So can anybody else...
Campaign to make trailblazers less of a grind.
- Thread starter Dragsham
- Start date
i left out combat because it's the only thing they have that at least tries to have a scale in difficulty and reward that involves skill.
it still falls way short of actually scaling to player skill but there is some. there is no equivalent in any other game loop.
nothing should be time gated unless it absolutely has to. the progress of players should be regulated by the amount of things they need to do to complete the task in question. those things should be fun, engaging, and in many cases be difficult to varying degrees. only resorting to time gating if absolutely necessary or if it drives the narrative the game is using in another loop.
as far as other game loops besides the basic hauling grind:
the next easiest option is escorting. this would involve combat but to keep target ships alive to your colony destination. this is easy to scale difficulty and reward... circumventing any need for time gating if balanced properly.
after that, a salvage game loop. work with a dredger (or better yet, build your own and pilot it) to consume debris and raw materials to craft the commodities needed by the colony bits you are building.
other options to spice the game loops involving colonization up could be changes to hyperspace transit in general. where thargoids have done something in hyperspace that makes it unstable for long jumps. you can let your fsd safe jump... limited to say 30ly max... including jumponium and star boosts. or you can stay in the jump and fly thru ever increasingly difficult to navigate hyperspace obstacles... with a limit that only ends when you run out of fuel. if you fail in that stage, you end up in deep space far away from system bodies in a random (allowable) system some distance away from your start.
there are lots of ways to build on top or supplement with new, game loops. fdev chooses to go in the least interesting direction most of the time, just using the exact same base grind mechanics and synthetic timesinks.
they add nothing to the activity, just change the what and the where and the why. leaving them no option to balance beyond repetition and time gating. it's not inspiring. it doesn't impress anyone. and in the end, it's not going to get new players excited.
One big downer is the instancing problems elite has.
One way round it is to use the existing mission mechanics.
Your convoy leaves the port. Shortly after your messaged in comms they've been intercepted by pirates or in the case of proximity to an opposing power, an enemy power. Presumption - your pledged.
And your told to rendezvous with them which ingame is an existing convoy signal we already have.
So you drop in, all hell breaks loose you succeed or fail. Succeed and your convoy goes on to deliver. Fail and you lose the load(s).
One way round it is to use the existing mission mechanics.
Your convoy leaves the port. Shortly after your messaged in comms they've been intercepted by pirates or in the case of proximity to an opposing power, an enemy power. Presumption - your pledged.
And your told to rendezvous with them which ingame is an existing convoy signal we already have.
So you drop in, all hell breaks loose you succeed or fail. Succeed and your convoy goes on to deliver. Fail and you lose the load(s).
your activity is the same whether you are 1 day in or 10 years. there's nothing both players are doing that is a different game loop. the only difference is the where they are doing it and how fast they do it.
that's not a difference in difficulty and it doesn't lead to a more 'skilled' player able to leverage that to do that activity in a better way to avoid the easy but repetitive activity the 1 day in player is doing.
no it very much doesn't. while the scale of difficulty is not very big, how you do combat varies between the quantity of ships, the type and what the objective is. there is a easily followed trail between a new player interacting with combat scenarios and a 10 year in combat player. it's not just efficiency that changes in the same exact actions in game, but there is some degree of approach strategy needed for different kinds of combat situations. it's certainly not enough, but it's there at least a little. combat ships are harder to kill than trade and worth more, aliens , etc.
And yes, combat is easy too, if you know where you can be safe in your setup and when to exit. there is no such equivalent for trade or exploration or xeno, etc. the only difference between the newbie and veteran in the other game loops is efficiency in the same exact activity.
edit: for clarity, the little bit of scaling combat has can be seen with how combat against easy small ships differs from taking on a wing of anacondas and vultures or sys authority ships or aliens. these more difficult ships offer higher rewards or better materials. so a player can go easier and slower killing trader ships or small ships or they can use their better skill to kill fewer but much better armed ships. and this combat is a bit different entirely with aliens.
that's the beginnings of building upon a base grind game loop. that doesn't exist with the others. you can't get better at trade and do less repetitions of some more difficult trade activity for an equivalent reward as someone doing many easier loops of the base. you'll both be doing the same thing.
there isn't like a really hazardous and difficult trade route that will make your cargo worth more if you survive it. there's no alternative activity that gets you to the same end state in less time but at higher risk and difficulty. you can't avoid doing the exact same thing a newbie is doing. and that goes for basically all of the base game loops with a small asterisk next to combat.
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I recently swapped from a cumbersome type 9 which oddly l really like flying, to a cargo maxed shieldless cutter. Specifically because not only can the Cutter not be mass locked, but It can also boost out of trouble & high wake.
Unfortunately the type 9 has no such luck and relies on shields which in turn lower it's cargo capacity considerably.
Unfortunately the type 9 has no such luck and relies on shields which in turn lower it's cargo capacity considerably.
my idea of failure is that you foot the bill for the losses (including % of ships) or if that's too harsh, you can only take lower reward escort missions than you failed till next tick.
an escort mechanic is really sorely missing from the game though... whatever the risk/reward is.
Definitely no ego in that comment…
my solution will be Auto Trade
allow player to hire NPC crew to stock up/sell cargo from their carrier automatically at a slow rate, 500/hr would work (that's 12000 unit a day)
this will force architact to choose either haul it yourself or do other task without your carrier or not build any colony to free up your carrier. this seems fair to me
if we build on this idea
we can have NPC crew piloting an assigned ship owned by CMDR, set a limit on what ship is allowed to prevent Type9 spam. non sco small ship will be a good balance
alternatively
player can unlock NPC pilotable ship through trade rank, as long as we limit what is NPC pilotable we wont break the game economy
a simplified version will be a CQC style ship build for the NPC ship
allow player to hire NPC crew to stock up/sell cargo from their carrier automatically at a slow rate, 500/hr would work (that's 12000 unit a day)
this will force architact to choose either haul it yourself or do other task without your carrier or not build any colony to free up your carrier. this seems fair to me
if we build on this idea
we can have NPC crew piloting an assigned ship owned by CMDR, set a limit on what ship is allowed to prevent Type9 spam. non sco small ship will be a good balance
alternatively
player can unlock NPC pilotable ship through trade rank, as long as we limit what is NPC pilotable we wont break the game economy
a simplified version will be a CQC style ship build for the NPC ship
can I haz auto-combat and auto-exploration?
we already have auto combat, the Anaconda AFK haz farming build
I think you're wrong to dismiss any activity as not requiring skill, although the skill might be knowledge and experience rather than twitchy muscle memory.
All activities in Elite benefit from experience and analysis. It's a geek game.
You - being the 'owner' of the system - cannot even land your ship at a surface installation without getting shot at.
I support FDev's design decision or we would have thousands of 'private' systems, just like all these carriers which are cluttering the map (luckily there's a filter). However, I support the idea that every architect can have something like a private building or apartment (interiors, yay!) in a station/settlement. But that's a different story...
I think it's interesting for these massive stations at the 't3' level, the amount of metals is plausibly still less than what would be suggested of these massive structures that can house up to tens of thousands and are basically massive cities in space, far bigger than the 'hilton wheel' station in Kubrick's 2001 a space odyssey.
As for another gameplay loop to lessen the hauling grind. Maybe a feature of missions focused or specific to the system colonization ships or in a newly built port or settlement, and maybe only shows up for the cmdr architect or can be shared missions in a team with the architect. Missions of trade or support offered on a colonization ship, station or base board. Such as if there's a mission to supply some rare goods, or x amount of some needed commodity, or even another type of regular mission such as passengers, saving or escorting a convoy defending it from pirates (maybe poi's of convoys in a colonizing system can be potential related missions too) , or Odyssey related. Then the npc mission giver of a faction or organization could supply as a trade or reward, x thousands of material needed for a colonization project in the system that is then deducted as delivered in the hauling list. Or alternately making use of the existing mission item delivery 'depots'. Where say x amount of titanium is awarded or traded for completing the mission. Then an option to transfer x amount from the holding depot to a current colonization project list, or to one's docked ship cargo bay, or selling/dumping/donating(?) it.
As for another gameplay loop to lessen the hauling grind. Maybe a feature of missions focused or specific to the system colonization ships or in a newly built port or settlement, and maybe only shows up for the cmdr architect or can be shared missions in a team with the architect. Missions of trade or support offered on a colonization ship, station or base board. Such as if there's a mission to supply some rare goods, or x amount of some needed commodity, or even another type of regular mission such as passengers, saving or escorting a convoy defending it from pirates (maybe poi's of convoys in a colonizing system can be potential related missions too) , or Odyssey related. Then the npc mission giver of a faction or organization could supply as a trade or reward, x thousands of material needed for a colonization project in the system that is then deducted as delivered in the hauling list. Or alternately making use of the existing mission item delivery 'depots'. Where say x amount of titanium is awarded or traded for completing the mission. Then an option to transfer x amount from the holding depot to a current colonization project list, or to one's docked ship cargo bay, or selling/dumping/donating(?) it.
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But your CMDR has to be there, you’re not employing NPCs to do it while you go off doing your PP weeklies.
The secret is to win the interdiction, if you do that then shields are a waste of good cargo space
I've run a shieldless Type 9 for years, when a CG has 'forced" me to haul, and never lost more than a few % of health to enemy attacks. I wouldn't use it in open, but neither would I a shieldless cutter.
I actually find it quite funny
When back in the bubble I regularly fly my Asps or my Mandy around, all are unarmed and while hauling I use a shieldless cutter all in open.
The normal reaction I get if I o7 a hollow square is they disappear rapidly
The only time I switch out of open is for CG's or in the rare instances of bad queuing at busy stations.
Right, as long as you have a carrier...
Why bother playing at all, let the NPCs do it for you... Heck, exploration is boring, why can't we hire NPCs to fly our ships and we can teleport out to Beagle Point, takes some screenshots discover a few systems.... Maybe they can send us a, message when they find an earth like so we can teleport out and scan it!
There, all the boring bits are gone, glory be to mankind! Yup, in a game about flying spaceships, we'll hire others to do it for us... Maybe we can use Arx to pay for our YouTube or Netflix account... The possibilities are endless.
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