Colonisation improvement idea - using existing features

[rootsrat]

Obviously "improvement" is my subjective view. I actually posted this elsewhere as a post, but the more I think about it, the more I like this idea!

So I thought it maybe worth posting this as a separate topic to see what everyone thinks The usual request, be polite, be constructive, be excellent to each other.

Without any further ado... How about this:

The general premise her is that the System Architect should reap some benefits from their system, so that Colonisation has more substance to it and is not colonising new worlds just for the sake of it.

• No upkeep required for systems (the idea stemmed from this, so including it here)
• Player aligns themselves with a faction (akin to Squadrons, so functionality is there).
• Player can only purchase colonisation claims from that faction.
• Colonisation mechanics as is.
• Colonisation Beacon becomes Nav Beacon - at which point BGS kicks in, if I understood the provided info correctly
• Now, as long as the player's aligned faction controls an asset, the player gets the benefits from this asset: a weekly package of ship materials, Odyssey materials, commodities, credits etc. - all based on the type of asset.
• If the aligned faction loses control of an asset, the player gets zilch from it.
• It is only the System Architect that gets the benefits from his aligned faction in the system they colonised.
• The rest of the factions works as normal, they have nothing to do with the profit packages. In other words it only affects the given System Architect and their aligned faction.

This is all within BGS and uses pretty much only already existing features: faction align (per Squadrons), colonisation mechanics (no changes required), Profit Packages (per Care Packages or AX war profit packages), faction control (per existing BGS).

It adds the risk of losing the benefits (so no changes to the current plans if that happens), but it doesn't mean player can lose the benefits forever AND it would require bit of an effort to bring another faction in, and then make that new faction gain control of ALL the assets. Quite an effort, depending on system size, which is another great motivator for the Architect to keep investing in the system.

And if worst comes to worst, player can help their aligned faction to regain control of an asset to start getting benefits from it again.

 

[Michael Ryan]

It is nice, if you have your faction you feel attached to them, and if this is squadron with own faction. Wow, that's brilliant idea to improve BGS gameplay, and Bubble expansion.

 

[NietoKT]

Great idea!

 

[Commander Biscuit]

[*]Now, as long as the player's aligned faction controls an asset, the player gets the benefits from this asset: a weekly package of ship materials, Odyssey materials, commodities, credits etc. - all based on the type of asset.

The idea of collecting materials from your colonies is a nice one, especially cargo. FD may be averse to providing passive income, but we would still have to spend time collecting and selling the cargo, so it should not be viewed as passive income in the same way that credit injections to your balance would be. The amount we collect can be capped quite low. I think people would enjoy this even as a roleplay/immersion activity.

 

[Michael Ryan]

I still thinks about colonisation like more colonisation than develop the bubble, so I will stay aside.

 

[Cosmo]

• Now, as long as the player's aligned faction controls an asset, the player gets the benefits from this asset: a weekly package of ship materials, Odyssey materials, commodities, credits etc. - all based on the type of asset.
• If the aligned faction loses control of an asset, the player gets zilch from it.

What can you do with those weekly benefits (packages)?

• It is only the System Architect that gets the benefits from his aligned faction in the system they colonised.
• The rest of the factions works as normal, they have nothing to do with the profit packages. In other words it only affects the given System Architect and their aligned faction.

Why would other faction members help the Architect if they gain nothing?

It adds the risk of losing the benefits (so no changes to the current plans if that happens), but it doesn't mean player can lose the benefits forever AND it would require bit of an effort to bring another faction in, and then make that new faction gain control of ALL the assets. Quite an effort, depending on system size, which is another great motivator for the Architect to keep investing in the system.

When the Architect moves on to the next system he or she abandons the previous colony which stays as it is.

And if worst comes to worst, player can help their aligned faction to regain control of an asset to start getting benefits from it again.

There are too few active players to help all the architects claim, reclaim stuff. A colony defense force would need to be filled by NPCs.


The building mechanics need improvements too: how many slots are available to place buildings? Let the player create city zones that are auto-developed by NPCs.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

It adds the risk of losing the benefits

True, though a sufficiently marginal one that it'd virtually never happen.
- no-one else gets benefits for taking the system from you
- chaining up towards a colonised system potentially requires doing colonisation of your own (and if you can colonise your own systems almost everyone's motives to take over existing ones dry up)
- passing traffic for any generic colonised system is going to be minimal.

If they were going to go down this route (which I'm not convinced by) it should probably go slightly differently:
- you can't lose access to the benefits and they're not dependent on which faction controls the asset
- but the amount you get per week depends on the number of other players using those stations (i.e. a bit like a FC percentage charge, but more abstract)
- no-one else visited that asset? no payout this week
- tens of people visited it to trade commodities / run missions / fight in a ground CZ there / steal the power regulator / sell exploration data? high payout this week
- sure, you can exploit this with alts but if you're able to effectively do that you probably didn't actually need the reward package anyway

One reason for this is that from the point of view of anyone else, multi-faction systems are more interesting than single-faction ones, and systems with assets spread across multiple factions are more interesting than single-faction monopolies. So the aim of the incentive should be to encourage players to make (and advertise!) interesting systems, not just "generic boring system no-one visits #184835" and that's quite at odds with "make your system as boring as possible so no-one visits and upsets the influence levels, potentially causing a loss of rewards or at least extra effort from you to keep them"

 

[Cosmo]

- you can't lose access to the benefits and they're not dependent on which faction controls the asset
- but the amount you get per week depends on the number of other players using those stations (i.e. a bit like a FC percentage charge, but more abstract)
- no-one else visited that asset? no payout this week
- tens of people visited it to trade commodities / run missions / fight in a ground CZ there / steal the power regulator / sell exploration data? high payout this week

This should include NPC traffic, because there are too few active players. Most players are spread out.

What can you do with those benefits? Is it deposited in a colony storage? How do you spend it? Can you use it for other colonies such as lower development costs?

 

[GroG79]

No benefits plz

 

[thinder]

We need long range solutions for those of us who have worked endlessly at exploration for years:

Super License for systems discovered before the implementation of the new regulation.

Super License plus fees based on distances for transportation of equipment (Colonisation Ship) but we should be able to claim and develop at least Surface Ports for exploitation, Space facilities would be even better.

Some of those systems have tremendous potential and can open the door to new trade routes (mining), they are tagged to the name of the player who first discovered them so there IS a record of them.

 

[Michael Ryan]

We need long range solutions for those of us who have worked endlessly at exploration for years:

Super License for systems discovered before the implementation of the new regulation.

Super License plus fees based on distances for transportation of equipment (Colonisation Ship) but we should be able to claim and develop at least Surface Ports for exploitation, Space facilities would be even better.

Some of those systems have tremendous potential and can open the door to new trade routes (mining), they are tagged to the name of the player who first discovered them so there IS a record of them.

Hmm.... cost of the claim depends of system distance... interesting.

 

[rootsrat]

No benefits plz

Why? Any solid arguments or "just because"?

 

[aRJay]

Why? Any solid arguments or "just because"?

My take on this is possibly because if there are benefits some people will colonise just to get them in the same way some people did PP1 just for the modules. If there are no benefits people will be colonising because they want to do it for its own sake.

 

[rootsrat]

My take on this is possibly because if there are benefits some people will colonise just to get them in the same way some people did PP1 just for the modules. If there are no benefits people will be colonising because they want to do it for its own sake.

Still no solid arguments. Why is it bad? What's the difference if the motivation is profit or expanding the bubble?

Isn't more motivators to play the game better all in all?

 

[Rubbernuke]

I don't really see any reason not to do something like this because otherwise, why go to all that effort in the first place? PP2 has care packages for effort- why not stations and keeping them aligned?

 

[thinder]

Isn't more motivators to play the game better all in all?

Except that in this case, the whole thing is aimed at players that don't spend a Credit in it and can claim a system with a cheap, under-engineer Cobra MK III while those who invested time and effort including Premium ships and fleet Carriers to do serious exploration can't do the same.

It's obviously biased as it is at the moment and I don't spend hundred of hours making Credit in provision for an eventual new class of Carrier/Transport or survey hundred of systems/planets just to see my efforts not recognized in this way.

ED want to attract new players, that's fine by me, but they should give the core base some recognition.

The player who completed the primary starport becomes the System Architect.[4][2] The architect has direct influence in placing existing assets, starports, planet ports, settlements and other facilities.[6] There's a plethora of tools to work with. The architect has a certain number of actions to deploy construction sites and locations.[5]

Give me the possibility (even at a cost) to do that 5000 Ly from the Bubble and I create a new trade route tomorrow.

 

[Weps]

Honestly I would not be against this idea...

... if it would not have caught me at the bad time it did.

I'm struggling to leave my power but I'm stuck with the care packages I don't want to loose / leave behind. The care package list is the bane of my existence right now. Oh, there's a care package with only Abnormal Compact Emissions in it? And you made room for those Abnormal Compact Emissions? Well then open it... bazinga! no you don't! It jumped at the end of the list! Or maybe in the middle. You'll never know! Which trickster thought it would be funny to shower me in assets, but not include any data or goods? I have over 800 circuits!!! I have 5 suits and 20 guns to engineer, but I still have to grind the data for the mods!!! Beep-beep you're at capacity! Beep-beep you're at capacity!


So if the colonisation rewards would get implemented the same way as PP2.0 rewards were... no thank you. I'd rather do the work for free. I'll even swipe the floors in the new initial starport, just don't put some mats or some commodities that are going to annoy me later on, or crash my interface, or keep me from transferring my ship or who knows what else!

 

[Nikephorus Phocas]

While I know you didn't mention it but would expanding the 10ly limitation be beneficial? 10ly limit seems to be at least from the forum grumblings, the biggest hang up. Very restrictive and doesn't really provide a good avenue to colonize really. That would be like saying you can't set up a settlement 10 miles from your starting point. Like really?

I haven't done much with BGS in years and that was back in Colonia for the Nameless. I've spent so much time away from the bubble the last couple years I kinda don't mind being away from civilization proper. My motivation is to colonize away.

 

[Jmanis]

No benefits plz

Why? Any solid arguments or "just because"?

My take on this is possibly because if there are benefits some people will colonise just to get them in the same way some people did PP1 just for the modules. If there are no benefits people will be colonising because they want to do it for its own sake.

Still no solid arguments. Why is it bad? What's the difference if the motivation is profit or expanding the bubble?

Isn't more motivators to play the game better all in all?

Quotespam, but i think all this context is relevant.

I'll start with the low hanging fruit. Especially for an individual concern like Colonisation, any rewards tied to faction ownership are DOA. It just makes no sense IMO, but also not the point i wanted to make.

The difference is rewards aren't motivators... they're hygiene effects, and you're conflating the two in this situation.

Spoiler: Hygiene vs Motivation Factors, very OT

Hygiene and Motivation factors comprise the reasons people do things, like going to work or doing a task. They're important to understand the difference for reasons of employee retention.

The short and skinny is that Hygiene factors are things people expect, whereas Motivators are things people don't necessarily expect.

The slightly longer journey is that Hygiene factors don't encourage retention or undertaking of an activity, rather, they fulfil needs or deficiencies... while Motivators do encourage retention or participation. It still comes down to a value proposition, but Motivators have much more influence than Hygiene

Job Salary is a commonly known Hygiene factor, not a Motivator. You might ask "Why? I know people who work jobs and hate them, but do it just for the salary!"... but do they? Why do they need the salary? Or to rephrase, if they had money, would they work even if they hated it?

If the answer is no, they wouldn't work that job... then money is purely a hygiene factor. The motivation for most people to work generally, is survival, autonomy, the ability to go on with your current life (or work towards a better one), and money is generally a deficiency if you want to survive (at least as far as capitalism goes). Towards that end, people expect to get paid when they go to work. At this point you might go "Hang on... are you suggesting survival isn't something people expect?"... well... not explicitly. Do you have on your work contract "Don't kill me?"... of course not... because it would be illegal, and laws protect you from that... so you don't expect an explicit assurance that you won't die. But conversely, immortality isn't a thing, so people don't expect to live forever.

What people don't expect is things like "Good workplace cohesion"... I mean, most people like that, but whether malicious or not, sometimes that just doesn't happen and it's sometimes completely outside an employers control, so we don't necessarily mandate that good workplace cohesion exists. But how often do you hear people say "That place offers good money, but the culture is toxic."... again... do you explicitly put in your work contract "good workplace cohesion" before signing up? Of course not. You expect there to be processes to handle poor performance and bad behaviour, but you don't expect good cohesion. And yet, it's a good motivator, because we like to be in environments where we're comfortable and happy, not belittled and miserable.

Other things like "Serving the nation" are motivators to join the military... but nobody rocks up and says to their manager and explictly says "Hey mate, I didn't serve the nation this week, what gives?" for a motivator... but they would explicitly say "Hey mate, I didn't get paid, what gives?" for a thing like a Hygeine factor.

This is why the HGE materials buff and the Powerplay rewards system for PP2 are poor designs. They're all Hygiene, and no motivation.

Rip out the G5s from HGEs and what's left? Nothing. Literally nothing. There's no intrinsic motivation to go to a HGE at all. It's purely Hygiene to counteract what's essentially a bad system.... no different to receiving a salary bonus like Hazard Pay to counteract demotivational effects of putting yourself in harms way.

Likewise Powerplay... rip out the rewards and make it purely the activity, what's left? Not much... all the activities you do for it exist as normal activities anyway... the only motivation as far as I can see is getting your Power leader's head appearing somewhere and having the system change colour on the map. Not very strong motivators imo, and that's what a lack of Motivation factors looks like.

Contrast against Odyssey... beating a dead horse but I dislike and never wanted Odyssey... that's not to say the activities themselves are not fun though which, the whole point of playing games is to have fun. So there is a motivation (for me) to do Odyssey activities now and then. But the rewards are trash, so no reason to keep doing them, only dip the toes on odd occasions. That's what a lack of Hygiene looks like.

A corollary from this is that, especially for game design, using Hygiene factors to mask a lack of Motivator factors doesn't work. It doesn't work for job retention, it doesn't work for games, it doesn't work for anything. So no, "

So towards your point, "benefits" and "rewards" for colonisation aren't motivators, they're just Hygiene factors which might help offset negative things... the reason to do Colonisation primarily should be "Because I want to Colonise", not for any rewards which, if stripped, remove reason to do it. Hence, offering more of this sort of is not always a good thing, let alone a motivator.

As a general rule, throwing more Hygiene effects at a problem of Motivation is tacit acknowledgement the underlying activity is not appealing.

tl;dr if you think there needs to be more motivation to do colonization, you need to add motivators, not just throw credits or materials at it.

Edit: the simple version is motivators make you do something because of the thing... hygiene factors make you do something despite the thing.