I don't, but the question is excellent.
Elite Dangerous | System Colonisation Beta Details & Feedback
- Thread starter Paul_Crowther
- Start date
Its only the initial port/outpost that has a fixed position. Everything else can go where you want it, modulo any specific restrictions on types of facilities.
[edit] oops misread this. Pretty sure you have no choice at all, its a space facility and you get to choose output or star port.
Its only the first port that is fixed, I guess due to the colonisation ship needing to be there. Once that's built, you can build whatever you want wherever you want it.
I suspect it is a bug for two reasons:
1. The cmdr is supposed to be the system architect.
2. When setting up the first facility the UI gives the ability to select a location. But then it is ignored.
But who knows?
So commanders need to get more comfortable with not owning the system.
I suspect but have absolutely no way to confirm... that it's somehow tied inextricably to the definition of the "primary station" that determines ownership, which has come about as a general rule for all systems regardless of their inhabited status.
I don't have any insight into why the primary station needs a specific location in each system... looking at a lot of recent updates you can see how FD have been jury- rigging new features in order to "fake" some functionality, based on what's likely some practically impossible[1]
i suspect in this case, every system for some reason has the primary port for system control purposes defined or determinable... and an "empty construction slot" is actually just a "null asset" in order to make things work at some fundamental level.... colonisation is therefore just replacing those "null assets" with actual ones when you build.
So in that sense, it wouldn't make sense if you put your first station somewhere else, because the "primary" asset for system control would be a null asset, and things would stop making sense.
Why can't the primary asset location move? No idea... probably those unknowable fundamental design decisions that are just plain hard to undo now. But i suspect the reason is something like this
[1] as in, it's theoretically doable, but you'd need to fundamentally change everything to do it, thanks to early design decisions likely for optimisation.
i suspect in this case, every system for some reason has the primary port for system control purposes defined or determinable... and an "empty construction slot" is actually just a "null asset" in order to make things work at some fundamental level.... colonisation is therefore just replacing those "null assets" with actual ones when you build.
So in that sense, it wouldn't make sense if you put your first station somewhere else, because the "primary" asset for system control would be a null asset, and things would stop making sense.
Why can't the primary asset location move? No idea... probably those unknowable fundamental design decisions that are just plain hard to undo now. But i suspect the reason is something like this
[1] as in, it's theoretically doable, but you'd need to fundamentally change everything to do it, thanks to early design decisions likely for optimisation.
I mean, this reflects what I've said all along. Players don't belong to factions, they don't "own" systems or stations under the bgs and sqn allegience.... so for me, this makes sense and reflects how a lot of contract work actually plays out.So commanders need to get more comfortable with not owning the system.
The only time this seems to cause cognitive dissonance seems to be if we think we're more than just some nobody contractor to a faction.
I expect this has been posted elsewere, but as I haven't found it yet... I'll ask...
Please can you fix / restore use of collector limpets for planetary surface retrival?
Despite owning a copy of elite dangerous since beta opened, I have only just recently started playing, I just maxed out my manufatured and encoded mats... and today started getting my raw elements... oh my... spent a few hours trying to work out what I was doing wrong, following guides from other users, but alas... it's not me, it's the update.
I am sure thousands of commanders, most particularly those new to the game, will be very very happy to have this restored.
Please can you fix / restore use of collector limpets for planetary surface retrival?
Despite owning a copy of elite dangerous since beta opened, I have only just recently started playing, I just maxed out my manufatured and encoded mats... and today started getting my raw elements... oh my... spent a few hours trying to work out what I was doing wrong, following guides from other users, but alas... it's not me, it's the update.
I am sure thousands of commanders, most particularly those new to the game, will be very very happy to have this restored.
I meant realistically, in the context of that reply, it would take longer than a month to build a station (IRL), just as it would take cooperation and a massive commitment of resources, etc. I am confident I will finish my coriolis within a month. I won't enjoy it and would much rather take my time and be able to integrate that effort with other gameplay...
I don't think I could manage an Orbis in a month, though. It's mathematically possible. Someone with room in their lifestyle for the time sink and either mastery of Zen or heavily masochistic inclinations could conceivably manage it. In a max-cargo cutter it would take just over 62 hours of flawless trucking IF the port location is within SCO range of the arrival point, all suppliers are already known, all suppliers are within reasonable range, there are no supply outages....
In real-life conditions, I could still end up with that much time into my Coriolis. I'm at 41% after 14 hours, and at my current rates, it will take 40 hours to finish gathering CMM (otherwise, I would be done within 24).
We need a way to delete construction projects... even if that means losing current progress
The amount of resources doesn't really matter because it's so massively undermined by the lack of information and feedback in the UI.
The effects of the various stats in the menu are not explained.
The effects of the economies and economy influences are not explained.
The compound effects of what you're building/what your current stats are aren't shown anywhere?
You're fully committed (no undo/demolish) to your actions. Those actions are expensive and you can't see how those actions affect the rest of the system before you commit to them.
I feel like this will result in situations where building something the last thing in a system flips the economy in the wrong way and completely ruins what you were trying to do.
To avoid paying for construction you don't want without a full undo feature there should at least be an in-game ghost/planning mode where you can place something down and have the system map act as if it's placed and highlight any stat/economy that changes as a result of it.
Even nicer would be a thing that draws lines on the system map between all the facilities that are affected by this placement (and shows how existing buildings affect each other).
It will be possible to do tests and figure out all this eventually, but it will take time and effort by the players who write the actual useful documentation and guides for this feature (that the majority of more casual players won't find, read or understand). I would compare this to engineering where experimentation was expensive (before the latest engineering updates) and not rewarding because there's no refunds and in the case of odyssey mods applying the wrong mod could permanently make your gear underpowered (not that it matters much) with the only option to fix it being to start over with a new piece of equipment.
Overall strategy games live or die by how good and informative their UI is and the system colonization feature is severely lacking here and could be improved by a lot by just adding a few QoL features and views/pages with extra details so you could look over your system(s) and share screenshots to flex your stats. Currently all there seems to be is the system score/weekly income for the competitive players and the information in the UI means the learnability is very low despite the high commitment and high potential cost.
i doubt most people care about the bgs.
People just want to make a nifty system in a place they can say they made.
it's like expecting most of the playerbase who participates in power play to care or know anything about it. most don't. they do the easiest things to get what they want out of it.
the same will be true for colonization. most people aren't going to care. though the changes mentioned should still be made for missing info, it's just probably not that high of a priority, in the same way pp issues weren't that high of a priority.
also, not really sure why the place to see your current status of collecting items is multiple levels of menus in the galaxy map and not in a dedicated tile on the right hud and why it doesn't give you the option of clicking to the nearest dockable (with current ship) station to get each item as a shortcut. quality of life type stuff.
People just want to make a nifty system in a place they can say they made.
it's like expecting most of the playerbase who participates in power play to care or know anything about it. most don't. they do the easiest things to get what they want out of it.
the same will be true for colonization. most people aren't going to care. though the changes mentioned should still be made for missing info, it's just probably not that high of a priority, in the same way pp issues weren't that high of a priority.
also, not really sure why the place to see your current status of collecting items is multiple levels of menus in the galaxy map and not in a dedicated tile on the right hud and why it doesn't give you the option of clicking to the nearest dockable (with current ship) station to get each item as a shortcut. quality of life type stuff.
This... unfortunately... makes a lot of sense.
The inner workings of the BGS are meant to be somewhat opaque... but colonisation by-necessity gives players the levers onto a bunch of those inner workings.
For most activities people do, things like "trading weapons" and seeing "OK, that had an effect on security and economy" but not being able to tangibly define the difference of scale between that and, say, handing in some exploration date and bounties for a similar effect, that's OK, these are fairly low-cost actions that have effects. But colonisation has a substantial investment and the effects are potentially much more dramatic and pronounced.
But for the effort required to establish colonies...having a tangible understanding of the effects like "If I place a mining hub, it will make my outpost offer minerals via the market... if I set up a refinery... will it remove those minerals from a the market, since it consumes extracted resources? Will some minerals but not all be available?".... or alternately...
If I build a comms station, I get +1 security level and +3 tech levels
If I build a satellite station, I get +1 wealth, +1 standard of living, +1 development level.
But... what do they mean? Is +3 tech levels significantly more valuable than +1 standard of living? What's Standard of Living actually impact? What's wealth impact? What's the consequence of going all in with tech and forgetting about wealth?
Of course, traditional BGS actions would have you experiment to work that out, but the investment needed in colonisation means that experimentation is very hard.
It's not really a good design in that regard.
I created a science hub installation on the surface of a planet but when I returned to it after it completed, it wouldn't let me land and turned hostile on me. It is a trespass zone but in the description of the facility it says that it is landable and provides trade.
I've tried to search the forums but couldn't find any mention of this. Did the facility bug out or is the description wrong in that this is actually just an installation to increase the tech level of the system?
I've tried to search the forums but couldn't find any mention of this. Did the facility bug out or is the description wrong in that this is actually just an installation to increase the tech level of the system?
That's a mistake/bug. All installations like that are not dockable, but display landing pads in the construction menu.
Wrote a reply to someone that doesn't really make sense, so I'll drag an idea over here in place of my silly reply. Probably way too late in the process to add a feature like this, but letting us add funds to boost commodity payouts at construction sites would be great. Instead of buying them for a huge markup from someone's carrier, I'll put a high "buy order" on each and pay someone to bring them to me instead.
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I flew to a specific commander colonized system to check out the system map, since it's one of the most built up looking just from the galaxy map with over 300k population already.
The Col 285 Sector GV-I b24-1 sector, yet every time I open the system map my game consistently has a ctd. Anyone else having this problem with this system?
The Col 285 Sector GV-I b24-1 sector, yet every time I open the system map my game consistently has a ctd. Anyone else having this problem with this system?
^^ THIS - though doing the math about Time requirements, FC gets really helpful only if the delivery distance is more than 3/5 Jumps (empty/full)