Respawning tests with FC, quiz, and instant travel

[Rocky-451]

Where you respawn after dying can be a bit confusing, and it gets more complicated now that Fleet Carriers are respawn points. So I thought I'll do some tests and share the results. If you're familiar with how it works already, treat this like a quiz. That you can respawn in FCs is essential for explorers, but it leads to some curious situations which I'll mention at the end. These include the option of instant travel to a system of your choice!

Originally I expected the rebuy screen to offer you 3 choices to handle some situations, but no, there are just the usual 2, including the Sidewinder/Bubble option which I'll ignore. For these tests, I travelled between 3 systems – 2 with stations and 1 without. I also parked my FC in one of the populated ones. That is:
System A – Station A
System B – Station B and Fleet Carrier
Unpopulated System C

The results show that stations and FCs work similarly but not quite the same – there's a slight bias for respawning in stations. The "☠>" below means the point I self-destructed, followed by the respawn point in spoiler text.

Launched from Station A and jumped to System B. ☠> Station B
Launched from Station A, jumped to System B, and dropped in FC instance without docking. ☠> Station B
Launched from Station A and jumped to System C. ☠> Station A

So the basic rule is that if your current system has a station, that's your respawn point. If there's no in-system station, you respawn at your last docked station – even if it's farther away than near-by systems that do have stations. Also, it seems that if you launched from a station, you don't ever respawn in a FC.

Launched from FC (in System B) and low-wake. ☠> FC
Launched from FC and dropped in Station B instance without docking. ☠> Station B
Launched from FC and jumped to System A. ☠> Station A
Launched from FC and jumped to System C.☠> FC

The fact that dying in an unpopulated system could respawn you in your FC seems exploitable. Set your FC to jump to a far-off System X and undock before the jump. Now you can do whatever you want – but make sure you don't dock anywhere – and when you want to return to your FC, just go to an unpopulated system and self-destruct. It will cost you the insurance but it's a kind of instant travel to any system that's accessible to your FC.

I also duplicated some of these tests on another player's FC and the results are the same. This leads to a potential funny situation. After visiting someone's FC, you go exploring without docking anywhere else first. Then you died in an unpopulated system. Your respawn point will be the FC which could be on the other side of the galaxy. Then there's the kidnapping scenario (which I raised even before the FC Betas). Suppose you're in another player's FC and it jumped when you weren't paying attention or you have logout. The FC goes to an isolated spot and your short-range ship is stuck. Now even self-destructing won't help because you'll respawn back in the FC.

 

[Andro]

Very informative.

 

[Susanna]

Love the 'kidnapped' scenario lol
Especially if they don't have a fuel scoop and the carrier doesn't sell one or enable you to transfer one to your location on the FC...
Hilarious! Given the number of people that the fuel rats needed to rescue before FCs, this is going to be a thing for sure!

 

[AngryAntz]

I would not like to find myself on the other side of the galaxy because I had a rebuy and had sold data a couple of weeks before to a passing FC (as small as that chance might be outside the bubble).

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Excellent testing - so far all fairly consistent and predictable.

The fact that dying in an unpopulated system could respawn you in your FC seems exploitable. Set your FC to jump to a far-off System X and undock before the jump. Now you can do whatever you want – but make sure you don't dock anywhere – and when you want to return to your FC, just go to an unpopulated system and self-destruct. It will cost you the insurance but it's a kind of instant travel to any system that's accessible to your FC.

The requirement not to dock anywhere in-between limits what you can usefully do with this, though. I can't think of many situations where it gives you a significant advantage over just travelling with the carrier. (Did you test what happens if you move the carrier between undocking and dying for the uninhabited case? I assume you did but it's not specifically mentioned)

A slightly slower to test case (because it'll take a week to decommission the FC and you shouldn't visit any inhabited systems in-between):
- move FC to uninhabited system
- dock and undock with FC
- decommission FC
- once FC has actually disappeared, die in an uninhabited system (probably doesn't have to be the same one the FC was in so long as you don't visit any inhabited ones)
...where do you end up?

I'd test this one myself but I won't be able to afford a carrier until the end-of-Beta price change, and by then it'll be too late to experiment with decom. Anyone else mostly done with Beta and want to give it a go?

Related to that - needing a 3rd-party carrier but a lot quicker to test a similar "previous dock is invalid" question:
- dock with carrier in uninhabited system
- undock with carrier
- have carrier owner change docking permissions to deny you access
- self-destruct
...???

 

[Crank Larson]

I doubt I'm going to play the beta any more, so could decommission my FC later. Can it be used in the week leading up to the decommission, or is it unavailable as soon as I choose to decommission? No worries if not known, I'll find out later. I've just moved my FC to ICZ MH-V B2-0 (no population). Will undock later and decommission it.

It'll also be interesting to see where all my ships and modules end up, as I transferred them all over. I moved the FC while the ships were en-route, and they magically redirected and arrived at the FC.

 

[AngryAntz]

It'll also be interesting to see where all my ships and modules end up, as I transferred them all over. I moved the FC while the ships were en-route, and they magically redirected and arrived at the FC.

That answered another question I had. Thanx

Did it take longer for them to get there?

 

[Crank Larson]

Did it take longer for them to get there?

I don't think so, though I didn't specifically look for that. The longest transfer time was around an hour and a half before I moved the FC (from one side of the bubble to the other). All the ships had arrived when I checked at the end of the session (which was only a couple of hours). Though I'm also not entirely sure that there isn't something up with ship transfer in the beta - as soon as I request transfer, I get a notification that the ship has arrived at the destination, even though the Shipyard screen shows it is still in transit (and with the correct transit time remaining).

 

[Crank Larson]

A slightly slower to test case (because it'll take a week to decommission the FC and you shouldn't visit any inhabited systems in-between):

• move FC to uninhabited system
• dock and undock with FC
• decommission FC
• once FC has actually disappeared, die in an uninhabited system (probably doesn't have to be the same one the FC was in so long as you don't visit any inhabited ones)

...where do you end up?

Thinking about it, this should be a straight-forward case of you being sent to the closest station - nothing else would make sense (which isn't to say that something else won't happen). I'll confirm in a week. Though I'm more interested in what happens to my ships and modules.

 

[Crank Larson]

Ok, so it seems that the decommissioning screen itself confirms some of my questions:

You can also use the carrier while being decommissioned. I guess I'll return in 5 days and see if I can answer the other questions.

 

[Tharrn]

The fact that dying in an unpopulated system could respawn you in your FC seems exploitable. Set your FC to jump to a far-off System X and undock before the jump. Now you can do whatever you want – but make sure you don't dock anywhere – and when you want to return to your FC, just go to an unpopulated system and self-destruct. It will cost you the insurance but it's a kind of instant travel to any system that's accessible to your FC.

Can't see the exploitability. You could just be docked when the carrier jumps and make the jump with it?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Thinking about it, this should be a straight-forward case of you being sent to the closest station - nothing else would make sense (which isn't to say that something else won't happen). I'll confirm in a week. Though I'm more interested in what happens to my ships and modules.

Other possibilities which would also have some logic to it:
- your starting station (as a general fallback for when your respawn location ends up invalid for any reason)
- the nearest carrier shipyard (same place any remaining modules on the carrier end up)

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

Where you respawn after dying can be a bit confusing, and it gets more complicated now that Fleet Carriers are respawn points. So I thought I'll do some tests and share the results. If you're familiar with how it works already, treat this like a quiz. That you can respawn in FCs is essential for explorers, but it leads to some curious situations which I'll mention at the end. These include the option of instant travel to a system of your choice!

Originally I expected the rebuy screen to offer you 3 choices to handle some situations, but no, there are just the usual 2, including the Sidewinder/Bubble option which I'll ignore. For these tests, I travelled between 3 systems – 2 with stations and 1 without. I also parked my FC in one of the populated ones. That is:
System A – Station A
System B – Station B and Fleet Carrier
Unpopulated System C

The results show that stations and FCs work similarly but not quite the same – there's a slight bias for respawning in stations. The "☠>" below means the point I self-destructed, followed by the respawn point in spoiler text.

Launched from Station A and jumped to System B. ☠> Station B
Launched from Station A, jumped to System B, and dropped in FC instance without docking. ☠> Station B
Launched from Station A and jumped to System C. ☠> Station A

So the basic rule is that if your current system has a station, that's your respawn point. If there's no in-system station, you respawn at your last docked station – even if it's farther away than near-by systems that do have stations. Also, it seems that if you launched from a station, you don't ever respawn in a FC.

Launched from FC (in System B) and low-wake. ☠> FC
Launched from FC and dropped in Station B instance without docking. ☠> Station B
Launched from FC and jumped to System A. ☠> Station A
Launched from FC and jumped to System C.☠> FC

The fact that dying in an unpopulated system could respawn you in your FC seems exploitable. Set your FC to jump to a far-off System X and undock before the jump. Now you can do whatever you want – but make sure you don't dock anywhere – and when you want to return to your FC, just go to an unpopulated system and self-destruct. It will cost you the insurance but it's a kind of instant travel to any system that's accessible to your FC.

I also duplicated some of these tests on another player's FC and the results are the same. This leads to a potential funny situation. After visiting someone's FC, you go exploring without docking anywhere else first. Then you died in an unpopulated system. Your respawn point will be the FC which could be on the other side of the galaxy. Then there's the kidnapping scenario (which I raised even before the FC Betas). Suppose you're in another player's FC and it jumped when you weren't paying attention or you have logout. The FC goes to an isolated spot and your short-range ship is stuck. Now even self-destructing won't help because you'll respawn back in the FC.

Not exploitable from explorers because even if you can instantly return to your FC by self destructing you still lose the exploration data

 

[Rocky-451]

Excellent testing - so far all fairly consistent and predictable.

The requirement not to dock anywhere in-between limits what you can usefully do with this, though. I can't think of many situations where it gives you a significant advantage over just travelling with the carrier. (Did you test what happens if you move the carrier between undocking and dying for the uninhabited case? I assume you did but it's not specifically mentioned)

Thanks! I undocked after setting my FC to jump a few hundred LYs, but I doubt it would've made any difference had I set the jump remotely after undocking first. After self-destructing on an unpopulated system, I did respawn in the far-away FC. Yes, this "exploit" is very minor and I doubt the FDev would bother to change it. For now I can think of one way it might be useful. Suppose you wish to go somehow that will take an FC multiple jumps, but you don't like waiting for all that spooling time. You set each jump remotely and meanwhile, go bounty hunting in a system with no station. If you died, you'll return to your FC, no problem!

 

[Crank Larson]

You set each jump remotely and meanwhile, go bounty hunting in a system with no station. If you died, you'll return to your FC, no problem!

Problem with that is that you lose your bounties when you die... So you either need to dock at a station to sell (which means you'll then need to fly back to the FC), or be happy to lose all the bounties.

 

[Rocky-451]

Problem with that is that you lose your bounties when you die... So you either need to dock at a station to sell (which means you'll then need to fly back to the FC), or be happy to lose all the bounties.

Right, that's a bummer, though I think combat mission earnings (which tend to dwarf bounties) are not affected by death.

 

[DaveB]

for th kidnapping scenario to work, it would have to be a FC with no addon shipyard - so only the owner can store ships there. If teh FC has an actual shipyard, you transfer in a ship with legs, switch to that, naff off home and summon your short-legged ship back from the nefarious FC.

 

[Northpin]

for th kidnapping scenario to work, it would have to be a FC with no addon shipyard - so only the owner can store ships there. If teh FC has an actual shipyard, you transfer in a ship with legs, switch to that, naff off home and summon your short-legged ship back from the nefarious FC.

eh?

 

[Northpin]

To escape from a kidnap scenario i can see only 2 posibilities:

• sucidewinder - that means losing a ship. So better have a basic sidewinder stocked that you can transfer and switch to.
• support ticket

- a 3rd scenario would require some form of Contact / Authority - which is not present on the Carrier
I assume it was used on Gnosis when she went to her expedition on the fringes
One has to get a bounty without being destroyed then dock and Turn in - which will result in being sent to a prison ship along with all vouchers/discoveries.

 

[Northpin]

So i did some more tests.

My XB Carrier is in Col 285 Sector VS-H B11-0 (the system with a weak tritium triple hotspot) and there are 9 other carriers in there, all with ALL docking permissions

I flew my PC AspX in the system, docked with XB-Carrier and sold exploration data (the amount appeared instantaneous on XB-Carrier bank - nice touch!)
Then i undocked my PCAspX
On XB i set permission to Friends and Squadron and on PC i checked if my PCAspX gets Docking Permission Denied (it does)
Then I flew the PCAspX to Col 285 Sector SS-S C4-22 - some 57 ly away - and suicided.
Respawn option was Diaguandri, Ray Gateway, 256.72 LY away.

So to conclude,
it didnt respawn me to the last docking station (No docking permission on My XB-Carrier),
nor to the other Carriers in the same system with my XB-Carrier (57.3 ly away),
but 256 ly away in Diaguandri.

According to EDDB, nearest station from my suicide location is Umastae, Isherwood Dock, 66 ly away.
No idea why it picked Diaguandri. Been a while since i was last there - it definitely wasn't my last docking station