New start location suggestion

[Zephrow]

Hello there, folks! I have a suggestion for a new player start location.. Can you guess it? If not it's Colonia. Why would I suggest this? Well since Colonia underwent so many 'expansions' ( CEI Project ) and has been supported by a large number of CMDRs since Jaques Station malfunctioned it would be a safe assumption that many of us would like to experience the 'new colony fresh start' and not to actually travel 23000 LY in order to do so. Of course there's the CCN and its outlander Challenge but that doesn't really offer that experience because on the way to Colonia you can sell off your exploration data and skip so many ships..[money] And there are people there mad enough to do the trip without scanning anything but doing so would drive most people insane ( Stock Sidey + Fuel Scoop )

Personally I don't see why this would be a bad thing for the game.. ( One huge disadvantage being the engineers ) But engineers can still be added right? One or more CGs in Colonia that would add engineers? The number of systems in Colonia grew due to CEI, there are missions, RES sites, trading, signal sources.. there are many things to do in Colonia and the background there will surely be unique for new players.
And regarding to the immersion/realism starting new there could mean that you were transported there either via Tourism or other ships. For example when I first left for Jaques I took 2T of 'Slaves' on board and 'liberated' them there and doing so I've gained a special rank in the CCN. In other words I have brought colonists to Colonia

The list could go on, but I ran out of creativity and my English isn't splendid so I'll leave that to you fellow CMDRs... What do you say? Yay or Nay?
Here's a screen from my 2nd visit to Jaques that could be easily transformed into a post card
[IMGUR]SfnJJ[/IMGUR]

 

[number2301]

It wouldn't be a bad idea, and they could even tie it in with making the start locations make sense. We probably don't need seperate Horizons and non-Horizons start locations any more, so replace the lot with random Fed/Alliance/Imp/Colonia systems. It was meant to be random from the very start, and would get rid of the whole seal clubbing issue.

 

[EValve]

So, for your convenience, new players should spawn 23.000 ly away from the current inhabited bubble representing the vast, vast majority of players?
New players will now have to face a 23.000ly trip to get some Pvp action and engineers. Just so you could experience the sight seeing...

We don't need to split the hot-spot locations... It's sparse enough as it is... I prefer it to remain some distant island with sure some nice maybe exclusive features but nothing core related. If it starts to have too much importance the amount of time we'd spend travelling between them would just deteriorate the game that much more.

 

[nathanc213]

So, for your convenience, new players should spawn 23.000 ly away from the current inhabited bubble representing the vast, vast majority of players?
New players will now have to face a 23.000ly trip to get some Pvp action and engineers. Just so you could experience the sight seeing...

We don't need to split the hot-spot locations... It's sparse enough as it is... I prefer it to remain some distant island with sure some nice maybe exclusive features but nothing core related. If it starts to have too much importance the amount of time we'd spend travelling between them would just deteriorate the game that much more.

The new players wont be forced into starting there, it will be optional.

 

[Zephrow]

So, for your convenience, new players should spawn 23.000 ly away from the current inhabited bubble representing the vast, vast majority of players?
New players will now have to face a 23.000ly trip to get some Pvp action and engineers. Just so you could experience the sight seeing...

We don't need to split the hot-spot locations... It's sparse enough as it is... I prefer it to remain some distant island with sure some nice maybe exclusive features but nothing core related. If it starts to have too much importance the amount of time we'd spend travelling between them would just deteriorate the game that much more.

I can assure you that PvP exists in Colonia, In fact there's even a PvP discord channel where people request duels and then share their thoughts about them. And on the engineers side, maybe Colonia will receive engineers in the future? Even if not you don't really require engineers in order to play the game.. You can do plenty of things even in stock ships that's why the base version of Elite still exists.

 

[EValve]

The new players wont be forced into starting there, it will be optional.

I'm all in for optional.

I can assure you that PvP exists in Colonia, In fact there's even a PvP discord channel where people request duels and then share their thoughts about them. And on the engineers side, maybe Colonia will receive engineers in the future? Even if not you don't really require engineers in order to play the game.. You can do plenty of things even in stock ships that's why the base version of Elite still exists.

I don't mean to say it doesn't exist in Colonia, I mean to say there's little to no interest in comparison to what the main bubble has to offer.

If its optional np, but as much as you enjoy perhaps the sight-seeing, I won't enjoy facing a 23kly trip to get to the main core of influence as a welcome screen.

 

[Lucius-Darcia]

Is there already any imperial or alliance start location? I think that this would be more important than colonia =P

 

[insanephoton]

Is there already any imperial or alliance start location? I think that this would be more important than colonia =P

Leaving aside some of the kickstarter option as they aren't available to new players, there are no Imperial or Alliance start options. IIRC there's a random choice of 2 systems for the vanilla game and a surface start option for Horizons

 

[IamNickMan]

*dies* hits wrong button..... ah SHHHugar I'm in Colonia!! Now what!?!
I don't think it'd be fair to put random new players who first launch the game in Colonia, if it is even by choice. A lot of challenges there, I think the journey to colonia is fine the way it is.

 

[Lestat]

For right now I think it fine the way it is. Our story starts when you found out you are given a sidewinder. and a few 2k credits or Kickstarter you get better ship and such.

 

[Donald Duck]

Not a bad idea.

Especially for (new) players who do not have that much time to play, who want to enjoy and learn genuine aspects (trade, fight, explore) of the game in a limited and therefore very overseeable space, and get rich by doing so.
After some weeks, when they have amounted several ten or hundred millions, they travel to Sol bubble and take on the rest.
Not to talk about grinding an Explorer Elite rank by harvesting the neutron fields and have Jameson Memorial access upon return...

However, one could do that in the bubble as well or sit out millions at Quince, but who hasn't met one of those nouveau riche mostly harmless cutter cmdrs blocking space?

Only possible pain ita: Suizide-winding takes you 22k lys from Sol, though that's supposed to change with 2.4 anyway, concerning the rebuy cost.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

It's an interesting idea, and the region is probably *just* at the stage with 2.3.10's additions where it's viable at all. But still, maybe a bit too soon?

The start option would need some very clear warnings that it's a 'challenge' start, though - the biggest risk around that is that the reasons why it's a challenge start don't become apparent until after the early game, so people might well put a few weeks in and then realise why they should have read the warnings.


Other than the individual challenge I can think of a few potential wider issues:
1) The systems universally have low NPC populations, with even the major settlements still being below 500,000. This means that trade and BGS are generally pretty unstable - a small number of commanders can have a big impact. With the current player population this is still pretty stable - but if the option was popular the NPC populations would need to grow significantly across the board to avoid permanent trade shortages.

2) There's currently no defined mechanism for adding player minor factions to Colonia, nor is there really space for them to go into. At the moment the CEI mechanism appears in the medium-term at least to have given space to everyone who wants it and has a large enough group to qualify under the new rules in the Sol bubble. If new players are encouraged to spend a lot of time in Colonia, that would need to change.

3) Similarly a larger Colonia player population would presumably justify more frequent Colonia CGs - but since these are 'instead of' Sol bubble CGs, that might be unpopular. (Especially since there's a strong expectation that Colonia CGs will "do something" which isn't quite as present for all the Sol ones)

4) No-one would ever be able to dock at Dervish Platform in a medium ship in Open ever again


As regards the 'challenge' start - as above, most of these only really start to bite once you have enough money to be thinking of buying a medium ship.
1) Engineers as already mentioned, but even if Colonia did get an engineer (at a tiny fraction of the size of the Sol bubble I wouldn't expect more than one) they probably wouldn't cover everything or at the higher grades. There's also a lack of top outfitting, so the base module being engineered would be starting further back at B- or C- grade.

2) No superpower-aligned systems. There's a broker at Colonia to trade in bounties, but the data points just accumulate. This means no Fed or Imp ships (which takes away a big chunk of the medium and large hulls, especially on the combat side), and no Imperial Shielding or Core Dynamics Composites for the hypothetical engineer if they did get a G5 upgrade which needed them.

3) No Powerplay. That's mostly a so-what for many people, but it does mean swapping the 15% LYR discount for a 20% Colonia surcharge in outfitting and shipyards, with the corresponding increase in rebuy costs.

4) As above, CGs are uncommon, so that's one source of early-game funds gone.

5) There are some mission generation oddities because certain things present in the Sol bubble aren't present in Colonia (mainly affecting missions involving tourist beacons) which could be frustrating to a new player (99% of "famous explorer" missions heading to somewhere within 500 LY of Sol has led to a lot of frustrated experienced players, for that matter)

6) If you did want to get more involved in Sol bubble stuff, freewinder taking you to Colonia rather than Sol space is probably the less convenient way round for splitting your time between both bubbles.