Good morning,
I have tested colonization on two systems and have come to the following conclusions:
1. There needs to be a window in the system map displaying all relevant information about the colonized system.
This would help with system development and understanding which aspects to focus on to balance different elements of the system.
For example: How do I assess happiness? The level of development? Wealth?
2. Assistance is needed in material delivery starting from the second station onward (i.e., from the first one after conquering the system).
I believe a delivery service system using Bots—where players pay both for the materials and an equivalent amount in credits for delivery—would be great to develop.
For example: I need 100 units of water, I order it, pay 1,000,000 credits for the water and 1,000,000 credits for transport.
Based on the system's security level, this could lead to different failure rates and potential non-deliveries.
For example: In a low-security system, delivery success is 40%, while in a high-security system, it's 80%.
3. The game needs a paid system (Arx) for renaming a system with a name chosen by the player, similar to how station renaming currently works.
There are too many systems with names that are very similar to others.
4. A transport ship is needed that can carry 40% more materials than current ones.
There are too many materials to transport for the stations.
Agreed on most of your points, but with regards to 2.) FDev are sadly absolutely wedded to the "Grind the same old systems for rank" model they've always had; there are a tonne of obvious design changes that would add more depth and fun to the game but FDev go nowhere near because adding 5 more Elite ranks to the same old content pleases the obsessive-compulsive fans in the community more.
In particular; we already have NPC crews. We have spare ships. We now have NPCs running taxi services for us. We
could have them sent out to do missions with our spare ships instead of just eating our profits whilst sitting around (And breaking Elite Combat ranking; I've barely moved through Elite 1 because, I suspect, having crew even in the station is wrecking the rewarded rank for kills...) No Man's Sky is an example of how you could do it; but just think of how much player retention would be helped by allowing us to see our own little fleet build up, whilst giving you reasons to keep, equip and engineer your older ships. And now we have colonisation we could send them out to do trading to bring materials back for us...
I don't have access to the back end code, but having worked in the industry myself a while back, I could probably knock out a design spec in a few minutes;
Have the option to send NPC and Ship to target system, with buy order for goods. Let's say "Take Type 9 with 790 cargo to Cowini, Tombaugh Station, Buy 790 units Aluminium. Return to Construction Site at..." Deduct cash + Handling fees to make direct hauling cheaper. Ship and NPC becomes unavailable during mission.
Add random events, tested against NPCs skills; pirate interception? Test Combat rank, raise it a little if successful... There's your reason to train up and keep more Elite Rank crew too; Fail it, ship gets wrecked, mission has to restart with insurance cost. Speed of mission turn around? Based on NPC Explorer rank, and so on. Now you have a reason to take them out exploring with you...
On arrival at system, wait for system update and then take the resources... but not from the actual in game materials. Why? It would be too easy to break the universal economy with fleets of NPCs; I currently have every ship but the Cobra Mk V for example, if I can send all 41 (outside of my active for 42) to buy all your Aluminium, no one is getting any for quite some time. But you want the economy to still track player activity. So these are, technically, shadow resources; and when brought back, they go directly into construction so never return directly to the economy. What you have, in old MMO terms, is a Gold Sink. You're draining out the player currency, like Fleet Carrier Upkeep does, whilst minimizing economic impact.
And, for extra pizazz... start seeding these NPCs and their mission ships into other people's games. Replace the NPCs in the target system with incoming missioning NPCs; Maybe even have official Player Fleets, or tie them to the Squadron the Player is in, so other players see "CMDR NPC BOB, Employed by UID1" ...
But some deeply
weird fans will be along shortly to demand NO! You will sit in your cockpit and do what you've done since the 1980s, because I have more time to waste than you, so I can feel superior by making everyone else try and compete with my OCD. And, sadly, Frontier seem to agree with them.
