Tie Colonization Range to System Development Level

We're getting quite a few chains of barely developed systems at the moment, largely due to the flat limit on colonization range of 16ly. If you've got a target 30ly away, you're not going to bother fully developing the stepping stone.

What if the range of colonization were tied to a system's development level? So, like, an undeveloped outpost just has the standard 16ly(or less), but a fully-developed system could colonize much further away, maybe as much as 32-48ly.

That way, instead of having all these stepping stones, you'd encourage players to develop their systems, saving the effort. Maybe give system architects a secondary bonus too, while you're at it. So maybe the standard colonization range is 16ly, and then you get an extra ly of range per development point, and the architect gets a 25% bonus on all that extra range. So with 10 development points, most players could colonize out to 26ly, and the architect could colonize to 28.5ly.
 
Another great idea.

How come no one thought about this until now? You shoot so many birds with one stone. You get more player engagement (FDEV should love that), it can be said that the range debate has been addressed, you get less garbage in the universe, you get less movement of colonisation ships - better server behavior, tendril chaining becomes less repetitive... What's there not to like?

PS: please put this in the feedback thread too if you haven't already.
 
So, like, an undeveloped outpost just has the standard 16ly(or less), but a fully-developed system could colonize much further away, maybe as much as 32-48ly.
Unless you were in an area of space where the gap between stars was almost always more than 16LY, it'd still be massively more efficient to put down a series of outposts, though.

You can get three outpost systems for the price of a single Coriolis system, which hardly counts as anywhere near fully developed itself.

We're getting quite a few chains of barely developed systems at the moment
While that's true in the sense that there's a few of them out there, the vast majority of colonised systems and the vast majority of system architects are not building a chain.
Based on the stats Frontier put in Galnet, and depending on exactly what you'd call a "chain", looking at the map I'd say maybe 1-2% of new colonies were part of a chain (and of course I haven't checked those chains in-game to see if they're all owned by the same player and not being built up, or they're just a group of people whose colonies are in a line)

I think there are several times more players being worried that people will develop chains of outposts than there are actually chains of outposts in the game at the moment.
 
Unless you were in an area of space where the gap between stars was almost always more than 16LY, it'd still be massively more efficient to put down a series of outposts, though.

You can get three outpost systems for the price of a single Coriolis system, which hardly counts as anywhere near fully developed itself.

So increase the proposed range then. If the effort to build up a system to a certain state is 10 times greater (by tonnage added up) than the effort to build a single outpost, then make the range from that system's contact 16ly x 10 = 160ly.

But in honesty, I don't even want that. I actually want choice.

If you're a player / group looking to reach a target system in the shortest amount of time, then outpost linking can stay as the min-max option. That's fine.

If you're more into the whole architect aspect (which I'd argue is the meat and potatoes of this update), then why not get this increased range as a benefit / reward? Weekly dividends are kinda meh. Also I think there are players out there working towards a target system, but...
  • ... they're completionists and don't want to leave unfinished outpost systems around, or
  • ... they don't like the idea of having their name on the most generic copycat places in the galaxy, or
  • ... they're fine with building outposts, but want to break up the monotony of doing it over and over, with some occasional in-system development, kinda like a neutron star boost on a long trek
They should be given the choice. It's such a simple proposal, I really don't see any disadvantage other than FDEV having to implement a calculation step in the claim sequence.
 
Last edited:
So increase the proposed range then. If the effort to build up a system to a certain state is 10 times greater (by tonnage added up) than the effort to build a single outpost, then make the range from that system's contact 16ly x 10 = 160ly.
If the aim is specifically to discourage chaining minimal systems out because it's aesthetically displeasing to a subset of the player base, making chaining not the min-max option is certainly required.

The tricky thing here is that the benefit of range depends on what you're trying to do with it.
- if you're trying to chain in a particular direction, range is roughly linear in benefit. If it takes you ten times as long to build a system, you need ten times the range (though that still implies that a chain of single Colony Orbis stations should have 10x the range of outposts)
- if you're trying to bring more systems into range in general, range is roughly cubic in benefit. If it takes you ten times as long to build a system, you should get just over twice the range.

So if you make the benefits roughly linear to discourage chaining (or at least make them much sparser so you need third-party tools to spot them), a single developed system on the fringes of the existing bubble (or even somewhat within it) suddenly brings another bubble-sized volume into range all at once. But if you make the benefits cubic, it doesn't discourage chaining at all, which is the intent [1]

If it was just about "choice" then the people complaining about chains would have been mollified by the vast majority of colonisers choosing not to build them already.
(Indeed the majority of colonisers, by Frontier's released numbers, don't even own a second system at all yet because it takes a while to secure their first and Frontier turned it off before they could even if they've wanted to)


[1] I don't actually get why a chain of undeveloped outposts between two more interesting places is seen as a problem anyway. Lots of real-life settlement patterns are like that (or were, when travel was slower) - coaching inns on the roads between major towns and cities. The Colonia Bridge - with sparser placement - does the same: most of its systems are a single megaship, with just a few (some pre-existing on the route) built up further.

If you're more into the whole architect aspect (which I'd argue is the meat and potatoes of this update), then why not get this increased range as a benefit / reward?
As someone who is into the system building side - I have one system with plenty of slots and have just finished its second construction - increased range is absolutely useless to me. By the time I've finished this one [2], if I did want to build another system further out from the bubble, someone else will have put a colonisation contact or fifty further in that direction.

Same applies to all the 75%ish of systems whose colony/attempts are within the bounds of the previous bubble and clearly not trying to chain to anywhere, and most of the rest are expanding its fringes as roughly ellipsoid clouds where again the way to get "further out" is to wait for someone else to colonise an intermediate system and build on from that. Actual identifiable "chains" are extremely rare already.

Personally, I think a short range is good for the geographic interest it brings to those who do want to chain out to something distant - you actually have to plan your route a bit. 15 LY is a good compromise between "you couldn't colonise a good number of existing bubble systems" and "you can just go in a straight line", though an increase to 20 LY would have advantages and still be within the trade-off.


[2] At the current rate I don't expect to actually finish it. I certainly don't expect to build anything T3 in it.
 
Back
Top Bottom