The concept of a colony being unable to be taken out short of a proper siege is (Time). Here are some concept's for people to think on.
You have 3 variables to the durability to your bases surviability each of these requires a amount of (Time) to over-come and each directly complement each other to form 1 complete "roam proof", if you will colony.
Terraforming - Currently on the test server with the new values this does not require large amounts of time to do things quickly
Building- This does require a decent amount of time to establish a base
Defense- Currently only as strong as the design it is implemented with requiring precise terrain and booster use.
Now the time it takes to terraform is related to the number of players, this can also be said for the time it takes to crack a properly supported structure at its current values.
If a terrormed base requires a counter terraform to surpass its defenses to gain access to the structure network to break it the HP's don't really matter, simply the time to counter it does.
The flip can be said that if a terraformed base does not require it to be countered the buildings must live longer as it should take (time) to destroy this and the turrets defending it and i think everyone agrees that this should be on a seige level and impervious to small roams or roaming gangs (i.e. *Current pop* the 8-17 man roaming gangs)
Now a key factor in all of this is again designing it to work functionally but a proper base with its mechanics currently as is i would venture to say one could build a colony that could keep 10 players cruising by from entering.
However i also believe that these settlements should require player supplementation to really be that strong. With the tools given to you at all times you will have the terrain advantage and permanent buffs compared to a attacker passing by who may look for a free kill but is unable to advance on a even lesser enemy with Superior terrain and turret support.
I for one see it as being ok build a full colony with the high-end gear and terraform my island to my preference i would think somewhere in the ball park of a month of terraforming my island to my preference and establishing my (3) outposts. I would expect it would take me a couple hours to get a terminal down for remote ops and spend a week establishing my real foundation for the colony to be placed.
I think it is less about the actual HP and more the fact that it requires time and investment to over-come someones time and investment in to the building of it.
This is not to say that certain players would not be find ways to grief past this if you established a colony with out full time zone coverage but that is a risk you take.
But again i think it all stem's back to Time and how we want this time to be spent. I personally would rather shoot buildings less and terraform and combat over battlefield more to send them in to emergency mode and them quickly rebuild and new battlefield improved on the last one in 3 days for us to siege.
*Time is relative to the number of players and as the players increase the time required decreases thus balancing in the future will be required, rushing to quickly in to making hardened colony and allowing players to rush to gamma before they are necessarily ready will not benefit anyone in the long term.*
Note-Term Colony use over PLAYER BUILT as this is bodies of players we are viewing working together.
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