So we now know with certainty that 2.4 is Thargoids, and from what Ed said in the livestream they will be hostile, and we will be fighting them:
This statement by Ed in Tuesday’s stream (35 minutes in) bothered me, as he makes it sound like we all should be looking forward to shooting at Thargoids. But not everyone plays Elite to shoot at things! There are three main ranks in the game: Combat, Trading, and Exploring. Elite Dangerous has a wide variety of players, and while some do indeed love combat, a great many of the players want nothing or very little to do with it. I’m sure that a lot of them, judging by the tone of discussions since yesterday, are less than excited at the prospects of yet another combat focused headline feature update.
So I have been wondering today how a Thargoid war could provide more than just combat content to the game? Is there a way to give traders and explorers and miners something to do too? Then I read this post from CMDR Kmwmtd in another thread:
This is a fantastic idea! Upgrade the BGS to something like a military focused Power Play type of engine, where systems can have new status to them like different levels of “Thargoid invasion”, destabilizing system economies and such. Each week the galaxy map would be updated by the BGS 2.4 to show systems under attack, much like a Galactic Risk game, similar to the Power Play map but with aliens vs humans this time.
Being in this state would drain resources from the system for constantly fending off the Thargoids, resulting in compromised system defenses, economic crashes, famine, etc. This would then generate resupply missions where traders could run supplies to the Thargoid afflicted systems, hauling things like food and weapons and such. Ores and minerals would also be in huge demand to rebuild in the compromised systems, so very lucrative mining missions would fill the mission boards to give miners exceptional places to sell their cargo. Completing these missions would help bolster the system status, even possibly pushing the Thargoids out in the following week. This gives Traders and Miners an important role in the Thargoid war: Resupply.
Passenger ships could pick up missions to run troops to the invaded systems to help the cause, earning very high military payouts. So Passenger ships now have a role too: Troop transport.
Explorers could be tasked with Recon missions out in space, looking for Thargoid hives and rally points, even searching for many dozens of new barnacle sites which the Thargoids would be using to refuel and such. These hives and rally points could be procedurally generated each week by the BGS 2.4, and successful recon missions would result in military strike missions the following week where combat pilots could fly out to assault Thargoid bases and forces. So Explorers have an important role now for the war effort: Recon.
And of course the combat pilots have their role in the war: blasting Thargoids. Taking military missions to kill aliens in compromised systems, assault hives previously reconned by explorers, attacking barnacle sites on planet surfaces, etc.
A 2.4 update like this, where all Elite players, even the non-combat players, have a stake in the game and a role to play to help the war effort, well damn I would love to see something as all encompassing like that. Who knows, maybe this is exactly what we ARE getting with 2.4?
