Colonisation to facilitate exploration

[Felix DiCestria]

With the information given regarding the colonisation feature it may be possible to set up a System around 500 Ly from the Bubble if Explorers wanted somewhere they could call in.
Where would be best for this?
There is a movement towards developing a daisy chain towards Colonia, probably aimed at the first Colonia Bridge megaship. Directly towards Sag A* in the Pipe (Stem) sector is also likely to prove popular.
I had considered the 6 cardinal directions, Is there anywhere in particular that Explorers as the primary end users of such a development would prefer?

 

[GroG79]

With a 10 Ly distance between systems? Good luck with that.

This expansion is NOT for explorers. I do not see how they can use this. This will expand the bubble.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

It'll take a year to reach 500 Ly at 10 Ly per week, but it looks like it might be doable.
You have no idea how much I' want to see the 10 Ly limit relaxed. Part of me thinks it's to keep us occupied whilst the devs do something.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Part of me thinks it's to keep us occupied whilst the devs do something.

I think it's mostly to keep us from doing anything too weird while they fix the initial bugs, tune the tonnage requirements, etc.

 

[LifesAJourney]

10 Ly or 20 Ly or 50 Ly - no matter what range will the colonization thingy have, a year-worth effort of expanding the Bubble will be still just a bunch of decent explo-ship jumps. Can't see anything valuable for explorers here.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

10 Ly or 20 Ly or 50 Ly - no matter what range will the colonization thingy have, a year-worth effort of expanding the Bubble will be still just a bunch of decent explo-ship jumps. Can't see anything valuable for explorers here.

10 Ly gets us to carrier jump range on a year.
20 Ly gets us there in 6 months.
50 Ly would be 10 weeks.

 

[Ameeleean2]

With enough support we can always have community goal to colonize distant system- either by devs override to new system colonization method or in old fashioned way by setting goal to deliver set of materials to megaship or other structure in target system.

 

[Anticon]

Explorers wouldn't put any real value on a station only 500Ly out from the bubble - that's just a short hop. Even 2000Ly out wouldn't mean much.

 

[K Olley]

Explorers wouldn't put any real value on a station only 500Ly out from the bubble - that's just a short hop.

It maybe for experienced explorers but a few "close in" stations with missions to and from them might be an ideal training area for wanna-be explorers, It would also give those that are interested in deep space stations a rough idea of the logistics and logistical problems involved with setting up deep space stations if they become available later.

 

[Ameeleean2]

It maybe for experienced explorers but a few "close in" stations with missions to and from them might be an ideal training area for wanna-be explorers, It would also give those that are interested in deep space stations a rough idea of the logistics and logistical problems involved with setting up deep space stations if they become available later.

Automated outpost with repair and universal cartografics would be sufficient. Both functions are provided by carriers right now but it would be nice to be able to drop something like this on asteroid or planetary surface. Automated facility with single large landing pad would be ok, even better if we were able to deploy this from ship or we could simply go with exploration carrier type- smaller, larger jump distance, longer jump cooldown, ability to use normal hydrogen instead of tritium.

 

[K Olley]

Automated this, automated that, why not just do away with exploration and send out automated probes

 

[Ameeleean2]

Automated this, automated that, why not just do away with exploration and send out automated probes

Automated=unmanned, unless someone wants to volunteer for several months duty to maintain outpost in desolate area. Basically everything is automated already, just degree of automation is different-> press button and ship accelerates, turns, fires, jumps, even human body is automated too since noone have to consciously maintain breathing, heart, hormones, sugar level in blood etc. It's one of the reasons why I do not care about players saying "this should be automated and this not", computers were made to make things easier and if someone is worried it will be abused it is enough to add botcheck before automated function is used in game.

 

[K Olley]

The bigger and more complex the automated process gets the more things to go wrong.

 

[varonica]

Automated=unmanned, unless someone wants to volunteer for several months duty to maintain outpost in desolate area.

And that is why colonisation is just not aimed at explorers, for it to actually be useful you need to automate the heck out of it, and in case you hadn't noticed FDEV is not keen on that. You build a colony in remote reaches of the galaxy, yes I would expect you would need to maintain a presence there for it to continue functioning. Fleet Carriers are what explorers use, a large mobile exploration platform. Traditionally explorers don't set up colonies, they map, explore, hand the data over when they get home and someone else with lots of money finances a number of ships to go out and plant a colony, and that requires a lot of work and generally the leader to hang around and run stuff, not just wander off into the wilderness.

 

[marx]

I think it's mostly to keep us from doing anything too weird while they fix the initial bugs, tune the tonnage requirements, etc.

Given that they decided that the "beta"'s actions should carry on to the live server, I'd say the same. Frontier might want to avoid stuff like players colonizing tens of thousands of lightyears away on week 2, and then complaining if Frontier took that away from them.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

And that is why colonisation is just not aimed at explorers, for it to actually be useful you need to automate the heck out of it, and in case you hadn't noticed FDEV is not keen on that. You build a colony in remote reaches of the galaxy, yes I would expect you would need to maintain a presence there for it to continue functioning. Fleet Carriers are what explorers use, a large mobile exploration platform. Traditionally explorers don't set up colonies, they map, explore, hand the data over when they get home and someone else with lots of money finances a number of ships to go out and plant a colony, and that requires a lot of work and generally the leader to hang around and run stuff, not just wander off into the wilderness.

BGS would take care of the running of facilities. Comparing to DSSA carriers which need upkeep this could be set-up and leave to the whims of whatever.

 

[Ameeleean2]

And that is why colonisation is just not aimed at explorers, for it to actually be useful you need to automate the heck out of it, and in case you hadn't noticed FDEV is not keen on that. You build a colony in remote reaches of the galaxy, yes I would expect you would need to maintain a presence there for it to continue functioning. Fleet Carriers are what explorers use, a large mobile exploration platform. Traditionally explorers don't set up colonies, they map, explore, hand the data over when they get home and someone else with lots of money finances a number of ships to go out and plant a colony, and that requires a lot of work and generally the leader to hang around and run stuff, not just wander off into the wilderness.

That's why specialized vessel, smaller than fleet carrier we have now (who needs plenty of landing pads for exploration purpose...), able to jump far using regular fuel would be more useful than fleet carrier running on tritium (which is radioactive, hard to get fuel with relatively low half-life time).
Anyway if we talk about this more it might be even better idea to add ship based optional module that would allow turning in exploration data- in this case there is no need to have extra base/outpost at all and also no point to move those carriers around galaxy (well for explorers anyway) with the exception to access systems which are too far for boosted jump of exploration ship.
Colonization is interesting upcoming part of the game but I would like to have an additional option just to purchase right to build single facility- most of the time ownership right of entire system is not necessary.

The other reason for forming single colonies spread out in entire galaxy is recent thargoid war itself. There is a telling "do not pull all eggs in one basket" so if by chance bubble systems revert to stone age or worse get wiped out by sneaky attack of biological weapon, it is good idea to have hidden colonies elsewhere just to keep human civilization running.

P.S. Thargoid invasion is a proof that those species are fools. Instead of open warfare it would be sufficient to provide mass destruction weapons to volatile elements of ED humanity and it would fall apart by itself probably

 

[varonica]

BGS would take care of the running of facilities. Comparing to DSSA carriers which need upkeep this could be set-up and leave to the whims of whatever.

BGS at Beagle Point?

 

[Felix DiCestria]

BGS at Beagle Point?

Certainly not by myself. My interests lie more with the Guardian sites.
I wouldn't put it past someone to attempt it though.
I know one guy is wanting to build out to Colonia whilst another wants to go straight up. I expect someone will build towards the Pipe (Stem) sector (Sag A*).
I did see some interest in a station at a Neutron star, similar to Jackson's Lighthouse.

Once the New Feature hype dies down I suspect the normal BGS pattern will return with the core of the Bubble being full of conflict whilst the periphery drifts quietly in None state.