Instant Transfer: Practical Effects

[trollson]

Another consequence (probably repeating someone in these immense threads)...

It changes the design requirements for ships.

You now have one ship optimized for interstellar travel - your "turbo-Asp".

All others can have the smallest jump drive legally allowed, as they won't be using it (at least not in the sight of players). Save the power and weight for the stuff they need in-system.

(Unless transport range is limited to ship range - as I mentioned above)

 

[knowles2]

Trading is a big one.

People who can afford two Type 9s will now have a huge advantage in trading CG, they only need to fly the slow Type 9 to the CG receiving station with the goods on board, then they can use a vessel with a longer range FSD to fly themselves back to where ever they acquired the required goods, teleport the T9 back to that station load it up with the require goods and fly it back to the CG receiving station, rinse and repeat.

This also eliminates half the risk of flying around in a slow an cumbersome T9. An would drastically cut down on traveling times for CGs.

 

[Goose4291]

Trading is a big one.

People who can afford two Type 9s will now have a huge advantage in trading CG, they only need to fly the slow Type 9 to the CG receiving station with the goods on board, then they can use a vessel with a longer range FSD to fly themselves back to where ever they acquired the required goods, teleport the T9 back to that station load it up with the require goods and fly it back to the CG receiving station, rinse and repeat.

This also eliminates half the risk of flying around in a slow an cumbersome T9. An would drastically cut down on traveling times for CGs.

Funnily that was what I was going to write a little later for my trading and CGs post

 

[knowles2]

Funnily that was what I was going to write a little later for my trading and CGs post

Great minds think alike.

To be honest my mind isn't that great and if I can think up this, people who spend their playing time thinking up exploits will exploit the hell out of this feature. An anyone not doing it will be uncompetitive in CGs.

 

[The Lawful]

Travel simply becomes jump into max range ship and jump, jump, jump. Swap to ship of choice and do stuff.
If travel is so insignificant, we might as well do away with it completely. Free instant travel anywhere if you don't hold cargo.

You'll always end up with 2 ships to manage for each journey instead of one. Well to me at least, that's a lot more hassle than just going anywhere in my FAS or FDL, the ones with the shortest jump ranges, in just a few jumps more. And if I'm afraid of losing my combat ships by interdiction, there's most likely something wrong with the ship or my skill. But not with its jump range in the first place. YMMV [noob]

 

[Ian Skippy]

Great minds think alike.

To be honest my mind isn't that great and if I can think up this, people who spend their playing time thinking up exploits will exploit the hell out of this feature. An anyone not doing it will be uncompetitive in CGs.

So it is balanced with money. If every leg you have to pay a decent sum of credits to get your T9 it simply isnt worth it any more. For small ranges it wont do much, just flying your own ship is faster and cheaper. For explorers nothing changes, obviously. This does cause changes for 'long' travels inside the bubble. These are fairly rare, and when they happen, they are never interesting.

But if you want spend credits for the right to step in a different ship every time you want to move 20LY, go at it.

 

[Barking_Mad]

I've only got 15 million credits, so id be skint in no time

 

[DrDevice55]

Things that should factor in:

1-Size of FSD installed on ship you want to move
2-Distance
3-Size of the ship

This is a new idea to begin with that people are warry of, but if its going to be allowed to move a corvette 400lys with a downgraded FSD instantly, I cant see how this is going to end well.

 

[PanTast]

I think there is no possiblity to really judge the impact of the instant ship transfer. Because we don´t know nothin about the costs and other restrictions to it. I guess it will be very expensive.

I saw that image with a list of ships that could be transfered (forgot where I saw it - sorry) There were two Eagles at different distances. It seemed to me that distance increases cost exponentially. There were also differen ships at the same distance. That indicated that the ship weight or size seemed to increase the cost exponentially too.
A T9 was around 580.000 cr for 40 Ly.
These might have been placeholders, but in general Elite Dangerous uses exponential increases a bit. I think that transferring a ship some 100Ly might cost a fortune. Transferring a ship more than 1000 Ly will exceed the cost of the ship. I guess the ship transfer will be semi useful and I might not use it at all.

The module storage and transfer is a different story. Storage will be great for commanders who will temporarily refit their ships for different tasks. The transfer of modules might be expensive just like ships.

In the end I think all these discussions will help Frontier to predetermine the balance of the new features. But they are more less useless because of lack of information. We will first be able to really discuss this when the beta goes live. But just like the Engineers beta, we may not see the real impact (engineering wth fish) on the gameplay.

In general I am very much looking forward to 2.2 - mostly because of the new ships and the SLF and the increase of variety within the game. There are elements coming that may force us to adapt our style of playing the game. Other elements will come, that we may just ignore. But either way, we have to accept the game how it is. We may suggest some ideas for improvement and I am sure that Frontier listens. They will improve the game further, but maybe not always to our taste.

In the end I am very thankful to play a game that is still developing. We all have played games with annoying features that were never changed because the game was finished. In Elite we are looking forward to unknown changes hopefully for a long time.

o7

 

[Barking_Mad]

I suspect an invasion of Thargoids/Aliens will have a serious effect on the need to change ship quickly?

 

[BaddMongo]

Oh no, he's right.

Don't you know everybody just ran around in pure combat fit ships, jumping for hundreds of ly each and every day? Don't you know the only meaningful decision on loadouts was how far the jump range was? Don't you know the majority of the playerbase is playing in Open and their gameplay balance is dependent on the inability of combat specialist pilots being unable to travel around?

Now that people can just call in their ship to anywhere in the bubble, they no longer have to think about how to best fit their combat ship because any loadout will do. PVP fit ships with shortest FSD ranges will SWARM every system in Open and no where will be safe.

You know what will happen? Pirates will just run around in their 50ly engineered Asps, and then when they find a juicy target upon their travels, will quickly land in a station, will call their FAS or FDL, go back out to supercruise while the whale is still in transit, incapacitate the whale, go back to the station and call in a freighter ship, go back to the whale because they'll be in a wing and the beacon will be on, break out its cargo and profit.

Don't you see how game breaking this is?

My thoughts exactly. I think playing in open will become a complete farce, as there are just too many ways instant transfer will be able to be abused like that.

Adding on to the pirate example, if someone is out to player kill anyone in general, as soon as they spot a incoming target, they basically have the power to call in from anywhere in the galaxy just the perfectly fitted ship they have to counter whatever ship they see the target is flying.

Target flying a Eagle? Can just call in the speed modded Imp Courier to run them down. Target in a Vulture? can call in the FDL can deal with that. Target is in a Dropship? No problem, the Python can come to take that down! Having the ability to instantly call in the perfect counter to whatever any opponent could be flying anywhere in the galaxy like that is basically an I-Win button.

 

[knowles2]

So it is balanced with money. If every leg you have to pay a decent sum of credits to get your T9 it simply isnt worth it any more. For small ranges it wont do much, just flying your own ship is faster and cheaper. For explorers nothing changes, obviously. This does cause changes for 'long' travels inside the bubble. These are fairly rare, and when they happen, they are never interesting.

But if you want spend credits for the right to step in a different ship every time you want to move 20LY, go at it.

You can't balance it with money when people in this game have billions of credits because it would mean putting the price at a level which means it no longer lower entry barriers for taking parts in these events. Which is one of the reasons Frontier wants to include this feature into the game.

The way you could do it, is put a limit on the number of times a ship can be copied but that would have to be a fairly low ball figure to be effective, 2 or 3 times, any more and it possible for players with billions or willing to use exploits to make billions, will simply spend lots of money winning a CG and then go an make that money back via using the exploits they use everyday in time for the next CG.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

I think there is no possiblity to really judge the impact of the instant ship transfer. Because we don´t know nothin about the costs and other restrictions to it. I guess it will be very expensive.


o7

We do know the design goals of the feature because it been stated on the forum by Brookes in his multiple posts and was stated on the live stream by Sando.

So we can make a very good guess that what ever limitations they impose onto the system won't impede the main goals frontier had of introducing instant ship transfer.

 

[The Lawful]

All others can have the smallest jump drive legally allowed, as they won't be using it (at least not in the sight of players). Save the power and weight for the stuff they need in-system.

(Unless transport range is limited to ship range - as I mentioned above)

Come on, but would you really do that? I definitely would not, but fit in the largest FSD I can afford asap. When I bought the FDL, it came with a stock FSD of slightly above 6ly range. I could not even get back to my home base with that, and that was only 30ly away (bought it from LYR). There simply was no route available. And for trading CGs: it does make a difference if the trader (Python in my case, can't tell for the T-line) has a maxed-out jump range or not. In the current CG, I get Tantalum from stations 30+ ly away, and having to do only 3 instead of 7 jumps each trip is nothing where my Asp with all its engineering and stuff would help me the very least bit. Therefore, this is a meta-discussion IMHO [noob]

 

[Arkadi]

I think there is no possiblity to really judge the impact of the instant ship transfer. Because we don´t know nothin about the costs and other restrictions to it. I guess it will be very expensive.

I saw that image with a list of ships that could be transfered (forgot where I saw it - sorry) There were two Eagles at different distances. It seemed to me that distance increases cost exponentially. There were also differen ships at the same distance. That indicated that the ship weight or size seemed to increase the cost exponentially too.
A T9 was around 580.000 cr for 40 Ly.
These might have been placeholders, but in general Elite Dangerous uses exponential increases a bit. I think that transferring a ship some 100Ly might cost a fortune. Transferring a ship more than 1000 Ly will exceed the cost of the ship. I guess the ship transfer will be semi useful and I might not use it at all.

Right. Still there are quite some players with a big stash of money who could do the recall thing for some time before they have to go back to theire preferred money-grinding-system. As important it is to have some money-sinks besides buying ships in the game, it is not a big handycap for some and therefore the instant-shipcalling is not really limited since a good deal of players haver very good financial situation. Also one could argue about the fun and the ease of gameplay if instant ship-recall is bound to being rich in the game. I'd prefer a time-delay for big ships with low jump ranger over the financial limitation, becouse it affects all players the same way regardless of theire wealth.

The module storage and transfer is a different story. Storage will be great for commanders who will temporarily refit their ships for different tasks. The transfer of modules might be expensive just like ships.

In the end I think all these discussions will help Frontier to predetermine the balance of the new features. But they are more less useless because of lack of information. We will first be able to really discuss this when the beta goes live. But just like the Engineers beta, we may not see the real impact (engineering wth fish) on the gameplay.

In general I am very much looking forward to 2.2 - mostly because of the new ships and the SLF and the increase of variety within the game. There are elements coming that may force us to adapt our style of playing the game. Other elements will come, that we may just ignore. But either way, we have to accept the game how it is. We may suggest some ideas for improvement and I am sure that Frontier listens. They will improve the game further, but maybe not always to our taste.

In the end I am very thankful to play a game that is still developing. We all have played games with annoying features that were never changed because the game was finished. In Elite we are looking forward to unknown changes hopefully for a long time.

o7

Well spoken Cmdr o7

 

[Martian Successor]

• what are the likely actual, gameplay consequences of instant ship transfer?
• how will this affect your own, personal gameplay?
• how frequently does this seem likely to have an impact on your game, if any?

1. People would be able to use more of their ships without wasting time worrying about fetching them halway across the galaxy. And this, as Ziljan pointed out, would make some of the sillier FSD jump distance restrictions placed on certain ships rather pointless.

2. More fun, less tedium. A small but significant quality of life feature - on the occassions when I want to switch between ships (for whatever reasons like small ship racing with friends, etc) I won't be bogged down by unnecesary levels of tedium for the sake of simulating realistic tedium.

3. Permanent. It won't change that I find enjoyment in trying to use a single ship for everything I want to do but it will have a 100% positive impact in how I think about switching between my ships from that point onwards.

 

[Trueno33]

For explorers nothing changes, obviously. This does cause changes for 'long' travels inside the bubble.

Things that should factor in:

1-Size of FSD installed on ship you want to move
2-Distance
3-Size of the ship

This is a new idea to begin with that people are warry of, but if its going to be allowed to move a corvette 400lys with a downgraded FSD instantly, I cant see how this is going to end well.

@sleutelbos, wrong. See my post above

@DrDevice55 it is not needed at all. You dont receive your own ship, but a 3D copy of it. FSD installed doesnt matter at all. As they are going to dissassemble the original (that ship that some of us are so atteched to, yes) it shoundt be so expensive. They will 3D copy the bobbleheads too, aint that something?

 

[Martian Successor]

@sleutelbos, wrong. See my post above

@DrDevice55 it is not needed at all. You dont receive your own ship, but a 3D copy of it. FSD installed doesnt matter at all. As they are going to dissassemble the original (that ship that some of us are so atteched to, yes) it shoundt be so expensive. They will 3D copy the bobbleheads too, aint that something?

Is there an official statement from FD that ships will be 3D printed for transportation? As far as I know it is simply a qol addition. The roleplay and head cannon is entirely up to the individual player.

 

[cluelessforumuser65578]

i hope its spamable because then i will be able to use it 20 times a day to cheese my way through sothis runs and instead of turning up at a CG in one ship i can bring in 5 FDLs all fit a different way. making a bad choice regarding fitting simply will not exist, it's going to be swell, im calling it musical ships.

 

[Martian Successor]

Trading is a big one.

People who can afford two Type 9s will now have a huge advantage in trading CG, they only need to fly the slow Type 9 to the CG receiving station with the goods on board, then they can use a vessel with a longer range FSD to fly themselves back to where ever they acquired the required goods, teleport the T9 back to that station load it up with the require goods and fly it back to the CG receiving station, rinse and repeat.

This also eliminates half the risk of flying around in a slow an cumbersome T9. An would drastically cut down on traveling times for CGs.

People who can afford a T9 or a Cutter already have a huge advantage in trade CGs though, nothing about ship transfers will change that.

Isn't cutting down travel times a good thing? Opens up CGs so it's not just the time-endowed Commanders that can grind out a good tier based reward.

 

[Ndarain]

The instant transfer reminds me of the TGV. And on this map, the TGV is not instantaneous

http://savepic.net/8340138.jpg

Tgv is the French acronym for bullet train, right?