Elite Dangerous | Thargoid Spire System Changes

Paul_Crowther

Senior Community Manager
Frontier
Greetings Commanders,

We hope you are enjoying the changes to the Thargoid War and are feeling the significantly increased effectiveness of activities, such as engaging Interceptors.

After reviewing the war effort progress we have noticed some hesitance with engaging with Thargoid spires in the lead up to the Thursday maintenance. As a response to that an additional change to Spire system mechanics is now live with immediate effect.
  • System progress caused by spread pushback will no longer be affected by regeneration over the Thursday turn
    • Example: A system may be at 30% progress just before Thursday maintenance, with 15% due to spread pushback, and the remaining 15% due to in-system activity.
      • Previously, all 30% would have been regenerated over the turn
      • With this change, only the 15% due to in-system activity would be regenerated. After the turn, the system would be at 15% progress, with the spread pushback preserved
With this change, you can rest assured that attacking any spire system, at any time of the week, will contribute permanently to the war effort.

Additionally, we have a clarification to this point from the 18.06 update notes:
  • Fully taking a spire system will always result in spread pushback to the equivalent of 85% of 10 systems
This means that no matter which activity is undertaken within a spire system, by the time the spire system has hit 100%, spread pushback to the equivalent of 85% of 10 systems will have occurred – there is no ‘completion bonus’.

In addition to the above a fix has also been deployed for the following issue:
  • Anti Xeno Conflict Zones within Counterstrike systems will now correctly be visible in the navigation panel
The rewards for defeating the Titan Hadad will be available later today.
 

Weps

Weps
Maybe Spire activity was / is low because they are now a nonrenewable resource... I for one am reluctant to pay them a visit, for fear of messing up some larger operation I'm not aware of. Then there's the gaming factor - will we get to experience the specific gameplay there, after all of them have been liberated?
 

CMDR RAY-ZOR'SHARP

CMDR RAY-ZOR'SHARP
How about Thargoid missions being given at any Station within a certain distance, say 20/30lys of a TITAN, Alert systems are far and few between, and dropping like fly's.

07
 

Factabulous

Factabulous
Decals in

1717162918900.png
 

Rainbro

Rainbro
I don't know how much of an impact this will really have, but I welcome each step we take away from the Thursday "regeneration". Maybe by the end of the Titans it'll be gone entirely :)
 

Aleks Zuno

Aleks Zuno
Indeed the Thursday date-lines still have a lot of command over what people decide to do! Obviously any strategic Commanders are not going to spend the scarce Spire resource if the result gets reinforced away one day later, so this change addresses that aspect of it quite well (thank you!).

That said, the following is still not quite the case:
Paul_Crowther said:
With this change, you can rest assured that attacking any spire system, at any time of the week, will contribute permanently to the war effort.
Click to expand...

Definitely it is now true just before the Thursday maintenance insofar as the surplus counts for Control systems in the following week, but immediately after the Thursday maintenance we will have some amount of Alert systems absorbing the Spire progress, making the Spire action not quite any time of the week.

I suppose I would turn that into a question—if Spire progress helps an Alert system which then does not reach 100% this week, will the resulting Invasion or Control system still have that Spire progress next week?
 

Krieger

Krieger
The Thargoid War looks more and more like Powerplay: endless tuning of formulae for computing vague attributes (what on earth is spread pushback?) that seem mostly aimed at bookkeepers.

This game desperately needs a change of gameplay mechanics away from boardgames and towards player-driven mechanics.
 

Mrc_NorthEast

Mrc_NorthEast
Power Play 2.0 is coming this year... soon(tm). But we do not have alot of details on it. If you are interested in what has been said (the only info we have) by Fdev in one of the previous Frontier Unlocked twitch streams, check out the vod on Twitch.
 

SergMx

SergMx
Krieger said:
This game desperately needs a change of gameplay mechanics away from boardgames and towards player-driven mechanics.
Click to expand...
In other words, when in a billion mans system someone brings in 500 tons of bread then hunger will immediately stop :)
 

SergMx

SergMx
Mrc_NorthEast said:
Power Play 2.0 is coming this year... soon(tm). But we do not have alot of details on it. If you are interested in what has been said (the only info we have) by Fdev in one of the previous Frontier Unlocked twitch streams, check out the vod on Twitch.
Click to expand...
I'm gonna say something that I think everybody understands. Judging by the changes in Thargoid War and interviews with the developers about PP2, the conclusion is that PP2 will be based on the mechanics of Thargoid War.
(I think I've made myself clear)
 

Krieger

Krieger
SergMx said:
Maybe I just wanted to write that people should never be allowed in any kind of management.
They'll ruin everything they can get their hands on.
Click to expand...
Ah I see.

Players trying to ruin the game for others is certainly a downside and that is happening now already in the form of gankers. But the upside is that the combined creativity of players can make the game more dynamic and maybe bring completely new ideas. If, for example, there was in-game support for organizing events (expeditions, competitions, etc.) that would relieve FDEV from having to think out and orchestrate in-game stories (like e.g. the Thargoid War). They could concentrate on monitoring what players do with such player-driven features and pick up good ideas for further development while curbing bad behaviour.

For FDEV it might be difficult (or even scary) to partly relinquish control of the game but I think the game needs more dynamic gameplay and players can bring that. Just adding more ships and modules to grind (or pay) for and more railroaded stories has gotten old.
 
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