So what "mechanism" are you going to explain how your Commander can physically jump up to many thousands of light-years between the location where your ships are docked in the time it takes to reload the game? Seriously, your idea could only be accommodated by supporting "telepresence" - so LOL all you like.
:-(
Ok, like I said my commander would not magically do anything, including anything with unicorns.
What he would do is book passage on a passenger liner from where he is docked to where another one of his ships are docked.
The time it takes could be the same as ship transfers - I really don't care since I work a full time job and meet up with friends on a regular basis a couple of evenings a week, so I'm almost always offline for more than 8 hours.
While I would prefer to book my commanders trip retroactively, so say if the wife goes to bed early on a night I don't usually play, I can boot up the game and find our where my friends are and then choose to spawn in my closest ship... to which my commander could have taken a liner to while I was offline. This is much preferred than wasting the first 15 minutes of gameplay traveling to them. (This is why most all open world games have fast travel, and why Multicrew has it)
But even if I could log in before breakfast and book my commander a paid trip back to the bubble for that evenings game session, it would be better than what we have today.
Any form of "instant" travel is going to negate just about everything ED is all about. Otherwise we will have players in Saggy-A suddenly materialising in Ceos... The only exception to that is destruction/rebuy which transmutes you back instantly in time but I'm guessing that's only because anything other than that would raise a massive hue and cry.
How many times has some explorer said they've gotten bored with exploring and self destructed so they could respawn back home.
Yeah, it costs a little cash but not really very much if you've been playing for awhile and never fly without rebuy.
So yeah, instant travel (something I'm not asking for) is ALREADY in the game.
Such a suggestion is not only contrary to the spirit/intent of the game and series, but it opens a whole array of possible exploits, increases the potential for griefing, reduces the scale of the galaxy, and turns ED into little more than an arcade game. You might as well reduce the galaxy to just 20 or 30 systems and have done with it.
Let's see - no, no, no, wrong, wrong, nope.
Why? Because fast travel already exists in the game including in self inflicted death, and in multicrew.
Understandable that some want instant access / action and that's the obstacle FD are facing when building this title
Just btw, nobody is asking for "instant win" so you missed something?
I do know people who only play solo have no idea how frustrating it is to have to spend the first 10-15% of a game session mindlessly mashing buttons, but those of us who do like to play in wings know it all too well.
While exploring I paid for a different account. One doing exploration while the other one in the bubble. So I can do what I want whenever I want and it supports Frontier add-ons.
Yes - if I could have two commanders/users in game that could share stuff (like most open world games made this decade) then I could leave my worker at one station and my multiplayer dude at another and choose which to use.
But we can't.
However, flying from A to Z to B just because I want to change my gameplay style for a session is extremely limiting. My gameplay session is often over by the time I've done that.
Totally hear that
in regard to the posts which suggest we already have instant unrealistic "stuff" in the game, yes we do but they're not open to any possible exploitation, instant cargo transfer, instant fuel, paint, etc are there for time-saving reasons.
The things in the game that are instant are to save our playing time and if something could be exploited, it will be, human nature after all
Instant transfer by self destructing and multicrew can already be exploited.
Don't honestly see how me paying to ship my commander somewhere to avoid spending 10-15% of my game session mashing the same button over and over again wouldn't be saving time and allowing more gameplay.
Logging out of one ship and back in in another ship, as proposed, is effectively instant
I'd be fine if there was a delay and cost like with ship transfers, even if I had to make the choice and pay before logging out.
Better for my commander to sleep on a passenger liner while I'm asleep, than me having to pretend humans never ever would pay someone else to drive them somewhere.
It sounds like the OP needs to file a support ticket to inquire after his missing "I win" button.
There it is! We have a loser!
What is being asked for seems (to me, at least) a lot like going to sleep at your home in one location, and waking up at a different home half way around the world.
Have you never taking a plane trip? You can literally take a nap and be half way around the world.
But that might be too much realism for Elite, right?
It's a game.
I'd like more accessibility to various aspects of the game without sacrificing half my game time to changing ship.
I'm fickle, I like to do different things, I like to avoid repetitive game loops. Doing so punishes me.
Going to sleep tonight in the Pleiades after helping to repair a station, and waking up tomorrow to do some mining in Delkar makes no difference to anyone except me.
Agreed. And who wouldn't mind spending some credits to take a liner versus flying themselves.
Having driven to Florida from Mass a few times, I now only fly because driving for 24 hours isn't worth the money I save.
None of which bypass the need to participate in the various activities actually required to achieve the less benign use cases.
There's no fast-tracking cargo delivery, mission completion, BGS work, or anything else.
Merely the convenience of being able to start that activity when you want to, provided you've made the prior effort to put a suitable ship in that location (which is why I feel differently on this subject compared to instant ship transfer).
Agreed
I once suggested the idea of allowing our CMDRs to be transported using a similar mechanic like we have for ship transfer. We would basically be passengers like the NPCs in the Passenger Lounge. I'm opposed to instant travel, for the reasons others have stated in this thread, but what if my CMDR buys a ticket on a shuttle that takes me to one of my other ships? It's not instant travel, as there would be a time delay involved (just like ship transfer), but you could jump on a transport before dinner, eat, and then come back to the game in the system you want to be in, assuming you're not taking a transport to Colonia (61 hours for that trip). It's not exactly what you are asking for, but it does take away the tedium you speak of while not breaking the "rules" of the ED online galaxy.
Please - I'll take it!
Yeah, even if I can't do it retroactively please please let me ship my commander somewhere I already have a ship so I don't have to keep driving like I'm a taxi cab driver - I'll pay to be driven!
Dang, I even leave my TV and PC/XBOX/PS4 on if you want!
Well, when people say "realism" in relation to games, most of the times it's in the context in the game's world/universe... When it comes to Elite, Frame Shift Drive is very much a REAL thing. Teleportation isn't however. If you dock at a station, you can't just magically appear at a different station next day.
Now, I am not opposed to the idea as a whole, as long as it's justified in game's reality terms.
Example: When the following conditions are met:
1) You are docked
2) You are logging out
Before you log out you can choose to pay some amount of money for a passenger transport. Upon next log in you can choose to start in any system you have a ship docked at.
But I say NO to anything that's not realistic in the context of the game's world. (Yes, I am fully aware there are things like that in game already, but I am still strictly opposed to putting more of them in game).
Part 1) Instant transportation is in the game already - don't like where you flew? Just self destruct and pay a fraction of your ship cost. Or join someone else in MC.
Part 2) When I'm docked and logging out - OK I'll buy that ticket back to one of my other ships - sell it to me please!
I'd much rather see the option to send your CMDR to another station via the same transfer mechanic used for ships (just the other way around).
To avoid any exploits:
1. You must dock at a starport with a shipyard, and can only travel to a starport that currently has one of your ships stored.
2. You may have no ongoing/active missions when commencing your journey.
3. You may not have any cargo aboard your current ship.
4. You pay a fee based on distance to your destination (same system as with ship transfer)
Why would I like to see something like this?
A) It's immersive and lore friendly - I mean, it's not like all those passenger ships ONLY carry tourists... What would be the point of business class then? (Plus we had a CG to build three stations between the bubble to Colonia for the creation of a "freight and passenger transportation service known as the Blue Star Line")
B) A player can head out to Colonia with a ship, then decide to head back to the bubble via transit (which in this "extreme" case would take a couple of days to complete). That makes it possible for CMDRs who have limited time, to also travel greater distances in the game.
SIGN ME UP!
This is the key - I'm not arguing to reduce the travel time required while engaged in a specific gameplay activities, but to remove the travel between gameplay activities.
ED is a very large play area - good thing.
ED has a wide variety of activities to do - good thing.
ED has a high level of equipment specialization - good thing.
However, all these features promote and highlight the significant flaw in the game design.
Taken individually, most of the game activities are repetitive.
The game actively rewards you if you highly specialize a ship for a very specific task and grind it to death in one specific location for a significant period of time.
I enjoy most of the activities in the game up to a certain point, and then I feel like I need a change of pace.
That means I can do various things:
- I can trend towards multi-role ships that can do a bit of everything but not as well as more specialized ships.
- I can spend a great deal of my game time shleping between bases to swap into a ship suited for the thing I want to do next.
- I can taxi around and waste valuable time and money transferring the ship I want to use.
To take advantage of the proposal I still need to actively engage with all the key elements of the game:
- Purchase, equip, and engineer ships suited to the activities I want to do.
- Find locations suited to those activities and move the relevant ship to them.
- For movable feasts like CGs, and Damaged Stations, I need to follow the events in the relevant ships.
- To achieve anything in the game, I still need to participate in the activities required to achieve them.
The proposal actively encourages more participation in more things for those who don't want a single activity to consume the entire game.
There are people who want to go to Beagle Point, but the idea of committing a week or more (at a leisurely pace) to doing it is off-putting.
There are people who enjoy combat, but an hour or two at a time is enough.
There are people who like to participate in Trade CGs, but 4 or 5 round trips is enough.
There are people who would like to use more specialized ships more often but don't want to fully commit to that gameplay style.
There are people who want to engage the Thargoids but spending all your time in an AX-equipped ship that can't do anything else is off-putting.
The proposal makes all of the gameplay far more accessible and would likely increase player retention and possibly adoption.
I see far more upsides to this than downsides.
Well written
I think it could be done without breaking the RP, the Commander could choose to start at any of the stations/outpost/settlements where he has a parked ship but if thats not his last location them he must pay a fee for the transport to the new location, something similar to the ships transport, but instead this should take place immediately, it would be considered that the Commander made that trip since the last log off. We also should have the option to request a ship to be delivered at any know station and not only to call it to the station we are.
Yes - please give me that option
Your original argument is flawed. "Teleportation" does exist in this game. Whatever science instantly "teleports" my CMDR back to the Bubble when my ship explodes thousands of lightyears away could easily "teleport" me from one station to another in the Bubble. I'm not advocating for the latter, I'm just saying that this technology does exist in ED.
Agreed
Yup. And we can holo-me ourselves into ships that are 50,000 ly away and control almost everything except just flying the ship (depending on what the owner allows). That magic is already happening, so it's not stretch to go all the way and consider all game play as tele-presence anyway. And we can change our own holo-me appearance... in our own ship. Makes you wonder if we're not just all tele-presence all the time in the game...
Good point
Well, I think I've said my piece on this one - fly safe commanders o7