Instant Transfer: Practical Effects

[jprelph]

I agree with this of course, as it's a no brainer. However I don't agree with the part that this is something that will kill the game before we see it in action.

It's not going to kill the game but it will certainly make it look more bizarre and reduce the variety, it's as if you pulled onto the roads one morning and all of a sudden 90% of the cars are all suddenly Honda Civics because they're the most efficient way to get somewhere, and even if they're then going off-roading they can park in the car-park near the woods and their Land Rover pops into existence...

If you're happy seeing fewer people and seeing less variety, then that's fine, but I think it's entirely rational for people to say that's a bad thing.

Is it really a common occurrence to have small weapons and a long jump range on dedicated combat ships? This is something I've very rarely seen, that's why I'm confused.

Yes, depending on what you're doing. I play PP a lot so this is specific but not restricted to PP. If you've got to undermine somewhere distant you may decide to re-spec your FdL for maximum jump range and sacrifice weapons/SCBs etc. slightly for that and a fuel scoop (for instance) because you can get to the system and engage PvE against the transport ships there. There's a trade-off though (and that's part of the challenge) in that if you get seen by a human player you could be in a bit more trouble. With instant ship transfer that trade-off is gone because you can get there even faster (thus reducing even further the chance of being seen) and still have a ship rammed to the gills with weapons that can keep it's D-class FSD online ready to HW out if needed. Less thought/planning needed and less challenging.

Entire games are built around player choices affecting gameplay (MMOs where a class is chosen, games like Deus Ex where you level up certain abilities (augs) etc.). In Elite it's already nice and easy to swap from one "class" to another - I'm not sure why that aspect of gameplay is so anathema to people. It's like being able to swap from a healer to a tank, instantly and at will in an MMO - it seems an odd choice and bizarrely seems to contradict the point of the SLFs. There's a lot less drive to make my T9 capable of surviving in a fight if I only ever have to fly it for one leg of any haulage missions.

 

[CATPAIN KIRK]

This thread frames much simpler questions:
• 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?

What practical impact is this actually going to have for most of us?

- I used to have multiple lightweigt Couriers and Vipers with the smallest possible FSD scattered around. That won't be necessary anymore.
- no more manual ship transfers and no more travel-refitting.
- less rngineer-grinding. I'll just max out my Anaconda for jump range and fit the smallest possible FSD on all combat ships to save weight and cost.
- I'll probably use my Corvette in CGs and might think about rebuying an FDL.

Of course it all depends on the transport fees. All in all I regard it as mostly positive.
I sympathise with most objections regarding immersion etc. and consider them perfectly valid, however this might finally mitigate the flawed "combat ships must not have tolerable jump range" doctrine FD employed thus far.

General gameplay consequences and implications on personal gameplay are pretty much the same for me as I don't bother with open and don't consider anyone elses gameplay my business.

 

[Eymerich]

It's not going to kill the game but it will certainly make it look more bizarre and reduce the variety, it's as if you pulled onto the roads one morning and all of a sudden 90% of the cars are all suddenly Honda Civics because they're the most efficient way to get somewhere, and even if they're then going off-roading they can park in the car-park near the woods and their Land Rover pops into existence...

If you're happy seeing fewer people and seeing less variety, then that's fine, but I think it's entirely rational for people to say that's a bad thing.



Yes, depending on what you're doing. I play PP a lot so this is specific but not restricted to PP. If you've got to undermine somewhere distant you may decide to re-spec your FdL for maximum jump range and sacrifice weapons/SCBs etc. slightly for that and a fuel scoop (for instance) because you can get to the system and engage PvE against the transport ships there. There's a trade-off though (and that's part of the challenge) in that if you get seen by a human player you could be in a bit more trouble. With instant ship transfer that trade-off is gone because you can get there even faster (thus reducing even further the chance of being seen) and still have a ship rammed to the gills with weapons that can keep it's D-class FSD online ready to HW out if needed. Less thought/planning needed and less challenging.

Entire games are built around player choices affecting gameplay (MMOs where a class is chosen, games like Deus Ex where you level up certain abilities (augs) etc.). In Elite it's already nice and easy to swap from one "class" to another - I'm not sure why that aspect of gameplay is so anathema to people. It's like being able to swap from a healer to a tank, instantly and at will in an MMO - it seems an odd choice and bizarrely seems to contradict the point of the SLFs. There's a lot less drive to make my T9 capable of surviving in a fight if I only ever have to fly it for one leg of any haulage missions.

There is no less variety.

Going undermine:

1) with an Fsd (improved) y our Fdl has more or less 18 ly. Before it was 12 ly. The difference were 7 maybe 10 jumps more: nothing you couldn't do but spend more time (and doind repetitive task): but in any case it wasn't the end of world. 17 jump with a Fdl: doable? yes. Boring. Yes.
In any case, the time spent were not so much (let's say 20 minutes more for the trip).
Modyfing the Fdl to give it a more jump range you could gain how much? maybe 2 ly more? In a bubble it's almost insignificant as increase.

2) Now you have insta travel. That remove the "boring time sinked on travel. If you like lore or immersion (I am still improving the fsd of my ship, figure and I am going to use the new feature as soon as came out), you "drive" your ship; if you dislike and want an immediate action, you take your asp, DBE or Haluer, fly to your destination and summon your ship.
More choice, less time spent and more fun.

So at the end of the day is up to you.

*** Editing***

About choices:

While it's quite debatable the idea to leave a player doing repetitive task (read: crap fds for combat class; and good for other), the balance should'nt rely on "repetitive task" for a better suited ship.

If I am a wizard there is a reson I can't equip and Heavy armor and Ac is low compared to a warrior.

If I am a warrior there IS NOT a reason I have to move at 1\10 speed of the wizard only because I am wearing an heavy armor.
It's realistic? yes. It's fun? No. Definitly NO. It's ground immersion? No.

 

[Goose4291]

I wish people would actually do some math to support their claims.

"It changes the galactic scale" -> there's only ~18,000 shipyards in a galaxy of 5 billion systems. ~0.0025% of the galaxy are affected at all.

"It will invalidate CG competitiveness" -> exploration and combat CGs aren't affected at all. Trade CGs slightly, if there is no source of commodities nearer than 100ly. Even then.. you're going to fly your stripped down Anaconda to that system to call your ... other stripped down anaconda for the return trip? Ah, to call your cutter to that other system.. bingo.. cheat ..except a fully laden anaconda beats a fully laden cutter in jump range so hard, you're basically trading 1/3 of your travel time savings for 1/3 more cargo space. End result? Same hourly contribution. (And if it's a shorter trip, you don't save anything by not going there in the cutter in the first place).

So .. do the math.

Impact on anything relevant -> pretty much non-existent.

I did do the math. A unladen Annie rigged for trade with sone defense does about 25ly without cargo.

https://coriolis.io/outfit/anaconda...40404p00505050404040303032o.Iw18ZlA=.Aw18ZlA=

When youre jumping back, a unmodded asp rocket sled does about 35. And people will of course be modding them and some people have pushed theirs out as far as 50ly jump range

Suppose a CG requires me to move stuff 100ly, and assume 1 minute per jump.

In the Annie you've taken 4 jumps (assuming a straight line) whereas that rocket sled asp only 2.

Thats 2 minutes shaved off your journey.

For sake of argument let's say it takes 10 minutes to do the return leg (even though of course it'll be much less) and I'm running in the asp back whereas you're using the Annie.

That means for every 5 journeys you make, in the same time I'll be making 6.

Additionally, my throwaway asp rocket sled has minimal rebuy in comparison to your Annie meaning that if I dorder lose it on the return leg, my death carries less consequence than yours would, further trivialising the concept of ship destruction in ED

 

[Cynaqq]

I did do the math. A unladen Annie rigged for trade with sone defense does about 25ly without cargo.

https://coriolis.io/outfit/anaconda...40404p00505050404040303032o.Iw18ZlA=.Aw18ZlA=

When youre jumping back, a unmodded asp rocket sled does about 35. And people will of course be modding them and some people have pushed theirs out as far as 50ly jump range

Suppose a CG requires me to move stuff 100ly, and assume 1 minute per jump.

In the Annie you've taken 4 jumps (assuming a straight line) whereas that rocket sled asp only 2.

Thats 2 minutes shaved off your journey.

For sake of argument let's say it takes 10 minutes to do the return leg (even though of course it'll be much less) and I'm running in the asp back whereas you're using the Annie.

That means for every 5 journeys you make, in the same time I'll be making 6.

Additionally, my throwaway asp rocket sled has minimal rebuy in comparison to your Annie meaning that if I dorder lose it on the return leg, my death carries less consequence than yours would, further trivialising the concept of ship destruction in ED

This sounds like the min-maxers ruining the game for themselves instead of a mechanic ruining it for everyone. No one in their right mind, especially if the pricing is balanced just right, will jump between ships and recall at every station just to have a one trip advantage in every five. Also don't forget, the ship recall itself takes time as you have to load the shipyard, store your ship and switch to the other and all of those take loading time. Add to that the price of transferring a ship, it could very well prove prohibitive to do that every leg of a round trip of a trading CG. It just sounds too far fetched given we don't know exactly how much it will cost based on the distance and the ship value.

I'm quite expecting they'll balance it to be a convenience for a transfer per play session, which means once to start attending the CG but expensive enough to be prohibitive if you try to exploit it for every minute of time you think you can save.

 

[jprelph]

There is no less variety.

So you don't think more people will be using Asps as taxis if this is implemented?

2) Now you have insta travel. That remove the "boring time sinked on travel. If you like lore or immersion (I am still improving the fsd of my ship, figure and I am going to use the new feature as soon as came out), you "drive" your ship; if you dislike and want an immediate action, you take your asp, DBE or Haluer, fly to your destination and summon your ship.
More choice, less time spent and more fun.

So at the end of the day is up to you.

Not really, if you are playing any of the competitive aspects of the game then you either accept the meta or give up - you can't compete against other players who have a 30% advantage over you.

*** Editing***

About choices:

While it's quite debatable the idea to leave a player doing repetitive task (read: crap fds for combat class; and good for other), the balance should'nt rely on "repetitive task" for a better suited ship.

If I am a wizard there is a reson I can't equip and Heavy armor and Ac is low compared to a warrior.

If I am a warrior there IS NOT a reason I have to move at 1\10 speed of the wizard only because I am wearing an heavy armor.
It's realistic? yes. It's fun? No. Definitly NO. It's ground immersion? No.

This argument seems to basically be that jump range shouldn't be dependant on ship, and that this instant-transfer is a workaround to that. I'd disagree because I think FSD range is an acceptable metric to balance against. You may disagree but that doesn't mean that other people are wrong for pointing out that changing that significantly affects the game. Adding a delay into the transfer mechanism also doesn't stop you from avoiding what you class as a repetitive task either - but it does solve a lot of the legitimate problems with instant transfer.

 

[Goose4291]

This sounds like the min-maxers ruining the game for themselves instead of a mechanic ruining it for everyone. No one in their right mind, especially if the pricing is balanced just right, will jump between ships and recall at every station just to have a one trip advantage in every five. Also don't forget, the ship recall itself takes time as you have to load the shipyard, store your ship and switch to the other and all of those take loading time. Add to that the price of transferring a ship, it could very well prove prohibitive to do that every leg of a round trip of a trading CG. It just sounds too far fetched given we don't know exactly how much it will cost based on the distance and the ship value.

I'm quite expecting they'll balance it to be a convenience for a transfer per play session, which means once to start attending the CG but expensive enough to be prohibitive if you try to exploit it for every minute of time you think you can save.

I think you underestimate the Hauling CG player base. Anything is fair game providing you get in that top tier reward. :s

I do agree if we're having instant space magic teleporting that it does need to be expensive enough to make such exploits as the above being used by the min/max brigade (which as an pseudo-MMO, ED has plenty of) counter productive

 

[jprelph]

This sounds like the min-maxers ruining the game for themselves instead of a mechanic ruining it for everyone. No one in their right mind, especially if the pricing is balanced just right, will jump between ships and recall at every station just to have a one trip advantage in every five. Also don't forget, the ship recall itself takes time as you have to load the shipyard, store your ship and switch to the other and all of those take loading time. Add to that the price of transferring a ship, it could very well prove prohibitive to do that every leg of a round trip of a trading CG. It just sounds too far fetched given we don't know exactly how much it will cost based on the distance and the ship value.

I'm quite expecting they'll balance it to be a convenience for a transfer per play session, which means once to start attending the CG but expensive enough to be prohibitive if you try to exploit it for every minute of time you think you can save.

The problem is that if you're playing PP or CGs then you're competing against any min/maxers - so you are forced to accept the same style of play or lose. Cost isn't an issue either - PP haulers will regularly blow 100m on fast tracking credits to save time - this can't be balanced by cost, but it could be by a delay.

 

[Shaele]

Browsed through 9 pages of this thread, seen a lot of angst regarding this feature but everyone keeps throwing the same cargo of fish against the wall and hoping it sticks.

For the people saying this will be exploited this way or that and needs a time sink you all say it should be up front... has no one ever suggested putting the time sink behind?

instead of a delay getting the ship from a->b of 5 minutes or a day or whatever, what about making it that a ship can only be transferred once a day? Instant transfer up front but due the recent manufacturing of the new ship it can't be scanned and transmitted again for a day

 

[Goose4291]

There is no less variety.

Going undermine:

1) with an Fsd (improved) y our Fdl has more or less 18 ly. Before it was 12 ly. The difference were 7 maybe 10 jumps more: nothing you couldn't do but spend more time (and doind repetitive task): but in any case it wasn't the end of world. 17 jump with a Fdl: doable? yes. Boring. Yes.
In any case, the time spent were not so much (let's say 20 minutes more for the trip).
Modyfing the Fdl to give it a more jump range you could gain how much? maybe 2 ly more? In a bubble it's almost insignificant as increase.

2) Now you have insta travel. That remove the "boring time sinked on travel. If you like lore or immersion (I am still improving the fsd of my ship, figure and I am going to use the new feature as soon as came out), you "drive" your ship; if you dislike and want an immediate action, you take your asp, DBE or Haluer, fly to your destination and summon your ship.
More choice, less time spent and more fun.

So at the end of the day is up to you.

*** Editing***

About choices:

While it's quite debatable the idea to leave a player doing repetitive task (read: crap fds for combat class; and good for other), the balance should'nt rely on "repetitive task" for a better suited ship.

If I am a wizard there is a reson I can't equip and Heavy armor and Ac is low compared to a warrior.

If I am a warrior there IS NOT a reason I have to move at 1\10 speed of the wizard only because I am wearing an heavy armor.
It's realistic? yes. It's fun? No. Definitly NO. It's ground immersion? No.

While not exactly fantasy wizards et all, your speed based in your armour weight worked really well in Mount and Blade multiplayer.

 

[Turbosnowy]

For me, not having to buy taxi haulers, kit them out, fly them to my ship of choice, unfit hauler, sell hauler, get in my ship (which can take a while depending on distance) - not having to do this will be a good thing. However instant ship transfer seems a bit... weird.

Gameplay wise will make it easier for people to do CGs or do whatever they want to do in the right ship for the job, which I can see the benefit of.

It will make engineering your ships alot easier, as you wont need to fly your FDL, viper, vulture etc with terrible jump range to Maia to get drives tuned - you can just Aspx there and get a fleet done. Again, this will save ALOT of time however I always thought this was part of the challenge so mixed feelings here.

As opposed to instant transfer, since we are getting passenger ships and missions, wouldn't it make more sense to enable pilot transfer instead of ship transfer? What I mean is you book a ticket to the system your ship is in, and a beluga or whatever takes you there instead - whether this is real time, looking out a window - boring probs so bad idea) or instant, book ticket, hit accept, load screen of hyperjump or whatever and blam you are in destination station - works better for me I think from an 'immersion' perspective

 

[Forumate]

• what are the likely actual, gameplay consequences of instant ship transfer?
I would spent more time on fun activites

• how will this affect your own, personal gameplay?
I could move all of my pvp ships to the CG and be ready to counter any ship build.

• how frequently does this seem likely to have an impact on your game, if any?
When ever there is an active CG.

 

[jprelph]

Browsed through 9 pages of this thread, seen a lot of angst regarding this feature but everyone keeps throwing the same cargo of fish against the wall and hoping it sticks.

For the people saying this will be exploited this way or that and needs a time sink you all say it should be up front... has no one ever suggested putting the time sink behind?

instead of a delay getting the ship from a->b of 5 minutes or a day or whatever, what about making it that a ship can only be transferred once a day? Instant transfer up front but due the recent manufacturing of the new ship it can't be scanned and transmitted again for a day

That seems more contrived and solves one set of problems but not the others. Why is the limit better than just a scaled short but noticeable delay? 5 minutes for a 100ly transfer stops some of the exploits, calms people worried about immersion/lore and leaves possible future gameplay options open in relation to moving the ships.

 

[Boomer Kay]

This sounds like the min-maxers ruining the game for themselves instead of a mechanic ruining it for everyone.

He didn't "do the math", he just clumped a bunch of "rounded" data with assumptions.

THIS is a stripped down Anaconda - I've been flying my Vette with that cargo-maxed setup in solo for more than just a few jumps:


[Anaconda]

BH: 1I Lightweight Alloy
RB: 4D Power Plant
TM: 7D Thrusters
FH: 6A Frame Shift Drive
EC: 5D Life Support
PC: 8D Power Distributor
SS: 8D Sensors
FS: 5C Fuel Tank (Capacity: 32)

7: 7E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 128)
6: 6E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 64)
6: 6E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 64)
6: 6E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 64)
5: 5E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 32)
5: 5E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 32)
5: 5E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 32)
4: 3D Shield Generator
4: 4E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 16)
4: 4E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 16)
2: 2E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 4)
---
Shield: 140,14 MJ
Armor: 945
Power : 11,61 MW retracted (99 %)
11,61 MW deployed (99 %)
11,70 MW available
Cargo : 452 T
Fuel : 32 T
Mass : 614,0 T empty
1.098,0 T full
Range : 33,97 LY unladen
19,99 LY laden
Price : 166.385.420 CR
Re-Buy: 8.319.271 CR @ 95% insurance

This is a stripped down ASP:

BH: 1I Lightweight Alloy
RB: 3D Power Plant
TM: 5D Thrusters
FH: 5A Frame Shift Drive
EC: 4D Life Support
PC: 4D Power Distributor
SS: 5D Sensors
FS: 5C Fuel Tank (Capacity: 32)

3: 3D Shield Generator
---
Shield: 71,45 MJ
Armor: 378
Power : 8,66 MW retracted (96 %)
8,66 MW deployed (96 %)
9,00 MW available
Cargo : 0 T
Fuel : 32 T
Mass : 328,0 T empty
360,0 T full
Range : 34,21 LY unladen
34,21 LY laden
Price : 11.700.200 CR
Re-Buy: 585.010 CR @ 95% insurance


There's a 0,24 ly unladen difference between them. Even with a good 50% engineer mod, that will increase to around 0,35 Ly difference.

Survivability of that ASP is pretty much 0, even against NPCs (ever wonder why there's so many "my shield went down in 2 shots" posts?)

 

[jprelph]

He didn't "do the math", he just clumped a bunch of "rounded" data with assumptions.

THIS is a stripped down Anaconda - I've been flying my Vette with that cargo-maxed setup in solo for more than just a few jumps:

...

There's a 0,24 ly unladen difference between them. Even with a good 50% engineer mod, that will increase to around 0,35 Ly difference.

Survivability of that ASP is pretty much 0, even against NPCs (ever wonder why there's so many "my shield went down in 2 shots" posts?)

There's fairly straightforward engineered taxi Asp builds with 50ly ranges. No good for anything substantive but they can travel long distances and out-run most things if interdicted.

 

[Goose4291]

He didn't "do the math", he just clumped a bunch of "rounded" data with assumptions.

THIS is a stripped down Anaconda - I've been flying my Vette with that cargo-maxed setup in solo for more than just a few jumps:


[Anaconda]

BH: 1I Lightweight Alloy
RB: 4D Power Plant
TM: 7D Thrusters
FH: 6A Frame Shift Drive
EC: 5D Life Support
PC: 8D Power Distributor
SS: 8D Sensors
FS: 5C Fuel Tank (Capacity: 32)

7: 7E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 128)
6: 6E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 64)
6: 6E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 64)
6: 6E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 64)
5: 5E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 32)
5: 5E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 32)
5: 5E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 32)
4: 3D Shield Generator
4: 4E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 16)
4: 4E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 16)
2: 2E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 4)
---
Shield: 140,14 MJ
Armor: 945
Power : 11,61 MW retracted (99 %)
11,61 MW deployed (99 %)
11,70 MW available
Cargo : 452 T
Fuel : 32 T
Mass : 614,0 T empty
1.098,0 T full
Range : 33,97 LY unladen
19,99 LY laden
Price : 166.385.420 CR
Re-Buy: 8.319.271 CR @ 95% insurance

This is a stripped down ASP:

BH: 1I Lightweight Alloy
RB: 3D Power Plant
TM: 5D Thrusters
FH: 5A Frame Shift Drive
EC: 4D Life Support
PC: 4D Power Distributor
SS: 5D Sensors
FS: 5C Fuel Tank (Capacity: 32)

3: 3D Shield Generator
---
Shield: 71,45 MJ
Armor: 378
Power : 8,66 MW retracted (96 %)
8,66 MW deployed (96 %)
9,00 MW available
Cargo : 0 T
Fuel : 32 T
Mass : 328,0 T empty
360,0 T full
Range : 34,21 LY unladen
34,21 LY laden
Price : 11.700.200 CR
Re-Buy: 585.010 CR @ 95% insurance


There's a 0,24 ly unladen difference between then. Even with a good 50% engineer mod, that will increase to around 0,35 Ly difference.

Survivability of that ASP is pretty much 0, even against NPCs (ever wonder why there's so many "my shield went down in 2 shots" posts?)

I see an issues with this, which probably stems from that 'other discussion':

You're running a build for solo, whereas the build I've put together is for open (which is where I play) and provides some defensive measures and survivability. The build you're touting to suit your numbers is barely able to scrape the toast rack before shield collapse.

You've also conveniently ignored the other point: that whereas if you're lightweight conda dies it's going to set you back ridiculous amounts of money, by comparison if my throwaway asp dies, it's no big deal in terms of credits

 

[Boomer Kay]

There's fairly straightforward engineered taxi Asp builds with 50ly ranges. No good for anything substantive but they can travel long distances and out-run most things if interdicted.

Well, if you apply the same mod to an Anaconda, you can get the same 50ly range, too. And keep the 100% better shields and 300% better armor.

The advantage of swapping ships during a CG solely depends on a scenario, where you can actually save jumps.
Any source of CG material that can be reached within any ship's unladen range makes no difference. Neither do sources where you don't actually save jumps.

And .. it only affects those handful of players that "compete" for the top spots. The rest of the contributions are pitifully low and the overall participation in CGs, while having improved tremendously from before 2.1 when they added the sign up to the mission board and better visibility of the CGs, still have a lot room for improvement.
There's about 90-200k active players (steamspy + x number of non-steam players) and about 10k of them sign up for CGs. Getting any number of additional players into doing CGs and participating in the overall narrative of the game outweighs the inconvenience of the few competing for top places .. by far.

 

[Eymerich]

So you don't think more people will be using Asps as taxis if this is implemented?



Not really, if you are playing any of the competitive aspects of the game then you either accept the meta or give up - you can't compete against other players who have a 30% advantage over you.



This argument seems to basically be that jump range shouldn't be dependant on ship, and that this instant-transfer is a workaround to that. I'd disagree because I think FSD range is an acceptable metric to balance against. You may disagree but that doesn't mean that other people are wrong for pointing out that changing that significantly affects the game. Adding a delay into the transfer mechanism also doesn't stop you from avoiding what you class as a repetitive task either - but it does solve a lot of the legitimate problems with instant transfer.

Undoubtly, there will be more asp and hauler.

But:

1) Honestly mate, I really don't care how others people play the game (while now, while typyng, I am heading with my clipper to LaKsak);

2) The chance to meet other people in open in quite low except the "common place" (shinrarta, engeneer base, starting point or Cg, sothis). Anyway, if i meet them in a hauler or Asp how this change my gameplay? O the other hand, I have the impression that Instant ship will go to hurt seriously the griefer or people who like easy kill (a fdl again a sidewinder). Now they'll have to pay attention: otherwise a fleet of corvette coulb be out there in not time hunting for them

3) About Fsd, being fair here, you have a point. Fdev uses as balance factor. Luckly (for me) they have rivisited that with Engeneers: before my corvette was taking dust in the garage; after I am having fun with it, with a clipper, a python and so on. I guess FD got that the effect of "punishing" people (repetitive task) only for combat ship was the fasteste way for a large part of players to not use those ships.
Mmy assumption of course: but considering how they have buffed Fsd with Eng and now with istant ship they are doing steps in the right direction.

Of course I would gladly welcome such new mechanics which make Sc travel intense or interesting.

 

[Martian Successor]

I think that's a bit extreme.

What it will do is separate the gap between the top tiers of a trade CG and the lower tiers further, meaning if your gameplay is about getting into the top 10%, you'll need to use the aforementioned type 9 into the CG for delivery and rocket sled asp back to the resource gathering point, reducing risk of loss further (as you wont be flying your freighter back, and even if you do lose your taxi, the rebuy will be negligible) and also speeding up your journey (as you won't be flying your Nostromo like hulk back to the start

Let's actually wait and see if that happens when/if they release insta-transfer. Because, for example, if insta-transfer costs a ton then half of that top 10% CG reward will have been used for that apparent insta-transporting that will be going on like crazy during every CG.

If the cost of it cuts into the profit you wanted to make from the CG you wouldn't bother doing it past maybe once or twice.

 

[jprelph]

Well, if you apply the same mod to an Anaconda, you can get the same 50ly range, too. And keep the 100% better shields and 300% better armor.

The advantage of swapping ships during a CG solely depends on a scenario, where you can actually save jumps.
Any source of CG material that can be reached within any ship's unladen range makes no difference. Neither do sources where you don't actually save jumps.

And .. it only affects those handful of players that "compete" for the top spots. The rest of the contributions are pitifully low and the overall participation in CGs, while having improved tremendously from before 2.1 when they added the sign up to the mission board and better visibility of the CGs, still have a lot room for improvement.
There's about 90-200k active players (steamspy + x number of non-steam players) and about 10k of them sign up for CGs. Getting any number of additional players into doing CGs and participating in the overall narrative of the game outweighs the inconvenience of the few competing for top places .. by far.

You can't keep the Anaconda survivable and reach that jump distance - which is required in that scenario as when you're hauling goods out that's the time you're vulnerable and could lose significantly (the loss of a glass taxi Asp would be far less of an issue).

It also affects PowerPlay and the problem I have with this is that a delay seems to have minimal functional impact while fixing a lot of the problems. It seems like protecting current game mechanisms and satisfying the lore/immersion crowd (which is not an illegitimate concern) for the sake of a 5 minute delay (still cuts travelling time down for those so concerned) is a no-brainer. Instead of satisfying one group while annoying others why not start with a middle ground and see how that works, there is a happy medium available here that should keep all groups reasonably happy yet FD seem to be going straight for the route of satisfying one group entirely while annoying another. It seems an odd choice - especially because if the function is in place as an instant transfer option it's far less likely to ever be removed (removing game features is always more difficult) yet if it was added with a delay the delay could always be removed if it was found to be ineffective.

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

Let's actually wait and see if that happens when/if they release insta-transfer. Because, for example, if insta-transfer costs a ton then half of that top 10% CG reward will have been used for that apparent insta-transporting that will be going on like crazy during every CG.

If the cost of it cuts into the profit you wanted to make from the CG you wouldn't bother doing it past maybe once or twice.

Profit and cost just aren't driving factors for many players - it's pretty easy to become a billionaire after a few years of play... I must have sunk over 2 billion into PowerPlay alone (OK I get the salary back, but it never covers the cost).