I feel like the thargoid plot is advancing a bit quickly. A lot of players won't be in a situation to get into the maelstroms yet. Even getting a pickled guarlic to unlock the thing that you need to get through the thing is quite daunting to a lot of players. I'd be interested to see how many players engage with this CG.
COMPLETED CG Aegis Appeal for Titan Tissue Samples
- Thread starter Kietrax
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It's still advancing at a glacial pace, but the grind to unlock everything is piling up and that'll definitely hurt the number of participants -- it might be worth setting up an initiative to hand out people 2 units of samples so they can participate in the CGs to drive up numbers so more people get the skins.
As for the grind, I wonder what's the minimum time to unlock everything from scratch assuming you start from scratch on any of the post-odyssey materials and have to get every piece yourself.
The amount of materials you need isn't as insane as oldschool guardian blueprint unlocks, though 5 caustic samples is something that frustrated many people I think. The issue is just that doing anything in Elite takes a long time and there's a lot of steps to cover.
According to Inara, there are 111 people on the Aegis side and 57 on the Azimuth side.
I can confirm the accuracy of the Aegis side because I am person 111.
Really few attendees. Maybe it will increase in the coming days.
Wowzer that's low attendance. The 'buy-in' cost is quite high, although we have had quite a while to complete all the steps to access this content. Personally, I was planning to get myself a pickled gherkin when I get back from my current exobio trip, but then I got side-tracked by playing Horizon: Zero Dawn. (Got it on offer...really good story!) I'm only 200 jumps out from the bubble, but I don't think I'm going to rush back tbh. Hopefully once the weekend kicks in more folks will have the time to join in...although the sunshine here in the UK probably wont help...too many BBQ's, trips to the countryside/coast, trips to the pub to compete with staying inside playing vidja games!!
I think it's compounding effects.
- Buy-in cost, as described
- The overall activity itself is not straightforward, therefore accessibility (or perceived accessibility) is low.
- The core activity consists mostly of sitting and waiting.
- There is a genuine threat of destruction
- The pay for the tissue samples is, compared to a typical BH or Trade CG, very low
- Just skins as rewards; no equipment rewards, or equipment unlocked
It's worth noting though, the Aegis CG has nearly hit Tier 1 already (looks to be around 12500-15000t?), with early end set at 500,000t. Even Azimuth with just 50-odd participants will likely hit Tier 1.
The limits are actually pretty reasonable... my own finger in the wind would've gone:
- Most low-participation CGs are ~1000 people.
- You can probably get 50 samples in a reasonable night session of play.
- If everyone just did it for one night, that'd give 50,000t, averaged out (some might just do 10t, some might do 200t in a session). Make that the T1 goal.
- If everyone did it every night, that's 350,000t... so set that as a committed goal (which does appear to be where Tier 2 sits)
- To account for more people or just high performance... set the clearout as 2.5 times that, so that'd be 875k.
So it'd appear that FD did forecast a lower-than-1000 turnout... T1 is about a quarter of my T1 estimate, T2 is about right, Clearout is just under half. Without looking to tweak a bunch of dials with those estimates, there's a sane path from that to FD's set goals here if you start factoring in other things... so it's a pretty decent landing point.
It would be funny if T1 rewarded, like, 50-500m across the rankings, and clearout tier hit a max prize of 2b, just to get people surging after the fact.
Considering how boosted the profits of some items are in normal trade CGs, the payouts on samples needed to be made much higher for this, like, 4 times the standard value at least.
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The Colonia sampling CG (the most recent one before this, almost 2.5 years ago) had 539 participants - less cost in terms of start-up equipment, and the NSP life being sampled didn't seem to object, but equally the size of the trip needed means that you couldn't meaningfully spend much under 8 hours on it if you wanted to participate at all, unless you were able to find a carrier to get a lift with.
That was also taking place during the "high CG activity" period between the plot restart and Odyssey release where a basic trade/bounty CG might get in the 6-7k participant range, so current numbers don't seem too out of line with the general reduction in CG participation since then and this being a semi-competitive CG.
Total deliveries for Colonia were just over 300k, so the weekly targets seem reasonable based on that.
That was also taking place during the "high CG activity" period between the plot restart and Odyssey release where a basic trade/bounty CG might get in the 6-7k participant range, so current numbers don't seem too out of line with the general reduction in CG participation since then and this being a semi-competitive CG.
Total deliveries for Colonia were just over 300k, so the weekly targets seem reasonable based on that.
I'm sure some people have been stockpiling these for a while now.
Yeah but for that CG it was easier to do more samples in paralell.
I don't think anyone's stockpiles would've been beyond a couple dozen, for whatever unlocks they may be needed for.
There seems to be just one exception... if you look at Inara, there's one report of 2000t delivered (for the Aegis CG) which sounds like a stockpile, but the lowest of the top 10 is just 98, which is pretty inline... meanwhile in the Azimuth CG the top 10 spread is (well, apparently a bit broken) but 25% tapers off at 80t, and blows out at 524t. Although that's a big effort, it's doable if all you did was sample tissue for the day.
tl;dr I doubt anyone's stockpiled more than 20-odd before today, except for the odd one or two, and Inara reports at least seem to back that.
Fdev have seriously over estimated this one
You can build it, sure. But good luck making it back out alive with the 4 or so samples you manage to collect.
Clearly not long enough. Or, not enough hand-holding to get more players to understand what the steps were and why it was needed.
If you log out in the maelstrom, when you log back in you're outside. It would be badly cargo limited though.
The clipper is amazing for maelstrom diving. Size 7 for the universal limpets and 2 size 4's for corrosion resistant racks.
Even at 4m-6m each the samples are getting bought within 30 minutes of being uploaded to Inara. I think it's less that there is no interest in the CG and more that not that many people had a build ready to go.
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I will be attempting to unlock the needed tools over the weekend so will post an update.
cheers
For anyone doing a new build for the CG - this is what I have been using and it works great. Can easily tank a glaive during a hyperdiction and patch itself up without losing the trip, and I find it doesn't need heatsinks to get through the pulse. Loiters at around 17% heat so as long as you aren't boosting you can fly around freely. Fast enough to get away if you get spotted too. I have yet to eat a rebuy in it. The beam lets you laser off the engineering mats that are around, or strip the shields quicker off of a glaive - you don't need to constantly shoot the titan with it like a lot of the youtube video guides.
Note the drives are clean/drag and the sensors are A rated because I find sensors don't work as well in the maelstrom.
Note the drives are clean/drag and the sensors are A rated because I find sensors don't work as well in the maelstrom.
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Yeah the Clipper is a beast for this. I hated the clipper and never had any practical use for it til now. Though I'm actually considering tweaking my build a bit and dropping some tank for a 3rd or 4th CRCR... am also contemplating whether a Xeno Limpet Controller is sufficient, which is dependent on how quickly you can chuck a limpet at the various points.
I think there's still a part that the CG mechanic is stale and dated. It works fine for trade or bounty hunt CGs where the core activity is the same thing over and over again... but for things search and rescue CGs or ones like this, where the "gather" mechanic is actually an involved process... it's a bit like reading a really good chapter in a book... then instead of continuing the story, you read it again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again... it might still be good for the 2nd or 3rd time, but then it gets dry fast.
FD made the same mistake back in the day with Guardian unlocks by making them need multiple blueprints per unlock, but only providing one blueprint per "puzzle".... that led directly to just relogging at the same site to reset the puzzle and go on. So of course, the solution was to make it just one blueprint.
I don't know specifically what the solution is here... I have thoughts but nothing that wouldn't derail the thread completely... suffice to say making a number tick up works for BH and Trade CGs, but for ones like this, something more nuance is needed. Even CZ CGs don't really work anymore given the BGS has a set of mechanics that determine who wins/loses a war, and if people are concerned about early ends, FD already demonstrated they can freeze War states for CGs, so the days of "counting bonds" is dead imo.
Yeah, I would not use the sign up numbers as a particularly meaningful gauge of player interest. I haven't signed up yet, for example, even though I have been collecting tissue samples. It takes a good while to get a proper ship setup, unlock the ability to get into the Titan, and even after doing all that, most people still won't sign up until they actually get to the drop off station.
I would expect a disproportionate number of people to sign up towards the end of the week, turning in their stockpiles all at once.
I would expect a disproportionate number of people to sign up towards the end of the week, turning in their stockpiles all at once.
I've been thinking about switching the size 6 slot to a CRCR, but that tankiness kept me from losing a full load of samples when two glaives chased me most of the way to the surface. Same with giving up the repair and decon limpets from the universal controller - being able to lick my wounds and go back is just too handy to give up.
Now if I had a size 6 CRCR, I'd swap the two 4's out for HRPs and I'd be set. Alas...
That's not surprising when the requirements to unlock the required modules are very poorly thought out.
To unlock caustic sinks you need to go into an area surrounded by caustic, protected by enemies which will interdict you and spam caustic missiles.
To unlock a thargoid pulse neutralizer you need to hurl yourself at the thargoid pulse and accept the damage done by it - the in-game equivalent of hurling yourself at a brick wall. And if you already went and got an unclassified relic and don't have a carrier to store it on, you have to carry it with you the entire time and will lose it if you die.
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