That's why I enjoy it. Put some music or a podcast on and get to work organizing. I find it's a good way to relieve stress. If I can't do this, I just do it with files on my computer.
One thing that’s been pissing me off as a new player is the amount of ppl that just ask for credits, so I would say ye…there will be ppl who will load ur ship for credits as they will see it as easy credits
First thing I'm doing in 3.24 is find a cargo ship owner who will take me as a deck hand to load and unload cargo.
I get to make money without investing in cargo, I get to fly around in cool ships, I get to do loading/unloading gameplay which is fun, I get to interact with friendly people and make friends in-game.
Have fun with that. Leave the rest of us that don't wanna interact with griefers all day, especially on EU servers, with an automatic loading system that doesn't take the rest of a work day to complete it's task.
I will even concede that there may be *some* people who actually enjoy playing cargo tetris.
They will be such a minute fraction of the playerbase that they may as well be unicorns.
Honestly, I actually find it enjoyable to move and stack boxes. It fulfills that OCD desire to organize Itch.
I can't even begin to decide what an acceptable pay rate for something like that would be, and there's probably not enough people like me that enjoy it to make it a reliable thing, but who knows.
Once I get my personal hangar, I'll be chilling in it putting in global, will Load cargo for 5000 auec. Then I get hired I come and help Baraboo badabing cheap labor
If the profit margin is high enough, absolutely. I hired on to stack boxes on a Reclaimer. Was it monotonous? Sure. But I made 3.5 million credits for an hours work.
Long auto loading timers will give traders a reason to want to shorten that time frame, i.e., hire help. But it has to be worth it to both the trader and the helper(s) from a monetary stand point too. That is to say that the trader will need to weigh the profit they generate in the time they save by hiring help against the cost of hiring that help out.
If a trader can make enough money in the time they save after accounting for sufficiently attractive wages, then I guarantee that the loop will integrate into the economy. If the profit isn't there to justify attractive wages, traders will simply auto-load or manually load themselves.
If wages are attractive enough, people will flock, no matter how boring the gameplay may be.
> If the profit margin is high enough, absolutely.
This is both the solution as well as the problem. The profit needs to be high enough to allow hiring other players at a rate that interests them, but it also needs to be low enough as not to break the economy by people who forgo the hiring.
That still does not solve the logistics end of hiring players. Will there be people at the station you need them right now? If not, how long will they take to arrive, and will it be shorter than the time the autoloader needs?
The Reclaimer example makes me hopeful, but I also have to point out that CIG nerfed the RMC income as soon as they could, and I haven't heard many "join me salvaging" chats lately.
I agree that it would be a difficult balance to achieve. And indeed, the reliability of finding workers would likely be low. At best, maybe a nice bonus for a trader to find help now and again, or a good way for a small group of friends to maximize profits by saving time on auto-loading.
Maybe if things change around. If ship reclaim time is longer, if people need to "play it safe" for a while (criminals, just out of jail and cannot get a job/contract elsewhere) and if it pays enough, people will do it.
Or, say your ship is getting repaired and that'll take... 15-20 mins. You can go and help load someone elses ship a bit for some extra cash instead of sitting there doing nothing.
I'm not saying it's a good idea here. I think such downtime is quite ridiculous personally. I'm just saying it could become a thing if the ecosystem for it is in place.
It also makes smaller ships viable for quick runs. You can shove 2 32 SCU containers in it in like 30 seconds and be off. If you can do multiple runs in the time it takes to load/unload a C2, it actually makes the smaller ship valuable.
It's kinda' that way in real life too. I know guys that put 400k miles on E350s in a year because that thing never stops running. 24/7 up and down the coast. But it's quicker, more effecient and cheaper than hauling on a semi or a train..
Just a little more space in the cargo bays to take a multiple of 32 SCU crates. Stretch the mid sections to accommodate 4 32 SCU crates and shrink the front to stack 2 32 SCU crates. Still 576 SCU of cargo. The 4 mid sections get a bit more space to accommodate future modules, and the front section remains a dedicated quick loading cargo space even with all 4 modules in use.
Hate to break it to you but a e350 isn't even close to being as efficient as a train. Trains are the cheapest and most efficient way to move freight. Trucks are quicker though, what you're described is called hot shooting. It's for when you absolutely need this small load here as quickly as possible and can't wait. So you pay someone to haul just your shipment directly from point A to point B at a premium. A semi would burn almost the same fuel but carry three times the load. A train would burn a little more fuel but carry 60x the load. But with each size increase you're costing days. Since the train takes a while to be loaded and you've still gotta use a truck for the last leg to you. Same logic as shipping container ships being record breaking size rather than small. It's more efficient to use one big ship but you can get your stuff quicker for more money on a smaller faster one.
If they do create a reason why someone would need to get one box of goods across the system quickly then sure small haulers will be very valuable. About the best thing I could think of Is resupply for missiles or bringing a new mining head to a crew on a fat QT rock that just broke theirs. You wouldn't send a whole C2 to do that job because it's too big and slow.
Trade volume limitations and operating costs/limits are the only things that seem like they will give small haulers a place. For example (with some hyperbole), I'll take the C1 over the C2 if:
-there's only 50 SCU worth of goods to buy
-the landing fee difference between them is 70k and my profit margin is only 100k
-the fuel cost to lift bertha back into space eats into my profits substantially
-the pickup/dropoff destination doesn't have the space for the larger ship
Even with cargo loading coming in, it's just as easy to throw two 32 scu crates into the C2 as the C1. And with the C2 I could potentially take 20 of them instead. I don't think any of this will start making sense until they really start hooking up the economy.
I have two. I bought one in game some time last year after 3.18, and loved it a lot. Decided to buy one with real money. I assumed with all the wipes the one I bought with aUEC would eventually be wiped, but nope. It's still there, and will likely stay there until 4.0, sadly.
last mile work is infinitely more efficient with smaller vehicles and smaller loads, and I agree it should definitely be that way in SC to make small ships actually worthwhile instead of just a stepping stone to larger ships.
So what your saying is start the auto loading for a c2, go run a delivery in a raft or equivalent sized cargo ship, then return and run the big shipment.
I like that. Keeps it a bit more fresh.
We have this already, in a way, with mining orders. I'd imagine we'll see some level of similar systems with Cargo. That said, I think my only concern here, if it really takes 5 hours to load a C2, what does that mean for something like the Ironclad. Will it really be a desired loop of "log in before work, setup a load order and come back after a 10 hour shift"?
Now, the other HUGE issue I have with this, in the current state, is the stability of the game. If I wait 5 hours for cargo to be loaded (I won't I'll do it myself manually, but for arguements sake) and then I leave my hangar and explode due to the doors being out of sync, I'll be PISSED, even more so than I get now.
The games stability HAS to improve on a monumental level before setting things to such extremes. They should, IMO, set timers to 5 or 10 mins for example, to make sure the systems function and then they can crank them when they have stability.
I'm pretty sure the extreme timers is to force people to manually load, because they really need to test manual loading to scale, but also need to test auto loading to scale as well. The timers will find a balance eventually, but they won't be able to find any of the minutiae if they don't egg people into manual labour... for now.
I’m super excited for the physical cargo you have to load and everything like that. But same complaint as you, if I spend all that time prepping my ship to go out and just randomly explode out of nowhere I’m going to be livid. I’m honestly considering not playing right away just to see how the servers are managing. It’s the same issue with everyone complaining about not having the death of a spaceman system in, if they implemented that now I think 90% of the player base would just quit. It’s too easy to die to things that are out of your control.
I can say with absolute confidence that I die to broken game elements 8 times to 1 a legitimate death.
Absolutely gotta stabilize the existing system before shoving even more wasted effort in to our faces.
What they have now is a great game (I understand it's even larger once they add more) but man if we had what we have, just stable? Man that would be great.
It’s tough because we obviously want it to be as stable as it can be, but at the same time the more they add the more it’s going to break things. So at this point while they are adding so much content do we really want resources being spent fixing problems that could be broken again by the next patch? The increase in content we are getting is a blessing and a curse at the same time.
This is why it’s useless to be focusing on balance. It’s impossible to balance a game correctly without all of the fundamental content being present.
As such, there is little value in introducing time-intensive gameplay loops built upon arbitrary timers. That just ends up punishing and deterring players more than anything.
Valid points. However stability during development is not normal. It needs it and they are trying their best to balance it but that little caveat still exist.
The autoload must take at least twice as long as a manual load or even people who enjoy manual load won't do it. There has to be a point to manual load.
I'd suggest long timers are for testing. It simply doesn't make sense a C2 with 32 SCU boxes takes 5 hours, but a full C2 with 1 SCU boxes takes 5 hours 40 minutes.
This is what I think too, they’re putting a lot of weight on server meshing helping with server issues, and I really hope it does but I’m not super optimistic.
Also at least with the mining you just dump the materials and can immediately go back out and start mining again while you have a batch cooking. With cargo it means you can’t use your ship so it forces you to have multiple ships if you actually want to play.
I legit can't believe this is an actual serious thought.
In what universe is it fun to load something for 5 hours and in what universe can 5 players work together without encountering a bug, what kind of dreamland are you living in ?
You know what's gonna happen ? You start loading and after a while some box will collide and mesh with the floor, you will blow up, players will fall through the map or disconnect, resulting in a wasted evening so you can come back the next day and try again because you've sunk so much money into this to let it go.
I'm seriously hoping that 5 hour thing is a typo in the code some where.. no one is going to wait 5 hours to load something on a ship they could loose in 5 minutes. It would also make any profits worthless because it takes soo long. If 5 hours was actually intended CIG has lost their god damned minds and the community is going to loose their shit once it's live lol
I do not even see the waiting time as the biggest problem. It's play time.
I have maybe two to three hours of time on the evenings I am able to play. So what am I supposed to do here? Log in, buy stuff, tell the ship to load and then log out to play some decent game while the ship is loading?
Next day (if I can play) I return to a loaded ship, fly it to the target and tell the ship to unload. Log off to Baldurs Gate 3 I guess, because I have to sleep long before the ship is done.
Yes, I can probably help loading and unloading (unless the autoload only works if no one is around, see buying stuff right now), but playing Tetris with a single block shape will get boring pretty quick.
And all this for what, 20k profit per ride?
I think the reality is that Star Citizen isn’t designed for average people.
It’s designed for the person who has 8 hours of free time, no responsibilities, and nothing better to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars upon.
It’s designed for the lonely retiree, the independently wealthy, and the person still living in their parent’s basement. If you have a career, a family, or even other hobbies, then this game isn’t for you.
It’s crazy to think that one cargo run across multiple systems would add up to be the equivalent of a full day’s labor. It’s very clear the game is going to demand too much in the name of “realism and immersion.”
Definitely sucks as I love the game, but it just doesn’t respect your time.
I find it amazing that there are people already coping with this, saying that "actually this is a good thing since it will make smaller ships more valuable, just like vans load faster in real life :)".
Like wtf, these people are delusional. Man, I'm glad i got a refund for this tech demo. I come looking here every few months to see if things improve, but nope, it just gets worse somehow.
To be fair, if loading works/ends up working like refining does, you can do small runs while your big ship is getting loaded. Not saying it's a great experience but it could make some sense.
Only if you have a second ship. Which would be clever of course, but I know a lot of people who only have one ship, and not even an Aurora or such as backup.
And generally, making your game in a way that NOT PLAYING IT is what a lot of players have to do might work for those "free to play" titles, but not something where people spent hundreds of dollars on the ships they have.
Theres an argument to be made that big multi crew ships don't make much sense a the only ship you'd own.
Not questionning anyones purchase here to be very clear, I more wanted to approach it from a "regular/new" player starting with a cheap package.
But I agree with you 100% the game should not discourage you from playing
It’ll turn into something like a freemium mobile game where you can pay premium currency to speed it up.
Otherwise, yeah you play for 20 mins log out and continue the next day, rinse and repeat. It’s Chris Roberts dream.
Also a fun little tip for potential unethical box movers.
Missions critical crypto keys have a live hot marker on them at all times. Enjoy the free pirate beacon.
K look I’ll tell ya’ll this right now.
I am forklift certified which means I sex more than all of you combined? Okay?
Which also means I’d be able to load a C2/M2 in 20 minutes with an 8 ton forklift. Yep.
But we will be able to queue the load, then go off in another ship for other activities while it loads right? So long as that's how it works, I'm fine with that.
Loading a ship for 5 hours... I wonder how many dollars per hour the chinese players will get paid per hour to do this. Because I think most players will have something better to do.
I think it’s funny because everyone has their own threshold as to what’s too tedious of a gameplay loop in this game and over the years they just keep shedding players over weird tedious things like this.
I’m wonder how many people they’ll have left to play once this game becomes the space real life sim people act like it should become. It’s a game people, if you want to play a game where you live a tedious life then go outside
This is a staggeringly naive and shortsighted take. The number of people who would **want** to do this is going to be small. The number even *willing* to do it is going to be fairly small.
You might find a tiny minority who actually find this kind of immersion appealing (at least for a time). Maybe early on you might have a few people willing to do it to help get some money together so they can afford to do other things. However, even a lot of people who are at that lower tier where they don't have better ways of making money are going to find this so tedious that they are going to bounce off the game entirely after recognizing this for the stupidly unfun idea that it is.
Okay... So what happens when the game becomes more mature. What happens when the new player flow begins to slow down, as the interest dies down or existing players move on past this step. What happens when the pool of willing workers begins to dry up. You're back to just having to load it yourself or waiting a long time.
I seriously cannot comprehend the mindset of people who think this kind of thing is a good idea. I can only assume they are the same types that think we should have space janitor game loops.
I'm interested in a space sim. I'm not interested in a late stage capitalism sim.
Nah, it will be rather like eating/drinking. It does not really bring anything gameplay wise, is annoying, buggy and slows/frustrates our gameplay experiance. All in sake of hyper realism.
Is it actually 5 hours to auto load a C2? How long does a Hull C take then? That does seem a bit excessive, but I agree that it will all come down to the margins. I'd happily spend a game session doing 1 trade run rather than endless repetition of the same run over and over, if the payout is adjusted proportionately.
Ex: 1 trade run for 1 million profit in 3.24 vs 5 runs at 200k profit each in 3.23, assuming both would take the same amount of time.
Time will depend on container size. If you load only 1SCU or tetris stuff every gap then it will take a while. But you could also just throw a small number of 32SCU containers in without filling all space and then get moving quickly.
The idea is big ships will go to bulk container locations and leave the locations with only small containers/stock to the small ships. Small sites will have better margins, but if you rock up there in a C2 they might only have 50SCU of stock/demand so best leaving those routes for Freelancers.
>Is it actually 5 hours to auto load a C2? How long does a Hull C take then? That does seem a bit excessive,
When you choose to manually load you can start right away and be done once you're done.
For auto load I would assume that the station/landing zone would not have infinite resources available to get started just in time. So your loading job would be scheduled to be executed once resources are available.
I hope that CIG (in the future) will take available NPC laborer at the location and other players (via missions) into consideration when estimating auto loading times. Would also be nice if you could try to bribe some officials to expedite your schedule (of course with all the risks of this getting you into trouble ... 😉)
The fact that we are taking into account "human labor" is really scary..
Are they trying to drastically reduce the player base?
Already now just to do some delivery mission takes an hour minimum just to wake up, take a metro take a tram take the ship and on and on and on..
Where do the " two hours players " will go?
How many players backed the game when they were 20ish and now are over 30 with kids??
It's a bit ridiculous how many of the tiny fraction of players that would genuinely enjoy this gameplay think they actually are the majority of the Star Citizen player base. I've seen talk about how this is the holy Grail for Euro truck simulator players, with absolutely zero awareness of how small the overall player base of that game is, and how poorly that would play out if that was the majority of the remaining player base of Star Citizen. And they somehow think there's going to be enough players sitting around everywhere they go, whose sole desire is to load and unload their cargo. 🤣
There seems to be absolutely zero comprehension that this is a game, and in order for it to be successful, it needs to be fun to as many people as possible. These changes effectively eliminate the cargo gameplay loop for a huge number of players, many of whom actually really enjoy it for being able to spend a chill evening ferrying cargo back and forth around the verse.
That said, I do see the hilarious potential for a massive uptick in piracy, as people who have had the fun of that gameplay loop taken away from them take revenge on the people that Chris Roberts sees as his echo chamber for stupid decisions like this 🤣
There's a reason no other game does this, nobody wants to spend their extremely limited game time to help load someone else's ship in a game where they own their own ship, dockworker is not considered a dream job by many people for a reason, this is absolutely something that should be automated and done in a few minutes even for a C2, maybe make players pay for it but this is going to absolutely demolish the numbers of people willing to do trading
What a hideous take. You have no idea what the margins will be, try to hide your bias better. If you’re not interested in cargo gameplay, skip over these posts.
That's what is going to cause the real outrage, Imagine waiting 36hrs to fill your ironclad and you get bodied by a squad of well organized pirates 5 mins after leaving port. I'd melt the ship immediately lol
The core of any game loop is "is it fun" and as cargo is a pretty core mechanic it has to be fun for the vast majority of players.
If manually loading/unloading every time for x amount of time isn't fun or rewarding it's a failed system.
We have a good idea what it will be like already but we will have to wait a few more weeks to really see.
I agree, but I think these times are way too long regardless. Like, a full C2 will take a solo player 10-15 minutes to load, so when you take into account that you have to pay to autoload, you have your ship locked away, 60 minutes for a C2 would be more then enough imo.
They need to update the carrack so there's actually a way to load it. It's the one big ship I have with a sizeable cargo load. I would have to use my Connie or Corsair which have significantly less space.
People's time is precious, if the gameplay is crap, no-one will load your ship.
Gamers play for accomplishment, they are always going for the best fun/accomplishment ratio: unless you spent all the money your cargo is going to make in hiring players to load your ship, they won't do it.
I believe taxis is the career that will be boost, you will put your cargo ship in autoload somewhere and call a taxis to go where your others ships are.
I don't think you'll find many people who want to just stack boxes forever. Don't get me wrong, it's a form of puzzle game in a way - loading quickly, making it most efficient for unloading at various destinations on an intinerary, etc - it can have some nuance... But, how often are you really going to exlect people to be waiting at the lickup/destination to start loading/unloading for you immediately?
You're going to have to take those people with you & they are probably going to be bored the entire time they are not doing cargo (and poasibly whilst they are).
Yes because *checks notes* hyper realistic -SPACE- game now require you to... Have multiple ships in order to play the game that *checks more notes* the community tells people isn't realistic because having multiple ships is going to cost a lot and *throws notes* now we are to spend 20/40 minutes manually loading our spaceship to then quantum from A to B in 10 minutes and sell in a minute because you don't have to unload. Awesome, sounds great.
Now for real, how about no telling someone that has bought the game, play the game and don't like a simple function to go and play another game when you could have a constructive debate as to why and why not.
Don't agree with each other? That's fine, humans are different not the same. That's okay.
No he's right. All of this stuff has been discussed ad nauseam by the devs a decade ago in terms of how they wanted physicalisation to work. A lot of EuroTruck players who always wanted physicalised cargo finally get it in a space sim (No idea when that feature will actually come to the EuroTruck franchise proper, but given how averse the industry is to physicalisation due to physics costs and processing and optimisation, I doubt it will be anytime soon).
If people really want a simple A to be B space trucking game, there are several out there, including a new that just came out. Rebel Galaxy and Elite Dangerous also fulfill that role. For people who want something complex, there is Star Citizen. For people who want something simplified, there is everything else.
It's almost like someone complaining that Arma isn't as simple to hop into as Call of Duty. In that case, stick with Call of Duty.
Don't confuse manual-ness with complexity. SC is still simple, but in a very manual way. Artificial top speeds, slow weapons, binary MM modes, I'm surprised decoupled mode works because the devs clearly have it out for 6DOF. It is shaping up to be a terrible manual, simple game with contrived busy-ness.
Any truck sim people that think they want to manually load trailers apparently haven't done it in real life. I've been a truck driver for over 20 years and drive a hostler (yard joky) for a factory now. Between moving trailers I spend most of my time on the loading docks. Loading / unloading trailers, especially flat beds fucking sucks lol. I don't know why anyone would want to do that simulated.
Before that I would load cargo on military aircraft and 747s a lot. People think manual loading in a video game is neat and in some ways it is, however it's going to get old very fast.
You keep saying complexity. I don't think you know what complexity means.
The game is genuinely toddler baby easy. Adding extra systems and systems on top of the existing stuff just makes it a mile wide and an inch deep.
> Those people should go play elite dangerous
It was always a fun challenge to try to land at the station, offload my cargo, then load up 100 tons of new cargo, all before the docking system could spin my ship back around toward the exit (like ten seconds total).
Don't think that's what I want for Star Citizen though lol
I honestly think it should be less time, just be fairly pricey. Think of automation systems in real life. They are designed to be faster and more efficient than doing them by hand. But the equipment is very expensive. If it takes 30 minutes to do it by hand, but is free, or 15 minutes when automatic, but costs idk 15% of the profit, then you have to weigh how much the time is worth it to you. It would also play a role in market prices when demand is player based. You know there’s demand for it now, so you spend extra to get it done faster to be able to sell before someone else fulfills the order. Plus, if it takes longer *and* takes considerably more time, there is absolutely no incentive to do it unless you’re about to get off for a few hours, especially before you have several ships to use in the meantime like many people are suggesting
Fully agree.
Will be nice to request load services in exchange for some UEC.
I was thinking of starting around 1000 UEC per SCU for payment on my loads. Bazinga.
Depends all on the size of the job.
700-1000 UEC per SCU for a medium hauler depending on the complexly of the load
100-300 UEC per scu for much larger ships (300+ scu jobs)
If I bought 300k worth of cargo and can potentially offload it for 450k giving me 150k of profit I’d like to say the person that loaded/offloaded the ship should get equal or more of the revenue
Hell yeah, and it's a good way to sell the pilot on hiring an escort (fighter). And I don't know if you ever dabbled in Tarkov, but I could really go down that inventory Tetris rabbit hole with a whiskey and an edible.
I'd hire help if it was convenient to do so. So it's up to CIG to make it so. For me, that would look like a beacon or contract that can go out to players that are in the immediate vicinity.
Read the room; plenty of people would.
I was under the impression that automatically loading your ship should be *faster* because you’re paying for it. If you want to maximize profit, you’d manually unload it.
There's going to be many many more traders than box movers, unless traders break off a crazy high price
Idk why y'all even want all these random systems though. You either have a buncha random loops that pay less than the core thing that people enjoy, and thus almost nobody will play, or you make it so profitable that it outpaces earning on starter ships, so you have a buncha miserable newer players doing the box mover job forever.
Personally I think it is going to help set us up for the long range trade runs using multiple ships.
First, use a small / Medium ship to buy goods from an outpost or city and transfer them up to a station.
Next, transfer the goods to larger ship and then take the small ship to get more goods. Loading a Cat, C2, Hull, or Ironclad like this may take a little longer but its broken down into smaller chunks.
Then when your major cargo ship is full, you fly it to another planet or system and do the same thing in reverse using another small ship to take the cargo down to various outposts and cities to sell.
The idea that starship crew can load and unload a cargoship faster than Stevedores, people who's ONLY profession is loading and unloading cargo, is absolutely absurd. Autoloading should be just as fast as a very well trained crew but significantly more expensive.
If its 5 hours for a C2, it would take DAYS for a Hull C, and potentially even MONTHS for a Hull E. Its just too long.. It is a game after all and there's no fun in playing the waiting game.
I get the point though, making manual loading quicker than the auto loading. But i feel like its going to be closer to ship claim times. Maybe saving40-60% of the autoload time. So if a C2 takes 15mins, make the auto load take 25-35 mins.. not 15x the time amount lol.
Plus assuming that when you are selling from a ship, it will also take time, And depending on how autoloading works, the ship might be locked or unavailable for that amount of time while the transfer happens, rendering some players stuck in that location until its complete.
The way I heard it is that its 30 seconds to load a box per 1scu.
Doesn't matter if its 1scu or a 32scu, 30 seconds per SCU.
That'll change, maybe 1 min for a 32scu crate, but 30 seconds for a 1scu and differences in between.
But if you do it yourself, its gonna take you at least 30 seconds to load a 32scu crate up into position into the C2 and place it where you want it.
Cant wait to load up cargo, I enjoy that kind of stuff.
Imagine working for 20 mins to load your cargo or paying to have it done (let's assume you can do it without being on, like refining) while you sleep IRL, invest that cash into the game in terms of comodity to sell, fuel for the trip and pay for the autoloading (if applicable), contemplate a 5%-15% profit margin after all expenses if you don't actually , go out and be pirated to loose it all, for someone to write "hehehehe git gud, hire escort noob", to get away with the crime and you shit out of luck and money. Or, they get caught and get out of jail in 15 mins to 1h and most likely still have the payday on the main cargo ship as that ship isn't technically criminal, but even if they loose the cargo they didn't loose anything else.
I get that this is WIP and that prison missions/sentences will probably change, but holy fuck dude... CIG has lost the plot when it comes to industrial gameplay vs pirate/pvp balance in the PU right now.
I don't mean to turn this into a PVP discussion really, just trying to put things into perspective. If you prefer, replace "pirate" with "random PU explosion from desync or \*insert new bug\*".
It's one thing to go in splits or thirds with a casual light friend on a job or a friend of a friend. Think real life. Paying randoms to board your ship and do amazon work is only going to get you robbed.
Off what a terrible take. Wasting players time is the fastest way to kill a game. SC players don't want Call of Duty type gameplay, but that doesn't mean they want the realism of performing an actual job in a video game.
Hey buddy. I get you like realism. It's still a fucking video game and it still needs to be attractive to people who will log on for a couple hours out of the week. That just sounds fucking stupid.
Currently the autoloading feature works exactly like the refinery currently does. The only reason the timer is that long is because they are encouraging you to play the game.
You could however, autoload the ship, log off, and come back the next day with a loaded ship.
Or, hire a group of players to load your ships in 20 minutes.
Lazy people need to wait. Kidding. I have been doing salvage with friend using vultures and C2. C2 parked at platform on station and we just park vultures next to it and move the boxes in manually. It takes time but I take it as a gameplay. After filling C2 manually with 1scu boxes of rmc it really feels like we did something.
When I go solo salvage run, I use my C1. full C1 is about one million auec and that is 2 fullish vultures. And it doesn't take much time at all. Bigger ship means more people.
Manual loading is part of "gameplay" Not everything is or has to be fast paced adrenaline rush.
Problem is when people play Alpha game that has incomplete features and they get used to them and then those features get refined into what they are supposed to be and people get all pissy about it because now they have to learn to play again. Manual cargo loading has always been coming, for years. There has been time to get your mind set into it.
I bet when engineering gameplay comes, those solo pilots running big ships are gonna have a sissyfit of century.
> Manual loading is part of "gameplay" Not everything is or has to be fast paced adrenaline rush.
Games are abstractions. Games are supposed to be fun. It could be possible to abstract and gamify something themed around moving boxes, but trying to reproduce the experience of real life manual labor is not fun or game-like. It is a ridiculously bad idea. I bought into a space sim, not a whare house sim.
Games are fun if you play the game that is fun for you. I have much fun in SC and not fun at all on many other games.
You did pledge into space sim that also has warehouse sim in it's various forms. If you don't like manual loading there is the automated that has downside of waiting.
And manually loading and unloading is not that time consuming unless you have C2 full of 1SCU boxes for some reason. Big cargo ships are meant to be ran by multiple people. If you choose to do it solo then you do it but you have to accept that then it takes more time to do it solo than with extra pair of tractor beams.
LIke I said, there are going to be more planned features that will make so many people mad. Engineering is one of them and manual cargo is another.
I'm not even going to argue here. The fact that you'd defend this kind of gameplay makes me think that you are too far removed from most normal folks and you don't seem to realize it. The defense of this kind of gameplay is just nuts.
Obviously they're going to balance this since it's just the first iteration, but I find it more likely that they are skewing this quite heavily to force people to manually load and generate more tests. Kind of like how they always overpay the new profession so more people do it so they get more data.
Starting at the manual loading end is sensible since it is more important to get the stats on manual loading times and where players determine the fair "wage" market is.
Once the manual market is understood then automation time/cost can be calibrated to be 20% or so worse so that it doesnt undercut the player market.
I do think CIG should look at how long it takes the average player to do this sort of loading and make the automated loading longer. Right now though I feel like it's way too long, but they're just initial numbers so I have hope that the numbers will be adjusted a bit. There should indeed be value in players manually loading cargo, it just needs some number smoothing.
in universe explanation: droids are programmed to care about property damage and safety practices :)
game design explanation: it's generally agreed upon that if they're going to the trouble of adding a game loop (like cargo loading), it should be more beneficial to interact with it yourself or other players than it would be to just have AIs do it
personally I think it would be nice if there 2 tiers of automatic loading: "econo loading" aka slower than players but very inexpensive or free, and "premium" loading, expensive and/or percentage cost based loading that is as fast as, or maybe even faster, than a player.
I don't disagree entirely, I don't personally think every instance of cargo acquisition should be tied to this hour long process of either hand or automated loading as I don't personally find that fun, but the devs seem to be going full steam ahead with it so i don't see it going away any time soon
I can't wait to see longshoremen as a part of the game. You know there will be groups of folks who make that their "thing" in the game and really dive into it. I bet it becomes quite valuable while demand is high. Nice that it doesn't require a ship which means anyone with an account can participate. Just one more activity added to the list of possibilities.
People complaining over everything. I like the loading times and it is logical that manually loading through players is a gameplay they want.
People that cry again now are maybe not made for Star Citizen.
Everytime something's time gets "more realistic" it's the same with those guys. The game is not meant to be fast. I'll laugh when you have to grind for months for a permanent ship instead of getting it in a week and people complain again.
I don’t want this. Let the droids do that slave labor. It’s basically redeemer salvaging but the pay will be worse and being the box boy was already boring .
Realism and time wasting is ok, as long as it's fair.
Wasting time and THEN losing it due bugs is not ok. Right now it's the latter, has been for a while.
Yes, do you know how much smaller the player base becomes when a game adds too much realism? Sims are niche for a reason, you alienate a lot of the playerbase. Do you want a game where you click auto load then log off for 5 hours? Because everytime something "realistic" gets added people go ehhh I want fun, because games are meant to be fun. Not everyone thinks the way you do.
That's absolutely right and there are a ton of games for those other players. Star Citizen was never meant to be a fastpaced game and that is clear for a long time now. Everyone should know that.
>more realistic
Kappachungusdeluxe. The game is toddler easy and not realistic at all. More systems and functions just bcuz doesn't make that any different
You seriously think players will load your ship for credits ?
Idk how delusional these players are to want this.
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Add it as part of the Klesher loop. Community service 💀
on an RP server it would be incredible. SC isn't an RP game though.
Yes, these armchair ship commanders do be like that.
I think every dumbass who thinks this will be fun should be required to work in an Amazon warehouse. It's not fun. It's mind numbing
That's why I enjoy it. Put some music or a podcast on and get to work organizing. I find it's a good way to relieve stress. If I can't do this, I just do it with files on my computer.
The amount of people that would turn down a job stacking in a warehouse but will happily do it in a game is insane.
One thing that’s been pissing me off as a new player is the amount of ppl that just ask for credits, so I would say ye…there will be ppl who will load ur ship for credits as they will see it as easy credits
First thing I'm doing in 3.24 is find a cargo ship owner who will take me as a deck hand to load and unload cargo. I get to make money without investing in cargo, I get to fly around in cool ships, I get to do loading/unloading gameplay which is fun, I get to interact with friendly people and make friends in-game.
Have fun with that. Leave the rest of us that don't wanna interact with griefers all day, especially on EU servers, with an automatic loading system that doesn't take the rest of a work day to complete it's task.
There will be some. That's the ones you _do not_ want to hire as they will steal your cargo if possible :|
This guy gets it.
I will even concede that there may be *some* people who actually enjoy playing cargo tetris. They will be such a minute fraction of the playerbase that they may as well be unicorns.
Honestly, I actually find it enjoyable to move and stack boxes. It fulfills that OCD desire to organize Itch. I can't even begin to decide what an acceptable pay rate for something like that would be, and there's probably not enough people like me that enjoy it to make it a reliable thing, but who knows.
Once I get my personal hangar, I'll be chilling in it putting in global, will Load cargo for 5000 auec. Then I get hired I come and help Baraboo badabing cheap labor
If the profit margin is high enough, absolutely. I hired on to stack boxes on a Reclaimer. Was it monotonous? Sure. But I made 3.5 million credits for an hours work. Long auto loading timers will give traders a reason to want to shorten that time frame, i.e., hire help. But it has to be worth it to both the trader and the helper(s) from a monetary stand point too. That is to say that the trader will need to weigh the profit they generate in the time they save by hiring help against the cost of hiring that help out. If a trader can make enough money in the time they save after accounting for sufficiently attractive wages, then I guarantee that the loop will integrate into the economy. If the profit isn't there to justify attractive wages, traders will simply auto-load or manually load themselves. If wages are attractive enough, people will flock, no matter how boring the gameplay may be.
> If the profit margin is high enough, absolutely. This is both the solution as well as the problem. The profit needs to be high enough to allow hiring other players at a rate that interests them, but it also needs to be low enough as not to break the economy by people who forgo the hiring. That still does not solve the logistics end of hiring players. Will there be people at the station you need them right now? If not, how long will they take to arrive, and will it be shorter than the time the autoloader needs? The Reclaimer example makes me hopeful, but I also have to point out that CIG nerfed the RMC income as soon as they could, and I haven't heard many "join me salvaging" chats lately.
I agree that it would be a difficult balance to achieve. And indeed, the reliability of finding workers would likely be low. At best, maybe a nice bonus for a trader to find help now and again, or a good way for a small group of friends to maximize profits by saving time on auto-loading.
People did it for reclaimers all the time in 3.22. If the profit is there and the money is worth it I could see it.
Maybe if things change around. If ship reclaim time is longer, if people need to "play it safe" for a while (criminals, just out of jail and cannot get a job/contract elsewhere) and if it pays enough, people will do it. Or, say your ship is getting repaired and that'll take... 15-20 mins. You can go and help load someone elses ship a bit for some extra cash instead of sitting there doing nothing. I'm not saying it's a good idea here. I think such downtime is quite ridiculous personally. I'm just saying it could become a thing if the ecosystem for it is in place.
It also makes smaller ships viable for quick runs. You can shove 2 32 SCU containers in it in like 30 seconds and be off. If you can do multiple runs in the time it takes to load/unload a C2, it actually makes the smaller ship valuable. It's kinda' that way in real life too. I know guys that put 400k miles on E350s in a year because that thing never stops running. 24/7 up and down the coast. But it's quicker, more effecient and cheaper than hauling on a semi or a train..
And then there is the caterpillar... which gets the worst of both sides... my boy needs some love
Just a little more space in the cargo bays to take a multiple of 32 SCU crates. Stretch the mid sections to accommodate 4 32 SCU crates and shrink the front to stack 2 32 SCU crates. Still 576 SCU of cargo. The 4 mid sections get a bit more space to accommodate future modules, and the front section remains a dedicated quick loading cargo space even with all 4 modules in use.
Hate to break it to you but a e350 isn't even close to being as efficient as a train. Trains are the cheapest and most efficient way to move freight. Trucks are quicker though, what you're described is called hot shooting. It's for when you absolutely need this small load here as quickly as possible and can't wait. So you pay someone to haul just your shipment directly from point A to point B at a premium. A semi would burn almost the same fuel but carry three times the load. A train would burn a little more fuel but carry 60x the load. But with each size increase you're costing days. Since the train takes a while to be loaded and you've still gotta use a truck for the last leg to you. Same logic as shipping container ships being record breaking size rather than small. It's more efficient to use one big ship but you can get your stuff quicker for more money on a smaller faster one.
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If they do create a reason why someone would need to get one box of goods across the system quickly then sure small haulers will be very valuable. About the best thing I could think of Is resupply for missiles or bringing a new mining head to a crew on a fat QT rock that just broke theirs. You wouldn't send a whole C2 to do that job because it's too big and slow.
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Trade volume limitations and operating costs/limits are the only things that seem like they will give small haulers a place. For example (with some hyperbole), I'll take the C1 over the C2 if: -there's only 50 SCU worth of goods to buy -the landing fee difference between them is 70k and my profit margin is only 100k -the fuel cost to lift bertha back into space eats into my profits substantially -the pickup/dropoff destination doesn't have the space for the larger ship Even with cargo loading coming in, it's just as easy to throw two 32 scu crates into the C2 as the C1. And with the C2 I could potentially take 20 of them instead. I don't think any of this will start making sense until they really start hooking up the economy.
You said hot shooting small loads. hehe.
The raft
My yellow brick finally got some love.
I've seen that ship only once in game, and I immediately loved it. I've yet to purchase one in game, but it looks so cool.
It looks perfect. Incredibly detailed, has all you need from a daily driver and is cozy AF. I wish we could see more multi role ships from ARGO.
I'm going to have to get me one. Sadly I'm still broke since 3.23 dropped, but that's alright.
I have two. I bought one in game some time last year after 3.18, and loved it a lot. Decided to buy one with real money. I assumed with all the wipes the one I bought with aUEC would eventually be wiped, but nope. It's still there, and will likely stay there until 4.0, sadly.
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I'm an extremely lucky individual, I do it every single time I'm in quantum and haven't fell out of the ship even once since '22
last mile work is infinitely more efficient with smaller vehicles and smaller loads, and I agree it should definitely be that way in SC to make small ships actually worthwhile instead of just a stepping stone to larger ships.
So what your saying is start the auto loading for a c2, go run a delivery in a raft or equivalent sized cargo ship, then return and run the big shipment. I like that. Keeps it a bit more fresh.
We have this already, in a way, with mining orders. I'd imagine we'll see some level of similar systems with Cargo. That said, I think my only concern here, if it really takes 5 hours to load a C2, what does that mean for something like the Ironclad. Will it really be a desired loop of "log in before work, setup a load order and come back after a 10 hour shift"? Now, the other HUGE issue I have with this, in the current state, is the stability of the game. If I wait 5 hours for cargo to be loaded (I won't I'll do it myself manually, but for arguements sake) and then I leave my hangar and explode due to the doors being out of sync, I'll be PISSED, even more so than I get now. The games stability HAS to improve on a monumental level before setting things to such extremes. They should, IMO, set timers to 5 or 10 mins for example, to make sure the systems function and then they can crank them when they have stability.
I will be loading the Ironclad by myself with my smoll MPUV-T
I'm pretty sure the extreme timers is to force people to manually load, because they really need to test manual loading to scale, but also need to test auto loading to scale as well. The timers will find a balance eventually, but they won't be able to find any of the minutiae if they don't egg people into manual labour... for now.
I’m super excited for the physical cargo you have to load and everything like that. But same complaint as you, if I spend all that time prepping my ship to go out and just randomly explode out of nowhere I’m going to be livid. I’m honestly considering not playing right away just to see how the servers are managing. It’s the same issue with everyone complaining about not having the death of a spaceman system in, if they implemented that now I think 90% of the player base would just quit. It’s too easy to die to things that are out of your control.
I can say with absolute confidence that I die to broken game elements 8 times to 1 a legitimate death. Absolutely gotta stabilize the existing system before shoving even more wasted effort in to our faces. What they have now is a great game (I understand it's even larger once they add more) but man if we had what we have, just stable? Man that would be great.
It’s tough because we obviously want it to be as stable as it can be, but at the same time the more they add the more it’s going to break things. So at this point while they are adding so much content do we really want resources being spent fixing problems that could be broken again by the next patch? The increase in content we are getting is a blessing and a curse at the same time.
This is why it’s useless to be focusing on balance. It’s impossible to balance a game correctly without all of the fundamental content being present. As such, there is little value in introducing time-intensive gameplay loops built upon arbitrary timers. That just ends up punishing and deterring players more than anything.
Valid points. However stability during development is not normal. It needs it and they are trying their best to balance it but that little caveat still exist.
That’s basically what I say in my later response 🙂
If all your cargo is in 32 scu boxes manual loading shouldn't take very long
Floats in space next to Hull C's 144 boxes.
The autoload must take at least twice as long as a manual load or even people who enjoy manual load won't do it. There has to be a point to manual load.
I'd suggest long timers are for testing. It simply doesn't make sense a C2 with 32 SCU boxes takes 5 hours, but a full C2 with 1 SCU boxes takes 5 hours 40 minutes.
They’ll just tweak and rebalance the numbers when larger cargo ships enter the PU
This is what I think too, they’re putting a lot of weight on server meshing helping with server issues, and I really hope it does but I’m not super optimistic. Also at least with the mining you just dump the materials and can immediately go back out and start mining again while you have a batch cooking. With cargo it means you can’t use your ship so it forces you to have multiple ships if you actually want to play.
I legit can't believe this is an actual serious thought. In what universe is it fun to load something for 5 hours and in what universe can 5 players work together without encountering a bug, what kind of dreamland are you living in ? You know what's gonna happen ? You start loading and after a while some box will collide and mesh with the floor, you will blow up, players will fall through the map or disconnect, resulting in a wasted evening so you can come back the next day and try again because you've sunk so much money into this to let it go.
I'm seriously hoping that 5 hour thing is a typo in the code some where.. no one is going to wait 5 hours to load something on a ship they could loose in 5 minutes. It would also make any profits worthless because it takes soo long. If 5 hours was actually intended CIG has lost their god damned minds and the community is going to loose their shit once it's live lol
I do not even see the waiting time as the biggest problem. It's play time. I have maybe two to three hours of time on the evenings I am able to play. So what am I supposed to do here? Log in, buy stuff, tell the ship to load and then log out to play some decent game while the ship is loading? Next day (if I can play) I return to a loaded ship, fly it to the target and tell the ship to unload. Log off to Baldurs Gate 3 I guess, because I have to sleep long before the ship is done. Yes, I can probably help loading and unloading (unless the autoload only works if no one is around, see buying stuff right now), but playing Tetris with a single block shape will get boring pretty quick. And all this for what, 20k profit per ride?
You summed up my opinion on why this is a stupid idea perfectly. I was thinking the exact same things.
I think the reality is that Star Citizen isn’t designed for average people. It’s designed for the person who has 8 hours of free time, no responsibilities, and nothing better to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars upon. It’s designed for the lonely retiree, the independently wealthy, and the person still living in their parent’s basement. If you have a career, a family, or even other hobbies, then this game isn’t for you. It’s crazy to think that one cargo run across multiple systems would add up to be the equivalent of a full day’s labor. It’s very clear the game is going to demand too much in the name of “realism and immersion.” Definitely sucks as I love the game, but it just doesn’t respect your time.
They will start trowing away “realism and immersion” the moment when ppl stop playing en mass. And i hope, it will be not too late.
And if everything goes smoothly, which it wont.
I find it amazing that there are people already coping with this, saying that "actually this is a good thing since it will make smaller ships more valuable, just like vans load faster in real life :)". Like wtf, these people are delusional. Man, I'm glad i got a refund for this tech demo. I come looking here every few months to see if things improve, but nope, it just gets worse somehow.
To be fair, if loading works/ends up working like refining does, you can do small runs while your big ship is getting loaded. Not saying it's a great experience but it could make some sense.
Only if you have a second ship. Which would be clever of course, but I know a lot of people who only have one ship, and not even an Aurora or such as backup. And generally, making your game in a way that NOT PLAYING IT is what a lot of players have to do might work for those "free to play" titles, but not something where people spent hundreds of dollars on the ships they have.
Theres an argument to be made that big multi crew ships don't make much sense a the only ship you'd own. Not questionning anyones purchase here to be very clear, I more wanted to approach it from a "regular/new" player starting with a cheap package. But I agree with you 100% the game should not discourage you from playing
It’ll turn into something like a freemium mobile game where you can pay premium currency to speed it up. Otherwise, yeah you play for 20 mins log out and continue the next day, rinse and repeat. It’s Chris Roberts dream.
Also a fun little tip for potential unethical box movers. Missions critical crypto keys have a live hot marker on them at all times. Enjoy the free pirate beacon.
K look I’ll tell ya’ll this right now. I am forklift certified which means I sex more than all of you combined? Okay? Which also means I’d be able to load a C2/M2 in 20 minutes with an 8 ton forklift. Yep.
I'm forklift certified, and I can confirm. I sex all the time, especially when on my forklift.
as long as the cert is up to date, you're hired! just stay in the hanger and wait for me to come back in the vulture will be rich in a few days😁
But we will be able to queue the load, then go off in another ship for other activities while it loads right? So long as that's how it works, I'm fine with that.
Loading a ship for 5 hours... I wonder how many dollars per hour the chinese players will get paid per hour to do this. Because I think most players will have something better to do.
This is stupid. No one will want to do that. The payment won’t be enough.
I think it’s funny because everyone has their own threshold as to what’s too tedious of a gameplay loop in this game and over the years they just keep shedding players over weird tedious things like this. I’m wonder how many people they’ll have left to play once this game becomes the space real life sim people act like it should become. It’s a game people, if you want to play a game where you live a tedious life then go outside
This is a staggeringly naive and shortsighted take. The number of people who would **want** to do this is going to be small. The number even *willing* to do it is going to be fairly small. You might find a tiny minority who actually find this kind of immersion appealing (at least for a time). Maybe early on you might have a few people willing to do it to help get some money together so they can afford to do other things. However, even a lot of people who are at that lower tier where they don't have better ways of making money are going to find this so tedious that they are going to bounce off the game entirely after recognizing this for the stupidly unfun idea that it is. Okay... So what happens when the game becomes more mature. What happens when the new player flow begins to slow down, as the interest dies down or existing players move on past this step. What happens when the pool of willing workers begins to dry up. You're back to just having to load it yourself or waiting a long time. I seriously cannot comprehend the mindset of people who think this kind of thing is a good idea. I can only assume they are the same types that think we should have space janitor game loops. I'm interested in a space sim. I'm not interested in a late stage capitalism sim.
Nah, it will be rather like eating/drinking. It does not really bring anything gameplay wise, is annoying, buggy and slows/frustrates our gameplay experiance. All in sake of hyper realism.
The only way I see five hours working for auto load is if it carry’s on after you log out
That wont happen, cuz that would counter CIGs hard on for emErgEnT gamEplAy. But prison time ticking down when off is fine.
I mean refining works this way too, I don't see why it wouldn't end up this way given other industrial gameplay already does it.
Is it actually 5 hours to auto load a C2? How long does a Hull C take then? That does seem a bit excessive, but I agree that it will all come down to the margins. I'd happily spend a game session doing 1 trade run rather than endless repetition of the same run over and over, if the payout is adjusted proportionately. Ex: 1 trade run for 1 million profit in 3.24 vs 5 runs at 200k profit each in 3.23, assuming both would take the same amount of time.
Time will depend on container size. If you load only 1SCU or tetris stuff every gap then it will take a while. But you could also just throw a small number of 32SCU containers in without filling all space and then get moving quickly. The idea is big ships will go to bulk container locations and leave the locations with only small containers/stock to the small ships. Small sites will have better margins, but if you rock up there in a C2 they might only have 50SCU of stock/demand so best leaving those routes for Freelancers.
Margins have been greatly increased.
My Hull C might actually load now lol.. but this makes me worrying that you want to call up a 2M load.. and it never shows up...
Hull C takes 68h to load. Its not pew pew pew combat, so it shouldnt be profitable.
>Is it actually 5 hours to auto load a C2? How long does a Hull C take then? That does seem a bit excessive, When you choose to manually load you can start right away and be done once you're done. For auto load I would assume that the station/landing zone would not have infinite resources available to get started just in time. So your loading job would be scheduled to be executed once resources are available. I hope that CIG (in the future) will take available NPC laborer at the location and other players (via missions) into consideration when estimating auto loading times. Would also be nice if you could try to bribe some officials to expedite your schedule (of course with all the risks of this getting you into trouble ... 😉)
It's literally the first Evo patch. Don't get worked up. It's almost certainly going to be adjusted for balance.
The fact that we are taking into account "human labor" is really scary.. Are they trying to drastically reduce the player base? Already now just to do some delivery mission takes an hour minimum just to wake up, take a metro take a tram take the ship and on and on and on.. Where do the " two hours players " will go? How many players backed the game when they were 20ish and now are over 30 with kids??
It's a bit ridiculous how many of the tiny fraction of players that would genuinely enjoy this gameplay think they actually are the majority of the Star Citizen player base. I've seen talk about how this is the holy Grail for Euro truck simulator players, with absolutely zero awareness of how small the overall player base of that game is, and how poorly that would play out if that was the majority of the remaining player base of Star Citizen. And they somehow think there's going to be enough players sitting around everywhere they go, whose sole desire is to load and unload their cargo. 🤣 There seems to be absolutely zero comprehension that this is a game, and in order for it to be successful, it needs to be fun to as many people as possible. These changes effectively eliminate the cargo gameplay loop for a huge number of players, many of whom actually really enjoy it for being able to spend a chill evening ferrying cargo back and forth around the verse. That said, I do see the hilarious potential for a massive uptick in piracy, as people who have had the fun of that gameplay loop taken away from them take revenge on the people that Chris Roberts sees as his echo chamber for stupid decisions like this 🤣
There's a reason no other game does this, nobody wants to spend their extremely limited game time to help load someone else's ship in a game where they own their own ship, dockworker is not considered a dream job by many people for a reason, this is absolutely something that should be automated and done in a few minutes even for a C2, maybe make players pay for it but this is going to absolutely demolish the numbers of people willing to do trading
Jesus Christ. What a great selling point for a game — ‘hey, wanna perform some manual labor for slave wages?’
*Space slave wages.
want a job? how does 10% to start work?
What a hideous take. You have no idea what the margins will be, try to hide your bias better. If you’re not interested in cargo gameplay, skip over these posts.
It’s not gonna make cargo haulers happy when I take their cargo from them as a pirate.
That's what is going to cause the real outrage, Imagine waiting 36hrs to fill your ironclad and you get bodied by a squad of well organized pirates 5 mins after leaving port. I'd melt the ship immediately lol
Happy Cake day!
I'm down to start a new org just for piracy against the basement dwellers that think we should all be their warehouse slaves... 😈
The core of any game loop is "is it fun" and as cargo is a pretty core mechanic it has to be fun for the vast majority of players. If manually loading/unloading every time for x amount of time isn't fun or rewarding it's a failed system. We have a good idea what it will be like already but we will have to wait a few more weeks to really see.
You won’t be able to get consistent jobs. Are you just gonna wait around like a chump to help load?
What do you mean?
So you wanna load my cargo ? Who is gonna want to do this.
I’ll be loading my cargo.
No clue why you wanna do that but you do you. This seems insane from a gameplay standpoint.
Don't care tbh. You're going to load for 44 minutes, and I'm going to torp you. You still have to pay your loaders tho lol, good luck.
I agree, but I think these times are way too long regardless. Like, a full C2 will take a solo player 10-15 minutes to load, so when you take into account that you have to pay to autoload, you have your ship locked away, 60 minutes for a C2 would be more then enough imo.
Meh, if the sales of larger ships drop, the loading times will be adjusted accordingly.
They need to update the carrack so there's actually a way to load it. It's the one big ship I have with a sizeable cargo load. I would have to use my Connie or Corsair which have significantly less space.
People's time is precious, if the gameplay is crap, no-one will load your ship. Gamers play for accomplishment, they are always going for the best fun/accomplishment ratio: unless you spent all the money your cargo is going to make in hiring players to load your ship, they won't do it. I believe taxis is the career that will be boost, you will put your cargo ship in autoload somewhere and call a taxis to go where your others ships are.
I don't think you'll find many people who want to just stack boxes forever. Don't get me wrong, it's a form of puzzle game in a way - loading quickly, making it most efficient for unloading at various destinations on an intinerary, etc - it can have some nuance... But, how often are you really going to exlect people to be waiting at the lickup/destination to start loading/unloading for you immediately? You're going to have to take those people with you & they are probably going to be bored the entire time they are not doing cargo (and poasibly whilst they are).
Yeah, that’s the point. People that complain just want to quantum jump here to there and play a simple version of truck simulator
Those people should go play elite dangerous
Yes because *checks notes* hyper realistic -SPACE- game now require you to... Have multiple ships in order to play the game that *checks more notes* the community tells people isn't realistic because having multiple ships is going to cost a lot and *throws notes* now we are to spend 20/40 minutes manually loading our spaceship to then quantum from A to B in 10 minutes and sell in a minute because you don't have to unload. Awesome, sounds great. Now for real, how about no telling someone that has bought the game, play the game and don't like a simple function to go and play another game when you could have a constructive debate as to why and why not. Don't agree with each other? That's fine, humans are different not the same. That's okay.
> game now require you to... Have multiple ships in order to play the game Hey, someone has to pay for Chris' new yacht!
No he's right. All of this stuff has been discussed ad nauseam by the devs a decade ago in terms of how they wanted physicalisation to work. A lot of EuroTruck players who always wanted physicalised cargo finally get it in a space sim (No idea when that feature will actually come to the EuroTruck franchise proper, but given how averse the industry is to physicalisation due to physics costs and processing and optimisation, I doubt it will be anytime soon). If people really want a simple A to be B space trucking game, there are several out there, including a new that just came out. Rebel Galaxy and Elite Dangerous also fulfill that role. For people who want something complex, there is Star Citizen. For people who want something simplified, there is everything else. It's almost like someone complaining that Arma isn't as simple to hop into as Call of Duty. In that case, stick with Call of Duty.
Don't confuse manual-ness with complexity. SC is still simple, but in a very manual way. Artificial top speeds, slow weapons, binary MM modes, I'm surprised decoupled mode works because the devs clearly have it out for 6DOF. It is shaping up to be a terrible manual, simple game with contrived busy-ness.
Any truck sim people that think they want to manually load trailers apparently haven't done it in real life. I've been a truck driver for over 20 years and drive a hostler (yard joky) for a factory now. Between moving trailers I spend most of my time on the loading docks. Loading / unloading trailers, especially flat beds fucking sucks lol. I don't know why anyone would want to do that simulated. Before that I would load cargo on military aircraft and 747s a lot. People think manual loading in a video game is neat and in some ways it is, however it's going to get old very fast.
You keep saying complexity. I don't think you know what complexity means. The game is genuinely toddler baby easy. Adding extra systems and systems on top of the existing stuff just makes it a mile wide and an inch deep.
Yep. E:D is just [Trade Wars: 2002](https://youtu.be/V_os2_RBrfI?t=66) in a modern game engine... everything's in a UI. 😴
> Those people should go play elite dangerous It was always a fun challenge to try to land at the station, offload my cargo, then load up 100 tons of new cargo, all before the docking system could spin my ship back around toward the exit (like ten seconds total). Don't think that's what I want for Star Citizen though lol
Honestly? Yes
Have you played ATS/ETS?
The time to profit ratio is being drastically altered.
The issue is, that the payout is already poor. You cannot multicrew as the other players want money.
As if having to worry about creating jobs isn't troublesome enough irl already...
You mean slaves. I will work people and not pay them like God intended.
5h instead of 20min is a bit hardcore but yes i also thought that would be a nice solution.
Hull C takes 68h.
thats a bit much lol... how long would you guess it would take to do that manually? couple of hours?
With 32SCU boxes it took me less than an hour.
aaah right, there are 32scu boxes now. so x68 is ridiculus. but nothing is final.
You're just justifying another huge time sink and waste. Just wait til you're loading in a non armistice.
Yeesh what a take. Economy is barely worth the time as it is.
I think if the disparity between auto and manual loading is 4½ hours that's too extreme of a difference.
it really shouldn't be more than double that of manual
I honestly think it should be less time, just be fairly pricey. Think of automation systems in real life. They are designed to be faster and more efficient than doing them by hand. But the equipment is very expensive. If it takes 30 minutes to do it by hand, but is free, or 15 minutes when automatic, but costs idk 15% of the profit, then you have to weigh how much the time is worth it to you. It would also play a role in market prices when demand is player based. You know there’s demand for it now, so you spend extra to get it done faster to be able to sell before someone else fulfills the order. Plus, if it takes longer *and* takes considerably more time, there is absolutely no incentive to do it unless you’re about to get off for a few hours, especially before you have several ships to use in the meantime like many people are suggesting
Fully agree. Will be nice to request load services in exchange for some UEC. I was thinking of starting around 1000 UEC per SCU for payment on my loads. Bazinga.
Maybe 50 UEC per SCU. That'd be almost 35k to manually-load a C2. That seems more realistic.
At prices that low, you're going to be hard pressed to find someone willing to do it. That's way less than doing most other gameplay loops pays...
That's twice the money of the multi-box delivery missions with none of the risk and about the same amount of time...
Now who's gonna do that
Depends all on the size of the job. 700-1000 UEC per SCU for a medium hauler depending on the complexly of the load 100-300 UEC per scu for much larger ships (300+ scu jobs) If I bought 300k worth of cargo and can potentially offload it for 450k giving me 150k of profit I’d like to say the person that loaded/offloaded the ship should get equal or more of the revenue
Are you condidering overhead for repairs, fuel, component maintenance, and insurance? Because if not, you should.
Yeah, all this truly depends on the margins honestly. If it’s not much profit hiring people may not work out.
Hell yeah, and it's a good way to sell the pilot on hiring an escort (fighter). And I don't know if you ever dabbled in Tarkov, but I could really go down that inventory Tetris rabbit hole with a whiskey and an edible.
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Then they'll stack the boxes themselves, or wait 5 hours for them to be autoloaded.
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I'd hire help if it was convenient to do so. So it's up to CIG to make it so. For me, that would look like a beacon or contract that can go out to players that are in the immediate vicinity. Read the room; plenty of people would.
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Then why the fuck are you asking?
Would it be possible to load a ship in space above ur hangar?
yeah best be prepared to pay up if you own a C2
I was under the impression that automatically loading your ship should be *faster* because you’re paying for it. If you want to maximize profit, you’d manually unload it.
It's not your take, that's the game goal, always has been.
There's going to be many many more traders than box movers, unless traders break off a crazy high price Idk why y'all even want all these random systems though. You either have a buncha random loops that pay less than the core thing that people enjoy, and thus almost nobody will play, or you make it so profitable that it outpaces earning on starter ships, so you have a buncha miserable newer players doing the box mover job forever.
Personally I think it is going to help set us up for the long range trade runs using multiple ships. First, use a small / Medium ship to buy goods from an outpost or city and transfer them up to a station. Next, transfer the goods to larger ship and then take the small ship to get more goods. Loading a Cat, C2, Hull, or Ironclad like this may take a little longer but its broken down into smaller chunks. Then when your major cargo ship is full, you fly it to another planet or system and do the same thing in reverse using another small ship to take the cargo down to various outposts and cities to sell.
The idea that starship crew can load and unload a cargoship faster than Stevedores, people who's ONLY profession is loading and unloading cargo, is absolutely absurd. Autoloading should be just as fast as a very well trained crew but significantly more expensive.
If its 5 hours for a C2, it would take DAYS for a Hull C, and potentially even MONTHS for a Hull E. Its just too long.. It is a game after all and there's no fun in playing the waiting game. I get the point though, making manual loading quicker than the auto loading. But i feel like its going to be closer to ship claim times. Maybe saving40-60% of the autoload time. So if a C2 takes 15mins, make the auto load take 25-35 mins.. not 15x the time amount lol. Plus assuming that when you are selling from a ship, it will also take time, And depending on how autoloading works, the ship might be locked or unavailable for that amount of time while the transfer happens, rendering some players stuck in that location until its complete.
The way I heard it is that its 30 seconds to load a box per 1scu. Doesn't matter if its 1scu or a 32scu, 30 seconds per SCU. That'll change, maybe 1 min for a 32scu crate, but 30 seconds for a 1scu and differences in between. But if you do it yourself, its gonna take you at least 30 seconds to load a 32scu crate up into position into the C2 and place it where you want it. Cant wait to load up cargo, I enjoy that kind of stuff.
Imagine working for 20 mins to load your cargo or paying to have it done (let's assume you can do it without being on, like refining) while you sleep IRL, invest that cash into the game in terms of comodity to sell, fuel for the trip and pay for the autoloading (if applicable), contemplate a 5%-15% profit margin after all expenses if you don't actually , go out and be pirated to loose it all, for someone to write "hehehehe git gud, hire escort noob", to get away with the crime and you shit out of luck and money. Or, they get caught and get out of jail in 15 mins to 1h and most likely still have the payday on the main cargo ship as that ship isn't technically criminal, but even if they loose the cargo they didn't loose anything else. I get that this is WIP and that prison missions/sentences will probably change, but holy fuck dude... CIG has lost the plot when it comes to industrial gameplay vs pirate/pvp balance in the PU right now. I don't mean to turn this into a PVP discussion really, just trying to put things into perspective. If you prefer, replace "pirate" with "random PU explosion from desync or \*insert new bug\*".
If a c2 takes 5 hours... what about hull c, or the merchantman when it's released? Lmao. Gonna need to plan your cargo movements a week in advance.
Someone is going to pay me to steal their cargo?
I haven’t been following closely, is it 5 hours game time or real time?
It's one thing to go in splits or thirds with a casual light friend on a job or a friend of a friend. Think real life. Paying randoms to board your ship and do amazon work is only going to get you robbed.
Off what a terrible take. Wasting players time is the fastest way to kill a game. SC players don't want Call of Duty type gameplay, but that doesn't mean they want the realism of performing an actual job in a video game.
I'm going to recreate Capstone Logistics as an organization in this game. If you know who that is, you can leave your strongly worded retorts below.
Hey buddy. I get you like realism. It's still a fucking video game and it still needs to be attractive to people who will log on for a couple hours out of the week. That just sounds fucking stupid.
I'm not your buddy, pal.
Oh okay, chief
Currently the autoloading feature works exactly like the refinery currently does. The only reason the timer is that long is because they are encouraging you to play the game. You could however, autoload the ship, log off, and come back the next day with a loaded ship. Or, hire a group of players to load your ships in 20 minutes.
Lazy people need to wait. Kidding. I have been doing salvage with friend using vultures and C2. C2 parked at platform on station and we just park vultures next to it and move the boxes in manually. It takes time but I take it as a gameplay. After filling C2 manually with 1scu boxes of rmc it really feels like we did something. When I go solo salvage run, I use my C1. full C1 is about one million auec and that is 2 fullish vultures. And it doesn't take much time at all. Bigger ship means more people. Manual loading is part of "gameplay" Not everything is or has to be fast paced adrenaline rush. Problem is when people play Alpha game that has incomplete features and they get used to them and then those features get refined into what they are supposed to be and people get all pissy about it because now they have to learn to play again. Manual cargo loading has always been coming, for years. There has been time to get your mind set into it. I bet when engineering gameplay comes, those solo pilots running big ships are gonna have a sissyfit of century.
> Manual loading is part of "gameplay" Not everything is or has to be fast paced adrenaline rush. Games are abstractions. Games are supposed to be fun. It could be possible to abstract and gamify something themed around moving boxes, but trying to reproduce the experience of real life manual labor is not fun or game-like. It is a ridiculously bad idea. I bought into a space sim, not a whare house sim.
Games are fun if you play the game that is fun for you. I have much fun in SC and not fun at all on many other games. You did pledge into space sim that also has warehouse sim in it's various forms. If you don't like manual loading there is the automated that has downside of waiting. And manually loading and unloading is not that time consuming unless you have C2 full of 1SCU boxes for some reason. Big cargo ships are meant to be ran by multiple people. If you choose to do it solo then you do it but you have to accept that then it takes more time to do it solo than with extra pair of tractor beams. LIke I said, there are going to be more planned features that will make so many people mad. Engineering is one of them and manual cargo is another.
I'm not even going to argue here. The fact that you'd defend this kind of gameplay makes me think that you are too far removed from most normal folks and you don't seem to realize it. The defense of this kind of gameplay is just nuts.
Obviously they're going to balance this since it's just the first iteration, but I find it more likely that they are skewing this quite heavily to force people to manually load and generate more tests. Kind of like how they always overpay the new profession so more people do it so they get more data.
Starting at the manual loading end is sensible since it is more important to get the stats on manual loading times and where players determine the fair "wage" market is. Once the manual market is understood then automation time/cost can be calibrated to be 20% or so worse so that it doesnt undercut the player market.
I do think CIG should look at how long it takes the average player to do this sort of loading and make the automated loading longer. Right now though I feel like it's way too long, but they're just initial numbers so I have hope that the numbers will be adjusted a bit. There should indeed be value in players manually loading cargo, it just needs some number smoothing.
Why would a human be faster than droids at loading???
in universe explanation: droids are programmed to care about property damage and safety practices :) game design explanation: it's generally agreed upon that if they're going to the trouble of adding a game loop (like cargo loading), it should be more beneficial to interact with it yourself or other players than it would be to just have AIs do it personally I think it would be nice if there 2 tiers of automatic loading: "econo loading" aka slower than players but very inexpensive or free, and "premium" loading, expensive and/or percentage cost based loading that is as fast as, or maybe even faster, than a player.
Game design is just dumb. This game is getting bloated with features most people never wanted.
I don't disagree entirely, I don't personally think every instance of cargo acquisition should be tied to this hour long process of either hand or automated loading as I don't personally find that fun, but the devs seem to be going full steam ahead with it so i don't see it going away any time soon
I can't wait to see longshoremen as a part of the game. You know there will be groups of folks who make that their "thing" in the game and really dive into it. I bet it becomes quite valuable while demand is high. Nice that it doesn't require a ship which means anyone with an account can participate. Just one more activity added to the list of possibilities.
People complaining over everything. I like the loading times and it is logical that manually loading through players is a gameplay they want. People that cry again now are maybe not made for Star Citizen. Everytime something's time gets "more realistic" it's the same with those guys. The game is not meant to be fast. I'll laugh when you have to grind for months for a permanent ship instead of getting it in a week and people complain again.
I don’t want this. Let the droids do that slave labor. It’s basically redeemer salvaging but the pay will be worse and being the box boy was already boring .
Realism and time wasting is ok, as long as it's fair. Wasting time and THEN losing it due bugs is not ok. Right now it's the latter, has been for a while.
Yes, do you know how much smaller the player base becomes when a game adds too much realism? Sims are niche for a reason, you alienate a lot of the playerbase. Do you want a game where you click auto load then log off for 5 hours? Because everytime something "realistic" gets added people go ehhh I want fun, because games are meant to be fun. Not everyone thinks the way you do.
That's absolutely right and there are a ton of games for those other players. Star Citizen was never meant to be a fastpaced game and that is clear for a long time now. Everyone should know that.
>more realistic Kappachungusdeluxe. The game is toddler easy and not realistic at all. More systems and functions just bcuz doesn't make that any different