Response to Colonization Updates

[Garzvug]

Fresh off the live stream we have a lot of new info about colonization, so rolling commentary here:

Early next year, with an open Beta; great news! Soon and with player input before unleashing it is awesome news!

10 light year range: this is definitely a huge issue, things like Azura Initiative, Voqooe, and other long-distant colonization efforts rolling 10lyr a week will not happen before the heat death of the universe. The range definitely needs to be increased! BGS tie below, though I hope we can get ranges of 100-5000lyr with subsequent updates to the mechanic if not on launch. Limiting to the Bubble on launch is reasonable and community and narrative reasons to increase colonization range could make for compelling story. Modeling the costs with a modifier based on distance (like some materials require base cost * (distance)^0.5) might be a way to bridge that gap.

BGS sponsorship: it sounds like FDev have taken the idea of sponsoring faction from the colonization contact; this was one of the paths I anticipated that makes a lot of sense; it still leaves a question as to how the other factions in a system will be populated. Rolling this together, the maximum expansion range of a minor faction from a double expansion is a 40 lyr cube; it would make a lot of sense to use that as the range a faction can sponsor a colony claim.

Time out on claim and construction: this needed to be in place to avoid permanent spam, great call!

Weekly Tick: colonization efforts tick forward with the weekly server update. Seems reasonable to me.

Orbital slots: limited spots for orbital stations per system based on system content; this runs the risk of being overly restrictive, but I reserve judgement until there's some data.

Planetary placement: placing location of assets by hand is pretty darn cool; hoping for a large set of available assets to pick from.

Dynamic economy: asset choices dictate economy, security, and population; all wonderful news! Hearing that Population Dynamics(TM?) is finally becoming a reality is the best news I've heard in awhile! This begs the question about whether similar mechanics will allow old systems to change, or will player activity all move to the player-driven and mutable colonies only to leave the immutable old Bubble frozen in time?

Permanent Architect Status: colonizing player remains system architect; what does this mean for folk wanting to chain systems? Can the same player have ongoing old colonies under construction AND a new colonizing system?

Costs: Questions of credits and tonnage obviously abound; we'll see how those shake out in Beta, but until then I'll do exobio and stack up a nest-egg.

Still unaddressed are questions about system and asset naming, hopefully more news on that soon.

Overall, VERY excited about the content with a few major asterisks that will hopefully get ironed out.

 

[King ShadowBolt]

Maybe have the expansion range start at a minimum of 20Ly to remain consistent with Powerplay mechanics.
Then allow up to 100Ly range from that system based on how well that system is performing (Size, population, economy, security, state, etc.)
I think this would be a good balance to allow a decent range of expansion into the void while also making more remote places require more time and effort to reach.

 

[Huserx]

I wonder if \ when the system architect (the player to colonize it) expires if at all? When does one individual's control over the system's development and \ or expansion of available slots end (if ever) and will it be permanently locked in that state i.e. completing a primary station and nothing more in a resource \ slot abundant system then the architechts participation stops \ ends.

 

[NavlGazr]

I agree, lots of great ideas there, love where it's heading.

My concerns are that the 10ly number is too small. One expansion per week means the farthest a "tendril" could possibly get in a year is 520 Ly. That's not a tendril that's a wart. In addition, the smaller the cube/sphere the greater the competition for good destinations.

Also having a single player architect for each system is concerning. It increases the risk of partly complete/dead systems like we have with carriers. I have two thoughts on this. The first is that making it Squadron/PMF owned would substantially reduce the risk. The second is that bases that aren't sufficiently well supported by receiving required goods through player and NPC trade should atrophy and eventually shutdown. An unbalanced and unmaintained colony would therefore collapse over time freeing up the system for someone else to use.

 

[FixMeNow]

Bin the range all together, alot of effort to colonise the equivilent of my back garden when my ship can jump 70ly. Not very explorer friendly

 

[Kamiyoda]

Bin the range all together, alot of effort to colonise the equivilent of my back garden when my ship can jump 70ly. Not very explorer friendly

Me and my Imperial Cutter full of Slaves should be able to colonize whatever I want

 

[Disemboweled Ego]

10 light year range

Dynamic economy: asset choices dictate economy, security, and population; all wonderful news!

The main big issue with colonization is that they seem uncertain (or unwilling?) about it's purpose - "We want to see what players will do with it" doesn't have mass appeal if it takes weeks of constant hauling to get to where you actually want to build.

The appeal of building up a system was also very undersold in the stream "you want to build up a system so you don't have to haul goods as far" isn't going to be relevant, hauling can be done efficiently by loading carriers and it would take you over a year of colonization to cover the same distance as a carrier jump. There's also some places you just won't be able to reach with a 10Ly range, some gaps you can't cross and have to go around.

The upshot is that the best place to build colonies with a 10Ly range limit will be around the big black hole that has a lot of stars packed densely around it (assuming you can colonize out of a station there). esp if you want to daisy chain anywhere that isn't near the immediate bubble.

This could be mitigated if the 10Ly range was just the base range that you could increase by building up a system more.

The other big issue with colonization is hauling - unlike PP2 which did a lot to be inclusive so every play style can participate (even odyssey!) colonization gameplay is just hauling? It has to be a lot of hauling too or people will complain that it's too easy and unrealistic and all the systems are being cluttered by fleet carriers stations everywhere.

Colonization leaning towards exploration and hauling is fine, but it doesn't add any new tools or mechanics to it, just some, mostly imaginary value (as far as we know) you get out of colonizing new systems. Being able to get goods hauled to you by doing combat to protect traders (like the CGs) or to bully them into "trading" at your station (like piracy) would go a long way to making this more palatable for more people. If it's just hauling all the way down it will get stale quick unless you have some new hauling mechanics planned.

 

[metatheurgist]

Meh.

 

[Rebel Yell]

It's plenty of empty systems in the bubble... all systems which have much higher % of being navigated.

Building a station in a random Col XXXY Sector 2500ly away imho isn't going to offer much else than a fuel / repair / restock port [may be one can build a small bubble around there, but again, it's just isolated from all the rest, not considering the amount of resurces required to build it up].

Ofc bit different for systems around crowded areas like brain trees, guardians etc... those will be MUCH MORE interesting.

 

[aRJay]

Bin the range all together, alot of effort to colonise the equivilent of my back garden when my ship can jump 70ly. Not very explorer friendly

No it isn’t but then this isn’t exploration it is construction and settlement and logistics and such like.

But 10 light years from where you got your licence seems to short out here and even worse for people daisy chaining to the edge, around Sag A* or even Colonia it wouldn’t be too bad.

 

[Garzvug]

The main big issue with colonization is that they seem uncertain (or unwilling?) about it's purpose

I agree. I think that it's a great step in arming the players with the sandbox mechanics that belong in a space civilization sim; I personally find that sufficient because I already have a colony head canon with Celestial Light Brigade's stake out in Voqooe, but most other players lack an existing sense of investment that leaves colonization perhaps unmotivating.

one can build a small bubble around there

This is exactly the kind of stuff players like me, most of the rest of Celestial Light Brigade, and the Azura Initiative are so excited about. The mechanics described promise an opportunity to create a region of human space made in our image, and we are gamers with eyes for exploits and other cheesy mechanics. We believe ourselves capable of being better architects than the initial Bubble generating algorithms. That's not a hard standard to beat; we will create wonders, so long as they let us get far enough away to act in relative isolation.

No it isn’t but then this isn’t exploration it is construction and settlement and logistics

With the current espoused range of 10 lyrs you're absolutely correct. The "short hop" limit ought to be brought in line with existing BGS mechanics to 20-50 lyrs. As I advocate above, a "long hop" colonization mechanic ought to be considered for additional cost OR used as a reward of future story progression.

 

[QueensPawn]

I was expecting there not just to be a system for expanding to new systems, but also for adding new ports and settlements to existing systems. Making it just about expanding number of systems leaves factions in the middle of the bubble like mine in a sad place.

Also, like all y'all, I agree that 10Ly is a way too short range. There are entire sections of the galaxy that would be entirely unreachable with a 10Ly range. I like Garzvug's solution of increasing cost with distance (though I'd probably make the increase more exponential) But if the devs don't like that solution, another one that would be more dynamic to the density of the local space would be to make it the n closest systems are eligible. That way, even the most dispersed of star fields could be colonized.

 

[Alanzo Firenze]

What has been presented by FDev certainly appears to be a promising conceptual start for imaging a system of colonization (and by extension population dynamics and player asset generation).

However, I worry that the apparent focus on making this gameplay loop accessible to everyone may come at the expense of a final process that ignores the existing work and progress of key stakeholders in the exploration community and larger player groups that already have envisioned colony sites of their own. Several instances of player-created-infrastructure, such as Azura Initiative, the CLB Voqooe Hub, and other participants in the Deep Space Support Array initiative and the STAR Tritium Depot network exist in part as well-trafficked prospective colony sites. Some of this infrastructure has already been heavily utilized by the Fuel Rats, Hull Seals, and various wayward explorers and squads for years since fleet carriers were introduced.

If FDev in their wisdom do decide to pursue this very standardized, short-range, single-player-driven model for the initial colonization mechanic, then there must be some additional or parallel "large group" process either at the squadron or the wider community level to at least initially seed some of these existing long-distance colony projects that have seen years of medium/large-group development and engagement.

The Colonia Expansion Initiative had some features of this concept already: Jacques Station served as a focal point and locus infrastructure for multiple highly-competitive player factions (precursors to squadrons at the time) to through great group effort to set down their own new inhabited systems. Some of these existing exploration community carrier hubs, the DSSA/STAR vessels, or large-scale infrastructure projects like Azura and Voqooe with untold habitable systems charter nearby could participate as sites of community events to sponsor, plant, and allow for growth of the distant "mini-bubbles" farther from existing civilization than ever before.

 

[Slaani Ludlow]

The 10 LY range is really the shortfall here.
I assume that this and the inclusion into BGS and PP means that the intention of Colonisation is just to fill up and to extend the existing bubble, rather then to allow deep space colonisation.

 

[Sumurai8]

The idea that anybody would want to or need to expand systems to produce goods 'so they don't need to go back to the bubble' is silly when you consider that for the coming 2-3 years the bubble is 1-2 jumps from systems with abundant commodities and resources.

Since colony ships are used to expand, upping the range of those expansion beacons to something like 500 light years, the maximum jump range of those carriers, makes sense. This will also allow larger player groups that have already established colonies in areas of the galaxy to actually reach those systems before their grand children need to take over - or before the servers shut down for the final time.

I will second that I would like to see the ability to share systems with your squadron, or even make ownership of a system by default your squadron and make the 'individual' owned star systems a rarity. Community owned assets are more likely to see things expanded there than individual ones. Alternatively implement something like abandoning a claim automatically after not logging in for 1 or 2 years, or once upkeep isn't paid anymore like with carriers. That would allow other, active, players to pick up a claim on a system that would be nice to build more starports in, but is locked in by someone that does not play the game anymore.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Bin the range all together, alot of effort to colonise the equivilent of my back garden when my ship can jump 70ly. Not very explorer friendly

Colonisation != Exploration

 

[Sumurai8]

Colonisation != Exploration

When it was explained on stream, words like "Colonia 2" and "creating your own bubbles" were uttered. It wouldn't be much of a new bubble if it was pasted onto the actual bubble. Colonisation is going to places where human live can thrive that are more than a stone's throw away from the actual bubble. Colonisation at distances where explorers go = colonisation, at least how Frontier described it.

 

[zimms]

When it was explained on stream, words like "Colonia 2" and "creating your own bubbles" were uttered. It wouldn't be much of a new bubble if it was pasted onto the actual bubble. Colonisation is going to places where human live can thrive that are more than a stone's throw away from the actual bubble. Colonisation at distances where explorers go = colonisation, at least how Frontier described it.

They said let's start with growing the bubble and we'll see where we go from there.

 

[M4RTH4]

They said let's start with growing the bubble and we'll see where we go from there.

We can still grow the bubble with a 20ly range.

Imagine having to do 10ly a week just to get where you wanna go.

A Stock Sidewinder with an A-rated FSD gets just under 16ly. Sol to Shinrarta Dezhra is 64.43ly


You'd be spending 7 weeks, minimum, to chain civilization that length, leaving that Sidewinder just sitting there for two of them.

14 days. 336 hours. 20,160 minutes.

 

[Koma Pahu]

I find it interesting that people are assuming you’ll be able to build a station and the at the next tick start in the next system.

I can imagine a situation where you’ll have to actually establish the colony before you can use it as a jumping off point for the next one.