Should Community Goals be advertised before they start?

Cmdr Eran Mintor

Cmdr Eran Mintor
This is a pretty simple question, do you think community goals should be advertised before they officially begin?

An example galnet would be something as follows,

"Aegis Research is moving logistical assets this week to Sol in preparation for the drive they are planning to start next week on 20/4/3004 to raise the amount of 2 bajillion biowaste needed for their proposed expansion to Alpha Centauri."

Why, you ask?

Well, we need only look at one of the current CG's.
https://community.elitedangerous.com/en/galnet/uid/5acdd2a2928c691e18255c76

I find this CG fascinating, and also the lore behind it. I will just pull what I posted to a discord and paste it here: (edit: discord copy + paste was horrible so here's a summary)

[CG text makes it sound like they're taking very young children and molding them with their propoganda and training to be their personal soliders, possibly to act as a hit-squad or something similar. Eerie reminder of the SS or Hitler Youth, perhaps airing these articles before the CG's start would allow people to discuss the politics and if it's something that should be supported.]

Curious to hear what your thoughts are. Are the repercussions of these CG's worth caring about or should we just continue in this same dance with no care to what the politics are or mean, and allow no ability to oppose the story FDev is force-feeding us?

Edit 2: I want to also point out that while yes, one full week is enough time for you to individually decide if you want to participate or not, the idea here is that we, as a community, can discuss the pros and cons of each CG in the week leading up to the start and decide if it's something worth supporting. Has anyone ever heard of a CG failing? I'd be curious to hear the past examples as I'm aware of none, and I feel this is mainly due to the way CG's are implemented.
 
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GroundxZERO

GroundxZERO
I was thinking the same earlier today. It seems as if Dr. Halsey has entered the Elite Universe and is carrying out her Spartan program. I can see this CG being kind of relevant a few years from now, or who knows maybe even sooner.
 

reti

R
Totally agree. Would allow for counter play and counter counter play, leading to emergent game play. 100% support
 

Limoncello Lizard

Limoncello Lizard
If they are going to advertise CGs, FD need to do something to fix the fact that many CGs don't even last the weekend. If you gave players 2 days notice of a bountyhunting CG, it's not unlikely that the CG itself would only run for 5 minutes.

Also... As soon as a CG is announced in advance, there are quite a few players who would immediately flock there to UA bomb and/or force the system into lockdown.
 

Vedmo

Vedmo
While I'm definitely unburdened with superfluous knowledge, I'm afraid the flush of youth has long passed me, else I'd be the first to sign up to serve the Empire in this endeavor!

So far as the time frame and advanced notice, the week it plays out is plenty of time to react for me, but I don't see any downside (never mind, some have already been brought up) to an advanced notice, so I'd be all for it.
 

Phisto Sobanii

Phisto Sobanii
If you're interested in ED Lore, would highly recommend reading 'Out of the Darkness.' It deals with the development of the Pivot - a drug that is eerily similar to the one being developed by these CGs.
 
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Cmdr Eran Mintor

Cmdr Eran Mintor
Limoncello Lizard said:
If they are going to advertise CGs, FD need to do something to fix the fact that many CGs don't even last the weekend. If you gave players 2 days notice of a bountyhunting CG, it's not unlikely that the CG itself would only run for 5 minutes.

Also... As soon as a CG is announced in advance, there are quite a few players who would immediately flock there to UA bomb and/or force the system into lockdown.
Click to expand...

All are valid points.

Regarding BH CG's I could see the issue being people stack bounties the week before it starts and turning them in as a lump sum. I honestly have no counter to that, an unfortunate limit to the coding/tech I suppose. Maybe someone will come up with a creative solution.

Regarding UA bombing, despite the recent news articles showing UA bombing on the rise, it is a lot harder and more time consuming than I think most people realize, but yes, this would allow UA bombing as a form of protest and I think that is okay, so long as Fdev double-check their UA mechanics (pretty sure they're bugged) and shorten the cycle so that MA could quickly counter the threat before it's over.

Regarding lockdown, it's an easy thing to counter and also easy to see coming. Can keep tabs on all the data station-side.
 
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lokvette

lokvette
Not that ive done a CG for a very long time, this sounds like a good thing, hey it could even be put in the newsletter thus giving it some you know news....
 

jasonbirder

J
Presumably can't be done (advising of CGs in advance) if they're planning Squadron Carriers later in the year...
Carriers will move Thursday on the server tick over to a destination that's been specified in advance...if they advertise the CG in advance there'd be nothing to stop squadrons moving their Carrier straight to the CG giving them basing, fuel and repair option in system or close by.
This would structurally disadvantage non-squadron players, which Frontier can't allow for balancing purposes.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Cmdr Eran Mintor said:
This is a pretty simple question, do you think community goals should be advertised before they officially begin?
Click to expand...
Yes and no. In the sense of advance notice of the exact type, time and place, no. In the sense of Galnet articles leading up to them and following up on them, yes.

So - and stealing the template here exactly from the way it was done in First Encounters for the couple of CG-like missions there:

1) One or two articles mentioning the requirements or plot elements a few weeks to a week in advance.
2) The normal CG articles for the week of the CG.
3) An article a few weeks after the CG describing the effects.

So ... taking as an example the recent Protecting Colonia mining CG:
1) A few weeks before, have an article interviewing Colonia residents criticising the Council's limited efforts to secure the region, and its perceived weakness to attack by "pirates ... or even Thargoids"
2) The usual stuff - have the CG to build the security installation
3) A couple of weeks after, a brief article to state that the Colonia Bastion security installation is now fully operational.

Sometimes these articles might give imprecise hints about the type, location or timing of a CG ... sometimes not. Occasionally there might be articles which aren't related to a CG at all :)

For something like this week's CGs - which, like the Fed's AI research, are likely to be controversial - the first discussions of the plans in the press should be perhaps months in advance, with three or four articles giving prominent NPCs' opinions - and the number of follow-up articles greater as well.

.... of course, this is probably doubling if not more the workload on the Galnet writing and translating team. There's already been a substantial increase in 3.0 of the use of Galnet - which is good - but there's still a lot more which can be done.



Of course, the question then becomes: having set up a controversial CG, how do you allow opposition to it? The nature of both CGs and Elite: Dangerous more generally makes them extremely difficult to stop.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
jasonbirder said:
Presumably can't be done (advising of CGs in advance) if they're planning Squadron Carriers later in the year...
Carriers will move Thursday on the server tick over to a destination that's been specified in advance...if they advertise the CG in advance there'd be nothing to stop squadrons moving their Carrier straight to the CG giving them basing, fuel and repair option in system or close by.
This would structurally disadvantage non-squadron players, which Frontier can't allow for balancing purposes.
Click to expand...
In 99% of cases both the CG system and the neighbouring systems already have a wide range of stations which can be used for basic refuel/repair, so I can't see this being any more than a very marginal advantage if at all.

Compared with the CG advantages already gained by operating in wings (or sometimes even larger groups)
- quadrupled bounty/bond payouts
- faster mining prospecting
- ability to use navlock to significantly speed up station approaches
- ability to load a rares hauler much faster
...all of which are unavailable in Solo or to unsociable players in other modes, and which have not been a problem so far, I can't see having an extra place to dock being all that big an advantage.
 

Deareim

Deareim
What i think is that CG should be a way to grow for ALL factions and not only triple elite faction.
That would be already a good start.
 

Lightspeed

Lightspeed
I think it would be nice to be able to discover CGs in space.

Receive the message: "Congratulations, Commander, you are the first discoverer of Ship Biowaste Sag A to Beagle Point" and such like. Makes for more interesting things to find. :)
 
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