Station Repair Incentive

[domingo]

Currently there is no substantial reward to help with Station Repairing.

People will rather rescue people because they can grind superpower ranks.
Will fight Thargoids because it gives combat rating. And it is fun.

However hauling brutal amounts of materials to repair damaged station lags behind.

Request: Implement mining/sourcing/donation missions that counts towards station repair.
And at the same time improves reputation with mission giver (and probably station owner).

 

[RELSPI]

It's the right thing to do.

 

[Berpol]

I have enough money so I just do what is fun, what I have time for and what is the right thing to do.
Biggest limiter is time.

 

[CMDR Yates]

+1 Agreed.

 

[Old Duck]

It's easier and more rewarding to build new stations in the middle of nowhere than it is to repair stations in populated systems.

I personally think the Bubble is too big, and thus I welcome the complete and utter destruction of 2/3 of all systems in the Bubble. It's time for the Thargoids to stop screwing around - DESTROY these stations so that nothing but debris fields remain. Supposedly Thargoids love to collect people, so time for them to scoop up all the people they could want from these populated planets.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

I spent a few hours assisting IDA and hauled thousands of tons myself, just to see how all these things work out.

And I got to say, there's a few issues indeed :

• trade profits/payout yielded by the Stations is often very poor considering their circumstances , I can easily find far better-paying Trades between perfectly normal Stations
• without Player support, absolutely nothing moves (indicates SuperPowers/Powers/Controlling Factions/Minor Factions don't even lift a finger? Doesn't make sense and doesn't motivate)
• seems even a "freshly fixed" Station needs a "Thargoid Thursday" to get fully restored, so the success of the own work isn't even visible until Days into the future
• as opposed to evacuating Passengers, no Materials can be attained nor Reputation gained with other Minor Factions
• no recognition/thank you/global reward whatsoever; you're just running an unpaid "2nd/3rd Job Simulator", mostly altruistic

So for RP reasons or just for kicks, the mechanics involved work - but from a Gameplay perspective it's a hardcore grind and with new damaged Stations popping up all the time it strongly feels like a proverbial Hamster wheel combined with a strong dose of Sisyphus.

After doing it for 2 days, I flew my assets back home. Reason : lack of motivation, felt way too unrewarding and grindy considering the titanic effort.
Great idea but IMHO that whole deal needs some spice to make it worthwhile and especially yield suitable motivators for longer-term engagement that the mechanics demand.

 

[domingo]

It's easier and more rewarding to build new stations in the middle of nowhere than it is to repair stations in populated systems.

Sad but true.

I personally think the Bubble is too big, and thus I welcome the complete and utter destruction of 2/3 of all systems in the Bubble. It's time for the Thargoids to stop screwing around - DESTROY these stations so that nothing but debris fields remain. Supposedly Thargoids love to collect people, so time for them to scoop up all the people they could want from these populated planets.

That might be done by second Thargoid wave - Klaxians ... the Oresrians we are fighting now are just retreating from them, while trying to keep humanity more-or-less intact so we will give some resistance to second wave ...
I'd wager that Oresrians are throwing themselves at us so we can learn how to fight Thargoids - thus we could do some substantial damage to Klaxians.

/tinfoil_hat_off

 

[sandkid]

Personally, I think the concept of the IDA should be made into an actual in-game faction on par with Aegis and Powerplay or others of similar scope. This faction is only present in rescue-ships and stations in emergency or repair. Here's the rough idea:

New Faction Subset: Galactic Factions (As opposed to Empires and Galactic Powers, the current two subsets)

• Galactic Factions are massive organizations with specific agendas that reach across the entirety of colonized space
• Galactic Factions offer rewards to committed commanders supporting their causes (similar to PowerPlay)
• A commander doesn't pledge allegiance to a Galactic Faction - they support them much like typical corporations

Rewards

• Galactic Factions have tiers of rank, much like PowerPlay, associated with reputational gains and work completed
• As rank increases, access to factional resources increases also
• These resources can come in the form of increased vendor availability, remote submission of bonds or data, unique modules or ships, unique decals and paintjobs
• Rank decays with time (like powerplay) and requires regular commitment to maintain or increase

Galactic Faction Global Support
- Galactic Factions are not competing with each other, as in PowerPlay, but they are ranked in terms of support from the community. The higher the rank of a faction, the more its agenda impacts the overall climate of the galaxy.

Starting List of Factions...

• Galactic Search & Rescue (A Division of the Pilot's Federation)
• The Pilot's Federation
• The Canonn Research Group
• AEGIS (Thargoid Research & Response)
• The Dark Wheel
• The Imperial Consortium (Traders in Slaves)
• The Federal Trade Association (Traders in Industrial Goods)
• The Allied Market (Traders in Agricultural and Surface Goods)
• Ram Tah (Guardian Research & Response)

As an example, we'll take Search & Rescue...

• As S&R increases in galactic standing, resources required to repaired stations decreases and payouts for missions at emergency-status stations increases.
• If all stations are repaired within a cycle (huge communal effort), all members of rank X or higher receive bonus incentive multiplied by number of stations damaged (not emergency). If all emergency stations reach 'Clear Status', all members above rank X receive unique decal that cannot be rescinded as thanks for their work.
• Ranks in S&R provide discounts towards purchasing limpets and limpet controllers within the system they are present, increased payout on S&R turn-ins, the unlocking of decals and paintjobs (which by policy can be scrubbed if rank drops too low), unique communication with facilities (Welcome back Commander, we could use your skills right about now! Fly Safe Commander, thank you for your service.)

So as you can see, the idea is to provide another layer on the BGS for commander involvement and ownership. I 100% think cosmetics should be included in this and I also think some form of 'achievement' award for major accomplishments - like all stations repaired or cleared - should exist, providing commanders a point of pride in their efforts. Given these systems repeat on a weekly basis, nobody is actually 'locked out' of these achievements...you just have to commit the time to get them, much like the various powerplay modules.


I love the whole emergency/repair idea...but yeah, it's kinda silly in its current design. Rather than dumb it down, I'd like to see it become a dynamic component in the BGS and see other 'large scale' factions outside of Powerplay (which is really intended as a legalized PvP platform).