The One Easy, Simple Way to Fix Colonisation

[Cmdr Travers]

I'm still waiting to see when (if) Frontier will ever open colonisation to systems in Colonia, and if they'll also open it to other inhabited systems of which there are many spread around the galaxy from Explorer's Anchorage to the Heart and Soul Nebulae and Rackham's Peak.

There are still Commanders though, and I'm one of them, who dislike the bubble and really want to be able to build out deep into the black. I know things are tied to the BGS and factions you take with you to run a newly colonised system, but the BGS seems to work perfectly fine at all the inhabited systems I've mentioned here that are thousands or tens of thousands of light years form the bubble.

So here's my quick, easy, and simple solution to fix colonisation so those of us who really want to build out deep in the black can do so.

The solution lies in Frontier's trusty old friend, the logarithmic scale. Logarithms work in different ways such as the one commonly used to depict warp speed in Star Trek, and by scientists like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Brian Cox when they're describing how difficult it would humanity be to achieve light speed travel.

The first example is that the closer you get to the destination (speed, volume etc.) the more effort is required to get there. The Elite Dangerous equivalent is it's exponentially more difficult to increase in ranks as each rank increase requires double the effort of the one before it, as indicated in the linear scale image below that I found online.

So why not use this with colonisation? The idea is simple. Currently we can build out up to 15ly at a cost of 25 million credits. Let's use this as our baseline. This means to double this the cost to build would be 50 million credits. Let's say, for sake of argument that it doubles the cost increase for every additional 15ly.

This would result in (broadly speaking) the following costs for building out...

15 ly - 25 million cr
30 ly - 50 million cr
45 ly - 100 million cr
60 ly - 200 million cr
75 ly - 400 million cr
90 ly - 800 million cr
105 ly - 1.6 billion cr

...and so on. Equally, the time taken for the Brewer colonisation ship to arrive would increase which would better reflect the distances involved. My Cmdr currently has somewhere in the region of 35 billion credits burning a hole in his flight suit that he can't spend. With 35 billion I would be able to build a colony about 175ly from a currently inhabited system.

But! I hear you cry. You're wanting to build far out into the black, and you're not going to be able to achieve that if 35 billion literally won't get you very far, and you'd be right. So what happens if we also double the distance out we can build at each step as detailed in this next graph?

15 ly - 25 million cr
30 ly - 50 million cr
60 ly - 100 million cr
120 ly - 200 million cr
240 ly - 400 million cr
480 ly - 800 million cr
960 ly - 1.6 billion cr

Using this, 35 billion credits would get me out more than 20,000 ly, that's almost all the way to Sagittarius A*. It would also take considerably longer for the Brewer colonisation ship to arrive. If it takes five minutes for the first 15ly, then for 20,000 ly it would take around 5½ days for the colonisation ship to arrive, not to mention all the additional effort and time required to haul the required construction commodities out that far.

But! I again hear you cry, this makes it all too easy for Commanders to spread out right around the galaxy and within no time at all there'll be colonies absolutely everywhere, that's just dumb. And you'd be right if things were that simple.

Where the gameplay dynamic comes into this as the sheer difficulty in obtaining 35 billion credits. By far the simplest way to amass this much cash is exobiology but even then it's not only incredibly time-consuming to do so, but it's also a crapshoot as you have no idea what you're going to get or how long it's all going to take. My 35 billion has taken me several years to accumulate.

Lastly there's the fact that, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, there's currently nothing in game for me to spend that kind of money on so it just sits there looking at me. I can't even spend it building a colony as that activity makes a profit!

So there we go, my idea. What do you all think?

 

[cmdr chequers]

Colonia should be left alone, colonisation would ruin it, thousands of systems with a solitary abandoned outpost basically another bubble which you profess to dislike.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

So what happens if we also double the distance out we can build at each step as detailed in this next graph?

Then your two exponential curves exactly cancel out and you just get a simply linear "25 million credits per 15 LY distance" payment again. The only difference from now in terms of credit cost is that you don't need to build the intermediate steps.

Where the gameplay dynamic comes into this as the sheer difficulty in obtaining 35 billion credits.

If it's only you doing the long range colonisation, yes, that's true. But the distance here isn't "distance from Sol" but "distance from nearest colonised system"

Say someone has a spare 35 billion credits - there will be plenty of Spire farmers who have that sort of money. With your second scale, they can use that to put an outpost every 1000 LY all the way between the bubble and Sag A*. Anyone else then wanting to colonise anywhere along the Sol-Sag A* line now at most has to pay ~1 billion credits to make a claim from the nearest outpost to basically anywhere near that line; once they have, anyone wanting to infill that has to pay at most 500 million credits, and so on.

A total coordinated spend of 1.6 trillion credits (sounds like a lot, but it's less than the total tier payouts - never mind the inflated Platinum prices - for the last CG alone) would be sufficient to construct a galaxy-spanning grid of outposts on the corners of 5000 LY squares, in less than a month. At that point, no-one has to pay more than 5 billion credits to get anywhere at all. Further infill of the grid as people make use of it then cuts costs for those who come later even more.

(And almost all of them get you sent to a detention centre tens of thousands of LY away the first time you mess up - the Colonisation and Punishment system will be working beautifully)

 

[Cmdr Travers]

Then your two exponential curves exactly cancel out and you just get a simply linear "25 million credits per 15 LY distance" payment again. The only difference from now in terms of credit cost is that you don't need to build the intermediate steps.


If it's only you doing the long range colonisation, yes, that's true. But the distance here isn't "distance from Sol" but "distance from nearest colonised system"

Say someone has a spare 35 billion credits - there will be plenty of Spire farmers who have that sort of money. With your second scale, they can use that to put an outpost every 1000 LY all the way between the bubble and Sag A*. Anyone else then wanting to colonise anywhere along the Sol-Sag A* line now at most has to pay ~1 billion credits to make a claim from the nearest outpost to basically anywhere near that line; once they have, anyone wanting to infill that has to pay at most 500 million credits, and so on.

A total coordinated spend of 1.6 trillion credits (sounds like a lot, but it's less than the total tier payouts - never mind the inflated Platinum prices - for the last CG alone) would be sufficient to construct a galaxy-spanning grid of outposts on the corners of 5000 LY squares, in less than a month. At that point, no-one has to pay more than 5 billion credits to get anywhere at all. Further infill of the grid as people make use of it then cuts costs for those who come later even more.

(And almost all of them get you sent to a detention centre tens of thousands of LY away the first time you mess up - the Colonisation and Punishment system will be working beautifully)

I agree with you that once the Commanders with the credits to burn start building outwards, it makes it considerably simpler for everybody else. No system is perfect including the one we currently have. For some context though, EDAstro now has an overlay for inhabited systems (very useful, thanks to them) and this tiny little pink blob really puts into context how long it would take for the galaxy to start filling up.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

this tiny little pink blob really puts into context how long it would take for the galaxy to start filling up.

At a range of 15 LY per hop, sure. But equally comparing it with the original size of the bubble shows how quickly the map would fill up with longer ranges

At 15 LY per hop, the furthest system from Sol is now approximately 1600 LY away after just under three months - and that's required a lot of hops quite a bit less than 15 LY

So if the allowed distance had instead been 500 LY per hop, the same rate of building would have already had inhabited systems spread across the entire galaxy.

 

[Cmdr Travers]

At a range of 15 LY per hop, sure. But equally comparing it with the original size of the bubble shows how quickly the map would fill up with longer ranges

At 15 LY per hop, the furthest system from Sol is now approximately 1600 LY away after just under three months - and that's required a lot of hops quite a bit less than 15 LY

So if the allowed distance had instead been 500 LY per hop, the same rate of building would have already had inhabited systems spread across the entire galaxy.

But would it? Take the image I posted above from EDAstro. There are roughly 400 billion star systems in the galaxy. Assuming a regular player base of 10,000, that's 40,000,000 systems per Commander. Then there's where people would actually want to build a colony. The routes like Sol to Beagle Point via Sag A* would certainly fill up, but where else? I'd love to build a couple of colonies out in Tenebrae on the far eastern side of the galaxy, but you can probably count the number of other players that would like to do the same on one hand.

So yes, some parts of the galaxy would be popular and would fill up with colonies, but everywhere else would stay pretty much as it is right now.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

So yes, some parts of the galaxy would be popular and would fill up with colonies, but everywhere else would stay pretty much as it is right now.

I didn't say "fill up", though. Yes, certain parts would be more popular than others - in the same way that the longer tendrils out from the bubble only go in some directions - and on that zoomed-out map scale probably none of them would show up as more than a slightly pinker pixel, but there would still be colonies spread across the entire galaxy. Carrier explorers would likely find "establish a grid of large Tritium refineries" a sufficiently useful goal to ensure that almost everywhere had something, for example, even if it wasn't a major 100-system settlement.

I'm not going to say whether that would be a good thing or not - that's going to be a matter of opinion and personal priorities - but it would certainly be a major and irreversible change, so Frontier being extremely cautious about making it is understandable.

 

[CMDR Saigon]

I am starting to worry, even in the current 15LY state that the galaxy may be ruined before long. I don't mind a few limited isolated Bubbles here and there but imagine strings of outposts everywhere zagging across the galaxy. OMG, please No!

One of the reason why I didn't participate in some of these "strings" to the various nebulaes efforts by the Community.

 

[Cmdr Travers]

I didn't say "fill up", though. Yes, certain parts would be more popular than others - in the same way that the longer tendrils out from the bubble only go in some directions - and on that zoomed-out map scale probably none of them would show up as more than a slightly pinker pixel, but there would still be colonies spread across the entire galaxy. Carrier explorers would likely find "establish a grid of large Tritium refineries" a sufficiently useful goal to ensure that almost everywhere had something, for example, even if it wasn't a major 100-system settlement.

I'm not going to say whether that would be a good thing or not - that's going to be a matter of opinion and personal priorities - but it would certainly be a major and irreversible change, so Frontier being extremely cautious about making it is understandable.

I am starting to worry, even in the current 15LY state that the galaxy may be ruined before long. I don't mind a few limited isolated Bubbles here and there but imagine strings of outposts everywhere zagging across the galaxy. OMG, please No!

One of the reason why I didn't participate in some of these "strings" to the various nebulaes efforts by the Community.

I personally have reservations about some of the hyperbole around colonisation. It kind of reminds me of the fan uproar of <spoiler> killing James Bond at the end of No Time to Die </spoiler>. People threw their arms in the air and loudly proclaimed "We can't have any more Bond movies because you've killed him". I viewed it differently, and asked why when Casino Royale in 2006 showed Bond gaining 00 status for the first time absolutely nobody threw their arms in the air and shouted "How can you show Bond's first ever mission now, does this mean the previous 20 films never happened!?"

Colonia didn't ruin the game, the Colonia bridge didn't ruin the game, fleet carriers didn't ruin exploration, and colonising the galaxy isn't going to ruin the game either, especially given how few colonies would end up being out there comparable to the sheer volume of available systems we could build in.

For anybody on the Sag A* / Beagle Point route then, fine, it's fair. But there are far more, and far far better parts of the galaxy to explore that wouldn't be touched at all, and we can say this with considerable certainty.

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

I am starting to worry, even in the current 15LY state that the galaxy may be ruined before long. I don't mind a few limited isolated Bubbles here and there but imagine strings of outposts everywhere zagging across the galaxy. OMG, please No!

One of the reason why I didn't participate in some of these "strings" to the various nebulaes efforts by the Community.

There are only two ways to prevent strings of outposts. Either remove the range limit completely and let everyone build wherever they want. Still a logistics challenge potentially thousands of ly away from any material source, so lots and lots of Tritium for the fleet carrier transport required. Or make everything outside a certain radius from Sol generally unavailable for Colonization.

 

[Ozric]

Your proposal does seem a very convoluted way of suggesting, as many others have, that you want to just be able to build in a specific place.

For some context though, EDAstro now has an overlay for inhabited systems

Is that all inhabited systems, or all systems that have been visited by someone running a 3rd party app? Also that clearly doesn't show all inhabited systems as there is no Colonia, Coalsack, Asteroid bases in Nebula, etc...

fleet carriers didn't ruin exploration,

Fleet carriers might not have ruined exploration, but they have definitely ruined the game imo

 

[Cmdr Travers]

There are only two ways to prevent strings of outposts. Either remove the range limit completely and let everyone build wherever they want. Still a logistics challenge potentially thousands of ly away from any material source, so lots and lots of Tritium for the fleet carrier transport required. Or make everything outside a certain radius from Sol generally unavailable for Colonization.

Yup, proving that no system is ever going to be perfect. The issue I have with the latter is that for a system that's supposed to work so well and be tied so closely to the BGS, it doesn't respect that or the game narrative. The game encouraged players to help with the original plans for Jaques Station, and the game encouraged players to colonise Colonia. The game also actively encouraged gameplay through CGs to build the Colonia bridge.

Then there's Explorer's Anchorage, a pretty significant sized colony in the Heart and Soul nebulae, and other colonies of varying sizes dotted all over the place. How would this be possible within the BGS and the narrative when for players the system available to us works in a completely different way? There's no consistency to doing that.

 

[Cmdr Travers]

There are only two ways to prevent strings of outposts. Either remove the range limit completely and let everyone build wherever they want. Still a logistics challenge potentially thousands of ly away from any material source, so lots and lots of Tritium for the fleet carrier transport required. Or make everything outside a certain radius from Sol generally unavailable for Colonization.

I would also add that opening colonisation to absolutely everywhere should come with a significant cost the further out you want to go. Distance has to be reflected in effort and, dare I say it, grind. Otherwise you could get a player who'd only bought Elite two months ago building 30,000 ly away.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I would also add that opening colonisation to absolutely everywhere should come with a significant cost the further out you want to go. Distance has to be reflected in effort and, dare I say it, grind. Otherwise you could get a player who'd only bought Elite two months ago building 30,000 ly away.

The further it is, the more it will cost and the more effort it will take, automatically, without adding any extra costs.

You're either taking a lot more time back and forth in your ship or you're burning Tritium and spending time loading/unloading if using a FC.

Colonizing thousands of LY is going to be a much more time intensive or higher cost operation.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Fleet carriers might not have ruined exploration, but they have definitely ruined the game imo

 

[Shir]

In two months, players have built systems 1.5k ly away from the bubble. It is actually easier to build a system there now than at the bubble, cause all you need is produced in the neighboring systems (Tritium included), no carrier congestion, building is a breeze.

Two years from now we'll have colonies 15k away, so basically everywhere in the Galaxy. One of the best aspects of Elite, the vastness and sense of remote, empty space will be gone for ever..

Unless at some point we get a gate to another Galaxy that is..

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Colonia didn't ruin the game, the Colonia bridge didn't ruin the game, fleet carriers didn't ruin exploration, and colonising the galaxy isn't going to ruin the game either, especially given how few colonies would end up being out there comparable to the sheer volume of available systems we could build in.

"ruin the game" is obviously impossible. The basic design is robust enough that even major changes to individual aspects aren't going to really shake up the trade/fight/explore basics. But that doesn't mean that changes can't be done which wipe out specific playstyles overnight - even seemingly minor changes can do that. And putting populated systems across the entire galaxy almost overnight is obviously not a minor change.

How would this be possible within the BGS and the narrative when for players the system available to us works in a completely different way? There's no consistency to doing that.

The tonnages involved for these various long-range settlements by CG were hundreds of times higher than that needed to colonise a system through the current route. Sure, it's not consistent, but that mostly works out in our favour.

I've hauled maybe 100kT for finished assets in my system (which is just an icy gas giant system, nothing particularly special) and not built any ports above T1. It has a higher population now than the entire Colonia region, has single stations supplying more of some cargo types than the entire Colonia region (even with a bunch of weak links messing up production), and has plenty of space for further expansion. For an amount of cargo which wouldn't get me into the top 10 in a trade CG even if I hauled it all in a single week, that CG possibly having tens of million tonnes of cargo delivered just to build a single Coriolis...

Otherwise you could get a player who'd only bought Elite two months ago building 30,000 ly away.

Certainly possible for someone who plays a lot in those two months, once long range colonisation is allowed at all.

Step 1: use the Imperial Clusters colonisation has already produced for rapid Empire rank gain
Step 2: buy a Cutter (or skip step 1 and buy a T-9, though the jump range is worse that way)
Step 3: fill it with Emergency Power Cells
Step 4: engineer the FSD and fly it out to a mildly-established colony 30,000 LY away (or find a FC going that way anyway)
Step 5: establish your own colony next door (short range, so cheap) and deliver the EPCs to the first station.
Step 6: use local production from the existing colony to build the rest of the station

With the population and economy boosts in Update 3 it now only takes about five Fleet Carrier runs to provide enough cargo to set up economies capable of producing everything needed for future colonisation in a region (except EPCs, but a sixth carrier full of those will last you a while). If you had six players so those were separate FCs, the EPC one could mostly serve as a refuelling tanker for the other five to get them out to anywhere in the galaxy. That's a trivial investment for an established group, and once the mini-cluster is up and running it can both grow itself and serve as a supply hub for longer-ranged efforts.

It's moderately difficult (a week's work for a mid-sized group, say) to establish the first self-sufficient colony at a particular distance. It's no harder than any other short-range build once that's done, so long as someone's willing to bring in a new EPC carrier (selling them at 100x bubble price would fairly compensate for the costs of doing so while not adding that much cost to any individual colonisation effort)

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Otherwise you could get a player who'd only bought Elite two months ago building 30,000 ly away.

Why do you want to gatekeep what people can do based on how long they have been playing?

If they've put the effort in and got to the point where they can consider colonization, even after a couple of months, i say all power to them.

 

[Cmdr Travers]

In two months, players have built systems 1.5k ly away from the bubble. It is actually easier to build a system there now than at the bubble, cause all you need is produced in the neighboring systems (Tritium included), no carrier congestion, building is a breeze.

Two years from now we'll have colonies 15k away, so basically everywhere in the Galaxy. One of the best aspects of Elite, the vastness and sense of remote, empty space will be gone for ever..

Unless at some point we get a gate to another Galaxy that is..

I really wish people would stop saying "everywhere". There are two images below, one showing the galaxy and a teeny-tiny dot of all the inhabited systems, and the other showing a heat map that shows there's huge parts of the galaxy that almost nobody has ever visited.

 

[Shir]

I mean, think about all the gameplay Ian Doncasters post includes! (Two posts up). Who would have though such gameplay would be possible in Elite prior to colonization! And even for a solo player.

Elite has depth. It has fast goals, medium and long term ones. Some things take hours, some weeks, some months or years. Asking to take the long term goals away just makes the game poorer.

You don't need to engineer everything at once, you don't need to get all the ships, all the engineers, etc.. Constant goals is the best gameplay for any open game.

The one thing that would make colonization better isn't building distance, but expanding from hauling to other gameplay styles too. If possible in the future include missions to help build a system, missions to carry stuff and people, security missions, diplomatic ones, stuff like that!