The Static Galaxy, the Background Sim, and the Economy: Why Player-Owned Stations is not the sole answer

[Sysmon]

TLR
BGS and Economy are static, build them properly and the galaxy will feel dynamic.

What makes you think it is static?? It's a game world with billions (trillions?) of NPCs running their businesses. Why would the ruminations of a few players have a drastic influence on that? Or is it that you (like so many others) want a game that revolves around you? Also, you must not have looked at the forum much, as historically there has been a lot of threads about trade routes drying up and/or reappearing.

Patch 1.4 appear to come with the possibility for players to influence the expansion of minor factions into Powers. Hopefully that will help to give a feeling of influence.

S

 

[LittleJP]

What makes you think it is static?? It's a game world with billions (trillions?) of NPCs running their businesses. Why would the ruminations of a few players have a drastic influence on that? Or is it that you (like so many others) want a game that revolves around you? Also, you must not have looked at the forum much, as historically there has been a lot of threads about trade routes drying up and/or reappearing.

Patch 1.4 appear to come with the possibility for players to influence the expansion of minor factions into Powers. Hopefully that will help to give a feeling of influence.

S

Because despite concentrated efforts by over a long period of time by player groups, nothing will happen unless FDev inputs a CG. I'm guessing you didn't read my post in full, as your points are addressed in my OP.

 

[Sysmon]

Because despite concentrated efforts by over a long period of time by player groups, nothing will happen unless FDev inputs a CG. I'm guessing you didn't read my post in full, as your points are addressed in my OP.

I did, I don't agree, and I wonder why this is coming up again and again. I did some grinding for a minor faction a while ago, saw percentages change in the direction I was working them. Not much, but it happened. Whether it was my efforts alone, my efforts in conjunction with the way things were heading anyway, the way things were heading regardless of my efforts, the way other players were also influencing the system, despite the way other people were also influencing the system, or the nebulous undertakings of steampunk pigeons.

The background sim is large and complicated. Community Goals are were some of the happenings come to a point, and that only after a lot of effort. It seems to me to be a bit spoiled to think that FD should turn their simulation into an amusement park just because a few vocal players want something simple they can relate to.

S

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You should also examine some of your assumptions regarding the sim, especially the role of pending, critical and active states. I agree that it would be good to see some of the system properties as variables rather than constants (i.e. population), and that it would be very interesting to see sufficiently wealthy factions begin projects such as terraforming and system colonisation automatically (I'm given to understand that it is possible for expansion into empty systems to happen, although I've never seen it personally and don't know what conditions would have to hold in order for it to occur.) However, comments I've seen in other threads indicate that at least some of your problems are due to misunderstandings on how the sim works.

For instance, active states block pending and critical states. If you push a boom through the period when a faction is expansion critical, for example, the faction won't expand. Booms can last quite a long time, depending on how much capital the faction have accrued; long enough for the expansion critical state to come, and go, without the expansion taking place.

This, and also how long time do you think some of these things take? Terraforming, population growth, station building, etc, are not instant events. We are running in real-time here. So it may happen, or it will be implemented. But it takes time.

S

 

[LittleJP]

Because if FD never inputs a CG, things do not change in the galaxy. I'm arguing that CGs effects should be made possible dynamically and occur in conjunction with the BGS. I believe you're disregarding the scale of what I'm proposing. Stations should not be built if it is only one or two players running a few tons a day in that system. There won't be enough wealth and development for a faction to take that action within a realistic timefrime. However if I get a few hundred players to run needed goods, maintain security in a system and generally aid that faction in generating wealth, there should be a change in the state beyond the % change. After all, the faction is now swimming in funds, they should look at investing in untapped resources, or perhaps investing in a foreign station that is doing less well.

Concentrated efforts of players should be able to affect the galaxy on some small way, be it increasing the total production of goods, the opening up of a new station, or new worlds being settled. None of this happens as instantly as a powerplay tick. We want tangible results after weeks, perhaps months of concentrated efforts.

 

[Sysmon]

Because if FD never inputs a CG, things do not change in the galaxy. I'm arguing that CGs effects should be made possible dynamically and occur in conjunction with the BGS. I believe you're disregarding the scale of what I'm proposing. Stations should not be built if it is only one or two players running a few tons a day in that system. There won't be enough wealth and development for a faction to take that action within a realistic timefrime. However if I get a few hundred players to run needed goods, maintain security in a system and generally aid that faction in generating wealth, there should be a change in the state beyond the % change. After all, the faction is now swimming in funds, they should look at investing in untapped resources, or perhaps investing in a foreign station that is doing less well.

Concentrated efforts of players should be able to affect the galaxy on some small way, be it increasing the total production of goods, the opening up of a new station, or new worlds being settled. None of this happens as instantly as a powerplay tick. We want tangible results after weeks, perhaps months of concentrated efforts.

Who builds the stations? Who allows them built? How are they kept up? What purpose will they serve? Are the factions, while richer than before players started helped generate wealth, actually rich enough or interested in starting a station?

We are just a bunch of pilots, able to ship things from A to B, take messages and documents from A to B, mine materials at A and ship them to B, take parts in conflicts and/or make/reduce trouble in any letter you want, explore myriads of As and sell the data at different . We influence the simulation by doing that, but that doesn't and shouldn't give us the ability to become anything more. That is another sim entirely.

S

 

[LittleJP]

Who builds the stations? Who allows them built? How are they kept up? What purpose will they serve? Are the factions, while richer than before players started helped generate wealth, actually rich enough or interested in starting a station?

We are just a bunch of pilots, able to ship things from A to B, take messages and documents from A to B, mine materials at A and ship them to B, take parts in conflicts and/or make/reduce trouble in any letter you want, explore myriads of As and sell the data at different . We influence the simulation by doing that, but that doesn't and shouldn't give us the ability to become anything more. That is another sim entirely.

S

I never said we should become anything more. The factions build the stations. The factions decides to build these stations once certain conditions are met. They should increase production of an economy type, or fulfill a demand for an economy type.

Factions should be building, colonizing, and developing their systems. The reverse can happen, stations can abandon if there is no longer a market for their products. Worlds can become deserted with lack of support from those minor factions, and systems can become the Detroit of the galaxy.

What I'm proposing is that we, as players through concentrated effort can aid a faction and give them the push either through random actions, or deliberately stimulating an economy to allow these actions to take place.

 

[Sysmon]

Looks like you will like 1.4 then! Again, things may happen slower than you would like. But it looks like we are heading towards more player influence on the background sim.

S

 

[LittleJP]

I have no issue with waiting. I just want to see the galaxy change itself over time, to the whims of the market. No more A to B trading.

 

[Lord Momo]

Totally agree, also more benefits for playing in open, right now I play in solo because it is more effective, but i wish that open was more rewarding as it is way riskier.

 

[Bryan]

JP
You have just read my mind. Frontier needs to listen and listen good. We need something more than a ship to fight for. Many space games always have the same story, Well if Frontier made it so we could buy our own Stations or even Planets there would be many new opportunities for us to claim. We could build amazing utopias for other players to visit and do business. We could build factories with all the materials we mine and trade. Players could start and name there own Companies and spread there name through the universe. We could use are wealth to start a War or use it to buy more factories and create jobs.

Factions could truly be created by the players and play out there scenarios for years. So please listen to the players tips like Little JP and lets make this game really grab the PC Players and make Elite Dangerous a game that becomes famous . Thank You StarDragon88

 

[CMDR Starschulz]

If i wait 24 hours, can i rep you again?

 

[Daffan]

Well said.

my favourite is the NPC stations that keep regenerating supplies and you can trade forever.

Than you watch the braben dev blog from 2013 or whatever and it sounds like a completely different game.

 

[_Flin_]

I am hoping for stuff like this for half a year now.

While we have moving influences and prices, the stations are static, production levels appear to be static (no supply chain or tech tree recognizable).

You cant colonize systems.

Why wishlist is the same as the OP's:

• Growing / Shrinking stations
• Building additional stations in the system
• targeted expansions into wanted systems, inhabited or empty (colonization)
• changing population
• dynamic economy with interdependent supply chains / tech trees

Plus more visibility of the underlying mechanics, like tech level, standard of living, etc.

 

[kec]

I'm going to add one more thing that is missing in the BGS - wars drive population movement. A conflict breaks out and people want to get their families to safety. I would expect to see the boards full of people wanting transport [yes I know transport isn't in it yet] and the bigger the conflict more money people would be willing to spend to get out. These people moving to other stations, would cause food shortages, charity requests etc - some systems might not like migrants in their station, so cause blockades - and even requests to blow up x migrant ships for credits.

 

[Untamo]

Wise words. OP injected with a dose of rep.

 

[IcePic]

Heck, even the C64 game mule had these mechanics. No energy meant lower or no production. No minerals in store meant no more mules. Jeez...

 

[Kayweg]

What the OP describes is how i hoped/expected it to be designed all along.
Sadly, i can't see anything like that being implemented retrospective without a complete re-design...and that's not going to happen.
There are no production chains, supply/demand or dynamic economy, looks like it's just numbers pulled from a spreadsheet.
"Dynamic" is the most overused, perhaps even misused, word in ED.
+1 to OP regardless of course.

 

[Herik]

The simplest solution would be to create few highly populated systems which would accept enormous amounts of goods. Some kind of trade hub economies, where all the traders within 100ly would go to sell goods from outer systems.

This is good Padlina; And buy goods of course; this would require a combination of automating some elements of the , (and) Developer input. AI alone would not be flexible enough (regarding routes), to respond appropriately to the massive system ownership changes. +1

 

[Commandr Sam]

Great post OP, it never hurts to repeat back to FD some of the features promised in the game.

The points listed would add sooo much depth to this game.

 

[Herik]

I am hoping for stuff like this for half a year now.

While we have moving influences and prices, the stations are static, production levels appear to be static (no supply chain or tech tree recognizable).

You cant colonize systems.

Why wishlist is the same as the OP's:

• Growing / Shrinking stations
• Building additional stations in the system
• targeted expansions into wanted systems, inhabited or empty (colonization)
• changing population
• dynamic economy with interdependent supply chains / tech trees

Plus more visibility of the underlying mechanics, like tech level, standard of living, etc.

Of your points, the place for the greatest effect would be 'developer actionable input' in FD's chosen system/s for changing populations. I know many believe some kind of AI should be handling some or all of these changes. We can't expect automation to be robust (flexible), enough to handle this responsibly. Many of your other points would flow from this.

But at this point FD has not indicated their interest in stepping into this fray.