The frustrating thing about Alert systems is the randomness in whether you'll succeed or fail.

About three days ago, I had read the galnet article and decided to help out on an Alert system. I figured 3 days was plenty of time to push a system, so I picked Bi Dhorora(about 20% progress at the time) and got to work.

Over the next few days, I hauled a few thousand passengers, and pushed the system about 20%. Other players have also contributed to push it about 30% more, putting it at about 70% right now. Unfortunately, it's looking like that's not going to be enough, and all our effort is going to be lost in a few hours.

The annoying thing about this is, there's really nothing more I could have done. I tried getting people on it on discord servers and reddit. I hauled a pretty good amount myself. We had enough time to do it, in theory. It was a top 5 alert. I just got unlucky and didn't get enough players on it. And now I'm probably not gonna contribute to Alerts unless I've got a good 5 days to do so, because the chances of all my work going to waste are too high, if I just get unlucky and nobody else wants to do the same system I'm working on.

Unfortunately, that's only going to make the problem even worse from a cooperation standpoint, since the more players get frustrated and don't participate, the less successful the remaining players will be. Obviously, there need to be consequences for failure, but right now, it's basically impossible to accurately predict whether or not you'll succeed or fail, and that makes it nothing more than gambling, with large amounts of your time on the table.

I don't know what the answer is, or if there even is an answer, I'm just saying it bugs me.
 
I feel like Alert progress should carry over in some form to invasions instead of being a complete “Do or don’t” scenario. Why would whatever you did to help prepare a system not count when it gets invaded by Thargoids, should they not have been discouraged from going there in the first place?

Would certainly alleviate some frustrations of dealing with it, but it’s been a poorly designed gameplay facet since they introduced the whole war aspect.
 
I feel like Alert progress should carry over in some form to invasions instead of being a complete “Do or don’t” scenario. Why would whatever you did to help prepare a system not count when it gets invaded by Thargoids, should they not have been discouraged from going there in the first place?

Would certainly alleviate some frustrations of dealing with it, but it’s been a poorly designed gameplay facet since they introduced the whole war aspect.
I was thinking about that too.

I was thinking maybe something along the lines of the superpowers giving help to the top systems right in the end? Like, if they are currently at 70%, and it looks like they will be able to reach 85%, the superpowers step in with special, expensive emergency forces that briefly double the effectiveness of any work done in that system. That way, if players keep going at the rate they are managing, they will just barely make it. That way it encourages people to work even harder, since their effort is worth more, rather than the current system, where it encourages players to give up over the last 24 hours or so.
 
108 samples delivered, and I am flying back for more. It may not work out in the end, but I will try to give it the best chance I can; with that caution in mind, any extra assistance would be lovely!

Additional—just updated, those moved it to 76%. I also just took another 30 samples from a Basilisk with a Cyclops friend!
 
Last edited:
The last delivery jumped it to 86%, it was just now at 88%, and I delivered another 156 Cyclops samples. That should be enough, though I will take a quick break then presume we need a bit more and fly back out unless/until it shows completed.
 
I've killed 3 more orthruses in the last hour, hopefully that gets us close!
Augh, 2 more on the scope, anyone wanna multicrew in to boost their value when I kill them?
 
Wow, we actually managed to finish it. Great work on the tissue samples! Unsustainable effort though, no way I can keep that up for next week xD
I still think Alerts probably need something else, it was basically a miracle that enough people came together to push this one over the top.
 
All done now! Thank you for that initial effort; it caught my attention as a candidate for completion via Research samples. I was already harvesting Bi Dhorora just ahead of this thread, though now it can become a nice treat in return for helping in Neites earlier and for compiling the Alert actions comparison.

After that rush, I think I have a few useful Research tips developing. I noticed a rhythm while trying to summon via Hyperspace which may help reduce encounters in the wrong direction, though I ought to become a bit more sure of that before making any claims. I also exceeded my own Cyclops sample amount several times, including a full 64 samples beyond which I would have started to take module damage from corrosive cargo.
 
Back
Top Bottom