The Thargoid War: System States Clarifications

xzanfr

xzanfr
ED lore was written initially by a sci fi author.
Since then it's fallen in to the hands of people who think Disney's 'written by accountants for flag waving Americans' output is Tolstoy.
the formula is:
equilibrium -> aliens = bad and start war -> humans appear to lose -> new weapon / method for killing aliens is found -> humans just about win -> new equilibrium.

Don't worry, you'll all win in the end and be the hero, this is sci-fi for morons.
The Mr. man books are less predictable.
 

Esare Kranse

E
Northpin said:
they always had a mechanic that magically reset* the progress daily (for bgs) or weekly (for powerplay and thargoid incursions)
thursday, the maintenance day was always known as the thargsday when it was about thargoid related stuff

also, in the case of CG, it is also a weekly reset. and the people that supported a failed CG that never made to tier 1 - they know well how it feels to put effort for 1 week and lose it all at the end of it
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Another post that has missed its own point.
Northpin said:
* technically not a reset - just drawing the line, counting how many buckets were filled, then applying the results in game and starting over a new day/week
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That asterisk is what makes the difference. Peeps would be OK with that asterisk. Unfortunately, the Big asterisks that have arrived aren't respecting that.

OMG, I just freaking realised that the Maelstroms are just more elaborately drawn ASCII graphics that have travelled here from the early 80's.
I know what the Thargoids are, and ultimately how to defeat them. I know their weakness!!!

We've been invaded by beings that evolved from ZX81s. They travel in 2D ASCII character Asterisks. All we need to do is find their RAM extension packs, and wiggle them a little. Then they will reset to a benign state. If we can find their original packaging, we might even be able to put them back in it and make a few Cr on GalBay. Alternatively, if we keep engaging them continuously for long enough, the magic smoke container will be activated, and they'll be gone permanently.

Now I'm wondering if Update 15 will introduce a more colourful version of the Thargoids, that have an interaction mechanism that on the face of it is better, but feels just wrong and creepy. Ultimately we will find they just freeze in space, and if we don't do anything silly like shut off their power, they'll just stay there motionless forever.
 

Esare Kranse

E
Tharrn said:
We need to factor in weekend vs weekday - the numbers after Saturday should be more conclusive :)
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Been watching the trading on Inara, High exchange Commodity Loops have disappeared way faster than usual after yesterday's tick, and the depth of supply was initially the same as usual
This indicates more CMDRs than usual are logged in and active, but have turned to trading loops. I suspect, like myself, this is CMDRs deciding it's time to grind out that FC purchase and say sayonara to the Bubble.
 

Northpin

Northpin
CMDR Charybdis said:
This is week-long turn-based gameplay, but it isn't a dice game
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precisely 👆

gooddoc said:
Not really, in particular with CG's, player's have a good indication as the CG starts or is progressing & certainly aren't kept in the dark until the day before the CG ends.
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There was a progress line, slowly advancing, but it was obvious that it wasnt going to reach the end by Thursday
Somehow, i never assumed the war was a monthly or a 6 weeks war (like basically everyone else) - i assumed they need to draw the line and count the beans.
And, for thargoids, that always happened during Thursday maintenance - which is, to use the analogy above, the end of the weekly turn-based game we have with them thargs

edit: i still find the really lackluster UI the source of this debacle - they should have made it clear that each phase of the war (each turn) is a week long
 

UFKLS

U
Northpin said:
also, in the case of CG, it is also a weekly reset. and the people that supported a failed CG that never made to tier 1 - they know well how it feels to put effort for 1 week and lose it all at the end of it
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Fair enough. Now imagine the exact same CG restarting every Thursday for one and a half months. That’s my complaint.
 

aRJay

aRJay
Northpin said:
they always had a mechanic that magically reset* the progress daily (for bgs) or weekly (for powerplay and thargoid incursions)
thursday, the maintenance day was always known as the thargsday when it was about thargoid related stuff

also, in the case of CG, it is also a weekly reset. and the people that supported a failed CG that never made to tier 1 - they know well how it feels to put effort for 1 week and lose it all at the end of it


* technically not a reset - just drawing the line, counting how many buckets were filled, then applying the results in game and starting over a new day/week
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CGs are a poor analogy as they didn’t* just reset and repeat each week even from the losers point of view.

*There were of course a few exceptions.
 

Northpin

Northpin
aRJay said:
CGs are a poor analogy as they didn’t* just reset and repeat each week even from the losers point of view.

*There were of course a few exceptions.
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They dont really repeat, we lose a station for each week of inactivity (edit not exactly inactivity, but failing to win the week). No more stations to lose, we lose the system
presumably in case of a win, we win the system overall, and the state is pushed back from invasion to a state above (alert?)
 

CMDR M Kozak

C
Esare Kranse said:
I don't think a 50% drop in engagement in the Busiest system can be considered a 'Minority'.
I'll tell you what can be considered a 'minority' - the opinion that what FDev have done here is acceptable.
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dude, have you even BEEN in the system yesterday? I love your charts and all... but...
 

CMDR Charybdis

CMDR Charybdis
Esare Kranse said:
Another post that has missed its own point.

Northpin said:
* technically not a reset - just drawing the line, counting how many buckets were filled, then applying the results in game and starting over a new day/week
Click to expand...

That asterisk is what makes the difference. Peeps would be OK with that asterisk. Unfortunately, the Big asterisks that have arrived aren't respecting that.

<deleted sarcasm that adds nothing to the conversation>
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Isn't that big asterisk at the start of this post describing exactly that mechanic?

Fill this bucket -> save the system
Bucket not full -> lose stations or system.
Empty bucket at the end of the week
 

zimms

zimms
Northpin said:
hehe, people wanted a thargoid war narrative
now we got a war on a magnitude never seen before and we are losing this war

like in every story, the hero initially is losing the fight, he is badly beaten to a pulp, then somehow our hero will magically muster his inner strength, get on his feet and beat the bad guy.

at this point of the story, we barely got punched a couple of times (there are still stargoids to land)
we will probably get beaten badly before we get new weapons and new tech to push them away
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But this isn't the point at all. It's not about difficulty but about another case of Elite wasting players' time. Frontier even completely failed to communicate the rules, nobody knew there'd be a reset.

I guess a lot of people will now wait until the "hero musters his inner strength" and take a break in the meantime, because it feels a bit pointless currently.
 

aRJay

aRJay
Esare Kranse said:
With the overwhelmingly negative response you have received to this post. I suggest the following immediate action plan:

1: Whoever designed the Reset Progress every week mechanic - Warmly thank them for their efforts and tell them they've been a joy to work with, but regretfully their time with Frontier has come to an end, wish them all the best in their future endeavours.

2: Restore the progress deleted on Thursday (claim it was a glitch in the progress bars or something, and put it back.

3: Apologise in a tangible way to the ENTIRE player base - 30,000 ARX would be a good start

4: Focus on fixing the bugs and eliminating repetitive grind mechanics before you make any new additions to the game. Finish the things you started and walked away from, like On-foot VR, ship interiors, New ships, New tech, more landable planets.

5: Try to come up with some realism. The Thargoids have massively powerful weaponry and a huge military - Who was that built to fight? the Guardians have been gone for millennia, and we're just Ants to them, what was their motivation to develop all that tech and equipment? Nations on our own planet that have been unaffected by wars due to isolation etc, have not developed weaponry beyond basic self defence and hunting. Those constantly at war with others have the most advanced weapons. If the Thargoids have been at war with other races that drove all that tech development, whare are those other races?
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  1. No comment.
  2. Another form of reset.
  3. No comment.
  4. This would be nice, but within a short period the forums would be full of the usual requests for new stuff not fixes (again).
  5. The obvious answer to this that they built up that capability for the same reason humans have, they fight themselves. I know they are supposed to be alien and almost by definition incapable of being understood by us but there are limits.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Esare Kranse said:
Yup, 50% drop in engagement in HIP 23716 vs a week ago.
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Yes - but that's in part because AXI are testing the Alert system HIP 20485 at Indra this week. Their forces have redeployed but are still active.

The combined activity for HIP 20485 and HIP 23716 is comparable with last week, the combined activity across the whole set of systems around Taranis + HIP 20485 is comparable with last week, total measured activity across EDDN is very marginally up this Thursday on last Thursday.

(And the thresholds needed to get anywhere do seem to be somewhat reduced, so we might even see a win this week)
 

Northpin

Northpin
zimms said:
But this isn't the point at all. It's not about difficulty but about another case of Elite wasting players' time. Frontier even completely failed to communicate the rules, nobody knew there'd be a reset.

I guess a lot of people will now wait until the "hero musters his inner strength" and take a break in the meantime, because it feels a bit pointless currently.
Click to expand...

well, it is partly about difficulty - which was already adjusted and probably will see even more adjustments

and i'm not defending their communications skills - but then again, they never really communicated much about game-mechanics either and players had to discover by themselves how things work

and not at last, cmdrs dived in, head first, into this war without proper researching, and yea - we got bruised 😂
 

Jabo Zerstorer

Jabo Zerstorer
Ian Doncaster said:
Yes - but that's in part because AXI are testing the Alert system HIP 20485 at Indra this week. Their forces have redeployed but are still active.

The combined activity for HIP 20485 and HIP 23716 is comparable with last week, the combined activity across the whole set of systems around Taranis + HIP 20485 is comparable with last week, total measured activity across EDDN is very marginally up this Thursday on last Thursday.

(And the thresholds needed to get anywhere do seem to be somewhat reduced, so we might even see a win this week)
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We'd very likely see a win if folk stopped their boycotts.
 

Northpin

Northpin
Ian Doncaster said:
Yes - but that's in part because AXI are testing the Alert system HIP 20485 at Indra this week.
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and they seem to be making progress

1670580529737.png


now, if FD could manage to fix instancing so we can actually win some CZ or else to make sure winning CZ is not a factor in winning the week
 
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