Please make Burning Station Rescues mean something

Problems Identified

Rescuing passengers and items from burning stations gives no rewards and has no effects beyond the standard ones. You get rep and influence with that faction but nothing else.

As a result there is no incentive to do these rescues over any other missions. Beyond the novelty and the feelgood factor, which don’t last, they make no difference to the wider game.

We are the PDES, the Post Disaster Evacuation Service. Before Operation IDA and others deliver commodities to attacked stations to restore their services we are the people who go in and rescue passengers and items while the stations are still burning. We would like our efforts to mean something too, which is currently not the case.

Unlike Operation IDA, with targets to aim at by knowing what commodities need delivering, we have no such targets and therefore no tangible results of our efforts that we can use to encourage others to join us.

Regardless of how many rescues take place the stations burn from Thursday to Thursday and we understand this cannot be changed. However, this does not mean there should be no effect at all.

This is a missed opportunity for the game, the playerbase and groups like ourselves. A few small changes would allow us, those who deliver commodities and those who fight the Thargoids to work together in a more coherent way that would enhance the experience for everyone.

Suggestions for Improvement

1. Implement passenger targets for each burning station. In this way PDES would have targets as Operation IDA does, with visible in game effects to help recruit.

2. The Search and Rescue Contact as it stands has no useful function in terms of goals or gameplay. It is time consuming to collect these items from burning stations and many people engineer their ships specifically for it. To discover that doing this only affects an entirely arbitrary figure for the whole galaxy with no wider relevance, a figure that apparently exists but which nobody will reveal, comes across as an insensitive dismissal of the effort involved. It is not an encouraging message.

Targets for escape pods and the like could be implemented along with passenger targets. The EDMC plugin developed by PDES shows this can already be tracked.

Adding these targets to the game is a straightforward and easy way to indicate progress. They will not reduce the time the station burns for but such targets could be easily connected to the targets for commodities to be delivered afterwards. A faster response would therefore reduce the commodities needed to restore the station, perhaps by a few thousand or so. This represents the idea that fewer facilities are lost by more timely rescues while still giving groups like IDA plenty to do.

Once implemented these targets would be like any other. Targets for burning stations could be announced along with the current commodity targets for stations that are recovering, then run without further manual intervention. The commodity targets for the stations once they have stopped burning could be announced as usual the following week, adjusted to reflect the part played by rescues.

Benefits to the game, the playerbase and the developers

1. One of the biggest dilemmas of a game like Elite is trying to encourage a sense of continuity so that actions by players have meaning in the game, but without forcing a narrative on them that is scripted like a quest driven RPG which would defeat the object of an “open world”. It is a delicate balance but the above suggestions would achieve that balance for this part of the game, achieving a big result with minimal effort.

Implementing them would create a “story” that would require no manual running by the devs, building on what exists in a simple and obvious way without forcing narratives on it.

2. If more was done to tie together those who fight off the Thargoids, those who do rescues from burning stations and those who deliver commodities to restore station services, it would allow groups that are at present dissociated from each other to work together, grow their squadrons, recruit new members and encourage coordination between them.

Again, this would create new opportunities for “meaningful interaction” by small additions to what already exists, in line with how the game already plays so no radical rewrites would be necessary. This would add continuity, community and role playing opportunities to what are at present isolated exercises. It would be preferable to the abstract concepts we have at present which offer little or no incentive to achieve them, and which people are unlikely to dedicate themselves to without there being more to it than vague statements about "helping."

Since most players agree that the burning stations have been done really well with excellent sound and atmosphere, to have no real consequences of rescuing anything from them seems like a massive own goal from both a business and a gaming perspective that fails to fully capitalise on such a well received idea and one of the few things players agree on.

I hope these proposals will be taken into consideration by the devs to make this part of the game more engaging for players, and with their permission would like to repost to various Discords and Reddits etc. to get further suggestions and feedback from others.

Meanwhile all criticisms and suggestions from the good people of this forum are welcome, as long as they are constructive.

Thanks in advance for any response.

CMDR Phill P, Squadron Coordinator PDES
 
Ah, so that's how it happens. What indicators do you get that the Thargoid incursion has been beaten apart from this?
 
EH?!
I thought that at least this had an invisible effect - that delivering emergency goods (water, basic medicines) and (perhaps) evacuating people reduced the amounts needed to repair the station later. That there was some point to this beyond fun and roleplay.

A source close to Operation IDA confirmed that they have previously rescued 100,000 people from a burning station and the repairs were identical to what they were when they rescued no-one.

This is a disappoint.
 
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Yes, it's been hard if not impossible to judge what effect any of it has. Delivering basics to the station while burning seems pointless and even unachievable when the targets are so high (86000 clothing, 4 million water etc). There has been speculation that rescues help to drive off the incursion but we cannot get a response from the devs on this either, our requests for clarification have been consistently ignored. It's very frustrating. This post has been up for weeks. It has been expressed politely, it has not called the devs names or questioned their competence or insulted them as so many complaints do, but they have not even had the common courtesy, decency or basic manners to acknowledge it.
 
Yeah I would love a count down to say how many remain. Plus a reward for getting everyone off before the next Thursday cycle.

Reward maybe half the materials needed. If we dont get any off then, blast doors come down and station off line for a month and full materials needed.

If we try and fail in time then, normal materials required to get back online
 
How do you know what the targets are for water and clothing?
138932
The burning stations have a commodities market, the number in demand is what I mean.
 
The burning stations have a commodities market, the number in demand is what I mean
Aaah. I rather hope that's a bit pessimistic and that the 'demand' column might more than the (invisible) need column.

Aha! An example..
Cherry Port in Aganippe is under repair. [Here's the IDA Spreadsheet for it.]
It needs 84,691t of Beryllium for the repair, but [eddb shows the demand] for Beryllium is 999,999.

Makes sense really, they need stuff for more than repairs.
 
I would also like the Rescue Megaship missions to remain until the station goes into repair mode.
At the moment, as soon as the Incursion is beaten back, they disappear, and yet passenger rescue remains.
 
Galactic Pathfinding Group worked with OP IDA in the Pleiades the first time Cyllene Orbital burned. They rescued a ton of people from the station (I wasn't involved in that head count). The station resources to repair the station were about 1/3 of their regular cost. While there wasn't any direct correlation, the resources to fix were dramatically lower than usual.

And let's all be real here, you picked up passengers left and right and did your part, now go buy your federal Corvette and move along 😋
 
Galactic Pathfinding Group worked with OP IDA in the Pleiades the first time Cyllene Orbital burned.
Yes we did.
Atlas System: 8021 Missions moved 106318 passengers.
Celaeno System 823 Missions moved 10349 passengers.

Cyllene in Atlas then required 559,000 tons to repair.
Artemis in Celaeno then required 636,000 tons to repair.
Both within expected range of 0.5 million to 1.0 million required to repair.
 
Yes we did.
Atlas System: 8021 Missions moved 106318 passengers.
Celaeno System 823 Missions moved 10349 passengers.

Cyllene in Atlas then required 559,000 tons to repair.
Artemis in Celaeno then required 636,000 tons to repair.
Both within expected range of 0.5 million to 1.0 million required to repair.

Forgive my numbers, my memory is getting poor in my old age lol. That being said, much thanks to Op IDA for the work they do! Between the trucking and data collection they do, I'd say Op IDA is the hardest working squadron in ELITE
 
Yes we did.
Atlas System: 8021 Missions moved 106318 passengers.
Celaeno System 823 Missions moved 10349 passengers.

Cyllene in Atlas then required 559,000 tons to repair.
Artemis in Celaeno then required 636,000 tons to repair.
Both within expected range of 0.5 million to 1.0 million required to repair.

Thank you for this. Since both were within the expected range to repair it could be having an effect or it could simply be that fewer resources were RNG'd for that station. Still inconclusive then, but good to know nonetheless.

And let's all be real here, you picked up passengers left and right and did your part, now go buy your federal Corvette and move along 😋

I unlocked the Corvette and Cutter a year before doing a single rescue. Rescues interested me as something to do in the bubble when I got back from DW2. However, we have no problem with anyone who does rescues as a way of grinding rank. It all contributes. We'll even wing up with them for a bit of painite mining so they can buy whatever ships they want. Many of them stay afterwards and continue to do rescues but if they don't that's fine too. Like any other activity in the game people do it as much as they wish to. We're not draconian about it, that would be silly. We all get enough of that IRL, we don't need to give it to each other in a game.

On that note the Corvette is an excellent rescue ship. With a Grade 3 Low Emissions Power Plant and Grade 3 Clean Drives, both with Thermal Spread, it can sit in a burning station all day long and never get above 65% heat, so it needs no heatsinks. Its agility in the station is ideal for collecting pods then turning on a dime and landing to pick up passengers, and it can hold up to 212 passengers per trip depending on loadout.

We are a dedicated rescue group that enjoys the role playing aspect, see it as an alternative to fighting Thargoids and don't feel the need to disparage other players for their choices while doing so. IDA and the AX groups do a great job and we welcome more coop between everyone who helps in one way or another to repel the Thargoid attacks. It's all part of the same overall process so the more information we get about it the better.
 
They do mean something to the virual passengers, not getting virually burned in a virtual fire in a virtual station and you get paid for it.
 
I think we should have to return them to the search and rescue board at the station then they can keep a rolling number of how many rescues are done
 
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