Colonisation - new feature, and I love it!

Still waiting for release notes but getting to late to wait any longer here, you will all get to read them and play the update before me, so annoying! Good night!
 
Ok I checked arxshoip and realizes that now the most expensive think is worth 150.000 ARX, if it is the limit the price for early acces to the Colonisation Ship, I am too poor :/ I hope it will be not more than 33-50k
 
Ok I checked arxshoip and realizes that now the most expensive think is worth 150.000 ARX, if it is the limit the price for early acces to the Colonisation Ship, I am too poor :/ I hope it will be not more than 33-50k

I don't think there's been any indication that the Colonisation Ship will be available on early access for Arx. For all we know, we might just be hiring it.
 
It is simple solution... Make colonisation distance more than PowerPlay expansion possibilioties.
If colonisation is designed for all kind of players it could work like that. Of course depends of Frontier ideas, but in theory, if you can colonise for an example 1000 Ly away, and Powers influence is like 50 Ly from the system there you can simultaneusly make colonies near the bubble - for PowerPlay, and distant - withour PP.
Oh that's neat, I hadn’t considered that. If this turns out to be true then a coloniser has the option to either allow powerplay to immediately come down their line of staging posts (by placing them less than 50ly apart) or else (initially at least) prevent it by placing at least the first one far away. Also noting what @Ian Doncaster says later about these lines being weak and easily underminable PowerPlay systems anyway as well as comments about PowerPlay generally avoiding the fringes of the bubble where these lines are likely to start. Concerns alleviated, thanks all,
 
It is with great excitement that we receive the news about player-driven colonization. I speak as an individual commander committed to exploration and advocating for "population dynamics" which I posted about here years ago. I also am one of the leaders of a larger squadron and leading player minor factions. All of these hats instigate me to express great joy and hope for the announced new mechanic and desire to give our input in shaping the design of this initiative.

I can tell you right now that Celestial Light Brigade have massive interest in getting our dedicated exploration sector, Voqooe, colonized beginning with DSSA #53 which we sponsor. We also have our PMF based out of HR 8202 which lies single-digit light years from uninhabited deep space. We also acknowledge that various uninhabited systems in the Bubble will get gobbled up very quickly by various interested parties including ourselves. With these priorities several questions arise:

Ownership:
-The stream clip prominently featured the colonization megaships and that only 1 can be active at a time and only move between asset completions
-Will these megaships be aligned to individual commanders, squadrons, or factions? Design precedent from Frontier (fleet carriers) suggests that it'll be based on individual commanders, though initial materials suggested that fleet carriers would be squadron-based before they were released.
-Colonization by individual commanders will grow the number of systems VERY quickly. This has advantages and disadvantages. Allowing individual commanders to launch such ventures will not penalize large squadrons/factions for "putting all their eggs in one basket;" which also opens the way for larger groups and those with alts to proportionally colonize more space than small groups. Like PMFs and fleet carriers, many derelict system claims will accumulate shortly after the update is released and bog down several systems in and near the Bubble with ventures which will never be completed.
-Frontier should add a mechanic for colonization projects to fail/time out/decay and become available for other entities to take up should initial colonizing efforts fail.

Factions:
-Which factions populate these new systems is of paramount importance to anyone with an eye for BGS and/or galactic superpower politics. There seem to be 3 logical mechanics which could co-exist in the final release:
1. Procedural faction generation: like most systems in the Bubble, new systems will have 3-5 newly-minted factions like "<system> Empire League," "<system> Jet Crew," "<system> Liberty Party," etc. Allowing players to have some input on which government types these procedurally-generated factions take could be fairly easy to implement.
2. Local imports: the "architect" commander selects a set of factions from the local area to populate the new system OR a mission-weighted process of choosing a few local factions to populate the new system could be implemented. This route could produce some complicated and potentially contentious gameplay that would fundamentally change how commander play the minor faction BGS.
3. Sponsoring faction: when launching a colonization initiative, the "architect" commander designates a sponsoring minor faction (identical to the squadron pledge system that currently exists) which is defaulted to the controlling faction of the completed colony. Such a mechanic could facilitate a mission spawn process which would cause the sponsoring faction to offer missions in service of the colonization effort. Such a mechanic would incentivize much local development in addition to long-distance initiatives.
-For my own selfish reasons, I'm obviously hoping for a combo of Sponsoring faction with another 3-5 factions procedurally generated.

Range:
-The bi-modal distribution of intent for short range and VERY long range colonization invites a careful discussion of how to facilitate both these ambitions in a way that is balanced. Obviously, the costs of colonization need to depend in some respect on the distance of that initiative. These need to be balanced with a few principles in mind:
1. Short-range colonization needs to not be too fast to avoid immediately congesting the Bubble with barely-touched claims
2. Long range colonization needs to have a reasonable cost/speed balance such that CLB can colonize Voqooe and the several groups heading out the Azura Initiative (and God forbid, Beagle Point!) from spending multiple years just to get a flag planted in the intended territory.
-In my view, a system in which the range is PART of the cost calculation (and thus factors in material and cash costs relevant to travel like tritium) while a majority of the factors at play remain static regardless of distance.
-Such costs should increase based on a less-than-linear curve like root(distance) or ln(distance) with a maximum range somewhere upwards of a thousand lyrs; if we take Colonia as our example, even 10k+lyr range can be argued for

Depth of Development:
-The stream mentioned that colony ships can only move on after completing at least 1 assets; implied within that statement are many questions:
1. How many assets can we build per systems, or is there even a limit? What of economy types; will we be stuck with just 1 per system?
2. If an "architect" elects to move their colony vessel on to another system, can they return to a former colony effort and continue the work by adding more assets?
3. New systems means adding population; high-supply/demand economies require large populations. Can players hope to establish billion-pop agricultural ventures or what can we reasonably expect for the maximum size of our colonies?
-players want access to these high-power economies, but summoning billions of NPCs from the ether seems overpowered; Frontier need to balance this mechanic carefully to allow efforts on the order of a CG to generate billion pop colonies, but this threshold needs to be a heroic (but attainable) effort. The population capacity of systems without ELWs needs to be capped as well. In no world should 100 million people fit on a Coriolis as much as I'd like them to.

Naming:
-Frontier allows us to name our commanders, ships, squadrons, and fleet carriers with free-text with profanity filters. Frontier also has a stock list of NPC and assets names. There appear to be a couple ways Frontier could apply this to colonies; these same principles apply to both the systems and each asset, though I imagine they'll just not change the system names at all:
1. Free Text: use the same filtering controls they use on all other player-named objects and let us free-text from there
2. Mix-and-match: Frontier provide a list of things to combine to make the name like <Sutter, Myasichev, Lincoln> <orbital, refuge, ring> where we get a hundreds-item long 2-3 field multiple choice for asset names
3. Random: Frontier just roll the asset names from the stock list without exposing themselves to the liability of potty-mouthed commanders to name stuff
-I hope Frontier will go with the free text route, but I also understand the desire not to have 500 stations named "deez nutts."
 
Great summarize!

(...)
-Colonization by individual commanders will grow the number of systems VERY quickly. This has advantages and disadvantages. Allowing individual commanders to launch such ventures will not penalize large squadrons/factions for "putting all their eggs in one basket;" which also opens the way for larger groups and those with alts to proportionally colonize more space than small groups. Like PMFs and fleet carriers, many derelict system claims will accumulate shortly after the update is released and bog down several systems in and near the Bubble with ventures which will never be completed.
-Frontier should add a mechanic for colonization projects to fail/time out/decay and become available for other entities to take up should initial colonizing efforts fail.

But the Galaxy is HUUUGE, that's why I think that colonisation distance could be pretty big, and sytstem claim pretty easy (I mean like cost of the carrier for an example), what could be great for explorers who want to have a home somewhere in the void, far away from the bubble for theri expeditions, but to make it valuable could be more expensive/ need a lot of time effort, what could be great activity for groups. This way you include every kind of player and can use the feature in different ways.

Even if we will create so many habitated systems like the bubble, we need to multiply it like 13 milion times to make galaxy crowded at the same level :D

(...)
2. Long range colonization needs to have a reasonable cost/speed balance such that CLB can colonize Voqooe and the several groups heading out the Azura Initiative (and God forbid, Beagle Point!) from spending multiple years just to get a flag planted in the intended territory.
(...)

I think about that, because still we have a lot of players who generally love to explore alone or in small groups. Is it fine to exclude someone from the new great part of a game?
All that need to be balanced between every kind of play.

(...)carefully to allow efforts on the order of a CG to generate billion pop colonies, but this threshold needs to be a heroic (but attainable) effort. The population capacity of systems without ELWs needs to be capped as well. In no world should 100 million people fit on a Coriolis as much as I'd like them to.

I am not sure if it will work like past CG. I feel like it will be boost for colonisation so probably could be a way easier than building stations in CG used to be. It is again all about balance. In my opinion Frontier is very good with balance. Of course perfection is impossible, but this game is very specific if we think about stats, data etc. All mechanics are very complexive, and it really works. I hope for nice, noticable progress of colonisation. Galaxy is really huge, so there is space for everyone :)
 
Will base building be part of colonization? They said that you first colonize the system by building a station, then you decide if or what you want to build out in the rest of the system. So then how flexible is that ... will you have preset templates that you can build on or around planets, or can you actually place stuff?

Given that bases currently have a fixed layout and this is called colonization not base building I'm going to guess you get the standard ones. Just a question of how much flexibility.

For my part I am happy it's colonization and not base building.
 
Given that bases currently have a fixed layout and this is called colonization not base building I'm going to guess you get the standard ones. Just a question of how much flexibility.

Yeah they have already stated you will be able to place existing assets, so no flexibilityy in the design at all as far as I can see.
 
Video with commentary by Erad. This could bring back lots of former players by giving us the tools to build and manage our own star systems.



Has the feature been delayed to early 2025? This article on Polygon says "Beginning in 2025, players will be invited to colonize the galaxy, forever changing the shape of the game."
 
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Video with commentary by Erad. This could bring back lots of former players by giving us the tools to build and manage our own star systems.


I doubt it will, most players will have moved on by now, sure a few will come back, but the fantasy that a new feature that "you" want (the generic you not the specific you) whether it be ship interiors, base building of indeed colonisation will bring back droves of old players is just that, a fantasy.
 
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