Hire NPC pilots to collect colonization materials

[Screemonster]

Thing is... alternate activities should be just as time-consuming... that's what balance looks and feels like in a game. That doesn't result in everything "being the same"... rather it lets you tailor play to your preferred playstyle, where that playstyle is an option.

For example... FD might baseline "It should take 10 hours of effort to build an outpost"... whether that's 10 hours of hauling, 10 hours of escorting NPCs or 10 hours of... i dunno... mining?

But your proficiency and expertise applied to that then looks like 20 hours of hauling (because you suck at sourcing rarer goods), 8 hours of escorting (because you're a jet combat pilot) or 12 hours of mining (because you just enjoy a casual mine without minmaxing stuff). So yeah, alternates shouldn't be less time consuming than hauling the goods yourself, unless you're not good at hauling goods.

The suggestion might then be "Well ok, what's wrong with paying NPCs and it takes 10 hours?".... the issue there is the completely botched economy. It's safe to say whatever might be a "reasonable" cost could be earned in about 1 hour of Massacre Stacking[1], or 100 hours of ordinary mission running.

The issue then becomes the realtime factor. Not many people can do a 10 hour session on a game in one day... so that might look like four days straight of 2-3 hours of play each day, or 2-3 hours once a week across four weeks. The choice is on the player there. FD probably have a "baseline" standard for a player where they've decided the time taken for a solo player to do the different types of main orbital are Outpost: Day(s), Coriolis: Week(s), Orbis: Month(s), thus we get the 1 month timer for the initial port; doable, but not easy for a solo player.

But given the choice of that, versus "Do one hour of massacre stacking and NPCs make it arrive 10 hours later"... that's way less playtime (which, as a business, is FD's goal[2]). It would be a no-brainer to do that rather than actually do the hauling or whatever.

It's absolutely against FD's (or any game dev's) interests to implement content[2] in a new update only to have a way to go "Play the old content instead and just pay currency to skip it[3]"

[1] insert your favourite unbalanced meta here.
[2] I'm not going to go in to bat for how FD achieve that, only know that it's an obvious goal of any game company; to have players playing their game more, rather than less.
[3] Unless you're whale-hunting... I think higher of FD than that though.



I think FD have been pretty clear that this was always a group activity that would be hard, but doable, as an individual. People like to work towards those big goals... that's why I reference the Thargoid War. I don't think anyone complained about "not being able to solo a Thargoid-occupied system" and needing to be able to pay NPCs so it could be done solo... I don't see any difference with this either. It's impossible to have an activity which, when identical in process, is easier for individuals than it is for a group. Such outcomes result in groups operating as individuals and coordinating externally to simply do things faster.

Honestly, part of me wonders if FD shouldn't double-down and increase the costs of coriolis and orbis by an order of magnitude or two, to emphasise that those are really intended as group efforts?

There's several mechanisms that can be used as an individual to encourage others to help too.... when my group (who is now, mostly, disbanded) decided to support a particular faction, we geared it up in a way that meant it would net a lot of passive assistance from random passer-by's. When I played solo in EVE, I didn't try and compete with the big groups, I worked out how to work my way into their logistic loops with services that reaped profits which could be used to incentivise others to aid my activites without ever being part of a formal group.

Yeah, while I can see there being alternatives to "just haul these massive amounts of stuff", I don't think "just pay a bunch of NPCs to do it with the massively abundant credits that players have spent the last decade optimising out the fastest methods of obtaining" is the solution.

In the other threads like this I've always figured a less direct approach would be more appropriate:

Rather than just automating the work away completely and dealing with the awkward questions around simulating them (would these haulers take their stuff in open? Appear in solo instances? What if one gets shot down by pirates?) I'd prefer to see a more subtle representation of this sort of thing.

Use the commodity markets, local economies, and delivery missions.

Someone sells a bunch of commodities at a market that are in demand elsewhere in the system? Especially if you sell more goods than there's local demand for at the markets? On the economic tick, those goods get snapped up by the local market and taken to chip away at the construction requirements.

The presence of construction sites should generate source&return and delivery missions at local stations that directly contribute to progress.

A station local to the system that produces particular commodities should slowly, over time, eat away the requirements for those commodities (at the cost of those goods being at lower supply on the markets while construction is ongoing)

And so on. And so forth. If you want NPC activity to help you build your stuff, there's a whole economic simulator in the game that could be tapped into.

ie, the alternate method should be slower than delivering directly, in exchange for being able to do things like dump a cutter's worth of semiconductors or whatever at whatever large pad markets are available instead of having to drop 48 here and 53 there at every construction site in the system, or build some agricultural settlements so you can forget about the fruit and vegetable requirements on any further constructions in the system. That sort of thing. With the right starting markets, theoretically the system would build itself eventually, but it would require careful planning and also have the issue that maybe you don't want to (or can't) get a refinery going in your nice scenic ELW system with no landable bodies.

 

[CMDR Kira Shadowheart]

Thing is... alternate activities should be just as time-consuming... that's what balance looks and feels like in a game. That doesn't result in everything "being the same"... rather it lets you tailor play to your preferred playstyle, where that playstyle is an option.

Honestly, part of me wonders if FD shouldn't double-down and increase the costs of coriolis and orbis by an order of magnitude or two, to emphasise that those are really intended as group efforts?

There's several mechanisms that can be used as an individual to encourage others to help too.... when my group (who is now, mostly, disbanded) decided to support a particular faction, we geared it up in a way that meant it would net a lot of passive assistance from random passer-by's. When I played solo in EVE, I didn't try and compete with the big groups, I worked out how to work my way into their logistic loops with services that reaped profits which could be used to incentivise others to aid my activites without ever being part of a formal group.

This version of what you say sounds more like pure masochism... And I'd bet it would cause a mass exitus of ED as the Colonization becomes more like a corporate expansion for massive squadrons or community groups. The next alternative to timers or NPC haulers, would be incentivizing other players to pitch in with better payout. If FD were to just up the amount paid for claims and either triple or quadrupole the material payouts for the delivered resources at the construction ships, even new players could have a piece of the pie.

This way, new to mid rank players get to make easy cash as space truckers and solo players with tons of credits to spend get help in building their stations and ground bases. If the solo player still ends up doing all the work, he's just basically got all his extra credits refunded. Also meaning, that if that player wants that refund, they better get to work before anyone notices.

Other than that, I would not want to see the required materials for big stations go up. Preferably, they should go down, since with my carrier being stuffed full of building resources; while having most of the services removed, it can't even hold the entirety of an outpost. It comes close, but not quite. Things could get better possibly if FD doubles the amount of space carriers can hold, but even that will mean tons of extra time spent filling them before emptying them in some far-off system.

People already have massive complaints and beefs about how grindy this game is. Adding more might just make this game even less attractive. So take this however you will, I think our time in game could be better spent elsewhere doing things that are more fun than always and forever space-trucking to build stations for the rest of our lives. Also, they need short cutsenes or time-lap vids of each different type of construction to be played upon finishing builds. Makes people feel like they accomplished something.

 

[Jmanis]

This version of what you say sounds more like pure masochism...

Pure masochism? Do you not enjoy playing the game?

Because if you enjoy playing the game, and there were diverse options available (which I personally think Colonisation could do with), what's the problem?

If the idea of something that takes, say, 10 hours, makes you balk because the idea of playing the game for 10 hours over a month sounds awful... maybe you just don't like the game? How many hours have you put into the game so far? What's the longest sum of time you've spent doing something? Or is 10 hours your hard cap for doing anything, and once you hit that, that's it, game is done. Like... I am genuinely curious... outside of Colonisation, what's a standard session of ED look like for you? An hour of running missions? An hour of mining? An hour of exploring?

Many, many people who play this game have hours numbering in the hundreds, if not thousands of hours. What's 10 hours in that context? Grind is only grind if you aren't enjoying it, and I'll never understand the mentality that drives people to do that. When I don't enjoy something... I don't do it anymore. That's why I mostly walked away from the game the last few years. Unfortunately, most people don't seem to have the self-regulation to do that.

The point that seems to be lost is that this isn't a "grind", it's a logistics problem... and a collaborative one at that. If hauling endlessly is your yum, more power to you, you're going to love this... if you hate it... there's still options (although as I said, more options would be good)... but the idea that whatever FD is surfacing as content should be able to be "skipped" with a sum of credits is really dumb.

The next alternative to timers or NPC haulers, would be incentivizing other players to pitch in with better payout

You can do this yourself already. Shove an FC next to the station and offer a competitive buy order for some things. We're literally talking about a suggestion to use credits to hire NPCs, when you could set a buy price of quadruple the amount yourself, if you wanted to, easily funded through whatever meta activity you wanted to do. Then it's just flipping back from your FC to the station... or negotiate that as part of some offer to others.

Other than that, I would not want to see the required materials for big stations go up. Preferably, they should go down, since with my carrier being stuffed full of building resources; while having most of the services removed, it can't even hold the entirety of an outpost. It comes close, but not quite. Things could get better possibly if FD doubles the amount of space carriers can hold, but even that will mean tons of extra time spent filling them before emptying them in some far-off system.

So.. there's a world where, within a given system, you could have NPC's "do stuff" within a given system because you invested some time and effort into standing up, say, a megaship or other infrastructure servicing the system... gain benefit from doing the activity(s)... not because you threw a billion credits from massacre stacking at the problem. It's literally just asking for a "skip" button.

The Thargoid War wasn't successful as an update because Johnny Nobody could solo a Titan and win the day for humanity... it was successful because it took a large, collaborative effort over a prolonged period. Colonisation is no different in this regard.

Again... how successful would the Thargoid War update have been if it was literally just 10,000 players going "hey NPCs, billions of credits... hooray we won".

 

[oblivionmanman 2476]

a good idea get the npc to do the work then go and play a different game till they complete,that sounds real fun,lol.dont think it will happen

 

[Jmanis]

a good idea get the npc to do the work then go and play a different game till they complete,that sounds real fun,lol.dont think it will happen

I mean... that's that's the crux of it right? If the value-add of Colonisation isn't some activity to do, what's the point of it. Paying NPCs to make the problem disappear is trash design.

I'd 100% be cool with other options to support colony development... but not to just make that activity disappear.

 

[AngryAntz]

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[oblivionmanman 2476]

fantastic idea cmdr angry ant WHY havnt the devs worked it out,gosh fancy the ultimate edition as i am a lazy player,new cmdr,basic sidewinder, game presses the button game over,lolo,wish i had thought of that.nice one mate

 

[tomalus]

do something to add more game loops to help building instead of mindless hauling
I dont care if a player group will build stuff fast,I like playing solo as many others.
We are probably the majority. Give us options to not grind 50 hours for 1 station

 

[Jmanis]

do something to add more game loops to help building instead of mindless hauling
I dont care if a player group will build stuff fast,I like playing solo as many others.
We are probably the majority. Give us options to not grind 50 hours for 1 station

That's funny... myself as a solo player, and a good deal of the solo players I chat with, have no problem with the current setup. So I guess solo players as a whole must be cool with the current setup.

Or maybe, we could speak for ourselves and not try and falsely represent a large faceless mass of people.

 

[oblivionmanman 2476]

im a solo player although if a on line friend needs a hand,ill happily help him with his haulage,but none of them are racing to fill there system,im slowly filling my fc with the stuff i need to build a outpost,meanwhile doing pp2 stuff.plenty of time as my system isnt going anywhere,so dont make boring by grinding non stop.

 

[aRJay]

You have some good points, but wouldn't escort missions be just as time consuming as moving the goods yourself? Though it would somewhat solve the sourcing problem. Hmm.. hard to say. However, a timer count for one build at a time would offer a sure way for even mid rank solo players to get things done in a timely fashion, but add in some of your ideas that could knock time off the clock beyond that isn't a bad idea either. (Sigh)

I can't seem to get over the idea that there should be some sort of countdown timer that helps solo players progress fast enough to stay relevant and interested in the game. If the game only caters to the well connected, then it could have a bad effect on new and solo players.

Yes but frankly the game needs content that is beyond the easy reach of new players or there is no incentive to stay around and become experienced players.

Also there is a lot of buzz about colonisation but that is because it is new, there was a lot of buzz about PP2 when that was new as well.
But all the existing game activities are still available and provide for years of play.

A timer showing how much progress you have made and how long until the 4 week deadline would be fine, something playing the game for you wouldn’t.