Elite Dangerous | System Colonisation Beta Details & Feedback
- Thread starter Paul_Crowther
- Start date
Yeah I literally wrote a whole thread about the players having to make "Space Inch worms" to bridge out to the systems they really want. and that what Fdev should do, is allow players one and ONLY one Global beacon they can place anywhere in the galaxy (barring certain systems for Fdev's reserved purposes.) that way they can start their own bubble, and invite others to contribute.
Because the whole idea of colonization is that players need to SPREAD OUT, and having a single global beacon would allow players to ensure that at least ONE system is that choice, beautiful system, that they can call their headquarters. And will want to spend so many arx renaming and customizing. Even if the others they colonize from that point is a crap-shoot, and victim of the 15 lightyear restriction. The point is to ensure that FIRST and probably for alot of folks only system they are going to do, is choice.
Because as I see it, only a small number of folks are going to go the full tilt and start building empires, most people are going to colonize one, two, maybe three systems and go "I'm happy in my own little fiefdom" and call it a day.
The ongoing theme here seems to be the same....
We really need ship interiors to be made a thing, so observing colonization and squadron activities will be far more enjoyable.
Imagine what that extra capacity would look like in my cargo hold.
Any why can't I watch Cmdr's jump to Beagle and set-up a colony...from my hot-tub on the flight deck.
Work to do!
We really need ship interiors to be made a thing, so observing colonization and squadron activities will be far more enjoyable.
Imagine what that extra capacity would look like in my cargo hold.
Any why can't I watch Cmdr's jump to Beagle and set-up a colony...from my hot-tub on the flight deck.
Work to do!
this is looking like a real beta release more and more rather than just a balance test.
between the embarrassing carrier jump behaviour and the lack of actually monitoring your colonization ship's cargo and quota from within your ship and the single game mechanic you have to repeat to the tune of at least 100 round trips of uneventful space trucking.. this feature seems like it needs more cooking time before it's ready
between the embarrassing carrier jump behaviour and the lack of actually monitoring your colonization ship's cargo and quota from within your ship and the single game mechanic you have to repeat to the tune of at least 100 round trips of uneventful space trucking.. this feature seems like it needs more cooking time before it's ready
I totally agree. I don't think I've hauled this much since the game launched. It's never been my most prefered style. Although I've finally bought a Type9 for this job. I must say, I'm kinda loving Advanced Docking Computers.
We are a few days in. I'm 23% on my basic station and it's starting to wear thin...need some more activities.
I've launched the beacon and colonization ship is not coming. Then after game restart game tells me to launch beacon again. This is eternal loop, gotta be fixed.
Can we or has anyone tried to change the economy type of outposts/ports yet?
So you are going to build your starport all on your own with no tools ? , the Colonisation ship houses the folks that are going to build the starport, you bring them the stuff and they build.
the colonization ship jumps out once it's full of cargo, does it not? it doesn't do anything else but apparently collect cargo and pay you to deliver it even. So yea, i can do without that, since i have my own carrier that can hold that cargo. They can just direct me to where they want me to jump the carrier to and i can click a button and we can move on to the next stage.
Me shuttling cargo from one carrier to their carrier (it's the same company that owns both even) so they can deliver it to where the station is actually being built isn't necessary.
luckily, distant colonization isn't an option. For some reason, fdev thought players actually want to spend even more time in the bubble with a feature that teases getting away from it. So unless your plan is to build a chain of systems and repeat this god awful grind process dozens of times, it's going to be a really long time before you are beyond the reach of a single FC jump.
After actually going trought the pain of building an outpost, i can say the initial enthusiasm i had in my first feedback post is gone, the grind is truly godawful, even for a mere outpost, im not going to expand my system despite the grand plans i had of exploring terraforming, or how the system building mechanics, because more refinery runs would just grate further on my will to live.
I do believe being able to just pay off the npcs to handle it is not the way, i understand that there has to be players actually involved in building a system.
While i further believe the time involved is still far too high for current constructions, and they should be toned down, this is secondary to the actual main flaw that absolutely must be fixed is that the current system is JUST HAULING.
I will therefore return to my point in my first feedback post that more activities need to be tied into colonisation, instead of JUST HAULING.
I cannot believe this has to be reminded to the devs, this last years revival of the game has come off the back of engineering rebalance and powerplay rework, among others, those changes acknowledging that the game has to respect people's time and let them get to the fun stuff (building ships), and not bore them to death with montone grindfests, powerplay got involved in so many systems you can even get merits in odyssey settlements!
So its astonishing that they have turned around and made their next big system for long term engagement a monotone grindfest of JUST HAULING.
And despite it being a community intended feature, there is absolutely no community centered features on it, can't put bounty on construction, can't share the benefits from construction with anyone, if i go trought the trouble of getting 10 facilities in system for the discount on ships/modules, i can't share it with no one that helped me get there, nor the dividends, not that either add up to anything meaningful to players that can manage to build such systems.
Now, as for my ideas how to fix this, community involvement fix is quick and easy, i repeat, many players, including me, in both these forums and discord have suggested, the system architect should be able to place a bounty on every ton delivered to the construction ship as to encourage other players to get involved. This should be a quick fix for those with deeper pockets to be able to pave the way to their dream systems while redistributing wealth, add some taxes or fees on it if you believe it may redistribute too much wealth, and need to remove some creds from the economy.
For the more dire lack of activities, i was thinking of tackling it 2 ways, slow refill missions , one on a new board on the colonisation ship/construction site, giving missions to encourage knowing, exploring and exploiting your new system, and another on the sorrounding systems, encouraging you to know and schmooze your neighbours to gather their support (should they exist).
First one, the one aboard the colonisation ship would give tasks depending on the systems features, representing the interests of corporations/powers/factions willing to give material support in exchange of favours/samples/data from the new system. This generally meaning that "interesting" systems, with more asteroid rings, terraformables, bodies.... Will gather more interest and thus make it easier to gather support that way, which may be of interest to trailblazers trying to pave a path into the black, who might then be interesting more in seeing what is within their range in order to leave interesting systems in the path of wherever they may be heading.
Gameplay wise, the purpose of this board would also be to get the player to intimately know the system they are now colonising, mining missions may demand that something be mined of a local hotspot (and may only spawn of local hotspots, so as to have the player find it and exploit it), planet flybys, or landings to get samples, might get them to know more the topography of their planets, as to make notes for future settlements, delivering telemetry sattelites/engineered microorganisms to local terraformables might get them to appreciate their rare ball of potential life... As well as maybe better acknowleding the political situation of their system (touring fed paperpushers, imperial patrons, delivering brewer/faction specialists, terraforming scientists, asserting sovereignty over the system if there is a nearby pirate system... all to get support)
Second one is mission boards on the sorrounding systems within colonisation range, if you are friendly/allied, there may be opportunities to get support from em, not much to say here, be friendly with em, and versatile enough to be able to complete whatever comes up in the rare material support missions. This is more designed to encourage varied gameplay (which i believe most will agree is more engaging, rather than doing a single activity over and over), a well as visiting different nearby system (instead of the same refinery, over and over) and having good relationships with them. This may make developing systems around civilised space easier, and that rather makes sense doesn't it? While the trailblazers in the black might have to instead consider figuring out the logistical challenge of bringing in lots of goods into the black. And new civilisation "clusters" may find themselves looking to coordinate to find themselves able to coordinate eachothers economies to make sure material support from their respective colonies may be able to fill all the major categories that may need to be covered.
With the slow refill on both boards meaning that you can either slow walk a construction on lower-ish effort by waiting for missions to refresh where there may not be a lot of support available, but you can still rush it by bringing in a lot of people and slamming FCs full of commodities into the system.
Alright, breather time, thats the major issue i wanted to cover, i really needed that after doing nothing but JUST HAULING for wayyy too long.
So let me just finish off with a small nitpick, did 95% of the tonnage that goes into stations need to be refinery stuff? I understand it may make sense, but im rather tired of visiting the same refinery over and over, did i mention how tired i am of JUST HAULING from the same refinery over and over?
I do believe being able to just pay off the npcs to handle it is not the way, i understand that there has to be players actually involved in building a system.
While i further believe the time involved is still far too high for current constructions, and they should be toned down, this is secondary to the actual main flaw that absolutely must be fixed is that the current system is JUST HAULING.
I will therefore return to my point in my first feedback post that more activities need to be tied into colonisation, instead of JUST HAULING.
I cannot believe this has to be reminded to the devs, this last years revival of the game has come off the back of engineering rebalance and powerplay rework, among others, those changes acknowledging that the game has to respect people's time and let them get to the fun stuff (building ships), and not bore them to death with montone grindfests, powerplay got involved in so many systems you can even get merits in odyssey settlements!
So its astonishing that they have turned around and made their next big system for long term engagement a monotone grindfest of JUST HAULING.
And despite it being a community intended feature, there is absolutely no community centered features on it, can't put bounty on construction, can't share the benefits from construction with anyone, if i go trought the trouble of getting 10 facilities in system for the discount on ships/modules, i can't share it with no one that helped me get there, nor the dividends, not that either add up to anything meaningful to players that can manage to build such systems.
Now, as for my ideas how to fix this, community involvement fix is quick and easy, i repeat, many players, including me, in both these forums and discord have suggested, the system architect should be able to place a bounty on every ton delivered to the construction ship as to encourage other players to get involved. This should be a quick fix for those with deeper pockets to be able to pave the way to their dream systems while redistributing wealth, add some taxes or fees on it if you believe it may redistribute too much wealth, and need to remove some creds from the economy.
For the more dire lack of activities, i was thinking of tackling it 2 ways, slow refill missions , one on a new board on the colonisation ship/construction site, giving missions to encourage knowing, exploring and exploiting your new system, and another on the sorrounding systems, encouraging you to know and schmooze your neighbours to gather their support (should they exist).
First one, the one aboard the colonisation ship would give tasks depending on the systems features, representing the interests of corporations/powers/factions willing to give material support in exchange of favours/samples/data from the new system. This generally meaning that "interesting" systems, with more asteroid rings, terraformables, bodies.... Will gather more interest and thus make it easier to gather support that way, which may be of interest to trailblazers trying to pave a path into the black, who might then be interesting more in seeing what is within their range in order to leave interesting systems in the path of wherever they may be heading.
Gameplay wise, the purpose of this board would also be to get the player to intimately know the system they are now colonising, mining missions may demand that something be mined of a local hotspot (and may only spawn of local hotspots, so as to have the player find it and exploit it), planet flybys, or landings to get samples, might get them to know more the topography of their planets, as to make notes for future settlements, delivering telemetry sattelites/engineered microorganisms to local terraformables might get them to appreciate their rare ball of potential life... As well as maybe better acknowleding the political situation of their system (touring fed paperpushers, imperial patrons, delivering brewer/faction specialists, terraforming scientists, asserting sovereignty over the system if there is a nearby pirate system... all to get support)
Second one is mission boards on the sorrounding systems within colonisation range, if you are friendly/allied, there may be opportunities to get support from em, not much to say here, be friendly with em, and versatile enough to be able to complete whatever comes up in the rare material support missions. This is more designed to encourage varied gameplay (which i believe most will agree is more engaging, rather than doing a single activity over and over), a well as visiting different nearby system (instead of the same refinery, over and over) and having good relationships with them. This may make developing systems around civilised space easier, and that rather makes sense doesn't it? While the trailblazers in the black might have to instead consider figuring out the logistical challenge of bringing in lots of goods into the black. And new civilisation "clusters" may find themselves looking to coordinate to find themselves able to coordinate eachothers economies to make sure material support from their respective colonies may be able to fill all the major categories that may need to be covered.
With the slow refill on both boards meaning that you can either slow walk a construction on lower-ish effort by waiting for missions to refresh where there may not be a lot of support available, but you can still rush it by bringing in a lot of people and slamming FCs full of commodities into the system.
Alright, breather time, thats the major issue i wanted to cover, i really needed that after doing nothing but JUST HAULING for wayyy too long.
So let me just finish off with a small nitpick, did 95% of the tonnage that goes into stations need to be refinery stuff? I understand it may make sense, but im rather tired of visiting the same refinery over and over, did i mention how tired i am of JUST HAULING from the same refinery over and over?
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what's disappointing is we have this thing in the game already called a Dredger that could open up everything that ISN'T HAULING in order for you to acquire the various raw and fabricated materials needed to build a station.
Even if fdev didn't want to be awesome and let players have their own dredger, the colonization ship could offer missions to nearby "res" sites as it would be believable that pirate activity would spike in a new colony system with so much cargo around... And these missions would basically involve a dredger and pirate ships would spawn and such and you'd have to destroy them and the dredger drones would push the debris into the maw. You then accrue goods that the dredger automatically deposits into the carrier when you de-instance based on how many ships you destroy and their sizes / loadouts etc.
Or mining type missions where you mine and dump your cargo in front of the dredger maw and it eats it all without you having to go dock - transforming that stuff into whatever the mission goal was for. This would be in spawned fields rather than rings and not require persistent fields to exist at the system level. Again, it ends when you de-instance, depositing whatever you got to your colonization ship on its own.
Alternatively, you could be given missions to escort a series of npc T9's and defend them from pirates from nearby systems until they reach the colonization ship, and they would be full of cargo that you need (randomly whatever is still needed at the time of docking). Such missions would cost you credits and if you lose ships, the cost goes up for the next mission. These convoys would get attacked, so this isn't like an "I'm rich so i win button" for hiring npcs to play the boring parts for you. as a player you will be involved, but it's combat and strategy rather than hauling.
yea, lots of alternative ideas. None will happen though because what we have now is what we're going to get.
Even if fdev didn't want to be awesome and let players have their own dredger, the colonization ship could offer missions to nearby "res" sites as it would be believable that pirate activity would spike in a new colony system with so much cargo around... And these missions would basically involve a dredger and pirate ships would spawn and such and you'd have to destroy them and the dredger drones would push the debris into the maw. You then accrue goods that the dredger automatically deposits into the carrier when you de-instance based on how many ships you destroy and their sizes / loadouts etc.
Or mining type missions where you mine and dump your cargo in front of the dredger maw and it eats it all without you having to go dock - transforming that stuff into whatever the mission goal was for. This would be in spawned fields rather than rings and not require persistent fields to exist at the system level. Again, it ends when you de-instance, depositing whatever you got to your colonization ship on its own.
Alternatively, you could be given missions to escort a series of npc T9's and defend them from pirates from nearby systems until they reach the colonization ship, and they would be full of cargo that you need (randomly whatever is still needed at the time of docking). Such missions would cost you credits and if you lose ships, the cost goes up for the next mission. These convoys would get attacked, so this isn't like an "I'm rich so i win button" for hiring npcs to play the boring parts for you. as a player you will be involved, but it's combat and strategy rather than hauling.
yea, lots of alternative ideas. None will happen though because what we have now is what we're going to get.
Pretty much this. As Paul said in the op, this feedback thread is only specifically for resource balancing.
Thank you CMDR Greasetrap42. I have done similar during other CGs, will follow above once we have delivered all the others then a team search for CMMs. o7,
Not sure if this has been discussed here. Is there any way to reduce the amount of materials needed for building a station? Or maybe add an option to hire NPCs for resource delivery? Alternatively, for an already built station, introduce a feature to create missions for resource transport.
After all, the game is meant to be played, not lived in.
If we’re talking about quantities, reducing them to 5,000 per resource type would be reasonable. If neither reducing the amount nor hiring NPCs is possible, then at least extend the timeframe for the first station to 3–6 months.
After all, the game is meant to be played, not lived in.
If we’re talking about quantities, reducing them to 5,000 per resource type would be reasonable. If neither reducing the amount nor hiring NPCs is possible, then at least extend the timeframe for the first station to 3–6 months.
Unless I missed something carrier's are apparently disabled?
only in the sense that you can only jump with them if you do so at the 00 of a given minute in the in-game clock. as of like an hour ago. Then you get the hour+ long wait time. Assuming that completes when it says ...
if you try jumping at any other time you get the no time slots message.
Thanks I missed that that's messed up