Can player-owned space stations ever happen?

[Aewarin Jameson]

Group of players and not players alone, you know players belonging to a minor faction

Nope - that excludes solo players from the equation. If you have the cash to initiate a project (a % up front of total cost) then why shouldn't an individual start one off ? They could even be the one to finish it by hand (may take quite a long time )

The only stipulation would be that it's run by NPCs so anyone can join (S/PG/O)

 

[Sole Hunter]

frontier is busy making bobbleheads.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

It's already halfway there, Frontier just need to flesh it out.

Player factions can become dominant in a system and become the controlling faction of a station.

Yes, but in doing so you, as a member of said faction, have no say in how the station is governed.

That's the important part of this IMO.

 

[lysan]

Yes, but in doing so you, as a member of said faction, have no say in how the station is governed.

That's the important part of this IMO.

Player controlled capital ships are in the plans, I think that would be the same as owning a station.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

frontier is busy making bobbleheads.

Yes, that meme card has already been played, you're too late.

Indeed. Tackling bobbleheads is far more important and complicated.

+1 This guy gets it. We do need more bobbleheads! And furry dice!

Player owned doodas is soooo 1990s. Let's move forward! Ahead the bobbleheads!

Perhaps one day people will understand that the people who work on things like bobbleheads are not always the same as who work on other features, or that some people actually like things like bobbleheads, and don't actually care for player owned stations.

You have your preferences, others have theirs, but only FD get to decide what they want to see in game, and in what order they deliver.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

Yes, that meme card has already been played, you're too late.





Perhaps one day people will understand that the people who work on things like bobbleheads are not always the same as who work on other features, or that some people actually like things like bobbleheads, and don't actually care for player owned stations.

You have your preferences, others have theirs, but only FD get to decide what they want to see in game, and in what order they deliver.

And I contend that if a player or group owns their own station they should get their own special commemorative bobblehead.

What now, Sir?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

And I contend that if a player or group owns their own station they should get their own special commemorative bobblehead.

What now, Sir?

I see your animated gif and raise you

(link is odd, so I hope this works)

 

[Agony_Aunt]

And I contend that if a player or group owns their own station they should get their own special commemorative bobblehead.

What now, Sir?

http://www.clickypix.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/deadpool-slap-fight.gif

You win this round!

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

I see your animated gif and raise you


(link is odd, so I hope this works)

Everyone deserves the chance to be their own Braben. [up]

You win this round!

Good god someone give me that man's address so I can send him a real chessboard. I knew things were bad in Laos but I had no idea just how bad until now....

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Player controlled capital ships are in the plans, I think that would be the same as owning a station.

Capital ships are just ships ... albeit large ones with lots of guns ! A space station .. now that's on a different planet, never mind the ball park

 

[snelrev]

I can't really see spacestations working out, but i think something like if your Minor Faction controls 10 systems (they'd need to update so you can actually officially be part of the minor faction of course.) then you could begin construction on a homebase on a planet, basically a big defendable structure which can be defended by your playergroup.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

basically a big defendable structure which can be defended by your playergroup.

And destroyable from Solo....

 

[Chrystoph]

Comments added in Red

This has the potential to be done well IMO.

• Building a new base
• Initiation
  • Player installs new survey module into ship and looks for a new place to build
  • Returns data to nearest existing station
• Station initiates a build plan
  • Player can pick
    • Name for the station
    • Major faction to support (Federation obviously ) I believe that POBs should be factionless so that they do not have an impact on the BGS.
    • Power to align to
    • Services to include like
      • outfitting
      • ship hangar
      • refuelling
      • rearming
      • repair shop
      • NPC mission board Reference my earlier comment regarding the BGS
      • anything else they introduce later)
  • Once approved by the station (including FD check on name) a CG style mission is created
    • Rather than a single progress chart (like existing CGs) include multiple CGS*
      • Initial depot (of say 10-50% of the money needed up front based on reputation with station)
      • Money (takes cash to pay engineers to build said base. More services more money)
      • Multiple Resources (require different alloys and minerals, each with their own progress chart)
      • Timer to ensure people are actively doing the CG. (If someone desposits some resources/credits to the CG then timer resets. Means people can't open 100s of to-be-built bases and abandon them.) Once timer expires CG is lost. No refunds
• CG objectives met so station is built
• NPC run (like others)

*Yeah, cos my photoshop skills are all that

Spoiler

http://s9.postimg.org/c8v2s4da7/station_build.png

More complex than buying a "blow up" build & forget mini-base that FD touted but equally more involving for the community.

Anyone can help build it; anyone can use it; useful for deploying your "own" base out in the middle of no where.

While I like the general concept presented here, I see a couple of failure points.

• First, it does not lend itself to gameplay outside the bubble, such as making waystations for things like the Distant Worlds expedition.
• Second, making the build dependent on one or more CGs leaves the investing player at the mercy of the community. Bluntly, if they cannot generate enough interest or acquire the wrong sort of interest, they fail and lose the investment.
• Finally, I would recommend that the resource gathering be limited to one or a couple of relatively generic commodities. For discussion's sake, call them "station components". These should only be available from High Tech localities. That way, you are bringing in pre-built modular components. This lends itself to group effort without requiring that a build plan be custom designed by FD every time someone submits for a facility.

Copied from https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=217718&p=3633451&viewfull=1#post3633451

Emplacing the station would get you a facility to land on which would be a respawn location, with the ability to add modules for additional capability.

Modules would include:

• Black Market
• Refuel
• Repair
• Restock
• Security Hangar - Provides Station Security patrols
• Others possible - Crafting, Engineering, etc

It would NOT have Bulletin Board, Commodities, Outfitting, Shipyard and Universal Cartography.

It would have the standard No-Fire zone.

It would not have a faction affiliation, and, as a result, it would not affect the BGS.

Lastly, in order to combat the "build and forget" mentality, require "rent" be paid for the facility. DO NOT make this a resource farming exercise since it again prevents anyone without a massive player support or lots of time from having a facility. It should have a Credit cost which can interpreted as wages for station staff, budget for purchasing supplies, etc. A popup once per rent period asking if the player is willing to pay their rent, and 3 refusals equals no more base.

 

[snelrev]

And destroyable from Solo....

Like everything else, then. R.I.P skill, R.I.P any effort.

 

[Vorxian]

I'd be more inclined to build a 'house' on a planet, or multicrew an anaconda or something and call that 'home'.

Walk on planets would be excellent to.

probably on a road-map somewhere, however..

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Like everything else, then. R.I.P skill, R.I.P any effort.

Nah, i'm just yanking the old chain. If player owned bases were implemented, I doubt they would be destroyable. You can't destroy cap ships or stations as it is. It would more likely be a static object that doesn't actually need any defending. But with modes and instancing, there is no way it could be defending if it was destroyable - so unless something changes there, there is no sense for FD to make them destroyable.

By the same token, if they are no different to regular stations, then what is the need? We can already grab stations to call them home.

 

[SirGirard]

IMHO ED would be somewhat more involving if it moved more in the MMO direction! Unfortunately we have a fan base who seem terrified ED might incorporate some of the good features of Eve Online, whilst on the other extreme, others seem to want it to incorporate everything including the bad in Eve.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

IMHO ED would be somewhat more involving if it moved more in the MMO direction! Unfortunately we have a fan base who seem terrified ED might incorporate some of the good features of Eve Online, whilst on the other extreme, others seem to want it to incorporate everything including the bad in Eve.

For all of the fear and vitriol surrounding the game from people who don't even play it, EvE does have some good features that I wouldn't mind ANY other game cannibalizing.

EvE's crafting system and economy? Put that in any game please. Even my Stealthy FPS shooters like Deus Ex. I don't care. It's the best crafting and economy put in any video game to date. Every developer could learn some very valuable lessons by studying these concepts as they are practiced in EvE in great detail. There is no shame in learning from their hard earned lessons.

EvE's ship, loot and module balance (Pre mid-2014, I've heard they've been doing some weird stuff lately that has the players gnashing their teeth and pulling their hair)......

.......
.............

PleasefortheloveofeverythingsacredtogamingsomeoneatFrontiergoplayEvEandlearnhowtobalanceshipsPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE...... [cry][cry]

Missions in Eve are Meh. Don't bother taking anything from them.

Exploration in Eve has some key mechanics that if Frontier mimicked or copied outright would make Exploration in ED an absolute masterpiece.

Eve Online even does a better job of including story elements into the game than ED..... Nobody knows Eve Online for it's lore and world building, they know it for literally everything else about the game, yet they still have a leg-up on ED in this area when ED, which is supposed to be a primarily solo experience, should by all rights be leaps and bounds ahead of EvE in this regard.

The rest is a mixed bag. There are a lot of little pieces in Eve that get completely glossed over by the big picture and go unnoticed in that game because they are just one cog in the machine that if you were to take and drop them in ED it would blow everyone's minds.

I spent a whole year just learning about the game. Playing it was a secondary function, I was no-lifing it for 6-8 hours a day just soaking in all of the potential gameplay choices that I could engage in.

Sell it short for the occasional bad apple in the community over there. Feel free to complain about all of the mistakes that CCP has been making to drive away the player base in recent years, but if you think for one moment that Eve is a bad game you're a fool.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

IMHO ED would be somewhat more involving if it moved more in the MMO direction! Unfortunately we have a fan base who seem terrified ED might incorporate some of the good features of Eve Online, whilst on the other extreme, others seem to want it to incorporate everything including the bad in Eve.

Yeah, there is kind of a distaste for ideas that come from EvE, but I think that's more caused by the attitude that comes with it (that PvP is king, and everything should revolve around it - when ED is primarily a PvE game), and that despite what some people think, a lot of things that work well in EvE simply wouldn't work well in ED, at least not without some fundamental changes in how the game works.

Things like player owned bases or player centric economy threads come up with regularity around here though, but such features are highly unlikely to make it onto FD's bucket list unless FD already have plans for it somewhere down the line.

We can discuss these topics until the cows come home, but only FD know if such features will make it in given enough time, or whether they will even consider it.

FD don't tend to repeat themselves when they have made a statement on a particular topic, but we dig back far enough, can probably find the moment where they made a statement on player owned bases on the forums or an AMA or something. I'm fairly sure the most they have ever suggested considering though was Braben's comment about inflatable mining bases in the dev diaries.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Never played EvE, don't know the first thing about EvE, don't care about EvE. If people like it, people like it, if they don't, they don't.

Any idea that is offered, which includes player owned stations, I will judge against the Elite environment. I will try to support my opinion on this by use of argumentation. If anyone finds flaw in that argumentation, go ahead and point it out. There are some obvious practical issues when you give players direct influence into the economy and access of wholesale stations. On the other hand, players wanting to build a place to call home and develop is also pretty obvious.

The disconnect I often see is that the argument is made for player involvement with regard to a place to call their own, but when the idea is fleshed out, there's often a monetary element in it. This I feel is counterproductive for a couple of reasons.

1. The current basic economic model already is open to abuse. Giving players more influence in this system will only increase that problem.
2. A money making money sink is not much of a money sink.
3. Restricting access as it is feels to constricted for my taste. I already can't own over half of the ships because I don't have rank, and don't want to work (not play, it's work) for rank. The same goes for permits. The fact we need to earn a permit to visit Earth is just bonkers. I'm not much of a hoop jumper, so I'll be damned that players are going to be in charge of more hoops.

So, the way to go with player owned property, if it's ever introduced, is land-based personal property. You can practically pick any spot on any planet and plant your flag. This area can be limited to your instance, so there won't be interference for other players. You would start out with a small base with a small landing pad, and you could add practical and vanity modules to it. Bigger hangars, fuel, module and material storage, whatever. And of course a panorama deck to watch the sun set. No mining outposts, commodity markets, mission hubs or any other such stuff.