Shipping your ship

nrobidoux · Apr 11, 2015

I'm relatively new. I got my Lakon 6 not too long ago, in addition to my Cobra. I started the game.... in LHS 3447. Parked my Cobra in GD 219 where I bought my Lakon and then started doing a trade route to/from Neto and another system. I basically wanted to make Neto my new hub of ops. If I wanted to trade I could. If I wanted to pirate/bounty hunt... well gotta move back to GD 219.

Would be nice if there is an option to transport a ship to your current location if it has a shipyard. It would then become a stored ship there.... after some time period of waiting determined by the distance. Of course there is a price to pay too.

Profit Durian · Apr 11, 2015

This a million times over! There's no way to get your ships moved so whenever you buy a ship at a station, you will permanently have 1 more ship stuck there. If you buy a ship at a station 3 times, you will have 3 ships permanently stuck there. Of course you can switch out ships, but 3 of them will still be there no matter what.

It feels a lot like this math problem right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox,_goose_and_bag_of_beans_puzzle

dean0001 · Apr 11, 2015

nrobidoux said:
I'm relatively new. I got my Lakon 6 not too long ago, in addition to my Cobra. I started the game.... in LHS 3447. Parked my Cobra in GD 219 where I bought my Lakon and then started doing a trade route to/from Neto and another system. I basically wanted to make Neto my new hub of ops. If I wanted to trade I could. If I wanted to pirate/bounty hunt... well gotta move back to GD 219.

Would be nice if there is an option to transport a ship to your current location if it has a shipyard. It would then become a stored ship there.... after some time period of waiting determined by the distance. Of course there is a price to pay too.

lol I would make this fun with an assortment of pilots one could hire to have the ship transferred :

Cheap would buy you a possible percentage of bad luck and excuses and a highly paid reputable pilot would get your ship to another station no prob.

Profit Durian · Apr 11, 2015

What if they made ships sort of "disassembleable" and then gave actual users at the source station the mission to transport "pieces" of the ship?

FuzzySpider · Apr 11, 2015

Atamoor said:
This a million times over! There's no way to get your ships moved so whenever you buy a ship at a station, you will permanently have 1 more ship stuck there. If you buy a ship at a station 3 times, you will have 3 ships permanently stuck there. Of course you can switch out ships, but 3 of them will still be there no matter what.

It feels a lot like this math problem right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox,_goose_and_bag_of_beans_puzzle

There is a way, provided the station you want to move your ship to has a shipyard.

1. Fly to the station that you want to make your new "home".

2. Buy a sidewinder, and store your current ship.

3. Outfit the sidewinder with the best FSD that you can see.

4. Fly to the system/station where your other ship is. Enter that ship.

5. Sell the sidewinder.

It's a lot of fiddling, and I agree there should be a way to move ships around. But for now that's the only way.

Iskariot · Apr 11, 2015

nrobidoux said:
I'm relatively new. I got my Lakon 6 not too long ago, in addition to my Cobra. I started the game.... in LHS 3447. Parked my Cobra in GD 219 where I bought my Lakon and then started doing a trade route to/from Neto and another system. I basically wanted to make Neto my new hub of ops. If I wanted to trade I could. If I wanted to pirate/bounty hunt... well gotta move back to GD 219.

Would be nice if there is an option to transport a ship to your current location if it has a shipyard. It would then become a stored ship there.... after some time period of waiting determined by the distance. Of course there is a price to pay too.

I wholeheartedly agree.
It has been proposed many times and I guess all players would like it.
I strongly believe FD will implement an option like this eventually. It simply makes sense for a game like this with a game world this extremely huge.
I think it is very important that there is a price to pay. And transporting a ship should also take time. It should not become an instant gimmick.

Monsoon · Apr 12, 2015

Shipping your ship would/should cost a fortune because it would need to be stored inside another ship, then it would take some time because no company is going to ship a single ship and then the insurance for this thing would be huge as he transporter could be attacked during transit.
Also if you are able to ship your ship like this then it open a crapload of lore issues where if you are able to ship a whole ship from one side of the galaxy to the other then why are some system paying so much for produce and stuff when a single shipment once per month could cover a whole system?

I think rentals would work better...rent the equivalent of your ship with all the stuff of your ship which would mean you could potentially rent any of your ships anywhere in the galaxy

DocLooshkin · Apr 12, 2015

Thinking about it logically, given that stations with shipyards have the apparent ability to provide virtually limitless repairs and new ships, there's no reason why your ship at the far end can't be disassembled and sold, while your new home station assembles a new, identical ship for you, complete in your chosen colour scheme and decals. You would presumably have to wait for the parts they don't normally carry to become available.

jmp470 · Apr 12, 2015

Atamoor said:
What if they made ships sort of "disassembleable" and then gave actual users at the source station the mission to transport "pieces" of the ship?

That is crazy talk.... Even in today's world we pay ferry pilots to fly planes all over the world, versus shipping them..... It is much cheaper to pay a pilot than to unassemble a space craft and reassemble it.... I know it is for a personal airplane in todays society... but maybe 2000 years from now it is different

Krow · Apr 12, 2015

I remember reading somewhere last year that this function will be implemented at some point.
It will have a variable costing dependent on the delivery distance.

FuzzySpider · Apr 12, 2015

Monsoon said:
Shipping your ship would/should cost a fortune because it would need to be stored inside another ship, then it would take some time because no company is going to ship a single ship and then the insurance for this thing would be huge as he transporter could be attacked during transit.

Unless you hired a mercenary pilot to fly your ship to a destination for you then make their own way back.

nrobidoux · Apr 13, 2015

Thanks Fuzzy Spider for the current ingame method. Hadn't crossed my mind.

jpaulwilson1982 · Apr 13, 2015

I ran into this issue the other day when I was going to buy a new Asp at Tsu. My home is Sol at Daedalus, which is where all the ships I care about are stored. I was flying my Cobra, my most expensive ship, so I didn't want to leave it in Tsu (I'll eventually use it again). I had to fly the Cobra to Sol, buy a viper, buy a drive that'll get me back to Tsu, then fly to Tsu, buy the Asp, sell the Viper, and fly to Sol. So my (laughably called) fleet is all home, safe and sound, in one convenient location.

FD has been listening. I'm positive they'll address the issue before too long. Or at least, in the meantime, have the game play Benny Hill music while you're swapping ships and flying back and forth.

At least we can sell our "rent-a-ships" back for full value.

Lattice · Apr 14, 2015

+1
.
Bleh forum will not allow a reply of simply '+1'. So I guess I have to say the long way
..
'Oh my gosh, yes! What a simply marvellous idea! We must have vessel portage as soon as possible.'

49rTbird · Apr 14, 2015

nrobidoux said:
I'm relatively new. I got my Lakon 6 not too long ago, in addition to my Cobra. I started the game.... in LHS 3447. Parked my Cobra in GD 219 where I bought my Lakon and then started doing a trade route to/from Neto and another system. I basically wanted to make Neto my new hub of ops. If I wanted to trade I could. If I wanted to pirate/bounty hunt... well gotta move back to GD 219.

Would be nice if there is an option to transport a ship to your current location if it has a shipyard. It would then become a stored ship there.... after some time period of waiting determined by the distance. Of course there is a price to pay too.

Take one of your ships to a new station (that sells ships) and store your ship by buying a cheap sidewinder. Go back to the station you have your other ships at in your sidewinder and take your other ship out of storage then sell the sidewinder. Repeat this as often as needed to get your ship to new destinations.

Don Alvarez · Apr 14, 2015

Was going to post a similar thread myself, now that I have two ships and just discovered to get back to the other requires me actually going back to the ship location to switch. Its a pain, and pretty much anchors me in location I bought the ship at.

I'd say, instead of transporting my ship, why cannot I (myself) dock my current ship, hitch a ride on a passenger ship bound for where my other ship is at, and I'll fly it where I want it go myself? Passenger ships (meaning ones designed explicitly for this type of transport) unlike freight, would be relatively light for their size and could have an extremely long jump range, facillitating my transport in a matter of minutes. Hell, I'd buy one just to transport people around (for a price)

Whatever the solution, I agree there needs to be a better way to transport either me or my ships easier than buying a temporary sidewinder.

faluc · Apr 16, 2015

This is how I would implement the ship transporting, to not make it too trivial to move expensive ships yet still be useful and convenient:

Let's hire an NPC pilot to fly our ship!
How it would go:
Pay a pilot's fee up front based on his skill and the distance.
There is a calculation for the success rate of the journey (just a one-time % calculation, your ship will not actually appear in-game), based on these factors:
- skill of the NPC pilot
- length of the journey
- stats of your ship (shield, weapons, speed, jump range, etc)
- security level of the destination system

If all goes well, your ship arrives at the destination after some time (depending on distance and ship stats).
And if disaster strikes, well then you have to pay the insurance as usual, or lose the ship (maybe insurance at worse %, since the NPC is not in the Pilot's Federation)

This would encourage to fly the expensive ships ourselves, or take a risk for the convenience (to keep the Dangerous theme). And for the cheap ships, it would not matter much if you have to pay the insurance or not.

Slippery Jim DiGriz · Apr 16, 2015

There is an easier mechanism that's already part of the game lore.

The insurance companies seem to have an infinite stock of every ship and every part and can deliver a ship of any configuration to any port almost instantly.

So for a small payment and the full cost of any repairs necessary they could take your ship at the remote location into their inventory and issue an identical ship with identical equipment at your location.

This would be almost instant and there would be no danger of your ship getting stolen, damaged or destroyed en-route to your location. As for the "I want MY ship" there is no difference between any two identically fitted ships whatsoever.

As for there being "no instant communications" to facilitate the transfer, well that is plainly untrue as the Community Goal statistics are kept up-to-date on my contacts screen even when I'm 5,000ly from Sol.