Well, Colonisation is out, and with very little documentation about what all this new stuff does (as opposed to how to do it), so it's time for a return to theoretical BGS research!
We're starting to discover things gradually - let us know what you find!
General Advice
Colonisation is currently in a highly-experimental state of understanding, and is also potentially subject to major changes by Frontier. The strongest recommendation is not to engage with it if you are at all concerned with what sort of colony you end up with at the end. On the other hand, if you're happy to experiment, and happy for your colony at least occasionally do something unexpected which might require a change of plans, try stuff and see what happens!
Frontier have already made backward-incompatible changes to constructions. Further changes may occur later. Frontier have not said that the new arrangement is final.
Types of Build
- DaftMav's spreadsheet summarises the requirements and stated benefits for each build type
- Commodity requirements can differ from those stated - either higher or at least occasionally lower - with the cause uncertain
- the first system construction always seems to be higher, with a separate 25% "new system" payment
- T2 and T3 orbitals and planetary cities are limited; the cost of these in T2/T3 points will increase after the first two.
- where a build has pre-requisites, these can be placed anywhere in the system
- Installation roles and Installation model entity names are entirely unrelated but confusingly similar (i.e. don't worry if your "Satellite Installation" (role) shows up as a Scientific Installation in-instance)
Construction Properties
The following system-wide variables are modifiable. Their actual values are hidden, and starting values may vary from system to system
- Security: affects the system security descriptor (with the usual knock-on effects on supercruise NPCs and sysauth response time). +9 net chevrons appears to be enough to get all the way to High Security in many but not all systems. Appears to affect shape of faction security sliders, spectacularly so at net negative values. Can largely be ignored by Anarchy factions. Positive security increases the size of the security "None" range.
- Tech Level: Frontier have confirmed that it affects what station services are available, with "35" required for shipyard/outfitting services. Affects quality of shipyard/outfitting stock. It does not affect other station service availability which is a function of the station type and/or the presence of other specific facilities.
- Standard of Living: Reports that it needs to be kept above a certain threshold or further negative constructions are prevented. Increases size of Famine, Investment, Civil Unrest and Civil Liberty regions. Affects some market pricing.
- Wealth: Seems to affect shape of faction economy sliders, increasing the size of the Economy "none" range. Affects some market pricing.
- Development Level: Frontier have confirmed that it affects outfitting/shipyard quantity. Also seems to affect the general size of markets strongly and linearly for early improvements to it (may have diminishing returns above a threshold). Increases size of Boom, Bust and Lockdown slider regions.
- some of the above properties (probably not Security or Tech Level) collectively seem to influence market specialisation, but this influence should be treated as a random reroll (with the risks for hybrid economies that implies) as there appears to be no more significant underlying pattern to it
- these properties appear to have a significant range, with previous Frontier mentions considering values above 100. It is not known if values start at zero, or if one chevron = 1 value point.
- System Economy Influence: determines the type of strong/weak links generated by this asset
- Initial Population Change: does seem to be roughly proportional to the type of station added (zero does not mean "no population", just "not much")
- Maximum Population Change: needs more research in the current version. The type of body the station is at may affect how effective this property is, or that may be coincidence.
The current values of at least Wealth, Development Level, Security and Standard of Living may be affected by BGS states. If your station owner is not in State: None this may affect what you see.
Economy sizes (relevant to production and consumption caps for commodities at markets) for stations in newly colonised systems sometimes seem much lower than would be expected for the station population. A Development Level of around 10-20 may be necessary to bring them to normal economic levels. This can especially affect settlement markets, which also have tiny populations.
Market specialisations for supply and demand seem to be somewhat controlled by the global system variables, rather than being pseudo-random as for pre-colonisation stations. Figuring out exactly which variables shift which specialisation is likely to be very impractical.
Markets
Odyssey settlements also have the usual limited production range and small market sizes, as well as their economy names not lining up precisely with the non-settlement economies (e.g. an Extraction settlement can produce Nerve Agents, despite this normally being a Refinery export). This is probably not a bug, since the pre-colonisation ones do the same.
There are two new economy types introduced with Colonisation:
- Contraband, which sells various commodities which are often illegal (most useful on stations owned by permissive factions!)
- Trailblazer Megaship, which sells the precise set of commodities used in construction (except those illegal in independent corporate jurisdictions...) and imports nothing
Confusingly, both of these economy types are labelled "Service" in-game, despite having no relation to the imports or exports of the pre-colonisation (and still in use) Service economy.
Hybrid markets (e.g. Refinery/Industrial) have the same effect of each half consuming their own production as in pre-colonisation markets. https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/specialisation/hybrid can be used to model the effects of hybrid economies.
Conversion efficiency
Market influence appears to vary with influencer type and target economy port size, though this doesn't appear to be entirely reproducible and may also depend on other factors.
The release notes https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...te-3-wednesday-april-30.636973/#post-10617083 describe how strong and weak links are constructed between influencers and markets.
Influence levels can exceed 1.0 apparently without cap - "Proportion" is best read not "of the station's total economy" but "of a standard-sized station economy".
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/constructing-a-specific-economy.637363/ seems a usable theory for how influence levels are constructed.
There still appear to be bugs with registration of new constructions and economic calculations so precise measurements are difficult.
Planetary influence types
Planets will replace a Colony economy on a station (but not other types) with their own baseline economy. The relationship of planet properties to economy type is defined in https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...te-3-wednesday-april-30.636973/#post-10617083
We're starting to discover things gradually - let us know what you find!
General Advice
Colonisation is currently in a highly-experimental state of understanding, and is also potentially subject to major changes by Frontier. The strongest recommendation is not to engage with it if you are at all concerned with what sort of colony you end up with at the end. On the other hand, if you're happy to experiment, and happy for your colony at least occasionally do something unexpected which might require a change of plans, try stuff and see what happens!
Frontier have already made backward-incompatible changes to constructions. Further changes may occur later. Frontier have not said that the new arrangement is final.
Types of Build
- DaftMav's spreadsheet summarises the requirements and stated benefits for each build type
- Commodity requirements can differ from those stated - either higher or at least occasionally lower - with the cause uncertain
- the first system construction always seems to be higher, with a separate 25% "new system" payment
- T2 and T3 orbitals and planetary cities are limited; the cost of these in T2/T3 points will increase after the first two.
- where a build has pre-requisites, these can be placed anywhere in the system
- Installation roles and Installation model entity names are entirely unrelated but confusingly similar (i.e. don't worry if your "Satellite Installation" (role) shows up as a Scientific Installation in-instance)
Construction Properties
The following system-wide variables are modifiable. Their actual values are hidden, and starting values may vary from system to system
- Security: affects the system security descriptor (with the usual knock-on effects on supercruise NPCs and sysauth response time). +9 net chevrons appears to be enough to get all the way to High Security in many but not all systems. Appears to affect shape of faction security sliders, spectacularly so at net negative values. Can largely be ignored by Anarchy factions. Positive security increases the size of the security "None" range.
- Tech Level: Frontier have confirmed that it affects what station services are available, with "35" required for shipyard/outfitting services. Affects quality of shipyard/outfitting stock. It does not affect other station service availability which is a function of the station type and/or the presence of other specific facilities.
- Standard of Living: Reports that it needs to be kept above a certain threshold or further negative constructions are prevented. Increases size of Famine, Investment, Civil Unrest and Civil Liberty regions. Affects some market pricing.
- Wealth: Seems to affect shape of faction economy sliders, increasing the size of the Economy "none" range. Affects some market pricing.
- Development Level: Frontier have confirmed that it affects outfitting/shipyard quantity. Also seems to affect the general size of markets strongly and linearly for early improvements to it (may have diminishing returns above a threshold). Increases size of Boom, Bust and Lockdown slider regions.
- some of the above properties (probably not Security or Tech Level) collectively seem to influence market specialisation, but this influence should be treated as a random reroll (with the risks for hybrid economies that implies) as there appears to be no more significant underlying pattern to it
- these properties appear to have a significant range, with previous Frontier mentions considering values above 100. It is not known if values start at zero, or if one chevron = 1 value point.
- System Economy Influence: determines the type of strong/weak links generated by this asset
- Initial Population Change: does seem to be roughly proportional to the type of station added (zero does not mean "no population", just "not much")
- Maximum Population Change: needs more research in the current version. The type of body the station is at may affect how effective this property is, or that may be coincidence.
The current values of at least Wealth, Development Level, Security and Standard of Living may be affected by BGS states. If your station owner is not in State: None this may affect what you see.
Economy sizes (relevant to production and consumption caps for commodities at markets) for stations in newly colonised systems sometimes seem much lower than would be expected for the station population. A Development Level of around 10-20 may be necessary to bring them to normal economic levels. This can especially affect settlement markets, which also have tiny populations.
Market specialisations for supply and demand seem to be somewhat controlled by the global system variables, rather than being pseudo-random as for pre-colonisation stations. Figuring out exactly which variables shift which specialisation is likely to be very impractical.
Markets
Odyssey settlements also have the usual limited production range and small market sizes, as well as their economy names not lining up precisely with the non-settlement economies (e.g. an Extraction settlement can produce Nerve Agents, despite this normally being a Refinery export). This is probably not a bug, since the pre-colonisation ones do the same.
There are two new economy types introduced with Colonisation:
- Contraband, which sells various commodities which are often illegal (most useful on stations owned by permissive factions!)
- Trailblazer Megaship, which sells the precise set of commodities used in construction (except those illegal in independent corporate jurisdictions...) and imports nothing
Confusingly, both of these economy types are labelled "Service" in-game, despite having no relation to the imports or exports of the pre-colonisation (and still in use) Service economy.
Hybrid markets (e.g. Refinery/Industrial) have the same effect of each half consuming their own production as in pre-colonisation markets. https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/specialisation/hybrid can be used to model the effects of hybrid economies.
Conversion efficiency
Market influence appears to vary with influencer type and target economy port size, though this doesn't appear to be entirely reproducible and may also depend on other factors.
The release notes https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...te-3-wednesday-april-30.636973/#post-10617083 describe how strong and weak links are constructed between influencers and markets.
Influence levels can exceed 1.0 apparently without cap - "Proportion" is best read not "of the station's total economy" but "of a standard-sized station economy".
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/constructing-a-specific-economy.637363/ seems a usable theory for how influence levels are constructed.
There still appear to be bugs with registration of new constructions and economic calculations so precise measurements are difficult.
Planetary influence types
Planets will replace a Colony economy on a station (but not other types) with their own baseline economy. The relationship of planet properties to economy type is defined in https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...te-3-wednesday-april-30.636973/#post-10617083
Last edited:
