Speed Outfitting

[shadragon]

I wanted to change from cargo delivery missions to bounty hunting in my Python last night.

Went into outfitting, stripped out my cargo bays, added SCB's, hull and module reinf's, collector limpet controllers, FSD interdictor, etc. Took me about ten minutes. Did my BH in the RES then spotted a series of decent cargo missions while refueling / repairing and reversed the process. Roughly 20% of my two hour game time was spent in outfitting.

What do you think of having preset builds? Three or four saved spots in outfitting where you can select profiles like "Trader," "PvP," "Exploration," "Passenger," builds etc. that you define. This would load selected modules into specific slots in one go, speeding up any outfitting dramatically. I tried to do a mock-up image, but my artistic skills are lacking.

So you can land with your ship being full of cargo bays, select the "Passenger" preset and your cargo bays are replaced with Passenger modules in a few seconds.

Caveats - You'd need the necessary modules stored at that station to load them. -OR- if missing, they could be purchased from the local outfitter, if present. -OR- you have the option to have missing modules delivered with standard fees and times. That option would be used just before logging off so when you log back on your ship is ready to go in the role you selected.

 

[S3B4ST13N]

Pre-set builds need to happen.

 

[Conch]

what we need is like the cargo lockers from Rust, press of the button and you switch the entire loadout.

 

[GraXXoR]

I hear ya!
I have over 30 ships... Sometimes takes me an hour to find all my bloody engineered modules. There needs to be a master inventory list, at least.

 

[khaos526]

Currently I have a spreadsheet that I take screen shots of all my modules in my ships and those in storage so I can see what I have and how I can swap things out. Having the preset would make that a whole lot easier than having to have different pages for different builds and finding which modules in storage go to what ship...

 

[Vasea Azure]

I like this so much - I even bought second Anaconda because I cant be bothered with switching outfits from explorer to combat. Outfitting presets are a great idea!

 

[Infiltrait0r]

Yes, good idea. A lot of mmorpgs already have a feature like this. Even Diablo 3.

 

[5 Puppis]

Related to this, is there a way to turn off animations when switching weapon loadouts? As nice as it is to watch a giant cannon pop in and out of a compartment on your ship's hull, it gets to be a bit of an annoying time waster after a while.

 

[Jethzk]

I'd like it if there was a way to change more than 1 component at a time. There's a way to mass store components, but no way to mass buy or sell. Simply allow people to select more than 1 module with checkboxes for what will be changed. When they buy, they buy for all the check boxes. If a larger component was selected than fits, downgrade to appropriate size (pending module availability).

 

[Achilles7]

It would be great if we could just click on a pre-set inc your engineered modules!

I once used up my entire - albeit short - gaming session of about 1.5hrs in outfitting - partially because I had thought one of my engineered modules had vanished - it hadn't, it was just the last place I looked! That really was a total waste of time.

Another classic is when at the station in a combat ship & a mission inc 4 CIF appears on the board, but also has some commodities attached as part of the reward...

Quick, quick! You've guessed it; by the time you've fitted the cargo rack, the mission has invariably disappeared!

Thanks Frontier! Yeah, I'm sure it's not deliberate & I'm also sure there is not a 'gaggle' - that is the collective noun, right? - of devs convulsing on the floor with laughter whenever this happens [blah]

 

[Vasco Sapien]

I wanted to change from cargo delivery missions to bounty hunting in my Python last night.

Went into outfitting, stripped out my cargo bays, added SCB's, hull and module reinf's, collector limpet controllers, FSD interdictor, etc. Took me about ten minutes. Did my BH in the RES then spotted a series of decent cargo missions while refueling / repairing and reversed the process. Roughly 20% of my two hour game time was spent in outfitting.

What do you think of having preset builds? Three or four saved spots in outfitting where you can select profiles like "Trader," "PvP," "Exploration," "Passenger," builds etc. that you define. This would load selected modules into specific slots in one go, speeding up any outfitting dramatically. I tried to do a mock-up image, but my artistic skills are lacking.

So you can land with your ship being full of cargo bays, select the "Passenger" preset and your cargo bays are replaced with Passenger modules in a few seconds.

Caveats - You'd need the necessary modules stored at that station to load them. -OR- if missing, they could be purchased from the local outfitter, if present. -OR- you have the option to have missing modules delivered with standard fees and times. That option would be used just before logging off so when you log back on your ship is ready to go in the role you selected.

I'd like to be able to name the modules i engineer. much like i can in a fantacy RPG when i can name a sword i bless or enchant.

I keep spreed sheets of my different modules but organising them in game is a chum bucket.

If i could label and name my modules and place them into folders and as you suggest Pre-build mcacro's this would be very useful.

 

[GJ51]

Just build a new ship...

 

[Crank Larson]

Well, no. Already swapping these modules is amazingly fast for gameplay reasons (you really think they can swap your AFM for a cargo rack at the click of a button?). If it becomes an issue, buy a new ship and kit it out for the specific purpose (I have a Python dedicated to mining - this also saves me having to store the mining gear in module storage).

While the UI for outfitting could certainly be improved, I don't think we need any more shortcuts. It takes me about 30 seconds to convert my Python between trader, trader/liner, bounty hunter - I only need to change optional internals.

 

[CMDR ANCALAGON]

I like the idea of being able to save and select load outs.

It seems like it would be a bit complicated to implement within the boundaries of the current game mechanics.

Say I have a highly engineered FSD, thrusters, and some hard points that I use for a few different "load outs" for three different ships. At the moment, my Anaconda is fitted for exploration and is largely empty, and I want to switch to my combat configuration. Most of my engineered HRMs are in storage at my current station, but one is on my FDL, as is the huge hardpoint that I want to use and the FDL is at another station. A handful of other modules are in storage at the same station as the FDL. The remaining modules are not in storage, but are available for purchase as the current station.

A part of this could work if I am presented with a window that shows the cost breakdown for transferring and purchasing all of the modules in storage at the other system, and that will be purchased at the current system. Not saying it would be easy, but paying to purchase and transfer modules from storage is existing functionality. The new bit here would be managing that in bulk.

The part that we don't have functionality for today is the modules that are currently fitted on the FDL. The "turn key" solution would be that I'm presented with the cost to transfer the modules from the FDL to my current storage, and if any of those are core internal modules, the cost to purchase a replacement would be included as well.

One problem that would need to be solved here is if I'm pulling the thursters from the FDL but the station where it is stored does not sell thrusters. The simplest solution would be that I would be notified that the transaction cannot be processed because of this, or that this one line item could not be completed.

I'm sure there are other challenges, but it does seem that how the availability of modules for the selected load out would be managed is a big one.

 

[StiTch]

I like the base idea, but it's begging for bugs and is a logistics nightmare.

What you COULD do is effectively tie in the "store all" function with adding modules; i.e., your available modules appears in a new window to the right, and you can select one or more and move them across to your ship. It basically condenses your outfitting to a single screen but lacks the ability to purchase modules from there.

I love the current outfitting for purchasing modules. It's a good experience in VR, and it'd suck to lose the whole thing to a 2d drag/drop experience. But what we have DOES suck when you're just juggling modules between ship and storage.

 

[Aashenfox]

This should be a thing. Although, honestly, I'd prefer if the whole interface were overhauled so that when you went into outfitting, you could see all your ships (docked at that station) as graphical representations, and every module could be dragged and dropped between them and an inventory window at will.

 

[Vasea Azure]

This should be a thing. Although, honestly, I'd prefer if the whole interface were overhauled so that when you went into outfitting, you could see all your ships (docked at that station) as graphical representations, and every module could be dragged and dropped between them and an inventory window at will.

A agree with this, we could start with UI overhaul. And let us disable animation for weapon switching. Simple 2d ship view and drag drop module it to the slot would be better imo.

 

[Urbanski101]

I believe module management and the current outfitting system is called emergent gameplay

The fact some players have spreadsheets to track and log all of their modules is interesting on a couple of levels....one that FDev didn't foresee and therefore develop better tools for outfitting / storage to cater for the bulk engineering of modules (UI, menus and organising data / stuff is something ED doesn't do well), second is that players actually have enough time not only invested in the game to warrant needing this function but also enough time on top of that to create and update a spreadsheet of their modules and loadouts.

I barely have enough time to run a single delivery mission these days.....oh to have more free time

 

[Kerrash]

I am normally onboard with ideas like this, but I fail to see how this offers much more than having multiple ships fitted?

 

[cTravisty]

I am normally onboard with ideas like this, but I fail to see how this offers much more than having multiple ships fitted?

Skipping the costs of the 'multiple ships'.