Colonisation Answers
- Thread starter Ian Doncaster
- Start date
I'm more or less happy with everything I heard, I think this new feature will work for most of the players it's designed for, and having got my affairs in order post Sol invasion I'm now out on the edge of the bubble having some fun exploring for suitable candidates for my first system. (I don't see why it shouldn't apply to uncontrolled systems WITHIN the Bubble as well, but don't think this was specifically addressed.)
However, it seems like the biggest job of 'work' involved in establishing and further building up Colony systems is going to be hauling. That's fine by me, love a good bit of trade and mining, however... where's the reward?
A big part of the lure of trade and mining is turning in that cargo for profit at the far end, if there's no passive income from a system and no reward for completing these delivery contracts other than the thing being built in the system, which in turn provides no direct rewards, I can't see this being something that a lot of players who otherwise enjoy hauling are going to be very keen on. Especially as we will be down credits on the initial purchase, the thought of hauling for weeks for 100% loss is contrary to the mindset I usually adopt with these things.
Maybe there will be financial incentives (from the Controlling Faction) to complete deliveries (which would also allow traders and Player Groups to make money helping complete projects in systems they don't themselves own) and they just haven't been talked about yet, but it has me worried about how incentivised we're going to be to engage with a System after we've already secured our name on it.
EDIT: Of course I understand that by building the economy you can perhaps then source certain items at low prices or create high demand for your mined loads, but unless this can be made to be exceptionally high/low then I can't see that the sunk-cost is going to outweigh the ability just to go and find things in another existing system.
However, it seems like the biggest job of 'work' involved in establishing and further building up Colony systems is going to be hauling. That's fine by me, love a good bit of trade and mining, however... where's the reward?
A big part of the lure of trade and mining is turning in that cargo for profit at the far end, if there's no passive income from a system and no reward for completing these delivery contracts other than the thing being built in the system, which in turn provides no direct rewards, I can't see this being something that a lot of players who otherwise enjoy hauling are going to be very keen on. Especially as we will be down credits on the initial purchase, the thought of hauling for weeks for 100% loss is contrary to the mindset I usually adopt with these things.
Maybe there will be financial incentives (from the Controlling Faction) to complete deliveries (which would also allow traders and Player Groups to make money helping complete projects in systems they don't themselves own) and they just haven't been talked about yet, but it has me worried about how incentivised we're going to be to engage with a System after we've already secured our name on it.
EDIT: Of course I understand that by building the economy you can perhaps then source certain items at low prices or create high demand for your mined loads, but unless this can be made to be exceptionally high/low then I can't see that the sunk-cost is going to outweigh the ability just to go and find things in another existing system.
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80% of the 400 billion stars are worthless brown dwarf systems
Between the Pareto Principle and Sturgeon's Law, a similar consideration probably applies to ... many things.
Some of the hauling CGs were good for credits and ranking up to Elite***** trading.
And there were the occasional good rewards.
First station is predetermined, yeah. Though it could also be predetermined based on the system properties, so it IS possible to have the first, predetermined station vary between an outpost, a coriolis, orbis, ocellus, etc.
Not to mention I think Orbis stations vary in complexity. Some are just the basic station, some are bigger, some have 1 habitation ring, some have 2. So they can have 'tiers' that require more or less commodities.
I'm curious to know the variation between maximum population of station types, since I assume that decides the station's "size" (and thus the commodities needed to build them) even though they may look the same, or similar, from the outside.
That's why I wonder if it'll be limited like expansion where you have a global faction colonization state that blocks multiple expansions. It would make sense to limit the speed any single faction can grow, but it'd also allow for PP1 5C style blocking by unwanted or random colonization.
I can understand the desire to establish a colony in a very distant world, that would be cool. But how is it going to work from a game world perspective? To have a colony one needs population. People to live there. How would anyone of regular people of the world would get to a colony 1000+ Ly into the black with no colonies in between. And what would be the point of a colony of empty buildings, settlements, stations, etc.?
Or will you abduct passengers from the missions and ship them to your colony? Or dump escape pods into settlements, welcome you've been rescued to your new home? Or just ship Imperial (or other) slaves? Won't be a pleasant colony prob.
I hope one day it would be possible to do, for example with a mechanic - build/hire a Mega-ship to relocate people from the Bubble to wherever the player' colony is, pay for their relocation package, setup facilities for them, etc. But that is a lot of game-systems to Develop for something like that to work, and I'm sure it is most definitely outside of the current scope.
Plus, I agree, if anyone can colonize anywhere - Galaxy would become a very busy place, lessens a feeling of being away from humanity, lessens the feeling of venturing further into unknown, and all those plucked for whatever and abandoned later systems won't look as romanticized as one might think on a first glance.
10 Ly - yeah, too short, needs to be longer. Colonization has to be connected to other systems in the game as closely as possible. We already have more than enough disconnection systems and modes as it is. With that, 20-30 Ly would be nice, and not sometime after the beta test, but from the start, as with the size of the Bubble and the Galaxy - it's not that big of a difference, but from a players options - it is a huge difference.
After the beta test is done - any already existing human inhabited space should be available to colonize from, not only Bubble.
On a topic of systems to generate some kind of profit for the player:
I don't see how it could happen with how everything in Elite is, and not become something that makes player never need anything because the system provides, and forever.
It is not a custom created galaxy with high sec, low sec and null sec regions, where players can get sovereignty and take it from someone else in a custom created loop of mechanics and places. Elite galaxy doesn't work like that, despite system security states looking similar. It also can't work like that because of how global story telling goes, and how BGS and PP work. I don't think it is realistic to expect all of that to change to give players an ability to do sovereignty wars, and without something like that - it is not possible to lose a system, and without possibility to lose a system - any profit generation would completely destroy what's left of economy and how players get stuff.
Also, no matter if anyone thinks that losing a system is a good thing, or that it is a MMO and player have to play with others - Elite provides option to play solo, and there are a lot of player who want to play it as a solo game. Developers have to take players like that into account. On top of that, anyone familiar with MMOs knows that casual players (by any definition) are the majority of players (and the most profitable one) of any multiplayer game. So if you make a player in solo lose their system, because other players took it - it won't go well. Doesn't matter if anyone likes it, agrees or disagrees, Developer has to think about that and accommodate any player to the best of how the game is built, and Elite is build with an option for solo from the start, it won't go away.
The best Idea was from someone on these forums (don't remember who exactly) - Colonized systems would generate resources that could be used ONLY for further Colonization. Unfortunately, while it is the best of how the game it right now - it also has similar pitfall - Colonization would require credits and resources to happen, so it is in a way a credits-sink and a time-sink too get it up. By providing easier resources it'll remove the time sink part, and it'll also lessen the trade options for player who are doing trade as their main activity. As Frontier said - one of the main things about colonization is to provide gameplay for Traders. So...
The only possible scenario here - it that initial base construction, and construction of other units in the systems would be paid off by the Minor Faction player bought a beacon from. As I've understood from the answers in FU, player invests credits in the beacon, and then invests time into building (hauling).
That's why I don't really care if Colonization would provide direct profit, and I would love to see/get more game-play options instead. For example, to directly influence Mission board and use Missions/Community goals UI to create a custom player-made chain missions and stories. To have a storage in a systems for modules and commodities that could be setup to be accessible by members of the Squadron. To have mechanics to deal with various states (Disaster, Pirate Attack, etc) in an overarching way (hire NPC mercs for the system, redeploy something somewhere, ...). Get a specific set of conditions (buildings, economy, etc) to have something unique in a system (10% discounts, or a Rescue Ship, or Material Traders, ... with a limit of only 1 unique per system).
Credits and materials are already easy to get, so for me it is much more interesting to have profit in more game-play options so to say.
Or will you abduct passengers from the missions and ship them to your colony? Or dump escape pods into settlements, welcome you've been rescued to your new home? Or just ship Imperial (or other) slaves? Won't be a pleasant colony prob.
I hope one day it would be possible to do, for example with a mechanic - build/hire a Mega-ship to relocate people from the Bubble to wherever the player' colony is, pay for their relocation package, setup facilities for them, etc. But that is a lot of game-systems to Develop for something like that to work, and I'm sure it is most definitely outside of the current scope.
Plus, I agree, if anyone can colonize anywhere - Galaxy would become a very busy place, lessens a feeling of being away from humanity, lessens the feeling of venturing further into unknown, and all those plucked for whatever and abandoned later systems won't look as romanticized as one might think on a first glance.
10 Ly - yeah, too short, needs to be longer. Colonization has to be connected to other systems in the game as closely as possible. We already have more than enough disconnection systems and modes as it is. With that, 20-30 Ly would be nice, and not sometime after the beta test, but from the start, as with the size of the Bubble and the Galaxy - it's not that big of a difference, but from a players options - it is a huge difference.
After the beta test is done - any already existing human inhabited space should be available to colonize from, not only Bubble.
On a topic of systems to generate some kind of profit for the player:
I don't see how it could happen with how everything in Elite is, and not become something that makes player never need anything because the system provides, and forever.
It is not a custom created galaxy with high sec, low sec and null sec regions, where players can get sovereignty and take it from someone else in a custom created loop of mechanics and places. Elite galaxy doesn't work like that, despite system security states looking similar. It also can't work like that because of how global story telling goes, and how BGS and PP work. I don't think it is realistic to expect all of that to change to give players an ability to do sovereignty wars, and without something like that - it is not possible to lose a system, and without possibility to lose a system - any profit generation would completely destroy what's left of economy and how players get stuff.
Also, no matter if anyone thinks that losing a system is a good thing, or that it is a MMO and player have to play with others - Elite provides option to play solo, and there are a lot of player who want to play it as a solo game. Developers have to take players like that into account. On top of that, anyone familiar with MMOs knows that casual players (by any definition) are the majority of players (and the most profitable one) of any multiplayer game. So if you make a player in solo lose their system, because other players took it - it won't go well. Doesn't matter if anyone likes it, agrees or disagrees, Developer has to think about that and accommodate any player to the best of how the game is built, and Elite is build with an option for solo from the start, it won't go away.
The best Idea was from someone on these forums (don't remember who exactly) - Colonized systems would generate resources that could be used ONLY for further Colonization. Unfortunately, while it is the best of how the game it right now - it also has similar pitfall - Colonization would require credits and resources to happen, so it is in a way a credits-sink and a time-sink too get it up. By providing easier resources it'll remove the time sink part, and it'll also lessen the trade options for player who are doing trade as their main activity. As Frontier said - one of the main things about colonization is to provide gameplay for Traders. So...
The only possible scenario here - it that initial base construction, and construction of other units in the systems would be paid off by the Minor Faction player bought a beacon from. As I've understood from the answers in FU, player invests credits in the beacon, and then invests time into building (hauling).
That's why I don't really care if Colonization would provide direct profit, and I would love to see/get more game-play options instead. For example, to directly influence Mission board and use Missions/Community goals UI to create a custom player-made chain missions and stories. To have a storage in a systems for modules and commodities that could be setup to be accessible by members of the Squadron. To have mechanics to deal with various states (Disaster, Pirate Attack, etc) in an overarching way (hire NPC mercs for the system, redeploy something somewhere, ...). Get a specific set of conditions (buildings, economy, etc) to have something unique in a system (10% discounts, or a Rescue Ship, or Material Traders, ... with a limit of only 1 unique per system).
Credits and materials are already easy to get, so for me it is much more interesting to have profit in more game-play options so to say.
All of that make sense. On the other hand - Devs call it a beta. With how every system that would be colonized in beta stays that way, I expect that any loss of anything with failed attempts would also stay. Plus, there will be bugs. So it is almost guaranteed to have a lot of players not happy that they lost something in a beta, but actually in a live game.
It was never the regular people starting colonies far away from home. It was the desperate, the greedy, the prosecuted, the extraordinary adventurous.
There are trillions of people living in the bubble, many of them apparently on very overcrowded planets. Attracting a mere 10K colonists for starting a new colony should be absolutely doable if the incentives are right.
The thing with colonies not directly generating resources for players is that for all building games except creative sims a lot of the fun comes from building a good engine that creates resources for building more or does something.
Building multiple mining colonies to feed into an industrial system that feeds into an high tech system etc would be a fun project to undertake, but if there's no meaningful output from doing it (other than 1 extra market near the bubble) then the why of it doesn't exist unless you want to roleplay it.
All the parts are there, they just won't come together unless there's unique things only players can and want to create that can affect other gameplay.
There's plenty of ideas and a lot of it boils down to "add the feature I've always wanted as a reward for colonization" and that could be fine, but the takeaway for frontier here should be that players are baffled that they're given no good gameplay motivations to colonize.
One of the undeniable strengths of Elite is deep, connected gameplay systems that almost allow for emergent gameplay systems and the approach of "Thargoid war for AX/Combat pilots, Colonization for explorers/haulers" is bad imo - the thargoid war should've had more long term elements to draw explorers in and colonization should have stuff that draws other playstyles in too even if it's just in the rewards (like the SCO stuff in the end of the thargoid war).
Building multiple mining colonies to feed into an industrial system that feeds into an high tech system etc would be a fun project to undertake, but if there's no meaningful output from doing it (other than 1 extra market near the bubble) then the why of it doesn't exist unless you want to roleplay it.
All the parts are there, they just won't come together unless there's unique things only players can and want to create that can affect other gameplay.
There's plenty of ideas and a lot of it boils down to "add the feature I've always wanted as a reward for colonization" and that could be fine, but the takeaway for frontier here should be that players are baffled that they're given no good gameplay motivations to colonize.
One of the undeniable strengths of Elite is deep, connected gameplay systems that almost allow for emergent gameplay systems and the approach of "Thargoid war for AX/Combat pilots, Colonization for explorers/haulers" is bad imo - the thargoid war should've had more long term elements to draw explorers in and colonization should have stuff that draws other playstyles in too even if it's just in the rewards (like the SCO stuff in the end of the thargoid war).
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Ok, you got your Colonization Ship, it has some amount of colonists on it, it arrives into a system, deployed, and then what? How would population grow? Where would extra people come from, where would anyone with different problems to populate the Mission board come from? Or is there just a string of endless 10K colonists who continue to magically appear in every system like that after Architect builds another settlement or a station? If it's a very remote system - it'll have to be self-sufficient from the start, otherwise what will people eat, what would they use for repairs and life in general? Ok, there could be missions to deliver supplies, and then Architect stops delivering supplies - what happens with that system? Do they eat each other and slowly become ghost towns? Or now we have a very long range NPC haulers who magically solve problems like that for the player? etc. etc.
As I've said - I hope it'll be possible in the future, but it needs many extra mechanics and thinking it through - because simulation is a big part of this game and immersion it creates. Doing a very remote colony should not be - just more commodities. If it is disconnected from civilization by distances that are impossible for and average NPC Joe - it should have extra mechanics for an Architect to deal with.
And there are also plenty of large groups it wouldn't limit the speed of at all. If a Powerplay group decides that they want to just push the edge of the bubble outwards to give them more mostly-uncontestable systems, they can almost certainly push each one from a different faction.
Expanding on what I said earlier, I see 6 primary logistical hubs developing somewhere around;
Pipe (stem) Sector DL-Y D136
Wredguia KC-D D12-43
Wregoe GC-D D12-160
Wregoe CR-N D6-66
Wregoe OF-E D12-13
Synuefe GZ-E D12-27
These will require something in the region of 300 "daisy-chain" stations to reach whose only purpose will be to buy the next beacon.
Obviously this will be a collective effort, anyone who thinks they can solo it should book themselves in for therapy now.
The end result will be a Bubble 1000 Ly across.
Pipe (stem) Sector DL-Y D136
Wredguia KC-D D12-43
Wregoe GC-D D12-160
Wregoe CR-N D6-66
Wregoe OF-E D12-13
Synuefe GZ-E D12-27
These will require something in the region of 300 "daisy-chain" stations to reach whose only purpose will be to buy the next beacon.
Obviously this will be a collective effort, anyone who thinks they can solo it should book themselves in for therapy now.
The end result will be a Bubble 1000 Ly across.
Seconded. Frontier Developments should know as "theme park experts", the importance of 1. generating resources, 2. creative building, 3. linking colony systems (economies) for (bigger) rewards.
NPC ships could arrive with colonists. Maybe some are cloned at the settlement. So the number of colonists gradually increases. Players could deliver colonists too via Passenger Carrier missions. To make a colony self-sustaining there should be agriculture facilities that produce food.
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There is a traditional explanation for where additional colonists come from though the details will be slightly different in Horizons than Odyssey.
Of course something a little quicker might be needed for playability.
They would need to come to a colony 1000+ Ly away, on a consistent basis. What is that traditional explanation? I genuinely don't know.
Yes, but it would also need to make sense. I haven't seen many or any NPCs traveling 1000 Ly out of any inhabited system. So there is a limit to where average NPC Joe could get to, and there are not so many NPC colonists/explorers. It could change in lore with open Colonisation. Yet, still, something that is easy for the player is not so easy for an NPC, even a colonist. And for that - there is a need for a lot of mechanics outside of the scope of current BGS systems and NPC behaviour, otherwise it's just a magical teleportation in whatever quantities.
It most definitely don't make sense for a Colonisation of a system 1000 Ly away to be the same as 10 Ly away, just haul commodities for 990 Ly more, and maybe a bit more of them.
Of course it can be done. But developing Colonisation with what we already know is quite a difficult task. I doubt that mechanics that are needed for a very distant colonisation are a possibility in current iteration. In the future - maybe.
Babies.
But since people are down for hauling supplies, no reason they can't also be down for hauling people/passenger missions. The Galnet post talked about people in the bubble being tired of the Thargoid threat, and want to leave before the next attack. Running out and hiding in deep space is the way, not moving to the edge of the bubble as it spreads out. The edge of the bubble is where most of the attacks happened before, after all. Completely counterintuitive to go there if you want to escape.
Haha! Are babies in a distant future of Elite born as adults? Otherwise there is not much help for colonisation from them, but much more extra work.
Exactly! This kind of extra mechanics are what would be needed for any long range colonisation. None of the current BGS/NPC systems have anything of the sort. So... sometime in the future, in the next iteration, maybe.
Unknown, but that is why they specifically said 'something quicker will be needed for playability'.
Well... passenger missions are linked to BGS factions, so the numer of passengers you take can add to the BGS population. New missions for 'we need (agg/tech/extraction/etc) expert in the colony, take them and their family... also need cargo space for their stuff' but maybe that's factored in to passenger berths.
I don't know how BGS expands into new systems by default, so shrug