Elite Dangerous | System Colonisation Beta Details & Feedback

[Skrylly]

Hello FDEV
Resume of the first experiences.
We fly with a HOTAS system and manually.
This means (for us as pilots) very precise and effective take-offs, flights and landings.

We are building a large station.
On average, we need one delivery for one jump,
using all available techniques (overload engine): 9.11 minutes / approx. 10 minutes,
with a load volume of 725 tons / units. From the station to the collony ship and back to the station.
We bought the T9 optimized with real money. Although we already had a T9
With a delivery volume of 58000 tons / units, that's : 80 flights, take-offs and landings, that's approx. 800 minutes / 60 = 13.33 hours.
Now you can say that the deliveries, since they are not all that big, can easily be done in a month.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. After approx. 10 deliveries, the energy is usually already at the end. In a small group, clan or organization of 1-5 players, the average is less than 40 deliveries per evening. As we all have a job and a family, it's a really tough race
Another station in a new system will probably be canceled because nobody wants to do it again.
And again, as with the carriers, large organizations have an extreme advantage.
All the deliveries are also extremely boring in the long run. A change would be an advantage.
Suggestions:
Maybe you can enter the construction ship and assemble parts delivered by a refinery on a monitor.
We liked one suggestion here in the forum:
Include different missions. We didn't think fighting pirates was such a good idea, as it doesn't fit in, but basically a bit of variety like just the extremely large number of deliveries would be very nice.
The number of deliveries is also too high.
Or a new freighter ship or ship modification of the T9 / T9 Extended with a larger cargo hold of about 900 tons / units !
We all (even the small loyal clans/orgs) need the incentive and the chance of success to colonize more systems
We're looking forward to it.
I'm sure you can think of a few better actions for this really nice expansion.

We look forward to working with you in the future.
Best regards

 

[S0rkvild]

Building an outpost is a fun weekend project. Next one will be build with no rush in 10-12 days allowing me to do other things I like besides focusing on hauling only. I've just completed my first outpost and new perspectives of upgrading the system have appeared like small planetary infrastructure that is pretty easy to finish. I'll build a few of these to see how the system will benefit form.

First inconveniences to iron out

• if CMM has to be a surface ware then production output has to be increased greatly like in thousands. Despite they buffed it, it is still way to low, I've been tracking updates on inara and stuff is perishing pretty quickly so many cmdrs are bouncing off from system to system empty handed. Needless frustration.
• carrier jump system paralysis. Self explanatory.

I was also bothered with to much repetitiveness from T9'ing materials from my carrier to a colonization ship, the way my carrier parked on the other side of a planet has increased of times of cargo transfer due to maneuvering which is very frustrating thing in cumbersome T9. Loading the carrier that can stay, but on unloading side we need improvements like quick transfer dock, independent haulers for hire that not necessarily must be npc ship, just a slow drip of cargo from carrier to colony ship would do.

This is new mechanic yet very promising and I've seen many fantastic ideas in this thread how to flesh it out. Definitely a new era for Elite.

 

[Alice of Altair]

In the original BBC micro game, there were dodecahedron (12 pentagons) shaped space stations. At some point in the future, could it be possible to build those (or to convert a coriolis base for ARX)?
Also will there be new paint jobs for our space stations? Out of nostalgia for the original game, I would pay ARX for a retro wireframe look paint job on my stations.

 

[Darth Ender]

There seems to be a disconnect here. Apart from that you seem to think there's no more to system colonisation than moving things from A to B, are you saying that I don't actually want to do the things that it appears to me I do want to do? If not, then how do you explain that I want to do them? Or are you saying it's "ridiculous" that I want to do them

I'm saying you are confusing game incentives for personal ones. nobody cares about your personal ones but you.

I don't find the design bad. I think the company is limited by their developer spend, it's a niche game with low numbers compared to AAA titles and a budget to match, so I think their reliance on the game community is a pragmatic way of focusing their budget, I agree that in-game documentation could be better maintained but the existence of many out-of-game sources is more than compensatory.

most other games would apply that design choice as a mod so that content for the game can be experienced in the game if such a thing was actually intentional. just leaving information out or having poorly designed ui's that don't do what players need them to do isn't how it should work. players shouldn't have to rely on things outside of a game to get a complete experience playing the game.

I don't think that was asked to me. I just commented that clearly incentives are out there, given the significant uptake and I was jumped on and required to explain myself, which I've tried to do.

it was multiple times but whatever.

Good for them! There's plenty else to do.

i don't think fdev wants to produce features players choose to avoid because they either know it's not good or don't know why they should care about it or what it actually does.

'good play something else' is generally not a good strategy for someone looking to grow their game and keep it active.

New players have always had to sink or swim in the ED learning pool, I don't think this is any different.

and that's good why?

If you think undergoing punishment for whatever reward is good gameplay then all I can say is we differ strongly on that. You seem unable to conceive that people can enjoy trucking.

i think a good game loop isn't one that feels like punishment, but that's not what this feature provides. so if that remains then it should provide a very good carrot if it wants to live or it may find itself unattractive to players like pp1 was.
if you find the activity of moving between two stations where all you're doing is undocking, sc, wait a min, exit sc, dock at other station, play with spreadsheet, and repeat the same exact thing in the opposite direction 20 times then yea. i can't conceive of that as enjoyable because in no reality is that good. it's mindless repetitive tedium.

Here we do agree, I would like it if the idea I've seen proposed of something like a PP progresss bar which could be advanced by a variety of assignments from the colonisation depots, for example, were to be implemented. The fact that it isn't is a design choice probably strongly influenced by how much developer reource was available for the feature. With all the competing demands by players for features and improvements to be implemented, I don't envy the people charged with making these calls.

nobody is forcing fdev to release free updates at a specific day but them. if the feature hasn't been actually play tested or is not actually complete, they could easily finish what they need to and release it when it's cooked. What's frustrating is when such releases are made with all evidence pointing to them considering this ready when immediately players find issues like bugs, missing content, much less the subjective experiences doing it. it makes me less inclined to believe these issues are a matter of just not having resources and more about not identifying that they even needed those resources.

 

[Markov Chaney - Dormant]

Well, same applies to you!
Developement ALWAYS brings changes - if you are afraid/unhappay with the future, you got a serious problem (psychologicaly) - no offence intended

Telling someone they have psychological or psychiatric problems is offensive. And addressing the commenter not the comment is against the rules here.

 

[oblivionmanman 2476]

i am having no probs finding anything,only i have stored on my fc and cant move at the moment no slots available.if i transport every thing from my cutter load at a time to colony ship,its a lot of jumps there and back,so fingers crossed fc sorts itselve out,wether a bug or overload on fc movement at the moment.

 

[Cosmo]

Feedback:

• The default System Map UI has gone from pretty bad to really bad.
• The amount of cluttered, overlapping, and cryptic info and items to click on is just bad.
• In my industry a UI screen like this would be unacceptable.

View attachment 419004

Seconded. Also the panorama thumbnails of the facilities are too small. Make it clear by showing the whole facility.

Some hauling isn't bad. It's alright, it's relaxing simple gameplay and obviously it thematically makes a lot of sense. You just have to keep in mind it's also something that gets a bit old quick for a majority of people, so this NEEDS to be accounted for in the "time to complete" a station. We're talking about doing this literally hundreds of times per station. And while trading is also very simple (A to B to A to B) it's also deceptively time consuming. You're not completing a trade run in 1 minute. It's closer to 5 ot 6 minutes per run.

Yes hauling will get boring fast except for die-hard haulers. Currently the only satisfaction we get from having completed a facility is that it exists in the galaxy. It has negligible additional benefits. For example what can we do with a Mining Outpost other than stare at it and a few tier points? This is like building a house that you cannot utilize.

 

[crob]

Can you jump from onboard your FC. Was the only way I could get a time slot

i am having no probs finding anything,only i have stored on my fc and cant move at the moment no slots available.if i transport every thing from my cutter load at a time to colony ship,its a lot of jumps there and back,so fingers crossed fc sorts itselve out,wether a bug or overload on fc movement at the moment.

 

[ChickChop]

Some might find this controversial, but I'm confused.
A lot of people saying that they are not enjoying this.
So don't do it. It's a game. Nobody is forcing you to.

 

[Kzak]

Can you jump from onboard your FC. Was the only way I could get a time slot

You can order jumps from aboard your carrier, or from the fleet carrier interface aboard your ship even if you're not docked at the fleet carrier. With the carrier traffic these days, it might take a number of tries to get an open slot, so keep trying.

 

[Pureshqa]

At first I thought it was a glitch that I cannot deploy an installation, but after close inspection it seems I cannot place it on either of these planets because they are too close, so apparently I lost 2 orbital station slots in my system. Either these slots shouldn't appear on the architect map or the minimum orbital distance of the station should be reduced so they could be placed

 

[INeedMana]

We need a Go Fund Me for CMM Composites, Steel, and Ceramic Composites.

I think that's the current CG

 

[crob]

You can order jumps from aboard your carrier, or from the fleet carrier interface aboard your ship even if you're not docked at the fleet carrier. With the carrier traffic these days, it might take a number of tries to get an open slot, so keep trying.

Yes but I can get the remote jumping to get a time slot. I have to be landed on my carrier to make get a jump slot since the update

 

[Michael Ryan]

Some might find this controversial, but I'm confused.
A lot of people saying that they are not enjoying this.
So don't do it. It's a game. Nobody is forcing you to.

It is called feedback about balance... Frontier asked for it.

 

[ChickChop]

My response was to people not enjoying it, not those providing feedback on the mechanics.

 

[Markov Chaney - Dormant]

ridiculous. that's like saying the incentive of space trucking is getting to move cargo from one spreadsheet in a station to another.

it's not an incentive. incentives aren't subjective imaginary things unique to your own head cannon. you can point to them in the game and go 'this is why it's good to do that'

Firstly, the things people point to in a game and say "I have fun with this" are very frequently to do with headcanon. As an example, before Trailblazers there was no "home system" but a huge number of players jumped on that concept and pushed it into the game, to the point it is effectively part of the game now. There's literally zero from FDev that accidentally or deliberately supports this, but it is now part of lore because of the sheer number of players that do this. So you absolutely can't say "this doesn't happen." It does.

the discussion that started your response was about where that was stated and how it was being sold to the player IN THE GAME.

it's so weird how this game relies on external resources to make up for bad design

It does a bit, but not in this case. A gameloop which forces you to go looking for high population surface refineries and defeats the Inara mechanism is great news.

What is not great news is getting simple numbers wrong in the design and also failing to fix a long-standing issue with the galaxy map which introduces friction to the process of finding those stations.

or just missing information and we're all just so used to it that we think it's normal.

This is bad, I agree. But to your point about spreadsheets a lot of people in this thread have the attitude they should be able to just go and spend credits anywhere, and this would reduce it to spreadsheets. The gameplay is in going and finding CMM. And actually Fruit and Veg is not as easy as it might seem on a spreadsheet either if you don't know the ins and outs of agri economy. And of course people don't, because they just look at Inara.

the question you were asked was where these incentives were described to players in the game so they knew why it was worth tempting their stamina for docking and undocking and looking at a spreadsheet in their space ship game for the next few weeks.

I am usually the guy criticising in-game documentation and copywriting, but you know what? You can find most things with a few clicks. This one is better than average tbh.

But all new players coming a few weeks from now will likely not be aware and, i guess stupidly, think the game properly and intuitively describes all the relevant info.

It kind of does. The cargoes do have explainers in the inventory screen. But again the problem at the moment is the map filters are half-broken.

Personally, i wouldn't consider such repetitive single action game loops as something to subject players to

To some extent the players do this to themselves. Your headcanon could be "well, obviously I need metals and composites to build a goddam space station and someone gotta feed the contractors whilst they're at it." And all the tools for that are actually in the new UI, for a change, except for the obvious feature of indicating what you need on the trading screen like what a mission does.

There do seem to be players who are doing all the CMM first in boring roundtrips, assuming they can use Inara, and then complaining that it's boring and they have to use Inara. The root cause here is PICNIC.

and instead find a way to make the colony achievements as rare as desired without using boredom as a tool.

there could be different ways to get resources.

Or you could acknowledge that the places these resources can be gathered are pretty diverse already and make you engage with Planetary Ports and orbit-side and Agricultural economies and and and ...

Inara kind of took that out of the game and made it easy to be a spreadsheet player, so to that extent I agree. But I don't agree ED should be imposing canon everywhere. Lore should be at a broader level and headcanon is up to the player. If the player chooses to go out of the designed universe to Inara and make it into a spreadsheet game, you'll never prevent that.

To be clear I am not against external tools and I agree some of them plaster over really stupid gaps in the in-game experience. But I don't agree ED should be dictating how you fulfil requirements and I don't agree that headcanon is a bad thing. It's literally what ludos (the 4000 year old concept of gameplay) is.

 

[CMDR Noah Truso]

How do I choose the economy type? I bult an outpost and at no point during the commissioning process was I given the option to select a market economy. Will that happen when the outpost is deployed after the weekly maintenance? Have I missed something obvious? I went through the motions to build another just to double check, but I couldn't see where I was supposed to make a selection.

 

[Cosmo]

What is a shame is not taking advantage of the diversity of missions already in the game for the construction of various structures. Staying on cargo missions is indeed more than boring, it is almost perverse.

Why not a simple construction bar that would advance by completing various missions in ship and on the ground. For example, to build a structure, we would be asked to bring goods (in smaller quantities) for 20% of progression, then to defend the construction against attacks by "pirates" or neighboring factions for another 20%. Then to solve a spying problem, to go analyze certain exobiologies etc ... There is a way to script this progression and not drive the player crazy ...

3.- Repetitiveness: The only way to build bases is by picking up a cutter, and going back and forth all day. I actually don't think stations would need a "time to complete" buff if you could complete it in multiple ways (Supply missions rather than mere trading, protecting the ship from pirates through scenarios similar to those of megaships or installations, donating some money, hiring NPC's to do a small percentage of the work for you, financing it through selling exploration/exobio data, etc...), but as it stands, literally the only way to engage with this is by going back and forth in a cutter or a type 9. Gets old quick and this contributes to why it feels like it takes way too long to complete a station, even though from the outside (Devs that look at the numbers, time to completion, etc... but without playing it) it looks fine. For the players it doesn't feel very fine.

Hear, hear! It's a grave mistake to force the player to only do hauling to complete structures. There must be multiple pathways that incorporates various careers.

 

[Flimley]

My experience and opinions thus far....

• Extremely dry singular gameplay.
....I set up my first outpost in two 12 hour sessions. For a gamer a 12 hour session is trivial. However nearly falling asleep was a real problem due to the singular repetitive gameplay (hauling). But my motivation here was to see what the next happenings were? Naming my port was very nice I'm happy with that and now awaiting other customisations? The structures also appear to be placed much closer to the accompanying bodies, just like in the before times? That is nice

• Customisations and ARX
Assuming a modest ten settlements, ten ports and 5 installations. Naming these individually equates to 125,000 ARX.(Approx £66 over two packs). Is this reasonable? As ultimately, and as intended, the port will be trounced by other groups and PP etc. There is no guaranteed ownership of the sites (conversely if fleet carrier customisations were increased there is no such issue) therefore why invest in customising ports too much? So I'm choosing to name just one as a token effort for me. Maybe system architect missions could be created for certain customisations to share the cost burden.

• Missions and NPC's
Currently hauling and only hauling is the game loop for creating these systems. How about introducing a management layer on top where by the system architect can employ NPC's at credit cost to share this chore.
Perhaps creating further missions to protect small fleets of npc ships in transit to the construction site?. This is so in other games for decades. Why not this one also?

• The Galaxy map
Apologies to the UI people but the Galaxy map is becoming an unwieldy monster and no longer fit for purpose with this update. The commodity search settings keep resseting themselves along with all the other settings that i wish would stand still once set. After extracting the information required then having to trawl through the same again due to reset is soul destroying. Just copy/work with inara to deal with it please.
I'm not finding the commodities information in the Galaxy map to be current/ accurate? Is this true for others?? The user experience must be paramount.

• In conclusion
This is only my personal opinion but just as valid as anyone else's that differs from this. It's kind of nice building in systems, but If construction of these sites remains simply hauling I am stopping immediately once my space pub is built. I may return to this from time to time but currently.... no. I just want the endless hauling to end, it's very very tedious.
.... update. At last my space pub is complete and together with one small port. Praise science.

Hooray for hauling. \o/

Flimley

 

[Michael Ryan]

My response was to people not enjoying it, not those providing feedback on the mechanics.

I think the balance-unbalance is based on what you need to enjoy this...