Dear Paul and FDev-Team, after some weeks of testing the new trailblazers colonization system I like also to give some feedback:
First of all, I like to thank you for the new feature. It really gives new and interesting content that will keep us players busy for a long time. You did a good job.
Trailbazers is announced as a beta, therefore some bugs and unbalancing is expected and excused to a certain grade. You promised to update and balance in the near future – I’m looking forward.
Now my experiences and some comments:
I started colonization in the second week after the update, just in the timeframe, when claiming was on hold. This forced break was for reasons and gave me time to explore for a system with many slots for building.
I can recommend for everybody to scan for good systems for colonization and no hurry.
When claiming was reactivated, I was able to claim my system at that day. Placing the beacon and building the primary station (Coriolis) went smooth. I did this alone within two weeks and needed four carrier loads – this was well doable within the given four weeks frame – and with limited stress.
Here my wish for future: let us players define the position for the primary station ourself. Mine is at star B in 320,000 ls from star A. Without a carrier it would have been impossible to build it within timeframe. Further it was placed automatically in position 1 – not 0 at the planet, so it may not profit from planetary installations (if I understand the system correctly)
As a tip for other single players: start with an outpost with dedicated economy e.g. scientific outpost. That safes time and frustration. The big stations have generally colony economy at start and need to be changed by a lot additional effort for getting productive later.
During the next two weeks have I built up space installations including a scientific outpost close to star A and a space farm (agricultural installation) at star B in slot 0 close to my primary Coriolis star port in slot 1. The scientific outpost had a “Hightech market” including the corresponding products immediately after completion. The Coriolis is still a colony economy, but has food and drinks (agricultural products) in its market. So far everything worked fine and as intended.
Now, at the moment I am testing with planetary installations: settlements, hubs, planetary ports. Here at the moment the colonization system seems not to be consistent and I slowed down the efforts until we know better what to do.
Here my wish for the future: To know what to do, I read dozens of partly contradictory forum posts (here and on other channels) and discussed to other pilots on discord. There are many theories about what’s working or not. From the FDev documentation there is almost no input or help. Please publish information about what influence comes from which installation and how it needs to be placed for which effect. To learn this by trial and error, the amounts of needed goods is too big and a failure (wrong placing or wrong economy or function) cannot be corrected (up to now?).
Generally, I like the new options/tools, because I can build up systems and can influence the galaxy (at least I have some feeling about). This gives new input into role play. I am looking forward that this will be optimized in the close future and bugs will be fixed (hopefully).
I regret, that there is only very poor information about how to use the new tools and how the interaction of the different installations is. The “manual” only explains how to claim and how to place a station or installation. This is the “easy” part. It lets us alone for the demanding tasks to build up the system economy.
I think it is ok that we have a high demand of goods for building towns and industries. I would like to have options to correct wrong placement or to change the direction of an existing facility economy (for example industrial instead of extraction). It would also be fantastic to upgrade small installation into medium or big after a certain time, because the slots on a planet are limited. Otherwise, the systems will stagnate after the initial hype and the system architects may lose interest, because they can’t correct anything.
I would wish to have more and timely close information about bug fixing and running development work. It is a beta and many things are not final. When I spend a lot of effort in trying things, I would like to know what is useful and what may be waste of time.
Now I wrote a lot. Thank you for reading.
