Bridging the Bubbles

Elliot Coleman

Elliot Coleman
Had an interesting thought the other day while running building materials to the system I'm helping colonize.

What if a large group of CMDRs got together and colonized systems along the Neutron Highway to Colonia? There are already colonies stretching a few hundred light years in that direction from the main bubble. I imagine this has likely already been discussed, but I didn't see a thread for it in my non-exhaustive search.
 

GroG79

G
Seems to me like a very boring undertaking. With lots of FC jumping and all for what?

There are loads of stations between Colonia and the Bubble already
 

K Olley

K Olley
There may not be a specific thread about it but stations have already been built up to a distance of about 2,800ly from Sol in that direction complete with some larger stations to obtain the majority of goods needed for further expansion.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
The current major project in that direction is to link the bubble to the Lagoon Nebula, which would be about a sixth of the way there. That link to Lagoon is over half-way done, so the entire project might be done in four years if that pace continues.

That would depend very much on a group with the same level of commitment as the one currently heading for Lagoon taking on the next leg, and the next, and so on, though. And the Lagoon group is the furthest out in any direction by a significant margin, so it's not entirely obvious that anyone wants to do that. Quite a few interesting places a lot closer to the bubble (and possible to reach in 10 LY hops) aren't attached yet.

PilotB said:
What if we left Colonia as a wild gameplay reserve and didn't link the bubbles so that neither powerplay nor colonisation can damage the gameplay out there?
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Powerplay isn't a possibility even if there is a bridge built. Even with infinite effort and ideal system placement it can't advance at an average pace more than 10 LY a week, so would take more than four decades to reach Colonia.
 

Tessa R Act

Tessa R Act
Ian Doncaster said:
The current major project in that direction is to link the bubble to the Lagoon Nebula, which would be about a sixth of the way there. That link to Lagoon is over half-way done, so the entire project might be done in four years if that pace continues.
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Yes, "The Dukes of Mikunn" already got out around 2500 Ly from the (old) rim of the bubble as per yersterday. As far as I could observe they are colonizing some 7-12 Systems DAILY! If they can keep that speed they´ll be able to imperialize Colonia in 6-8 Month.
Yesterday alone they managed to spread from M20 Sector EH-A b15-1 to Smojue EM-Y c3 - netting another 85 Ly in a Day....
 
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PilotB

P
Ian Doncaster said:
Powerplay isn't a possibility even if there is a bridge built. Even with infinite effort and ideal system placement it can't advance at an average pace more than 10 LY a week, so would take more than four decades to reach Colonia.
Click to expand...
I'd like Never. Not really slow. Not next time they find an exploit. Not theoretically possible. Just never. Powerplay and colonisation leak out and negatively impact other gameplay loops. It's nice to be able to avoid them both when you want to now that the bubble is wrecked.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Tessa R Act said:
Yes, "The Dukes of Mikunn" already got out around 2500 Ly from the (old) rim of the bubble as per yersterday. As far as I could observe they are colonizing some 7-12 Systems DAILY! If they can keep that speed they´ll be able to imperialize Colonia in 6-8 Month.
Yesterday alone they managed to spread from M20 Sector EH-A b15-1 to Smojue EM-Y c3 - netting another 85 Ly in a Day....
Click to expand...
It's taken them 5 months to get 2500 LY, and they need to go a minimum of 22,000 (but slightly longer because they're going via Lagoon) to get to Colonia, so that suggests at least four years to get there, if that happened to be their aim.

They're adding 7-12 systems to their faction daily, yes, but that's because they've created a massively useful chain of systems that many other people are branching off or settling near and generally not changing the faction ownership. Most of that 7-12 system effort isn't going "forwards" on the main project, which is advancing at closer to two or three systems a day. (Still an impressively fast rate to keep up long-term)

PilotB said:
I'd like Never. Not really slow. Not next time they find an exploit. Not theoretically possible. Just never. Powerplay and colonisation leak out and negatively impact other gameplay loops. It's nice to be able to avoid them both when you want to now that the bubble is wrecked.
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In practical terms, it might as well be "never" for Powerplay.

- the 10 LY/week speed limit is an absolute one. There's no way to exploit around that even if you find a way to get a million control points in ten seconds.
- looking at Spansh, the fastest possible actual route would take about 1375 hops of 20LY or less
- each of which takes at least two weeks (one to Acquire the system, one to Fortify it to let it Acquire the next one)
- so that's 2750 weeks or 52 years as the absolute theoretical minimum
- and no-one's actually started on this yet, for obvious reasons, so that's 52 years from at least next week.

Sure, Frontier might change things in the next 50 years - a decade ago Colonia didn't exist at all. But the fraction of the current player base who will still be a) alive and b) playing Elite Dangerous in 52 years must be very close to zero.
 
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