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1

General Discussion / Re: Colony Threat event

« on: May 11, 2023, 11:13:13 AM »

Spoiler

Just wanted to add some feedback from a rather casual player. (Play every couple of years or so, never gotten too in depth with mechanics)

For me this is a bit of a disappointment and overall makes the gameplay somewhat inorganic - instead of being able to have an intuitive understanding of systems I've found myself having to look up solutions to problems that aren't making a whole lot of sense.

I decided to set up a colony at midgame after finding a good system to do so. Eventually the hostile activity ratcheted up due to me not having the fleet power to take out hostile stations - I didn't pay it much mind as I assumed it would be something I could divert my attention to down the line once my fleet power grew and crush with a bit of effort. Unfortunately this was not the case - after building up some cash and putting together a decent fleet (a massive investment while constantly being hit with negative income from a fledgling colony) I went and tackled the pirate stations and found myself extremely surprised that it had barely any impact on the event progress, only slowing future development instead of wiping some accumulated progress.

At this point I looked up a bit of info and went the route of building a patrol HQ and started exploring the sector for a cryo to boost it, hoping that it would prove my savior. After finally getting one imagine my surprise when instead of helping the situation it actively hinders it by giving me path interest. I was also going to go the route of aiming for an orbital con yard and nanoforge with similar aims but reading this thread I see the path will also lead to negative results. I also tried to create extra patrol stations only to find that they did absolutely nothing, again a decision that is not clearly signposted.

My next idea was to try manually hunting down pirate fleets, but the gains were just irrelevant- 1 or 2 points for fleet defeated meant I'd have to spend an entire day hunting fleets to have any impact at all, which just doesn't feel like satisfying gameplay. I get your reasoning with the fleet sizes Alex but it feels to me like you must need an endgame level fleet to deal any significant progress reduction, which doesn't solve my issue of starting a colony midgame and having it be a complete death spiral.

So yeah. I think it's a great step towards improving the colony/piracy experience but it needs to have steps make more sense and be more clearly signposted to retain organic gameplay where I don't have to look up guidance to have a clue how to get out of the spiral.

[close]

Hi, and welcome to the forum! Just wanted to say thank you for your feedback; a lot of what you're saying really clicks and I really appreciate getting your perspective.

Thanks for the welcome!

Just to add -  a potential fix that came to mind: the current UI for hostile activity shows the active monthly factors. It could changed to show all possible monthly factors, with inactive ones greyed out but still possible to see details of by mousing over. It seems the simplest way to counter my issues of not being able to see what I need to do. Still, it might be a bit too handholdy a solution.

2

General Discussion / Re: Colony Threat event

« on: May 09, 2023, 08:25:27 AM »

Just wanted to add some feedback from a rather casual player. (Play every couple of years or so, never gotten too in depth with mechanics)

For me this is a bit of a disappointment and overall makes the gameplay somewhat inorganic - instead of being able to have an intuitive understanding of systems I've found myself having to look up solutions to problems that aren't making a whole lot of sense.

I decided to set up a colony at midgame after finding a good system to do so. Eventually the hostile activity ratcheted up due to me not having the fleet power to take out hostile stations - I didn't pay it much mind as I assumed it would be something I could divert my attention to down the line once my fleet power grew and crush with a bit of effort. Unfortunately this was not the case - after building up some cash and putting together a decent fleet (a massive investment while constantly being hit with negative income from a fledgling colony) I went and tackled the pirate stations and found myself extremely surprised that it had barely any impact on the event progress, only slowing future development instead of wiping some accumulated progress.

At this point I looked up a bit of info and went the route of building a patrol HQ and started exploring the sector for a cryo to boost it, hoping that it would prove my savior. After finally getting one imagine my surprise when instead of helping the situation it actively hinders it by giving me path interest. I was also going to go the route of aiming for an orbital con yard and nanoforge with similar aims but reading this thread I see the path will also lead to negative results. I also tried to create extra patrol stations only to find that they did absolutely nothing, again a decision that is not clearly signposted.

My next idea was to try manually hunting down pirate fleets, but the gains were just irrelevant- 1 or 2 points for fleet defeated meant I'd have to spend an entire day hunting fleets to have any impact at all, which just doesn't feel like satisfying gameplay. I get your reasoning with the fleet sizes Alex but it feels to me like you must need an endgame level fleet to deal any significant progress reduction, which doesn't solve my issue of starting a colony midgame and having it be a complete death spiral.

So yeah. I think it's a great step towards improving the colony/piracy experience but it needs to have steps make more sense and be more clearly signposted to retain organic gameplay where I don't have to look up guidance to have a clue how to get out of the spiral.