Teleportation - A Hidden Potential not thought of?

[spankahontis]

On the subject of teleportation, this creates a brilliant new opportunity which I feel Egosoft have completely missed here.

To solve the problem of a feature 98% of us all want to see in future X Games?

Landing, walking on Planets.

It's been discussed countless times on these forums and current reasons why it isn't possible to pull it off with Egosoft's current development model?

- That Egosoft hasn't got the time, money and resources to create custom planets/moons to walk around on to the scale, detail and numbers of Chris Roberts Star Citizen.

- Procedurally Generated Worlds to what David Braben's Elite:Dangerous - Horizons has done as the main reason to not going this route is procedural generation lacks the artistic detail and creativity that as an exploration player, you would expect (Flying past the same Mountain a mile past the last one, same looking trees and lakes etc.?) Basically fear of noticing clones. Which is kind of too late when you play X:Rebirth your first few hours.
The models, alien foliage, alien animals, etc. it would be impossible.


So I have an idea, the ability to have colonies on the planet you can only reach by using a Teleportation Device as well as coordinates to that Station.
There can be a set of rules to reach the colony.
- Coordinates given to you through a mission reward?
- You Need a Teleportation Device.
- Trying to reach the Colony via ship will give you the 'Danger entering Atmosphere' warning followed by death if you refuse to re-enter space.

When on the colony there are of course limitations.
- You are restricted to the confides of the Station. (Exit points of the Station are sealed)
- So you can look out the windows and see the life outside in the restricted zone; people walking around, the citizens of that colony going about their daily lives.
- The confides of these Colonies can be trading posts that provide all kinds of cheap and unique items you can trade in space, 'teleport to your ship' waiting for you above orbit.
- Doesn't just have to be trading posts, there can be habitation areas with gardens and a whole manner of unique beauty spots that you can't see anywhere else. Might not be able to go 'Skyrim style' exploration on every section, nuck and cranny of a Planet, but giving us what I feel is beyond a taste of planetary exploration is enough, to personally satisfy my tastes.
And would be in Egosoft's ability to achieve.

[Crimsonraziel]

Odd suggestion after all the hate towards interior walking in X:R.

[Axeface]

To solve the problem of a feature 98% of us all want to see in future X Games?

Thats a wild exhaggeration. I'de actually wager that the majority dont want that at all, I for one do not.

Your suggestion however is acheiveable, but gameplay wise its very similar to landing on a station just with a different background. I dont see why not.

[Sandalpocalypse]

You can get the same gameplay benefit from using trading stations as an interlocutor for the planet imo.

[vadiolive]

i have no doubt about this kind stuffs
and much more interaction with planet in X5 - The new Horizons

but for now this kind topic quite dead
i hate interior wlak just because

1 - is damm static in each station
2 - ugly as ....
3 - Useless so many point
4 - stuck? how many time you get stuck?
5 - interior dont feel breathing station just a bunch npc in fixeds spots idle most time its completty oposite X serie try sell

Dynamic Unvierse

[RainerPrem]

Odd suggestion after all the hate towards interior walking in X:R.

Why "walking" ? What about dogfights in the atmosphere of a planet? Car races on the ground? etc.

What the Heck did I smoke?
Rainer

[Rice]

...
1 - is damm static in each station
2 - ugly as ....
3 - Useless so many point
4 - stuck? how many time you get stuck?
5 - interior dont feel breathing station just a bunch npc in fixeds spots idle most time its completty oposite X serie try sell

Dynamic Unvierse

Take me with a grain, after whats happening with "the guild 3" on their EArelease, which reminds me on "our" X:Re Retailrelease - Look EA ain't helps if the peoples demands a fullfunctional game anyways and they sayed either only the roughparts needs some gently strokes until its finished .

But here we are now

1.Maybe you need a new Antenna if you have statics !

2. a cat topped with ketchup and mustard with a cherrie and some choclateflakes

3. i loved it to idle a bit here and there on stations just for the sake todo something different than managaing 6+ ships with the menu system which is by far a greater ill than Walking on Stations, alas i still need to rename 12 ships, don't let me get started by those ships dumped ON stations

4. i only got stuck two times once from the grate of this venttunnel, and once on the stairs because i skipped a bit too much

5. Reminds me on like every game... let it be a MMo - or literally any other RPG game of the last "generation/iteration" of their series


TO: Odd suggestion indeed, but why not using the Cells in your Computingsystem to generate some thoughts and they are not even thats bad, "Scotty Beam me Upppp !" or how the quote has to look like for planet "exploration" ;P

[RAVEN.myst]

What the Heck did I smoke?

Albion Tobacco? Spaceweed? Or maybe you went the hardcore route and snorted Spacefuel... (I did that once with Jack Daniels - my nasal passages all spasmed shut, so the liquor couldn't keep going, nor could I get it back out - it just sat there and burned... After that, doing the same with Stroh Rum was nothing - could no longer feel a thing! )

[Alan Phipps]

Back onto thread topic please.

[RAVEN.myst]

To solve the problem of a feature 98% of us all want to see in future X Games?

Thats a wild exhaggeration. I'de actually wager that the majority dont want that at all, I for one do not.

Yup, count me out, too.
However, I'm not for denying others their fun's desires, so teleporting into/out of unique locations - sure, why not. Though I wouldn't use it specifically as a means for planetary landing: all that would accomplish is to skip the atmospheric flight, which I would consider a major attraction if planets were to be implemented. But for accessing remote or secret locations, or locations walled off by hazards, it seems a natural fit (for a technology that I, personally, don't really like - too "magicky" for my tastes, the short-range transporting of previous Xs is about as far I'm comfortable with.) It could be used as a mission element, for example: "a mining outpost/research station/military base on an asteroid has been hit by a natural disaster/anomaly/enemy superweapon, and the personnel are trapped inside the asteroid, with the rock's surface a blazing inferno of molten lava and superheated gases - the only way in or out is by 'stepping sideways'", and so the job is uniquely suited to the player with his/her singular commuting method, once the requisite research has been completed. Faaaaaar more interesting scenarios/situations can cooked up (assuming more than 7.6 seconds of thought) to leverage the concept and incorporate it. Personally, if we *absolutely* HAVE TO have TP, then I would prefer it to be included in interesting, carefully crafted plots, rather than simply shoved into some generic missions - in fact, the first thing I would want to do with my TP is to step through into an abandoned and otherwise impenetrable Goner temple, and step back out with jumpdrive blueprints or reverse-engineerable specimen in hand.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Arthur C Clarke said.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

So Faster than light travel is clearly magic. Just ask Mr Einstein.

The closest star to the solar system is Proxima Centauri, at 4.22 light-years.
Even if you had a Star Trek style Warp Drive that could travel at eight times the
speed of light it would still take you just over six months to get there.

Worm holes require something called exotic matter, which currently only exists
in the minds of theoretical physicists. In the 1980s the British astrophysicist
Stephen Hawking conjectured that even if you could make a wormhole stabilized
by exotic matter, you couldn't go through it to travel in time and space,
because even a single particle would destabilize it.

So space travel via worm holes is clearly magic.

Bearing in mind that our local galaxy the milky way is around 100,000 light
years in diameter. The nearest galactic neighbour Andromeda is approximately
2.5 million light years distant.

Thus in the X games the gates are obviously magic, they transport very large
space ships to other parts of the universe.

The jump drive similarly transports the ship you are in to other parts of
the universe, this is plainly magic.

The Star Trek Transporter and the soon to be X Teleporter are also clearly magic
even though they are only moving something the size of a human being.

However nobody has a problem when watching Star Trek, the 5 year journey
takes them to a whole load of planets. Where they beam down in the transporter
to the planet surface.

So yeah I would have no problem with the Transporter/Teleporter being used to
get me to the surface of a planet. Of all of the magic things in Science Fiction and the X games this seems perfectly reasonable to me.

[Edited] Change to final paragraph

[Zetoss]

Haveto admit I've never been too interested in visiting planets but the idea suggested was quite interesting and something I'd be happy to see much further down the road at some point when everything in space has already reached such a state of awesomeness it's hard to improve on.

As for the suggestions to weave TP use into special missions and broken stations that's probably more interesting for me in the present and could turn out to be very exciting, there is however another additional use I'd like to suggest...

Have you ever felt it's a bit weird for black market dealers to be standing out in the open for anyone to see? I suggest they should hang out somewhere far out of sight of station security and common upstanding citizens. Some stuff they sell should be tradable from space via remote drones or however that's being handled but for those extra special things or large quantities you need to find some way of getting into their lairs, be it scrounging up information or bribing someone to get the coordinates. Once in their special corner you'd have access to buying a random selection of pirated blueprints for station parts and ship components, most of them useless but once in a while if you're lucky they sell something very valuable and perhaps even unobtainable elsewhere. Prices should reflect the activity of course, you'd be handing over a pile of cash that makes it worth the risk they face of ending up in jail.

As for those with complaints about TP being magic, I'm pretty much with Zap but to be more to the point: Gates and TP are the exact same thing in different shape and completely impossible technology but sorely needed to make a space game work unless players are to be confined to a single system forever, the highways are in fact inifinitely more realistic than the gates and this whole debate about realism is getting old, don't just always keep trying to remove the element of fiction in science fiction.

[RAVEN.myst]

Since your comments appear to be directly in response to my comment about the "magickiness" (magicality? magicousness? magicosity?) of teleportation...:

The closest star to the solar system is Proxima Centauri, at 4.22 light-years. Even if you had a Star Trek style Warp Drive that could travel at eight times the speed of light it would still take you just over six months to get there.

That's from an external time perspective - from the traveler's, it would be much much quicker (although I don't know what the time dilation math would even yield at *eight times* relativistic speed!) Of course, that brings its own problems, ultimately, of aging "out of sync" with everyone else... (No real point here per se, just going for completeness / accuracy.) Relativity is a bitch that sci-fi writers keep having to find ways to cheat, be it "hyperspace" or wormholes or folding space - or just ignoring it altogether (Star Trek seems to favour this last approach, mostly...)

However nobody has a problem when watching Star Trek, the 5 year journey takes them to a whole load of planets. Where they beam down in the transporter to the planet surface.

*AHEM!* Speak for yourself, please, ie. "nobody" is a gross generalisation - I, for one, think that Star Trek is the biggest load of [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED] heheheh, and the things you mentioned aren't even the bits I find the most objectionable (though they certainly make the list!) - the utter magic of the "universal translator" puts those other items to shame in terms of implausibility! (Also, there's the absurd anthropomorphic nature of practically all "aliens" they encounter, distinguished almost exclusively by a little make-up work around the bridge of the nose and/or the forehead.)

So yeah I would have no problem with the Transporter/Teleporter being used to get me to the surface of a planet. Of all of the magic things in Science Fiction and the X games this seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Different strokes for different folks Fair enough. For me, it would constitute a significant breach of immersion / suspension of disbelief, or at the very least too radical a change in the fundamentals of how an X game is played (I say "would" as opposed to "shall", as it's looking increasingly likely I'll be skipping this title.)

Have you ever felt it's a bit weird for black market dealers to be standing out in the open for anyone to see?

Totally! Hey, they DO sometimes face the wall, presumably on the assumption that if they can't see the cops, the cops can't see them - their sunglasses must be peril-sensitive. ^^
A good point, Zetoss, and hopefully will be factored in by ES. Teleportation would be a criminal's best friend - getting in and out of places they shouldn't be, and as protection - as a way to restrict access to them the way you suggest, and also to make a quick getaway if they get wind of the authorities showing up, and to escape justice in general.

... this whole debate about realism is getting old, don't just always keep trying to remove the element of fiction in science fiction.

Whoa, who said anything about "realism"?! I made a small expression of my own opinion about personal teleportation feeling too magical FOR MY OWN TASTES, nothing more. Not debating anything, not arguing anything - merely an aside along the lines of "although I find it too "magicky", were it to be used, here is what I would do with it...[some suggestions]" - so WTF is it with all the "counter-arguments"? Who's actually "debating" here, in fact? I make suggestions about potential applications, yet people fixate on a trivial and PARENTHETICAL point of personal preference? That's entirely missing the point of my post, and undermines its constructive intent. Just something to ponder.

[Killjaeden]

Ok so you landed or teleported on the station with planetary backdrop. Now what? What does it add to the gameplay that walking on stations in space doesn't already provide?

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Ahh relativity and time dilation.

Yes for the people aboard the vessel time would pass very differently to those on the planet earth.

Lets assume that there is a habitable planet in orbit around Proxima Centuri (PC).

For the people on Earth and and those near PC your journey time will
still be 6 months. For those on the starship the journey time may well only have been hours or days.

So really the warp drive as a means of fighting interstellar conflicts appears to be more than a little silly.

[Edit]
In Star Trek, whenever they return to the Earth, decades or even centuries should have passed. Something conveniently forgotten in the films and the various TV series.

Not liking the transporter and other aspects of Star Trek must make you fairly unique among space sim fans.

[Edit second]
The teleporting to a planet will not add anything much. It could be mission related. So it might have an initial "wow" factor, but really that would be about it.

[birdtable]

Without getting dragged in (it appears I have been) a simple google of "time delation with regards to warp drive" clearly states that there is no temporal change in time passing.... So Kirk could depart in the afternoon and still join Raven.myst for a snort of Jack Daniels if he so wished that very same evening and at the very same starbase location he departed from.....unless Kirk sling shotted around a planet then he would be back before he left.

[RAVEN.myst]

So really the warp drive as a means of fighting interstellar conflicts appears to be more than a little silly.

Indeed. The concept of "hyperdrive" is intended to circumvent that by making it not *truly* travelling (ie. covering distance over time) through "normal space" - but that strikes me as nothing more than contrived handwavium. Interestingly, the notion of a "warp drive" has actually been proposed, the premise being that it would supposedly harness the expansion of the universe and/or "cut across" the curvature of space-time - but that's another story for another time... (and another forum! Heheh)

Not liking the transporter and other aspects of Star Trek must make you fairly unique among space sim fans.

I am (or perhaps, *ought to be*) used to being the lone voice in the wilderness. But the above isn't to say that I'm unable to suspend disbelief, quite on the contrary (almost every sci-fi, at least all of the so-called "soft sci-fis" which dominate TV and film, requires it) - but Star Trek strains it too far, makes no attempts to provide even far-fetchedly plausible rationales - relies too heavily on "sciencey"-sounding buzzwords to deus ex machina every problem (well, that's my opinion about it, at any rate.)

The teleporting to a planet will not add anything much. It could be mission related. So it might have an initial "wow" factor, but really that would be about it.

Agreed - and specifically with regards to planetary landing, it would be circumventing precisely the one thing that might make it unique in the first place: atmospheric entry/exit. Other than that, as Killjaeden implies, it's just another "station", effectively - another walkaround environment, nothing more.

Without getting dragged in (it appears I have been) a simple google of "time delation with regards to warp drive" clearly states that there is no temporal change in time passing.... So Kirk could depart in the afternoon and still join Raven.myst for a snort of Jack Daniels if he so wished that very same evening and at the very same starbase location he departed from.....unless Kirk sling shotted around a planet then he would be back before he left.

I know Kirk was made of stern stuff, but I bet even he would at least wince at the nasal shutdown... As for the slingshot bit - Superkirk? (Let me NOT open THAT particular primary-colour-wearing can of worms! I've done enough damage already )

[RainerPrem]

Hi,

risking a peek into the crystal ball I dare predict that Teleporting will have one effect: Instead of ONE favorite ship like the Springy or the Hype I will need to have a copy of them in each interesting sector.

cu
Rainer

[Zetoss]

Since your comments appear to be directly in response to my comment about the "magickiness" (magicality? magicousness? magicosity?) of teleportation...

My comment regarding realism was meant as a broader statement to express my intense frustration at the perpetually ongoing "realismistic cherry picking" in the forum, repeated debates keep appearing where someone decides one of the roughly thousand impossible things going on in the X games should be trashed because it's impossible and I just reached breaking point with the TP being the latest popular target. It really wasn't aimed at you specifically but I largely failed to point that out, sorry! At any rate my stance in the matter hasn't changed, but I'm likely barking up a tree full of deaf people.

Getting back to the topic of TPs and their uses I had an additional idea regarding black market dealers: how about they sell coordinates that let the player TP into sealed storage areas that don't have any internal security? Presumably just for stealing stuff, since that would be the only logical use for it really. Not sure if it should be entirely limited to stations or if it could work for infiltrating some of the capital ships as well but that could be really messy to implement. As far as the obtainable loot I think it makes sense to leave much up to luck, sometimes you pay far more than you gain and sometimes you hit a jackpot. Of course much of the reasonability of TP coordinates being sold by anyone for any purpose hinges on something I currently don't know: are TPs common enough that it makes sense anyone would even try to sell coordinates for them but also uncommon enough that storage areas are still vulnerable? We know the player has a TP but I haven't seen any info so far about where the "research" actually comes from or if anyone else has their own (even if they don't visually use it much) and this sort of makes or breaks my ideas.

[RAVEN.myst]

My comment regarding realism was meant as a broader statement to express my intense frustration at the perpetually ongoing "realismistic cherry picking" in the forum, repeated debates keep appearing where someone decides one of the roughly thousand impossible things going on in the X games should be trashed because it's impossible and I just reached breaking point with the TP being the latest popular target. It really wasn't aimed at you specifically but I largely failed to point that out, sorry! At any rate my stance in the matter hasn't changed, but I'm likely barking up a tree full of deaf people.

OK, all good, and thank you! (I'm afraid you, too, were the victim of unlucky timing relative to a frustration of mine - my apologies for that.)

Incidentally, in general terms, I agree with you that seeking to impose "realism" on (firstly) a game that is (secondly) based on a far-fetched premise, is silly in any case. Also, I think most of have repeatedly seen games trying to go for all-out realism - and they tend not to be all that fun to play, in general (and almost inevitably in their realism-quest in any case.)