I'm sure I'm unpopular but unlike what you say, the aspect that I currently like about the colonization system is precisely the freedom of choice of the players. First of all, as many have already said, nothing was stolen from you: you didn't own the solar system you wanted and the game in its current state doesn't allow you to express a will to own, so whoever took the system you wanted couldn't have known of your intentions. Then I personally find the concept of "chain" (or "bridge" call it what you want) terribly not linear with the colonization concept. Colonization (if we want to see the game as a real space life simulator) serves to expand the habitable areas of the human race and it is obvious that it is gradual towards the outside, exactly as happens with cities, the expansion occurs from the outskirts towards the province. I find it aesthetically ugly to see chains of practically empty systems with only one isolated tiny outpost created specifically to proceed further. In my opinion, many are confusing the concept of colonization with that of appropriation: the goal is not to find the gold mine in an isolated area of space from which to extract resources (for that we have fleets, we go to the system, take what we want and come back), the goal is to allow civilization to expand. If this were not the case, they would not have inserted the expansion limit related to already inhabited solar systems. Obviously "rich" systems are more attractive, but there are many confined and close to the bubble, why "dirty" with vectors of practically empty systems just for the greed of a single player (or group of players).
Changes are needed for making claims at new outposts
- Thread starter winchester1188
- Start date
That crossed my mind, but the problem is still the broke-ass economy. It's in dire need of rebalancing.
If the range is increased to say 50 LY from 15LY, then pretty quickly there will be a lot more systems available to colonise than players and would probably make the need to 'snipe' less attractive. A 3 planet daisy chain would now go out 150-200LYs deep and 100 LY wide, with a lot of choice of systems. With 400 billion systems, the range could be expanded even a lot more than 50LY with not much noticeable effect on the galaxy but give players an almost infinite choice of systems.
Just add a system architect rank and for each bit of the ladder you climb your expansion range is increased by 5-10 light years and build requirements go down a little. So at Elite rank you can do say 40ly build range or something and 10% less commodities.
That way its restrictive at low level but rewards time input.
That way its restrictive at low level but rewards time input.
Having another CMDR beat you to the system that you want is unfortunate. That someone takes your effort and profits by it, is again unfortunate. Having the currently low expansion range is a choice by the developers, and hopefully it will be increased, which may solve to some extent the issue of being beaten to a desired system. As has been mentioned above, if the desired system is several expansions away, there is nothing stopping another CMDR side stepping and expanding the last jump or two to beat you somewhere. Again unfortunate. But this is a game.
Once things settle down I may take the plunge and stake a claim and develop my own system. As I want something a bit away from the bubble, I will likely be looking to expand off one of the chains of systems being created. I am not looking for something perfect, hopefully with a minable hot spot or two.
If the range does increase, I found a system about 600 ly away that I would like to colonise.
Once things settle down I may take the plunge and stake a claim and develop my own system. As I want something a bit away from the bubble, I will likely be looking to expand off one of the chains of systems being created. I am not looking for something perfect, hopefully with a minable hot spot or two.
If the range does increase, I found a system about 600 ly away that I would like to colonise.
That's an excellent suggestion and it would stop system sniping with such a simple fix.
You should post this on the feedback thread so Paul Crowther will see it.
I'm guessing that Frontier won't extend the colonisation range beyond maximum BGS faction expansion range, because they want factions to expand and interact with each other.
What I don't understand is why the colonisation range is currently significantly less than the maximum BGS faction expansion range. As others have noted, increasing the range would help this situation.
What I don't understand is why the colonisation range is currently significantly less than the maximum BGS faction expansion range. As others have noted, increasing the range would help this situation.
Even a 20 ly range would be good and allow expansions. I can sort of see why bgs expansion range is a factor.
well, technically that all is true, nevertheless its frustrating if you had to Daisy-Chain 6 to 8 Systems to get to your target system (thanks to FDs restriction in Col.Distance) and put in all the efforts (nobody does this voluntarily, its needs to an end) only to get that system claimed ny someone who didn´t move a ton of cargo to get it - so far that salt is understandable.....if that would happen to me I´d be upset as well....
Until someone "maliciously completes" the build well ahead of schedule while people sleep.
The response to that would be "Let the architect control who can deliver supplies to finish the initial station"... and the rabbit hole continues.
EDIT: So then we say 2 hours... 12 hours... 24 hours... a week... indefinite... as has been demonstrated, there's a lot of people willing to play the "long game", but the longer you make it, the more the boat tips towards the side that can maliciously control the space, not whether it's fair or not.
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Yes, there is however a difference between "antagonistic use of game mechanics" and "not being able to defend yourself".
If someone finishes building my outpost by delivering 10k tons of stuff so they can make the next claim, ok.
If i am not able to make the next claim because i get claim-ganked... not ok.
You could also increase the timeout to 24h.
You say that now. Someone else says that's not fair and demands the window gets extended.
I think the term "Defend yourself" is a loaded term here as well. There's no attacking or defending here, because it comes back to the root issue here.... just because a player built a bridge out to somewhere doesn't "entitle" them to anything. That sense of entitlement gets reinforced by rules around this, and i think that's bad for the game.
I like that, I would like it if your expansion range increased as you build more stations in your system, something like five Light years per station/installation.
I would also like to see the number commodities needed decrease as you build more stations in your system, anything really to stop these chains of single stations and encourage players to actually build "useful" systems.
I guess the solution for now is not to complete the current system until you are ready and in place to grab the next system as soon as you complete the previous.
Perhaps the fix is a short cooldown, allowing you to claim the next, but then, this just exacerbates the already existing issue of people daisy chaining small systems to get to the system they really want, and that's on FD. A long cooldown (eg: at next tick) would not be good, because not everyone can be online and waiting for a tick, and sometimes the tick moves. And if you are waiting for the tick, then someone who is looking to grab the system can also be doing the same.
Perhaps the fix is a short cooldown, allowing you to claim the next, but then, this just exacerbates the already existing issue of people daisy chaining small systems to get to the system they really want, and that's on FD. A long cooldown (eg: at next tick) would not be good, because not everyone can be online and waiting for a tick, and sometimes the tick moves. And if you are waiting for the tick, then someone who is looking to grab the system can also be doing the same.
Semantics.
And what is actually bad for the game is to demotivate players to do stuff like daisy chaining by stabbing them in the back.
Good for the game is what makes people enjoy the game. Daisy chaining is actually a plan from Frontier, and so Frontier should enable it, not devalue it.
There is nothing wrong with having a short time period for only the architect to continue the chain. After that, it can be free for all again.
Has nothing to do with entitlement. Just with protection of players from bad agents.
I wonder if that suggests a solution in the opposite direction is needed.
- the colonisation contact comes online as usual when the initial station is complete
- but your personal "one new colonisation at a time" restriction doesn't count as completed until you've completed the second asset in a system
So the System Architect for a system by design has less ability to use that system for chaining than anyone else does. I still wouldn't be able to chain from mine, for example, because I picked a largish project for the second asset and it likely won't be complete for at least a week - though the option is still there to pick one of the tiny Odyssey settlements which can be done in under an hour, of course.
At that point it's mechanically clear that chaining in a particular direction isn't supposed to give you a personal moral right over every system further in that direction. Sure, two people working together - or even a player and their alt - can avoid being slowed at all by this; that's fine. Conversely, one of the consequences of putting some Architect-only timeout in place would of course be that a group trying to chain out somewhere would end up either having to go a fair bit slower (especially with all these ideas of 24 hour or 1 week timeouts), or have all their intermediate systems have the same Architect, which is less fun.
Daisy chaining has several uses, though.
- it generally expands the pool of reachable systems (a line sent out perpendicular to the bubble is much more efficient than expanding in a shell for bringing new systems into range)
- if you're aiming for a region (e.g. the projects aiming for Lagoon Nebula, or Polaris) you can't really be "sniped" because so what if someone else gets some of the systems out this way, there are plenty more and the whole point of the project was to allow that region to be colonised
- as above, for group projects (and speed-chaining as an individual, even with just outposts, is something a tiny number of players are capable of as a proportion of the total) architect-only lockouts (especially long-duration ones) are potentially a problem. For group projects especially there's not even a guarantee that the named architect did any of the hauling themselves, so what "effort" of theirs is necessarily being protected? [1]
First-come first-served is flawed, but so is every other model and at least this one is simple and comprehensible.
[1] If I haul the largest amount of cargo to complete a system claim, should it be me rather than the Architect who gets the exclusivity period on the contact? Can of worms right there either way...
I’d support a relatively short (24-ish hours) cooldown after the station is completed before anyone other than the architect can stake a new claim for a new station; theirs seems to balance the unfortunate snitration in the OP with people being able to block or gate keep expansion to any significant extent. For the same reason I wouldn’t want to see having to wait indefinitely until someone “activates” a new station.
These long “if you give a mouse a cookie” posts… good grief. And I intensely dislike the notion that the architect is singled out to be expressly disadvantaged in reaching a target.
This really comes down to the mechanism that the one that delivers the final load is the one that is disadvantaged in the race to the open station. Even a simple 3 minute delay from the time the load is dropped off till the station is unveiled would solve this specific issue. Now the guy at the construction ship has the same opportunity as anyone else at least.
This really comes down to the mechanism that the one that delivers the final load is the one that is disadvantaged in the race to the open station. Even a simple 3 minute delay from the time the load is dropped off till the station is unveiled would solve this specific issue. Now the guy at the construction ship has the same opportunity as anyone else at least.