Forums » Suggestions

Persist ships in space for an hour after client exit

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May 27, 2015 Savet link
Since we have had multiple threads over the years about ship persistence, and we have had threads lately about ships not persisting for 5 minutes, and other threads about players being able to log out while under fire, it seems that it makes sense to just make ships persist in space for an hour after logout.

If you want to log out in space (as I do) there should be a risk if someone finds you. Let's just squash the "so and so logged out while under fire" drama and make ships persist for a duration that. In the interest of limiting developer resource requirement on future logout issues, let's just make logging out in space as dangerous as it should be.
May 27, 2015 biretak link
+1 to longer! Sectors should eventually reset, but 30 seconds or 5 minutes will not cut it!
May 28, 2015 Pizzasgood link
+1 to the OP.

biretak, while I'm glad you seem to be supporting this as well, I suspect that you're confused about what the OP is addressing. This isn't about the 30 second sector reset. This is about making the ship that you're flying continue floating around for an hour after you log out (or disconnect, or crash, etc.), regardless of whether it's a capital ship or a fighter.

Before draugath pops in to say that ships shouldn't persist because what if your computer crashes or your mom calls you to eat while you're in a wormhole sector... I want to point out that I'm aware of those issues and I do not care. At most, you lose your ship and cargo. Not a big deal. Some people might find that inconvenient, but plenty of us find that people being able to just magically disappear from the universe is also inconvenient, immersion breaking, and just plain annoying.

In the overwhelming majority of cases, people who don't want to take the risk can simply dock with a station. It normally takes less than a minute to do. It is not some unbearable burden.
May 28, 2015 Kierky link
+1
May 28, 2015 bojansplash link
+1
May 28, 2015 CrazySpence link
+1
May 28, 2015 biretak link
Rin, I understood. But, shouldn't a sectors state persist as well and possibly before ships?
May 28, 2015 Death Fluffy link
+1 There is no excuse not to now that tridents have stations to dock at.
May 28, 2015 Kierky link
I honestly think they should persist without a time limit. As fluffy said, they stations other than M-7 now and if you want true safety, log off in there.
May 28, 2015 Tokko Bashalis link
+1
May 28, 2015 csgno1 link
All ships should persist for 7 days

Turbo-lock should persist too
May 28, 2015 Pizzasgood link
I don't mind very long term or even permanent persistence of ships. I do object to long term persistence of motion, however, due to practical constraints on the server. One of the concerns that people have brought up regarding long term ship (or other asset) persistence is clutter, but this isn't a big problem for the most part because any ships deemed to be littering space will be destroyed by people like me. But if you also allow the ship's movement to persist, then it becomes easier for the ships to float way out to where nobody will ever encounter them. The result would be a bunch of clutter that we wouldn't see, but that would still be sitting there consuming server resources.

There are ways around it. The motion could only persist for a minute before applying drag to halt the vessel, or ships that spent too much time persisting at a large distance from the sector's center could be automatically destroyed or un-persisted, etc.
May 28, 2015 Ore link
What's the point of this? You all want to shoot unpiloted, inanimate objects?

-1
May 28, 2015 biretak link
Rin, space radiation could degrade the hull of the ship a few percent a day until it explodes on it's own after being abandoned for 30 days or so.
May 28, 2015 greenwall link
-1

Savet already brought this up before. I particularly don't like the idea of zero timeouts (ships never dissappearing from space) because it makes no sense at all. I could live with unlimited trident persistence, but certainly not the smaller ships.

Not just that, but it would force every single account and character ever created to suddenly appear in space wherever they last logged out. If sectors freak out when you fire swarms, what do you think they will do if hundreds of thousands of ships appear all at once across a majority of sectors of the universe? It's just silly.
May 28, 2015 Pizzasgood link
"What's the point of this? You all want to shoot unpiloted, inanimate objects?"

The point is that being able to log out to avoid death is stupid. Even with the five minute persistence on capital ships, it takes time to gather your forces, break the shield, and deplete the hitpoints.

Logging out is also a tactic that can be used to avoid piracy after being stopped, by pretending that you're going to pay and then stalling while you wait for the logout timer to tick down. Newbies often take a couple minutes in order to figure out how to work the /givemoney command, so it isn't at all suspicious if people don't pay instantly. Sending people a PM will reset the logout timer, but it will only do it once, and the total time taken to log out will still be less than what it takes for many mobile users to locate the / key, get the command right, remember the quotation marks, etc.

It is important to remember that logging out is an artifact of the real world, not a part of the game universe. Therefor it should not have any role in in-game activities. Any use of logouts to influence in-game activities is cheating, plain and simple.


"Not just that, but it would force every single account and character ever created to suddenly appear in space wherever they last logged out."

It doesn't have to do that. It could be designed to only impact accounts that were logged out after the feature was deployed. Anyway, the OP isn't asking for permanent persistence, so this point is not a concern to whether the OP should be implemented.

You didn't offer any explanation about why you're against one hour of persistence. Would you care to share?
May 28, 2015 Savet link
Greenwall, I'm suggesting an hour of persistence, not unlimited.
May 28, 2015 greenwall link
"Any use of logouts to influence in-game activities is cheating, plain and simple."

No it isn't.

The problem inherent in making persistence last a long time is that you can't differentiate between an intentional closing of the game to avoid death and unintended network disconnection.

I just can't see the justification for persistence in non-capital ships outside of "wahhh my target evaded me in a way I didn't like". This is just as stupid as the debate about sector hopping... just a bunch of people who are mad that their targets can escape AT ALL.

I would argue that this is simply because there are just not enough targets. If more people played, more explosions would happen and this bloodlust would be better satisfied. Sure people would still do the things you don't like (see: gamemanship), but it would be less obvious/prevalent I think.
May 28, 2015 vskye link
+1 to OP.
May 28, 2015 Ore link
So Rin, you are experiencing people logging out while you are blowing up their tridents? Do you even log in? Who are the offenders?

So you legitimately want to shoot inanimate unpiloted objects, go shoot a roid.

This is ridiculous.