Should 3D Printing of Ships be in ED?

[Boff'in]

This type of 3d printing technology, while feasible by 3300, doesn't really fit the existing lore of Elite and makes the shortage of modules at some stations, engineers etc. seem really silly if this kind of manufacturing is included in the lore. I'm fine with disassembled fighter drones that are stored for later use, although the space required seems a bit tight I can live with it. Just don't call it 3d printed.

Go to the commodities market.
read the description for Food Cartridges and Auto-Fabricators. 3D printing is in-game lore already.
Ask yourself why ship components aren't a commodity that are shipped around.

Read my full explanation #18 https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-in-ED/page2?p=4400364&viewfull=1#post4400364
But try not to expand from the ot the 21rst century single printer with plastic material

Think Ship-constuction-docks and having a factory of fabricators doing the small, large, components and of varying materials that then need to be assembled.
These are specialized liscenced facilities that can only handly specific builds of ships. The factories are tailored to the blue-prints. They aren't homogonous printer that prints every component out in rough white plastics.

 

[ahwala]

I'd prefer it to be called 'assembly', because 3D-printing the whole thing in one piece doesn't seem plausible while assembly is broad enough a concept to include the 3D-printing process. Calling it 3D-printing just feels gimmicky somehow. Not a huge problem though compared to instant ship transfer for instance.

 

[bshaftoe]

I'd prefer it to be called 'assembly', because 3D-printing the whole thing in one piece doesn't seem plausible while assembly is broad enough a concept to include the 3D-printing process. Calling it 3D-printing just feels gimmicky somehow. Not a huge problem though compared to instant ship transfer for instance.

I don't think the intellectual rights would prevent anybody to print any ship in any station in reality. Once the plans for a ship are pirated once, the access to them would be easy. Even if stations or legal shipyards in stations obey the law, Black Markets could be different and you should find any type of ship in the black market. So I think 3d printing the fighters in a ship opens a can of worms that should be unopened (IMHO).

I don't know why Frontier didn't stick with the historical explanation/narrative. As far as I know, Second World War fighters (Spitfires, for example) would be shipped in boxes (when not transported in air carriers). They were disassembled and inside crates, and they were later assembled once they were delivered in the destination airfield. In the crates, they were protected and the volume they occupied were smaller.

So I think that the hangars should "assemble" the fighters, rather than "3d print" them. This solves the problem of intellectual rights. When you are in a station, you buy the actual fighters, albeit in a dissambled state (except the one you have ready to be launched). When your primary fighter is destroyed, the hangar takes one of the crates with a new fighter, and assembles it quickly. I mean, it doesn't matter the time it takes: if you believe that a fighter can be 3d-printed in zero seconds (or 10, 20, 60, or whatever), then, assembling it in the same time is not a stretch of the imagination.

And having a couple of robotic arms making the final assembly is or might sound as cool has having a 3d-printer in the hangar.

My two cents.

 

[Raith]

I think the problem most people seem to be having with the concept of this is the fact that Sandro introduced it as "Like 3D Printing a Fighter" there would probably be less dislike if they had described it as an Auto-Fabrication Bay which can rapidly assemble Fighters from stored parts. Essentially the fighters are flat-packed and the bay builds a single unit for deployment and automatically assembles another once it detects the first destroyed.

Already that sort of modular construction can be seen in the real world with some car manufacturing. Robot Assisted assembly lines can put together some pretty delicate machinery as we have to assume that has advanced by 3302. On top of this we already know that Ships and Starbases are designed to be relatively modular, ships are essentially just a framework into which components are placed. I personally always assumed that the speed at which a ship is repaired can be put down to robots in the hangers suddenly ripping damaged components off and just completely replacing them with entierly new section (It would be cool to see that animated)

If you break down what we can already do in game with Synthesis then essentially all ships are capable of some form of auto-refinement and production of things like ammunition already, so why not have something on a larger scale? Its not like I go down to my engineering bay and had-craft that +50% Multicannon ammo.

 

[SheepDip82]

I'm not voting, since in my head it's precisely as Raith says - they aren't being printed - they're being auto assembled. Believing anything else is just silly.

 

[Miklos Atreides]

It's your little ship, and you can print it any way you like. Happy little fighter. There are no ship destructions, just happy little accidents. And when you see another ship? beat the devil out of it [cheeky giggle] that's the best part!

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To be fair, SpaceX 3D Print their Merlin engines. Giant laser sintering machines that can manage tolerances in raw fabrication that old school casting can only dream about. I have a 3d printer. It's amazing the sorts of shapes it can manage.

Granted printing the complex wiring loom, displays, silicon chips and components, the hydrogen plasma and what not is a little convenient. But we have single button instant transfer, so really there isn't anything off the table to be fair.

What is left is the limiting mass. A class 1 laser is a 2 ton mass and regardless from what you are printing it, it has to have 2 tons of mass at minimum.
or can you fill the printer while fuelscooping to create all other types of elements? Then running an SRV to find material will become obsolete.

Still the essence is clear. The current concept is not enough fleshed out to fit into the game background and lore. Fd has still some things
to do to get this feature widely accepted. I appreciate having fighters on board for big traders the most but being able to print 9 of them
Please check the balance.

Regards,
Miklos

 

[Mephane]

But, again, it's not so much the mechanic, it's that the developer has decided to apply it in an arbitrary fashion; print a fighter, but no CMDR KOFEYH, you can't print modular terminals. It's mean. lol.

This. If we can 3D print fighters or ships, we could do the same for module and all manufactured commodities and materials. The entire fiction falls apart when you introduce a technology as disruptive as this.

 

[sensai25]

I voted YES because it is fun to imagine that happening with a small facility inside my so huge ship

 

[Helfar]

OMG yet another "this breaks the reality" thread. Yes I agree it is not particularly realistic, but the other option is the modules take up the largest slots and then nobody uses them as it will take up too much of the valuable cargo space, and the module contains 8 folded up ships. The folded up ships is equally as unrealistic so essentially what you are saying is scrap the fighter idea. There are huge amounts of stuff that the game cuts corners on, in order to bring us a game and not a list of time consuming and un-enjoyable events such as (instant cargo loading/offloading, docking at stations which if it was realistic would leave us sat outside stations for periods for cargo scans, instant respawn after death, the whole SC process is a bit of a corner cutting item, undocking at stations(consider a modern airport requires planning for organising take offs), buying ships and fitting componenets, never mind the engineering aspect as it woudl take ALLOT of time to upgrade your jump drives etc etc,and thats just a few off the top of my head.
Yes it would be nice for a bit more realism, BUT not at the cost of actual game time. Can't we just cut FD some slack and just go with it. It is all for our benefit, not because they can't be bothered.

 

[Trueno33]

Voted no. I dont understand why the devs are deliberatedly sabotaging the game with the inclusion of magical shorcuts. This erases all traces of verisimilitude, a very important factor in my playstyle.

I have started taking a look at Stellaris. It seems that ED will be a bad copy of it in a few monrhs anyway

 

[kofeyh]

What is left is the limiting mass. A class 1 laser is a 2 ton mass and regardless from what you are printing it, it has to have 2 tons of mass at minimum.
or can you fill the printer while fuelscooping to create all other types of elements? Then running an SRV to find material will become obsolete.

Still the essence is clear. The current concept is not enough fleshed out to fit into the game background and lore. Fd has still some things
to do to get this feature widely accepted. I appreciate having fighters on board for big traders the most but being able to print 9 of them
Please check the balance.

Regards,
Miklos

Sure. But the complexities of how do you deal with the physics of the matter (oh come on that was a darn fine pun!) doesn't enter into it, because the developer literally doesn't care. In fact, Sandro was basically stumbling for the first available thing that would be similar, when pressed on the issue and blurted out 3d printer of all things.

There is zero point looking for logic, friend, there isn't any. New mechanics are added because of game play reasons, not logic and consistency. Braben is absolutely fine with this because they wouldn't be doing it that way if he wasn't? How does it work? Because. How does it transport my ship? Magic.

At least they are being honest about it now. They came up with all sorts of ridiculous excuses for engineers. When really? It's all mostly just "gameplay" reasons. The tenor and pace of the game improves, they will just throw all sorts of stuff under the bus to get it.

I'll transfer the heck out of my ships. It'll be great. Not sure how much I will get out of launchable fighters? Will see.

 

[SheepDip82]

Stellaris the grand strategy game? :S

Still don't see the issue. Small ships assembled aboard a large ship.

 

[kofeyh]

Yes it would be nice for a bit more realism, BUT not at the cost of actual game time. Can't we just cut FD some slack and just go with it. It is all for our benefit, not because they can't be bothered.

To be fair, a non trivial percent of the community plays with a sense of realism in mind; reasons to go do the things they do. It gives the game a sense of life, of adventure. People go crazy with PowerPlay, or work in Player Groups to party on with the BGS because there has been lore and reasons for most things.

Yes when we die the game takes some liberties. Same with rearm, refuel and so on. They are compromises to improve the tenor of the game. But what's happening now, whether Frontier realise it or not, is that those reasons are shrinking as all of that lore and scope and sense of input players get, is being thrown under the bus to make bits of the game a bit less effort.

Eventually? There may not be reason to do much of anything, because the much of anything has been compromised to make "gameplay" more "fun". It's a balance; how much do you simplify and explain away, versus how much is retained to make the game even worth playing? In the meantime, people are trying to 'explain' why things are as they are now, and coming up short.

Once beta hits, most questions will be answered and people will move on (either figuratively, or actually).

 

[babelfisch]

No if it's really 3D printing.
Yes if they are just ship kits that you need to buy and get assembled.

 

[Hydrino]

Because we have in-game examples of 3D printers in ED,
auto-fabricators
And
food-cartridges which is the toner for 3D food printers in ED


STOP PUTTING YOU 21RST Century Expectations on 33rd-century technonoly.
Building a ship isn't like printing some crappy 10inch model out of a single uniform plastic.

Ships are built up of multiple components small and large. You can't have the same printer doing "console screen" that are building outer hull, or an engine part.
You will need an production line of Fabricators just doing one or two specialists jobs unique for that build.
Then you need specialist printing and for small components, large components and then putting stuff together.
If you build an anaconda, you need an anaconda-size shipyard. One Fabricator isn't going to "do it all".
These are specialised hanger sized auto-fabricators that can pull one one blue-print - and that's all they are good for.

This will explain why ship parts and modules are not a commodity, even if some parts (modules) are pre-fabricated already from other fabricators.

Printing Laws have also developed.
Falcon-Delacy isn't going to let ANY get a hold of their blueprints either, otherwise anyone could print out a Cobra.
Those designs aren't going to be floating around galnet, and since you need specialist fabricators to pull of the Cobra build, you'll have your licensed dealers, suppliers, etc etc



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I find it hilarious that this is the final straw - a viable technology we know will do the job,
when people have been fine with FTL comms, Stations that can jump half a galaxy, Cargo-hatches that has an infinite supply of cargo containers for jettisoning rocks they've found, and hand waving synthesise that required no fabricator, and can create ammunition for a big ship, and somehow follow you out into a scarab to fix,refuel that.

But I will concede to:
Mass of the propossed ships must be along.
Energy being required from the SYStem for the build.
A length of time for the build.

(I had a similar proposal for Synthesis so things like Heat-sinks could be manufactured but not in the heat of combat)

The concession at the end weakens the entire previous argument. Length of time for the build and mass of it are concerns but ship transport time and other handwavium is not?

I think it isn't "the final straw" but rather it changes the verisimilitude in a way that for some reasons much of the other handwavium doesn't. At least for some players. Individual mileage may vary, of course.

It is that verisimilitude breaking point that can be hard to pin down.

 

[WeirdWizard]

I voted no, not that I'm against the effect. But calling it printing does open rather a can of worms lore wise. I think Frontier need to either go with lore heavy or lore light. If they go lore heavy then there needs to be a real effort to ensure that lore is consistent and makes sense. Obviously 3d printing tech of the sort needed would have all sorts of implications for the rest of the game which would need to be followed through on. Alternatively if they go lore light (which seems to be the prevailing wind) then they either need to just be very vague about stuff, make it a little silly and lighthearted so it's easy to justify without creating issues or outright state that things have no lore to them at all. Personally I'd go for the second option and look to something like hitchhikers guide for inspiration but lighthearted hand waving might trigger even more of a response from the community.

 

[ph1Lt0r]

I think we're arguing semantics here. They're either 3d printed, or assembled from storage of parts. Regardless, we're going to be able to launch multiple ships wording be damned.

 

[Frambitam]

I'm fine with the mechanic if it's explained as an assembler quickly putting together a fighter from efficiently packed parts. The minute we start talking about 3D printing something as complex as a fighter ship is the minute I start asking why in the world those refineries need me to ship power generators from industrial economies.

 

[cheesenbiscuits]

For instance, if 3D printing can instantly create a fighter with engines and weapons and canopy, all in the cargo space of a ship, why doesn't every starport have the ability to make almost every module by 3D printer?

Who's saying they don't?
Maybe the blueprints are expensive or licensed.
Or maybe its a gameplay feature that has no bearing on the Elite universe.

 

[mossfoot]

I think we're arguing semantics here. They're either 3d printed, or assembled from storage of parts. Regardless, we're going to be able to launch multiple ships wording be damned.

Wording is important, however.

Engineers used to use "recipes" now it's "blueprints." There's a reason for that.

Remember, a game isn't just the sum of its code and mechanics. Language matters if you're creating a world. You could have released the original Elite without the thick lore-packed manual and it would still be the same game, but it wouldn't have had nearly as big an impact on players. And how the fiction "works" does matter if you're going to have things that extend beyond the game (such as books, comics, videos, etc. set in the universe).

You're right that it doesn't matter much from a certain point of view, one strictly focused on gameplay, but as a writer and editor by trade, I see how it can matter a whole hell of a lot down the road in other ways.