Telepresence Missions

DemiserofD

D
Telepresence is an under-utilized aspect of Elite. We have the ability to ansible our way into a ship halfway across the galaxy, but we need to fly 10 minutes to do a mission?

There's great potential for missions taking place entirely via telepresence. For example:

Alliance Defense Contract
An Alliance freighter is being attacked by pirates! There's no time to get there in person, but they have an inactive fighter bay. Telepresence into their Taipan and kill the pirates, or at least buy enough time for the freighter to conduct repairs and get away.

Federal Pilots Needed!
Following an outbreak of Space Flu, the Federal Capital Ship Enterprise needs qualified pilots to telepresence into fighters and win the conflict zone. Do your part, support the Federation!

That sort of thing! Some missions would need to be done very soon; others could be taken and done a while later. For example, you could take a mission, then plot an APEX, and once onboard, telepresence into the fighter and do the mission while the APEX flies to your destination! Get from point A to point B in style, while blowing up pirates half the bubble away!

This could really help to liven up long trips and make the game a bit more engaging to newer players.
 

V'larr

V'larr
As someone who has despised the term 'telepresence' ever since it was introduced to Elite, I sincerely hope this suggestion is satire.

Maybe these ideas would be suitable for extended tutorial modes, a re-imagining of CQC, or even some sort of new offline mode. But if this is made in earnest, I do not support the notion of waving aside the core facet of travel in this game.
 

DemiserofD

D
V'larr said:
As someone who has despised the term 'telepresence' ever since it was introduced to Elite, I sincerely hope this suggestion is satire.

Maybe these ideas would be suitable for extended tutorial modes, a re-imagining of CQC, or even some sort of new offline mode. But if this is made in earnest, I do not support the notion of waving aside the core facet of travel in this game.
Click to expand...

Why would it be satire? Telepresence is a core bit of lore, involved in multiple parts of the game.

And it's a great way to overcome one of the biggest complaints people have, that being the long travel times. I personally quit at first because of them, and I know several players who quit for the same reason. Allowing them the ability to jump right into the action uses well-established canonical mechanics and fixes that problem, so it seems like a shoe-in.

Disliking telepresence seems kinda like disliking the Force in Star Wars because it's 'unrealistic'.
 

V'larr

V'larr
DemiserofD said:
Why would it be satire? Telepresence is a core bit of lore, involved in multiple parts of the game.

And it's a great way to overcome one of the biggest complaints people have, that being the long travel times. I personally quit at first because of them, and I know several players who quit for the same reason. Allowing them the ability to jump right into the action uses well-established canonical mechanics and fixes that problem, so it seems like a shoe-in.

Disliking telepresence seems kinda like disliking the Force in Star Wars because it's 'unrealistic'.
Click to expand...
I cannot adequately express the displeasure it brings me to witness "telepresence" described as a "core bit of lore" in the game.

Yes, the long travel times can be a turn-off...one of the threads in my signature aims to address one of the bigger contributors to that, which is the acceleration rate cap present in supercruise (which is why heading to destinations more than ~1.5k ls away takes so long).

But the game has been shrunk many times over now by jump range power creep. Engineering, synthesis, neutron boosts, fleet carriers; journeys that used to be week long undertakings can be done within the span of a few hours. Travel has become more trivial than ever.

Part of the whole selling point of the game is getting to experience a 1:1 shared simulation of our real galaxy. The "force" in Star Wars is an established part of that universe, so it is integral to its 'authenticity'. If you can just teleport anywhere you desire at a moment's notice, you're breaking any semblance of authenticity and permanence to traversing our galaxy - to say nothing of the potential balance problems that might introduce. (Fleet carriers alone have had a massive impact on the game's balance, as it stands.)

There have been several threads throughout the years that highlight the silliness and inconsistencies brought on by adoption of the term "telepresence" in the game. The term never needed to be introduced in the first place - people don't need a canonical explanation for being able to play with their friends on their friends' ship.

Again, your ideas are not bad, and I think there are ways they could be implemented correctly. But I do not see "telepresence" as the way.
 

Indy Original

Indy Original
I hate telepresence too, but there's no reason why the OP's suggestions couldn't be implemented without it - for example, imagine if the dockable megaships had unique missions that allowed you to pilot one of their SLFs to repel a pirate attack, or something... there could even be similar missions for Outposts, with the SLFs being launched from the 'Authorised Craft Only' airlock!

(Besides, Ship Launched Fighters are remote-controlled drones anyway... and while the ones that we can launch from our ships might only have a relatively short 30 km range, I can imagine there could be some kind of advanced military communications equipment that would allow players to control fighters from halfway across a star system, which would allow us to remotely take part in combat zones by flying the fighters launched by a capital ship, just like the OP suggested... it could certainly be made to work, and without any bitter telepresence aftertaste at all!)
 

zikolach

zikolach
Just had another idea of telepresence mission...

  • It could be an NPC trader looking for help to remotely control one of the ships in convoy to deliver cargo.
  • Imagine a fleet of cargo ships (T9) semi-engineered and one of them is controlled by player who took the mission.
  • It could be a choice to be made by commander to select a ship outfitting (one of few variants provided at the beginning of mission).
  • Then follow the route visiting one destination to load cargo, then planning a route to the final destination taking stops to refuel/repair.
  • There could be multiple attempts to be made by pirates to try attacking the convoy.
  • And the task for player would be to prevent stealing as much cargo as possible, trying to cover other ships in convoy and coordinate mission progress (meaning that other ships will try to follow the player or using some commands similar to controlling SLF but via contacts panel).
  • It could be multiple variants including cargo and passenger transportation.

This way players would:
  • get an opportunity to temporarily control ships they potentially not yet own (new experience).
  • not be risking their own ships (rebuy) in case of PvP interaction.
  • visit distant parts of the inhabited space without need to physically fly there (even playing solo).
 
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