Multi-Crew - The Introduction of CMDR Teleportation?

[Robert Maynard]

Now that we have been told to expect ships and modules to be able to be summoned instantly to our current dock, what does the furthering of the "concession to convenience" philosophy have in store for the future?

We are also expecting Multi-Crew to be implemented at some point. Previously we might have expected to need to travel to the system / dock where the ship was so that we could embark as crew. Following the concession to convenience of insta-transfer of ships and modules in 2.2, I now expect that players will be able to join ships as crew in a similar manner - if we don't need to go to where a ship is currently docked to collect it and bring it to our current location, why would we want to take the time to travel to where the ship we want to crew is?

 

[Bomba Luigi]

Teleport, cause gameplay. Nothing else matters.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

we do not know how it is going to be done yet.. you may be right and FD may make a pigs ear of it however there are ways of doing it without.

i would say with mulitcrew IF FD implemented ships crew - this seemed a long shot a week ago but now it looks like it may be on the way as we have pilots already.... - maybe tho when you multicrew you do not "play" you, but you simply control the captains npc crew member, that way it does not matter where your character is in the game because you are not at that time playing them.

I personally like that idea, so there is no concern if you get destroyed, or no magic transport needed. The only downside is you do not get paid for your time... BUT if the npc you are replacing is gaining XP so when you log off the captians crew member may have gone from harmless to mostly harmless thanks to you helping out well that could be enough, and then next time you play YOU go the captain and let your friends level up your npcs for you.

good timing on the op i had just wrote this in response to someone in another thread, but it fits much better here

 

[Erimus Kamzel]

Sadly, I think FD will go the instant CMDR transfer route with multicrew. So that effectively kills off rescue missions and all the emergent gameplay that could come with player created crew transport professions.

The whole concept of this amazing galaxy, its scale, is being eroded by nearly every decision they make these days via the excuse of "instant gameplay". Well what about emergent gameplay? How about giving us a shot at that FD?


I expect the next phase will be instant transport to far off places like Beagle Point, who needs all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace anyway?

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Teleport, cause gameplay. Nothing else matters.

It used to.

I get why "gameplay > realism" which was the reasoning (at least in part) as to why we have ships in space - the nerfing of Yaw was deliberate by the Devs to give the combat model a more meaningful and enjoyable experience. IMO that worked well - it was still believable as it didn't break science in the process - it was simply a design choice from the ship manufacturers.

Teleportation .. not realistic in any sense.

Expect it for crew as you said Robert - I am at one end of the bubble; you open your ship to me that's docked at Barnards Star ... Voila - I am sat with you.

Expect it ... DBOBE "science" expects no less

 

[Robert Maynard]

Teleportation .. not realistic in any sense.

Expect it for crew as you said Robert - I am at one end of the bubble; you open your ship to me that's docked at Barnards Star ... Voila - I am sat with you.

Indeed.

Once you've joined me in my ship you will then presumably be able to disembark at that station (I mean, why not - you will be able to summon a ship on demand) and then there are two of us in-system. Repeat as often as necessary to gather a whole group of players together.

 

[MarcusKross]

All this instant ship transfer business annoys me to be honest i think it cheapens the experience of Elite, i can see and understand the point of removing some barriers but still not convinced that this is the proper way to go about this particular feature.

An other choice would've been as when a transfer is asked system takes the ships jump range in account and calculated how many jumps required, applied a fixed time on it let's say 1 minute plus some additional for the final destination simulating jumping into system and getting to the station. We already have logic for this in game as in calculating delivery missions for players and yeah i know it is not perfect but would've still worked for ship transfer.

Also i can't help but wonder if this removing barriers for players sympathy would extend beyond ship and module transfer to Player groups in the future.. We really can use a group interface and some social tools.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Indeed.

Once you've joined me in my ship you will then presumably be able to disembark at that station (I mean, why not - you will be able to summon a ship on demand) and then there are two of us in-system. Repeat as often as necessary to gather a whole group of players together.

i never even thought of that!... Personally i actually do not think FD will do that.... Dont get me wrong it is a logical conclusion but I just dont think it will come to that. IF it did happen then those who made the trip to Jaques would feel proper snipey!.

 

[hunvagy]

Sadly, I think FD will go the instant CMDR transfer route with multicrew. So that effectively kills off rescue missions and all the emergent gameplay that could come with player created crew transport professions.

The whole concept of this amazing galaxy, its scale, is being eroded by nearly every decision they make these days via the excuse of "instant gameplay". Well what about emergent gameplay? How about giving us a shot at that FD?


I expect the next phase will be instant transport to far off places like Beagle Point, who needs all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace anyway?

Well if you recall there already were a lot of posts on how bad a design it is that ships can't jump hundreds of lightyears. How Supercruise is boring. I guess those people can rejoice now, if crews will work this way. I myself hope that you will have to pick up your crewmates manually at their physical location. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

 

[Cosmo]

This is because we cannot walk yet. We cannot physically walk from ship to ship. So player crew members magically appear inside your cockpit.

The only more plausible way is only when two ships are next to each other, in the same instance.

 

[Robert Maynard]

This is because we cannot walk yet. We cannot physically walk from ship to ship. So player crew members magically appear inside your cockpit.

The only maybe more plausible way is that it works when two ships are next to each other, in the same instance.

Of course you are correct - we will have to just "appear" in the cockpit of another ship until we can walk up the embarkation ramp - however, I'm talking about players joining ships instantly that might be hundreds / thousands of light years distant.

 

[Cosmo]

Of course you are correct - we will have to just "appear" in the cockpit of another ship until we can walk up the embarkation ramp - however, I'm talking about players joining ships instantly that might be hundreds / thousands of light years distant.

Yeah, like I said make it only possible when two ships are in the same instance, near each other. That's believable and doesn't break the meta.

Otherwise this would usher in teleportation technology much more advanced than Star Trek. It would have deep implications on storytelling and other aspects of the Elite universe.

 

[SheepDip82]

I think the implementation of multi-crew will give hints to the implementation of space legs, should we get them.

I would hope that you have to be docked at the same station in order to embark, but it raises more questions - at some point - someone is going to be teleporting somewhere.
Either your friends will be teleporting to your ship, or they'll be teleporting away from your ship afterwards (since there's no way of forcing you to return to your starting station to retrieve your own ship), unless they force you - if you disembark at a station where you have no ship - to pay to have one transferred. And what if you can't afford that?

There's certainly no easy implementation that'll satisfy everyone.

 

[Weps]

One of the rules Elite: Dangerous must never break is that the player itself (not the ships) has to travel wherever it's going. This means that for multicrew, both commanders have to meet in a station by having previously flown there themselves.

Otherwise, with ship transfer you will be able to jump to other side of the galaxy to your friend, summon your ship, then disembark and embark on your own ship. Voila, instant traveling. That's the day when Elite dies.

 

[Julio Montega]

All this instant ship transfer business annoys me to be honest i think it cheapens the experience of Elite, i can see and understand the point of removing some barriers but still not convinced that this is the proper way to go about this particular feature.

An other choice would've been as when a transfer is asked system takes the ships jump range in account and calculated how many jumps required, applied a fixed time on it let's say 1 minute plus some additional for the final destination simulating jumping into system and getting to the station. We already have logic for this in game as in calculating delivery missions for players and yeah i know it is not perfect but would've still worked for ship transfer.

Also i can't help but wonder if this removing barriers for players sympathy would extend beyond ship and module transfer to Player groups in the future.. We really can use a group interface and some social tools.

I guess we will see instant transportation of CMDRs as the first iteration.
Do not forget, simulation is a thing that requires other stepping stones to be introduced before linking them,
like space legs etc.

I wouldn't mind having teleportation as a first step of the evolvement of multi-crew,
after all we have to test the feature and see how stable it will be.

Of course it will be breaking immersion to do it this way and not dock at the same station and have the person board.
But there are some elements not to forget to multi-crew styles:
- people don't always have the same amount of time and nobody would enjoy being stuck in a logged off ship of the host
- teleporttion allows to compensate for connection losses etc. (which we will see a lot)
- saving a lot of time, to get right to the meat, skipping the soup.

 

[YinYin]

I expect multi crew to be a dedicated log in.

Like going into a private group you go into a friends multi crew capable ship.

No teleportation of your commander involved.

 

[Cynaqq]

Indeed.

Once you've joined me in my ship you will then presumably be able to disembark at that station (I mean, why not - you will be able to summon a ship on demand) and then there are two of us in-system. Repeat as often as necessary to gather a whole group of players together.

While I think joining other commanders' ships will be instant, I don't think they'll let anyone disembark at any station. They are not mutually exclusive. I think what will happen is, we'll join commanders instantly but when we get out of the group, it's back to our ships.


This is a very premature discussion in a sort of panic mode to be honest.

They'll have to find a balance between prohibitively realistic and exploitably accessible.

Why do we always have to talk in extremes or resort to hyperbole?

 

[Robert Maynard]

I think the implementation of multi-crew will give hints to the implementation of space legs, should we get them.

I would hope that you have to be docked at the same station in order to embark, but it raises more questions - at some point - someone is going to be teleporting somewhere.
Either your friends will be teleporting to your ship, or they'll be teleporting away from your ship afterwards (since there's no way of forcing you to return to your starting station to retrieve your own ship), unless they force you - if you disembark at a station where you have no ship - to pay to have one transferred. And what if you can't afford that?

There's certainly no easy implementation that'll satisfy everyone.

Indeed.

I also hope (although that hope is fading rapidly with the announced insta-transfer of ships / modules) that the joining CMDR should be in the same dock as the ship to be embarked.

Regarding leaving the ship - it could be as simple as pulling the handle on the escape pod - with choices of a freewinder at one's start location or the last owned ship that we were in at its current location - much like the rebuy screen without the cost.

 

[YinYin]

Anything else than a dedicated login really is far too complicated and inaccessible honestly. Not to mention potentially exploitable.

 

[Cynaqq]

I guess we will see instant transportation of CMDRs as the first iteration.
Do not forget, simulation is a thing that requires other stepping stones to be introduced before linking them,
like space legs etc.

I wouldn't mind having teleportation as a first step of the evolvement of multi-crew,
after all we have to test the feature and see how stable it will be.

Of course it will be breaking immersion to do it this way and not dock at the same station and have the person board.
But there are some elements not to forget to multi-crew styles:
- people don't always have the same amount of time and nobody would enjoy being stuck in a logged off ship of the host
- teleporttion allows to compensate for connection losses etc. (which we will see a lot)
- saving a lot of time, to get right to the meat, skipping the soup.

Thanks for some common sense and healthy thinking process.

I expect multi crew to be a dedicated log in.

Like going into a private group you go into a friends multi crew capable ship.

No teleportation of your commander involved.

This is another, and possibly better solution. Personally I would go with this but we'll see. The private group mechanic can be expanded to do this. Will there be an option to have multicrew open or multicrew private group separately?

One of the rules Elite: Dangerous must never break is that the player itself (not the ships) has to travel wherever it's going. This means that for multicrew, both commanders have to meet in a station by having previously flown there themselves.

Otherwise, with ship transfer you will be able to jump to other side of the galaxy to your friend, summon your ship, then disembark and embark on your own ship. Voila, instant traveling. That's the day when Elite dies.

This is pure hyperbole. It's perfectly possible to enable players to join each other in their ships instantly but not let them disembark other than to teleport back to their ships.

They already said using other player's ships as taxis won't be a thing before in live streams, Sandro said it if I recall correctly.