Taxi missions: How to transfer passengers between ships?

[Whatever0815]

Hi there.

How do I transfer a taxi mission passenger from one ship to another ?

While I certainly appreciate Mr. Colen Kellar's good taste in ships, as he doesn't want to leave my Nemesis for some S tin can, I fear, that his stubbornness will get him stranded again.

I'm playing 4.10. Used a custom (no) budged spacesuit start, fwiw. I've accepted a mission to taxi someone back to his ship, alas, my M class can't dock on the target ship. Yes, it says so in the mission briefing.

So I docked on a nearby station, called in some S ship (3 free seats), and tried to transfer the passenger from the M to the S. I tried to comm the passenger, the comm window appears, but immediately closes. I took the pilot seat in the S, I tried the context menus on the ships, restarted the game, even went to the target ship in the spacesuit, but found no way to transfer the passenger from the M to the S.

Edit: Typo. "Yes, it says _to_" to "Yes, it says so".

[SirConnery]

I don't think there's a way to transfer a passenger from one ship to another. I guess she'll be enjoying the benefits of old age on your ship.

[Alan Phipps]

You are not alone (in more ways than one ).

Another way for for the devs to consider if ship-to-ship taxi passenger transfers (or selling them into slavery) will never be enabled is for the mission to time out eventually and the taxi passenger to disembark at the next station landed at after that (probably after trashing your cabin furniture).

[Whatever0815]

Thanks -- I found at least two postings referring to this, but decided to raise it again with different wording, so it may be easier to find.

Would have really liked to put Mr. Kellar into a suit and personally drag him over to his ship in free space as a last resort. D*rn safety-regulations.

[Nanook]

Stupid passenger! They should've refused to get on the larger ship.

[Take note, Mission Designer Dev. ]

[Ketraar]

Why would the Passenger care? The mission tells you what to expect its YOUR choice to take the mission. Sure all missions could be designed to not be possible to fail...

MFG

Ketraar

[Nanook]

Silly excuse, it's the passengers fault. They wouldn't have been fooled back in the X3 days. They simply wouldn't have gotten on the wrong type ship. They, better than the player, should know what type of ship they want to go to. Seems the X4 passengers are a lot dumber, for some reason.

If indeed this is intended gameplay, then I think there should still be some sort of warning, unless you want new players to just get frustrated by missions that can't be completed. A simple check would solve all these issues without making excuses that it's the player's fault. A better solution would be for the NPC in question to make some demeaning remark about the player's intelligence and just fail the mission right there, rather than have them stuck on the player's ship for an indeterminate amount of time before simply disappearing. Don'tcha think?

[Ketraar]

They wouldn't have been fooled back in the X3 days. They simply wouldn't have gotten on the wrong type ship.

You are confusing things. In X3 the passenger DEMANDED a specific ship, here they just want to go somewhere, the info just informs the player that the target ship only has an S dock. The NPC does NOT demand a ship type.

then I think there should still be some sort of warning

Not sure if you are being funny...

I've accepted a mission to taxi someone back to his ship, alas, my M class can't dock on the target ship. Yes, it says so in the mission briefing.

MFG

Ketraar

[Panos]

Seems the X4 passengers are a lot dumber, for some reason.

Hence they deserve to be thrown out of the airlock when cancelling the mission

And they are indeed dumber because in 4.10 when getting the bonus L miners from HOP, there are passengers in the vessels. I just make them work in the galleys

[Whatever0815]

They wouldn't have been fooled back in the X3 days. They simply wouldn't have gotten on the wrong type ship.

You are confusing things. In X3 the passenger DEMANDED a specific ship, here they just want to go somewhere, the info just informs the player that the target ship only has an S dock. The NPC does NOT demand a ship type.

then I think there should still be some sort of warning

Not sure if you are being funny...

I've accepted a mission to taxi someone back to his ship, alas, my M class can't dock on the target ship. Yes, it says so in the mission briefing.

MFG

Ketraar

It just says, that the target ship does not have M docks. The confusion arose from the game's current way of subsequently trying to telling me, that passengers chain themselves to the chairs of the first ship I take them in, which to me made it look like something's not working as intended: comm passenger, comm opens, comm closes immediately, map opens.

At least Mr. Kellar got a nice ride in a Nemesis during this part of his adventurous journey back to his ship. Also, he got the added thrill of witnessing my tumbling-bumbling-upside-down artistic EVA trying to get to the airlock on his miner. Could've at least left a fiver for the show. Oh, well ...

[Falcrack]

I do think that if the mission cannot be completed because it is the wrong ships type, the option to have them come aboard your ship should be greyed out, with an explanation that an S ship is needed. Especailly if there is no way to transfer them to another ship. It's not a really big deal, and it's easy enough to abort the mission, but still, the OP has a point.

[Ketraar]

I do think that if the mission cannot be completed because it is the wrong ships type, the option to have them come aboard your ship should be greyed out, with an explanation that an S ship is needed.

I disagree. Not just that the player should have the chance to fail if they dont read things, but also you can accept a mission in a M ship, switch to an S one and collect the passenger and thus complete the mission. Heck you could send an S ship remotely and teleport there.

As mentioned before, the contract is not to have a specific ships, but to deliver a person to a destination, considering all the information is there I dont see the need to bulletproof this, I'm pretty sure it would be more frustrating to force player to switch to a specific ship first to be able to accept missions, as mentioned we had this and it was annoying.

MFG

Ketraar

[Whatever0815]

I do think that if the mission cannot be completed because it is the wrong ships type, the option to have them come aboard your ship should be greyed out, with an explanation that an S ship is needed. Especailly if there is no way to transfer them to another ship. It's not a really big deal, and it's easy enough to abort the mission, but still, the OP has a point.

My point is about the game's peculiar way of telling me, that I can't move the passenger NPC to another ship, when I try to do so in the crew menu. Just opening and closing the comm to me looked like something's wrong with the game, instead of helping me to realize, that the movement mechanics for crew do not apply to passengers.

Giving me potentially hilarious options to resolve this, or to make the fail even worse, would of course be the icing on the cake to me.

[dtpsprt]

I disagree. Not just that the player should have the chance to fail if they dont read things, but also you can accept a mission in a M ship, switch to an S one and collect the passenger and thus complete the mission. Heck you could send an S ship remotely and teleport there.

As mentioned before, the contract is not to have a specific ships, but to deliver a person to a destination, considering all the information is there I dont see the need to bulletproof this, I'm pretty sure it would be more frustrating to force player to switch to a specific ship first to be able to accept missions, as mentioned we had this and it was annoying.

MFG

Ketraar

I strongly disagree!!! The mining missions are fulproof... the person will not get in a non mining ship. Why should it be different in the transport missions? No logic to that... just a stuborness to accept that there is "something" missing. Either the option to transfer the passenger to another ship or the passenger to enter only the specified ship. I suppose with the current game mechanics the second option is viable since it is already implemented in the mining missions...

[Nanook]

They wouldn't have been fooled back in the X3 days. They simply wouldn't have gotten on the wrong type ship.

You are confusing things. In X3 the passenger DEMANDED a specific ship, here they just want to go somewhere, the info just informs the player that the target ship only has an S dock. The NPC does NOT demand a ship type.

then I think there should still be some sort of warning

Not sure if you are being funny...

I've accepted a mission to taxi someone back to his ship, alas, my M class can't dock on the target ship. Yes, it says so in the mission briefing.

MFG

Ketraar

Methinks thou dost protest too much!

Are you, perchance, the mission writer? If so, you might want to either recuse yourself, or just take a step back and objectively consider our problems with that mission.

There's no good reason to punish a player simply because they misread a mission offer. And there's no reason that you shouldn't be able to accept such a mission in an M-class ship, land, discover the passenger requires an S-class ship, and go from there. To fail a mission mid-mission with no way to recover from it seems like a frustrating way to go about it.

[Whatever0815]

The game teaches me, that I am allowed to move NPCs between ships. With taxi passengers it fails to even tell me, that that's not possible.

[Fulgrymm]

Teaching you one thing while at the same time preventing you from doing that thing for arbitrary reasons is pretty bad game design.