Beacon Persistence

[Rolco]

100% agree that beacons should disappear.
A log in system or a fueling system (that also allows other players to keep it fueled with an indicator) would be my preference.
.
I am already noticing the “annoying” effects of perma beacons in the C++ world.

Example - started a settlement. Some players put down beacons early on with prime land location on said settlement. Player never returned and the unused space is an eyesore and now unmanageable.
Much work is going into the area and I couldn’t imagine 3 months from now never being able to fix the surrounding holes or make improvements.

3 months max with a warning system for people who forgot about them.

[CloudKA]

Fuel allows for players to maintain their stuff with a minimum of worry and time commitment. But still requires them to have some level of activity in the game.

Eve Online has a Fuel system in place for player owned structures. And having been one of those players that helped maintain an inactive structure in hoping to come back to it, I liked how this worked out. If players don’t have a set amount of time to play or life prevents them from logging for an extended period of time, they still have a window to maintain their stuff on whatever schedule they can manage.

Fuel should be easily acquired, sellable by players (there are players who sustain their accounts on selling fuel in Eve), and the “Fuel tank” should last somewhere between a week and a month (possibly determined by the size of the beacon). Permission for others to add fuel should be possible. This allows for guilds to maintain their shared structures without worrying about one person falling out of the game.

[TheBirne]

I go for the fuel, as long as I don’t have to play for houres to just pay the montly upkeep for a single midsize beacon. Make the “buffer” in the beacon large enough to put fuel for half a year into it and let the fuel be “storage-able” so that somebody can hoard some more to put some into “if” he want to.

For the regeneration: Start regging first and then after it’s finished remove the beacon. That sounds fair … just slow the reg a bit down

Sorry if somebody wrote that also - I didn’t had the time to read all

[Thorbjorn42gbf]

Actually thinking about the fuel system: Maybe make it cost progressively more for every month you want ot store inside it? So everybody don’t just keep a constant supply of 6 months fuel inside it, but people who need to go somewhere can still do it.

But yeah fuel should be relatively easy to gather. And should probably use less and less per beacon for every one you use.

So maybe the first cost 1 fuel a day while 2 beacons cost 1.75

[Clexarews]

And should probably use less and less per beacon for every one you use.

So maybe the first cost 1 fuel a day while 2 beacons cost 1.75

I don’t agree with this. Maybe it can be a builder skill perk or something, but shouldn’t happen for everyone right off the bat. Using a plotter for larger builds should be possible but there shouldn’t be bonuses for having two different beacons. I could see it as a builder perk, but I don’t think it should be a feature for everyone upon release.[quote=“TheBirne, post:23, topic:4285”]
Make the “buffer” in the beacon large enough to put fuel for half a year into it and let the fuel be “storage-able” so that somebody can hoard some more to put some into “if” he want to.
[/quote]

What do you think about having the “tank” be pretty small to start and then it can be increased via the builder profession skills? So it starts at 2 weeks or so but then end-game builders who have progressed through the tree can make it larger. That was a suggestion proposed earlier in the thread.[quote=“TheBirne, post:23, topic:4285”]
For the regeneration: Start regging first and then after it’s finished remove the beacon. That sounds fair … just slow the reg a bit down
[/quote]

I made the suggestion that the beacon disappears first and then the world regen takes care of the supplies. This allows skilled explorers to have a chance to discover artifacts (loot) from a lost civilization (missing players) or some such. It provides quite a bit of incentive for the explorer style of gameplay.

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I’m really concerned about people thinking 6+ months sounds good for Beacons until they disappear. Do you guys who are suggesting this realize how long this is? Do you really want half-finished builds and ghost-towns clogging up the Boundless landscape for 183+ days? 3 months of needing no maintenance seems fair for end-game builders but 6+ months should definitely not be an out of the box feature for everyone.

[Thorbjorn42gbf]

I don’t agree with this. Maybe it can be a builder skill perk or something, but shouldn’t happen for everyone right off the bat. Using a plotter for larger builds should be possible but there shouldn’t be bonuses for having two different beacons. I could see it as a builder perk, but I don’t think it should be a feature for everyone upon release.

Sorry you misunderstood me more like it costs less to maintain multiple beacon areas with the same fuel. those making large beacons easier to maintain.

So it starts at 2 weeks or so but then end-game builders who have progressed through the tree can make it larger

Maybe tie it to builder level instead of tree to avoid making builder a must have profession for people traveling and moving around a lot of game?.

[Stretchious]

I would tie it into Founder tree if anything, so everyone is on a level playing field - we all start with the Founder tree and progress from there.

You shouldn’t be made to choose a profession you don’t want to play just in case you might want to go afk for 2 months and then come back and carry on playing.

(I’m still against the idea of fuel myself, but thought I would share my thoughts on the current discussions )

[Thorbjorn42gbf]

I would tie it into Founder tree if anything, so everyone is on a level playing field - we all start with the Founder tree and progress form there.

Ah yeah forgot about that, makes perfect sense tiying it in there. the higher tiers of the fuel tanks should hopefully be immensively expensive in skill points though.

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Also @olliepurkiss this is hopefully thta is going up for community vote right? This is something I personally think is a place where the less active parts of the community should be heard too.

[Clexarews]

the higher tiers of the fuel tanks should hopefully be immensively expensive in skill points though.

completely for this. So long as it remains end-game, accessibility isn’t an issue. [quote=“Thorbjorn42gbf, post:26, topic:4285”]
Sorry you misunderstood me more like it costs less to maintain multiple beacon areas with the same fuel. those making large beacons easier to maintain.
[/quote]

Sorry you think I misunderstood you…You’re suggesting that having 2 beacons placed in the world means the fuel cost for each should go down slightly so it’s as if you’re paying for 1.75 beacons instead of 2 beacons? I’m saying I’m against this. If you want to take up more of the world, you should have to pay for it. Large beacons, which I’m interpreting as areas with many plots but only one beacon controlling it, should cost as much as small beacons, which I’m defining as areas with barely any plots and only one beacon.

Also @olliepurkiss this is hopefully thta is going up for community vote right? This is something I personally think is a place where the less active parts of the community should be heard too.

This is an area I feel REALLY strongly about (if that wasn’t obvious) so I agree that there are probably others who feel the same.

[Thorbjorn42gbf]

Sorry you think I misunderstood you…You’re suggesting that having 2 beacons placed in the world means the fuel cost for each should go down slightly so it’s as if you’re paying for 1.75 beacons instead of 2 beacons? I’m saying I’m against this. If you want to take up more of the world, you should have to pay for it. Large beacons, which I’m interpreting as areas with many plots but only one beacon controlling it, should cost as much as small beacons, which I’m defining as areas with barely any plots and only one beacon.

Sorry. it seems you actually did what I was trying to say is that having a beacon with 100 plots shouldn’t cost 100 times the price of fueling a beacon with 1 plot. In oposition to you though I still think that it should be slightly more expensive but it shouldn’t scale at the same speed of as the beacon growth, owning 2 unconected beacon blocks should still cost double the amount as owning a single beacon. If all the beacons have the same area anyway.

[nevir]

1. Initially the beacon remains, but the contents start to slowly regenerate back to the initial world state, once that process has finished the beacon disappears and the land can be claimed by someone else.

One problem with this approach is that if a popular beacon ends up being neglected, no one can step in and claim it & maintain it (without admin intervention). Instead, they would need to wait for the contents to fully decay, and then rebuild

I think the other option is better, especially if you provide advance warning (email, in game, whatever). Plus, any derelicts of past builds will be cool to explore, and potentially build upon

[Thorbjorn42gbf]

Something in this direction:

If that helps anything

One problem with this approach is that if a popular beacon ends up being neglected, no one can step in and claim it & maintain it (without admin intervention). Instead, they would need to wait for the contents to fully decay, and then rebuild

This is partly why I like the fuel idea as it allows bypassing player to donate to keep builds they like allive though that could probably be done through other means.

[Clexarews]

.[quote=“Thorbjorn42gbf, post:24, topic:4285”]
And should probably use less and less per beacon for every one you use.

So maybe the first cost 1 fuel a day while 2 beacons cost 1.75
[/quote]

So you mean beacon plots here instead of beacons?

more like it costs less to maintain multiple beacon areas with the same fuel. those making large beacons easier to maintain.

And you’re using less here as in it should cost less to maintain large plots than it would without a discount. Which means you’re not comparing it to small plot areas. We’re on the same page now. The below is where I thought you wanted different prices.

owning 2 unconected beacon blocks should still cost double the amount as owning a single beacon. If all the beacons have the same area anyway.

I have no argument about fuel costs raising with plots. Neither for or against, I can swing with either.

[Thorbjorn42gbf]

So you mean beacon plots here instead of beacons?

Yeah it was badly written, the terms are a bit confusing to get into sometime ^.^

[Clexarews]

One problem with this approach is that if a popular beacon ends up being neglected, no one can step in and claim it & maintain it (without admin intervention). Instead, they would need to wait for the contents to fully decay, and then rebuild

This is partly why I like the fuel idea as it allows bypassing player to donate to keep builds they like allive though that could probably be done through other means.

It’d be interesting if beacons had three stages. Stage 1 would be normal. It’s owned by someone and has fuel. Stage 2 is when it runs out of fuel and for a time it’s sort of flickering…protects against regen but blocks can be placed and removed inside and the beacon is open to new owners. Stage 3 is shut-down. The beacon no longer protects against regen.

I’m game for public donations too, but I think the above would help in the event that someone doesn’t want to own the beacon anymore. That way you don’t just have to donate to keep cool builds alive, but you can take them over to make them even cooler.

[Vastar]

If beacons are to disappear, under which circumstances should that be?

I´d also support the idea of fuel but I think a shared fuel-pool across all beacons would be a must have. Fuel should also be very easy to obtain and not feel like a chore so fuel should either be tied to coin and act as an additional gold-sink or maybe to exp.

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A perk in the builder/founder skilltree that extends the fuel buffer sounds like a pretty awesome idea
Another perk that slightly reduces the fuel consumption would also be neat.

When a beacon is flagged as due to disappear what should happen to the contents?

Definitely a fan of 1. but I think it would be nice if the process would be a bit more fleshed out like:

• 1 day without fuel:
  Creatures start to spawn inside the beacon (preferably the nasty/ghostly ones @claudiotolomei showed us) to add an “abandoned” feel to the beacon.
• 3 days without fuel
  People that have invested some points into the Explorer tree are able to loot stuff from chests/plinths inside the beacon
• 1 week without fuel
  Everyone is able to loot stuff from chests/plinths inside the beacon.
• 1st day of the 2nd week without fuel:
  Regeneration starts and players that previously had building permission for the beacon can now “adopt” it.

(Just example ideas, please don´t quote me on them)

If there is a time element to beacons disappearing, how long after a player stops playing should this happen?

6 months are definitely way too long. I think a skilled builder should be able to store ~1 month worth of fuel inside a beacon. Then the regeneration process should start, so the total time before the beacon disappears should be ~5-6 weeks (and I think it´s obvious that everyone who´s allowed to build inside a beacon should also be able to add fuel to it)

[Thorbjorn42gbf]

Definitely a fan of 1. but I think it would be nice if the process would be a bit more fleshed out like:

I like the idea of doing it in stages though probably give people with building rights to claim before looters gain permission. (yeah i know I am quoting you on it now but I rather like the general look of the stages)

I think a skilled builder should be able to store ~1 month worth of fuel inside a beacon.

This I disagree with though 1 month is not enough, that is basically what I use for prepartion for examns and examns every year, time I really do not want to need to cut down on to put some time into playing a game.

[Clexarews]

I like the idea of doing it in stages though probably give people with building rights to claim before looters gain permission. (yeah i know I am quoting you on it now but I rather like the general look of the stages)

Was just writing this haha.

Also, @olliepurkiss, I think the beacon UI, if we go with fuel, should show not only the amount of fuel in the beacon but also what that translates to in real-time so people can carefully keep track of what their reserves are at.

[Vastar]

This I disagree with though 1 month is not enough, that is basically what I use for prepartion for examns and examns every year

Assuming that you know when that month starts you could prepare and stockpile 2 months worth of fuel and use half of it to immediately fill the beacon “tank”. After 2-3 weeks you quickly logg in and refill the “tank” with the remaining fuel you´ve stored (this would take about 5 min)

[Thorbjorn42gbf]

This I disagree with though 1 month is not enough, that is basically what I use for prepartion for examns and examns every year, time I really do not want to need to cut down on to put some time into playing a game.

To add to this I know multiple people who have gone without interenet for a month because of huricanes, other natural disasters or just plain lack of luck when getting a new home, I can expant it further and say that there are some classes that does 4 week study trips in my hichschool meaning that they if without proper movable gaming device could end up in a situation where they would loose their build just beacuse of a school trip. (These are the game design classes so you can guess that probably most of the other people they would know playing the game wuld be on the same trip)

Assuming that you know when that month starts you could prepare and stockpile 2 months worth of fuel and use half of it to immediately fill the beacon “tank”. After 2-3 weeks you quickly logg in and refill the “tank” with the remaining fuel you´ve stored (this would take about 5 min)

That is a working point though. Not helping a lot of other problems such a disasters long term class trips and volunteer work though.