Will Colonisation Attract Gankers?

I'm having a different conversation with forum members about colonisation in a different thread, but one person did make an interesting point. @Alaska Sædelære said "And least of all do I want the creation of attraction points for gankers out there."

Now I almost always play in Solo so I'd not even considered this, but with so many commodities needing to be hauled about by so many commanders to make colonisation happen, will those systems become magnets for gankers when the colonies are being set up?

We can assume these systems will show in the system map, and if they do show as "under construction" I wonder if gankers won't just sit there and pick off any Type-9 or Cutter that comes in carrying millions of credits in cargo?

I wonder if FDev have thought of this 🤔
Thank you for picking up this discussion. In view of your stated personal preference... nevermind ;)

What I have in mind is not just the building phase, but the state of an established colony which is successful and attracting visitors and participants into the foreseeable future. Distant locations of course will be attractive to explorers, too.

The argument keeps getting repeated that one should not worry because space is so big that it makes the likelihood to run into hostile players very small. But this argument is either naive or deceiving, depending on the speaker's intent. It does not take human psychology into account. People want what other people already have, more than anything else. Unless we get the ability to hide a colony we want to build only for ourselves and which nobody could find other than by pure chance if we don't tell anybody, only then this would be true. It seems more probable to me however, that it will be public knowledge where any colonies are created. If this is possible in distant regions, the necessity of exercising caution might be less strongly felt, and gankers might reasonably assume this is and be motivated to travel out there and try. If or how this plays out we don't know, this is just theory at the moment.

But what we do know and the company certainly remembers is the fallout from the "Distant Ganks" massacre, after which many players left. It soured what could have been the greatest PR for Frontier. The turnout there was much higher than even the gankers expected, the bragging page on Reddit is still up and linked around here somewhere. I am curious to learn if Frontier took this into account for the current development.
 
Thank you for picking up this discussion. In view of your stated personal preference... nevermind ;)

What I have in mind is not just the building phase, but the state of an established colony which is successful and attracting visitors and participants into the foreseeable future. Distant locations of course will be attractive to explorers, too.

The argument keeps getting repeated that one should not worry because space is so big that it makes the likelihood to run into hostile players very small. But this argument is either naive or deceiving, depending on the speaker's intent. It does not take human psychology into account. People want what other people already have, more than anything else. Unless we get the ability to hide a colony we want to build only for ourselves and which nobody could find other than by pure chance if we don't tell anybody, only then this would be true. It seems more probable to me however, that it will be public knowledge where any colonies are created. If this is possible in distant regions, the necessity of exercising caution might be less strongly felt, and gankers might reasonably assume this is and be motivated to travel out there and try. If or how this plays out we don't know, this is just theory at the moment.

But what we do know and the company certainly remembers is the fallout from the "Distant Ganks" massacre, after which many players left. It soured what could have been the greatest PR for Frontier. The turnout there was much higher than even the gankers expected, the bragging page on Reddit is still up and linked around here somewhere. I am curious to learn if Frontier took this into account for the current development.
Gankers are attracted to player concentrations.
A quick look at the current peripheral systems tells that there isn't vast numbers of Cmdrs out here. Most systems have been in state none for extended periods. If you want to underline it look up traffic reports.
Colonisation will only dilute the peripheral traffic more.
Distant Ganks only existed because of the DW2 expedition generating player concentrations.
 
But what we do know and the company certainly remembers is the fallout from the "Distant Ganks" massacre, after which many players left.
That was a very 'interesting' event.
Which could only exist because of explorers flying paper bag ships and insisting on remaining in open as it was safe in the middle of a very well docuimented 'nowhere'!
I am curious to learn if Frontier took this into account for the current development.
What do they have to take into account, that players will be playing?

There is no practical way, given the persistent nature of colonies, that the architects can be 'protected' from interaction of any manner by other players, which may be positive or negative. Although there is nothing to prevent any player from electing to play in their own group, or just by themselves.
 
If you ever played Eve Online, you might know that the best way to analyze any PvP possibilities is to look through a killboard. Elite has one.

Quickly going through it shows that there is about 200 active PvP players who can be considered gankers. There are also about a 100 PvP players who looks like doing regular PvP and/or counter-ganking.

Even if just a 1000 players would go for Colonisation - there are simply not enough gankers to accommodate. There would probably be more newly made Architects, on top of that, some of the gankers will also take part in Colonisation and will be busy.

Bigger player groups, or streamers, or anyone of popularity might be a target for a more precisely aimed ganking, but apart from specific conditions like that - majority of players won't encounter anything like that at the start and for sometime. The worst case scenario - there would be a few gankers to roam around new systems hoping they will be in the systems at the right time as the Architect of that system arrives/departs, but with how many new systems there will be and how long it takes to travel around - good luck to gankers who would think its a good idea to do, haha. So, realistically, nobody is going to bother you in your remote systems unless you have an arch-nemesis or something similar.

But,

There is also a chance of potential hotspots. For example if Colonisation would require commodities that are only sold in one/few systems, or after current CGs, when the new Colonisation helper-fleet of megaships is deployed. Basically, instead of targeting a system with a CG, players can target a system that sources what's needed for CG.

In case of rare/sold-in-one-place things - yep, a perfect hotspot. As for helper-megaships - just source your stuff from regular stations anywhere else.

Good luck!
100%. Common thing between EVE and places where PvP happens in ED is chokepoints. That is, singular points that are commonly traversed. In EVE, it was the systems bridging lowsec and nullsec, and common inter-region jumps, with suicide ganks happening on the systems commonly between Jita and other major hubs.

In Elite, it looks like Farseer and other popular Engineers, Shinrarta, the current CG, and any other "hot" systems in Galnet or otherwise mentioned right now.
Then you look at things that were "hotspots" and stopped being them... things like the first Guardian site, the first Barnacle discovery, and other "firsts" that would go on to become commonplace locations all over the place.... such that the dilution means it's just not tenable to cover all the areas at once, so you don't.

With Colonisation... if it's a publicly advertised "Hey, you all should help this colony!" it's sure to attract PvP. But with the amount of colonies you can reasonably expect to crop up... it's unlikely any except the most popular advertised colony efforts would get targeted.
 
100%. Common thing between EVE and places where PvP happens in ED is chokepoints. That is, singular points that are commonly traversed. In EVE, it was the systems bridging lowsec and nullsec, and common inter-region jumps, with suicide ganks happening on the systems commonly between Jita and other major hubs.

In Elite, it looks like Farseer and other popular Engineers, Shinrarta, the current CG, and any other "hot" systems in Galnet or otherwise mentioned right now.
Then you look at things that were "hotspots" and stopped being them... things like the first Guardian site, the first Barnacle discovery, and other "firsts" that would go on to become commonplace locations all over the place.... such that the dilution means it's just not tenable to cover all the areas at once, so you don't.

With Colonisation... if it's a publicly advertised "Hey, you all should help this colony!" it's sure to attract PvP. But with the amount of colonies you can reasonably expect to crop up... it's unlikely any except the most popular advertised colony efforts would get targeted.
The other possibility is (in the bubble at least) you might not want someone making a colony. For example going somewhere awkward in PP.
 
Do we have this tired old trope again? Any ship equipped towards any purpose other than pvp is destined to lose. This has been belaboured ad nauseam.

The numbers and potential income from those who left, regardless what anyone here thinks of their naivety.

I'm not sure what exactly FDev could do on their end, apart from perhaps making new players more aware that going into a Solo or a friendly PG is a good way of avoiding unwanted hostile encounters with other players. But then again, players are asked to choose which mode to play every time they log into the game, and the descriptions seem clear enough to me at least.

The fact that Elite Dangerous has Solo/PG modes was one of the big reasons I picked it over EVE Online.

While I do have sympathy for those who feel hard done over griefers, the game gives ample tools for players who wish to avoid such things, and also does a good job of making players aware of said tools. At some point it becomes a question of poor risk calculation on the players' part, does it not?
 
Do we have this tired old trope again? Any ship equipped towards any purpose other than pvp is destined to lose. This has been belaboured ad nauseam.

Yep, any ship that can survive a serious PvP gank attack isn't going to be useful for anything else. I did some bounty hunting in Minerva and got ganked twice, survived both times but any other of my ships would have been gone in seconds. My P2 is designed for fighting NPC's so it has shields and armour enough to survive a gank long enough for me to jump out, but it won't win a fight against serious PvP ship. As a result it has 8 ton cargo space and 20ly jump range. So it can't carry cargo, it can't explore, but it can survive a gank attack.

No-one is going to take that on an exploration trip, that would be silly, but that's what you need to survive a serious gank attack.
 
...At some point it becomes a question of poor risk calculation on the players' part, does it not?
Yes, it does. None of this takes away that in the end and for the company, the numbers count. If people can't be educated and keep failing in this regard, but combined might be an economic factor worth to reconsider losing, they might choose to take it in a different direction.
 
Yep, any ship that can survive a serious PvP gank attack isn't going to be useful for anything else. I did some bounty hunting in Minerva and got ganked twice, survived both times but any other of my ships would have been gone in seconds. My P2 is designed for fighting NPC's so it has shields and armour enough to survive a gank long enough for me to jump out, but it won't win a fight against serious PvP ship. As a result it has 8 ton cargo space and 20ly jump range. So it can't carry cargo, it can't explore, but it can survive a gank attack.

No-one is going to take that on an exploration trip, that would be silly, but that's what you need to survive a serious gank attack.

I've got a Cutter that can both carry a respectable amount of cargo and survive multiple PvP attacks. But as I've discovered last Friday when doing the CG in Open, that's just not good enough when you've got an entire wing of PvP ships chain-interdicting you the entire way to the station. Eventually they will wear you down if you still gamely try to make it to the station instead of high-waking.

Maybe when I finally get access to Prismatic shields that will change, but for now actually transporting cargo is secondary when hauling for CGs in Open, the real game is actually surviving long enough to make it to the station, which is damn hard if not outright impossible when you've got a wing nipping at your heels.
 
On the
Yes, it does. None of this takes away that in the end and for the company, the numbers count. If people can't be educated and keep failing in this regard, but combined might be an economic factor worth to reconsider losing, they might choose to take it in a different direction.
On the economic question;
PvP players consistently account for approx. 5% of the playerbase. If we assume that PvE players only buy the base game, no DLC, no cosmetic items and the profit margin on the base game, DLC and cosmetics is the same then your PvE players are paying £40 revenue.
In order to make up the shortfall if PvEers were removed from the equation the PvPers would need to bring in 20x the revenue of the base game on average, ie, £800.
Is that you?
 
Do we have this tired old trope again?
Yes, we do... We always will need it because, if a player is in open, they have to accept that other players, who may not be friendly, also play in open.
The numbers and potential income from those who left, regardless what anyone here thinks of their naivety.
They are gone, their decision was to go.
If people can't be educated and keep failing in this regard, but combined might be an economic factor worth to reconsider losing, they might choose to take it in a different direction.
People can't be educated, given 2 modes where they are safe from unwanted interaction, if they make the wrong choice, that is entirely up to them.
 
On the

On the economic question;
PvP players consistently account for approx. 5% of the playerbase. If we assume that PvE players only buy the base game, no DLC, no cosmetic items and the profit margin on the base game, DLC and cosmetics is the same then your PvE players are paying £40 revenue.
In order to make up the shortfall if PvEers were removed from the equation the PvPers would need to bring in 20x the revenue of the base game on average, ie, £800.
Is that you?
What is the source for these numbers? I assume that the information necessary for this assessment is only internal to Frontier (if not I am interested to learn.) I'm merely suggesting to think in an if-then kind of pattern. My individual leaning or anyone else's does not matter, although all opinions should be heard of course.
 
Besides, the thread title is cut a little short. The question was not whether colonisation attracts gankers, but whether colonisation in a faraway region attracts gankers enough to follow you out there. Sleep three more times and we will know whether this is a concern at all. Until then it's not worth spending much energy on discussing it. Raising the point to the developer's attention that the possibility is not received unanimously was the purpose of this, and it is accomplished. Thank you, see y'all on the other side.
 
Now I almost always play in Solo so I'd not even considered this, but with so many commodities needing to be hauled about by so many commanders to make colonisation happen, will those systems become magnets for gankers when the colonies are being set up?

We can assume these systems will show in the system map, and if they do show as "under construction" I wonder if gankers won't just sit there and pick off any Type-9 or Cutter that comes in carrying millions of credits in cargo?
Consider for the parallel, either Powerplay (10000ish systems) or the Thargoid War at its territorial height (1000ish systems).

All of those had highly-visible progress bars and generally required ships which weren't PvP-suited, one way or another.

The vast majority didn't have any trouble at all in terms of PvP. Indeed, the vast majority didn't have any other players about full stop. A single-figure number of weekly hotspots, yes. As a percentage of the total, basically none.

A single colonisation effort like a CG, sure, that's vulnerable. 2000 different colonisation projects started by various CMDRs in the "new system claim stage" plus a constantly growing number in the "claimed and might be getting extra stations" stage. In theory, sure, hostile CMDRs also have FSDs and FCs can go anywhere too. In practice, though? If there aren't enough gankers (aren't enough players!) that my typical Powerplay run involves meeting exactly zero other people, colonisation - which indefinitely expands the already sparsely populated bubble - is going to be the same only more so.

Major high-profile projects could see some activity. Nothing else will. The bigger risk in most systems will be "I'm trying to colonise this system and no-one else cares so I have to haul every single tonne of cargo myself".
 
What is the source for these numbers? I assume that the information necessary for this assessment is only internal to Frontier (if not I am interested to learn.) I'm merely suggesting to think in an if-then kind of pattern. My individual leaning or anyone else's does not matter, although all opinions should be heard of course.
Consistent across numerous MMOs which include both PvP and PvE gameplay and confirmed across surveys conducted by ED content creators including Exigeous, Obsidian Ant etc. and via data from Inara.
 
If you ever played Eve Online, you might know that the best way to analyze any PvP possibilities is to look through a killboard. Elite has one.

...
Cool, it lists their CMDR names.

But "Harry Potter" is on the leaderboard, I thought he left the game years ago. Is that an "all-time" list?

<Edit> Nice to see some traditions upheld: gankers have dumb names.
 
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I'd say Yes. Cold steel hulls in the emptiness of space, low gravity and hot plasma. Signal sources fading into the background noise. Cargo canisters spinning in orbit. It's a total mayhem out there.
 
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