Requirements for building a Coriolis starport

These things are essentially impossible to balance to everyone's satisfaction, because both individual and group tolerances for effort vary by over a factor of 1000.

An outpost is ~20,000t of materials. Assuming for now that the CMM Composite supply gets fixed by some means (like the Trailblazer megaships, perhaps?) the others are all easy bulk materials, and you get 4 weeks (28 days) to complete it:
- you need to deliver 715t a day, which is one trip a day in a cargo-fit T-9 or two in a T-8 (but the T-8 is faster in both supercruise and hyperspace, so it might be about the same total time)
- a top 25% CG participant delivers about 6000t a week to a CG, so is working at the necessary pace to build themselves a starter outpost solo
(two "top 50%" CG participants could build a starter outpost between them)

In terms of group effort, using the squadron trade leaderboards as a rough proxy for hauling power:
- a top 1000 squadron hauls a fair bit more than a single top 25% CG participant
- a top 100 squadron hauls ten times as fast as the 1000th squadron
- a top 10 squadron hauls about five times as fast as the 100th squadron
- the top 1 squadron hauls about 25 times as fast as the 100th squadron

So Frontier have got this about right, I think (other than having CMM Composite be a major component needing thousands of tonnes rather than a minor "and also 50t of this" one, because that's going to bottleneck absolutely everyone)
- individuals, at least those who play regularly, can comfortably get themselves an outpost built in a month (and probably a little quicker than that) without doing any more than they'd do for a CG. And if you're willing to do 25% hauling rates for a decal and a few tens of millions of credits, it doesn't seem unreasonable to do the same for your very own star system
- a mini-squadron of five people can achieve the same sort of goal a little more quickly
- a top 1000 squadron (which is still usually well below the level of "you might have heard of them") can clear an outpost a week, and possibly go for more ambitious tasks
- a top 100 squadron will probably start with a bigger station
- a top 10 squadron can probably be putting down multiple Orbis-level systems a week

If a Coriolis was possible to finish in a week for a lone top-25% CG hauler
- a top 10 squadron would be able to colonise well over 100 systems a week
- the single top squadron would probably be doing close to 500
 
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playa!

Back on topic I think people forget ED is a game that sometimes involves effort beyond single players. Plus, unless FD stick to sensible levels they'll negate the next features advantages (Vanguards) and we wind up with the worst of both worlds (FCs are already easy single player assets, now stations possibly too).
 
These things are essentially impossible to balance to everyone's satisfaction, because both individual and group tolerances for effort vary by over a factor of 1000.

An outpost is ~20,000t of materials. Assuming for now that the CMM Composite supply gets fixed by some means (like the Trailblazer megaships, perhaps?) the others are all easy bulk materials, and you get 4 weeks (28 days) to complete it:
- you need to deliver 715t a day, which is one trip a day in a cargo-fit T-9 or two in a T-8 (but the T-8 is faster in both supercruise and hyperspace, so it might be about the same total time)
- a top 25% CG participant delivers about 6000t a week to a CG, so is working at the necessary pace to build themselves a starter outpost solo
(two "top 50%" CG participants could build a starter outpost between them)

In terms of group effort, using the squadron trade leaderboards as a rough proxy for hauling power:
- a top 1000 squadron hauls a fair bit more than a single top 25% CG participant
- a top 100 squadron hauls ten times as fast as the 1000th squadron
- a top 10 squadron hauls about five times as fast as the 100th squadron
- the top 1 squadron hauls about 25 times as fast as the 100th squadron

So Frontier have got this about right, I think (other than having CMM Composite be a major component needing thousands of tonnes rather than a minor "and also 50t of this" one, because that's going to bottleneck absolutely everyone)
- individuals, at least those who play regularly, can comfortably get themselves an outpost built in a month (and probably a little quicker than that) without doing any more than they'd do for a CG. And if you're willing to do 25% hauling rates for a decal and a few tens of millions of credits, it doesn't seem unreasonable to do the same for your very own star system
- a mini-squadron of five people can achieve the same sort of goal a little more quickly
- a top 1000 squadron (which is still usually well below the level of "you might have heard of them") can clear an outpost a week, and possibly go for more ambitious tasks
- a top 100 squadron will probably start with a bigger station
- a top 10 squadron can probably be putting down multiple Orbis-level systems a week

If a Coriolis was possible to finish in a week for a lone top-25% CG hauler
- a top 10 squadron would be able to colonise well over 100 systems a week
- the single top squadron would probably be doing close to 500
Stop being reasonable and never provide provable numbers, duh.
 
Something else that may become relevant later:
- one of the benefits of an outpost is "+1 Tier 2 point"
- one of the benefits of a coriolis is "+1 Tier 3 point"
- orbis/ocellus don't have anything similar

Maybe if you build enough outposts you can trade in those accumulated Tier 2 points for a discount on a Coriolis?
 
These things are essentially impossible to balance to everyone's satisfaction, because both individual and group tolerances for effort vary by over a factor of 1000.

An outpost is ~20,000t of materials. Assuming for now that the CMM Composite supply gets fixed by some means (like the Trailblazer megaships, perhaps?) the others are all easy bulk materials, and you get 4 weeks (28 days) to complete it:
- you need to deliver 715t a day, which is one trip a day in a cargo-fit T-9 or two in a T-8 (but the T-8 is faster in both supercruise and hyperspace, so it might be about the same total time)
- a top 25% CG participant delivers about 6000t a week to a CG, so is working at the necessary pace to build themselves a starter outpost solo
(two "top 50%" CG participants could build a starter outpost between them)

In terms of group effort, using the squadron trade leaderboards as a rough proxy for hauling power:
- a top 1000 squadron hauls a fair bit more than a single top 25% CG participant
- a top 100 squadron hauls ten times as fast as the 1000th squadron
- a top 10 squadron hauls about five times as fast as the 100th squadron
- the top 1 squadron hauls about 25 times as fast as the 100th squadron

So Frontier have got this about right, I think (other than having CMM Composite be a major component needing thousands of tonnes rather than a minor "and also 50t of this" one, because that's going to bottleneck absolutely everyone)
- individuals, at least those who play regularly, can comfortably get themselves an outpost built in a month (and probably a little quicker than that) without doing any more than they'd do for a CG. And if you're willing to do 25% hauling rates for a decal and a few tens of millions of credits, it doesn't seem unreasonable to do the same for your very own star system
- a mini-squadron of five people can achieve the same sort of goal a little more quickly
- a top 1000 squadron (which is still usually well below the level of "you might have heard of them") can clear an outpost a week, and possibly go for more ambitious tasks
- a top 100 squadron will probably start with a bigger station
- a top 10 squadron can probably be putting down multiple Orbis-level systems a week

If a Coriolis was possible to finish in a week for a lone top-25% CG hauler
- a top 10 squadron would be able to colonise well over 100 systems a week
- the single top squadron would probably be doing close to 500
100% this. I can imagine if things were made far easier for an individual, the next complaint would be "big groups keep spamming colonies, put limits on what they can do!"

On CMM, having got up to 25% of my initial outpost on a casual hour of play, i wonder if they actually need fixing. If you haul just that, you're gonna have a bad day. But I've got at least 10% of my cmm supply done, because i grab what i can before filling up on polymers, liquid oxygen, steel, copper or titanium... I'm landing about 60 cmm per run, so I'm estimating that by the time I'm done with everything else, I'll have only around 500 or so left, which is sourceable enough by hitting the less frequented systems.
 
Im happy with how much stuff you currently need to build things. Stop crying.

It shouldent take a week solo to build everything, wait until we get to colonise out in the black. Now that's going to require a fleetcarrier and multiple trips.

But don't worry I can already see Fdev dropping the requirements, if people can't build the starlets they are not going to sell them arx.
 
This one.

If a bigger thing takes more time... don't build the bigger thing.
building an outpost will not solve the problem, you will simply reserve the system for yourself. Where will you park big ships? You still have to build a large spaceport - and this is 200-400 trade flights in one month, for a single player - this is madness.
 
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building an outpost will not solve the problem, you will simply reserve the system for yourself. Where will you park big ships? You still have to build a large spaceport - and this is 200-400 flights in one month, for a single player - this is madness.

Right, so I'm going off something unconfirmed, but my understanding is once you've built the initial station... all other ones in the same system don't have the time limitation. T

The time limit is is to prevent a large group "blocking off " a potentially large area and preventing anyone else from expanding until they're finished, potentially years later. FD explain this in their livestreams with particular emphasis on the initial facility .

Once you're established, the system is no longer contestable as you're now the system architect, and therefore the only one who can initiate anything, so there's no need to time bound it.

Tl;dr apparently the time limit is only for that first facility.

I'm yet to confirm this myself which is something I'm trying to do right now.

As was suggested elsewhere here, initiating with a bigger facility is really only if you have the resources and participants to do it, as it'll make further development easier (words to the effect of "you can't build certain facilities until certain others are built"
 
Tl;dr apparently the time limit is only for that first facility.
Likely this is the case indeed, no time limit after the initial station. However that will also mean we'll end up with a lot of systems that will only have a single Outpost and then be abandoned. Since most system claims will be from people playing mostly solo and some of the bigger stations just have too much material requirements.

Especially the CMM Composites unless they fix/balance that heavily, for one of the larger stations it currently requires about 2175 surface base visits assuming you are able to load up 24 CMM average. I mean even for larger player groups that's an insane amount, especially since this is only available on surface bases.

I think for systems claimed by solo players (which should be possible) it'll be like parking a carrier and never moving it again, taking up a slot... except now it'll be entire systems that likely won't get more bases/stations because for some of the commodities the required amounts are astronomical.
 
Likely this is the case indeed, no time limit after the initial station. However that will also mean we'll end up with a lot of systems that will only have a single Outpost and then be abandoned. Since most system claims will be from people playing mostly solo and some of the bigger stations just have too much material requirements.

Especially the CMM Composites unless they fix/balance that heavily, for one of the larger stations it currently requires about 2175 surface base visits assuming you are able to load up 24 CMM average. I mean even for larger player groups that's an insane amount, especially since this is only available on surface bases.

I think for systems claimed by solo players (which should be possible) it'll be like parking a carrier and never moving it again, taking up a slot... except now it'll be entire systems that likely won't get more bases/stations because for some of the commodities the required amounts are astronomical.
I'm getting 60-100 at a time... but i vary my port visits, grabbing say 600t of titanium, and 60t of cmm's.

I suspect many are just going "now I'm doing all of this one" which is a bad way to go it seems.

EDIT: case in point...
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Are people concerned about getting it done it time... or just the amount of effort required to get it done at all?

If it's the former, I guess the issue can be mitigated by hoovering up an FC full of whatever's hardest to collect before staking your claim.

I can see this leading to a fair bit of emergent gameplay, with real economics happening.
This time next week, for example, there's going to be at least one FC out there buying/selling stuff like CMM Composites for an elevated price.
 
Are people concerned about getting it done it time... or just the amount of effort required to get it done at all?

If it's the former, I guess the issue can be mitigated by hoovering up an FC full of whatever's hardest to collect before staking your claim.

I can see this leading to a fair bit of emergent gameplay, with real economics happening.
This time next week, for example, there's going to be at least one FC out there buying/selling stuff like CMM Composites for an elevated price.
Players: We want a player driven economy!
FD: introduces mechanics with concerns that create value propositions
Players: ... NOT LIKE THAT!

Now you've done it.
Screw that... I have a buy order for 100k a pop.
 
Probably. Is that actually a problem, though?
Maybe not, perhaps it's more unfortunate.

I hope building the surface bases doesn't require as much as the large orbital stations, I haven't looked into that yet. One would assume it's less, or at least similar to an orbital outpost. So maybe "solo systems" won't be as empty and even solo players can build a little more than the first outpost.

Are people concerned about getting it done it time... or just the amount of effort required to get it done at all?

I don't have much of an issue with the amounts required, just the CMM composites that are only available on surface bases and in such small amounts that it's an overly harsh time-sink. Doing all the cargo hauling is time consuming enough as it is, having to scrounge it together a few dozen at a time is draining when you need 4700 let alone 52000 for a big station. The latter I'm not even going to try of course even with unlimited time.
 
Not where you're getting that from.


You're absolutely right and my brain was working at an order of magnitude greater than it's supposed to.
Time for some adjustment - I'll book myself in.
 
And all architects actually need someone to build their creations.
Couldn't have summed it up better than that ...

Cheers for supporting my point!

The game needs the features to get NPC's/Players to reliably haul for you in order for colonisation to work as it stands.

As it stands it's been implemented as a solo feature but with material requirements of a group feature. Imo changes needed are either:

  • Make it so it's locked behind squadrons/vanguards. Make it more of a multiplayer feature, allowing you to set incentives for players in-game.
  • Make it so there is an actual framework around hiring NPCs/Players to do hauling for you.
  • Or reduce the material requirements for more realistic solo levels

Orrrr we could just leave it and alienate all solo cmdrs from this feature creating an inevitable graveyard of dead, underdeveloped systems ...
 
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