Cargo Antici...

[MacThule]

In anticipation of the cargo expansion, I just wanted to open the floor to discussion of sensible preparations. Many things we currently take for granted will become a big problem without taking steps:

ex 1. Even the most down-and-dirty opening mining ship on a new server will need to have an ore hold now or be nearly useless.

ex 2. We won't be able to just roll in perma-cloak jumper ships to go from store to store trading goods or gathering materials - we will need actual shuttles and freighters for such things.

ex 3. Even raiding and pirating will require at least a small hold or you won't even be able to handle the loot you find.​

Personally, I have already installed an array of 16 medium-large canisters along the side of my station's factory module to integrate with the various boxes of my sorting/storage system, and one very large container for ore & capsules.

I am currently designing a small perma-cloak trade ship with a tiny cargo hold that will let me do at least minor trading without much opportunity for harassment so I'm not caught with my pants down when the change comes through.

I'm planning to slap some ore cargo cylinders onto my two primary mining BPs next.

Finally I'm hoping to have a least a prototype standard freighter design roughed out with:

• a fairly large hold
• standard armor
• fair shields
• serious point-defense
• 2-3 medium anti-capital turrets
• a big enough jump drive for fast trading and a fair chance to overcome at least half-assed interdiction attempts

What steps are you taking ahead of the change?

 

[Andir]

My steps involve waiting to find out how I'm going to be constantly transferring items from one entity to another.

 

[MacThule]

so you aren't taking ANY steps because.... something. i'm asking what steps players actually ARE taking - but thanks i guess.

 

[HolyCookie]

MacThule it's easy, I take my miner, and spam the outside with storage space, it wasn't looking good anyways :P

 

[Andir]

so you aren't taking ANY steps because.... something. i'm asking what steps players actually ARE taking - but thanks i guess.

I mean there's not much I can do until we get some blocks to place and play with, and given that transferring cargo is still a pretty PITA process, I can wait until we have SOMETHING to go on. Considering that recently my friends are just, "fuck it, new update... Wipe your server and let's start new" on every update, I'm not going far out of my way to do anything extensive. Besides dreaming of taking down pirate cargo ships... And also hoping that we have a better solution to loot cloud pickup.

 

[MacThule]

I mean there's not much I can do until we get some blocks to place and play with, and given that transferring cargo is still a pretty PITA process, I can wait until we have SOMETHING to go on. Considering that recently my friends are just, "fuck it, new update... Wipe your server and let's start new" on every update, I'm not going far out of my way to do anything extensive. Besides dreaming of taking down pirate cargo ships... And also hoping that we have a better solution to loot cloud pickup.

I felt like they gave us a lot to go on. They were pretty specific about how cargo is going to work.

 

[Asvarduil]

I think cargo transfer is one problem of a few to solve. I think that being able to set up a 'cargo transporter' - not unlike what we see in Star Trek - is a good idea, since we just got transporters in the game not a couple of weeks ago.

Someone in the 9 November thread literally just asked a fair question: how will this affect new players? One of the first things new players are often advised to do is build a mining ship, and go grind rocks for a time. Assuming default settings - start with 20k credits, and some miscellaneous parts - I foresee serious problems amassing parts to build a 'noob miner' to allow a player to get started.

I think instead of starting players off with a bunch of materials that can't reasonably be used to make anything useful, the player should start with a recipe to a 'default' light mining ship, and their basic tools - pistol, healing beam, marker beam, helmet.

 

[Mariux]

I now put cargo holds in all my ships.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

I've always put cargo holds into my ships, it was always a requirement. Of course I don't have a perma cloak/jam ship with a cargo hold... might have to get on that.

 

[Asvarduil]

Perma-Jam is easier than permacloak. I have a new warship I'm working on on the FileCraft server, the EFS Chekov, which I was able to run some Test Sector simulations with last night. The Jam only depletes energy if I fire a weapon; otherwise, my power system recharges faster than the Jam consumes power.

The cloak is going to go, though - it depletes to zero in less than one second. Sadface.

The only time that I've been able to make a permajam permacloak ship, has had the end result of looking like two space-tarantulas humping. I managed to fit a warp drive on the thing, but no hull, no cargo bays, certainly no weapons of any sort.

 

[kiraen]

I foresee serious problems amassing parts to build a 'noob miner' to allow a player to get started.

I don't understand why everyone is so worried about this. A 'noob miner' isn't going to be amassing huge amounts of blocks. Personal storage (or a single storage block) will be able to handle a trip or two. By that time you have enough resources to buy/build a bigger ship with more storage space. The new cargo system might add a single mining run to the starting conditions. Not to mention the fact that the new starter station will have shipyards available.

The only thing I'm worried about is magic tubing running all over my station linking the cargo space to the storage blocks. Other then that, I'll just build a new room if I have to. Come to think of it, the same goes for my mining ship. This is not a complicated update like the rails were.

Why is everyone panicking?

 

[Krougal]

Not a lot can be done until we know more specifics. We know stacks going to be smaller than they are now, we know we'll get less stacks in a storage module than we do now, and we know cargo modules(?) will hold more than the new storage units but probably less than the old storage units.

My prediction is that the numbers are going to need quite a bit of playtesting and feedback before they find the "feels good" point, which still won't satisfy everyone but then at least they generally (I'm not sure about that Bench guy...he's kinda shady ) have the good sense to make everything humanly possible for end-users to configure configurable.

Going to make it very hard for noobs, but then there's always the option to give a starting ship.

Perma-Jam is easier than permacloak. I have a new warship I'm working on on the FileCraft server, the EFS Chekov, which I was able to run some Test Sector simulations with last night. The Jam only depletes energy if I fire a weapon; otherwise, my power system recharges faster than the Jam consumes power.

Perma-jam is childs play. If you can't move, fire, recharge shields and still keep the jammer going then you didn't lay out a good power system.

Cloaking...yeah that's a different matter. A perma-cloak ship has to be designed specifically for that role. Forget that Bird of Prey that can fire when cloaked. In fact forget that Bird of Prey that can cloak and have weapons. Personally I think the power use should come down a tad (yes I know it can be adjusted but during early development who wants to bother modding configs). Not enough where everyone and their brother puts a cloaker on everything, but maybe enough where you could have a warship that as long as you were idle you could cloak.

 

[Aynslei]

To-do list:
1: Find how many cargo area blocks can fit in a storage block.
2: Find how much stuffs can fit inside above cargo blocks.
3: Cry about finding cargo room on my rail based salvage systems.
4: Make "faction shop" with storage boxes holding 1 stack of each item.
5: Build sorter that can hold a players inventory.

Other thoughts:
Its been said many times, but this whole transition will be made really humane if cargo transfers drops along with it.
Loot clouds need love some time soon.
I want to find out how much space it would take to hold planets of different sizes. (Then we can grade the top end of cargo sizes by planet R)

 

[Edymnion]

Building a whole new mega station with enough space to store insane amount ts of cargo no matter how much or little can be stored per block, and putting it in a section I can easily cut an external door into in case direct physical transport is needed.

Built a brand new mega miner with about 2 dozen small-medium cargo bays and 5:1 thrust.

 

[Master_Artificer]

I now have to find room for the cargo hold I took out last week. :/

 

[Krougal]

5:1 thrust.

FFS! None of us thought to ask if they were doing a 1:1 mass on cargo or what. I sure hope not. At least raw mats are light, but yeah 5:1 might not even be nearly enough. This whole thing really is going to reshape the game in a lot of ways. It'll be interesting to say the least.

 

[alterintel]

1: Find how many cargo area blocks can fit in a storage block.
2: Find how much stuffs can fit inside above cargo blocks.
I want to find out how much space it would take to hold planets of different sizes. (Then we can grade the top end of cargo sizes by planet R)

As soon as these questions get answered, I can start building. Nicely said

 

[Aynslei]

While the topic is up I am going to make a super early suggestion that the cargo area blocks that can fit inside one storage chest be referred to as "standard cargo space" just so people have a sort of reference point between all ships/stations.

The idea being that even if a server changes the numbers for say 3.5 times the amount of storage possible. A ship with 5x Standard Cargo Space could still be informative compared to another ships cargo size at perhaps 30x Standard Cargo Space. Even though both ships can store a lot more based on server config.

 

[Edymnion]

FFS! None of us thought to ask if they were doing a 1:1 mass on cargo or what. I sure hope not. At least raw mats are light, but yeah 5:1 might not even be nearly enough. This whole thing really is going to reshape the game in a lot of ways. It'll be interesting to say the least.

Yeah, lot of people seem to be forgetting that cargo will have mass, and that your miner is going to need to be built with a full cargo load in mind when it comes to thrust.

 

[HolyCookie]

can't wait to get pirating