Elite Dangerous | System Colonisation Beta Details & Feedback

Got my first system after finishing an outpost (Hyades Sector NT-I b9-0). But when planning to build more installations, the new construction sites do not show up in supercruise. I already logged out of the game and also jumped out and into the system again, but nothing works.
 
I own a fleet carrier [FC] I also own a Type-8 [T8] and Type-9 Heavy [T9].

I have colonized two systems and I’m closing in on completing my third.

Some of this has been trial and error, and I imagine I’m not executing with 100% efficiency, but here are my takeaways:

#1- Don’t bit off more than you can chew. Start with a modest station and get yourself off the countdown clock.

#2- Source materials as close to your job site as possible. I have seen FCs hovering over CMM hotbeds and I’ve done that as well, but a T9 with a single jump from supplier to colonization ship [CS] can do the job. I use the T8 for medium pad locations and to break up the boredom of driving the T9. The difference in flight quality is amazing.

#3- Spreadsheets are helpful. I use one to track when I hit a surplus in my FC versus CS deliveries.

#4- Fleet carriers help. You can park them near a supply source, or as a midway station between source and the CS. Personally I am parking mine in the same system as the CS so I can just do runs inside the same system. I have been stocking surplus supplies in my FC to use in the future.

I think #2 is the most important. If your source is within 30 to 40 LY of the CS then there’s a good chance you can deliver in a single jump.

That’s my $0.02.
^^ THIS - though doing the math about Time requirements, FC gets really helpful only if the delivery distance is more than 3/5 Jumps (empty/full)
 
That's a mistake/bug. All installations like that are not dockable, but display landing pads in the construction menu.
I think its no mistake but bad semantics - the landing pad info refers to the construction-site/construction ship, not to the finished Build. A pit I fell into as well ;)
 
Yeah, I have also set up 5 constructions solo in my system, and the pads are always accessible to Large ships, at least until the constructions are complete. At that point you get what is listed, and the old construction site gets wiped and replaced with the new site with just medium or whatever pads described. As far as I can tell.

As an aside, I don’t think there is a constructible large planetary dock outside of Horizons ports? Pretty sure about that.
 
I suspect but have absolutely no way to confirm... that it's somehow tied inextricably to the definition of the "primary station" that determines ownership, which has come about as a general rule for all systems regardless of their inhabited status.
I think you are right.

Although not very obvious to the player, the first facility created doesn't "count" as a station at all.

In my system I have completed 3 facilities. My first facility is in orbit. The other 2 are surface facilities.

Colony - Completed Facilities.png
 
I think you are right.

Although not very obvious to the player, the first facility created doesn't "count" as a station at all.

In my system I have completed 3 facilities. My first facility is in orbit. The other 2 are surface facilities.

View attachment 419348
This is also consistent with what I have discovered.

Those of us who have made it further down the colonization pyramid / chain need to start collating all the information we have had to intuit to progress on our own. I have a feeling there are a lot of solo players that have even more solid info on the rules and regulations of this new system here, and I hope they decide to post too.

For example, I have a potential 11 orbital / 22 planetary system and my biggest issue is making sure I cover all the prerequisites for installations and resources, while also having higher security. In order to build a security installation, you need your have an orbital relay first. If you want a tourism station, you need a tourism planetary facility. All systems are also going to likely want a satellite installation, and some farms to increase quality of life.

That said, I hope you have a lot of time and patience to grow your little zen garden. 2-3 months and I should have alrai sector mx-t b3-5 filled out on my own, and then do it all over again somewhere new.

This is dream gameplay for trading and Trucking Simulator fans such as myself, and as such I also understand why some people will be repelled by it.
 
Last edited:
Huh... I do kinda like that... double the range, double both the credit cost and the materials required, maybe out to some reasonable max of a couple hundred LY? Or something to that effect?
Yeah, it's like how could they extend the range while keeping it balanced? A lot of people have commented on the range.

So something like where you can go 50 ly out but it's costlier and have to wait a month or two before claiming another system, or longer for 100 ly. That and other people can't build off your claim for a significant while, and can only go 15 ly, to prevent instant long range daisy chains. Maybe you can only claim one far from bubble system but can eventually daisy chain 15 ly off it. So basically everyone gets a chance to leap far from the bubble but you're locked into that choice for a long time. It would sate the explorer's urge and keep things balanced.

I don't expect any significant changes now, they're probably gonna gather data for awhile. I just hope in the future there are improvements to the system like with claim range or variety of station completion methods. Improvements that keep player enjoyment and balance in mind.
 
Really, really grateful for my T-8 as construction resources become scarce and stations (no large pads) thousands of LS from the system sun or out in the planetary boondocks become the best sources.

My T8 in-game:

View attachment 419174

My T8 in my mind:

View attachment 419175
The T8 is indeed wonderful. But, it carries less than half of what my T9 does. There are irreducible time costs in travel.

I am stuck sumo wrestling a T9 to planetary ports. :(
 
This is also consistent with what I have discovered.

Those of us who have made it further down the colonization pyramid / chain need to start collating all the information we have had to intuit to progress on our own. I have a feeling there are a lot of solo players that have even more solid info on the rules and regulations of this new system here, and I hope they decide to post too.

For example, I have a potential 11 orbital / 22 planetary system and my biggest issue is making sure I cover all the prerequisites for installations and resources, while also having higher security. In order to build a security installation, you need your have an orbital relay first. If you want a tourism station, you need a tourism planetary facility. All systems are also going to likely want a satellite installation, and some farms to increase quality of life.

That said, I hope you have a lot of time and patience to grow your little zen garden. 2-3 months and I should have alrai sector mx-t b3-5 filled out on my own, and then do it all over again somewhere new.

This is dream gameplay for trading and Trucking Simulator fans such as myself, and as such I also understand why some people will be repelled by it.
Sumo wrestling a T9 down to a planetary port makes me want to play American Truck Simulator instead...

My guess is that making players go this gameplay loop is for getting people to learn how to land at planetary ports. Like, most of us did that years ago, guys.
 
Sumo wrestling a T9 down to a planetary port makes me want to play American Truck Simulator instead...

My guess is that making players go this gameplay loop is for getting people to learn how to land at planetary ports. Like, most of us did that years ago, guys.
Yeah, the way my trade Cutter and my T9 are outfitted, my cutter hauls about 10% less, but I'm flying it anyway because it's so much more pleasant to fly (and the time I save breaking mass lock and closing to docking distance each trip makes up some of the difference). But of course, a fully outfitted cutter is a billion credits and is locked behind a rep grind, so it isn't an option for everybody.
 
Of course, traditional BGS actions would have you experiment to work that out, but the investment needed in colonisation means that experimentation is very hard.

It's not really a good design in that regard.
FDev are historically very poor at explaining the rules of their own game, forcing players to work them out via trial and error.

See also: half the powerplay mechanics, where some foot data types but not others can be used for reinforcement and at no point does it tell you which ones, and the invalid ones instead of saying "this can't be used for reinforcement" will just say "out of range" instead.

The worst part is that because it's blackboxed to this degree there's no way of knowing whether this is intended or if it's actually a bug.
 
Yes, not knowing the eventual benefits of developing the colony makes enduring the grind harder, since we can't even assure ourselves it will be worth it in the long run.

In brighter news, CMM composite supplies were quietly buffed several times over??? Or did player activity just spontaneously drop through the floor...
 
it's not skill to trade with surface stations.

it's just extra time and tedium. that's like saying there is skill in pointing to the escape vector target.

there's no skill in space trucking. it's docking at a station, clicking some ui buttons on a spreadsheet interface, then undocking and repeating effectively the same thing at another station. the only thing that's sets people apart is how much they can stand to focus on it after the nth cycle vs the TV shows they're watching.

is there skill in exploring too? no.

can someone do it with less wasted time than a brand new player? sure. but that's not a difference in skill. if you have two runners and one is a little faster, you don't say it's skill that makes them faster. with trading, there's no special technique to master... it's literally what newbies learn how to do when they first play and that's it. the only thing that changes as you play is the scale at which you space truck in a given cycle.

it has nothing to do with what i enjoy. it's just how the game loop works.

edit: maybe running in general isn't a good analogy, since there is skill differences between pro's and regular people. let's assume we're talking about people who know how to do the activity properly.
Dude. You need to tone down the rage and get off the forums. Reading through 20+ pages and you have contributed NOTHING other than arguing and telling people the way the play is dumb to you.

You say Space trucking is dull and numb. It is to YOU. Others plan routes, scout optimal locations, optimize the ship for cargo hauling, and evade interdictions with a ship that's worse than a brick with wings.

Then there is the face that there's no skill in exploring? Before the recent QOL updates. I was using a habitable zone calculator that used the distance a planet was from the sun vs its heat, size, class, and radius. Now I want you to see how well you can spot Grey/White Bacterium on an Ice planet and tell me there is no skill.

You ain't no pro in anything with how much you are mouthing off. The louder you are the more you are "LOOK HOW GOOD I AM AND YOUR NOT".

You have done nothing but be aggressive to the other forum members constantly for 2 days on a feature thats 4, let me repeat that, 4 DAYS OLD. Chill out on on your fellow CMDRs or several of us will either block or ask that you be moderated. If you dont like whats being done or the way the game is. You dont have to be here. You constantly complaining, along with everyone else, is not conductive to what the devs are asking for in this 95+ page cluster of a thread.


At this point no useful information is going to be handed to the devs with useless chatter like the above quoted. Can we please get back on track. Ohh and his rebuttal in 3... 2... 1...
 
On the question of first system facility location, for example:

Does anybody know if a cmdr gets to specify location if their very first system facility is on a plant surface?

It's clearly stated by the game director in the livestream (23:04):

you will be able to select your primary starport, they will all be space ports of some type for the primary one and the location will already be predetermined on the target system

So no ground ports for the primary facility and no choice of location by design, for whatever reason.
 
Dude. You need to tone down the rage and get off the forums. Reading through 20+ pages and you have contributed NOTHING other than arguing and telling people the way the play is dumb to you.

You say Space trucking is dull and numb. It is to YOU. Others plan routes, scout optimal locations, optimize the ship for cargo hauling, and evade interdictions with a ship that's worse than a brick with wings.

Then there is the face that there's no skill in exploring? Before the recent QOL updates. I was using a habitable zone calculator that used the distance a planet was from the sun vs its heat, size, class, and radius. Now I want you to see how well you can spot Grey/White Bacterium on an Ice planet and tell me there is no skill.

You ain't no pro in anything with how much you are mouthing off. The louder you are the more you are "LOOK HOW GOOD I AM AND YOUR NOT".

You have done nothing but be aggressive to the other forum members constantly for 2 days on a feature thats 4, let me repeat that, 4 DAYS OLD. Chill out on on your fellow CMDRs or several of us will either block or ask that you be moderated. If you dont like whats being done or the way the game is. You dont have to be here. You constantly complaining, along with everyone else, is not conductive to what the devs are asking for in this 95+ page cluster of a thread.


At this point no useful information is going to be handed to the devs with useless chatter like the above quoted. Can we please get back on track. Ohh and his rebuttal in 3... 2... 1...
I say ignore him. Like I told the guy earlier, it is not that serious. Its a shame he wants to turn a forum about feedback into a contest about who's playstyle in a video game is better. We are all here trying to enjoy the game and give our feedback and we dont need childish arguments. At this point just ignore him and if there is a block feature for the forum or something just do that.
 
Back
Top Bottom