In Flight Refuelling?

[graham.reeds]

That's nice. Good thing nobody has suggested such a thing.

The ideas in the thread have mostly revolved around the concept that distress calls and emergency refueling would be risky, expensive, not-guaranteed, and only useful in occupied space. An emergency measure which players would still try to avoid, and would still be punishing. And in addition, would be more realistic, more conducive to player interaction, and open up new gameplay opportunities.

You have, and you just iterated it. Also you ignore all requests to clarify how it would work. Is this an item that you have to fit, or does it come as standard? Also if you can broadcast 10/100/1000 light year range why can't you use that same underlying communication to claim bounties and get trade information? In short, how does it exist with in the currently defined lore?

Then remove selfdestruct, respawn and insurance.

That has a defined penalty, namely cost: To replace my ship I need at least 3 million. If I was trading it would also lose the value of the cargo, and in a large ship that could run to several thousand credits. Finally the time it took to get to the point before you died.

We have cars that can drive themselves? Where can I buy one?

We also have nuclear weapons, but you can't buy them. Do you doubt their existence too with sarcasm?

 

[Ozmos]

I think this specific scenario is mostly what people in support of the idea are talking about:

Frak! I made a mistake, I'm in a small ship with a small fuel tank, 1000Ly away from a starport. Oh hey! I have a friend that is in my Wing right now, exploring with me! I bet he could help me out cuz he's a buddy. You: "Hey Friend, can you help me out?" Friend: "Ya sure, I'll help you out!"

OH WAIT, nope, game doesn't let you do this thing that otherwise makes a bunch of sense (and I believe someone posted a quote from FD wanting to implement something for this). Spacecraft in every logical sense would have a default way to transfer fuel (probably the same port that you refuel with ). Just add some hose between the two and let the two fuel tanks even out the pressure difference (ie - fuel rushes into the vacuum of the empty fuel tank).

Though, I imagine it would be easier for FD to just let you cargo eject 1T of fuel in a canister, for the other person to cargo scoop. But the hose example is more of the real-world example.

 

[CMDR Pantsu]

That has a defined penalty, namely cost: To replace my ship I need at least 3 million. If I was trading it would also lose the value of the cargo, and in a large ship that could run to several thousand credits. Finally the time it took to get to the point before you died.

Why do you still believe fuel is free because you can take fuel from someone else?

 

[CMDR Spiegal]

Utter rubbish. If it was specifically meant to be played together then solo mode would not have been provided and Wings would be the norm.

You may want to play in little groups with your chums all the time - I do not.

Then why did they bother putting in community goals, implement wings in the first place, or have solo mode running offline? The game has always had multi-player in mind from its conception.

The whole Elite: Dangerous project screams of player co-operation, from the fact it was crowdfunded, the community participation and the fact that the game is run on dedicated servers to allow people to play together in a unified universe.

Just because some elements of the community refuse to participate doesn't mean that ideas that allow and encourage players to interact with each other should be shunned or discouraged.

 

[graham.reeds]

Why do you still believe fuel is free because you can take fuel from someone else?

So you are saying that a tank of fuel will cost in excess of 3 million? So your idea is make it so prohibitively expensive that newbies wouldn't be able to afford it and experienced players wouldn't make that mistake?

 

[CMDR Pantsu]

I'm laughing my ass off here. I'm not sure if you are trolling or anything, but this is hilarious. Never have I observed such contradictions over a simple idea.

All right, for cost lets put it like this, plain and simple so everyone here is on the same page/level...

Let's say you activate a beacon, note not to far from civilization, would look like an at if I did that near the galactic core wouldn't I?
Someone drops by, NPC or player.
Either they communicate with you and offers assistance, or they pirate your butt and make your ship your coffin.
If a player chooses to help, they can offer fuel, with a payment slider that stretches from 0% to 120% of highest market prize, so fuel can be more expensive than refueling on stations, but you're in an emergency. The transfer can be free if the assisting ship chooses to.
The assisting ship gets the transaction while the fuel is transferred. Now, is this a honest commander or a pirate that just made a few extra bucks and then robs you naked?

Player driven interactions at its finest. This feature could add immersion, add communications between players, negotiations, possible piracy and more.

 

[graham.reeds]

I'm laughing my ass off here. I'm not sure if you are trolling or anything, but this is hilarious. Never have I observed such contradictions over a simple idea.

All right, for cost lets put it like this, plain and simple so everyone here is on the same page/level...

Let's say you activate a beacon, note not to far from civilization, would look like an at if I did that near the galactic core wouldn't I?
Someone drops by, NPC or player.
Either they communicate with you and offers assistance, or they pirate your butt and make your ship your coffin.
If a player chooses to help, they can offer fuel, with a payment slider that stretches from 0% to 120% of highest market prize, so fuel can be more expensive than refueling on stations, but you're in an emergency. The transfer can be free if the assisting ship chooses to.
The assisting ship gets the transaction while the fuel is transferred. Now, is this a honest commander or a pirate that just made a few extra bucks and then robs you naked?

Player driven interactions at its finest. This feature could add immersion, add communications between players, negotiations, possible piracy and more.

I had a detailed response but my tablet unexpectedly rebooted itself and I don't know how to recover 'auto saved' posts.

Anyway: please list the places I am contradicting myself.

Also the interaction you dream this will create won't. ED is p2p and if you are alone in a system then you don't have any connections. All you will do is spawn NPC interactions. If you want human contact you are better off contacting someone on your friends list and hope they are close enough to help.

Also you could abuse it by firing it repeatedly to draw pirates to you just to kill them.

 

[CMDR Spiegal]

I had a detailed response but my tablet unexpectedly rebooted itself and I don't know how to recover 'auto saved' posts.

Anyway: please list the places I am contradicting myself.

Also the interaction you dream this will create won't. ED is p2p and if you are alone in a system then you don't have any connections. All you will do is spawn NPC interactions. If you want human contact you are better off contacting someone on your friends list and hope they are close enough to help.

Also you could abuse it by firing it repeatedly to draw pirates to you just to kill them.

All valid points, this is obviously something which would require a hell of a lot of tweaking to work. I don't think anyone here could come up with a 100% rock solid and balanced way of making it work without it being live tested should it be introduced to the game.

That being said it doesn't hurt to spitball ideas to see if the idea is feasible. From what I have seen, I believe it could work to the advantage of all different playstyles.

A possible way it could work would be to have a Messenger drone module that could launch FTL drones into neighbouring systems (with the range/number available different depending on the rating) to broadcast an SOS. This could go some way to preventing the pony messenger system of information transfer that is established in the ingame lore from being made obsolete.

The actual means by which the drone operated could be either introducing a seperate bulletin board for player made contracts or missions (starting with refuelling, possibly building up to ammunition requests, backup requests and trading requests should these make it into the game) Or possibly generating a high energy wake in supercruise to allow people to jump to the same system whereby they could lock onto the vessel's beacon directly.

As for abusing the SOS system for NPC spawns. If you fly around in Supercruise at the lowest speed you can continually spawn USS sites in seconds and never have to slow down or change trajectory to land at them. I would say at least 1 in 6 has a ship with a bounty on it. A system may seem dead from the Supercruise perspective, however they are obviously inhabited by ships at subluminal speed. If this ridiculously easy way of visiting USS is readily available in game then I don't think being able to summon a slow moving NPC (or possible Pirate vessel!) to your aid will exactly break the balancing of the game.

Again these are just ideas that may or may not work but I'm sure with the right amount of testing and development this system could be implemented without treading on the toes of hardcore explorers such as yourself, and those who wish for a more flexible and engaging multiplayer experience.

 

[Kyokushin]

There is a lot of topics about inflight refuelling. Of course i agree we need it, but maybe some moderator could merge these topics into one?

 

[Loetmichel]

You get planes that can take off, fly around and land on a air craft carrier autonomously. We don't have that level of automation in game because it is a game mechanic, like planning ahead for refueling.

So? whyy cant game mechanics changed? I can not see ANY problem with refulling another ship. Either out of my fuel tank or out of the cargo bay. It would add great gameplay as others stated. And while it IS somewhat stupid to run out of fuel it happens sometimes. Even in RL. "oh, my OBC says 50km range left, better search for a fuel station now... , next one is in 60km. *cue to calling ADAC(AAA for our american friends)*" been there, done that a few times in RL ;-)

 

[Esvandiary]

Also the interaction you dream this will create won't. ED is p2p and if you are alone in a system then you don't have any connections. All you will do is spawn NPC interactions. If you want human contact you are better off contacting someone on your friends list and hope they are close enough to help.

No connections, other than to the ED servers which could facilitate this sort of emergency beacon from another player.

Also you could abuse it by firing it repeatedly to draw pirates to you just to kill them.

Which IMO would be a completely valid tactic against player pirates; they should be prepared for such a possibility if they're intending to steal from a hapless victim.
As for NPC pirates, you can find those easily enough at Nav Beacons and RESs...

 

[Arithon]

Frontier have mentioned the idea of "fuel limpets".

I would hope they are implemented as "ammo" for a specialised version of the fuel scoop.

This would accomplish what the OP wants I think.

 

[CMDR Spiegal]

As well as the big ticket items we’re also working on smaller, but still important additions and improvements. A major part of this is balancing the different roles further and part of this is expanding the drones system. Collection drones will be added and will prove useful for pirates needing to gather cargo in a hurry and also to improve mining efficiency. Players will also be able to transfer fuel using the fuel transfer drones so players can act as buddy tankers for each other.

Boom. Thank you Michael!

 

[Demiga]

Okay - So lets break down some points made here - First off, it seems to me that the majority of people against a mechanic like this is explorers. I get it - You spend a lot of time planning your routes and making sure you can stop and refuel at stars, you do the work to make sure you dont run out of fuel. *not sarcasm* - I really mean it - its good that you do this - in-attentive people cant be explorers. This mechanic OBVIOUSLY isnt meant for explorers (solo) who are 10k Ly (example) away from civilization.

I saw one post suggesting this would be a "magic button" where an npc will show up and refuel them taking the danger out: Not once has anyone suggested an npc will show up and refuel you. It would have to be a player. It would be a TON of work to add this new "npc class"

Another post about the range of the transmission breaking in game immersion or it violates the "rules of ED": - The counter argument that we can message friends across all of space is a bad one, it really is - to me that feature is just apart of the game, not the universe....but here is an explanation I will accept:
1. The distress call is either some sort of mini droid with a micro-fsd. Let the system run on "ammo" - can only do 1 (2, 3...) distress calls before you have to "Re-Arm" - It could have x number of jumps, it would "auto jump" to nearby systems and blast a distress signal for so many minutes. (not my choice of option, just listing)

2. Or similarly, you actually place a "beacon" at your location - a physical beacon in space that emits a distress signal and would be similar to the drones. - (Personally prefer this option) - Now before I move on to the actual range of the signal - option 2. provides MANY great opportunities for traps - Set the beacon - fly 6-7 km. away and wait for your prey, go silent so they jump and really only see the beacon on their list - Pirates can use this to jump someone, a BH with an armed trader vessel can use this to ambush pirates - many possibilities - A pirate could jump to a traders distress beacon to refuel - destroy the beacon so a do-gooder doesnt show up and ruin his fun. many possibilities.

3. Last part is the range itself - Of course the signal shouldnt have a range of 1000Ly - duh - I think at absolute most, the range should be whatever your current max jump range is. So all systems within X max jump range will "hear" the signal. I would be willing to see up double max jump range of the ship that dropped it. Example Sidewinder with 10ly range can only broadcast a signal that reaches 10 -20ly. Its not very far, but civilized space might have someone nearby that can help. This would actually fit with the theme of elite dangerous: Found an awesome trade route that noone knows about? Is it on the fringes of civilized space? Well, if you ever need help, dont expect any because you decided to take a risk and go out there. etc. etc. etc.

Again, this isnt some magic fix it button - there are real opportunities for ALL the classes to make money/terrorize others.

This is about refueling - Points have been brought up about how we keep referring to real life to prove the point about mid-air refueling - saw the counter stating something along the lines of "We also have automated things, do you want your ship to fly itself, refuel, re-arm etc. etc. etc. This will make it easy easy easy....(the gist of it)"

Now, I get the point - you feel that if the fuel transfer is implemented then it will set a precedent - But no one here wants an auto pilot, all anyone here is asking for is a fuel transfer, the ideas for the beacon/distress call is already being implemented by FDEV, we are just building on that
Lets say the fuel transfer does get implemented and a new idea comes up that is one of the things your worried about, one of the easy mode things - no-one says that if FDEV approves the fuel transfer idea, that they will approve any others - its a redundant argument - its circular - theres no need to escalate the argument in that direction - As far as I am concerned - Im only talking about the distress signal/Fuel transfer ability - thats all - and from what I can tell noone else has either

And, to my knowledge, noone here brought up the point of explorers using this - for the obvious reasons I just listed - but for co-op exploration it would be wonderful - or, if an explorer reallly wanted to break immersion, they could post in the forums to see if another player is in the area, but with how big the galaxy is, the reward would have to be extremely high to make someone spend the time doing it - but it would be your choice to use it or not

What the OP and everyone else was getting at is the grouping - either in wings or through the use of distress beacons - re-fueling a fighter escort, what If I PLAN to do that? People have brought up that we just need to "plan" more - well...yeah...of course....but why is it suuuuuuchh a bad thing to plan to refuel from a the main transport? It would make large trade runs worth doing - It opens up avenues - possibilities - it doesnt make the game easy with a big old red button - it would make one or 2 individual situations easier obviously, but it would open up many dangerous situations, immersion and game mechanics. It would *create more jobs*

Anyways, I feel I need to add this - This was not a bash at explorers...I plan on buying an asp and get out there with you guys at some point - I love that each of you have taken the time to go out there and see what you can find. But, it really felt like a majority of the complaints were focused around the exploration aspect of this feature. And for the obvious reasons, an explorer really wouldnt benefit much, or at least nowhere near as often. Something like this would in no way make the amount of work you guys have to do invalid. I would never want that - I am the type that wants to be rewarded for work, otherwise id get bored.

Edit: Upon further reading of more comments - Lets just say NPCs can stop and refuel someone - it would be limited to range which I already explained - If your exploring and you havent seen any npcs within the systems within the max range, then NO NPC will come refuel you - that covers that point - but I dont know how I feel about npcs being able to refuel. I really think it should be limited to players only - and before anyone asks I play solo and Mobius - odds are a player isnt near me so I wont be able to use it - I am Perfectly Fine with that