Off topic: one of the main complaints about Starfield with non-space nerd gamers is that the planets are empty with not enough POI-s. Goes to show how making a realistic-scale space game is really hard and never going to fill the expectations of everyone. For the record, I agree with your opinion that there needs to be empty space in a space game or it just breaks my suspense of disbelief.
Fine as long as we get this:If base building came to Elite I think it would definitely mean that there will be some player towns spring up but with the realistic sizes of planets I don't think it would be a problem. And even if there was the ability to Coruscant a planet there's billions of others out there. I like the idea of life in the galaxy personally and think it's a bit of a non-issue overall, but to alleviate the issue of clutter in nav panels etc., I think bases should be unlisted by default, better to discover on your own or keep as bookmarks for friends/squadron.
If the basebuilding is coming, I'm sure there will be limits to how many settlements can any player build, how many settlement can a player build on one planet, how many settlements in total can be on a planet, how big can any single settlement be and how close can settlements be from one another. If it's going to be like fleet carriers, there'll be 16 total player settlements on any planet. If we assume that any player can build 8 settlements in total and 2 or 4 settlements on any one planet, that the minimum center-to-center distance is, say, 2 km and maximum diameter of a settlement 1 km, any squadron with around 10 members can build a handful of decently sized cluster-towns for themselves, but even huge groups can not Coruscant a planet or colonize the whole Bubble with a 16-settlement cluster in every system.If base building came to Elite I think it would definitely mean that there will be some player towns spring up but with the realistic sizes of planets I don't think it would be a problem. And even if there was the ability to Coruscant a planet there's billions of others out there. I like the idea of life in the galaxy personally and think it's a bit of a non-issue overall, but to alleviate the issue of clutter in nav panels etc., I think bases should be unlisted by default, better to discover on your own or keep as bookmarks for friends/squadron.
The majority of the ‘lost’ ships will of course be unreachable to us as they won’t be in a star system at all but out in normal space somewhere between the stars where we can never really go.Just had a thought, which is kind of scary on its own...
New feature, which would kind of include ship interiors, would have to do with all those pre-FSD exploration and colony shiups tha twent out into space and disappeared over the years. I think it would be a lot of fun to go exploring near and far space looking for all of those lost generations. We have enough of the galaxy that hasn't been disexplored yet, that it shouldn't be too much of a problem to 'plant' the ships around without causing rework of existing planets and systems.
Mechanics of the move would be locating and exploring the ships when found. Where did the crews go? Is the ship floating in space? Good time for a boarding mission (ship interiors at least for colony and megaships). Are there possibly hidden colonies out there somewhere, where a dmaaged colony ship went down and several generations of survivors have managed to eke out an existence?
Would you get salvage rights for discovered 'lost' ships? Go eva to cut your way into a derelict in space.
I see limitless possibilities here, and it would definitley make exploration more interesting.
But it can be fun to speculate on just how letdown and by what all the over enthusiasts will be.Too much speculation can lead to disappointment. I'm perfectly happy to wait and see![]()
So, I'm going to be the broken record here... but the billion credit question nobody has really answered is, just like ship interiors... why?If the basebuilding is coming, I'm sure there will be limits to how many settlements can any player build, how many settlement can a player build on one planet, how many settlements in total can be on a planet, how big can any single settlement be and how close can settlements be from one another. If it's going to be like fleet carriers, there'll be 16 total player settlements on any planet. If we assume that any player can build 8 settlements in total and 2 or 4 settlements on any one planet, that the minimum center-to-center distance is, say, 2 km and maximum diameter of a settlement 1 km, any squadron with around 10 members can build a handful of decently sized cluster-towns for themselves, but even huge groups can not Coruscant a planet or colonize the whole Bubble with a 16-settlement cluster in every system.
Its always folly to think you know what players actually want. What if I want my own landing pad with a couple of buildings attached to it that I can put my feet down on solid ground after a long day's mining/trading/massacreing, watch the sun set over the horizon then make myself some dinner and arrange my collection of potted exoplants before going to bed. Or I want to set up a mining operation on a particularly rich body I've found and have the mined material put in a warehouse that I can land near and transfer to my ship when I'm passing by. With some defenses set up to protect against intruders. And some solar panels to power the miners and defenses. Not that I'm personally asking or expecting these features but they would require some concept of base building. I can't set up mining in stations or fleet carriers.So... base building is a bad idea, flatly. It won't offer what players actually want
I'd take that feature, if that's what it is. I refer to Starfield, yet again, which has shown players are fine with loading screens, transitioning from exterior of ship to inside, or right to the cockpit, and other loading screens wherever needed. One thing Starfield doesn't have is a ridiculous blue tube to walk into, before being teleported into the cockpit. Although, I suppose this worked well for the whole Star Trek thing.What if, if it's not going to be a big huge feature like base building ... what if the new feature is you being able to walk up the steps or a ramp or a ladder to the door of your ship and THEN have the blue circle and the BOARD icon to click on?
Your trying to construct a false narrative. All games copy each other. All space games are pretty much copies of Elite - it being the first of the genre, and most, including the developers of Eve & Chris Roberts, have said that Elite is their inspiration. So I don't (or maybe I do) know where you get the idea that what is common in other games is forbidden for Elite. Ultimately if adds to the game then it's good and there's a lot of potential for things to be added to this game.safe haven for you collection of power cells ?
i think the game is just copying other ideas now and ploping them in ED, base building was mention in starbourne 2 (1 developer) that seems to know what he doing.
So, you don't want base building, you want a private, decoratable space for your character to "relax" in. That's a different thing.Its always folly to think you know what players actually want. What if I want my own landing pad with a couple of buildings attached to it that I can put my feet down on solid ground after a long day's mining/trading/massacreing, watch the sun set over the horizon then make myself some dinner and arrange my collection of potted exoplants before going to bed.
So, you don't want base building, you want expanded mining features. That's a different thing.Or I want to set up a mining operation on a particularly rich body I've found and have the mined material put in a warehouse that I can land near and transfer to my ship when I'm passing by. With some defenses set up to protect against intruders. And some solar panels to power the miners and defenses. Not that I'm personally asking or expecting these features but they would require some concept of base building. I can't set up mining in stations or fleet carriers.
ED has that with Nav beacons and primary starsED won't become EVE for multiple reasons:
- EVE has just 7800+ star systems with 4 security classes. EVE's Concord (NPC faction) increases safety in high sec systems by punishing players who do crimes. EVE has more concurrent players than ED (currently online 17,588, max 29,299 (2024-02-08) in a relatively smaller sandbox. ED has around 400 billion systems and 10 times less concurrent players which are sparsely, spread out in the Milky Way. The chance of player encounters is tremendously low.
- EVE has jump gates which are chokepoints for ships entering a system. In ED players can jump to another system from nearly any point in space. So players who dislike Powerplay can't be barred. System permits are set by the devs.
- EVE has only one game mode: open MMO. The corps (guilds) can claim Null sec systems (0.0) while players are safer in high sec. If you're in Null sec and encounter other players there's potential for PVE or PVP. In ED players can switch to solo mode (single player) to circumvent aforementioned interaction.
- If base building is added to ED, 1 base would cover a fraction of a planet. Most of the planet remains free to explore. The bases could contribute to the sphere of influence of major and minor factions. As a result the Bubble expands and changes. ED has too few concurrent players to effectively patrol a handful of star systems.
- In January 3308 (2022), players explored a total of 222,083,678 systems which is merely 0.05% of the Milky Way. There hasn't been anyone in 99% of the galaxy. If you put EVE in ED it would cover less than 0.000001%.
TLDR: base building + powerplay 2.0 wouldn't prevent players who abhor PP from doing their usual activities.
Update: corrected descriptions
If that was the case we'd actually have gotten a great PP v1.You ever get the feeling they are waiting for everyone to deliberate on it and see what wins the arguement as most requested feature![]()
Looks like it’s number 2 unfortunately, but that appears to be the feature that can be monetized best.Fdev will add a brand-new feature to the core gameplay of ED. The tentative release date is end of 2024.
What could it be? Such as:
- Ship interiors
- Base building, mining resources
- Station management
- New planet types and biomes
- EVA outside a ship in space
- Deep NPC interaction with AI voices
- On foot VR mode
- Procedural cities on planets
- Guild system for player groups
- Hunt procedural alien wildlife
- Something else
In doing my rounds of exploration for the past month or two, I noticed a lot of planets that have thicker atmospheres we cannot land on still list resources that we should be able to collect.![]()