Elite Dangerous | Colonisation Facilities & Markets

[Adamaira]

Spare a thought for a commander who couldn't find any system with planetary bodies in it other than two stars. Getting his colony to 57% built then realising to no benefit. All because the decent systems worthwhile colonising have been taken or are
far beyond the current state of the bubble.

 

[tomalus]

Something changed how ground ports are affected by economy over night.
we have no info from the game or fdev.

 

[Exeider]

"Influence is confined to the local body" is a perfectly good general working principle

No it's not. It's an absolutely terrible and isolated design precept that doesn't make any sense with the rest of how the BGS is supposed to work. Objects in system are supposed to effect the system at large, which in turn effects other systems around it.

If Influence was confined to the local body, you wouldn't have system states in the first place. You'd have weird amalgams where one body could be in a boom state, while another in absolute famine. That's never been a thing and systems have always been treated as holistic objects.

The thing is, this isn't how Elite Dangerous' economy has ever worked. All economic simulation has always been done at the station level.

Eh, station level in so far as whatever a faction owns yes. But not system states, which take into account again, the situation of the system as a whole. This is precisely WHY people can drive systems into famine or bust states, messing with the BGS.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

No it's not. It's an absolutely terrible and isolated design precept that doesn't make any sense with the rest of how the BGS is supposed to work. Objects in system are supposed to effect the system at large, which in turn effects other systems around it.

The BGS has never had effects go outside a system itself, except for the results of an Expansion state.
(Or if you really stretch the definition, via encouraging particular patterns of player activity by offering cross-system missions or similar)

And prior to this point, all objects in a system were essentially independent and had no effect at all on each other. And this still applies in non-colonisation systems: different stations affecting each other at all is purely a colonisation thing.

Eh, station level in so far as whatever a faction owns yes. But not system states, which take into account again, the situation of the system as a whole. This is precisely WHY people can drive systems into famine or bust states, messing with the BGS.

And at the level of the Political BGS, that's entirely already true of Colonisation. Development Level, Wealth, etc. effects from constructions are global and affect things like faction state slider widths. Similarly at the economic level, boosting Development Level boosts production levels at every station in the system.

Though even so-called "system" states are actually per-station, it's just that all stations owned by the same faction in the same system will be in the same state. If factions A and B are at War, settlements owned by faction C don't get CZs. The "system" state is just the state of the faction owning the primary station of the system.



You might be finding that the ability to "look under the hood" with colonisation is showing that some previous illusions about how things worked were merely illusions all along. But the game has never had the sort of cross-relation between objects in a system or between systems that you're suggesting.

 

[mkizub]

"Influence is confined to the local body" is a perfectly good general working principle - Frontier's fault was burying this information in a paragraph in the Pilot's Handbook and giving "System Economic Influence" a name which really doesn't reflect the primary effect, when it really needed a quick diagram of exactly which slots influenced which.

Effectively making earth-like-worlds and water-worlds (which are exactly the same as ELW, just having less lend) to be useless for colonization. Despite the fact that most-populated systems (10-30 billions) in the bubble have 2-3 ELW planets.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Effectively making earth-like-worlds and water-worlds (which are exactly the same as ELW, just having less lend) to be useless for colonization.

Certainly. But if people had been clear from the start that they were only there to look pretty, there would have been fewer complaints about discovering that after construction of an expensive asset was complete.

(And the "solution" has been to change the rules after construction of an entire month's expensive assets is complete, which will probably raise the number of complaints rather than lower it)

 

[mkizub]

Certainly. But if people had been clear from the start that they were only there to look pretty, there would have been fewer complaints about discovering that after construction of an expensive asset was complete.

(And the "solution" has been to change the rules after construction of an entire month's expensive assets is complete, which will probably raise the number of complaints rather than lower it)

Well, we knew nothing about "rules", so how we complaint about their change? And 'beta' status was exactly intended to listen for player's complaints. Actually, I can't imagine a complaint about making useless station to become useful.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Actually, I can't imagine a complaint about making useless station to become useful.

No, indeed. I expect all those people will be happy.

It's the ones where their "useful" station has become "useless" due to the change who are complaining at the moment.

 

[kial]

I don't understand why people advocate for "keep the local body design". It highly discourages development of systems, because then there is little point wasting time developing planets with less than 5 ground slots. which is most. so it just encourages empty player systems bridging to something halfway decent. I have claimed 3.5 systems built 2 T2 and 1.5 T3. but honestly I'm ready to abandon all of them because there is no ground slots, and I feel like I've just wasted the effort building them at all.

I'm almost ready for a architect abandon button

 

[photomankc]

Well, we knew nothing about "rules", so how we complaint about their change? And 'beta' status was exactly intended to listen for player's complaints. Actually, I can't imagine a complaint about making useless station to become useful.

You can’t imagine how after over a month of figuring things out with zero information and eventually developing a working station using surface assets when that suddenly is undone by a newly introduced planet type influence that a person might become greatly irritated?

Your imagination seems limited.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

because then there is little point wasting time developing planets with less than 5 ground slots.

Ignoring the current changes until there's more time to work out what they are, you generally only needed three total slots in the previous system - one for the market and two for its influencing constructions - and they didn't all need to be ground slots for most economy types. I got a high-tech orbital set up at HT=1.0 using a moon with a single ground slot and two orbital slots, for example.

(If you specifically wanted a surface refinery, then you'd need three ground slots - but even moons sometimes go that high - but anything else could be done in two maximum, which is most landable bodies)

Larger ones were nice to stack on even more influencing constructions with, but the effect of that would be minor compared with the effect of development level, etc. boosts which can be generated from anywhere in the system.


Now it appears you either need zero ground slots (if you want the default economy of the planet type) or at least 5 (if you want anything else, and even then that might not be enough)

 

[kial]

I also don't know how any one could be mad that they wasted their time doing it in the current system. because when they did it they couldn't of known. unless A. they are FDev, or have them on speed dial, B. Alpha testers of the feature, or C. they some how think they understood a mechanic that fallowed rules different than the ones any one that has participated in the the game the last 10 years would understand to of been how it has always worked, but some how they just new in their hearts how it worked before any one else had time to experiment, or the lord on high gave them divine onsite.

all that to say that these theoretical angry people, are probably not real, especially because they would be advocating for a worse game as a whole, and I can't understand how they would be so try hard, but also wanting the game to fail.

The real trick is there was always going to have to be some form of mechanic that allowed stations to be changed after built, or they would never be able to add new station types to the game or tweak/ balance things, I'm just not a big fan or assuming they would bake in an expiration date for the game like that.

 

[mkizub]

You can’t imagine how after over a month of figuring things out with zero information and eventually developing a working station using surface assets when that suddenly is undone by a newly introduced planet type influence that a person might become greatly irritated?

Your imagination seems limited.

You've provided an example, when one bug was replaced with another bug. I can imagine this situation. But I can't imagine a situation when fixing bugs will cause players become irritated.

 

[kial]

Ignoring the current changes until there's more time to work out what they are, you generally only needed three total slots in the previous system - one for the market and two for its influencing constructions - and they didn't all need to be ground slots for most economy types. I got a high-tech orbital set up at HT=1.0 using a moon with a single ground slot and two orbital slots, for example.

(If you specifically wanted a surface refinery, then you'd need three ground slots - but even moons sometimes go that high - but anything else could be done in two maximum, which is most landable bodies)

Larger ones were nice to stack on even more influencing constructions with, but the effect of that would be minor compared with the effect of development level, etc. boosts which can be generated from anywhere in the system.


Now it appears you either need zero ground slots (if you want the default economy of the planet type) or at least 5 (if you want anything else, and even then that might not be enough)

sources?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

sources?

There have been plenty of player tests carried out over the last month, looking at the specific impacts of various constructions on each other.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...iguring-out-what-all-these-numbers-do.634214/ is one thread collecting information; I'm summarising the results found so far but you can find more detailed examples throughout that thread)
(I gave you one of the specific examples from my own system - 1 HT settlement + 1 HT installation + 1 colony orbital = 1 HT orbital; another example is 1 Agri settlement + 1 colony surface port = 1 Agri surface port which didn't even require an orbital installation to push it further)


What's your source for your statement that anything other than a 5-slot planet was useless? (Or, put another way, what specific combination of builds did you need 5 ground slots on the same planet for to produce the desired effect?)

I also don't know how any one could be mad that they wasted their time doing it in the current system.

Certainly anyone who spent time colonising in the Beta expecting a particular outcome was unwise. There appear to have been a lot of those people, of course.

But:
- the system up until Tuesday night is the one which is documented in the in-game documentation (poorly documented in places, sure, but still)
- it is compatible with ten years of accumulated player knowledge [1] of how NPC markets work
- the details of how it did really work became fairly obvious after the first week of collective experimentation (to clear up some of the ambiguities in the documentation)

Your argument equally applies to all the people who are "mad" that they built a station around an ELW and got a Colony economy, and for whom Frontier has made these changes.

Regardless of the mechanism involved, and yes, Frontier may well change the rules on that several times even before declaring Beta over ... there does appear to be a significant player desire to build stations which produce particular commodities. This is much easier to do if those stations are built as single-economy stations, which the per-body isolation made easy.

It's not the only solution which would allow single-economy stations in a system which (necessarily) has more than one total economy present. But it's a fairly straightforward one to explain and understand, and unlike a lot of the others, doesn't depend on build order.

(Still, I'm not personally mad: I enjoy figuring out how systems work, so Frontier changing the rules arbitrarily each month is great for keeping me interested...)

[1] Fairly obscure knowledge in some cases, yes, as the general tendency to use Inara for finding trade routes means most players haven't bothered to learn this stuff. But it was mostly all discovered and documented by 2018/2019.

 

[Factabulous]

Sticking a random economy on Colony builds around non-landable planets seems like it would have been the win - no-one built that hoping for a Colony economy.

I find it harder to justify putting an economy onto a station built around a landable, especially an Extraction like I got - if I'd wanted an Extraction economy I could have built an asteroid base.

I look forward to them having updated all the documentation in the release next week. Or more likely keeping quiet and hoping no-one noticed ...

 

[Alex Kudrya]

A mechanic for canceling construction is very much needed.
Or a function for self-destruction of the building.
People should have the right to make mistakes and the possibility of correcting this mistake.
Will this be implemented?

 

[kial]

- it is compatible with ten years of accumulated player knowledge [1] of how NPC markets work

[1] Fairly obscure knowledge in some cases, yes, as the general tendency to use Inara for finding trade routes means most players haven't bothered to learn this stuff. But it was mostly all discovered and documented by 2018/2019.

I could be completely wrong then, but from my knowledge orbiting station have always shared a market type I'm sitting here at T'U TU and orbital looking at their 3 T3 they all seem to identical which would make them seem like they share a system economy.

but I guess if I pick through every small T1 and the ground ports it actually raises more questions then answers. It looks like there is 0 correlation between anything agricultural(x3) + industry + high tech = refinery and the like. I just always assumed that was the quirks of oddesy where they just shotgunned a spattering of things around, but if you are saying there is a rhyme or reason, then I will admit, I had never noticed, I had been told to the contrary. And now that I am looking it does look like that is false, but I think I'm just going to get back to playing the game honestly. This hauling isn't going to haul itself.

Regardless, I will stand by the statement that untill player knowledge can catch up. they should take away colonizaiton. maybe give us another 5-10 years to catch up and learn the game. I'll admit I barely play I've only logged about 850 hours, but it just feels unintuitive, and frustrating. for a casual like me.

 

[Exeider]

You might be finding that the ability to "look under the hood" with colonisation is showing that some previous illusions about how things worked were merely illusions all along. But the game has never had the sort of cross-relation between objects in a system or between systems that you're suggesting.

If that be the case, then it needs to change. Because it's honestly ridiculous that objects next to each other in the same system have no effect on one another, and it's all just hinging on the effects of the primary port.

But yeah, if that has always been the "illusion", it just further reinforces the need for things to be updated, and old design mandates challenged.

 

[Exeider]

A mechanic for canceling construction is very much needed.
Or a function for self-destruction of the building.
People should have the right to make mistakes and the possibility of correcting this mistake.
Will this be implemented?

definitely on both counts.

One of the ways I could see to facilitate this, is to add a "staging area" facility, either as a dedicated facility that would take up a space slot, or it gets added to the instance of your primary port. (Since alot of things seem to hinge on this primary port slot and thus adding a unique value to the starter port.)

You deliver and store all your materials for projects there. When other people want to help you, they deliver TO the staging area.
When projects are queued the resourced are pulled from there (possibly NPCs start hauling it, so delivery takes time.), When a project is cancelled mid job, materials are returned to the staging area. When a facility is decommissioned, again materials are returned to the staging area.

And whether losses are incurred from doing that, IE you get 50% of the materials instead of all 100, that's a matter of balance pass.