2019 October Reddit Q&A Compilation

[tomchk]

Is the ability to move the PHQ still on the cards? Reddit got blocked for security reasons when I was about halfway through reading, anything I may have missed about it further down?

I would like to know the answer to this too.

Me, too. They promised lots of new stuff for 3.0, but some of the original announcements did not get any attention... I get the feeling we won't be able to "hire" NPCs for travel yet from the answers, but perhaps HQ moving will still be possible. HQ came up a decent amount in the AMA.

[Scott C.]

I wanna know who these folks who don't want collision damage on at least player ships are

Thanks for the comp, op!

[Tomonor]

I wanna know who these folks who don't want collision damage on at least player ships are

Thanks for the comp, op!

*raises hand*

Lemme tell you an anecdote:
Around v1.1, I was entering Grand Exchange whatever through a superhighway. I slowed down a tiny bit, only to be met by a Magnetar speeding across me, thus destroying my ship in the process, leaving me with a Game Over sign.
Shortly after a similar happened but with reversed roles - the superhighway spat out my corvette with great speed and I kissed an XL ship in the process.

The collision damage would be cool if it was gradual or something like that - if the hulls met sparks would fly all over and your shields/hulls would be melting away slowly. But in this current, unpredictable form is not welcome imo.

[Axeface]

I wanna know who these folks who don't want collision damage on at least player ships are

Thanks for the comp, op!

Hi.
I'de be fine with damage or even damaged components/modules, just not death.

[radcapricorn]

The collision damage would be cool if it was gradual or something like that...

...or if the AI could actually fly

[Scott C.]

Lol
One of my favorite frustrations from previous games was the gate risk of spatting on big ships, and the cut off comms of the tiny when in a big ship of my own. Different strokes

[EmperorDragon]

I wanna know who these folks who don't want collision damage on at least player ships are

People don't want capital ships to enter gates from the back, ships should both enter and exit gates from the front.
At the same time people want collision damage on ships.
And the AI is not the best either.

What could possibly go wrong?

[Scott C.]

Meh... More is lost than gained by invincible ships.

No more fun zipping through stations to off pursuit you're outgunned by. No more thrill of spaceflight at all, really. No more autopilot risk. No more approaching a gate with a bit of caution as you'd expect necessary. No reason not to trust a 1 star boob flying your rig while you manage an empire from the passenger seat... Good grief, Epic DIDs were played aplenty without need of bumpercars, and short bus helmets. Only thing gained by this nerf is a reload here and there.

The AI wasn't Einstein'n it in previous games either, and folks managed. Seems to me the cap ship reroute was a stroke of genius, and would have been plenty solution for a minor issue of little consequence.

[xWolfzx]

Meh... More is lost than gained by invincible ships.

No more fun zipping through stations to off pursuit you're outgunned by. No more thrill of spaceflight at all, really. No more autopilot risk. No more approaching a gate with a bit of caution as you'd expect necessary. No reason not to trust a 1 star boob flying your rig while you manage an empire from the passenger seat... Good grief, Epic DIDs were played aplenty without need of bumpercars, and short bus helmets. Only thing gained by this nerf is a reload here and there.

The AI wasn't Einstein'n it in previous games either, and folks managed. Seems to me the cap ship reroute was a stroke of genius, and would have been plenty solution for a minor issue of little consequence.

No thanks, and from the above, to me it feels more like there is more gained than lost.

[Artean]

Meh... More is lost than gained by invincible ships.

No more fun zipping through stations to off pursuit you're outgunned by. No more thrill of spaceflight at all, really. No more autopilot risk. No more approaching a gate with a bit of caution as you'd expect necessary. No reason not to trust a 1 star boob flying your rig while you manage an empire from the passenger seat... Good grief, Epic DIDs were played aplenty without need of bumpercars, and short bus helmets. Only thing gained by this nerf is a reload here and there.

The AI wasn't Einstein'n it in previous games either, and folks managed. Seems to me the cap ship reroute was a stroke of genius, and would have been plenty solution for a minor issue of little consequence.

+1

I'm fine with some... accidents here and there.

[EmperorDragon]

The AI wasn't Einstein'n it in previous games either, and folks managed.

Ah yes, like small ships playing chicken with my Titans because neither of them had any concept of collision avoidance. Or a trader stuck behind an asteroid going back and forth, eventually crashing into it, instead of just flying around it. Or rebuilding/carefully placing complex construction kits to avoid ships constantly crashing into it and blowing up. Or going into your property menu every 2-3 hours to review and replace ships that crashed and blew up somewhere. And autopilot was called "autopillok" for a reason.

Yes, we managed but, at many moments it was frustrating AF. Many times progress was lost because ships had the piloting skills of a 3 year old. Not again, no thanks. I'd rather have bumper cars than idiot kamikaze pilots driving me up the walls.

[Scott C.]

*Reminiscing the days of danger, and consequence*

I have managed thousands of ships then, and now. There is less to do now. Not sure that's a good thing. Am sure that the depth feels off now. Perhaps it's the Californian in me... I feel a universe without idiots causing accidents is inherently wrong.

All's well though. I'd wrap with 'Safe flyin' too ya, but there's really no need is there.

[craigr1982]

Thanks a lot for the work putting all these q and a in an easy place to read!!

[Ezarkal]

Are there plans for addressing the map's awkward post-deep space exploration state (stays super out-zoomed)?
Bernd: The fact that the map zooms dynamically and per system is definitely not going to change. There was a bug in a previous version where some ships strayed off way too far away from systems and thereby making the map zoom out too much. Unfortunately it is hard for us to tell retroactively where this might have been caused by bug and where it was intentional exploration.

To me, the fact that the map stays super zoomed-out is actually a deterrent to exploration. I'm trying to keep my map UI as scaled-in as possible, for I find zooming in on every system every time you want to access a ship or station to be a pain in the butt.

It is still functional as it is, of course, but I find myself limiting my explorations, as well the time I spend drifting aimlessly in space while managing other stuff, and it removes a lot to the game I think.
Then I still end up with stuff like this. It's not a critical issue, but it can still be annoying.

What I think would be the ideal solution is having a map that will zoom out as you explore, but zoom back in if there's no player assets or known permanent NPC assets in the far reaches.
-It would still allow the players to explore all they want and expand the map as they see fit
-It would give another use to the nav beacons/satellite/resource probes: You found something nice, then mark it.
-It would however give the option to scale the map back to the center region. If you find the sector too zoomed out compare to the others, then pull your assets back to the center.

Of course, it's just an idea. I have no clue how tough or time-consuming it would be to implement the feature, and it still works as it is. But as I mentioned, for me, it's actually a deterrent regarding far-off exploration. I usually just find the NPC stations in the sector, then limit myself to that so I keep the sector map to what I consider a decent scale. I even go to the point of reloading a save from a couple hours earlier if I find out that one of my ships went too far off and zoomed out a sector too much.

[Scott C.]

+1 to what ^E said.

Would love for zoom to be limited to furthest mapped objects. This perma-zoom to the farthest-ever-reached-by-any-asset thing is annoying. That it can only be controlled by limiting your exporation, and even then unreliabe control, makes it more so.

[Axeface]

To me, the fact that the map stays super zoomed-out is actually a deterrent to exploration. I'm trying to keep my map UI as scaled-in as possible, for I find zooming in on every system every time you want to access a ship or station to be a pain in the butt.

Just want to say that I actually avoid exploration because of this too.

[tomchk]

We've got quite a lot of support for changing the map zoom functionality. I wonder if there's something else we should do to show the developers how many of us would like this changed. A poll?

[sd_jasper]

Most of my "zoomed out" sectors are because of my mining ships that decided the best haul was way out in the void...

I really like the idea that the map would shrink back if there are no objects in the area. If a player wants to mark off their exploration range... they can drop a beacon or satellite.

[Mr.Killer]

Shame I was not in the list, but I see that a lot of the actual needed questions are already asked, so gents at EGOSOFT, nice work, keep doing what you do, despite the little problems sometimes occur like falling through the ship in a looply way, or crew members that sit almost outside the bridge instead of on a chair, loading is sometimes a bit slow, but that's ok, besides the one time I had only a black screen, no moons, planets or stars = very eery... Saving is on the automatic very unpredictable, mostly while performing a close combat, or just entering a 'new' system, but I know I can shut that down, but maybe while the game is not doing much, then save it but let the controls keep available... that is really annoying, freezing pc thinking a crash occurs..... Think about that, maybe save while playing. As an example like in Generation Zero, small bits are continuously saved while playing....

Maybe speeding up torpedoes and missiles, as a part of R&D???
Maybe give more instructions to your flock of ships, like for an example to capture a ship, not wait all, but all participated go into action, move people to marines automatic and take out those turrets or damage the hull more. Working alone is sometimes a hard bone to chew, but if a team of differently positioned ships of your clan can act upon your command CAPTURE TARGET, then it would go much better...(Now sometimes ships in a fleet just sit and wait, or worse, turn around and go pick flowers or something..... )
Maybe the TELEPORT for persons, you (as in myself) generally, should also be available to all staff. Think about persons getting killed or shipped of to some station job, send signal to HQ, "I need staff!" and so this way HQ gives signal (the manager of it) to come closer and hold still or something....
I can go on, but, let 3.0 enter our space domain.......

Well, there are many other things, but as I said before, a lot of you people ask the right questions, thanks all....