What tactical choices are people typically making when deciding on systems to colonise?

[Silaz Carbryck]

Hi there,

Having come back to the game not much more than a month ago after being away mostly since Odyssey was released, (I got bored of FPS many years ago, so Odyssey on foot wasn’t an activity I was interested in playing). Also, back in 2020 I had mostly only been laser mining painite for a few months to make quick and easy cash to afford to pay all the bribes and rank up to get the Cutter, and buy a fleet carrier, so after all that laser mining monotony, I had burned out again. But I had gone from having just a few hundred million CR spare to 20 billion in the bank and 30 billion in assets.

Now things are different. It definitely seems that FDEV’s grand master plan is really all coming together, and the jigsaw, before only partially complete, now reveals far more of the greater picture that must have been planned from long ago. Powerplay, (which I also have to catch up with all the new changes of) and Colonisation (still catching up, but nearly there) seem to be very much connected as far as I can tell. But, are people making tactical decisions taking into account controlling factions chosen in the system they were initiating a colony from together with the position of their colony relative to the main areas of influence of the Powerplay factions, or are people not really bothered about Powerplay, and only focused on developing useful economies that can better benefit further colonisation efforts?

I was gobsmacked when I panned out to explore in greater detail the star map and realised just how many colonies have already been built or are under construction just out in the Pleiades, which once upon a time didn’t have any established stations at all and for a long time there was only a small presence of human occupied systems. As for the original bubble, prior to the release of Trailblazers one only has to select Powerplay in the star map to see where it was before, where Power Play still is now, and where it could be going next.

What once was just the static bubble in just a few months has now expanded outwards at an incredible pace, and I do wonder where this is all going to lead?

Will the majority of new colonised systems that are being built around the perimeter of the existing and now ever-growing bubble settle into being largely independents? Like how the original coded bubble was configured. Or, are Power-players going to start expanding their spheres of influence outwards into all these new colonies instead?

And which Power do people think has the upper hand (at the moment)? Should it be considered likely that the Alliance have the current initiative, or have enough CMDR’s been more tactical about their choices of faction to side with when choosing what faction was in control of the system that they initiated their colony efforts from? Be it Imperial/Independent/Federation/Alliance. Obviously, we can all play the BGS to flip systems over to the minor faction of our choice, and it’s a lot of work, but there are a lot of players, and squadrons, and there will be even more soon I suspect.

Or are most people only really focused on fine-tuning their economies, and are only concerned about how it will benefit further colonisation efforts?

Is humanity in our game just going to blindly expand ever outwards now, or do players have more tactical concerns in mind?

What are your thoughts?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Powerplay's average expansion rate is acquisition of around 70 new systems a week, whereas colonisation is populating - even having slowed down quite a bit from the initial rush - over 1500 new systems a week. So most of the new systems are never going to be occupied by Powerplay because it moves far too slowly. Some of the ones closer to the original bubble might be - especially the systems where people colonised systems in-between the existing populated ones, in the middle of existing Powerplay territories - but for the most part Powerplay is irrelevant to the more distant colonies because it would take years to get out that far.

Powerplay expansion, even with infinite support, can't proceed faster than an average pace of 10 LY a week, so the furthest systems from the bubble are already about three years away from even theoretical capture by a Power, and it's only taken them a bit over three months to get that far. That gap is going to keep growing, of course.

And which Power do people think has the upper hand (at the moment)?

Broadly speaking, the ones with the larger player bases - both Duvals, Jerome Archer, and Li Yong Rui - are as you might expect doing best. That's unlikely to change in the short term, and in the long term would probably only change if the incentives to support the other powers were strengthened so that the overall supporter counts evened out.

That said, "upper hand" implies that Powerplay is a competition, and one of the problems is that, at the moment, it isn't. No-one is "losing" - every power has made net gains in territory - because there's not all that much incentive to attack the other powers right now: it's highly inefficient as a way to gain systems, it makes enemies who might want revenge, and there's no shortage of territory because the bubble is large and Colonisation has expanded it substantially. Just in range of Powers' existing systems, there are 20,000 neutral inhabited systems to claim - a supply able to last them the next four years at current rates without any need to come into conflict with each other over territory.

(Frontier have acknowledged this situation and say they want to make Powerplay more competitive, but so far haven't succeeded; if they do, that will almost certainly put a significant brake on Powerplay's expansion and make it much more likely that the new colonies remain too far away from it to be affected)

Should it be considered likely that the Alliance have the current initiative, or have enough CMDR’s been more tactical about their choices of faction to side with when choosing what faction was in control of the system that they initiated their colony efforts from? Be it Imperial/Independent/Federation/Alliance.

By and large the vast majority of people building colonies do not seem to have been doing so primarily to extend the territory of any minor faction or superpower - a lot of the popular regions for colonisation are very clearly colonised by "whichever faction was most convenient".

Equally it does provide any faction-backing group with the ability to gain hundreds of systems much faster than the old BGS expansion route would allow, if that's what they want. (Most of them probably don't, though)

This isn't really related to Powerplay - any Power can control any system regardless of the superpower allegiance of the minor faction, so it doesn't matter either way.

Or are most people only really focused on fine-tuning their economies, and are only concerned about how it will benefit further colonisation efforts?

Collectively there's a huge range of reasons for colonisation. Some people will be doing it for Powerplay, or a BGS faction, or to build up local supplies for further colonisation ... but most people who've taken part in it probably only have one or two systems and no intent to get more than that, and might just be doing it to try it out, see what happens, maybe put some settlements in interesting locations on planets, or have a station that they've picked the name of to be home.

There are certainly people doing it for any reason you choose to pick, but probably those with grand economic or political plans are a tiny minority.

Listening to the forum you might believe that "everyone" has tens of systems which they're chaining outwards at maximum speed from the bubble to get to ... somewhere unspecified. That's not really what's going on - there's about 45,000 new systems added, but from Frontier's figures there's over 20,000 different players adding them. So most people are only going to have one or two ... and are only gradually building those systems up, because most players are not the 100,000 tonnes/week haulers you see in the top 10 of community goals, but maybe 10,000 tonnes/week if that.

 

[kepler68]

I look for systems with at least 10-20 orbital and 10-20 ground slots, as well as good conditions for the main economy type i want. Eg a rocky world with no volcanoes/organics and at least two-three orbital slots to try and get IMs.

With everything still in flux as to how to design a system, i'd just find one you like with diverse objects. A rocky world, HMC, and snowball should give you more than enough options. Bonus points for one with organics for an agri station.

Also for primary station, Outpost for chaining, Coriolis/Asteroid for a system i want to develop, Orbis/Ocellus for one that is especially special to me.



Also... did you AI generate this post lol?

 

[Silaz Carbryck]

Also... did you AI generate this post lol?

Dude? No way! I hate AI's and will destroy that Tesla Robot Bartender with just a few simple programmed commands...

 

[kepler68]

Dude? No way! I hate AI's and will destroy that Tesla Robot Bartender with just a few simple programmed commands...

Alright alright, no offense meant haha! The phrasing and big words threw me for a loop. Apologies

 

[Silaz Carbryck]

Alright alright, no offense meant haha! The phrasing and big words threw me for a loop. Apologies

NP - But I don't think I used any big words this time.

 

[aRJay]

None.

My choices are based on location and aesthetics.

The factions in the system will be pretty much identical to all the others around as the system I am working on is located off a large chain which will have effectively reduced the options for the random choices.

 

[kepler68]

None.

My choices are based on location and aesthetics.

The factions in the system will be pretty much identical to all the others around as the system I am working on is located off a large chain which will have effectively reduced the options for the random choices.

Assuming the chain doesnt bend in weird ways, those actually boost your RNG a ton! Your looking at a cylinder of stars rather than one bubble, and they will often have ELWs right off of them lol! I found one just two hops off the massive chain i made, and a ton of other people have picked some up off it too

 

[Silaz Carbryck]

None.

My choices are based on location and aesthetics.

The factions in the system will be pretty much identical to all the others around as the system I am working on is located off a large chain which will have effectively reduced the options for the random choices.

Is the chain your working off situated galactic counter-spinward?

 

[aRJay]

Is the chain your working off situated galactic counter-spinward?

It starts off heading towards the southern rim but then heads east to hunt its destination. Having got there things are diversifying with smaller groups heading off to found other communities.

 

[Alec Turner]

Terrific forum post by @Ian Doncaster there!

Or are most people only really focused on fine-tuning their economies, and are only concerned about how it will benefit further colonisation efforts?

For myself I suppose it's roleplay and content creation to some extent. I wanted a system that was basically like a holiday resort created for and on behalf of the Buckyball Racing Club. So I started from Fullerene C60, who's Rebuy Prospect (where you can buy Buckyball beer mats) is kinda the club's home, and then looked for interesting systems in range. I picked Hyades Sector ZU-Y d68 and have created a number of stations themed around what might interest racers (for example I have a bar installation with some nice tunnels and a holo-ad slalom course to fly through). My primary interest tho' was to create surface locations around which I could create SRV time trial courses using EDCoPilot. I now have three, a container yard circuit race at "Camp Bucky", a hill climb starting from the same location, and an on-foot parkour course around Devil's Tower. I'm also planning a 250km Dakar like SRV rally between Camp Bucky and Drakhyr Point (see my forum signature) which I'll be organising later this year.

The economy? Except I did balance it a little and kept security sub-zero so it's an anarchy (which fits with the "underground racing scene" theme of Buckyball) plus I have an Interstellar Factors which is handy for racers who've accidentally killed people in mailslot collisions!

 

[Dormant account - pls delete]

So hashtag me personally:

• It me, I am the guy Ian D suggested, I picked a location that was between a tiny bubble of my Power and the main bubble for my Power, with the intention of filling the gap somewhat.
• For the first system I deliberately picked a system with no bodies, because it was quite early on and I guessed that the whole thing with bodies v economy was going to... iterate... during Beta. I had already identified High Tech was a rarity near me so choosing "Scientific Outpost" wasn't hard.
• Once I'd got my head around it a bit I built a Space Farm, because by this point I'd identified there was very little Agriculture within 30ly and pretty much no Agriculture available with Medium pads.

In terms of filling in the gap for the Power, it's turned out there's an active PMF nearby so I've got no chance realistically of controlling minor factions; but Power-wise nobody seems to be doing much so I do have a chance of getting from Unoccupied to Exploited. Since I've got Agriculture going on I'll get the Winters trade boost too.

When the latest rules around body influence were released I started a serious system so I went looking for one with a big variety of Bodies. I've identified how to get an Extraction/Refinery going and started down that route on the surface; and I picked the location based on both aesthetics and practicality of coming and going to that system.

I built a Commercial Outpost first because that was the most neutral thing I could think of to do.

It's going SLOW though. I'm on the way to get Emergency Power Cells. I started flying the Cobra out there so I can do some discovery in the hops on the way, with the intention of summoning the T-8 when I get there. But -
I've accidentally uncovered an area where every system has a dozen bios, so at the moment my gameplay is kind of like being in the black but it's merely a quiet part of the bubble; to the point I even swapped out of the Cobra and started using the AspX for the scan-o-la. The half-built Surface settlement is going to be that way for a while.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

For myself;
I am looking to build system(s) to resupply my fleet, principally my fleet carriers.
To this end I want Tritium, therefore an orbital refinery and thus a rocky world with orbital slots. A coriolis would be cheapest option here.
Secondary services include;
UC & Vista, so a satellite orbiting the same body.
Legal services, so low security
Easy access to power packs and med kits, so Ext settlements. Bonus if they're on a world with golden sand and blue skies.
As I'm using carriers I need nothing but a bare string of outposts to reach my system(s), it's useful if one or more of the ones closer to the target system are taken over by an Anarchy faction to give access to full bar services.
Rather than producing a clump of systems in the same region it's useful for these systems too be seperated by several hundred light years to give better coverage.
The discount doesn't seem to apply to commodities so subsequent systems will be less built up.