Guardian Structure - intended team gameplay loop

Patrick MacNaughton

P
Hi there. We (2-3 commanders) did some guardian structures lately in U14. I started playing elite again in U14 after a 1,5 years
break from the game. So I am not sure if something changed in the game regarding guardians in between.

My main question about guardian structure sites is: are the pylons supposed to be recharged again if one commander had scanned the orb and gets his blueprint or not? (Edit: without resetting the instance)

I will ask more detailed questions after a wall of text :p

Since I asked in different communities already and get always a similar answer of:
"You have to reset the instance to get another blueprint" - that is not my question. It's all about successfully recharging the pylons, nothing else.
Successfully means:
  • if you start shooting at one, the 5 minutes timer starts
  • if you charge one fully, 2 minutes are added to any successful charged pylon

solo gameplay loop:
  • charge all pylons
  • fight sentinels
  • drop the guardian relic to the altar
  • scan the orb
  • get the blueprint
  • reset instance

To make sure everyone is reading the next lines and don't yell: You can not get another blueprint in that instance again without resetting it.
You are absolutely right - there is no doubt that the same commander never ever gets another blueprint from that instance without a reset. Period.

But that is still not my question ;-). Even in Solo gameplay you can charge the pylons again, but not always successful, it fails a lot more often than it succeeded.
In some cases you'll be successful and you can even summon the Orb again and yes, you are even able to scan that buddy again, but you cannot get another blueprint out of that orb in that instance.

Q: "Patrick, since you asked your main question already in the very beginning, why tf you still writing an endless wall of text?"
A: because of that:

As I told you, I've played the game one and a half year before and am pretty sure (but not 100%) that we did the following
team gameplay loop:
  • charging all pylons
  • fighting sentinels
  • dropping the guardian relic to the altar
  • CMDR 1 scans the orb
  • CMDR 1 gets his blueprint

-> pylons went back to the uncharged stance
-> orb moved back into the altar

  • charging all pylons successfully again
  • dropping the guardian relic to the altar
  • CMDR 2 scans the orb
  • CMDR 2 gets his blueprint

-> pylons went back to the uncharged stance
-> orb moved back into the altar

  • charging all pylons successfully again
  • dropping the guardian relic to the altar
  • CMDR 3 scans the orb
  • CMDR 3 gets his blueprint

-> pylons went back to the uncharged stance
-> orb moved back into the altar

  • resetting the instance
  • repeat

With that in mind we started some days ago in U14 with the same procedure and the very 1st run was successful, each of us could scan the orb and everyone got one blueprint in the same instance. We reset the instance after, started over again and than it happened: we charged one pylon again but it does not start timer correctly. After we fully charged the pylon the timer
was set to only 5 minutes and counting down. The next pylons could be charged but nothing happened. There was no x of 6 pylons activated message and no additional time was added.

We thought: bad luck, we caught a bug, lets reset the instance.

Same procedure as before. 2nd run, 1st round -> everything works perfect. Then we tried to charge the pylons again. I noticed, that as I shot one pylon, the 5 minutes timer did not start.
So I told everyone to stop immediately and we started to investigate. So every commander headed out to a pylon and tries to activate the 5 minutes timer. Luckily one was successful and so he continues and fully charged the pylon. We get another 2 minutes on top - so we continued our procedure and activated all pylons. The orb emerged, the 2nd commander scanned it, he gets his blueprint and we started our 3rd round of the 2nd run (without resetting the instance).
The first pylon (there was no specific order, it was just one random first pylon) did not trigger the 5 minutes counter. But we now thought we know how to counteract the bug. We searched again the one pylon that starts the 5 minutes timer when shooting at, we found it eventually and charged it completely and even more important: we charged it successfully. We continued, we successfully charged 4 pylons before pylon 5 charged up fully but did not count. Since this procedure now started to become the less efficient approach, we reset the instance after one commander had scanned the orb. So we did pretty much the solo gameplay loop since it was more efficient and 100% reliable.

Now the more detailed questions:

1.1 Is it a bug that you sometimes can recharge all pylons again or
1.2 is it a bug that you (more often) can't recharge all pylons again and therefore cannot summon the orb again?
2. Is there maybe an internal timer which resets the pylons some time after they're getting back to their uncharged stance?
3. Was the team gameplay loop never (intended to) working differently from the solo gameplay loop and had a wrong memory only?

@zikolach: since you wonder about the same topic in another different thread you might be interested in the answers here.

Kind regards,
Patrick
 
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Hooplah

Hooplah
Good grief TLDR yet I read it.

The slow version. Get near the orb placement site and two pylons will show up. Don't shoot them. Then run around the Guardian site getting all the other pylons to show up not shooting them but taking out the Sentries in your SRV. Your ship near with point Defense takes out incoming missiles and cover plus using the SRV brake makes taking out Sentries easy. Go with preming ammo if you want to take them out a little faster.

After learning a site reset and shoot every pylon as you find them.

Update 14 bug SRV weapons won't dislodge an artifact in a tower. In Odyssey on foot with a weapon will.

Two players in Open mode? One runs around in an SRV while the other provides air support with beam lasers taking out sentries when they show up. Reset and repeat then switch places. Everyone wins.
 
Last edited:

Northpin

Northpin
Patrick MacNaughton said:
My main question about guardian structure sites is: are the pylons supposed to be charged again if one commander had scanned the orb and gets his blueprint or not?
Click to expand...

Nope. It doesnt work.
You need to reset the instance before being able to redo the site.
And you can reset the instance:
  • by having everyone log off (and dont log back on unless everyone in the instance have logged off) then log back on
  • by having everyone getting into supercruise then back to the site.

With good coordination 2-3 players can clear a site and get a blue print way faster than a soloer.

However, getting the blueprint is not the only goal of doing guardian sites.
One also need to farm the required materials as in Obelisk Data (alpha, beta, gamma, delta and epsilon patterns), Guardian Technology Component, Guardian Power Cell, Guardian Power Conduit, Guardian Wreckage Components and Guardian Sentinel Weapon Parts

So, clearing the site of the materials requires some faffing around - and if you have to faff around to get the materials, you may as well do the site solo since it's about the same time
 

zikolach

zikolach
Patrick MacNaughton said:
1.1 Is it a bug that you sometimes can recharge all pylons again or
1.2 is it a bug that you (more often) can't recharge all pylons again and therefore cannot summon the orb again?
Click to expand...
I already have an answer. Here is it - it is a courtesy of the guardian site to allow (or not) to charge pylons more than once, therefore everyone should be happy if it worked more than once.

But I have another question - is it only me who experienced all sorts of bugs with comm panel (not loading avatars, not being able to select players in list etc etc)? It could be I messed up with free look button as I used to look around with mouse while driving (getting less annoyed by camera movement).
 

Patrick MacNaughton

P
zikolach said:
I already have an answer. Here is it - it is a courtesy of the guardian site to allow (or not) to charge pylons more than once, therefore everyone should be happy if it worked more than once.
Click to expand...
Ok, thank you. Did you came to this conclusion or was there a more or less "official" statement? Do you know if it was working at some time ago more reliable? I thought we did the structures always using recharging the pylons in a team until everybody scanned the orb one time, then we reset the instance. I can't remember resetting the instance after every scan (in a team) but its more than one year ago :-(
zikolach said:
But I have another question - is it only me who experienced all sorts of bugs with comm panel (not loading avatars, not being able to select players in list etc etc)? It could be I messed up with free look button as I used to look around with mouse while driving (getting less annoyed by camera movement).
Click to expand...

No, I have almost zero problems with the comms panel but playing with HOSAS and eye tracking. Only inviting people to the team fails due to "commander not reachable" sometimes.

Apart from this the guardian structures have some serious bugs. Materials stuck in the towers, one tech component in one of the module site gets rocketed out of the panel and artifacts are not targetable using SRV.
 

zikolach

zikolach
Patrick MacNaughton said:
Ok, thank you. Did you came to this conclusion or was there a more or less "official" statement?
Click to expand...
No, that's not "official" statement :)
I don't remember unfortunately whether it was possible to activate pylons more than once 2+ years ago when I was getting my FSD booster. I also don't remember if there were 5 (?) relics at the same site at that time available. And skimmers seemed to be more interesting/dangerous.

Devs are not playing their game (anymore) and there is (or seems to be) no QA team at FDev and even community managers are not engaged in the (in-game) activities with the community.
 

Viridian-

Viridian-
There was a time that you could kill all the sentinels, pick up all the relics, unearth all the pylons, then charge them all and get the blueprint, then just charge the pylons again, and get the blueprints and only need to reset the instance if you wanted to collect more materials or ran out of relics. Apparently this was not intended since they patched it out. It was definitely a long time ago though. I remember doing it, then I didn't play for a couple years. I always found the material hunting to be more infuriating then the pylon charging anyway. Scan the box, scan the box, scan the box, quit game, start game, scan the box, scan the box, scan the box, quit game, stare at screen, time to find those technology components. There are 2-3 here... somewhere. Maybe. I'm not counting the one that is behind the panel that frickin launches itself into orbit when you shoot the panel.
 

Kzak

Kzak
As for the obelisks, a relog-a-thon is the fastest way to get what you need in terms of pattern data, even if it's not much fun right then and there.
 
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