Elite Dangerous | System Colonisation Beta Details & Feedback

[CmdrHurdurdur7]

I don't see the issue with architect income (from my point of view it could also be zero). Established players already had plenty of income, more than they needed to spend. I also don't have issue with ship sizes or the resources needed. It's a big thing to build civilizations in star systems, it should be hard

Overall this part of the game is really cool.

The issues that i have:
1) Our surface settlements and ports' commodity markets are completely broken. Surface outposts are waiting to be properly activated for more than a week now. Extraction settlement alone on the planet selling bioreducing lichen only, how even? We build things (and if we talk about outposts and ports then expensive things). And they just don't work. This is not cool. This also creates the material shortage that is now being solved with trailblazer megaships with absurd stockpiles. And this creates the carrier infestation around them who scoop up things with almost zero effort, putting "regular folks" at a vast disadvantage. Just fix surface commodity markets and we will have no need for those megaships anymore.

2) Lack of documentation (right now there is just folklore, some of it seems correct).

3) Lack of communications from game developers. I understand stuff is broken - give us some kind of feedback when things are expected to be worked out. If you need a month to fix them, ok cool, I will go out exploring for a month and come back when anything starts to properly work.

We get it, new system, there are bugs, they need to be sorted out, it happens. but at least give us healthy comms (and some form of documentation).

 

[EliteTribes]

1. Paid NPC hauling.

I like this idea or something along this lines.

 

[hutandrei]

Did anyone try yet to do a full analysis of the requirements for a self-sustained mini-bubble deep in the black?
I'm talking about the ability to build any kind of station from the local production without having to return to the bubble for certain commodities.
How many assets are necessary to generate each and every type of colonization commodities?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Did anyone try yet to do a full analysis of the requirements for a self-sustained mini-bubble deep in the black?
I'm talking about the ability to build any kind of station from the local production without having to return to the bubble for certain commodities.
How many assets are necessary to generate each and every type of colonization commodities?

You'd need a minimum of five markets:
- agricultural
- industrial
- orbital refinery (insulating membrane)
- surface refinery (CMM composite)
- surface high-tech (muon imager)

In theory [1] you could do this with four landable planets or moons (because both refineries can be on/around a single planet) in a single mid-sized system. You've then got technical self-sufficiency in all needed commodities - any further build up just means you're generating 2000t/day of Steel rather than 1000t so you can build further things quicker. The agricultural, industrial and high-tech commodities are all needed in such small quantities that a single outpost is likely to provide enough.

This would provide everything you needed for orbital construction; there is no alternative but to return to the bubble occasionally to grab a new pile of Emergency Power Cells for certain surface constructions as these are not a standard economic commodity (they're not quite a Rare, but they're close).

[1] At the moment, the issue where all surface ports, regardless of size, randomly pick just three things to export ... you'd end up needing a lot more stations in practice. But that seems fairly clearly a bug and will hopefully be fixed at some point.

 

[aRJay]

And how is the faction from which an architect works determined?

By where they buy the license to colonise the system from it is the faction in charge of that station.

My goal was to get more random people to build the first station. Seeing more profit for themselves, they will help build the first station faster.

Probably but about the only mechanic to do that currently is to park an FC near the build site and place an overpriced buy order for the needed commodities and deliver them to the site yourself or when loaded sell the commodities well below market price and hope the buyers deliver to your building site. That would probably work better with friends.

 

[Jmanis]

You'd need a minimum of five markets:
- agricultural
- industrial
- orbital refinery (insulating membrane)
- surface refinery (CMM composite)
- surface high-tech (muon imager)

In theory [1] you could do this with four landable planets or moons (because both refineries can be on/around a single planet) in a single mid-sized system. You've then got technical self-sufficiency in all needed commodities - any further build up just means you're generating 2000t/day of Steel rather than 1000t so you can build further things quicker. The agricultural, industrial and high-tech commodities are all needed in such small quantities that a single outpost is likely to provide enough.

This would provide everything you needed for orbital construction; there is no alternative but to return to the bubble occasionally to grab a new pile of Emergency Power Cells for certain surface constructions as these are not a standard economic commodity (they're not quite a Rare, but they're close).

[1] At the moment, the issue where all surface ports, regardless of size, randomly pick just three things to export ... you'd end up needing a lot more stations in practice. But that seems fairly clearly a bug and will hopefully be fixed at some point.

... what's the muon imager for?

And yeah... emergency power cells are the real hard mode, compared to cmms and insulating membranes.

 

[hutandrei]

Muon imager is for Mining Outpost, which is a must be to build an Ind. Hub, and for Extraction and High Tech assets.

 

[Jumpin' Jack Flash]

Hi

3. A huge freighter design that can carry 2 to 3 thousand cargo. i.e. Give us the much loved Panther Clipper, please.

Thanks for your attention.

Generally I agree,... though the ships actual size in relation to cargo capacity could present a problem.

I'm intrigued to know why a new large (very large) cargo ship wasn't released about the same time as Colonisation. I would have thought in development this marrying of such a ship with the feature would have been fairly obvious as to the benefits of providing one.

Some of the ships taken from the original Frontier series Elite 2 & FFE could have been used as an example, but having slightly different cargo capacity's to more suit colonisation.
Yes, the Panther 'clipper' (strictly only known as the Panther in FFE2) would have probably been ideal in concept here. Maybe even the Boa Freighter. Perhaps a modified Tiger Trader, designed larger than the original, especially in respect of it's cargo capacity.
Lets also not forget the Puma Shuttle too. Aptly already named for shuttling commodities from source to player construction sites, with a large cargo capacity obviously.

One thing though puzzles me. Why was the new Corsair announced at roughly the same time as Colonisation, Colonisation would have benefitted from a large capacity ship instead, released at the same time as the feature to be directly useful. Instead we are getting the Corsair which as far as I can tell has no direct benefit to colonisation.
The logic here escapes me.
I'm wondering if the impact of supplying these stations didn't register with the developers that this in a lot of cases (Due to the repetitive nature of supply) was going to lead to quite simply put, player exhaustion, and in some cases creating a negative response to this aspect of the feature. If they knew this already as one would assume they did why were the resulting choices made to do nothing about it.
What is stopping them, was it an oversight, or didn't they have the time and recourses.
This is why when the release of the Corsair was announced it surprised me, there doesn't seem to be a connection with that ship in colonisation, all I can gather is that it was loosely designed as a pirate ship?
So they have recourses to use for ship design and function, would those recourses been better used for a dedicated player driven colonisation supply ship?....or perhaps (though I personally think it surely is not the case) in house Ship design is somewhat an unconnected department wise from the game design departments.
In layman's terms...'the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing' some of the time.

Jack

 

[Tifu]

Muon imager is for Mining Outpost, which is a must be to build an Ind. Hub, and for Extraction and High Tech assets.

Oh good, because I have a growing stockpile of these in my outpost and I was wondering what the hell they're for

 

[Jmanis]

Muon imager is for Mining Outpost, which is a must be to build an Ind. Hub, and for Extraction and High Tech assets.

Ok... so you could get by without them if you dealt strictly in outpost economies.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Hi


Generally I agree,... though the ships actual size in relation to cargo capacity could present a problem.

I'm intrigued to know why a new large (very large) cargo ship wasn't released about the same time as Colonisation. I would have thought in development this marrying of such a ship with the feature would have been fairly obvious as to the benefits of providing one.

Some of the ships taken from the original Frontier series Elite 2 & FFE could have been used as an example, but having slightly different cargo capacity's to more suit colonisation.
Yes, the Panther 'clipper' (strictly only known as the Panther in FFE2) would have probably been ideal in concept here. Maybe even the Boa Freighter. Perhaps a modified Tiger Trader, designed larger than the original, especially in respect of it's cargo capacity.
Lets also not forget the Puma Shuttle too. Aptly already named for shuttling commodities from source to player construction sites, with a large cargo capacity obviously.

One thing though puzzles me. Why was the new Corsair announced at roughly the same time as Colonisation, Colonisation would have benefitted from a large capacity ship instead, released at the same time as the feature to be directly useful. Instead we are getting the Corsair which as far as I can tell has no direct benefit to colonisation.
The logic here escapes me.
I'm wondering if the impact of supplying these stations didn't register with the developers that this in a lot of cases (Due to the repetitive nature of supply) was going to lead to quite simply put, player exhaustion, and in some cases creating a negative response to this aspect of the feature. If they knew this already as one would assume they did why were the resulting choices made to do nothing about it.
What is stopping them, was it an oversight, or didn't they have the time and recourses.
This is why when the release of the Corsair was announced it surprised me, there doesn't seem to be a connection with that ship in colonisation, all I can gather is that it was loosely designed as a pirate ship?
So they have recourses to use for ship design and function, would those recourses been better used for a dedicated player driven colonisation supply ship?....or perhaps (though I personally think it surely is not the case) in house Ship design is somewhat an unconnected department wise from the game design departments.
In layman's terms...'the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing' some of the time.

Jack

The Corsair is for Vanguards.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Oh good, because I have a growing stockpile of these in my outpost and I was wondering what the hell they're for

You are about to become popular,,,

 

[Ian Doncaster]

... what's the muon imager for?

A bunch of extraction and research constructions use it (in very small quantities). Just another "flavour" commodity but the surface-only restriction means it takes more care on the specific "self-sufficiency" question.

I'm intrigued to know why a new large (very large) cargo ship wasn't released about the same time as Colonisation. I would have thought in development this marrying of such a ship with the feature would have been fairly obvious as to the benefits of providing one.

Because cargo capacity is the thing in the game with the strongest relation to efficiency.

Double a ship's cargo capacity and you double its efficiency for bulk hauling. Nothing else scales up that fast - doubling jump range comes close, but "getting extremely long distances quickly" doesn't pay directly for very many tasks and it barely affects your actual exploration income; doubling firepower certainly doesn't double your kill rate once you've got past a moderate level because running out of targets starts to be the bigger problem.

So if they provide a ship with even a 1000t cargo capacity, then every hauling task in the game has to be balanced around the assumption that all the serious haulers will be using exactly that ship and the T-9 and Cutter instantly become obsolete unless that ship has some absolutely massive downside (e.g. its capacity is provided by a single size 10 optional internal and nothing else; it only has a class 4 FSD slot [1])

If Frontier want us to complete colonies 25% faster, then they can either provide us with a 1000t cargo hauler - and also potentially have to rebalance every other cargo-based activity in the game too - or they can just reduce the cargo requirements for colonisation by 20% and let us make the same number of trips in the existing big freighters.

[1] And to be honest, neither of those are in any way a downside if what it's being used for is an in-system carrier loader/unloader.

 

[Tifu]

You are about to become popular,,,

On a closer look, the outpost has Microbial Furnaces - not Muon Imagers

 

[Xenia_K]

On a closer look, the outpost has Microbial Furnaces - not Muon Imagers

and I just wanted to ask what type and recipee..... not un-important if you want an autarc bubble

 

[Tifu]

and I just wanted to ask what type and recipee..... not un-important if you want an autarc bubble

I was wondering what they're for - specially since I intend to get around to upping my science outpost output eventually.

 

[Vasja]

... what's the muon imager for?

And yeah... emergency power cells are the real hard mode, compared to cmms and insulating membranes.

Muon imager is for scanning Egyptian pyramids and finding internal cavities in them

 

[BDelacroix]

Uh, excuse me. There is a breach of logic here, people helping to build the station do not earn anything from it, but only spend money to pay money to the architect.

Not entirely true. The construction materials are sold for about 20% over average.

 

[o2thaZ]

Feedback/Wishes incoming:

- Increase Initial population of Coriolis. (It seems there are plenty of living spaces (visually) especially compared to Asteroid)
Therefore: - Decrease building cost of asteroid station. (preferably both)

• Decrease building cost of Tier 3 orbitals or add a bigger hauler.
• Add descriptions to Installations in System map and remove useless information (So we can see what kind of installation it actually is)
• Add overview for building requirements in ship panel
• Allow tier 3 points to be used on other projects in system
• Clear and to the point documentation on what influences what and so forth
• Increase range of trade data on system map.
• Make Hubs dockable (if only for architect)
• Remove discounts (they are not worth it atm, and who cares if you got billions, seriously)
• Increase payouts when delivering (they are not worth it)
• Add a surface hub for cmdrs (your own base)
• Add domed settlements so we can build and exploit on high temp metal rich planets.
• Improve the station naming generator. Preferably a choice for First and Last name.
• Remove obnoxious obstacles at orbital building sites.
• Smarter ATC at colonisation ship (So we can actually land at the side we arrive at)

More incoming later.

 

[Tifu]

Feedback/Wishes incoming:

- Increase Initial population of Coriolis. (It seems there are plenty of living spaces (visually) especially compared to Asteroid)
Therefore: - Decrease building cost of asteroid station. (preferably both)

Agree that asteroid bases should be cheaper to build. Let's see:

T1 planetary port - 35 tons of material (approx)

T2 Coriolis - 53 tons (approx)

How about 45 tons for the asteroid base?