Expand Colonia highway?

[varonica]

As an addition to my previous post, having a pirate base appear near one of the Colonia Highway stations would add some gameplay possibilities that wouldn't be there if it appeared somewhere randomly thousands of LY's from any stations. For instance I can imagine at least two CG's that would work if that was the case that wouldn't work otherwise.

1) An exporer CG to gather data in an effort to locate the pirate base by scanning mapping systems and landable bodies within a hundred LY of the stations, and 2) a combat CG to clean out the pirate base.

 

[CMDR GRAEME COWELL]

There are npcs they could be scripted for the most part then when cmdr shows up "ah fresh meat" pew pew

 

[Atol]

Here a question for people who fly the Most direct route. How many times have you seen someone name on a system? I have seen a lot of them. Frontier could write in Hidden Pirate systems. Very rare to find but across the most direct route off by 100 LY or so.

 

[varonica]

There are npcs they could be scripted for the most part then when cmdr shows up "ah fresh meat" pew pew

That did used to happen a lot actually all across the galaxy, but it was completely immersion breaking. There you were, 30kly from the nearest inhabited system, 450kls from entry point dropping in to explore the tiny seventh moon of the tenth planet of the secondary star where no-one has ever been before or is every likely to go again, and up pops a pirate saying "Give me your cargo." Following many complaints about just how immersion breaking this is for an explorer in the far reaches of the galaxy it was adjusted. Yes you can script NPC's to appear anywhere, but should you is the question, not can you!

 

[CMDR GRAEME COWELL]

Im sure it would be feasible to have the space-pirate interaction bound to an area either based on geography (100 ly radius 0f a list of system) or triggered by traffic volume (popular routes would be known to those skallywags as well)
Edit: suck at typing on a p h one

 

[CMDR GRAEME COWELL]

If there are npc target's miners prison ships etc then the npc pirates would have reason to be there no traffic (npc or player) what is there to pirate?

 

[varonica]

Im sure it would be feasible to have the space-pirate interaction bound to an area either based on geography (100 ly radius 0f a list of system) or triggered by traffic volume (popular routes would be known to those skallywags as well)
Edit: suck at typing on a p h one

It is already, as you get farther away from stations and civilised areas the number of encounters drops, you stop seeing POI's on the surface, you stop running into landed ships, there's basically a POI bubble around Colonia and the Colonia Highway stations, once you get any distance away from those areas you stop seeing stuff. As I said I have no problems with pirate bases and pirates appearing where I would reasonably expect to see them.

This is the bit I object to;

A cheeky pirate base between a couple of the populated systems on the highway would make a lot of sense from a lore perspective.

The pirate bases would be fairly near one or several of the stations, not some random location between them and thousands of LY away from any inhabited system.

 

[Red Anders]

The pirate bases would be fairly near one or several of the stations, not some random location between them and thousands of LY away from any inhabited system.

I've already clarified that in my later post. That's the one where you quoted the first line of it but seemingly ignored the rest of it, despite the fact that it said exactly what you said in your own post.

This 'some random location thousands of LY from any inhabited system' is a construct of your own by the way, if you actually read the words I wrote again, you'll see that I only said 'between' two of the stations. Birmingham is between London and Manchester. Macclesfield is also between London and Manchester, but it's a lot closer to Manchester. I'll also point out (although I shouldn't really need to) that as far as I'm aware, pirates don't spend their time sitting in their base drinking tea and hoping someone flies past their front door with its really obvious neon 'PIRATE BASE' sign, but instead launch raids from a base of operations.

I wasn't actually trying to write a detailed position paper on the subject because I thought most people would read what I wrote and make some logical assumptions.

 

[Lestat]

In real life, I am in one of those far-out locations. The nearest town is 40 miles away and the nearest city is over an hour drive. There about 5 ways to get to my location one of them is a direct route is an 8 lane highway. Four going north 4 going south. If there an Accident we deal with traffic. If we smart we use one of the side roads to pass the accident. Or if you want to see a Thrill you turn on the LA News and you see a High-Speed chase sometimes a shooting. Sometimes they pass my town.

So don't fool yourself. Places like mine do see action between towns.

 

[varonica]

I wasn't actually trying to write a detailed position paper on the subject because I thought most people would read what I wrote and make some logical assumptions.

The logical assumption based on your statement is that "between" doesn't mean right next to, it means somewhere between. When I say I am going to stop between Geraldton and Carnarvon for fuel the automatic assumption is I am not going to stop just outside Geraldton, I would have said exactly that if that's what I was going to do.

In real life, I am in one of those far-out locations. The nearest town is 40 miles away and the nearest city is over an hour drive.

My nearest city is 12 hours drive away, while I might imagine that as a journey between The bubble and Colonia with the few towns between as stations, the difference is that to get that 12 hour time there is only one road you can drive down, whereas between any two stations on the Colonia HIghway there may be millions of different routes, every one of which will give you the same distance traveled to within a 100 or so ly's and a few minutes of travel.

So don't fool yourself. Places like mine do see action between towns.

You're are lucky to actually see anyone between towns here, at the right time of day I can drive 300klms without seeing a car in either direction, and that's on the only road. While we call the Colonia Highway a Highway, it's semblance to anything we are used to on a 2D plane with fixed road surfaces is in name only, so that's one analogy we need to be careful about using.

 

[Red Anders]

The logical assumption based on your statement is that "between" doesn't mean right next to, it means somewhere between. When I say I am going to stop between Geraldton and Carnarvon for fuel the automatic assumption is I am not going to stop just outside Geraldton, I would have said exactly that if that's what I was going to do.

Considering that my second post, which you ignored, shows that we essentially have the same thoughts on the topic, I have no real idea why you seem so desparate to win an argument that isn't even an argument to begin with. I do however know that I have far better ways to waste my time than this.

 

[WR3ND]

A cheeky pirate base between a couple of the populated systems on the highway would make a lot of sense from a lore perspective.

I found a nice ringed ELW on route quite some time ago, but mark me down for the cheeky pirate base instead. Maybe in a rock in its rings?

Spoiler

I've never bothered to stop at any of the way-points, so I don't know where they are.

The attraction? It's a ringed ELW on route. Good enough for me. They could also have some deal going where they're exploiting the locals for natural resources, erm, collecting taxes to fund their protection. Would be kind of fun to have some kind of shady rare commodity or something. But I digress.

 

[Dagwit]

The challenge isn't adding stations out in the black. The challenge is adding reasons for players to go to them.

 

[CMDR GRAEME COWELL]

Pirate capital ship as a moving base of operations, also Vikings would set up a temp settlement to operate out of for a couple of seasons plunder three shades of sh#t out of all the nearby towns then move on

 

[Lestat]

I think people should watch this heat map of Elite Dangerous Galaxy. I think varonica if it a blue zone is not such a well travel area we should not see other NPC. But When the areas get Green and Yellow and slowly turns to red. Then I think They should start adding a chance. Start low like .01 and go up to .05 depending on the colour.

 

[EdzUp]

@Lestat this makes me wonder where they got the exploration percentage from that looks well travelled to me unless it's mapped percentage?

 

[Lestat]

@Lestat this makes me wonder where they got the exploration percentage from that looks well travelled to me unless it's mapped percentage?

Maybe the best idea is Ask the Maker of the Map. ED Astrometrics: Maps and Visualizations.

 

[varonica]

@Lestat this makes me wonder where they got the exploration percentage from that looks well travelled to me unless it's mapped percentage?

Don't let the heat map fool you, you could travel 1000 times between Colonia and the bubble and still not hit a tagged system, you just have to move up or down a few hundred light years from the commonly trod path. One problem I have with a heatmap in this application is it doesn't map over time, it's s snapshot of the entirety of human travel between the bubble and Colonia over a period of years, all in one picture. So while it shows a lot of traffic between Colonia and the bubble for the length of time is represents, it doesn't show for instance how many trips between Colonia and the Bubble over the last month. So while it's useful in a way, it's not very useful for this purpose.

What would be idea is one of those flight maps we see which shows heavily used flight lanes over time, sort of like flight radar;

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A heat map of flights between say New Zealand and Hawaii over ten years would for instance a solid dark line, but the fact is there is only 1 or 2 flight at any one moment. So while a heat map shows you heavily trafficed routes over a number of years, it needs to be broken down into a more detailed view that takes into account time. For instance how much of that traffic between the bubble and Colonia was actually the CG when we all went out to help Jaques and how much is repeat traffic from people regularly travelling to and from Colonia, these are the details you need to look at to decide these sorts of things.