Feature request: Instant transport to own ships

[Chrystoph]

It would be convenient if those things earned by the CMDR were in the "leaving those aside" pile - as it is those that confirm that it is the CMDR, not the ship, that earns them.

Ships don't earn credits - they are bought using credits and used to earn credits.
Ships don't gain reputation with Factions / SuperPowers - if they did then the CMDR would lose reputation when the ship was sold / destroyed.
Some ships cannot be bought until the CMDR has gained sufficient rank with the relevant SuperPower.
Ships don't earn permits - if they did then the CMDR would lose the permit when the ship was sold / destroyed.
The ship's HUD refers to the CMDR and displays the CMDR statistics in the RH HUD.
The dock menu system quotes the CMDR name.
Mission givers refer to the CMDR, not the ship when missions are completed.
etc.

Those are the "leave aside", as all of them are the gates I refer to. They are not the person, they are the limitations of the game. Permits and reputation are gates to specific aspects of game play, they are not story line elements in the sense of achievement because the only things that change are your access to otherwise artificially restricted functions of the game. Indeed, most of those functions have no material value except to provide bigger monetary payoffs for the same missions when your reputation changes. Given that the game is entirely playable without the gated ships, they cannot be considered as valid arguments for claiming "character progress".

As to Commanders v Ships, you have made a False Equivalence, as the comparison of this discussion has always been Commanders v Players. As to your various statements, you can replace Commanders with Players and have just as much validity, if not more so. Again, you are using an RPG argument to justify your position when you are not in an RPG environment.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Those are the "leave aside", as all of them are the gates I refer to. They are not the person, they are the limitations of the game. Permits and reputation are gates to specific aspects of game play, they are not story line elements in the sense of achievement because the only things that change are your access to otherwise artificially restricted functions of the game. Indeed, most of those functions have no material value except to provide bigger monetary payoffs for the same missions when your reputation changes. Given that the game is entirely playable without the gated ships, they cannot be considered as valid arguments for claiming "character progress".

As to Commanders v Ships, you have made a False Equivalence, as the comparison of this discussion has always been Commanders v Players. As to your various statements, you can replace Commanders with Players and have just as much validity, if not more so. Again, you are using an RPG argument to justify your position when you are not in an RPG environment.

When starting the game afresh, the player is required to name their CMDR. If the player resets their CMDR then they start afresh with a new (i.e. unranked, unallied, one-ship) CMDR. So yes, player and commander are interchangable - and players / CMDRs don't teleport.... (well, unless the CMDR has been destroyed - then it's an escape pod to the last dock or starting location if the rebuy isn't chosen - but that's being "dead", not playing, which is why the concession is made)

Players / CMDRs buy, sell and change between ships - so the player is not the ship.

 

[Chrystoph]

Sure, sure, players don't teleport... except in the totally dis-believable exception of tele-presence, which breaks immersion by implying an FTL communication medium that could cover 100,000 LY instantaneously with a bandwidth measured in Tb/sec, which also violates the no tractor beams rule to provide the player with physical manipulators AND gives a ship additional capabilities.

Yet, somehow, the idea that a player could be represented by more than one person is outrageous.

 

[NW3]

I am in favor of the OP's suggestion. In my opinion, it's no more game-breaking than telepresence, which I don't particularly like, but I understand the need for purely gameplay reasons.

The ability to instantly transfer to another ship is already in the game, sort of: You can have additional accounts. That's somewhat different that the OP's proposal, but it's much the same idea, in my opinion.

As an explorer, I have often felt the desire to return to the bubble for a quick CG or even just a change of pace, after weeks/months of exploring.

 

[Miklos Atreides]

Sure, sure, players don't teleport... except in the totally dis-believable exception of tele-presence, which breaks immersion by implying an FTL communication medium that could cover 100,000 LY instantaneously with a bandwidth measured in Tb/sec, which also violates the no tractor beams rule to provide the player with physical manipulators AND gives a ship additional capabilities.

Yet, somehow, the idea that a player could be represented by more than one person is outrageous.

I agree, telepresence is a lame excuse for enabling players at least complexity to take their part in Multicrew. It should have been implemented in another way where commanders are to be at least in the same system to join Multicrew or something like that. But it isn't for above reason. Teleporting players undermines the concept of decision and consequence which is quite often cited in this forum. Hence it is good as it is and we should keep it that way. If you go to Colonia you will miss the one CG or the other. Its a consequence of your decision to do the trip.

Regards,
Miklos

 

[Tursonaki]

Just to cast my vote. No fast travel please.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Telepresence is just a 110% gamey mechanic to allow multicrew to function with a good level of usability. Otherwise it would be such a colossal pain in the backside to get or join crew, it would never be used.
And the idea is for it to be fun, not annoying.

Teleporting to another ship is actually just game breaking in many ways. Too many to list.

If you don't want to spend time flying between your ships, park them close together, or use a ultra high jump range taxi ship. (I have a DBX for bubble hopping, I can reach anywhere I park a ship in 8 jumps or less).

If you're out exploring, and fancy some pew pew, join multicrew, it's entirely why it's been designed that way.
Or keep to short exploration trips, like I do (Never more than an hour of flight home). If you can't cope with either of those, then you're not an explorer. Lol

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[varonica]

Telepresence is just a 110% gamey mechanic to allow multicrew to function with a good level of usability. Otherwise it would be such a colossal pain in the backside to get or join crew, it would never be used.
And the idea is for it to be fun, not annoying.

I've done multi-crew precisely once, just to see what it was like, and not pew pew stuff either, just relaxed jumping as we chatted away. My personal feeling is that multi-crew should have been restricted to some sort of arena system and not impact regular gameplay, but that's just my opinion, others will have different opinions. I would be interested in seeing the stats on multi-crew activity versus wings and solo.

 

[Grybr]

Obvious new guy here -

I've been playing ED for about three months, and I'm hooked. I dropped by this thread because one of the few inconsistencies I see in the game is the lack of pilot travel.

I understand ship transfer was a tug of war, and I understand why. I also understand why pilot travel/transfer/whatever is also a tug of war. I'm against instant transfer for pilots as I agree that it's not consistent with the reality mechanic. However, I think that a pilot travel mechanic along the lines of the ship transfer mechanic makes perfect sense.

We're already flying passenger transport missions, both short and long haul. As a pilot wanting to move from one station to another to get to a ship I left at my destination station, I'm no different. I can think of two ways this could be handled in game to fit with the current game play.

1. Simplest implementation would be essentially a pilot version of ship transfer. The pilot picks which ship destination he wants. The system determines the transit time and the cost. If the pilot wants to travel, he pays the credits and deals with the downtime until he reaches his destination. This means that the player can't fly until the destination is reached. If losing the ability to play for the required downtime is an issue, the pilot can always fly himself. And for most folks who want the mechanic, it's basically a way to be able to use otherwise wasted non-game time to accomplish something useful. The game is, after all, occurring in a continuing universe, so why not be able to take advantage of the fact?

2. Devise a method to allow pilots to ferry other pilots as passengers. This would mean that pilots wanting transfers would have to have a board to list their desired trip, and pilots wanting to take the mission would accept them. This would seem to be a major programming effort, so I doubt this would happen anytime in the near future. I think someone here or somewhere else I've been researching suggested multi-crew might be a player based way to accomplish this, but I haven't looked at it.

I understand that this is probably a low priority for Frontier, but I think a properly executed method to allow pilot transfer would be appreciated by many players, and can be accomplished without breaking the game mechanics.

Thanks for reading!

CMDR Grybr
-This space left intentionally blank-

 

[Rhassalan]

Please, dear god, no. This, imho, would be one of the most abusable things ever if it was ever added to the game. This kind of thing is the EXACT reason I voted no to instant transfers for ships in the first place. This would just expound the problem exponentially. Hell, it's practically the same idea! Same arguments, too. The fact is this game is a SPACE SIM. That's it's main selling point. A game with over 400 BILLION star systems to explore, a 1:1 scale model of the milky way. These kinds of proposals just seem to want to turn the game into an arcade game, which is the exact reason Multi-crew has been such a flop. The way Multi-crew was implemented (with telepresence) was backlash due to the community voting no to instant transfers. FDev wanted to give something back to the arcady types out there. Want instant play? Join your friends in their crew! Look how it turned out. We don't need an entire game like that.

Arcade and sim doesn't really mix.

 

[Iskariot]

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.

D.G. Baley

I can't even express how much I am against this kind of instant travel.
This would be terrible.

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.

When engineer commodities are reinstated we do need a solution for the problem of engineer commodities. We need to be able to store them at an engineer, so we are not forced to have combat ships with cargo space and schlepp these things around forever like we had to before they were removed.
I made a proposal for a solution here:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...d-Materials-Bank-(ECMB)?p=5881075#post5881075

Also we need to be able to forego commodity rewards for missions. They are a problem if your ship does not have a cargo hold.

 

[Rhassalan]

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.

I took a moment to reread this and I just wish to reiterate, the entire reason they implemented this 'technology' with multicrew was BECAUSE the majority of the playerbase was AGAINST instant travel for ships. They wanted to throw a bone to the types that wanted instant play without giving instant travel. So, BAM, play with your friends instantly without fast travel! To then use it as an excuse to bring about the instant travel the playerbase was against feels a little...underhanded, at best.

I know people are going to say 'But it's not the same! Instead of instantly bringing your ship you can GO to your ship. You have to travel there first, see?' But, no, it's the same idea rehashed in a different way that causes the same problems people didn't want in the first place.