Suggestion: Extend cargo timeouts to 30mins with players present and 10mins without players present.

Comment: I don't know the feasibility of implementing this with the current code structure or whether this would put crippling burdens on the servers, but I would like to see it (if possible) implemented, so there is a lower possibility of greater penalties in the event of recovering lost cargo or gathering bot droppings for crafting purposes.

Comments/criticisms?

Yes please!

+ [StampofApproval]™

+1

fine but i also want a way to destroy cargo so denying loot doesn't require loitering for 15 (or 30) minutes. it would be more immersive. :)

+1
also +1 to Maalik.

+1 to both.

+1 to OP

Destroying cargo is easy. You grab it and dump it off in some randomly selected remote sector. I do this all the time.

Making cargo live longer is also easy. You pick it up and jettison it again, resetting the timer.

But really, why make either of these harder than they need to be.

+1

-1

30 minutes? that's pretty long actually. 15 maybe, tops.

If you cannot setup ppl to grab all the stuff from a hs mission or whatever, then that's just your problem.

vskye, the current timeout is 15 minutes with a player in-sector, and 5 minutes with no players, AFAIK.

How does that work when there's one person jumping in and out, slimer? Two separate clocks running concurrently (basically, a chess clock with timers set for 5 and 15 minutes), the 15 starting upon warp in, stopping on warp out, restarting on warp in (and the 5 doing the same thing on opposite events), and whichever hits its total first triggers time out?

I fail to see why there's a gameplay reason for cargo to vanish, so more time is better up to the point at which it causes performance problems; though I agree with Maal that you should be able to destroy it with weapons fire.

There is actually 2 clocks. There's the cargo's timeout and the sector timeout. After 5 minutes of no player activity, the program on the server side that runs the sector goes back to "sleep."

There's some threads about this in the forums. It's the same reason why the war convoy blockades in Edras and Ukari reset back to the asteroid fields after 5 minutes, then move to the wormhole when a player enters the sector.

If the clocks actually gave a legitimate 5 minutes then Id say no but sectors do have a habit of timing out too soon at times.

It's a matter of cognitive bias there, PaKettle. Abortretryfail is correct, iirc. If possible, it would be nice if the sector daemon writes the current cargo locations/timeout times to disk/RAM/whatever and reevaluates them when it starts back up instead of just dumping everything as it hibernates.

And, while we're at it, mines shouldn't time out when you leave a sector and should also be written to disk/RAM/whatever when the sector is about to time out. This way we might see a return of minefields around strategic points, providing for more varied gameplay.

Theres no coqnitive bias.... only the results of a stopwatch.

Backing up the stuff in sector will invoke the law of unintended consequences. Writing bad data to the sector could bork it for a long time. Currently when the sector resets a fresh "known good" copy is invoked.

I do like having the mines persist for a while +1

i'd also like to see cargo last longer, even if its only the timer of when someone's entering the sector every 5 min or less (cargo staying longer while the sector's still active)

and another +1 to having the mines persist for a while

"mines shouldn't time out when you leave a sector and should also be written to disk/RAM/whatever when the sector is about to time out. This way we might see a return of minefields around strategic points, providing for more varied gameplay."

+1