Three stations? That's about when it would become clear that this new gameplay is just hauling for the sake of hauling, with no end. Finishing my third structure is when I realized that they didn't tell us all the rules.
Noting that the fact that Frontier have indicated that while "we know a lot of players are in to combat", they are also aware that "there's a lot that don't engage with combat at all"; Frontier Unlocked when explaining why the Type-8 Transporter was the second new ship of 2024, and given the apparent attraction of trade CGs over the years, it is perhaps unsurprising that hauling forms the core activity in Colonisation - however it's hardly for its own sake, given that it is what progresses completion of each new station / outpost / settlement in the System Architect's grand plan.
Gathering and transporting commodities might not be your cup of tea, but that's an opinion.
Yes, I indeed meant the perceived barrier, since you were talking about the prospect of hauling rather than hauling itself.
It's not for everyone, obviously.
Yes. So 500MT/week, which is over three times the amount of the best ever 1-week trade CG, and over ten times the amount that would normally be considered a "popular" trade CG in the modern FC-and-Cutters era. No wonder that the servers overloaded at times.
And what's that to tell me? I never claimed it was.
Seemingly unprecedented levels of hauling - suggestive of appeal to a not insignificant subset of the player-base.
Make colonization get easier over time, but increase the bar for what counts as a "completed" system, which would allow another claim to be made. For example, building more farms than your system needs to feed the people (which is not even a metric right now, unfortunately) gives you a passive "income" in food-type requirements based on how much excess food the system makes, such that the amount required decreases by X amount per hour, but at the same time, require building 10 (or whatever) structures before allowing someone to make a new claim. Maybe bump the distance limit for claiming to appease the people who want to expand to some specific far-off point, to balance out that there will be fewer (abandoned) systems being created.
Of course everyone is going to try out the shiny new thing. Do you really think that says anything about how much fun they were having?
Group 3: 'I don't care about colonisation. Don't put more dev efforts into it but create something for players who are into exploration!'
Will they though? Noting that, from Inara stats, Powerplay 2.0 has slowly grown to about 40% participation with no massive spike followed by a reduction.
Group 4 : "Combine them all!"
How is PP participation measured in Inara? Merely being pledged? (fwiw I unpledged a few weeks ago because the non-hideable to-do list annoyed me and realising the hamsterwheel concept that PP ultimately is, but I don't have an Inara account so wouldn't be part of that statistic)
I'd expect, if the player keeps letting Inara update, that unpledging would be noticed - as there is a "None" entry in the list of Powers in the Inara statistics page: https://inara.cz/elite/galaxy-statistics/
Inara is not a first party platform, and therefore an incomplete picture, arguably with a fair amount of selection bias baked in.
Not sure if that's a good indicator whether people actively engage though - particularly because unpledging will lose you all access to modules and other perks. I stopped working for my power for a good while for the reasons I mentioned, but held off due to the consequences involved.
No such claims. Noting that unspecified "exciting and challenging" changes might make the feature quite different from the trucking driven feature that it is at the moment. Not everyone plays the game with their head on a swivel eagerly awaiting the next interdiction.
In the other thread about ship interiors, exactly this argument is being used against interiors because (some) players don't want more interaction: flying into the unknown, getting out of the seat and actually doing something. Yes, we're a bunch of very diverse players because Elite gives us so many careers but I also think / hope that FDev should have developed something with more consensus = make colonisation more attractive through different game loops. E.g: Scout a system and prepare it with a specific buoy placed where you want to start the first colony (i.e. that ring or planet or moon). Then source some materials but not too much. Become friendly with a transport company or a faction in a neighbouring system. Run a few combat or data transfer missions, followed by some on foot tasks planetside or on the unfinished station, etc. In other words: include more different game loops!
