News Content Recap: Beyond - Chapter Four Livestream - Mining and Squadrons

[Alec Turner]

Awesome stream guys (just finished watching on catchup) ... well done Adam (and Ed and the whole team of course)!

One question, some time back (maybe Lavecon?) you mentioned that there could be different things/hazards in the core of an asteroid which get revealed when we blow it open. At the time I imagined sometimes having a ball of fire in there, or a cloud of toxic gas or maybe some rare reward like a load of diamonds or something. Is this still going to be a thing?

 

[ZiggyGG]

@FDevs I have few questions about this update:

1. Can we be leaders to multiple squadrons if our group is more then 500 people or if we have few different groups?
2. Can we be a leader to one or many groups and also be a member or another squadrons?
3. What happens with Resource Extraction Sites (RES)? Are they gone?
4. Will NPCs use this new mining tools as well? Can we see an NPC to blow up asteroids?

 

[Arguendo]

Give us the hability to make coalitions with other squadrons (public and visible).

Some kind of interaction between different Squadrons would be nice. If only to tag another Squadron as friendly.

 

[Klemyr]

Well, first of all it was a good stream, thank you FD!
But there is one thing I didn't understand...

During Lavecon 2018 the new visuals for asteroids was shown
But during the stream, asteroids were same as they are in 3.2.
Are these changes was canceled for 3.3?

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

During Lavecon 2018 the new visuals for asteroids was shown
But during the stream, asteroids were same as they are in 3.2.
Are these changes was canceled for 3.3?

My understanding is that those images represent the deposits. Certainly during the livestream the target-able elements on the surface of the asteroids looked similar to those images.

 

[Toumal]

I hope we get to see more asteroid variation as well. But here's hoping.

 

[Klemyr]

If that so, I it disappointing (((
I was sure that it was about overall look of asteroids... Oh well...
At list it makes a nice BANG! xDDD

 

[roastincoffee]

Creating a Squadron

• Commanders can create a Squadron for the cost of 10,000,000 credits

Is this the responsibility of ONE person or can money be pooled from a few players to create one?

 

[Jezzman]

This generally isn't too bad because as you use up limpets, that frees cargo space for what you find.

Limpet controllers / internal slots are probably more of an concern for me because the DSS and prospector limpets look essential unless you can bookmark hotspots for later. It wasn't clear to me if you still need a refinery for deep core mining or if Adam Dev magicked his Python loadout to skip from finding the hotspot to prospecting, freeing up slots in the process.

Module slots look pretty tight to me, regardless of whether the wave scan is utility. Deep space mining in Python I generally wouldn't have space for prospector limpets in the current live build and I would already have had to scout ahead, Discovery / DSS being unloadoutable luxuries for an anarchy space miner that can defend herself.

The one thing they should do with scanners is to move them to utility slots. This will make 2 free internal slots for free use.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Is this the responsibility of ONE person or can money be pooled from a few players to create one?

As the Squadron does not exist until created, it would seem that it is the responsibility of the creator to fund the Squadron's creation fee.

 

[rootsrat]

My understanding is that those images represent the deposits. Certainly during the livestream the target-able elements on the surface of the asteroids looked similar to those images.

It does say "Concept art", which indicates they are not the actual in game assets. But it also says "Not final", which indicates they are meant to be in game assets...

WHICH IS IT?! :O

 

[roastincoffee]

As the Squadron does not exist until created, it would seem that it is the responsibility of the creator to fund the Squadron's creation fee.

I hear you. Allowing some mechanism for players who have not been in the game that long but want a squadron would make sense. Even if that mechanism is "Here, I will give you (the one player creating it) XXX credits towards the purchase/creation of our squadron. No biggie....perhaps each squadron can petition a "rich benefactor" to create a squadron for them, and then hand over the leadership role after its done.

 

[Leon Markus]

• Commanders can create a Squadron for the cost of 10,000,000 credits.

This is a pretty low barrier to establishing a Squadron that will host up to hundreds of people. This cost should at minimum be scaled up to 50 Million credits, or at best 200 Million, to both make Squadrons a serious tool for players AND be a late-game money sink for the exorbitant amount of money out there.

Additionally: Is there really no maintenance costs for maintaining the Squadron? No 'Treasury' for Squadron members to dump their credits into the Squadron for spending on maintenance/other things? This seems like another significant money sink tool for ensuring that Squadrons have both active playerbases and regular participation.

Additionally: With maintenance costs and a 'Treasury' in place, players could be encouraged to do missions for the faction their Squadron is attached to by offering a bonus of credits going to their Treasury whenever they do missions for their faction.

i.e. Squadron A attaches themselves to the NPC faction Kher Liberals. Each time one of their members does a mission for Kher Liberals, 1% of the mission reward's credits go to the Treasury on top of the player getting 100% of the reward. Each time one of their members does profitable trade for Kher Liberals, 10% of their profit margin goes to the Treasury on top of the player getting their return.

[/LIST]

Is this the responsibility of ONE person or can money be pooled from a few players to create one?

I second this. It would help to know that multiple people can be involved in the establishment of a Squadron so that it is not requiring a single person to bear the burden of the 200 Million cost. The person creating the Squadron would have a list of people they'd request to also share the burden of the Squadron's cost to create. The cost of 200 Millioni is divided equally between all players that agreed to paying for it, with any amounts unable to be split evenly defaulting to the Squadron Leader.

 

[Funny]

This is a pretty low barrier to establishing a Squadron that will host up to hundreds of people. This cost should at minimum be scaled up to 50 Million credits, or at best 200 Million, to both make Squadrons a serious tool for players AND be a late-game money sink for the exorbitant amount of money out there.

Additionally: Is there really no maintenance costs for maintaining the Squadron? No 'Treasury' for Squadron members to dump their credits into the Squadron for spending on maintenance/other things? This seems like another significant money sink tool for ensuring that Squadrons have both active playerbases and regular participation.

Additionally: With maintenance costs and a 'Treasury' in place, players could be encouraged to do missions for the faction their Squadron is attached to by offering a bonus of credits going to their Treasury whenever they do missions for their faction.

i.e. Squadron A attaches themselves to the NPC faction Kher Liberals. Each time one of their members does a mission for Kher Liberals, 1% of the mission reward's credits go to the Treasury on top of the player getting 100% of the reward. Each time one of their members does profitable trade for Kher Liberals, 10% of their profit margin goes to the Treasury on top of the player getting their return.




I second this. It would help to know that multiple people can be involved in the establishment of a Squadron so that it is not requiring a single person to bear the burden of the 200 Million cost. The person creating the Squadron would have a list of people they'd request to also share the burden of the Squadron's cost to create. The cost of 200 Millioni is divided equally between all players that agreed to paying for it, with any amounts unable to be split evenly defaulting to the Squadron Leader.

This cost would likely be different to creating the capital ship though. It makes no sense to have players pay (that much, if ant) in game currency just to create a group to play with.

 

[wstephenson]

This is a pretty low barrier to establishing a Squadron that will host up to hundreds of people. This cost should at minimum be scaled up to 50 Million credits, or at best 200 Million, to both make Squadrons a serious tool for players AND be a late-game money sink for the exorbitant amount of money out there.

How's about having tiered Squadrons that cost credits to unlock? 10 million buys a tier-5 10 person squadron, which, once it exists, can be upgraded by members' contributions (paying into a progress bar like an Engineer) to a tier-4 squadron 50 person squadron for an additional 30 million credits (=7.5MCr/member) and so on with a gently decaying cost per member.

This would be an even better late game money sink.

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

It makes no sense to have players pay (that much, if ant) in game currency just to create a group to play with.

FD have previously said that the fee is there to prevent spamming of Squadron creation, which seems fair enough.

 

[Robert Maynard]

I hear you. Allowing some mechanism for players who have not been in the game that long but want a squadron would make sense. Even if that mechanism is "Here, I will give you (the one player creating it) XXX credits towards the purchase/creation of our squadron. No biggie....perhaps each squadron can petition a "rich benefactor" to create a squadron for them, and then hand over the leadership role after its done.

I doubt that Frontier would implement a feature as apparently contentious as player/player credit transfer just to facilitate Squadron creation.

Your suggestion regarding "a rich benefactor" is an elegant way to circumvent the cost hurdle - I'd be happy to do that a few times for new players.

 

[rootsrat]

I hear you. Allowing some mechanism for players who have not been in the game that long but want a squadron would make sense. Even if that mechanism is "Here, I will give you (the one player creating it) XXX credits towards the purchase/creation of our squadron. No biggie....perhaps each squadron can petition a "rich benefactor" to create a squadron for them, and then hand over the leadership role after its done.

That honestly not required. Supply wing missions can pay up to 40-50 million Cr.

All it takes is 1 mission - and you can create 5 Squadrons immediately. Even in small ships - that's 1 evening of gameplay. Or 20 minutes if you have 4 Condas or similar.

The fee should be at least 100 million, but even that seems a bit low.

 

[Leon Markus]

This cost would likely be different to creating the capital ship though. It makes no sense to have players pay (that much, if ant) in game currency just to create a group to play with.

Yes, and Capital ships should be in a league of their own, somewhere around the Billions (Customization would be nice with tiered costs, but I find that unlikely to happen), especially pushing for there to be a 'Treasury' that the Squadron members can chip into for funding it AND maintaining it too. Right now the only truly expensive end-game in Elite is PowerPlay, and Elite needs more engaging end-game for player retention.

Also as stated by others, having a cost associated with this organization is to prevent Squadron spam.

How's about having tiered Squadrons that cost credits to unlock? 10 million buys a tier-5 10 person squadron, which, once it exists, can be upgraded by members' contributions (paying into a progress bar like an Engineer) to a tier-4 squadron 50 person squadron for an additional 30 million credits (=7.5MCr/member) and so on with a gently decaying cost per member.

This would be an even better late game money sink.

First off, the math is slightly off there, adding 40 player slots for 30 Million would be significantly less than 7.5 Million creds per member, I assume you meant 750kCred/Member.

Yes, that would be nice too, but I feel like there will not be plans to scale Squadron sizes to tiers. If they do, though, 100% onboard for that. Make it expensive for big Squadrons, they should have the money to afford a large size.

 

[Robert Maynard]

The fee should be at least 100 million, but even that seems a bit low.

Why should the fee be set to disadvantage new players?

.... to make it "fair", one approach would be to take the same proportion of the creator's wealth....