Colonisation Answers

Seconded. If Fdev is worried that it would enrich architects with passive income then it could be limited to only spend on colonisation development.
I don't see why colonizing effort would not be rewarded with passive income later on. To me it's logical the more work you put in, the greater the reward you get, as is with this game everywhere you look. That said: have FDev stated anywhere that they indeed are worried about passive income? Cause maybe we're just barking up a non-existing tree...
 
And Colonisation to me is a bit more like your city builder (albeit much, much less complex in comparison to say Cities Skylines et al) because those are popular generally (and I'm a big sucker for them myself), but in my view don't really have any place in Elite as it goes counter to the original idea of your average CMDR having very little impact on the galaxy as a whole.
I just wanted to present a counter-argument: This game has been online for a decade now, and even within that time, with so many people exploring, the number of explored systems is still something around 2% IIRC. So even if FDev gave us god-like control over colonized systems with practically limitless power over them, then factoring in the amount of work required to even start a colony, the number of star systems and the number of players vs their time to play the game - I still conclude that we would have a non-existent impact on the Galaxy as a whole.

And as a tongue-in-a-cheek argument: we've just essentially wiped out another species from existence*, and one that previously did that to at least one other civilization (that we know of) in this Galaxy. Paint me silly, but that seems like a very big influence over Galaxy, since we're the alive part of the 33% of known civilizations.

* - whether that stays true for years to come is yet to be seen, I would not rule out some remainder of Thargoids to scheme something somewhere far remote.

So to conclude: I don't think a couple thousand of humans owning some settlements around the bubble qualifies as a great influence over Galaxy, the opposite, actually. It looks to me very insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
 
I just wanted to present a counter-argument: This game has been online for a decade now, and even within that time, with so many people exploring, the number of explored systems is still something around 2% IIRC
I don't think it's even that. I don't remember the figure precisely or where it was mentioned by Frontier, but I think it was that we'd explored maybe 0.06% of the galaxy? Or 0.6, but it's not even a percent.

And most of that [unexplored ] is congregated around and in the galactic core. Not that that should be a surprise to anybody.
 
I haven't read the entire thread (nor other similar threads), but I suddenly got wondering:

You know those "terraformable" planets? Well... I wonder if we will be able to actually terraform them after we have colonized the system.

Perhaps not in the very first iteration of the colonization update, but perhaps eventually...

Isn't there such a thing as a terraforming economy? If we know what is needed it should be possible to create one in a system with a terraformable planet!
 
The other side of the galaxy appears to lack anywhere that Colonisation could start from if you were concerned about retaining a blank featureless desert.
 
Isn't there such a thing as a terraforming economy? If we know what is needed it should be possible to create one in a system with a terraformable planet!
Would be a long process, didn't Mars take 5 years after various failures with the full resources of the Federation?

O7
 
Would be a long process, didn't Mars take 5 years after various failures with the full resources of the Federation?

O7
Failed once, then succeeded on second time, I believe, in 2286 following the discovery of the Mars relic* (possible connection there, but that is tinfoil for another thread). I would say terraformation methods have advanced since, but time might differ based on the local conditions of the planet - eg terraforming a CO2 hothouse with a thick atmosphere might be harder than one where the conditions are already similar/closer to Earth's but it's [still] a water world or hasn't developed much of a biosphere yet.

*The date/year of the terraforming succeeding is mentioned in a Sol tourist beacon... another is for the Mars relic with its own date. I more ask where they pulled a spare magnetic field from, because I don't see a giant shield protecting the planet.
 
Last edited:
I just checked briefly last night on Inara and noticed that there are roughly 50+ anarchy zero population systems around Sol.

I am guessing this area will be the Wild West + ShinDez and around famous, engineers' systems?

Forget the Thargoids, I see a blood bath coming between humans! :eek:
 
I just checked briefly last night on Inara and noticed that there are roughly 50+ anarchy zero population systems around Sol.

I am guessing this area will be the Wild West + ShinDez and around famous, engineers' systems?

Forget the Thargoids, I see a blood bath coming between humans! :eek:

There are probably many thousands of anarchy systems within a couple hundred light years of sol, some of them have water worlds and terraformable high metal content, people upset they will miss out because their favourite faction has no presence on the edge of the bubble won't miss out at all.
 
Here's a question I have about Colonization.
Is it okay for all colonies to prosper? Why wouldn't there be a mechanism for decay and abandoned systems?
 
Is it okay for all colonies to prosper? Why wouldn't there be a mechanism for decay and abandoned systems?

There is, it's called the BGS, been in plenty of system in lock down due to pirates, in famine state and plague state, once the system is established the BGS takes over like any other system. The System Architect only designs the system and sets the economy, after that the game takes over. So just because the System Architect moves on there's no reason for a system to end up decayed and abandoned, the local population still exists, trade and war still exist, not sure what the issue is with all these complaints about the System Architect going away and not making further changes, this is the way it is supposed to work. System Architect designs and build the system, maybe with help from friends, background game processes take over from there and it's just another bubble, or indeed near bubble system.
 
Here's a question I have about Colonization.
Is it okay for all colonies to prosper? Why wouldn't there be a mechanism for decay and abandoned systems?
Would that apply to existing occupied systems in the bubble? If not, why should it for systems we colonise?

What we should be doing is expanding out, but the same rules that affect current systems should apply to newly colonised systems, not different rules.
 
What we should be doing is expanding out, but the same rules that affect current systems should apply to newly colonised systems, not different rules.
Everything points to this being the case rather than any particular mechanism by which systems "decay" and disappear. Given that there is at least still some semblance of the idea left that players are not too hugely important to the functioning of the galaxy, and Frontier don't appear to mind leaving any colonized system to exist even if only the primary starport was completed... I don't see why they would just disappear.

Depending on the modalities of an eventual "Thargoids Return", though, there is a possibility more distant colonized systems could be occupied and inaccessible for a long time. Which would effectively make them be 'dead' to humans until someone either gets around to or has time to recapture them. But until we know if or when the Thargoids make their presence known again, and how...
 
Would that apply to existing occupied systems in the bubble? If not, why should it for systems we colonise?

What we should be doing is expanding out, but the same rules that affect current systems should apply to newly colonised systems, not different rules.
There's no reason it couldn't exist in the bubble, in a reasonable way too... the Thargoid War mechanics demonstrate as much.

First, let's just apply the default "no player activity = no change.

After that, basic rules are player actions either increase the population, decrease the population, or no effect.

Each station represents an amount of the system population... that much is already established. And so, you've got different thresholds that stations can become uninhabited and shut down as the population reduces, like the shuttered stations during the war. It doesn't have to be complex, and there would be an order, maybe smallest first, then largest, and alphabetical tiebreakers or something. As stations shutter, other stations in system offer relief missions in their offerings, which increase the population... likewise other actions can increase the pop too.

This could go all the way down to everything except the capital shut down, and a minimum 1000 population... or up to a maximum threshold where everything is fully populated.

An extension of this is states like terrorist attack, which damage a station, and the evacuation / relief missions on a station mitigate population losses...

Lastly, as usual, changes to pop/ station state get rolled on the Thursday maintenance.
 
An extension of this is states like terrorist attack, which damage a station, and the evacuation / relief missions on a station mitigate population losses...

Lastly, as usual, changes to pop/ station state get rolled on the Thursday maintenance.

This reminds me that the BGS state "infrastructure failure" basically cripples all trade into the system by resetting all prices for imported goods to rock bottom prices.

In one particular case, I was trying to reinforce such a system by salvaging wreckage & escape pods ( since trade was a no-go) only to find out that minimal merits were being paid out for that PP activity.

Had to resort to donations and ferrying Power goods into the system until the infrastructure failure state was over. That was am educational but stressful experience for me.
 
This reminds me that the BGS state "infrastructure failure" basically cripples all trade into the system by resetting all prices for imported goods to rock bottom prices.

In one particular case, I was trying to reinforce such a system by salvaging wreckage & escape pods ( since trade was a no-go) only to find out that minimal merits were being paid out for that PP activity.

Had to resort to donations and ferrying Power goods into the system until the infrastructure failure state was over. That was am educational but stressful experience for me.
For me, it's very much about the antagonistic approach. Dropping population == more malleable BGS.
 
Back
Top Bottom