Telepresence is not necessary.

[smartroad]

I have been thinking of a solution to the telepresence 'issue' (one I don't actually mind even if it does create a few 'whaaa?!' moments). We have fast ship transit between stations, could there not be a small non-playable transport ship which is unarmed but with a huge FSD which allows jumps of like 100LY/jump that allows people to rapid transit around the bubble in order to accommodate building a crew for your ship? The ship is non-playable (aka flies on auto-pilot) and you have to pay to hire it (maybe a token gesture or the cost in fuel?). That way even if people are the other side of the bubble to each other there would be a transit time of only a few minutes to get across to each other. Then you could meet at a station or have the transport 'dock' with the PC ship and off you go.

It uses all the mechanics of the game as they are, allows for physical transport with only a minimum of wait time. The transport can be hailed anywhere you are, even in space, your ship then docks at the nearest space port/planet (if you are in space) and powers down to avoid detection.

Just a thought that will get lost in the flame baiting on the thread haha

 

[Captain N]

I have been thinking of a solution to the telepresence 'issue' (one I don't actually mind even if it does create a few 'whaaa?!' moments). We have fast ship transit between stations, could there not be a small non-playable transport ship which is unarmed but with a huge FSD which allows jumps of like 100LY/jump that allows people to rapid transit around the bubble in order to accommodate building a crew for your ship? The ship is non-playable (aka flies on auto-pilot) and you have to pay to hire it (maybe a token gesture or the cost in fuel?). That way even if people are the other side of the bubble to each other there would be a transit time of only a few minutes to get across to each other. Then you could meet at a station or have the transport 'dock' with the PC ship and off you go.

The scenario known as "passenger missions why"

 

[Darkfyre99]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Telepresence is in the game not merely because the devs were in a bind and this is their best attempt to reconcile gameplay requirements with lore, but because the devs genuinely think it's a cool and exciting concept. The enthusiasm behind Ed's initial pronouncement that "yes, it's telepresence!" speaks volumes. When you look at some of the other goofy-yet-convenient ideas that they've introduced, such as 3d-printed spaceships and the remotely controlled deployable fighters, it seems to me that we're watching George Lucas syndrome in action. I think that whoever is in charge of making these decisions is doing so under the delusion that they are brilliant Sci-Fi visionaries introducing bold and mind-blowing new concepts which enrich the lore of Elite. Moreso than the compromises themselves, it is the mentality behind them that disturbs me, and it does not bode well for the future of the game at all.

So yeah basically what someone else said: midiclorians.

Which is why I feel that this game is no longer an Elite game, but a generic space ship game with an Elite skin. The things that made it an Elite game are slowly being excised. More and more, the versimilitude of the early game is being sacrificed, in an effort to appease the instant gratification crowd. What I felt were the best parts of this game: travel, markets, exploration, the background sim, and most especially the "age of sail merged with 80's corporate dystopias, in SPACE!" aesthetic that made the Elite universe stand out from other sci-fi settings, are being removed, nerfed, or ignored.

Dangerous is an OK generic space ship game, and I'll keep playing it until a better game comes along, but I doubt I'll be sinking any more money into it. Thankfully, despite all the money I've spent on it, including the VR headset, it exceeds my "did this cost more per hour than a night out at the movies" test.

 

[Darkfyre99]

This is such a simple concept and yet whole groups of players (and, alas, some employees of FD) can't seem to wrap their heads around it.

Players and characters aren't the same thing, although their "experiences" within the game world can be parallel. If a player does something that also makes sense for a character within the game world, then they can be treated as one and the same for purposes of lore / immersion / call it what you will. But if something is happening to a character that would not make sense for, or would otherwise inconvenience, a player then the two are separated "because game" and no explanation is needed. Hence instant resurrection upon character death, zero wait time for refuelling or engineering or cargo loading etc. none of which needs an in-universe explanation because they are meta-universe events for the convenience of the player and would be impossible for a character to experience.

Why these simple rules weren't applied to multicrew I'll never know. I can only assume that someone didn't think through the implications of extending the already in-use telepresence to cover pan-galactic distances. Because that's the real problem isn't it? Not the technology but the distance. Remote control of SRV turrets over a couple of metres? Great. Remote piloting of drones over a couple of tens of kilometers? No problem. High bandwidth full duplex instantaneous data transfer across galactic distances? How can anyone not see how that massively stomps all over most of the rules under which the Elite galaxy, already peppered with minor inconsistencies, operates?

Why can I send text messages between characters at Sag A* and Lave but I can't transmit exploration data remotely? Because it's a restriction placed on the players so there'll be a value and risk attached to exploration data, and a need to return their characters to civilisation occasionally. And because if in-game communications wasn't available for characters, players would use out-of-game channels. Practical reasons. Gameplay reasons. No in-universe explanation necessary.

How can a character I'm controlling be flying my own ship one moment then manning a turret on someone else's ship thousands of light years away the next? To provide players with fun and engaging options. Practical reasons. Gameplay reasons. No in-universe explanation necessary.

Except for holograms and instantaneous telepresence apparently.

You hit the nail right on the head.

One of my underlying assumptions in Elite: Dangerous is that my character was doing things when I, as a player, wasn't logged into the game. All the instant things that happened in this game happen during the 164 hours a week when I'm usually not playing this game. When I'm playing from midnight to one server time, because that's my usual window to play this game, what I do in the game represents parts of my character's entire day, separated by the stuff that happens "off screen."

A great part of my frustration with Frontier Developments recently is that they don't think about how their "explanations" for acessability compromises should affect the rest of the game. A game's lore, its setting and history, helps shape the game's mechanics. It makes things internally consistent. Frontier lately has been doing the reverse, which IMO is a bad idea in general, and doing it badly.

For example: ship printing as an explanation for instant ship transfers. I had no problem with instant ship transfers. I would've assumed that she had made previous arrangements to have the ship meet her when she arrived at a station.

I had a huge problem with "3D printing" being the explanation for how it happened. If any station can 3D print any ship in the game, why doesn't every station, from the tiny outpost with a shipyard, to the largest ringed stations, offer every ship in the game for sale? Why can't you get every single module in the game in outfitting, if this technology exists? What is the point of having to hunt down the modules and ships you want, until you have access to Jameson Memorial, if any ship and module, complete with off market modifications, can be 3D printed?

It's the same with telepresence as an explanation for instant multi-crew. The technology required for telepresence to work at galactic scales makes most of this game's mechanics nonsensical. Why do data transport missions exist, if we have the FTL communications technology to make telepresence an option? Who in their right mind would consider paying a stranger lots of money to transport secure data aboard a ship that can be intercepted and destroyed, if two way encrypted communications is a thing? Why would Universal Cartographics not want to get the data you're gathering as fast as possible, to sell to developers, if this communications tech exists? How could the Pilots' Federation even hope to keep market data a secret anymore, when the technology exists to create an interstellar internet?

On the other hand, my character has thousands of hours of time during which I haven't played her, plus an additional 40 years before the start of her "new career" in 3300. Plenty of time for her to have spent time working as a crewmember aboard another's ship. She wisely invested the money she made in the past, which have only now matured.

There.

Instant multi-crew and the rewards they bring explained, no telepresence required.

Though I do prefer my alternate explanation: unregistered slaves, surgically altered to look like the Commander's friends, who are being used to con the locals into tripling the bounties they have to pay, thanks to an obscure clause in the Pilots' Federation's treaty. Anyone who uses instant multi-crew should be deeply ashamed of themselves.

 

[krylite]

I'm trying to be optimistic about this where hopefully telepresence is ditched down the road when spacelegs and other features are finished. I just have a theory that telepresence, the limited multicrew, and the 3rd person gunner arcadey view was mainly set as a goal asap before the PS4 version was released so that it would have some instant appeal for the PS4 multiplayer crowd. It was curious why they said having hirable NPC crew would defeat the purpose of multiplayer multicrew where I'm speculating a main goal of 2.3 was to appeal to the new multiplayer segment.

I'm guessing it goes down like this. A new PS4 player tries out ED. wow, cool, he flies around in a practically infinite universe with great space graphics. Since with 2.3, presumably the credit exploits are nerfed so new player can't get an Anaconda or a big ship in a few days. But no problem, he joins up as multicrew with seasoned players and they have a pew-pew fun time and make hundreds of thousands of credits in a few sessions so new PS4 player can upgrade to the middle-tier ships like the cobra and vultures. He tells his other PS4 friends about the game so they can meet up in multiplayer and more PS4 copies of ED are sold. After the novelty wears off, some or many of the PS4 players get tired of the pew and move on to other games in the console industry. Those that get hooked with ED learn the challenging reality of the "grind" for the cutter&corvette and the engineers, but also their gameplay awareness gets expanded and they learn what roleplaying PC hardcore gaming is about and realize further enjoyment of ED requires "building your own narrative" or waiting for seasons 3 to 10 and spacelegs gameplay like the rest of us. I bet Frontier has planned for all this. So 2.3's apparent direction could be very transitory and the limited multicrew features could be expanded on in the future with spacelegs. And hopefully the main impetus will get back on track for the original visions of seasons 3 and onward. There's a lot of framework out there. NPC ship hiring or convoy escorting missions, nav points, passenger megaships, escape pods. There's a lot of doors and windows in the backgrounds of the stations, planetary outposts, bunkers and bases and you can imagine walking into them to do some business or gameplay. You can hail npc ships, outposts and other things, but there's nothing there..yet. Chained missions could conceivably be a starting lead to all of those untapped possibilities.

 

[Trash Gordon]

Taking over the minds of NPCs is way past my threshold for acceptably weird, and I personally think meeting at stations and leaving together is perfectly fine. The more often you do multicrew, say if you have a regular arrangement with other players, the easier it is, because you won't find yourself 500 LY away. You'll always be next door, no problem.

Heres the thing you dont take over the mind of an NPC with your commander, you log in to a different commander(or crewmember) as a player.

 

[{SAS}Stalker]

They should add a crew transfer module to each ship which uses a modified version of the existing escape pod technology. Your commander has to lock on to the target ship then you get the warp count down before you appear in the instance of the target ship. If you really wanted you could allow a docking sequence similar to that if landing a a fighter. OK the process might take a couple of minutes but it would be gameplay minutes not just delay.

All problems solved.

 

[space pilot]

I think anyone who says that does not mean it literally. IF this happened you wouldnt be taking over the minds of npcs. For that session you woukd BE the npc no acceptibility for weird needed any more than its weird when you play GTA5 and play different characters

Heres the thing you dont take over the mind of an NPC with your commander, you log in to a different commander(or crewmember) as a player.

Lysander was suggesting actual NPC takeover. Agents in the Matrix style. I thought it was metaphorical at first, but no, hence my reply.

And if it's not actual, there's the realism issue of why you would get what the NPC earned, after you "log out" of controlling them. The same would apply to having your own doppelganger permanently on another ship. Unless it's an android, but that's functionally identical to telepresence as it would be "radio controlled".

Just seems to me the entire game is (was) supposed to be about distance in space and how you overcome it. All transport and exploration relies on distance being a challenge. Telepresence or logging into NPCs or whatever other excuse you have for not having to be there wrecks the idea of distance being important, and it almost makes me nauseous.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

And if it's not actual, there's the realism issue of why you would get what the NPC earned, after you "log out" of controlling them. d".

And here is the rub... The compromise that some players simply refuse to accept and this makes me sad.

IF you are controlling someones npc cr ew you DONT get thier money, you help them by levelling up heir npc and in return they return the favour for you. IF you want the money in your own pocket you meet up the same way we have done for wings for 2 years..... Options for all. Instant for those who want it mega profits for others who are prepared to make a bit more effort. A compromise for the sake of the consistency of the game imo.

And dont even get me started on the logic behind why if a 3 player anaconda already with magic pipps and a huge advantage pay LESS insurance than me on my own without the magic boosts and increased power muktiplayer offers.

 

[mbs357]

I really liked the idea of telepresence being used as a separate mode for commanders who want quick action. Instead of just teleporting to their friend's ship, they back out to menu and 'take control' of an NPC in their friend's ship. Kind of like Fable 2's multiplayer. You aren't your own hero/commander adding money and experience to your profile but rather just a nameless NPC under the control of a player.

Then when commanders want to actually join their friend's ship as themselves they can meet up in game and actually "walk" onto the ship.

 

[Blaize Meduenin]

Yup the playing the role of the captains crew is the way Ive been suggesting it be handled as well. Along with having npc crew puppets sat there doing idle animations when no multicrew is actually being used to have a populated bridge. Shouldn't be that hard as all the tools are there already to have an avatar sat in the chairs.

I would even be fine with having the player whos playing the role of the npc earning credits for their own commander, handwavaium meta gaming that really the commander is earning credits doing whatever.

As mad mike and darkfyre99 explained so well above, thats an example of something that isn't explained in game and doesn't need to be as it doesn't really matter and is just a meta game concern, unlike the fd devs stupid telepresence that makes a mess of lore and the logic of a consistant believable thematic game world.

 

[[VR] Merkir]

And here is the rub... The compromise that some players simply refuse to accept and this makes me sad.

IF you are controlling someones npc crew you DONT get thier money, you help them by levelling up heir npc and in return they return the favour for you. IF you want the money in your own pocket you meet up the same way we have done for wings for 2 years..... Options for all. Instant for those who want it mega profits for others who are prepared to make a bit more effort. A compromise for the sake of the consistency of the game imo.

This.

It seems a very good compromise. To anyone who objects to this compromise, could you give reasoning?

 

[space pilot]

This.

It seems a very good compromise. To anyone who objects to this compromise, could you give reasoning?

I don't object that strongly. It still irks me from the realism perspective, as it's totally meta-game: You're stepping out of your character and into another and presumably back later. In practice I think it would be mostly novelty, thus I question its necessity. Two people who really want to do MC can easily meet up, right, and if they don't really want to then not having NPC takeover isn't a major problem. But it bothers me much less than telepresence or earning for your character while playing NPCs.

 

[trollson]

Very late to this thread...

Telepresence is just a bad axiom for the game, bad sci-fi element. While it appears to solve an immediate game play problem, it also opens up a huge can of worms with respect to its consequences which break premises on which the current game world is built.

If an author had added this into a novel in this setting it would have been torn apart by the community.

Whatever ones views on "immersion", any setting must strive to be internally consistent else it risks becoming nonsensical. Even fantasy setting have to follow their own rules.

So please think again.

 

[CmdrChorusLindarr]

Very late to this thread...

Telepresence is just a bad axiom for the game, bad sci-fi element. While it appears to solve an immediate game play problem, it also opens up a huge can of worms with respect to its consequences which break premises on which the current game world is built.

If an author had added this into a novel in this setting it would have been torn apart by the community.

Whatever ones views on "immersion", any setting must strive to be internally consistent else it risks becoming nonsensical. Even fantasy setting have to follow their own rules.

So please think again.

A very eloquent and aptly put summary... for someone who is the offspring of a troll *wink*