The new feature: System Colonization

[ꝁestrel]

Exciting news! Let's discuss!

1. How do you hope it will work?
2. What are you hoping WILL NOT be part of it?
3. Do you plan on doing it?

By my last estimate the galaxy currently has 26,045 fleet carriers. Frontier stated that players can colonize multiple systems. So let's crudely estimate based on the assumption that everyone who has a fleet carrier will colonize at least one system. At the very least we're talking double the amount of colonized systems in the Galaxy.

However given people's competitive nature how many systems do we estimate will be colonized? 10x per player? 100x per player? We can definitely assume that players will build a string of stations to places like Beagle Point, Sgr A*, Colonia, etc. But most players won't. So is an average of 100x systems per player good enough? If that were so: we'd see over 2.6 million additional colonized systems in the Galaxy (probably over many many years)! Another interesting constraint will be cost/time. The buy price of a Carrier is currently 5-6 billion. Assuming system colonization costs just as much (probably more?) then colonizing ten systems would cost ~50 billion credits and 100 systems would cost half a trillion credits. Nothing to sneeze at.

There's also the potential of trade routes being heavily affected. My personal hope is that commodities will play a big role in the colonization of new systems. The colonizer can then call for various commodities to be delivered to them at a premium price.

 

[Factabulous]

Is the new feature actually 'Forum Colonisation' .. by Colonisation threads

 

[ꝁestrel]

Is the new feature actually 'Forum Colonisation' .. by Colonisation threads

Your honor, in my defense: when I started typing there were no system colonization threads.

 

[lefty1117]

I'm guessing it's going to be a shedload of resources required to colonize, I don't expect this to happen very fast. And considering after 10 years less than 1% of all the systems in game have been visited, correct? If it's above 1% it's still a very small number. And that's just visiting systems. Colonizing going to be slower. It feels like something that player orgs will spearhead. Not complaining I just think that's how it will shake out due to probably tons of resources needing to be delivered.

 

[The Reverend]

I'm guessing it's going to be a shedload of resources required to colonize, I don't expect this to happen very fast. And considering after 10 years less than 1% of all the systems in game have been visited, correct? If it's above 1% it's still a very small number. And that's just visiting systems. Colonizing going to be slower. It feels like something that player orgs will spearhead. Not complaining I just think that's how it will shake out due to probably tons of resources needing to be delivered.

I agree. This should be a long term commitment. If they make it too easy to expand then it makes a mockery of all the CGs of the past that took hundreds of player effort, or in DW2's case to build the Explorer's Anchorage, thousands of players effort to build infrasturture beyond the bubble. I'm not saying solo players shouldn't be able to carve out their own micro-colonies but frontier need to find a nice balance that doesn't make it a trivial matter.

Looking forward to hear more

 

[ꝁestrel]

If they make it too easy to expand then it makes a mockery of all the CGs of the past that took hundreds of player effort, or in DW2's case to build the Explorer's Anchorage, thousands of players effort to build infrasturture beyond the bubble.

Fleet carriers seem like a good reference to go by right? They're not prohibitively difficult to get but also not something most players can do in a weekend.

I wonder if using exponentially increased costs would limit "system colonization spam" (assuming that's something they want to avoid)

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I wonder if using exponentially increased costs would limit "system colonization spam" (assuming that's something they want to avoid)

I would guess so: quite a few of the existing inhabited systems get no player traffic for weeks at a time, so a massive increase in the number of inhabited systems potentially just increases the number that no-one cares about.

On the other hand, there are ways that they could allow players to create new inhabited systems which would not necessarily lead to an increase in the total number of inhabited systems.

 

[Ozric]

The right honourable gentleman makes a good case for why the thread was created, but I think we need to keep things concise. So I will close this and you can move to https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/colonisation-new-feature-and-i-love-it.628975/