Players should be able to own and name stations, planets, and systems.

[Bloodsign]

ED is a groundbreaking game, but it falls short in making the player feel at home. By dint of the gameplay, the player is forced to be a wanderer, never settling for too long in one place. There is no sense of ownership or belonging.

I would like to suggest that under certain circumstances, players should be able to own and name their own stations, planets, and systems. Obviously there need to be some constraints here, so here are some thoughts:

• If a player discovers a planet, they have the rights to it, which means they can name it, build stations in its orbits, and build ground bases (if the planet type is amenable).
• Ownership rights can be "put up for grabs" by players not interested in retaining those rights, anyone visiting the system/planet can then buy those rights, giving $$$ to the discovering player.
• Stations obviously should be extremely expensive to finance, both in terms of credits and resources.
• The naming of these is obviously a concern, we don't want stations everywhere named things like "Ur Mom is Fat, lol" etc. There should be a profanity filter obviously, and after that the name could be moderated by FDev, with some kind of once-a-week name submission system to prevent spamming. On FDev's side, it would be as simple as having a tool that let's them see submissions and either approve or disapprove them. This way everything can stay lore friendly and immersive, but allow players to have some control.

I'm sure this will be a controversial topic, so let's keep it civil and productive. Instead of just rage bombing the thread, could we all work together to submit ideas about how this might look or work in-game without causing problems? Thanks in advance for your civility and creativity, CMDRs!

o7, Hope you find a home out amongst the stars.

 

[Duck & Jenny]

I think you overestimate the power / ability of a single CMDR. A Squadron of a certain mimimum size, perhaps, but we're not actually Kings in this game, and except for our 3 NPC crewmates, we don't command a workforce that can build anything, let alone a huge station or cities or anything like that.

ps - I recommended awhile back that Frontier release a separate city-building game where players can build outposts and cities and stations and what-not (like SimCity) that exist with the ED universe, to the point that a ship in ED can interact with a city built in this other game. I have no idea of how complicated that would actually be to implement, but I suspect it's not trivial.

 

[Lestat]

Ya, I can see the names now. Foul Language and so on. I don't think frontier would want that. Also, It would also break the Early Backers promises. If you Paid so much. You get to name a System.

 

[Riverside]

Ya, I can see the names now. Foul Language and so on. I don't think frontier would want that. Also, It would also break the Early Backers promises. If you Paid so much. You get to name a System.

Indeed. My understanding is that this is off limits because of backer bonus pledges. It is a fairly common request.

That said FDev are often happy to honour a deceased relative or celebrity, so clearly it is possible at their discretion.

 

[Lestat]

Indeed. My understanding is that this is off limits because of backer bonus pledges. It is a fairly common request.

That said FDev are often happy to honour a deceased relative or celebrity, so clearly it is possible at their discretion.

Don't forget a few Pilots who passed away. I heard they honour a few of them.

 

[Para Handy]

People that paid a lot of money in the kickstarter for naming privileges would be well hacked off with this suggestion.

I doubt that even squadrons would manage to have the economic muscle to build an outpost never mind a station.

Try joining up with one of the Player Factions in-game and work to gain and keep control of stations and systems.

No doubt X4 will be happy to welcome the OP.

 

[Bloodsign]

I think you overestimate the power / ability of a single CMDR. A Squadron of a certain mimimum size, perhaps, but we're not actually Kings in this game, and except for our 3 NPC crewmates, we don't command a workforce that can build anything, let alone a huge station or cities or anything like that.

ps - I recommended awhile back that Frontier release a separate city-building game where players can build outposts and cities and stations and what-not (like SimCity) that exist with the ED universe, to the point that a ship in ED can interact with a city built in this other game. I have no idea of how complicated that would actually be to implement, but I suspect it's not trivial.

Good points, though it's not impossible for individuals to amass the influence and resources to accomplish such things. Look at LYR for instance, went from business Titan to head of his own government, SiriusGov. And the various engineers are essentially entrepreneurs who were able to put together their own factions.

I didn't realize the exclusively issues with naming systems, does this extend to planets/stations as well? It's just that the existing names are so lifeless, it's not realistic. Look at our solar system, we never say, "Hey, I'm from Sol III!". Every planet has a REAL name, and many other celestial bodies do as well.

 

[Zieman]

I didn't realize the exclusively issues with naming systems, does this extend to planets/stations as well?

See the Kickstarter pledge tiers:

Elite: Dangerous

Take a ship and 100 credits to make money legally or illegally - trade, bounty-hunt, pirate, assassinate your way across the galaxy.

www.kickstarter.com

 

[LanceLord]

Forget owning and naming them.

We should be able to BUILD our own custom star bases in space and settlements on the landable planets IMO. Give pilots an alternative to just logging off in deep space or some lone planet when far from the bubble. That would make for a far more immersive and emergent game play experience.

 

[Berpol]

My ship is my home.

 

[Richard_Head]

My ship is my home.

Your ship is my home too! I disguised myself as a limpet! Muahahahaha

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Really not interested in that kind of stuff in this game.

I wouldn't mind a small personal asteroid base with no links to the BGS or a squadron carrier (which are hopefully coming). But that's about it.

 

[Tarman]

Forget owning and naming them.

We should be able to BUILD our own custom star bases in space and settlements on the landable planets IMO. Give pilots an alternative to just logging off in deep space or some lone planet when far from the bubble. That would make for a far more immersive and emergent game play experience.

I'm more a fan of this idea, though it needs to be tempered with Duck's correct assessment of a PF pilot's place in the galaxy. As freelance pilots we're like medieval mercenaries, available for hire to anyone at the right price and even able to amass tons of wealth, but we're not going to be a real political leader. We'd be an extremely expensive hired gun at best. Building our own personal "keep" is well within rich merc range though.

Owning planets and systems like stated in the OP just seems silly and out of scale; there's far too much real estate to have any kind of sensible gameplay associated with it for this game. That kind of stuff is more suited for 4X games, which this is not. Even a single Coriolis would be basically owning an entire city. That would be its own "Coriolis Manager" game, which would have precious little to do with any direct spaceship piloting.

I see player-owned resources much more like a space version of the homestead DLC for Skyrim. It'd be nice to have your own place to park your stuff, work on your ships, and waste your extra credits on pointless luxury decorations and base improvements. As long as it doesn't extend into passive income generation I think personal hideouts (even multiple ones) are a good idea. Despite credits flowing like water these days, having them roll in simply for existing seems to go against the grain of the basic game concept of getting stuff done while at the helm of your one ship at a time.

 

[metatheurgist]

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

Elite is a game about the sole commander against a massive universe. With ED and multiplayer it's about maybe a handful of commanders against the universe. Players were never supposed to be the Chosen One. With every step it's taken away from it's original philosophy the game has suffered imo.

 

[Iskariot]

Players should be able to own and name stations, planets, and systems.

Naming stuff in the game I would only support if I can switch it off. I already hate the "discovered by" nonsense.

Owning planets and systems: Just no!

Owning stations: I don't know. Perhaps a small outpost? It should be costly to keep it running.

I would like players to be able to have a personal player base they can construct themselves with modules, consisting of power, defenses, living quarters, oxygen generators, control rooms, armory, hangar, garage etc.etc.

 

[Bloodsign]

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

Elite is a game about the sole commander against a massive universe. With ED and multiplayer it's about maybe a handful of commanders against the universe. Players were never supposed to be the Chosen One. With every step it's taken away from it's original philosophy the game has suffered imo.

So your sole CMDR against the universe is... dependent on everyone else's infrastructure?

 

[Marcus Tullius]

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

Elite is a game about the sole commander against a massive universe. With ED and multiplayer it's about maybe a handful of commanders against the universe. Players were never supposed to be the Chosen One. With every step it's taken away from it's original philosophy the game has suffered imo.

At the end of the day the bills and salaries must be paid and here comes the moment when the philosophy surrenders to the marketing. I told to few guys still persisting in the forum 2.5 years ago, that at some point FD will implement a sort of guild system, not because they want to, but because they have to. Their reaction then was the same as yours now. I was right then and I’m sure I’ll be right to say that station building and ownership is a matter of time.

 

[metatheurgist]

At the end of the day the bills and salaries must be paid and here comes the moment when the philosophy surrenders to the marketing. I told to few guys still persisting in the forum 2.5 years ago, that at some point FD will implement a sort of guild system, not because they want to, but because they have to. Their reaction then was the same as yours now. I was right then and I’m sure I’ll be right to say that station building and ownership is a matter of time.

Yeah, and the game sucks more because of it. It will continue to suck harder if they continue down that path.

 

[M00ka]

OP, grand ideas but I don't think you have thought this through. How much do you think a station will cost? Considering it takes a CG of 1,000's of Commanders to build one, even just an outpost will be outside the limits of a single Commander.

And since you will proclaim yourself Lord and Master of the station, then it is up to you to provide all the fuel, ammo, repair facilities, ships if you want a shipyard, plus you should be liable for the cost of any system security ships you want protecting your station. You have to have the inventory to sell the inventory or the cash to pay for anyone bring inventory to your station to sell (hope you don't want to buy Void Opals, you will be broke within 24 hours).

 

[Stigbob]

At the end of the day the bills and salaries must be paid and here comes the moment when the philosophy surrenders to the marketing. I told to few guys still persisting in the forum 2.5 years ago, that at some point FD will implement a sort of guild system, not because they want to, but because they have to. Their reaction then was the same as yours now. I was right then and I’m sure I’ll be right to say that station building and ownership is a matter of time.

FDEV never ruled out guilds DBOBE just said he didn't like them as they tend to behave like Mafiosi. So we got FDEV style guilds that can't actually impose themselves on unwilling players avoiding the pitfalls of the more traditional guilds toxicity.

Station ownership is already available via the PMF system. You just can't prevent random pilots using it as and when they wish as the game at its core is pilots doing their own thing.