Feature request: Instant transport to own ships

[DGBaley]

With the recent introduction of multi-crew, it would seem that the technology exists to project a pilot into any ship just about anywhere in the galaxy. So, let's take this one step further and make it possible for a pilot to take the helm of any ship they own anywhere in the galaxy without having to bring the ships together at the same station.

This feature could provide a significant improvement in the variety of activities a pilot can participate in. For example, it would be possible for pilots to go on long term exploration missions out in deep space but still be able to occasionally return to the bubble for community events or to grind a few missions for some extra cash (or just to relieve the boredom of deep space exploration.) For the sake of logical consistency, any cargo, materials, or exploration data would necessarily need to be confined to a single ship unless the transfer occurs while two ships are collocated.

Speaking of which... It would also be very useful if one could switch ships without being forced to transfer all of the cargo from one ship to another. There have been a number of times I've wanted to drop into an Eagle to go do some combat missions, but couldn't because I had a few tons of cargo (usually mission rewards) in my hold. I would have to sell of those hard-earned commodities before I could switch into the smaller ship.

I believe these features would be very useful to most pilots and their usage would be totally consistent with existing game-play mechanics.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

D.G. Baley

 

[Robert Maynard]

I doubt that Frontier would introduce a feature that effectively removed travel from the game - that has a representation of our whole galaxy as a play area.

A concession to multi-player convenience has been made for Multi-crew in that players don't need to be in the same dock to join a ship as crew - the explanation given is that crew are "present" in the cockpit of the crewed ship using holograms and telepresence. The CMDR that owns the ship remains at the helm. There is no teleport for multi-crew, just as ship transfer is not instant.

I don't think that the game would benefit from fast travel.

Cargo storage has been requested many times - Frontier don't want that for normal commodities but may, at some point, implement some form of storage for Engineer related commodities (if those commodities are ever put back into the Engineer modification recipes).

 

[Chrystoph]

It does not remove travel from the game. Moving from one ship to another still requires that you emplace the ship beforehand. It does not allow you to magically teleport from the bubble to Sag A.

Your argument is based on a role play mindset that is not a condition of the game. The anonymous Commander that "owns" the ship is not a person in the sense that a character in a novel is. As a long time pen and paper player/game master, I could agree with the argument if the proposal were to move a ship and pilot from one facility to another by just relogging, but this still requires that you invest the time in getting there the first time.

I also believe that this would allow more interaction by letting players switch to a more local to the event ship, especially Colonia and deep explorers. They would be able to be part of the community in AND out of the bubble.

Finally, I find the proposal no more or less ridiculous than the notion that we have FTL bandwidth to the tune of terabytes/sec over literally unlimited distances.

 

[Robert Maynard]

It does not remove travel from the game.

It would to a large degree - a player would only need to travel to a place once, buy a Sidewinder as a teleport beacon, and move on....

Moving from one ship to another still requires that you emplace the ship beforehand.

The destination, by definition, would be a place that the player had already visited - however no travel would be required to select a session starting point.

It does not allow you to magically teleport from the bubble to Sag A.

It would, once the player had been there once (and left a Sidewinder there). Not at the moment, no. As and when a dock is discovered somewhere nearby, yes.

 

[Kyokushin]

With the recent introduction of multi-crew, it would seem that the technology exists to project a pilot into any ship just about anywhere in the galaxy. So, let's take this one step further and make it possible for a pilot to take the helm of any ship they own anywhere in the galaxy without having to bring the ships together at the same station.

This feature could provide a significant improvement in the variety of activities a pilot can participate in. For example, it would be possible for pilots to go on long term exploration missions out in deep space but still be able to occasionally return to the bubble for community events or to grind a few missions for some extra cash (or just to relieve the boredom of deep space exploration.) For the sake of logical consistency, any cargo, materials, or exploration data would necessarily need to be confined to a single ship unless the transfer occurs while two ships are collocated.

Speaking of which... It would also be very useful if one could switch ships without being forced to transfer all of the cargo from one ship to another. There have been a number of times I've wanted to drop into an Eagle to go do some combat missions, but couldn't because I had a few tons of cargo (usually mission rewards) in my hold. I would have to sell of those hard-earned commodities before I could switch into the smaller ship.

I believe these features would be very useful to most pilots and their usage would be totally consistent with existing game-play mechanics.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

D.G. Baley

I have a hope they will never add it.

 

[Sysmon]

No thanks! There is already enough instant travel in this travel game.

S

 

[Captain Willard]

Elite has always been. One ship, one pilot. prolly never happen.

 

[Miklos Atreides]

With the recent introduction of multi-crew, it would seem that the technology exists to project a pilot into any ship just about anywhere in the galaxy. So, let's take this one step further and make it possible for a pilot to take the helm of any ship they own anywhere in the galaxy without having to bring the ships together at the same station.

This feature could provide a significant improvement in the variety of activities a pilot can participate in. For example, it would be possible for pilots to go on long term exploration missions out in deep space but still be able to occasionally return to the bubble for community events or to grind a few missions for some extra cash (or just to relieve the boredom of deep space exploration.) For the sake of logical consistency, any cargo, materials, or exploration data would necessarily need to be confined to a single ship unless the transfer occurs while two ships are collocated.

Speaking of which... It would also be very useful if one could switch ships without being forced to transfer all of the cargo from one ship to another. There have been a number of times I've wanted to drop into an Eagle to go do some combat missions, but couldn't because I had a few tons of cargo (usually mission rewards) in my hold. I would have to sell of those hard-earned commodities before I could switch into the smaller ship.

I believe these features would be very useful to most pilots and their usage would be totally consistent with existing game-play mechanics.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

D.G. Baley

Sorry, but declining this request as well.
This game has a mantra of decision and consequence. I suggest to take it as it is, and it is fine.
You are jumping in one ship taking the journey to Colonia, but with all cosequences. This means you will miss
all these profitable CGs that will create multi-million Credit Profit to your account.
Your suggestion leads to cripple the decision/consequence ratio much, hence... No!

Regards,
Miklos

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

It would, once the player had been there once (and left a Sidewinder there).

This of all arguments makes no sense whatsoever. There is no station to buy and store a Sidewinder at Sag A*, so you would actually have to fly one there to have that beacon there. You oppose the idea of the op for the sake of opposing it.

I am all for it, it makes all kinds of sense, but I'm also aware FD are not going to do it but but rather leave the game in the messed up state where you have to be physically there for some things and can freely telepresence for other things.

 

[Robert Maynard]

This of all arguments makes no sense whatsoever. There is no station to buy and store a Sidewinder at Sag A*, so you would actually have to fly one there to have that beacon there.

Fair point.

You oppose the idea of the op for the sake of opposing it.

No. I oppose the idea of the OP because travel is fundamental in this game and players being able to pop-up anywhere in the galaxy (that has a dock and that they have previously visited and left a teleport beacon) just by logging out of one ship and back in to another ship in a different location would detract from the game, in my opinion. The size of the galaxy is a strength of the game, not something to be trivialised by implementing player teleport, again, in my opinion.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

No fast travel please. It ruins games.

In any case, your proposal would likely break a fair few things.
If you don't want to fly to your ships, cluster them closer together.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Rustnsawdust]

Sorry, but declining this request as well.
This game has a mantra of decision and consequence. I suggest to take it as it is, and it is fine.
You are jumping in one ship taking the journey to Colonia, but with all cosequences. This means you will miss
all these profitable CGs that will create multi-million Credit Profit to your account.
Your suggestion leads to cripple the decision/consequence ratio much, hence... No!

Regards,
Miklos

Repped, because this is the crucial argument. And the arguments about multicrew are simply wrong - with multicrew you get to experience the combat, or the exploration, or whatever but you don't get to keep the full profit and ranking from doing so. Having one ship doing a circumnavigation, another at Colonia for CGs, another in a hazres for profit-grinding, and being able to bounce between them at will is - for me - a gamebreaker.

 

[Sunyavadin]

Also, lore-wise I can see no situation under which it'd be made legal for a ship to be polited entirely by telepresence with no qualified pilot aboard.
That's a disaster waiting to happen.
There's a reason self-driving cars still need a licenced driver at the wheel, in case anything important switches off. They may be safer than most drivers, but the moment the software stops communicating with the hardware, you need the meatsack inside as a failsafe to prevent any ensuing collisions.
I dread to think of the potential casualties if someone's galactic internet connection has a hiccup while their imperial cutter is flying directly towards the back of a docking bay at high speed...

 

[AJW]

ED is a spaceship-flying game. If you don't want to fly spaceships, find another game.

 

[dogsolitude_uk]

So are you saying that once you've visited a station, bought a Sidewinder and left it there, you should be able to teleport there instantly?

Sounds like a game-wrecker to me. Far better for a decision to go out exploring (or whatever) to have a real consequence (such as missing out on a CG mission), as it forces us to think carefully about what we do in the game. Much like choosing which relatives to visit at Christmas, or whether or not to spend the day in Cambridge or London over the weekend, or choosing to develop a stealth character or a tank in an RPG.

So yeah, I'm going to thumbs-down this one as well I'm afraid.

 

[concentric]

Imho the whole telepresence thing was a bad idea anyway...

 

[Sysmon]

Instant travel is a convenience, and works in games were immersion and consequence of action mean less. Generally, this makes the player focus more on game mechanics and less on being in the game world. Elite doesn't need (more) of that. I'd like to see where FD is taking the current direction of development, but I certainly hope it doesn't include adding more ways to flit about instantly besides the hyperspace jumping.

S

 

[Chrystoph]

To the various "teleport beacon" arguments, bushwah! Your argument is so ridiculous that I wonder how you managed to click the post through while you were laughing.

If you flew to a station and bought a sidewinder as a presence holder, you would end up at the station with a sidewinder the next time you were there. In order to have anything else, you would either have to buy what was available at the station, or, more likely, fly the ship you wanted to the location. Colonia is a perfect example of this.

As to the matter of consequences, we saw this played out during the Powerplay competition. A major milestone in the evolution of the lore was rushed through, not giving people a chance to participate because they did not have time to get back from Distant Worlds. You cannot reasonably argue that they made a choice when the entire competition was put through while they were still engaged in Distant Worlds. That was not some one off CG, but rather a fundamental alteration of the game. Excluding a percentage of the playerbase from "voting" in these types of events by denying them participation is criminal.

Regarding all of the character arguments, you don't have a character and this is not an RPG. You have a ship with a generic pilot and a bank account. You don't want to use this function, fine, but telling me that I have to play your way... The litmus test for your argument is traditionally, If the circumstances were reversed, would you sill agree to it?

So, let me ask you, if Someone tells you they don't want a feature you support because "it will ruin my game play", are you going to knuckle under and give up in spite of the fact that the use of said feature is optional? Personally, I think you are objecting because you want to force someone to conform to your vision of the game.

 

[Robert Maynard]

To the various "teleport beacon" arguments, bushwah! Your argument is so ridiculous that I wonder how you managed to click the post through while you were laughing.

If you flew to a station and bought a sidewinder as a presence holder, you would end up at the station with a sidewinder the next time you were there. In order to have anything else, you would either have to buy what was available at the station, or, more likely, fly the ship you wanted to the location. Colonia is a perfect example of this.

Before the implementation of ship transfer - yes. However now it would be: player crafts the ship that they want to place at that location - log out; log in to the desired location; initiate ship transfer of the chosen ship; log out; log in to another ship....

 

[GJ51]

It's like Deja Vu all over again