Why is this NOT the way it is?

[Tarman]

which is always going to be there... due to PVP v PVE playstyles... may as well make it a TOOL rather than what it is currently. Your ship could be automatically be SWITCHED to solo if you timed out of your "Queue".

I wouldn't mind re-instancing people that pad hog, so that disappearing into the station for hours on end would eventually bump you to a quieter instance to prevent traffic blockages for players who are actually awake and playing, but moving people to another game mode entirely seems a bit pushy for very little effect. That seems like it'd make a lot of outgame annoyances such as having to reset your mode every time you blow out the timer.

 

[Stigbob]

Nope. It's a game, with only some aspects of simulation. Even the flight model has been hobbled for various reasons and is very 'gamey'. I made the mistake years ago of treating it like a sim than a game - it didn't end well. Once the realisation came that it's just a game - and unfortunately a multiplayer game with all the crud that entails - I became much more chilled about the whole thing.

Also, your idea wouldn't work anyway. The presence of a ship is generated by the presence of the player's game client in this P2P network schema the game runs under. FDEV would need to implement a client-server schema, and I think by now the vast majority of customers realise that that ain't gonna happen.

I do the same thing if I'm in "home space" so I have plenty of options for ships/outfitting/tasks when I next log in. If I'm off somewhere random then I never bother.

 

[Jack Schitt]

Yeah, I'm all for more realism but I'm not sure I'm ready for the fallout from Advanced Slit-Your-Throat-While-You-Sleep Simulator. And I'll bet good money that the Community Team aren't either.

 

[o2thaZ]

iam sorry but...

Spoiler

dumbest idea of 2019

 

[Jaggedmallard]

Yeah, I'm all for more realism but I'm not sure I'm ready for the fallout from Advanced Slit-Your-Throat-While-You-Sleep Simulator. And I'll bet good money that the Community Team aren't either.

I played a browser menu based space sim once with that mechanic, I killed someone who was offline and then the player group in charge of that region had me work as a water hauling slave for several weeks to mitigate the damage I did to their system doing so. They killed me while I was offline anyway.
The memory has stuck with me for a while which probably says something.

 

[Morbad]

I wouldn't mind re-instancing people that pad hog, so that disappearing into the station for hours on end would eventually bump you to a quieter instance to prevent traffic blockages for players who are actually awake and playing, but moving people to another game mode entirely seems a bit pushy for very little effect. That seems like it'd make a lot of outgame annoyances such as having to reset your mode every time you blow out the timer.

Having to mode switch because traffic control allows pads to be occupied indefinitely is an out of game annoyance and poor substitute for gameplay that I've been complaining against since 2014.

I wouldn't have the game reinstance anyone. I'd have station traffic control forcibly launch any ship that was holding up traffic and then blow it up once the tresspass timer expired, if they didn't get moving.

Station traffic control should be serious business. Stations live or die based on their ability to import supplies, export wastes, conduct trade, service vessels, and maintain CAPs. They'll blow you up for loitering if you're not docked and they should be just as willing to blow you up for leaving your ship parked in a spot that more productive traffic requires.

I'm fairly indifferent to extreme degree of persistence advocated in the OP--leaving the instance when logging off seems like an entirely reasonable abstraction to me--but requiring, or even incentivizing, mode switching as part of gameplay has always been absurd.

 

[Tarman]

Having to mode switch because traffic control allows pads to be occupied indefinitely is an out of game annoyance and poor substitute for gameplay that I've been complaining against since 2014.

I wouldn't have the game reinstance anyone. I'd have station traffic control forcibly launch any ship that was holding up traffic and then blow it up once the tresspass timer expired, if they didn't get moving.

Station traffic control should be serious business. Stations live or die based on their ability to import supplies, export wastes, conduct trade, service vessels, and maintain CAPs. They'll blow you up for loitering if you're not docked and they should be just as willing to blow you up for leaving your ship parked in a spot that more productive traffic requires.

I'm fairly indifferent to extreme degree of persistence advocated in the OP--leaving the instance when logging off seems like an entirely reasonable abstraction to me--but requiring, or even incentivizing, mode switching as part of gameplay has always been absurd.

Normally I'm in tune with the vast majority of your posts, and am still onboard with your concern about not incentivizing modeswitching, but not your solution. I don't like the idea of forcibly ejecting someone who may be doing legit stuff on the pad that requires an undefined amount of time, like poking at the Galmap or doing some serious outfitting. Those activities should not be a time-trial based on someone else's clock.

That's why I'd prefer reinstancing the parked pilots. It's not another pilot's decision as to the productivity of my pad business, which could potentially send me to the rebuy screen or at the least just kick me out into space because I'm reviewing market prices or going over the kit on half my fleet.

 

[Morbad]

I don't like the idea of forcibly ejecting someone who may be doing legit stuff on the pad that requires an undefined amount of time, like poking at the Galmap or doing some serious outfitting. Those activities should not be a time-trial based on someone else's clock.

There should be a clear warning that the queue timer has started, no matter what menu someone is in, and doing heavy outfitting or poking around in the map while docked at a high traffic station should be discouraged.

Of course, anything that doesn't require the transfer of physical fuel, ammunition, repair parts, modules, or cargo shouldn't mandate that one actually be docked either. Short range/sublight encripted commuinications would more than suffice for most tasks.

If the game had a real economy we could even have metered parking with rates that varied with occupancy.

It's not another pilot's decision as to the productivity of my pad business

Of course not, it's the station's decision.

There could be some flexibility depending on mission, reputation, prior scheduling, etc, but the overwhelming majority of things one needs a station for can be done very quickly and in a high-traffic scenario a station allowing anyone indefinite occupancy is highly dubious.

 

[Tarman]

There should be a clear warning that the queue timer has started, no matter what menu someone is in, and doing heavy outfitting or poking around in the map while docked at a high traffic station should be discouraged.

Of course, anything that doesn't require the transfer of physical fuel, ammunition, repair parts, modules, or cargo shouldn't mandate that one actually be docked either. Short range/sublight encripted commuinications would more than suffice for most tasks.

If the game had a real economy we could even have metered parking with rates that varied with occupancy.



Of course not, it's the station's decision.

There could be some flexibility depending on mission, reputation, prior scheduling, etc, but the overwhelming majority of things one needs a station for can be done very quickly and in a high-traffic scenario a station allowing anyone indefinite occupancy is highly dubious.

In terms of ingame realism, yeah, I get where you're coming from. Three years ago I would have agreed with you, but I think much of Fleet Detailed Realism has jumped beyond Sag A* by now; I personally miss RRR Costs and Deep Gravity Wells, good ships long since departed.

At this stage I'd rather just fix the problem of pad hogging with the least amount of fuss from all involved.

 

[Seizewell Warrior]

Thumbs down from me. I only fly in Solo, but even so I might have to log off in a hurry, e.g. knock at the door, wife wants to use the PC and doesn't leave any time to find a safe berth for the boat.

 

[Sylow]

Yes, it would either automatically launch people or impound their ship. The whole point of queue is to keep traffic moving, not to stall it; there would be no purpose to it otherwise. I'm not sure what's hard to grasp...if there is only one way something can work, why repeatedly assume something other than that?

Personally, I'd have no time limit until all pads of a given size were filled, then the next docking request would start a first-in-first-out queue and the first one to have docked on that pad size would have three minutes to leave. If more docking requests come in the next longest person would the have three minutes to leave and so on. I'd also reduce the time to dock counter during full occupancy to a similar three minutes and limit the number of docking requests that could be issued in a given period of time. You would need a phenomenally high flow of traffic, probably more than instancing would even support, to need to wait more than five minutes for a pad, even if NPCs didn't automatically surrender theirs.

We should already have such a system, both because the current system where a handful of ships can completely lock out an outpost is absurd, and so logging out and back in isn't a required facet of 'gameplay' when someone is hogging a pad.

So in combination with what the OP wrote, you propose a system where anybody logging of is punished for being a sucker who actually has to sleep, work or do anything outside of the game? The game should be the one and only aspect to care for and if you can't dedicate all of your life for it, you need to be punished and better never return? Seriously?

 

[Morbad]

So in combination with what the OP wrote, you propose a system where anybody logging of is punished for being a sucker who actually has to sleep, work or do anything outside of the game? The game should be the one and only aspect to care for and if you can't dedicate all of your life for it, you need to be punished and better never return? Seriously?

No, not at all, and yes.

 

[Stealthie]

There should be a clear warning that the queue timer has started, no matter what menu someone is in, and doing heavy outfitting or poking around in the map while docked at a high traffic station should be discouraged.

Of course, anything that doesn't require the transfer of physical fuel, ammunition, repair parts, modules, or cargo shouldn't mandate that one actually be docked either. Short range/sublight encripted commuinications would more than suffice for most tasks.

If the game had a real economy we could even have metered parking with rates that varied with occupancy.

Of course not, it's the station's decision.

There could be some flexibility depending on mission, reputation, prior scheduling, etc, but the overwhelming majority of things one needs a station for can be done very quickly and in a high-traffic scenario a station allowing anyone indefinite occupancy is highly dubious.

All good stuff.

I'd definitely like to see something as a reward for stuff like being allied to a faction or superpower and having superpower rank too.
Seems reasonable that a King in the imp' navy, for example, might be granted more time on a landing pad in Achenar than some pleb' who's never been there before or, even worse, is a fed'.

Also, perhaps there could be a new "storage" level in big stations?
You stay on the pad or in the hangar and you risk getting kicked out if somebody else requests landing.
If you enter "storage", you can stay as long as you like but you're de-instanced and your notoriety doesn't reduce while you're in "storage".

 

[Leadfoot]

This is a simulation, correct? Why are our ships not left live when we log off?

This is the first and only MMO I've ever played, however the suggestion that our ship remain where it is if we log off is not practical. As I understand it, if you're playing WoW and you log off, your character vanishes from the sandbox, does it not? You know why, right? The reason would be the same for any other MMO, including this one.

 

[Jenner]

Technical issues that would prevent this aside, I don't see how it would improve my enjoyment of the game in any way.

I worry about feeding parking meters and leaving my car in dodgy areas IRL. Don't need to do it in my entertainment.

 

[znôrt]

This is a simulation, correct? Why are our ships not left live when we log off? I think, just like in a real life simulation, our ships should maintain a full-time LIVE presence within the game. It would encourage players to consider more closely where & how they log off (leave their ship). Pads are already a safe haven, regular space is already where you load in, thus having us "leave it that way" would add depth to the simulation. Landing on a planet would be pretty safe as NO ONE could ever just accidentally happen upon you in this HUGE galaxy. Also, falling asleep at the stick could cause your death (run out of fuel). All of these changes (one) would add SOOOO MUCHHH to the game. So again, I ask, why is Elite Dangerous NoT this way???

first, it would require a server infrastructure that frontier isn't ready to cough up (they would rather invest in other franchises and this works, so why bother).

second, you had me at realism but be ready to say goodbye to about 97.8% of the playerbase.

 

[Schmack]

So when you land on a planet and dismiss your ship, someone should be able to destroy it while it's in orbit?

 

[Morbad]

So when you land on a planet and dismiss your ship, someone should be able to destroy it while it's in orbit?

That would require they be able to find it.

With the currently non-existent mechanisms to track CMDRs in normal space, I could go afk a few hundred km over a planet in a system with a thousand CMDRs in it, give everyone in system chat my lat and longitude to within one degree, then go AFK for a week with nothing but life support powered and almost certainly return to an unscathed ship.

This is why such persistence is largely pointless and it's effects can just be abstracted away. If there was actually a way to find CMDRs, then maybe that level of persistence would be interesting.

 

[M00ka]

So what happens to some poor Commander who is out exploring on the edge of nothingness exploring. There may be no suitable planets for him to land on (if he has Horizons that is, if not, well he is well and truly screwed). So his only solution is to log off whilst in space - correct? Now with the OP's 'brilliant' idea, that Commander will have to log back on regularly to refuel. So what if the Commander can't log back in, for some real life reason they have to go away, or just can't log back on. Or they do manage to log back in only to find they are in a system with a non-scoopable star and don't have sufficient fuel to jump out of the system.

I can see how the OP's idea would work in the bubble, but not everyone plays in the bubble to they!

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

yours and every other nay in this thread, hinge on inconveniences solely inflicted on the CMDR. NONE OF WHICH touch the mention of the opening line in OP. Simulation... its not about what is CONVENIENT for you as a player, its about REALISM.

This game isn't close to being a simulation of life. A galaxy simulation, yes, but not a space life simulation. It's not even a space flight simulation.

Realism often does not equal a fun game. I don't want to have to worry or stress about something happening to my ship(s) in game, while I'm at work, and unable to do anything about it until my next day off.

There are plenty of things in this game that can be made more realistic, and fun.
But some whacky persistent CMDR nonsense is not one of them.

Sounds to me like you just want another way to troll CMDRs.