It takes around 10-11 minutes for collectors to mine a full load and move to the static queen sector. Meanwhile, killing the entire escort plus queen takes 10 minutes if you aren't very good at it, and about 5 if you're good. And this is solo. In groups it gets even faster.

Result is, you're spending 2/3rds of your queening time just watching collectors mine. If you could actually do something during this time, it would be fine. But you can't do anything during this period. You can't leave the sector, you can't kill the collectors, can't test plugins in case they crash your game. All that is left is either chatting, fiddling around with your settings (this loses all novelty after about 5 queens) or going afk with a Collector-watching plugin on, which will notify you when they start moving.

I don't think it's really necessary to have such a long gap. Grind is one thing, atleast you have to do something, however repetitive it might be. This is just afk-encouragement. Therefore, I suggest halving the amount of time collectors spend mining before they go to the queen. This would encourage actually playing rather than afking 2/3rds of the time, and I don't really see any gameplay downsides to it.

Result is, you're spending 2/3rds of your queening time just watching collectors mine


If you are working with a group, it doesn't. There is a rather large trade organization in the game that staggers their watch times for the collectors (in different sectors). Doing this allows them find queens quick.

you can't kill the collectors

Why not?

can't test plugins in case they crash your game
What does this even matter? Some people read a book during this time period. Other people go kill crit queens if they don't want to wait. Still others go kill levi queens and then kill all the tridents to speed up the timer to kill another set of stronghold queens.

If you don't want to do nothing, you can also actively go searching for a queen. Static queens are always in one of the empty sectors of the system, you don't need to wait for collectors to go find them.

I actually wrote a plugin that does it automatically, and it won't take 10 minutes. Maybe I'll release it, but then it isn't active play, either, so it wouldn't solve your problem.

Besides, as the post above hinted at, nothing stops you from killing everything else until that one collector you are watching starts moving.

When you kill or damage one collector, others start moving towards you in sets of 3/4. Eventually every collector is going to move. Meanjng they never lead you to the queen.

-> Some people read a book during this time period
That's my point about afking. Why should a game mechanic encourage someone to afk? I don't see any advantage to the long mining times.

->Other people go kill crit queens if they don't want to wait.
Crit queens are severely limited. If you're lucky, you might find 4 in Odia and 2 in Sedina. Latos is often cleared almost immediately.

->If you are working with a group, it doesn't. There is a rather large trade organization in the game that staggers their watch times for the collectors (in different sectors). Doing this allows them find queens quick.
This applies only to large groups of 4+. In VO currently, that is practically an army.

All the arguments here are for why the current system is working. And I agree, the current system is working. If it weren't, people wouldn't be using it. My suggestion is to make the working system better. Are there any gameplay advantages of collectors mining for a long time?

> Are there any gameplay advantages of collectors mining for a long time?

I'd assume it's a balancing decision. As a player I would indeed like to be able to just hail them and say "Take me to your queen!" but I can see why easier access to queens may not be desirable from the developer's point of view. I don't have the metrics they are looking at so I cannot say where they will land on this.

I realize this might be asking a bit much, but you could just set a timer and read a book. You know, those old-fashioned things full of stuff called knowledge.

Get your learn on.

It used to be that you *could* start the timer on a sector, leave, then come back just in time to catch the bots flying out. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but it's probably a waste of server resources.

Everyone want's a shortcut for their favorite gameplay. You gotta grind like everyone else, kid.

->I realize this might be asking a bit much, but you could just set a timer and read a book. You know, those old-fashioned things full of stuff called knowledge.

This is what is currently happening, and I don't see why it should. The game should encourage *playing* not afking. I think that's a basic objective of every game.

->Everyone want's a shortcut for their favorite gameplay. You gotta grind like everyone else, kid.

Right. So if something doesn't make sense, don't change it because granddad had to go through it too. The suggestions forum is there so people can give ideas for change. If the game is not to be changed just because "everyone else had to grind", why don't Inc and Ray take retirement from development and just do maintenance? Let's restore everything to 10 years previously. No lite/free players, no goli's, less "magic protection", turrets drop again, lmine farming restored, M7 at 30k again, etc. That should make it all right again.

Seems to me, if you're waiting 8 minutes for collectors to lead you to a queen, you have a FAN-FREAKIN-TASTIC opportunity to go take a piss; grab a fresh beer; or even a couple sets of weights. Maybe just get some blood-flow back to your buttocks from sitting so long.

Whatever you do with that 8 minutes, you're still logged in. Instead of looking for change, you should be thanking the Devs for that built in bio/health break.

Sure, they want you playing. But they also care about those that get a little obsessed. I personally know of at least one person that got a note checking on them for playing too much about 10 years ago. That actually impressed me.

So... I still say -1 to the shortcut and "Thanks, Inc/Ray" for the 8-min break!" I for one use it all the time.

"Let's restore everything to 10 years previously. No lite/free players, no goli's, less "magic protection", turrets drop again, lmine farming restored, M7 at 30k again, etc. That should make it all right again."

I'm actually down with most of that.

How about a manufacturable "hacking" addon that you need to use on collectors to try and get the queens location. Starts a timer for 3 minutes with a 50% chance of success.

Failing causes a bunch of angry assaults and guardians to spawn in and chase you, and also alerts the queen and her escorts. The escort size increases by a few bots and the queen becomes a bit more aggressive and erratic per failure, up to some cap.

Success leads you straight to the queen.

The hacking itself could have some gameplay involved, but a simple timer would probably suffice for now.

You reduce your effective time for waiting, at the risk of making the encounter tougher.

+1 to Aryko's suggestion. Balances out the "making things easy" complaint.

> The escort size increases by a few bots and the queen becomes a bit more aggressive and erratic per failure, up to some cap.

That basically allows you to spawn your own incursions, which many would abuse. Because let's face it, the escort is either something you ignore if you only want the queen, or something you farm for drops, but certainly not something that makes it difficult.

Making the queen itself stronger on failure sounds fair, but remember that everyone in the entire system will contribute to this if they trigger the collectors, so you can indeed not go overboard on the upscale.

Alternatively, make the hacking mechanism a consumable ammo-based addon with the penalty on failure being that you gotta manufacture a new one. Add in a mix of max total manufacturable per day. You could utilize multiple different hacking objects that incite different changes in the hive, from increased presence and unique specimens as well as the simpler location finder.

but continuing that should be pointed to its own topic.

That basically allows you to spawn your own incursions, which many would abuse. Because let's face it, the escort is either something you ignore if you only want the queen, or something you farm for drops, but certainly not something that makes it difficult.

There'd be a cap on how strong the escort gets, maybe 3-4 bots added per failure upto 5 failures? You would have to really go out of your way to get 5 failures, 15 min. atleast if alone, 3 if you manage a group of 5. I don't think the escorts have anything valuable enough for anyone to realistically bother with this.

Please feel free to copy the suggestion and make it into a separate post.