrations are needed, other than just reasons because you wish you were still playing in beta. None of this addresses any real problem in the game, and will certainly cause problems.

The glaring problem in the game right now is the mission system, not cheap fuel, and the idea of increasing fuel costs is ridiculously foolish since people can simply bypass it with fuel scoops, accomplishing nothing other than adding some more tedium to the game. Frankly, the idea that the whole game needs to be re-calibrated because you want to pay more for fuel and repairs is arrogant and poorly thought-out, and ignores the fact that these changes were made over time for actual reasons.

 

[SentineI]

1. Docking fees
We never had docking fees in ED and I think we should.

Are you sure about that? While my memory isn't infallible (and could be confused by Elite 2 & 3), I'm pretty sure I remember being charged at least a SMALL fee for docking, at least during the original Kickstarter beta-phase. I'll remove it from my OP post if you can prove I'm wrong!

3. Stealth mechanic
... For that to really work the ship systems should give better feedback about whether we are safe from being spotted by npc ... All successful stealth games have good feedback about the player's visibility.

We do have such a thing... or at least we USED to. I'd need to check the game to see if we still have it. It is/was called "signature" & appeared in the top-right part of the desk part of the HUD. It wasn't ever very GOOD (being rather hard to read), but it did kinda work.

You can see it clearly labelled here, in this (possibly Kickstarter mock-up) screenshot:

Spoiler

And still here, but not as clearly labelled, in this (Horizons 2.1) screenshot:

Spoiler

 

[SentineI]

There's an audio when the heatsink is dumped. Rather loud actually.

Heat sink is NOT "Silent Running" mode

That MIGHT possibly have a small sound, but if so it's not a patch on the awesome 'ice-crinkling' noses you got when heat went down to 0

 

[SentineI]

along with the OP content I'd put NPC interdictions in there also - they don't work as a threat mechanism at all, as they are very easy to evade and even if you don't manage to, once you know how, they are easy to get away from.

Personally I think NPC interdiction is something FDev eventually got right. At one time it was trivially easy, then they increased it (too much), and all hell broke loose on the forums, with people complaining how impossible it was to avoid. Now? I'd say it is "tricky" to evade, but possible to evade 95+% of the time if you know what you are doing. (I'm hesitant to say 99% of the time, since I think an Elite NPC would probably still be able to forcefully interdict me, going by past experience. It's just that you don't usually get interdicted by Elite NPCs these days.)

I'd also like a change to the mechanics that govern kills - it feels too far the other way now where I just turn up, hit the pirate, and let the police clean up. I'm sure there's a better and more believable mechanic to make it some kind of challenge.

Oh yeah, that could do with rebalancing somehow. It does feel a bit cheaty that you only need to get one shot in, and then you get the whole bounty (just because the only other ships in the battle were NPCs). But I'm not sure how that could be solved easily, since the earlier mechanics had their own (more serious) problems with NPCs stealing the kill with the last shot.

 

[Marklar_]

Are you sure about that? While my memory isn't infallible (and could be confused by Elite 2 & 3), I'm pretty sure I remember being charged at least a SMALL fee for docking

There were no docking fees at launch, and both fuel and repairs were fairly cheap. The only real difference back then was that money was harder to come by, because missions paid peanuts.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I agree with everything op says however I worry that those who feel that way are no longer FDs target demographic, and the most important players would see all of that as a grind slowing players down from getting what ever it is they are looking for in the game.

He is mistaken on docking fees tho. They were MEANT to be a thing but never made it in (I expected them to come after launch). OP is thinking of Frontier or 1st encounters I think

The fuel scoop point is a good one but back in the day was there not talk that scooped fuel would be lower quality compared to bought stuff, esp for ships not built to use it (is exploration ships)