New option for black screen: general improvement on both immersion and play mechanic after ship destroy.

[CMDR Spadino]

Sorry for the somewhat long title., but I wished to prepare the best possible for the content the reader will find in this thread. So, by now we have a couple of options when we face our ship destruction: the free sidewinder, at our start station; and a new ship, covered by the insurance, at the nearest station from where we have been destructed. Also, there are some detention facilities, when we have some crimes pending, but there are special situations. When out ship is destructed, we supposedly be in our escape pod: we can imagine lot of things about what is happening with it, but the current options are a bit too arcade for a serious RPG playing style. Which is quite popular in the ED users base.
I would like to propose Frontier a third option, which create an entire new play mechanic, and which seems to fit nicely with the current lore and in-game mechanics:

Meet the Rescue Call

So, our ship is being destructed. We are presented with the familiar black screen - somewhat dubbed the "rebuy screen":


We could have a third option, Rescue Call, which starts a new playing scheme. Here it is in details:

Rescue Call is comprised by a rescue ship and a random generated commander. We can't do nothing with it, but attend our rescue mission. The rescue ship will be instantiated from the nearest shipyard, and we found ourself ready to attend a rescue call (our commander's call!). Our commander is in cryogenic sleep, and we cannot interact with him. We know the last known approximate position, but only that. If we found him, we can take the escape pod aboard and bring it at the same shipyard we started from. There, the commander is brought out to the cryogenic sleep and receive a stock sidewinder, so to continue with his/her business. We can desist at any moment, declining the rescue mission. That bring ourself one more time to the black screen to choose between the stock sidewinder or the insured ship.

The Rescue Call mission price depends on how far the nearest spaceport is, somewhat similar to the transfer costs. The far we are, the biggest is the sum we must to pay to be rescued. I think that the Rescue Call should be very expensive, probably twice the transfer cost for a similar distance, but it should do not count as a rebuy AND, most important, retrieving the escape pod also should retrieve the exploration data, factions intel and other transaction which will be normally be lost.

That bring, IMHO, an enjoyable experience to the ones which prefer a more realistic approach, without interfere with the already existing mechanic.

Hope you enjoy!
CMDR Spadino

 

[Sea_Kerman]

What happens to your ship in that case?

 

[Genie]

Apologies but I can't see what the main improvement here is other than keeping the players cartographics / status etc (where a players status may not actually want to be kept!) and obviously introducing a rescue ship as part of the restart / story. So overall this option provides little gain / difference here? Could you explain more?

I do like the idea of introducing the escape shuttle more into the game however. There have been several posts talking about it and I'm sure there will be more. Also perhaps as opposed to a miner, pirate, bounty hunter, explorer, trader etc maybe a player can be rewarded more for rescue services? Currently the in game rewards don't seem that high / realistic.
As another option on the restart screen; if you were now at an allied star port of a particular faction and your ship was destroyed, maybe they could offer to pay for your ship and internal build up to (say) 50 million Cr if you then undertook specific follow on missions etc. If you failed, you then have a sidewinder as per normal. If you succeeded, you would get to keep that replacement ship. Kinda like a bonus option for being allied where I daresay that would be a reasonable thing to happen in a political / business life out there. I.e. That faction would want your services to continue, and would see you as an investment where they could now get you to do some extra necessary missions that many others wouldn't otherwise take on. So there is a price / risk.

 

[CMDR Spadino]

What happens to your ship in that case?

Your ship do not exist anymore. If you want her, you choose the rebuy. That option should be used ONLY if you don't care about your ship, and do not want to MAGICALLY and suddenly respawn some dozens thousands light years from where you were.

 

[CMDR Spadino]

Apologies but I can't see what the main improvement here is other than keeping the players cartographics / status etc (where a players status may not actually want to be kept!) and obviously introducing a rescue ship as part of the restart / story. So overall this option provides little gain / difference here? Could you explain more?

Of course! So, I'm not talking about a general improvement; that is, not an improvement for who are satisfied from the current options. I'm talking more about a different option for who play more in a RPG style, which found the current magical respawn mechanic annoying, even possibly disturbing. I, if was in charge of a game like this, would never thought in something like the current options, for very good reasons. But I don't want to create a debate about that. The game has those mechanics, and they works for the larger player base.

I agree that we could have a career path as rescuers, and somewhat there's something already lined out with the new search and rescue contact. So, my proposal fit somewhat inside that, but from the perspective of the creation of an entirely new gameplay potential. Of course, the most realistic alternative should be a "wait in my escape pod till someone rescue me". I would be happy with that, too. I simply don't want to magically respawn, yet I feel that I should have the rights to try to have my cmdr be rescued by "common" means...

 

[Genie]

I could be wrong here (it's been a while since I've had to go to the rebuy screen) but I thought you respawn as it were at the nearest station from where you were destroyed. I.e. Upon destruction thats where your escape capsule would take you as it's the closest equipped station facility, which to me sounds reasonable and fairly realistic. So I daresay the rescue ship option here only gives you more flexibility in where you might next respawn from - like where you started from before being destroyed. If that's the case then I daresay the work to introduce this option (with operating a rescue ship and another commander) is not worth the extra realism / benefits. That said, with a much wider expanse of gameplay involving rescue and escape capsules I guess it could then be introduced, but obviously that's just my opinion.