Elite Dangerous | System Colonisation Beta Details & Feedback
- Thread starter Paul_Crowther
- Start date
These outputs will be no more useless than any of the pre-colonisation outposts.
My feedback for FDev is regarding the station types and how to get them.
I would like to choose the 'internals' when I choose to build the station. For example, my favorite station types are the tourist ones with the trees. I want to build either an Orbis or Ocellus with that tourist internal layout. Later on, I might want another station in the same system with the manufacturing, agricultural or high tech internals. At the moment the system doesn't give enough info on how to build, in order to achieve the station type you want. Is it influenced by the types of non landable installations? If so, which ones and how many? Do they have to be within a certain distance of the Orbis to make it a Tourist layout for example? In one of my systems I've got 40 slots where I can put stuff either in space or planet side but I'm hesitant to start because the 'tech tree' hasn't been clarified.
It shouldn't be a puzzle for us to experiment and have to guess, the time and effort investment is too much to risk getting a refinery station when you wanted a tourist or agricultural. Just tell us whats required to build what station economy from the get go.
I would like to choose the 'internals' when I choose to build the station. For example, my favorite station types are the tourist ones with the trees. I want to build either an Orbis or Ocellus with that tourist internal layout. Later on, I might want another station in the same system with the manufacturing, agricultural or high tech internals. At the moment the system doesn't give enough info on how to build, in order to achieve the station type you want. Is it influenced by the types of non landable installations? If so, which ones and how many? Do they have to be within a certain distance of the Orbis to make it a Tourist layout for example? In one of my systems I've got 40 slots where I can put stuff either in space or planet side but I'm hesitant to start because the 'tech tree' hasn't been clarified.
It shouldn't be a puzzle for us to experiment and have to guess, the time and effort investment is too much to risk getting a refinery station when you wanted a tourist or agricultural. Just tell us whats required to build what station economy from the get go.
The absolute lack of details from devs, and the fact that the "gameplay" is just hauling, does make me fear they went with the laziest solution solution of going with whatever placeholder economic system some programmer cooked up to test the system, rather than something with good thought/game design on it, given that there are only indicators that build facilities affect system economy.
It might turn out that a frozen iceball might be more valuable from a colonisation perspective than an earthlike or a terraformable, due to the fact that it could bring more ground slots to throw down facilities. I too wish terraformables/WW/ELWs were actually valuable, i did manage to get a beautiful system. If colonisation is a horizons update, im hoping one day it gets its odyssey update to actually live up to half of what it should have been, or dare i dream to get even better.
Awesome thanks.
I’ll have to double check.
To clarify, I’m thinking if a healthy profit can be made, it might incentivize other players (notably truckers) to help deliver supplies.
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Players should not be able to claim another system until the have built a certain number of stations in their first system
With the lower cost of some projects like installations it won't slow people down that much.
To be honest, I'd be perfectly happy to have a capital freighter that has a Sidewinder dock
Try scanning your system again.
You can say that again, two of my system's ice planets are landable and provide 7 possible sites for installations or settlements. I was truly though pleasantly shocked.
I really like this idea. I feel like the contact for system colonisation shouldn't even appear until the system meets a minimum system score. That should help alleviate rapid expansion, while also encouraging development beyond 'junk systems'.
The problem is people don't want to develop those systems. They are forced to colonise them by the 15ly rule to get to the system they do want to develop. What about systems with only stars? Or no landable planets? Can they then not be used to reach other systems?
I agree. I see nothing wrong with "junk systems". There are 6 billion candidate systems out there. If you didn't get your first pick, surely there is another that will meet your needs.
I can offer a new mechanics - dedicate one or two of your crewmembers to haul goods for a selected station / port. It will be noticeable slower than usual player's cycle, your man will take all profits from selling goods to the Explorator / orbital platform, but you will be free from the haul'gring this time.
So to start out with a couple of corrections, I didn't start with a T3 starport, I started out with a Coriolis and finished it already, the numbers looked somewhat reasonable to me. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want everything to be easier but that's not entirely realistic nor fair to the developers to expect 15 tons of water to be enough to complete a Coriolis station. Just sharing that thought that from a player perspective it's not unreasonable to want any kind of grind to be minimal, it's always to be expected.
CMM's are no longer a problem either because Frontier was very receptive to feedback and it was buffed. It doesn't bother me to source them from planetary ports either, though it definitely adds a bit of time of work since they take a lot longer than space stations, I like that planetary ports are used for something. Also incentivizes players to build them in their systems to develop an economy that generates CMM's and Ceramic Composites to source from and build even more systems down the line.
I suppose for me the problem isn't really the time it takes to complete something but rather the ammount of effort translated into in-game hours of playtime. If I have to put in 60 hours of work to complete a station in 20 days, I do think that's unreasonable. 60 hours of playtime is A LOT for anything really. And while a T3 starport/planetary port is cool as hell, it's not something that would give you a ton of benefit compared to grinding for 60 hours to get a fleet carrier, for example. So it feels hard to justify.
If I could build an orbis with 20 hours of playtime I think that'd be reasonable. Even if Frontier adds other mechanisms to make it so in the end the Orbis would still be completed at a minimum time of 10 or 20 days, like heavily increasing a "construction time" for the faction to assemble the station, rather than have it pop up the moment you deliver the last batch of goods..
Or they could have Orbis stations with 'tiers' that you can always choose to upgrade, so that you can have milestones as you build it up, rather than just no station at 99% delivered goods and fully functional the second you deliver that last 1%. Like adding more habitation rings, cargo depots, etc as you go.
That's just two ideas of thousands the developers could implement or come up with to keep the time-to-complete for a station as high as it is right now, while also reducing the manual effort it takes you as a player.
So to me it isn't really about being able to pop up 5 Orbis stations in the time it currently takes to build one. It's just that I really, really love this feature, and have been asking for it for ages and it's amazing that it's finally here, but hauling so much already is burning me out, and I don't want to get bored of it so quickly. As far as gameplay goes I do think there's a bit of a disconnect between the ammount of effort required to how good it feels when you finally finish it.
Before the bug that removed me as architecht (ugh) I was mostly focusing on building space installations and Odyssey settlements. And I had a lot of fun doing that. I'm not building something super big, so it's cheap, and I can see results soon (In the same day!). I think I'll enjoy that more than building anything too big as long as the numbers stay as they are.
I'd definitely want to build a big planetary port or an Orbis station eventually though without feeling like I'm comitting nearly a month of my real life time for it. Not only do I not have 8 hours a day to play Elite, but I also play other videogames too or do other things with my free time now and then.
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I'm sorry but there are several stations with thousands in supply, while constructions generally don't ask for more insulating membranes than one fourth of what your cutter can haul in total. It's a literal 1 trip to a station that's a bit more far away than 1 or 2 jumps away.