Colonization seems to have destroyed the frontier

I see the 15Ly limit as an economics/political thing rather than a logistical limit.

Obviously still as artificial as anything else in a game.

Then what is the point of the limit and why so restrictive? I don't know if FDEV ever explained the reasoning behind it.

But what faction is going to want to build something so isolated that it is going to struggle to sustain itself never mind contribute in any way to the faction, if there was a chain of stations leading to it that would be another matter as long as they were within BGS and PP range of each other.

Well then I guess my thought would be if no faction would take advantage of the ability to go uber-far, then why have an artificial limit in the first place? We would just naturally self-govern ourselves right?

It seems removing the limit satisfies both camps:
1. Those who hate the bubble being gobbled up so fast and have no systems in sight that aren't built up now
2. Those who hate being constrained by the bubble and want to go further.
 
You said in your OP that Coriolis represents a "larger, older, more developed system". That's never been the case.
There are many modern cities on earth that was almost build within a few years, it's about money and power centralization nothing else.

I don't think we will run out space any day soon, so no need to be worried, the reason we see so rapid expansion is because some players and player groups accumulated huge amount of wealth and they need to spend it, this is an excellent way to burn credits and to be honest I like that we now can see the creativity of the player base and maybe MAYBE blow some life back into Elite.
 
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There are many modern cities on earth that was almost build within a few years, it's about money and power centralization nothing else.

I don't think we will run out space any day soon, so no need to be worried, the reason we see so rapid expansion is because some players and player groups accumulated huge amount of wealth and they need to spend it, this is an excellent way to burn credits and to be honest I like that we now can see the creativity of the player base and maybe MAYBE blow some life back into Elite.
Actually it isn’t that great a way to burn credits.

Yes you have to buy all the commodities to build the colony but you sell them to the construction site/ship for a profit as long as you didn’t buy from a scalper, that profit will cover the cost of the license for that colony.
 
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Not Frontier Developments, the game company. I mean "the frontier" of the bubble, in the game.

First off, if you're about to hit the reply button to "put me in my place" because you think I'm "whining" - don't bother. I'm not whining. I promise you, I'll get over this. What I'm doing is describing a change. There's nothing wrong with describing a change - it's a healthy thing to do. And if you cannot distinguish between a description of a change and empty "whining" then please work on that.

A few years ago I picked a home system that was deliberately right on the edge of the bubble. It felt like I was in a backwater. Sometimes I'd venture into the "big city" of the core worlds, but mostly I dealt with the tiny outposts and scattered surface settlements of struggling miners and poor colonists just trying to (I imagine) scratch out a meager living.

Part of this feeling was explicitly that it was a tiny, lonely outpost at the edge of populated space. I realize that Merope was an orbis, so, there were exceptions. But not it seems to me all of that is gone.
If you wanted to be interpreted as your post implies...

Colonization seems to have changed the frontier​

 
Actually it [colonization] isn’t that great a way to burn credits.
I burned 10 billion getting a fleet carrier for my alt and giving it a couple years maintenance Its nice having a fresh new carrier that I can fully dedicate its storage and function to nothing but colonization. freeing up my main carrier for other misc activities and storage.
:D

Now how do I burn a bunch more of my billions?:unsure:
 
Then what is the point of the limit and why so restrictive? I don't know if FDEV ever explained the reasoning behind it.
They're not doing a reset. The point was that the testing phase of colonisation was supposed to be restricted to the bubble and 15ly was sufficient for the bubble. We've just decided to break containment.
 
I burned 10 billion getting a fleet carrier for my alt and giving it a couple years maintenance Its nice having a fresh new carrier that I can fully dedicate its storage and function to nothing but colonization. freeing up my main carrier for other misc activities and storage.
:D

Now how do I burn a bunch more of my billions?:unsure:
  1. In the bubble put out a maximum price buy order for all the Tritium your FCs will hold
  2. Jump to Colonia and sell Tritium at 1cr per tonne
  3. Jump back to the bubble.
  4. Goto 1.
Alternatively increase the upkeep coverage in the carriers to a few decades rather than years.

Isn’t there a station somewhere that sells everything but has a surcharge, you could destroy all your ships and replace them there.
 
I like that we now can see the creativity of the player base and maybe MAYBE blow some life back into Elite.

I was kinda joking above, but colonization likely encourage some players to do certain activities if they haven't done them already... giving revitalized purpose for these activities.

1. Purchasing a Fleet Carrier.
If a cmdr doesn't have a fleet carrier it is well worth the cost and effort of getting one. Especially if there is a desire to build a colony not in immediate big-ship jump range of systems selling bulk commodities.

2. Imperial Rank for Cutter.
IMO the Imperial cutter is the best choice for bulk transport when building a colony. A good Cutter is about 1 Billion. Unshielded and fully G5 engineered Military Hull, engines, thrusters, distributor and it is quite safe from NPC pirates.
 
One thing I never liked - even though I never took part in it - was player factions. Specifically, that some could overrun other's home systems by a numbers-only game. Less play time and less player numbers meant you could end up losing your home system dominance.

Colonization the same. Would love to have had a non-player influenced galaxy to pootle around in - I think they were going to call if offline mode.

But these are the new days of gaming and it's a general part of the landscape these days to enable players to make their mark for all to see. Seems to be selling well so that's the main thing that counts.

Either way since I've read the title of this thread all I can hear is a Buggles rendition of "Video killed the radio star" but replaced by "Colonization seems to have destroyed the frontier".
 
I don't think it will destroy ED, on the contrary I think it will bring more life to it, the Galaxy is huge, and as a single commander you can find a place and build your own system from the ground up, can someone take it? sure but the footprint you left no one can take away.
 
One thing I never liked - even though I never took part in it - was player factions. Specifically, that some could overrun other's home systems by a numbers-only game. Less play time and less player numbers meant you could end up losing your home system dominance.

Colonization the same. Would love to have had a non-player influenced galaxy to pootle around in - I think they were going to call if offline mode.

But these are the new days of gaming and it's a general part of the landscape these days to enable players to make their mark for all to see. Seems to be selling well so that's the main thing that counts.

Either way since I've read the title of this thread all I can hear is a Buggles rendition of "Video killed the radio star" but replaced by "Colonization seems to have destroyed the frontier".
I suppose Legacy mode is the closest you can get to having a galaxy without PP2 and the expansion as well as the new colonies brought by Trailblazers.
 
The OP isn't wrong, as such, but is referring to a very narrow frame of reference; the frontier he exists in disappeared for me the moment my jump range got above about 80 light years; on the way back from exploring, in a single jump I'd go from no stations to heavily populated systems, straight through any frontier there might be. That can be a good thing or a bad depending on your needs and perspectives, and OP isn't wrong to deplore the loss of his prior way of life...

... it's also not provable yet if it's a good thing or a bad thing; just becomes humans adopt this or that en-masse isn't itself an argument for whether something is long term good. I'd name examples, scientifically proven to be problematic at scale, but there will always be contrarians and stick-in-the-muds that will argue against basic science to claim that no, everythings perfect or I just don't want to change... and by that I don't necessarily mean OP again; Luddites weren't technically wrong that industrialisation was coming with a huge human cost, as well as benefits.

But keeping it Elite focused; I'm not sure that colonisation in game will be good long term. Sure it'll boost FDev's finances short term, from selling Arx for station renames and skins, but I'm not sure it's been thought out well. Having worked in the industry, I'm not sure there's enough staff available to even dedicate to thinking wider game design out philosophically, but specifically here, launching it with the economic design of system building incomplete, beta quality, and hidden from the players, as well as hideously bugged was bad enough, but it had to be obvious from decades of player behavior in sandbox games exactly what would happen; people would immediately go for the high reputation locations, grab as much for their factions as they could, and just generally turn the galaxy into a predictable mass of attention in some spots, and throw away systems everywhere else.

Counter-intuitive to OPs argument, this actually guarantees "frontier" systems almost everywhere, because they'll all mostly be stepping stones to getting somewhere else, or just going for the most efficient method for maximum capture. You don't design a game around soul-sucking grind and expect to get artists, rather you get obssessives with plenty of free time, and min/maxed identikit colonisation strategies. My own preference, to encourage deeper system building rather than wider, would actually be more destructive to OPs preferences, because if he was living near my player faction, suddenly he'd have huge cownstruction projects designed to roleplay what I want on his doorstep...

It's entirely reasonable, perhaps even essential that people like OP get to ask questions about whether the cost of that kind of colonisation was worth it. I just don't think he'd like much any attempt to change colonisation though, except to restrict it entirely.
 
Yeah, the old frontier is gone. I used to play in the edge of the bubble, only two shipyards in range (mine and another one). Now there is plenty of everything all over the place..

If one wants a new frontier, they have to follow the colonization routes. These have expanded by chaining systems towards the big nebulas around 1-2k away from the bubble, and in the future probably will keep moving further away towards more exotic and remote parts of the galaxy.

In the meantime, along these chains of one outpost systems, there are currently many opportunities for players to create mini colonies consisting of a few systems. I doubt many will take time to develop these areas in depth, as they are already explored, not in the bubble, and not really that far or glamorous..
 
Captain James Tiberius Kirk's final frontier was, quite famously, space.
That was still there (and quite a lot of it) when I last checked.

More seriously, for as long as it lasts, the 15ly colonisation limit should just adjust the 'bubble edge' to exist in a different place, more centred around the systems concentration of the core.
The timescales involved for this are monumental.

For my money the frontier's not destroyed, it's just experiencing a period of expansion and relocation - grow or die!
 
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