Is it just me or....(teleportation)

[Shazzi]

Yes i have a problem with the teleportation systems thats in place. I know people will just say "just dont use it then...no one is forcing you to use it". Thing is i feel like am i cheating when i just TP to where ever i want and it takes a large part of the game out for me. I find myself using it because it a system that is in place.

Seems a little overpowered....I mean in x3 and earlier. You had to get a jumpdrive on a ship and the distance you could travel in sectors was determined by how many energy cells was in your cargo. Even after that you needed to get within 15km of the ship you wanted to teleport to even teleport and have the teleporter tech install on other ship if you wanted to teleport back.

Just small details like this i miss. Yeh ♥♥♥♥ it just teleport where ever you want in galaxy free of charge just seems ♥♥♥♥ to me and unimmersive. Dont get me wrong i am liking the game but little things like this tend to ♥♥♥♥ me off :(

Is it just me who thinks this? :(

[Papertroll]

Restart and don't research it ...

[Gwizzz]

I would prefer the jumpdrive return, it felt more akin to warp drives from the popular sci fi movies and shows, (Star Trek, Star Wars, Galaxy Quest, The Orville, etc)

[Valetudin Arian]

Egosoft is a business.
They relied on stored player goodwill from the X series up until the mutant that was X-rebirth.
Now they are relying on the sheer numbers of space game enthusiasts and therefor trying to appeal to as many as possible, in terms of numbers not X fans, to prop up sales.

[Neurosys]

Originally posted by bigfleb:

Just pretend you are Q from Star Trek! :D

Pretend?

WWG1WGA! o7

[Solitude]

I think the biggest issue is how easy it is to get the teleporter and that there are no drawbacks related to using it at all.

Firstly, it's probably safe to say that the whole research mechanic isn't really finished (or even close to it) - right now all it does is forcing you to return to your PC every 10 minutes to start another research instead of full-time AFKing.

A simple way to change this would be to just add certain material requirements to specific research trees, just as you need items to craft the modifications you can research.

On top of that, you could add a mission you need to complete to start a research - at least for the first "level" of that research.
For example, if you want to research teleportation, maybe you first need to scan / infiltrate / whatever a certain science station somewhere or meet an NPC etc. (it should probably not be a strictly CRIMINAL action as players like me for example would rather avoid these).

Now as for USING the teleport, I think there should be a drawback to it, but it's not as easy to figure out HOW exactly that should work.

If you make it so it requires Energy Cells or any other resource like in X3 (or inventory item in the case of X4), it wouldn't really change the way you use it, it only adds the annoyance of having to remember to teleport back to a certain station / location to refill those resources - whereas if you make these resources only obtainable via combat, you pretty much make the teleporter inaccessible to "pacifist" players that focus more on trading such as myself.

Adding a cooldown certainly takes care of a lot of the weird problems associated with the teleporter - for example, right now it would probably be efficient for me to just constantly teleport across all stations in the universe and buy all their crafting supplies, craft items and sell them (I think you can still buy all the stuff for Fine Meals and sell them at a profit?).

Now unlike normal trading where the cargo size and speed of your ship as well as the distance make a huge difference, here the only limiting factor is how quickly you can click your buttons and teleport around + buy/sell the stuff fast.

The problem with a cooldown is that it removes that feature of the teleporter that people seem to like the most - being able to teleport around your different ships in a fight and be wherever the action is at all times.

Similarly, making it so the teleporter is unusable while you are in combat for example (which would remove the ability to just teleport out before your ship gets destroyed) would also make you unable to jump from ship to ship in a fight.

So I'm not sure what exactly they should do to fix the teleporter, but I do agree there are issues with it that need to be addressed.
And yes, you could say "If you don't like it, don't use it" - but that's true for pretty much everything in this sandbox game.
But just as I won't limit myself to only trading Energy Cells the whole game because I might think Spaceweed or Microchips give "too much profits", it feels very hard for me to use the teleporter inefficiently if I have the option to.

EDIT: Another point to address - teleporter vs. jumpdrive: The big difference here is that the teleporter only teleports yourself, it doesn't teleport ships - so basically it only changes your "camera perspective" from which you control your empire - after all, in an ideal world where the ship AIs are perfect, your pilots should be able to carry out any job just as well as you could if you teleported to the ship and flew it yourself.

So since you can't teleport ships as you could with the jumpdrive, there aren't really any tactical or strategical advantages to using it - you can't abuse it to instantly call your massive fleet of carriers to help whereever you are within a few seconds, and you can't use it to just make your ships ignore distances in the universe and find the best-selling trades regardless of distance with no drawbacks in terms of less money earned per minute.

EDIT 2: I think a reasonable solution would be a cooldown based on distance - so you can make these trips back and forth within a sector or smaller range instantaneously - between ships in a fight, or to a nearby station without having to go through 5 minutes of docking / undocking and a little bit of flight. But at the same time you can't mindlessly teleport across the universe all the time, or if you teleport to a ship in a dangerous spot - that spot is now YOUR dangerous spot and you can't just teleport back out before it goes down.