Pitiful Outfitting Options in Colonia

Colonia has been going for a while now, must more than a year at least. Many player factions decided to set up shop there.

Why then are the outfitting options so pitiful? There is nowhere in the entirety of Colonia that offers sizeable A rated equipment.

I thought I would head out there, unlock the new engineers and buy ships out there to engineer and build a little fleet again from scratch. I can't do this because parts are non existent.

Why bother putting all these engineers out there when the selection of modules that are available out there aren't even worth engineering?

Colonia seems like a pointless waste of time.
 
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Colonia has been going for a while now, must more than a year at least. Many player factions decided to set up shop there.

Why then is the outfitting options so pitiful? There is nowhere in the entirety of Colonia that offers sizeable A rated equipment.

I thought I would head out there, unlock the new engineers and buy ships out there to engineer and build a little fleet again from scratch. I can't do this because parts are non existent.

Why bother putting all these engineers out there when the selection of modules that are available out there aren't even worth engineering?

Colonia seems like a pointless waste of time.

Jaques includes one of the finest mining equipment retailers in the galaxy. (Primarily because when it first crash-jumped into Colonia there was a mining CG and I don't think FDev had the heart to make players fly a 44,000 LY round trip, before neutron star boosts and Guardian FSD boosters, with the second leg in fully equipped mining ships just to re-equip :D)

Other than that though yeah it is pretty bleak. It's supposed to be the frontier and I'm sure there are players out there who already feel it's expanded too much from its original state, but there's a significant population out there now and it doesn't seem unreasonable that there would be at least one high quality outfitter there at this stage in the region's development.

In the finest traditions of humanity, a small group of settlers should really be allowed to leave Colonia and set up a colony say 10K LY away for those who want the feel of the original Colonia before the expansion began.
 
With Frontier's obsession with community grinds, er I mean goals... You would have thought by now there would be goals in Colonia to improve the selection of outfitting options.

I travelled to Colonia yesterday, bought a small run about and quickly realised the state of affairs of outfitting. After going on EDDB and seeing the nearest module was 21k LY away there's nothing much left to do except log out until Q4. Frontier would probably be happy with that result though, they've got my money already and there would be less load on the server.

Seems like you don't understand Colonia.

Seems like Frontier don't either. Engineers are pointless out there if there are no modules to engineer. Gotta love that illusion of choice though.
 
With Frontier's obsession with community grinds, er I mean goals... You would have thought by now there would be goals in Colonia to improve the selection of outfitting options.

I travelled to Colonia yesterday, bought a small run about and quickly realised the state of affairs of outfitting. After going on EDDB and seeing the nearest module was 21k LY away there's nothing much left to do except log out until Q4. Frontier would probably be happy with that result though, they've got my money already and there would be less load on the server.



Seems like Frontier don't either. Engineers are pointless out there if there are no modules to engineer.

There are modules to engineer - you just expect the best of everything.
The whole ethos of Colonia is to make do with what's available - that's what differentiates it from the Bubble.
 
And furthermore - luxury!

We had it tough. Junkyard Vipers and Eagles, two stations, nothing to do and nobody to do it to...except it was the best time I ever had in ED, in spite of - maybe even BECAUSE of - the lack of luxury. We had loads of fun doing silly things in ships and SRVs, and hanging out.

And you tell young folks that today, and they won't believe you.
 
Being one system with a handful of stations in the middle of nowhere might have something to do with the fact that there isn't every module and ship available..

Anyway, I don't know what the point of keeping a fleet up there would be, but you can always buy all the ships in the bubble, and use ship transfer...
 
So a colony has to be at the same level of equipment and supply as the bubble that has been around a lot longer?

Give it time to build.

Looks like you did it backwards you should have checked on EDDB first and then travelled there if it suited your needs.
 
Why bother putting all these engineers out there when the selection of modules that are available out there aren't even worth engineering?
Engineered B-rated kit is still pretty powerful. Sure, the ability to get masses of surplus cash means that most players consider A-rated equipment the only sort worth fitting as neither cost nor availability is normally an important factor, but that doesn't mean B/C-rated kit is bad if you can't get the A-rated bits.

For example, on an Anaconda, the difference between A-rated and B-rated thrusters is 8m/s top speed and 4% extra agility. Applying DD5 adds another 80 m/s and 35% extra agility (to either thruster type, assuming a mid-weight fit otherwise). Does it really matter at that point that you only have B-rated thrusters? 99.99% of the time, no.

On a Vulture, the recharge on a 5A distributor is 4.3/2.5, whereas a 5C only manages 3.6/2.1 - but a 5C with charge enhanced G5+experimental is 5.4/3.2. Not as good as the 6.5/3.8 you'd get from the same mod on a 5A ... but the engineers - once upgraded - will be considerably more valuable to the region than having A-rated outfitting would be.

I have a G4-engineered B/C-rated Krait that I built entirely out here. It's not quite as powerful as my G5/A-rated Python, but the difference is largely irrelevant in practice.

With Frontier's obsession with community grinds, er I mean goals... You would have thought by now there would be goals in Colonia to improve the selection of outfitting options.
There have been at least three community goals in the last two years leading either directly or indirectly to significant increases in local outfitting, plus a couple of "free" upgrades reflecting general development of the region. The original baseline was "a badly-damaged tourist station with a population of 75", though, so going from that to "Shinrarta but without the permit requirement" would be a little unrealistic.

The total population between all systems in the region is just over 9 million and all the infrastructure has had to be built up from nothing - even with the strong high-tech focus of the economy that's not going to get a full selection of A-rated equipment in a hurry ... but it comes pretty close with everything except some of the larger internals fully available somewhere.

There'll be further upgrades in future, but what there is can already equip a ship for any purpose except serious PvP, so it's not as if it's a top priority.

Colonia seems like a pointless waste of time.
It is not, shall we say, designed for min-maxers - thankfully, since the salt from "why do we have to travel 22,000 LY to get the best X" would be unbearable.

(Similarly, given your quote above on CGs, a region that you have to work on to improve may not be for you?)
 
I have been there recently and was astonished at how much it has developed. I was able to purchase and build an acceptable Krait for exploring, by visiting different stations. It wasn't engineered, of course, but still acceptable to go out and explore with because after 100 lyrs there is new stuff to discover.
 
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