If you intend to colonize a system - why? And which aspect of a colonized system most interests you?

[Jinx Chrome]

to be honest i am not bothered about other players..... if i did colonise such a world i would leave it open for everyone - so long as they could not break it - nothing puts me off open world crafting games more than the ability for other people to just go into your base and blow it up for lols.

but given nothing in elite so far has given players the ability to destroy anything other than ships or avatars which are replaced on destruction, i highly doubt we will get destructable environments.

hell to be honest i would not be bothered if a colonised base or even a player carrier was locked to solo and PG and no one else could even see it. it would be no skin off my nose personally.

I have no doubt that you're nice and kind and want to make a colony somewhere out which is open to travelers.
Rest assured, there are people who are the opposite and want to hog Beagle Point, Synuefe VM-D, c15-10 2a Wepooe AA-A h509 and other interesting locations with their colonies and block them from being accessed. I mentioned it previously, we have that problem already with Rackham's peak (albeit a little bit different but with the same result: a beautiful but virtually inaccessible system).
Yes... I know the arguments coming now: 'in game mechanics allow it', 'play solo', etc. If that are the arguments, then my standpoint (10-30ly colonisation range is good enough) is as valid as theirs to create enough pandemonium.

 

[Jinx Chrome]

[...}. And you could always be asked (more or less) nicely to leave before somebody points a few capital-grade guns at your ship.

I expect some 'less nicely asked'. Keep the shenanigans of the bubble in the bubble

 

[Nowski]

On the range question: thinking about the narrative, long term, humanity should probably be aiming at colonising Galactic Centre.

That's where most of the galaxy's resources are, in the huge number of closely packed star systems there; it's a simply enormous concentration of material abundance.

With the density and variety of systems near to Galactic Center, a 10-30ly colonisation range would be plenty enough for anyone except isolationists and hermits (I'm a bit of a hermit, but .. oh well.)

Just creating a suitably placed Colonisation Contact or two would be enough to kick this off. Trailblazer megaships, if they were to go this route, accompanying the upcoming DW3 is potentially a great opportunity for FDEV to drop this into the game, should they choose to use it.

It's a substantially long term goal, and the initial push to deliver sufficient resources would be extremely onerous, but the eventual reward could be a populated enclave with enough economic capacity to self-sustain further growth, built by players together. Could be a very satisfying thing!

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I have no doubt that you're nice and kind and want to make a colony somewhere out which is open to travelers.
Rest assured, there are people who are the opposite and want to hog Beagle Point, Synuefe VM-D, c15-10 2a Wepooe AA-A h509 and other interesting locations with their colonies and block them from being accessed. I mentioned it previously, we have that problem already with Rackham's peak (albeit a little bit different but with the same result: a beautiful but virtually inaccessible system).
Yes... I know the arguments coming now: 'in game mechanics allow it', 'play solo', etc. If that are the arguments, then my standpoint (10-30ly colonisation range is good enough) is as valid as theirs to create enough pandemonium.

oh i dont doubt it.... its why i do not play online with random players........ there are (very) few exceptions where i am forced to, but in general IME too many gamers are trolling berks. hell even some private games players have managed to hack their way into private servers to troll (the Forest for example).

the point is however due to the way Elite works, no player will ever be able to lock down a system where you just get melted when you arrive unless you actively choose to play with them.
ok sure players CAN lockdown a system in terms of the BGS but that is working as intended imo.... but that wont get you blown up.

 

[Jinx Chrome]

oh i dont doubt it.... its why i do not play online with random players........ there are (very) few exceptions where i am forced to, but in general IME too many gamers are trolling berks. hell even some private games players have managed to hack their way into private servers to troll (the Forest for example).

the point is however due to the way Elite works, no player will ever be able to lock down a system where you just get melted when you arrive unless you actively choose to play with them.
ok sure players CAN lockdown a system in terms of the BGS but that is working as intended imo.... but that wont get you blown up.

Rackham's peak is locked due to carrier placement but yeah, you won't die when just flying into a system.

 

[Kira Goto]

humanity should probably be aiming at colonising Galactic Centre.

Yeah, let’s colonize the region with the most high mass stars liable to set off a supernova and sterilize any system within their ‘kill zone’ routinely.

Admittedly, that is on a universal/galactic time scale but I still don’t think putting yourself into the galactic core to create a permanent inhabited space is a particularly good idea. Though it would perhaps be possible with some careful planning to avoid any of the O-class stars and maybe some of the higher end of the B-mass range (not sure if those go supernova or not), why would you settle there when you can just do it much more hassle-free.

… and I just thought of the hazards posed by the presence of many more neutron stars and black holes as well. Gamma rays are a thing, or if a stray (dead) star happens to get in the vicinity of your colony… bad things may happen. I don’t really think a galactic core colony is actually such a great idea.

(None of those are hazards in-game, yes - but considering it from the realistic standpoint …)

I expect some 'less nicely asked'. Keep the shenanigans of the bubble in the bubble

I suppose in that regard, yes. The politics and power/landgrabs can stay there. (Another reason I’m currently not interested in the colonizing business - expanding the Bubble may be for some but a British Empire simulator to increase human reach for the glory of the crown species isn’t my thing, especially when the lore gives us plenty of reasons to doubt how we act toward alien species with the Thargoids… and the potentially lesser known mudlarks)

Well, and I don’t feel like creating just more turf for humans to inevitably squabble over the rights for that frozen, lightless rock a few thousand light seconds from its parent M-class star.

 

[Nowski]

None of those are hazards in-game

^^^ This.

 

[Kira Goto]

^^^ This.

… but you did write “from a lore/narrative perspective”. And while us players might not care in game consequences or if that colony might get blasted to nothing (or irradiated to hell) by an exploding nearby star in a few centuries, the humans of that universe’s story just might.

 

[Nowski]

… but you did write “from a lore/narrative perspective”.

To be precise: "thinking about the narrative".

And while us players might not care in game consequences or if that colony might get blasted to nothing (or irradiated to hell) by an exploding nearby star in a few centuries, the humans of that universe’s story just might.

Science and technology within the game's narrative are subject to revision in the interests of interesting gameplay. The humans of the game universe are unworried by relativistic time dilation, can fly hard straight at black holes and hand in the exploration data the same afternoon, etc. It's only really a problem if you choose to make it one.

 

[Kira Goto]

Science and technology within the game's narrative are subject to revision in the interests of interesting gameplay

Well, I doubt anything except a starting location restriction imposed by Frontier would stop a player from setting up a colony near, say, Sag A*. Or the range involved to get to the core from Colonia (if for whatever reason you wanted to bring one of its local factions along).

But even considering that our ships are capable of easily withstanding neutron star radiation and jet cones (only in supercruise for one reason or another… gameplay probably? couldn’t come up with a good explanation if I had one), and assuming starports are built to those same tolerances or higher… your carefully terraformed world is still going to be sterilized by that radiation or if a nearby large star goes boom.

Still, as you say, the gameplay takes precedent. Just saying if you want to think about it from a narrative perspective, there are many easier options where you can get your resources from as a human species than the least safe region in the galaxy (Thargoids notwithstanding).

 

[CMDR Snailman]

I plan to colonize a single system to a bare minimum level, just to see how the mechanics work. But beyond that, I have no further interest in colonization, as it does not allow me to colonize the place I actually want to.

I logged in two hours too late today because of RL stuff, and every system I had in mind for my test has already been claimed. Even in my relatively remote corner of the bubble, about any system that features something beyond a few ice balls seems to have been claimed.

 

[Bigmaec]

I logged in two hours too late today because of RL stuff, and every system I had in mind for my test has already been claimed. Even in my relatively remote corner of the bubble, about any system that features something beyond a few ice balls seems to have been claimed.

What did you expect?

I expect a lot of whining to lower the resources

 

[CMDR Snailman]

What did you expect?

Me being home in time, so I could be the one who claims

 

[Archvillain]

I logged in two hours too late today because of RL stuff, and every system I had in mind for my test has already been claimed. Even in my relatively remote corner of the bubble, about any system that features something beyond a few ice balls seems to have been claimed.

That's amateur hour. I logged in 10 minutes after the servers went up (because I wasn't watching status like a hawk) and every system I had in mind had already been claimed.

So, don't feel bad. Thousands of CMDRs were camping that server update

I also had problems with claims repeatedly failing on marked-claimable systems. I suspect that meant other players were already in the claims process when the claim attempt was processed but the map hadn't updated to show it yet

 

[Brieus]

The only systems I'm particularly interested in range from over 700 ly, 5,000 ly or 15,000 ly from the bobble. So I'll probably be waiting for a while.
I would like to at least get "right of first refusal" for systems of which I'm the first discoverer. Maybe with a substantial deposit and/or only one at a time to prevent people from hogging large swathes.