szaumix wrote: ↑Thu May 12, 2022 4:48 am
*grumble grumble*
I yield without agreeing. For now.
Happy to hear counter arguments whenever they occur to anyone.
szaumix wrote: ↑Thu May 12, 2022 4:48 am
EDIT: I'm not sure if this is a lame argument or not but:
szaumix wrote: ↑Mon May 09, 2022 9:34 pm
If everyone could instantly teleport anywhere they wanted in real life right now, the entire economy as we know it would collapse. There would be reason -- but far less reason -- to pay for cars, bikes, flight tickets, fuel, etc. The flow-on effect on every level of small business, large business, corporations, government decisions and the functioning of society would be unreal.
The ease and cost of doing something is an economic factor and presents us with presumable realities.
Basically one of my several remaining objections to Torus goes like this: it makes everything too fast and too easy and that doesn't even need to be argued: it is self-evident. While I do mean easy for me in the game, that also translates as easy for traders generally and especially for lone low cargo pilots. This means that the economy is more likely to gravitate to Real Life Economics by phasted than to the risk-based models of Cim (Risk Based Economy) and phkb (Risky Business), since faster/easier means less risk means more trade means less price variation. This has even more implications: slightly less need for space lane policing, more expensive weaponry (since need would reduce, therefore demand would reduce). This is just how incentives logically change dymanics. Anyway I still yield without conceding, you've given me a lot of points I never thought of before. I'll chew on it.
OK, so firstly the obvious part: torus isn't teleport. Key differnce is that one would remove risk (of travel) the other
only saves time in the absence of risk - When you're not masslocked you can't be hurt unless as a consequence of your own poor navigation. so torus or not, you still need a vehicle and consequently fuel, maintenence and likely all the weapons and kit you can muster if you want to make a success of it.
So it's clearly faster but is it easier? If so how so?
Credits to time ratio is increased but that isn't the same as credits to risk ratio is it?
This is important because time is significant when it has consequence. If four years pass in game time then what does it matter unless I am paying for that time passing? Four years passing in real life is a different matter however as I am paying for that in all too many ways.
Contracts are important with regards to time of course but then those durations were set with the understanding that the player would have a torus drive. If we want realism then as long as the typical courier doesn't travel with escorts (can therefore use torus) then that still holds up I think.
Travelling faster down the lane doesn't mean I meet less pirates, rather it means I meet them sooner. They're already there.
Cody wrote: ↑Thu May 12, 2022 12:28 am
I've even encountered lone assassins on my way to the station
That's a new one on me... thanks.
Cholmondely wrote: ↑Thu May 12, 2022 8:06 am
Would it not be worthwhile to create an .oxp which gives everybody the Torus drive?
If we do then (meaning no disrespect) I'd suggest we do it with a bit more thought.
What I mean by that is the energy bomb was (correctly) identified as a player only weapon and so the test (I believe) was to simply make it an 'available to all' weapon. This approach is to go from one extreme to (almost) the other.
As I argued
here (and Murgh summarised nicely) the energy bomb, as it operated, only made sense for the lone wolf. Who's going to travel with you if they know you've got an energy bomb on your ship while they sit in another?
Thinking it through more, an energy bomb threat (instead of a mercy plea) could have been made by NPC pilots with systems failing (occasionally a bluff) to threaten the player if they don't back off. No pirate or even trader would earn enough bounty to warrant using the bomb it if they could help it. So only the player picking on lone traders, or facing lone hunters/assassins might ever face such a threat anyway.
THAT would have been an intersting test, maybe even with an energy bomb detector to be used if you target the relevant ship. Instead we got the fairly obvious point (albeit well made) that everyone having enegy bombs was silly.
So getting back on topic...
cim wrote: ↑Thu May 12, 2022 1:15 pm
3) You have to (as the partial implementations in Escort Contracts and RRS do) have a way to bind an entire fleet together in a single torus bubble, or most NPCs will never use torus even if they have it.
(I realise that the above is an explanation more than a recommendation but I quote it just to make the following point.)
I would personally wish to avoid this as then everyone is torusing everywhere with significant consequences.
It's also an exception to a very simple rule (masslocked in presence of other ships) that is IMHO neither needed nor helpful.
One might expect little fleets of 'Jameson's' in this scenario, carefully making their way through the safer systems with no benefit (yet considerable risk) to them instead chosing to travel alone.
Whilst pileup issues might be expected if we promote realism them let's not forget that the lane is 100 times too short (for realistic planet sizes). So what we can try to do instead is to approximate realism with a little fakery behind the scenes.
Again, like the energy bomb, I see torus drives as something that anyone could equip but only makes sense for those travelling alone to actually use.
Torus 'bubbles' both negate masslock and also negate much of the sense in regularly encountering lone vessels or (for that matter) the life of a lone trader in general flying in anything slower than an Asp.
Exceptions should only exist in order to improve a rule's implementation I think, I don't see that happening here.
Not the denouement I had planned..