Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Subjectively, certainly. Noting that we don't all want the same things from the game.
Revisit the idea of instantaneous transfers
- Thread starter IcewindZG
- Start date
Theoretically, you can fit a number of suits and guns into a travel suitcase that you drag with you into whatever ship you board. Of course there should be a limit on how many suits and guns you can fit into a suitcase—but since we can't change mods on on-foot equipment, limiting your suitcase to, say, 3 suits and 12 guns is also not very good.
Ideally there should be a limit on how many articles of equipment are in your suitcase and the rest should go into station/carrier armory, along with the ability to change weapon mods in a more modular system similar to eg Metro 2033 (loved the gunsmithing in that game; loathed the fact I couldn't have a large collection of weird and wonderful pieces
).On that note, me and my mates back in the day always made butler and squire jokes when considering the amount of guns and ammo Gordon Freeman would run around with—he didn't even have a spaceship to store them in
Extra side note: I also think that ships and ammo cases shouldn't have infinite refills of ammo. But, shōganai...
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I remember the backer kickback against POI system jumps and I certainly haven’t seen anyone advocating for their return since. Not sure how SCO can be compared to that?
I love the new SCO, though I prefer the bucking bronco engines on my Cobra MkIII that require a bit of actual flying instead of the original-feel-but-quicker engines on my Cobra MkV.
I’m not advocating for the complete removal of ship transfer times. I’d like the option to pay for an exact duplicate of one of my existing ships at the current shipyard I am at.
All true - but surely you remember the frequency of the Douglas Adams quote being trotted out whenever a player wanted a reduction in SuperCruise transit times prior to 2024?
I remember the backer kickback against POI system jumps and I certainly haven’t seen anyone advocating for their return since. Not sure how SCO can be compared to that?
I love the new SCO, though I prefer the bucking bronco engines on my Cobra MkIII that require a bit of actual flying instead of the original-feel-but-quicker engines on my Cobra MkV.
I’m not advocating for the complete removal of ship transfer times. I’d like the option to pay for an exact duplicate of one of my existing ships at the current shipyard I am at.
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What would your acceptable wait time be ?
A genuine question ?
The longest I waited was 56 hrs for my engineered python from colonia I could have scrapped it and saved money and probably bought 3 in the bubble but it was mine ... And I'm a bit thran like that. But the wait was therefore acceptable?
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Though of course if Odyssey had been more of a success, that "most likely" might have been less reliable. The "I got sent to a detention centre 150 LY away and my ship didn't" outcome, for example, might have been a lot more common.
(Of course, arguably Odyssey would have been more of a success if "separate beginners and their ships by 150 LY" wasn't such a common event in it in the first place...)
This is only really true if they've flown to their current location B from A, and the ship they're transferring was also at A, and they went to B with the aim of doing the gameplay that the ship at A is for. And yeah, sure, in that case fair enough. But that's not the only case someone might want to do something their current ship isn't capable of.
It does depend I think on how you play the game.
If you're deliberately planning ahead what you're going to do next, then sure:
- you can schedule the transfers ahead of time and/or just fly the ship you know you're going to need
- you can own a Fleet Carrier and ignore most of the problem anyway because your entire fleet is following you around like a Maverick Suit anyway
- gameplay like the BGS or Powerplay or Colonisation which encourages you to tie yourself down to a specific system for days-to-months at a time is great
- you can, when it comes down to it, get "instant" transfers any time you like by playing another game instead for a while, because virtually nothing in the game is time-critical anyway (all of my ship transfers are already instant, in that respect)
But so much of FE2/FFE (and other space games, for that matter) was set up to also support the "wandering mercenary" lifestyle. You'd get a job to carry a parcel from A to B. On the way there, via C, you might find a passenger who also wanted to go to B and pick them up. You get to B, and there's someone wanting a hit done on their enemy. You don't necessarily know what you're going to do when you've dropped the parcel off because you'll be seeing what the situation at B is like when you get there. And that's tricky to do in Elite Dangerous because even a well-built multirole can probably only do about half of the game's activities (and a second multirole won't be able to cover the other half, because of how single-purpose-item mining and AX get).
It's one of the many "for an Elite sequel which matches the moment-to-moment gameplay really closely in a lot of ways, Elite Dangerous somehow manages to completely fail to support the actual big picture gameplay of its predecessors" moments for me and I mainly blame this on the overcomplicated outfitting system.
That's dangerously close to telling people they are playing the game wrong and being very condescening.
I guess it could be equalized to carrier jump times. That means generally 15 minutes within 500ly, additional 15 minutes per additional 500ly. That Colonia transfer you mentioned is where the current system really gets absurd. 56 hours wait and a cost of 1.5x the value of the ship, that is insane. A carrier needs ~15 hours.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
The quote is no less accurate today than it was the first time it was used - noting that SCO FSDs were introduced without pre-warning or "negotiation" with the player-base and are Frontier's take on an acceptable improvement, in a similar manner to the way that SCA is available to use in SuperCruise transit, but also comes with consequences to its use.
Like SCA not being the full auto-pilot that some players seem to want, SCO does not remove in-system transit times as some players seem to want (noting previous requests to be able to jump to stars other than the system entry point).
.... which is functionally equivalent to instant transfer, given that credits are easy to come by and the ship could be sold with only the bare hull incurring a 10% loss.
By all means travel to a dock that stocks the desired ship, modules, etc., build it and engineer it from pinned blueprints....
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There was exactly zero implication or intimation about how people play the game in my statement.
That would actually make sense since lore-wise, ship transfers work by loading them on a megaship that then jumps to the destination system (presumably with a lot of other cargo in its holds, too).
On the other hand, that also means that transfer times from the next system over, which are typically less than 10 minutes, would get longer
Just let us send ships and modules from any station to any other station remotely, and introduce Inter Astra Express service
are we sure?
Would that be dependant on the current FC wait times or when FC gets busy and the jump times become longer ( sorry couldn't help it )
"Your ship will be delivered as soon as the transport gets a free parking slot"
With the location(s) including one or more of my ships I see it as being somewhat complex, and of course it wouldn't need transferring if it was on your current ship but not being worn, can you call stuff to a station where you don't have a ship. But yes, I would be happier about it if they had done it from the start of Odyssey adding it now is bound to upset even more players than normal.
Removing in-system transits and choosing which star to jump to in a multi-star system aren’t quite the same
My suggestion is functionally equivalent to instant transfer because I intended it to be, just with a slathering of (possible) in-game lore over it. As the existing remote ship would be lost, and now essentially at my current location for my use, why would I want to sell it afterwards? Credits are easy to come by, after all.
If faced with the choice of building/engineering the ship again from scratch, as you suggest, it would probably be quicker to wait for the timer to count down instead on a slow transfer. That’d be fun, wouldn’t it?
I'm sure and I would naturally suggest taking my word for it when it comes to my thoughts, as to do otherwise would either be presuming that I didn't think before I spoke, or that I am lying about how I feel.
The statement you quoted was in response to Robert Maynard's response that some players didn't like the answer of an informal poll that was in turn cited by Weps.
Frontier is wrong as frequently as they implement rules or mechanisms that someone has a vaguely well considered disagreement with. My entire point was about the subjectivity of these preferences and that being in the minority doesn't make one's desires any less valid. Obviously, I prioritize my own preferences and expect others to prioritize theirs, but this can occur without claiming their positions are invalid (though some arguments are clearly faulty, even if the conclusion would otherwise be valid).
As an aside, I'm also of the opinion that majoritarianism rarely makes for better outcomes, even for the majority. Poll everyone on every feature with enough granularity and almost no one is going to agree on anything; exclude everything that was voted against and there will be nothing left.
Not sure if anyone's referred to the balance issue.
You can build a savage combat ship full of weapons, shields and armour, but it will have a tiny jump range. That's why we also build bubble taxis and some of the game is logistics planning to get things in the right places.
The instant travel idea is asking for combat ships to be deployable anywhere effectively having great jump capability, taxis to be made obsolete and the planning part of the game to be dumbed down with build trade-offs reduced.
IMO it would take too much away from the game.
You can build a savage combat ship full of weapons, shields and armour, but it will have a tiny jump range. That's why we also build bubble taxis and some of the game is logistics planning to get things in the right places.
The instant travel idea is asking for combat ships to be deployable anywhere effectively having great jump capability, taxis to be made obsolete and the planning part of the game to be dumbed down with build trade-offs reduced.
IMO it would take too much away from the game.
rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
Extremely valid comment.
Just build a 90LY Mandaley, and don't worry about a jump range of ANY other ship ever again.
Like, jump range becomes 100% irrelevant for bubble gameplay.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Functionally equivalent....Removing in-system transits and choosing which star to jump to in a multi-star system aren’t quite the same
If one has to wait doing nothing until the ship transfer is complete then the question is: why did the player choose to be in that dock in the first place?My suggestion is functionally equivalent to instant transfer because I intended it to be, just with a slathering of (possible) in-game lore over it. As the existing remote ship would be lost, and now essentially at my current location for my use, why would I want to sell it afterwards? Credits are easy to come by, after all.
If faced with the choice of building/engineering the ship again from scratch, as you suggest, it would probably be quicker to wait for the timer to count down instead on a slow transfer. That’d be fun, wouldn’t it?
Noting that choices have consequences....