***POLL NOW CLOSED*** IMPORTANT, OFFICIAL SHIP TRANSFER POLL

Status
Thread Closed: Not open for further replies.

Sandro Sammarco

Lead Designer
Frontier
*** UPDATE 2: thanks once again to everyone who particpated. The poll is now closed. I'll be creating a new sticky thread to confirm the result - at that time I'll unsticky this thread. Sandy ***

*** UPDATE: thanks to all who voted. We're closing the poll in a couple of hours (16:00 BST 12/09/16) and I will post a new sticky sometime afterwards to go over the result. Sandy ***


Hello Commanders!

We’ve had a big response from you folk about 2.2 regarding ship transfer, so first things first, thanks for all of the feedback! It’s always extremely useful, and helps us make more informed decisions.

It can also sometimes kick start or reignite discussions, by effectively bringing new evidence into circulation, allowing us to re-examine issues with a broader perspective.

We’re very happy and excited to be bringing ship transfer into Elite: Dangerous, as we feel that it offers dramatic improvements to game play, by allowing Commanders more freedom to have the right tools (ships) at the right place.

However, there’s clearly a lot of folk that are not so happy about our choice of implementation: specifically the concept that your ships can be summoned to your current starport instantly. Whilst most folk seem to be on board with the idea of transporting ships to your location, the time transfer takes has raised some concerns.

Clearly, the benefit of instant transfer is that, assuming you have the credit funds, you always have the appropriate ship to hand at all times. I will summarise for reference the main concerns that have been raised about having instant ship transfer:

* Instant transfer is likely to have a less plausible/desirable explanation for how the feature works in game lore.
* Instant transfer will lessen the need to have decent frame shift drives in ships other than one, “main” explorer type vessel.
* Instant ship transfer will remove any potential game play from deciding when/if transfer should be initiated.
* Instant ship transfer undermines the scale of the galaxy.

These are interesting arguments that have got us talking about this feature in the office once more.

After much debate, we are coming around to the idea of having a delivery time for transferred ships. It also follows, that if we have delivery times for ship transfer, we should have them for module transfer as well, as both actions use the same concept. But before we go ahead with this, we want to take a final reading, as it were.

So we’re going to run a simple, official poll. I know that there’s already been one, which has had lots of responses; think of this as a final safety alert.

As with all polls, it would take a significant majority of a large voting base for us to take the results as anything more than interesting anecdotal evidence, so I’d like to stress that if you have a strong opinion on this issue, please vote, and tell your Elite playing buddies to vote as well.

We’ll run the poll until Monday next week. *Unless there is a significant, majority vote against ship transfer delivery times, along with a high turnout*, we will likely be moving towards implementing plausible delays into ship and module transfer, though such a change may affect when the features comes online.

I’ve tried to make the poll as straightforward as possible, with just two options, please take a moment to read through them before you vote. Basically, it comes down to instant travel versus delivery times. We’re not very interested in having minor delays just for the sake of appearances – if there’s to be a delay, it should try to be roughly appropriate to a bulk freighter’s ability: reasonably slow compared to an explorer type vessel, but able to reach any destination – eventually.

Note there will always be a credit cost component to ship transfer, though it will likely be lower if there is also a delivery time component.

Also note that the delivery times used in the poll (5m minutes and 100 minutes) do not preclude further travel outside the human bubble, say to Jaques, with an appropriate increase in time.

Thank you for your participation!

The poll itself can be reached at this URL: https://www.elitedangerous.com/en/shiptransfer-vote/

for your convenience, the options in the poll are are shown below:

POLL: Should transferring ships and modules to your location take time?

OPTION 1: No, the transfer should be instant.

OPTION 2: Yes there should be a delay of 5 minutes minimum, 100 minutes to cross the human bubble, edge to edge.
 
Can I just ask.

Before people vote, go away and have a serious think about it all.

I know the topic's been floating around a while but IMHO it's totally cool whichever folk pick, as long as it's considered and not knee-jerk.

Like weigh up the pros and cons and all that.

In the end I think there's a tension here between realism and gameplay, there isn't necessarily a *right* answer.

It's all good. :)
 
Last edited:
Thanks for at least accepting that the concerned Cmdrs may have a point.

Now, I take it the 'yes' having somewhat specific parameters was more in the way of examples, rather than something that's set in stone should the final decision go that way ?
 
Thx for taking our opinion before introducing a game changing like this feature, i hope we'll can see the "delay" option win ! 100" to transit one side to another of the bubble is really fine !
 
Voted!

Thanks Sandy. Hope this will result in something that can please the majority and calm things down a bit.
 
Hmmm I'm actually torn.
On one hand is a more convenient and better option for those with busy lives like me that can be implemented sooner .
On the other is the option that is more lore friendly that may delay the next update.
Hmmm
 
Can I just ask.

Before people vote, go away and have a serious think about it all.

I know the topic's been floating around a while but IMHO it's totally cool whichever folk pick, as long as it's considered and not knee-jerk.

Like weigh up the pros and cons and all that.

In the end I think there's a tension here between realism and gameplay, there isn't necessarily a *right* answer.

It's all good. :)

Indeed, or we're going to have another Brexit.
 
Thank you for this, it was clearly needed. I think you're saying the ship transfer will take a similar time to the actual trip?

EDIT - Ignore me, yes it is is the answer, sorry about that.
 
Last edited:
YESSS!! THANK YOU, THANK YOU. This is a very sensible response to the situation. You have all my respect for showing how a game development team respects the players. Sorry, english not being my first language I don´t find the right words. I just think that I love you all in FD right now and that you have set a very high standard with this decision.

wow!

EDIT: voted [up]:) (see signature)
 
Last edited:
I would highly like to see an option 3, that has the following formula inside:

Distance from origin in ly / jump range of designated ship in LY = Number of jumps * 1 minute

Since this is not here -> Option 2 for me.

Edit: This still saves at least half of the time you would need to bring your ship manually.
 
Last edited:
So this means, that we will be able to have a ship, that we own, brought to our current location; for a fee, of course?
 
Voted :) Unless I am mistaken a useful caveat of having it on the frontier site, is that you need to have at least bought the game to have a vote? (I reserve the right to be wrong).
 
Hello Commander bitstorm!

That's very good advice.

Have a real chew on this one before making your final decision.

Thank you so much for this Sandy. However is there any reason why we can't see how the vote is going in real time? Not wanting to put down the community but without transparency you know someone will call Shenanigans... :(

Ben
 

Sandro Sammarco

Lead Designer
Frontier
Hello Commander CMDR Pugwash!

The delivery time would be a minimum of around five minutes, representing basic logistics of getting your ship loaded into a bulk carrier, followed by an additional time cost per light year to be travelled. The ballpark we are looking at would mean a delay of around 100 minutes if you transfered a ship from one edge of human space to the other (around 300 light years).
 
Status
Thread Closed: Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom