Yeah, I think it could be solved if they just put a minimum range for the timer. Like timers cant go below 30s or something. I’m kinda sad that I cant gather other building blocks, as I’d like to spruce up my builds, but I’d rather grab that gleam so that I dont go broke on trying to make paints affordably by not having to buy gleam.
I really want to gather that one type of block with swirly patterns.
The more I think about this, I’ve concluded that the timers should really be based on two things. Planet terrain difficulty (which it does currently), and distance from the closest player to it (which it does not). Performance shouldn’t factor into this at all.
Important updates to this all here -
Big takeaways I see -
Killing the Gleamtrunks will keep your timer from going back up.
With new hotfix, failing to reach a Gleambow altogether will cause it to go up. 
Low-level players spawn longer timers. I WAS wondering about this, it had crossed my mind maybe that came into play, that those two long timers I had on Xa Frant could have been spawned by low level players.
Might have been me too that spawned them. I have 3 minute timers as I only complete gleam ones. I only hunt on xa frant. @bucfanpaka
Sorry I stole your Gleambows if so - but thanks, as well!! 
No worries, feel free 
It’s struck me too - and devs, if you feel this is an exploit, feel free to say "BAD PAKA, NO!! 
" here and I won’t do it - that I could play Santa Oort myself. Meaning, I could grab one of my low level alts, load them up with my location tokens, then go to the planets, look for players in Sanctum, then warp to a region center near to them… hopefully sending long-timer meteors their way. 
Yeah, would cost some coin on the warps but a way of doing something nice perhaps. (Since I wouldn’t be completing those meteors, shouldn’t effect my alt’s timer I think?)
I suppose, but that’s a lot of effort. I’m too lazy for that haha
Haha, I think I got it to work first try! I took my lv 4 alt, my lowest (so Circ will be out on this unless I use another, went with Biitula).
Pic 1 - I see someone somewhat near spot 2. So warp in.
Pic 2 - Almost immediate result! From the icon’s movements, looked like they headed to it, but can’t tell the result of course. No way this character would have made it even though it came down fairly close, lol.
ill hire you to warp around and spawn for me! Lmao
Hehe, maybe I just discovered a new niche in the economy! 
I was (mostly) joking, but now I’m thinking about it… this could very easily be very profitable for both parties! Only costs 100c/warp, even if you have to warp multiple times, a single sac is worth 500c right now.
Hmmmm…
I’ll do it just for fun and to be generous here and there, maybe focus more on when I see higher player counts on the planets. So never know when I might pop in! But I’ll definitely look for all you folks here when I’m doing it!
Edit - Actually, more than paid for itself already… bunch of dormants around 2nd spot I tried, got a fair bit off them, and a bunch of glass. So don’t really have to lose coin while being nice, haha!
I could be wrong, but the way I read it is this post is just what should have been posted when gleambow went live.
and then this post is the hotfix “changes”
So everything in the first post was already happening (killing gleamtrunks causing timers to go down, etc…) we just were not all aware of what was happening.
I started using your method of only getting gleam ones and my timers have gone way up. Still a minute short from your 3 min timer but I’m happy with the results so far.
Yep, that’s how I read it too - that the Gleamtrunk thing was probably keeping players from fixing their timers without us realizing it, along with the pre-fix issue of not getting to them in time to “Discover” them not helping making it tougher to get them back up as well. Though, it sounded I think the killing alone without completing didn’t cause the timers to go down on it’s own, just prevented it going back up after lowering it?
Yeah, not sure, just basing it on the 5 second timers some were having after doing group sac hunts I figured each gleamtrunk killed was counting against your character score.
Yep, good point!
So funny story just now - I was doing the Santa Oort thing I described…
@DaOne82 - That was why you saw me there. I’m testing a new way to just try to help out, described above, and I saw your group on the map and figured I’d try to spawn some meteors for you all with a lower level alt who doesn’t complete them.
Here is the irony, for everybody reading - The opposite happened. One with a 25 sec timer crashed almost on top of me. Luckily this alt, NaughtyPaka (hehe 
) is lv 18 and had decent equipment, so got a few sacs off it!
But, I think I might have gotten it to work after that - not the one that crashed by us right after, but a minute or two later, I warped to south of your group, and it looked like it might have worked… looked like one flew the way of your group? Hope you got it and it had a longer timer! 
Hehe thanks!!
… glad to be part of your testing 