Is Colonisation Pointless?

Cmdr Travers

Cmdr Travers
Okay, so here's a question for you. Is colonisation in its current form utterly pointless?

So here's my own thinking, because I think it is. For something to have value in the game there has to be an outcome for the player. PowerPlay gives an outcome in the form of modules and rewards, trading, combat, and exploration have an outcome in the form of ranks and credits. Even CQC has an outcome in the form of rank.

With colonisation though, once the colony is built to your satisfaction, let's face it even the game won't let you go on expanding it forever... then what?

For colonisation to be meaningful it has to serve a purpose.
  • It can't be a staging post for a squadron because it can't be a squadron asset, so there's no real personal investment from anybody other than the system architect.
  • It can't be a way to trade things that can't be found anywhere nearby because you can't build far enough from existing inhabited systems, and it can't be used to trade rare goods.
  • They can't be used to mine or create commodities and materials that can be stored and used by yourself or your squadron.
  • It can't be a super-interesting place to visit because they can't be built where there are black holes, notable stellar phenomena, or in a nebula because we're locked into a small part of the galaxy where there are none of these things, not unless you get a whole lot of players together and spend a considerable amount of time grinding out to such a place as we're seeing with Distant Worlds 3.
  • It can't be a place to purchase interesting or specific ships, modules, or goods because even the system architect has no control over any of that.
  • It can't be a way for a player group to spread their name and faction into surrounding systems, as we have no control over how the BGS works in colonies and you can't create a new player group to run a colony.
In short, a colony currently can't be useful or interesting in any way to a player or player group, because they just all act in exactly the same way as all the other systems around them.

So if there's no positive and ongoing outcome from the colony other than to see your own name above the door... why do they exist and what's the point of them?
 
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Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Cmdr Travers said:
Is colonisation in its current form utterly pointless?
Click to expand...
Yes, but at least it's a different sort of pointless to the previously available game activities.

Pre-4.1, if I hauled cargo, it would produce one or more of the following effects:
- increase my credit balance (I have more than enough already not to care)
- increase my rep with a minor faction (I could just go back to Colonia where I'm already Allied with everyone if I really needed that)
- change the BGS states of a minor faction (I generally have no reason to care which faction controls a system or what its ECO slider position is)
- make some very incremental change in Powerplay (my Power is already large enough that I don't need to make it larger to apply my rank bonuses effectively)
- complete a mission and get engineering materials (I have more than enough already not to care)

4.1 adds to that
- construct a station or similar building, populate entirely new systems

Now sure, there are already enough stations and systems in the game that that's pointless too, but at least it's a novel form of pointlessness and I can make sure that the surface constructions are in interesting places to look at rather than "the middle of a featureless plain".

Cmdr Travers said:
It can't be a super-interesting place to visit because they can't be built where there are black holes, notable stellar phenomena, or in a nebula because we're locked into a small part of the galaxy where there are none of these things
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If it didn't take an inordinate amount of effort to get there, then it still couldn't be one of those because (on average) someone else would have colonised it first.

Once the DW3-sponsored chain out into the Barnards' Loop area is complete, of course, anyone will then be able to expand off it to make further "inside a nebula" systems.

Cmdr Travers said:
It can't be a way for a player group to spread their name and faction into surrounding systems, as we have no control over how the BGS works in colonies and you can't create a new player group to run a colony.
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It can if you already have a faction or are willing to adopt an existing one.

The largest minor faction by systems controlled is already four times bigger than the pre-colonisation record. A lot of that isn't even their "own" work - it's putting up systems that others want to chain from, so random players also expand them everywhere.

My own system is controlled by a minor faction (in a rare exception to me not really caring which one is in charge) which it could never have reached otherwise.

On this bit specifically:
as we have no control over how the BGS works in colonies
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All our normal influence-adjusting mechanisms work exactly as they did elsewhere, plus we get to customise the widths of the bands in the SEC and ECO sliders for present factions and pick the system's security level, plus we can build assets which support our favoured forms of BGS activity and avoid the ones we don't, plus we can expand into new systems with a fraction of the previous work. What further control do you want, specifically?
 

SteveWW57

SteveWW57
Although I have no interest in doing it, I see the current state of colonisation as a time to build a bridge of outposts to an area that is interesting (hundreds if not thousands of LY away). Once there a mini bubble can be created when normal service resumes.
 

Therinfluffs

T
It's kinda pointless but there is alot of money to be earned in unloading people's carriers for them. I've been finding materials in carriers beside colony ships marked as low as 5-25% market value and the colony ship will always purchase them at around 120-130%. Assisting other's colonies can be very lucrative.
 

BlueOrange

B
Cmdr Travers said:
  • It can't be a place to purchase interesting or specific ships, modules, or goods because even the system architect has no control over any of that.
Click to expand...
Not true. Different economy types list different things in the shipyard. The relationship is not well-understood, but it's real. Build a refinery, and there will be mining lasers for purchase. Build tourism, and you can buy a Dolphin...
 

Mr T

Mr T
I just think there's something gratifying about building stuff and then looking back at it and saying "I built that". That goes for real life as well as in games like this.
 

CMDR Johann Bererund

CMDR Johann Bererund
Cmdr Travers said:
It can't be a super-interesting place to visit because they can't be built where there are black holes, notable stellar phenomena, or in a nebula because we're locked into a small part of the galaxy where there are none of these things, not unless you get a whole lot of players together and spend a considerable amount of time grinding out to such a place as we're seeing with Distant Worlds 3.
Click to expand...
Not true. I have one system colonized with a black hole and a neutron star, and another system with a great view of a nebula. Both done solo, though I expanded from other people’s expansions.
 

Scubadog

Scubadog
Value is expressed from the perspective of the customer. To the "One Percenters" in ED who "have everything and don't care", you've simply illustrated the reality that money doesn't guarantee happiness or contentment and more likely results in boredom. For the rest of us, however, different things, different pursuits, different activities constitute a value proposition we are willing to accept. Climbing a mountain is "pointless"....unless the activity itself IS the point. I happen to hate all sports--they are pointless to me and bring zero value to my life. But for many, many others there's huge value.

The entire list of "It can't be..." statements are merely a person's opinion of the value propositions. Player factions have been and are actively working the BGS to expand their territories to other systems---which avail them whatever value the faction has decided makes it worth working the BGS. The same is true of colonization, but in a slightly accelerated fashion. I know I'm not alone in the opinion that there shouldn't be a limit on where you can colonize, other than those naturally imposed by trying to meet the 24 hour clock for deploying the beacon and the time limit to complete your first station. Carriers demonstrate the distance limitation makes no sense. I can fly from Colonia to the Bubble in 4 hours, so, again, distance limitation is arbitrary. While I do help my faction with their colonization efforts, my primary lives in the Colonia region. I really want to simply colonize one system that plants our factions flag on it. That, all by itself, is the "point" for me. I happen to also be a dog lover, and I would like to build stations that memorialize pets that have passed away. A completely pointless thing to anyone else in Elite Dangerous. But not to me.

So, if colonization has no point to some, that's fine. Make suggestions to Frontier of what a "point" would be for you. Some of us find enough value as it is.
 

Esprits4

E
Is colonisation pointless?

Well, when you build you first outpost station for free in the middle of nowhere (no construction pts needed) that's great.
Then you need to build and earn tier 2 pts so you build for them and use tier 2 to earn tier 3 points etc etc, Great!

Then you realise that building a Coriolis or an Orbis around all the lower stuff won't realise any benefit in the bigger station. Apparently, you have to build the Coriolis first for it to benefit the smaller stations??????? So how the FOOK do you do that if you have to earn the points first????

Then there's guys who've built big stations and they don't even have a shipyard! what?
 
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