Alternative uses for transporter

[CBJ]

I think what gbjbaanb was saying was "I didn't bother to read the post CBJ was responding to, but I'm going to invent a completely different quote that backs up my pre-existing opinions".

Two can play at that game.

More seriously, please do read Vandragorax's post again. This is all about making gameplay more strategic, not less, while still allowing the player to get into the action when they want to.

[Snafu_X3]

Not for the first time, Vandragorax has hit the nail squarely on the head. It will just be the player, their clothing and their inventory.

I think you both misinterpreted what at least some of the previous posters where posting about. What they said was that if you can teleport matter instantly in everywhere in the universe spaceships are obsolete. This is a pretty solid point made in the thread and seems to apply to X4.

OK, that's the fundamental mistake IMO. The new teleporter doesn't transmit /matter/, but /information/ (IIRC theoretically possible IRL using quark spins or something, I forget..). Hence <player> would be assembled out of component atoms/molecules at their destination.. effectively a clone body being reanimated (we'll handwave the clothing/inv for the moment)

You cannot 'teleport' cargo as almost by the defenition above there are no components at the destination to 'reassemble' it; if it were possible you'd be effectively making something out of 'nothing'

You would need a piece of lore explaining it that pretty damn amazing and ingenious to make it the technology fundamentally incompatible with transporting anything else then the player.

Again you seem to be focussing on matter transportation rather than information. This may be a fallacy.

Think outside the box (literally!) If super space alien overlords exist, is it not possible that they can manipulate matter in 4D? 5D(etc)? If so, I can imagine such species /may/ leave Stargates/Jumpholes/WHY around as precursor experiments that were too much bother to deconstruct for their resources.. a little like RL current decomissioned atomic power plants

Back to your earlier observation tho, & following from CBJ's comment, would it be an idea to place some sort of clothing locker near the 'teleport' booth for <player>'s personal equipment (possibly including a time-lag to get dressed)? This doesn't need to be animated, simply add a little time to the teleport if necessary

However, I do have queries about the player's invo being teleported. How will player invo work? Currently (X:R) there's player inv & cargo inv. Cargo inv can only be manipulated by a compatible ship; player inv may be used for personal crafting or sold for creds

Will X4 'player inv' only include personal gear (clothes/weps) or their cargo (scrap metal, drugs, WHY) as well? If the latter, how will this effect the local economy for that ware? Given (see above) that only information transfer is possible, how would you reconcile <player inv> cargo with 'teleportation'?

I look forward to a discussion!

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

A quote taken from the Independent (on-line) also reported on the BBC web site.

Scientists have successfully teleported something into space for the first time ever.

The experiment saw Chinese scientists send a photon up away from Earth, further than ever before.

Teleportation of this kind uses the bizarre effects of quantum entanglement, rather than physically hurling the object itself over distances. Instead it transfers the information about a photon to another point in space – creating a faithful replication of the object.

The rest of the article goes on about how this could be used to form a quantum internet. The instant transfer of information over very large distances.

[Cryonist]

@Snafu: I like your perspective that only information can be transferred. This could be made to make sense with some explanation. It would need to be consistent but I could ignore small inconsistencies like clothing. In Eve they try to make it as consistent as possible by only allowing teleportation to clones of yourself and those you need to prepare first by being physically on the station you want to teleport too.

When I think about FTL communications it would not be crazy to have this implied as a technology in X3. A example is being provided information real time from advanced satellites from anywhere in the galaxy. I always explained this as using the alien build gate infrastructure. It should still have travel time between the gates but I waived this argument as a gameplay concession. A cool reference for this are the books and tv show 'The Expanse'. They tell a story about humanity in the near future. They don't have spaceships that can travel outside their own system, just like it is in the X-Universe. But they found a some alien tech which lead them to a gateway infrastructure connecting the Sol system with 100's of other systems usually with habitable planets. They have no idea how or why it works, but they can use it just fine and start colonizing all the things. The similarities between the X-Universe are pretty abundant so I'd recommend watching/reading it if you are a fan. It's basically a X-Universe Origins story.

Since the lore mentions nothing about how this instantaneous communication is achieved in earlier X-games it allows for Egosoft to invent something new for this that won't contradict the earlier lore.

A quote taken from the Independent (on-line) also reported on the BBC web site.

Scientists have successfully teleported something into space for the first time ever.

Quantum entanglement is pretty cool and has been a hype for a couple decades now. Although there's still plenty of debate if this can be applied to exchange information in any meaningful way and very little progress has been made on realizing this. Some theories say the nature of this process makes it impossible to do so. Things like a quantum internet or quantum teleportation feel like a perpetual motion concept to me. A popular concept a century ago but thoroughly accepted as something that could never exist in real life nowadays. It makes for a great pitch to potential investors if you want to get funding for your science and this is what usually leads to those articles like you reference.

Btw if you reference some external article don't neglect linking it. I wouldn't mind reading the details.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

A link to the original article.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.00934

[Snafu_X3]

@ Zaphod: FWIW I tend to distrust Chinese scientific achievements as much as I do Russian (or USSR), due to their being usually trivially disproved by later research (eg 'new' Chinese dinosaurs) independantly within 2 decades or so (scientists work slowly, generally due to lack of resources & budget!) However, I'm quite willing to accept that the concept of quantum comms is possible.. eventually!

[sh1pman]

@ Zaphod: FWIW I tend to distrust Chinese scientific achievements as much as I do Russian (or USSR), due to their being usually trivially disproved by later research (eg 'new' Chinese dinosaurs) independantly within 2 decades or so (scientists work slowly, generally due to lack of resources & budget!) However, I'm quite willing to accept that the concept of quantum comms is possible.. eventually!

You must be still waiting for the periodic table of elements to be trivially disproved then. Rocket equation as well.

[Vandragorax]

People seem to be agreeing that it will be player-only, but there is a desire to explain this as part of the universe lore which is understandable, however a certain poetic licence must be given to the game mechanics.

@Cryonist - Your own forum signature claims that "a sacrifice of realism and logic for the sake of enjoyment" (suspension of disbelief) is desirable in video games

I actually really like the explanation that the player character may uncover some hidden alien technology that allows them to "upload" themselves as "data" and then transmit that data across vast distances at the quantum level. This makes complete sense with the "player-only" part of the feature and also explains why NPCs, cargo, etc. can't do it. Because only one entity was able to be "uploaded" using the unexplained alien device.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Yeah, I am absolutely fine with that idea.

Now if I could only transfer my mind state to an 18 year old clone.

So I could go back to doing the things I used to enjoy doing all night!

[Ketraar]

So I could go back to doing the things I used to enjoy doing all night!

You can still play games and watch star trek by yourself, even if you are old.

#saynotoagism

MFG

Ketraar

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

@Ketraar

Back in the day Eccentrica Gallumbits said I was "The biggest bang since the big one." I have been known to indulge in Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters.

Now I find myself sipping tea with the Earthman Arthur Dent.

[edit]
Now if I could teleport back into the past.... I'd tell my younger self to party more....

Is that possible? If this quantum entanglement is real then does it not happen instantaneously. Is this not faster than the speed of light. If something can happen faster than the speed of light does this mean time travel is possible too?

[edit the second]
For those interested here is an Horizon program on building a time machine

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bb33ht

[Snafu_X3]

You must be still waiting for the periodic table of elements to be trivially disproved then. Rocket equation as well.

IIRC the currently recognised periodic table layout was conceived by a German (I'm too tired to look it up to check atm), but in general you're correct: I should have added 'claims' in my note. My bad

[Axeface]

More seriously, please do read Vandragorax's post again. This is all about making gameplay more strategic, not less, while still allowing the player to get into the action when they want to.

Was making it a VR interface rather than teleportation ever discussed? Gameplay wise it would function exactly the same (unless im missing something) and it would thematically make a lot more sense for the player to be the only person in possession of lost VR and instant-communication technology than teleportation. Im with the 'its weird' crowd on this.
Perhaps the player instead cold develop quantum linking or something, allowing them to remote pilot ships instead of teleporting their corporeal self. Could even manifest a hologram of the player at the target locations or something, so it makes sense that you can interact with npcs while using this 'VR' interface.

Making it VR would also convieniently stop the player from seeing a reload screen while pilotting a remote ship that gets destroyed, not sure how you are planning to handle player death though - perhaps you will automatically teleport out of a ship thats blowing up?

I really that the plot manages to explain away the inability for the npc's to use the teleporter, and the inability to teleport objects with it too.

[sh1pman]

You must be still waiting for the periodic table of elements to be trivially disproved then. Rocket equation as well.

IIRC the currently recognised periodic table layout was conceived by a German (I'm too tired to look it up to check atm), but in general you're correct: I should have added 'claims' in my note. My bad

Not quite sure which German you refer to (Meyer?), but the table (and the Periodic Law) in its currently recognizable form were first formulated by Russian professor Dmitry Mendeleev. Surely, his claims were improved upon later, and not disproved.

[CBJ]

Making it VR would also convieniently stop the player from seeing a reload screen while pilotting a remote ship that gets destroyed, not sure how you are planning to handle player death though - perhaps you will automatically teleport out of a ship thats blowing up?

VR is not a great solution. Not only is the player not really "there", and therefore not taking real risks in combat, but there is also the issue of what happens if the ship or station their actual body is aboard is attacked. The remote control feature in XR suffered from the same problems, and the methods we had to use to mitigate them were never entirely satisfactory.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

VR is not a great solution. Not only is the player not really "there", and therefore not taking real risks in combat, but there is also the issue of what happens if the ship or station their actual body is aboard is attacked. The remote control feature in XR suffered from the same problems, and the methods we had to use to mitigate them were never entirely satisfactory.

It felt to me that you nailed it pretty well for the Nova Torpedoes. The player could control them, and if under combat pressure (e.g. drones from the target reaching me if i was out of range of turrets) or wishing to do something else, they behaved autonomously in a predictable way.

There may be other problems with them from your perspective but at least in the VR sense they seemed well done!

[CBJ]

The experience of using them wasn't the issue. The issue was what happened to the player ship while you were doing so.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

I can appreciate that dilemma.

Perhaps theoretically the player could one day access VR whilst the NPC retains control of the ship. Although if the concept of 'ship' is intimately linked to what the player is controlling, then I could see why that might not be practical.