We are going to need a bigger ship

[[VR] Mad Mike]

But those NPCs can be used by groups and the like to accelerate them just as they would individuals so things would remain out of balance.

maybe but that could be managed if FD want to slow the rate of progression by having a minimum construction time before it is completed regardless of how fast the stuff was sourced... simple enough, there are all sorts of limits FD could put on to limit progression whilst still allowing those who dont play in big groups to build the good stuff too.
(and makes sense as well.... end of the day construction takes time)

yes there may be no getting around the fact that a group of 20 will get the goods to build an orbis really quickly but that would not really affect me. i just want to find a good system and call it my own.. and happy to invest signifiicant time to flesh out as well... just not my whole life

all other content in the game was based around a max of a wing of 4 so that was easier to balance i guess.

 

[metatheurgist]

Are we hunting space sharks? Space sharks would be way more interesting than whatever this is?

 

[Sublime]

To get more cargo you have to go shield less, slamming it on the pad is a good way to hit the rebuy screen.

Having a shield and slightly less cargo allows for more overall cargo to be shipped faster, over time, since you’re not flying around a cardboard box.

 

[Pville_Piper]

Having a shield and slightly less cargo allows for more overall cargo to be shipped faster, over time, since you’re not flying around a cardboard box.

Having a shield means it has pretty much the same cargo size... And all the horrible flight characteristics. No thanks.

 

[Stealthie]

The challenge is that there is such a broad range of players and play styles: from the lone wolf who wants to colonise a system with 48 bodies over the small groups (2-4 players) to the really big ones like Cannon. I'd say that no matter how fast and easy colonisation could be adjusted to, we will hear the complaints because it is about the monotony of its mechanics. So, let's say that one can build a single orbis with 4-5 hauls. Will the player stop after achieving this goal? Probably not, they want to build more stations in more systems because the ultimate motivation is to shape the galaxy and leave their footprints (i.e. names). The complaints will go on and on.

The solution is (like others have suggested), to include more game loop varieties beyond hauling. However, this would lead to a much bigger development effort and postpone any other planned features.

That's very true.

I guess we do it to ourselves because, as you say, if it was, say, 500 times easier to colonise a system players would simply want to colonise 500 systems instead of one.

Must admit, I was hoping for more depth with regard to developing our systems.
It'd be nice if you could, for example, pick a faction, become allied to them and then get special tasks to encourage them to provide a presence in your system.
Equally, it'd be cool if we could go to, say, a system with a farming or mining economy, become allied to the ruling faction and they'd help grow that type of economy in your system.
The game could also recognise when a system was growing and spawn passenger missions in nearby systems to transport colonists to boost your population.

There's a whole heap of ways existing gameplay could be tied into Colonisation in an organic manner.

 

[Sublime]

Having a shield means it has pretty much the same cargo size... And all the horrible flight characteristics. No thanks.

Again, the flight characteristics are moot with a shield since it’s faster and you can stop on a dime at the landing pad. If you want to fly slower and complain about the drift that’s on you, but just because you don’t know how to use it to deliver cargo faster than a t9, doesn’t mean that it can’t.

 

[Pville_Piper]

Again, the flight characteristics are moot with a shield since it’s faster and you can CRASH on a dime at the landing pad. If you want to fly slower and complain about the drift that’s on you, but just because you don’t know how to use it to deliver cargo faster than a t9, doesn’t mean that it can’t.

There, fixed it for you...

 

[CMDR Zentrierer]

I'd rather like to see the option to have lets say 2 cargo ships on the carrier and being able to use a slow but automated system with the otherwise pretty useless npcs that a player can hire to make them load/unload the carrier...

Panther Clipper would also be nice but the core problem is the tediousness of hauling.

EDIT: I was stupid and crazy enough to do an orbis solo, will never do that again.

 

[Jaffz]

I'd rather like to see the option to have lets say 2 cargo ships on the carrier and being able to use a slow but automated system with the otherwise pretty useless npcs that a player can hire to make them load/unload the carrier...

Panther Clipper would also be nice but the core problem is the tediousness of hauling.

EDIT: I was stupid and crazy enough to do an orbis solo, will never do that again.

The people on this forum seem mostly to be opposed to hiring NPCs which I don't understand

 

[CMDR Zentrierer]

The people on this forum seem mostly to be opposed to hiring NPCs which I don't understand

Because they have basically no use apart from being a distraction until they pop and leech credits meanwhile. If they would slowly but surely fill the carrier for me i'd gladly hire some again because they would finally be good for something, not just a waste of money for an obsolete distraction... :-X

 

[Jaffz]

Absolutely agree

 

[Dillon Fallon]

Tier 1 is currently completable within the deadline by someone making a single T-9 trip a day, which doesn't seem unreasonably high for what an individual might be able to do.

Tier 3 is definitely well into the "either a really ED-focused individual or a more normal mid-sized squadron" territory.

(I wouldn't object if they made T1s a little cheaper and T3s a little more expensive, if that was the way they wanted to go)


I think the problem is not so much that it speeds up the hauling all that much - an extra 25% is neither here nor there - as that there are currently at least three viable haulers: the T-9 and Cutter for large pads, and then the T-8 where you give up raw capacity for speed and medium-pad access.

Once a 1000t large pad ship comes in, the T-9 and Cutter are instantly out of contention, and the T-8 probably can't keep up either if it has to do almost three trips for every trip the new ship does, so the variety of options goes way down.
(And of course, all hauling activity then gets rebalanced around the new maximum pace, so the next hauling-based activity assumes everyone is using a 1000t hauler)

What I'd like to see if Frontier adds another ship to the "huge freighter" space is something that hauls maybe 650t large pad - but is a fair bit more agile (especially in supercruise) than the T-9 or Cutter (while not up to T-8 levels, of course). That adds a fourth option for bulk hauling, rather than taking away the three existing ones.

That's a point, there is a gap there for something that's kind of a Clipper plus type of ship. Doesn't really matter if you have a larger cargo bay if you're able to dock and take off quickly and with it just generally being easier and more fun to fly than the heavys might make things less 'painful'.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Again, the flight characteristics are moot with a shield since it’s faster and you can stop on a dime at the landing pad. If you want to fly slower and complain about the drift that’s on you, but just because you don’t know how to use it to deliver cargo faster than a t9, doesn’t mean that it can’t.

you are technically correct however the (sad) player in me struggles with this. slamming your ship into the deck only works because of game limitations. in reality if a pilot did this, either their ship would sustain damage despite shields OR the landing pad would take serious damage. (think back to Elon musks rocket take off a few months back which utterly destroyed the take off pad!)
not saying I don't screw up and spank the deck on occasion..... but I just can't bring myself to do it deliberately.

 

[Nowski]

I can imagine a head of development pondering this..

3 choices:

• design, implement, test, balance new ship, paintjobs etc for it, net result: hauling takes less time;
• design, implement, test, balance new mechanic where player cash exchanged for NPC hauling, net result: hauling takes less time;
• simply lower requirement numbers, net result: hauling takes less time.

Hmmm... Which is the more attractive?

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

The people on this forum seem mostly to be opposed to hiring NPCs which I don't understand

no.... some are but some are not. hirable NPC wingmates were always meant to be a thing. they just never came .
I get not having passive deliveries but active hirable npcs would be very cool

 

[Jaffz]

no.... some are but some are not. hirable NPC wingmates were always meant to be a thing. they just never came .
I get not having passive deliveries but active hirable npcs would be very cool

Why wouldn't you want passive deliveries?

 

[SteveWW57]

The people on this forum seem mostly to be opposed to hiring NPCs which I don't understand

Let's say that it was possible to hire (and they do not come that cheap) an NPC to pilot one of the CMDR's ships to transfer stuff from their carrier to construction site. Unlike ship transfers, this cannot be risk free. After all, a CMDR is at risk when flying.

Therefore there should be risk in the NPC cargo hauling based on the security of the system. High risk systems would mean more chance of destruction and loss of cargo due to NPC Pirate attack.

 

[Bigmaec]

Elite is a spaceship flying game, not a manager simulation.

Euro Truck Simulator taught me watching numbers going up passively doesn't make fun in the long run.

 

[CMDR Zentrierer]

Elite is a spaceship flying game, not a manager simulation.

Euro Truck Simulator taught me watching numbers going up passively doesn't make fun in the long run.

I agree with you here but for me personally its a lesser of 2 evils... Constant hauling tedium isn't fun either.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Why wouldn't you want passive deliveries?

Same reason I don't want the Sirius Probes to really be exploring thousands of systems a minute while explorers stay at home.

To stop passive deliveries being the dominant option (because the ability to deliver while you're offline makes even tiny hourly rates add up) they'd probably need to deliver at most than 100t an hour at a cost of at least 50,000 credits per tonne. Any better or cheaper than that and "do some optimal money maker to pay for the deliveries which are happening while you're doing it and will continue while you're offline" would be so clearly the superior option over "haul it yourself" that they might as well not bother implementing the hauling option.

And then there'd just be endless complaints that over a billion credits and most of two weeks just to build a basic T1 outpost was excessive and forced people to do {whatever the optimal moneymaker is} if they wanted a system built.

I agree with you here but for me personally its a lesser of 2 evils... Constant hauling tedium isn't fun either.

Sure, but by analogy with the SCO change...
- supercruise was at least 80% boredom pre-SCO (you could get some excitement out of final approaches) and essentially a passive time-sink
- they could have solved this by giving us "teleport to POI" so we didn't have to travel
- instead they made the whole journey interesting by making it a lot quicker if you actively manage heat, fuel, directional control, gravity wells, etc.

So hauling being the only option to get stations built isn't great (though the variety of commodities to fetch does help add a bit of interest over grinding out a single A-B run) - but the solution to that has to be to make hauling more interesting, rather than taking that out too.