Transporters: no transport on same entity

[Edymnion]

Did you read the recent development direction post? Ships are precisely not going to be all about one pilot in a core forever. Yes, you can currently choose to not have any interior at all, but this issue precisely is going to be covered in future development.

So again, tell me how limiting one transporter per entire docking chain is going to help boarding enough to justify hurting the rest of the game?

Tell me, how is this limitation going to help anything? Because I honestly cannot think of any argument in it's favor that can't be immediately countered to keep the original intent of stopping boarders from just walking right on in.

Heck, for that matter, even if you managed to limit it and it worked exactly as you have planned, all it takes is a single innership remote on the hotbar to activate blast doors in every single block of open hallway to seal the individual rooms down. Walk in, get to the controls, turn the hallways into solid steel. Guess we better ban doors more than 1 block thick! Oh wait, then they'll just make every other row a solid door, we better ban doors altogether!

Do you see how ridiculous this is?

Anyone that would want to go to that extreme a level to prevent boarders already can. The only thing it would prevent is actual utility usage that make getting around larger ships and stations easier. And at that point you are blocking the expressed intention of having transporters in the first place.

 

[Thalanor]

If you are using logic to counteract boarding, then good for you, that plus turrets is how it is meant to be counteracted. There can be blast doors ten meters thick if you want, you will still have to switch them on and off everytime one of the NPC crew needs to reach a station, and the larger your ship, the less likely you could just leave it all shut for the entirety of the flight.

The expressed intent of transporters is inter-entity transport, not bringing admin teleport to players and zapping yourself around ships and stations. What you seek is just a lazy way to spare yourself the work of making either a rails or gravity transportation system as well as plotting a station interior that is remotely practicable in the first place (again: you do not have to work around the bounding box lag forever). Basically, you just want it as easy as possible.

 

[Edymnion]

What you seek is just a lazy way to spare yourself the work of making either a rails or gravity transportation system as well as plotting a station interior that is remotely practicable in the first place (again: you do not have to work around the bounding box lag forever). Basically, you just want it as easy as possible.

Uh, isn't that the entire point of having transporters in the first place? To make getting around easier?

By that logic transporters need to be removed because it is perfectly practical to get out and walk, or to get out of your ship, build a pod, and fly across to another structure. Or to build a rail car to carry you around.

So again, you're trying to redirect this into saying I just want admin like powers to zip around without having to bother with the intervening space, which is exactly why transporters were added to the game in the first place.

So I ask again, what practical purpose does this limitation of one transporter per docking chain serve that isn't immediately bypassable, and that doesn't make an equally valid case for removing transporters from the game entirely?

 

[Jumper11550]

Firstly why does it have to be an all or nothing thing. Why not both transporter pads and a rail system. What makes a rails or gravity based transport system superior to the transporter pads that they should be preferred? Shouldn't that be player choice. I mean I think rails are pretty cool and like the look of a well made rail transport, and I personally would not eschew them completely. I must admit I've only ever used a gravity tube once.

But why should more choice be a bad thing? Maybe having a more compact easier to build system makes sense in a particular station.

If you don't like the transporters then don't use them yourself, but your preference aside don't punish those that do want to use them. More choice is better.

 

[Ithirahad]

Yeah, aside from balancing issues regarding shields, combat, and teleportation, I've honestly gotten more and more apathetic about this entire issue. As I see it, players without knowledge of logic and whatnot can just use transporters to get between decks; those of us who know a little more can still build rail elevators and gravity elevators. Kind of like doors. Doors just... work, but if you know a little logic you can make doors that open automatically, and if you are especially creative and know a little more logic, you can make fancy rail doors that split and slide into the wall. Neither of the latter two options are necessary, but they're both really cool and don't present a significant disadvantage if you know what you're doing. If you have a lot of blast doors and force fields (and other anti-boarding measures), attempting to board and navigate a ship that has hallways is not much easier than a ship that is divided up into separate chambers using faction-only transporters :p

That said, I DO want to see transporter computers become usable by anyone regardless of faction, because admittedly a ship using solely an internal transporter network along with spread-out rooms is a bit OP boarding-wise.

 

[Thalanor]

Inter-entity teleportation has a purpose: Trade the time investment of taking a shuttle plus the risk to the astronaut against no time investment and a risk to both ships (shields down). This offers tactical choice in faction fleet use.

Intra-entity teleportation on the other hand reduces any mechanical incentive for balancing access (work efficiency) and security. No, the point of transporters is not to make any sort of movement action completely redundant! In ship-to-ship transport, there is an actual tradeoff between time and ship shields. This tradeoff is completely lacking in intra-entity transport. Is this really so hard to get?

But why should more choice be a bad thing?

Because choice in games only makes sense if it is a choice between tradeoffs, not a no-brainer between worse and better. Why should you just be able to choose to have it easier than everyone else without trading anything for it?

 

[Lecic]

And I just have to say I hate boarding parties, I honestly think they have no purpose in the game, and if the only reason someone has to be against something is "It makes boarding harder", then I'm totally fine with it.

If you hate boarding parties, don't play on a PvP server. Seriously. It's a fair mechanic- if I can manage to take out your ship with the lowest DPS weapon in the game while using the lowest health of any combat-oriented object in the game, I DESERVE your ship.

And define "substantial". I've never seen more than a handful of people ever talking about boarding in the first place. Most of the time I've seen the topic come up, its been more along the lines of "Holy crap, the cutting torch is the most griefer friendly thing I've seen in this game, what do you mean you can cut someone's faction block out and steal their entire ship/station?!?".

The only griefing in PvP is when you've either
A) Turned it from combat to a slaughterfest (spawnkilling people at their HB over and over)
or
B) Used exploits.

Don't cripple my PvE because you want to be able to gank people easier in PvP.

Don't cripple my PvP because you want to be able to move instantly around in PvE? Seriously, how does changing your teleporter to a grav tube make any difference? They probably take the same amount of time when you need to open up the teleport menu, select, then teleport.

Personally? I think there shouldn't be teleportation between two transporters on the same ship, but they should be like they currently are for stations. But it's not the end of the world if it was removed for both of them, despite how you're trying to make it out to be.

 

[Edymnion]

Seriously, how does changing your teleporter to a grav tube make any difference?

Seriously, how does having a grav tube help boarding? Anyone designing to prevent boarders from getting around can easily build the grav tube to where you have to press buttons to make it work, and simply have a vertical section that is higher than you can jump, and put an extra logic check in there to make sure that the first button has been pushed before allowing the area control switches to be activated.

Congratulations, the grav tube is now pretty much exactly as big of a barrier to boarders as the transporter is. Better ban grav tubes.

Seriously, by the logic being displayed here, we better just ban anything that doesn't put the core and the faction block on the outer hull.

 

[Lecic]

Seriously, how does having a grav tube help boarding? Anyone designing to prevent boarders from getting around can easily build the grav tube to where you have to press buttons to make it work, and simply have a vertical section that is higher than you can jump, and put an extra logic check in there to make sure that the first button has been pushed before allowing the area control switches to be activated.

Congratulations, the grav tube is now pretty much exactly as big of a barrier to boarders as the transporter is. Better ban grav tubes.

Nice question dodging.

Grav tubes are a lot easier to get around than teleporters if you know what you're doing.

 

[Edymnion]

Nice question dodging.

Grav tubes are a lot easier to get around than teleporters if you know what you're doing.

And anyone that determined to build a boarder-proof ship can just as easily have counter-measures there as well. A build inhibitor at the base of the tube will stop you from building your own ramp up. Its an arms race that still ends with us being right back to where we are with the transporters the way they are, and bigger, more complicated ships. A net loss to everyone.

 

[spunkiethefirst]

If you advocate for removal of intra-ship teleportation then you will have to convince the devs to disable the ability to switch between docked entities via the up and down arrow keys. Intra-ship teleportation has been around for as long as that arrow key function has existed, at least it has for those with the imagination to do so.

That being said, currently transporters do not require power to send entities, which I hope is just an oversight and not intentional. Hopefully, transporters will require power to function in the future, and in such cases ,as power failure, will cease to function and therefore require actual walkways, rails, gravity tubes (the rails and gravity tubes should probably fail as well under no power) to get around the ship.

 

[Ithirahad]

Seriously, how does having a grav tube help boarding? Anyone designing to prevent boarders from getting around can easily build the grav tube to where you have to press buttons to make it work, and simply have a vertical section that is higher than you can jump, and put an extra logic check in there to make sure that the first button has been pushed before allowing the area control switches to be activated.

Boarders will not normally be using gravity... They can just fly up/down the tube if it is vertical. A horizontal tube, however, might pose problems.

 

[Lecic]

And anyone that determined to build a boarder-proof ship can just as easily have counter-measures there as well. A build inhibitor at the base of the tube will stop you from building your own ramp up. Its an arms race that still ends with us being right back to where we are with the transporters the way they are, and bigger, more complicated ships. A net loss to everyone.

I find it extremely unlikely that the game will remain in a state where you can simply avoid boarders by filling your hallway with doors, or weapons, or turrets, unless you like trapping and killing your own crew.

 

[Edymnion]

Boarders will not normally be using gravity... They can just fly up/down the tube if it is vertical. A horizontal tube, however, might pose problems.

They won't have much a of choice. Even hostile boarders will trigger area sensors. You can simply have a sensor layer in the tube to turn on the downwards gravity if the button isn't pressed. No flying up the tube then. Even if they could turn gravity off themselves, it just turns right back on whenever they try again.

 

[Lecic]

They won't have much a of choice. Even hostile boarders will trigger area sensors. You can simply have a sensor layer in the tube to turn on the downwards gravity if the button isn't pressed. No flying up the tube then. Even if they could turn gravity off themselves, it just turns right back on whenever they try again.

Fun fact- you can disable area trigger traps with your torch. :^)

 

[Edymnion]

Fun fact- you can disable area trigger traps with your torch. :^)

Well wasn't the entire point of this that boarders are too lazy to use their torches to cut through a ship in the first place?

If you're going to spend all that time and effort cutting through invisible sensors, you might as well just cut through the wall.

 

[Jumper11550]

because choice in games only makes sense if it is a choice between tradeoffs, not a no-brainer between worse and better. Why should you just be able to choose to have it easier than everyone else without trading anything for it?

Why do you need to sacrifice something for ever gain? I mean it's not like anything outside of solving a constraint problem could ever ever possibly be fun. Also, why is it either or? Why not both. Build your rail and gravity systems and use those when it's convenient but also put in transporters and use those when matching efficiency of other players matters.

In terms of protecting cores, that same development direction post mentioned earlier points to chair blocks which will allow us to bury the core anyways. regardless of the transporter status. As far this being speculation on my part, well it's just as hard for anyone else to know.

I for one do not believe Schine would have released transporters if they really were going to jeopardize 80% of the remaining development plan. I think they should stay as they are at best (and have a server cfg option that limits the number of transporter pads on a ship/station to just 1 at worst) and wait and see what the more fleshed out versions of the other mechanics are before we start complaining about how much we hate them and how badly our perception of the game's state is ruined

 

[Lecic]

Well wasn't the entire point of this that boarders are too lazy to use their torches to cut through a ship in the first place?

Oh my god. Are you seriously trying to compare torching through a few area triggers to carving a tunnel all the way through the enemy ship?

 

[Thalanor]

And anyone that determined to build a boarder-proof ship can just as easily have counter-measures there as well. A build inhibitor at the base of the tube will stop you from building your own ramp up. Its an arms race that still ends with us being right back to where we are with the transporters the way they are, and bigger, more complicated ships. A net loss to everyone.

If by "complicated" you just mean "not handed to you out of the box" then yes. You can put boarding deterrents (like aforementioned turrets) into your ship. They will make your interior more complex. This is a good thing, because if you invest time and spatial planning into your build, it is meant to perform better. You are not meant to get the same functionality from two blocks just because you "choose" to have it easier than someone who uses a fully interconnected RP interior.

Plus, you will need an interior of reasonable size eventually - again, read the dev manifesto - and this is meant to be an interior for everyone on the ship, not something players should just avoid by zapping back and forth.

Well wasn't the entire point of this that boarders are too lazy to use their torches to cut through a ship in the first place?

No it was not, read what is said for once. There is no problem at all with torching through logic based defenses or doors. But there is with torching through an entire ship.

Why do you need to sacrifice something for ever gain?

Did you really just ask why you shouldn't be able to gain something without any cost or tradeoff?

 

[Ithirahad]

Well wasn't the entire point of this that boarders are too lazy to use their torches to cut through a ship in the first place?

If you're going to spend all that time and effort cutting through invisible sensors, you might as well just cut through the wall.

Sensors take about half a second to cut through. Walls, on the other hand, are armored.