You have some good points, but wouldn't escort missions be just as time consuming as moving the goods yourself? Though it would somewhat solve the sourcing problem.
Hmm.. hard to say. However, a timer count for one build at a time would offer a sure way for even mid rank solo players to get things done in a timely fashion, but add in some of your ideas that could knock time off the clock beyond that isn't a bad idea either. (Sigh)
Thing is... alternate activities
should be just as time-consuming... that's what balance looks and feels like in a game. That doesn't result in everything "being the same"... rather it lets you tailor play to your preferred playstyle, where that playstyle is an option.
For example... FD might baseline "It should take 10 hours of effort to build an outpost"... whether that's 10 hours of hauling, 10 hours of escorting NPCs or 10 hours of... i dunno... mining?
But your proficiency and expertise applied to that then looks like 20 hours of hauling (because you suck at sourcing rarer goods), 8 hours of escorting (because you're a jet combat pilot) or 12 hours of mining (because you just enjoy a casual mine without minmaxing stuff). So yeah, alternates
shouldn't be less time consuming than hauling the goods yourself,
unless you're not good at hauling goods.
The suggestion might then be "Well ok, what's wrong with paying NPCs and it takes 10 hours?".... the issue there is the completely botched economy. It's safe to say whatever might be a "reasonable" cost could be earned in about 1 hour of Massacre Stacking[1], or 100 hours of ordinary mission running.
The
issue then becomes the realtime factor. Not many people can do a 10 hour session on a game in one day... so that might look like four days straight of 2-3 hours of play each day, or 2-3 hours once a week across four weeks. The choice is on the player there. FD probably have a "baseline" standard for a player where they've decided the time taken for a solo player to do the different types of main orbital are Outpost: Day(s), Coriolis: Week(s), Orbis: Month(s), thus we get the 1 month timer for the initial port; doable, but not easy for a solo player.
But given the choice of
that, versus "Do one hour of massacre stacking and NPCs make it arrive 10 hours later"... that's way less playtime (which, as a business, is FD's goal[2]). It would be a no-brainer to do that rather than actually do the hauling or whatever.
It's absolutely against FD's (or any game dev's) interests to implement content[2] in a new update only to have a way to go "Play the old content instead and just pay currency to skip it[3]"
[1] insert your favourite unbalanced meta here.
[2] I'm not going to go in to bat for
how FD achieve that, only know that it's an obvious goal of any game company; to have players playing their game more, rather than less.
[3] Unless you're whale-hunting... I think higher of FD than that though.
I can't seem to get over the idea that there should be some sort of countdown timer that helps solo players progress fast enough to stay relevant and interested in the game. If the game only caters to the well connected, then it could have a bad effect on new and solo players.
I think FD have been pretty clear that this was always a group activity that would be hard, but doable, as an individual. People like to work towards those big goals... that's why I reference the Thargoid War. I don't think anyone complained about "not being able to solo a Thargoid-occupied system" and needing to be able to pay NPCs so it could be done solo... I don't see any difference with this either. It's impossible to have an activity which, when identical in process, is easier for individuals than it is for a group. Such outcomes result in groups operating as individuals and coordinating externally to simply do things faster.
Honestly, part of me wonders if FD shouldn't double-down and increase the costs of coriolis and orbis by an order of magnitude or two, to emphasise that those are really intended as group efforts?
There's several mechanisms that can be used as an individual to encourage others to help too.... when my group (who is now, mostly, disbanded) decided to support a particular faction, we geared it up in a way that meant it would net a lot of passive assistance from random passer-by's. When I played solo in EVE, I didn't try and compete with the big groups, I worked out how to work my way into their logistic loops with services that reaped profits which could be used to incentivise others to aid my activites without ever being part of a formal group.
. Hiring NPCs to do activities instead of players is right up that alley. I don't get it either.