I'll share some of my thoughts and ideas.
They're not meant to mean anything serious, just food for thought.
ED is a slowly evolving game. I've seen it grow from the early beginnings since I'm the lifetime expansion pass holder.
Btw. this is how we, LEP holders, look like:
Jokes aside...
I've seen ED go from: Sidewinder and few systems only -> more systems -> more ships and systems -> more ships and complete galaxy -> more game mechanics and stuff to do -> planetary landings -> aliens -> and here we are now....soon "walking around planets and bases".
Would it be insane to expect, or hope for, at some point in time, that they allow us base building?
Just think about it. ED will be, even with Odyssey, a game that we will fire up, fly around, walk around, then close again. Rinse and repeat tomorrow, with nothing crucially changing.
But base building would really connect people to the game on a personal level and add that special level of customization.
It would give us a feeling of owning something that's only ours, built by our hands, in a system of our choice, on a planet of our choice, in a crater, or valley, or mountain of our choice.
Our own space base where we could store our ships and goods.
Invite our friends, have a walk around.
Build fences, lookout towers, turrets, different building blocks.
Maybe in the future, have our ships do automated trading runs that we would program (similar to X series), then watch them leave and approach our base.
Grow a little empire of our own.
Maybe let people collaborate in building the first Space City (not base) on some planet. Have FD create that goal, define the materials needed, let people haul those materials on the predefined site, then watch it grow day by day to a fascinating megalopolis on some planet. And I mean really big megalopolis, with skyscrapers that you can fly around and all...not some tiny base size of an Asp shadow while flying high above. Stuff like that, you know.
It'd make people more interested in game, enrich the ecosystem, get them addicted to the game, make them permanent player base.
There are other games that offer something similar as far as I know, No Mans Sky, Space engineers ?
But they don't look or feel "right" to me.
ED could pull it off with much simpler mechanics than, ie. Space engineers, which goes into too much detail not necessarily required to enjoy base building.
If anyone remembers old space games that introduced base building, I was thinking ED could do it more in line with something that Battlezone (1998) and Uprising (1997) games did.
You have a predefined set of buildings that you can put around your core base building, then use those buildings for whatever.
Back then, devs were limited by computer resources, so the number of available buildings and vehicles was limited, but we don't have that nowadays. Plenty of processing power, it's only up to FD if they want to make it happen and how wide of a building variety they could give us.
Does this make any sense? Anyone wants this beside me ?
They're not meant to mean anything serious, just food for thought.
ED is a slowly evolving game. I've seen it grow from the early beginnings since I'm the lifetime expansion pass holder.
Btw. this is how we, LEP holders, look like:
Jokes aside...I've seen ED go from: Sidewinder and few systems only -> more systems -> more ships and systems -> more ships and complete galaxy -> more game mechanics and stuff to do -> planetary landings -> aliens -> and here we are now....soon "walking around planets and bases".
Would it be insane to expect, or hope for, at some point in time, that they allow us base building?
Just think about it. ED will be, even with Odyssey, a game that we will fire up, fly around, walk around, then close again. Rinse and repeat tomorrow, with nothing crucially changing.
But base building would really connect people to the game on a personal level and add that special level of customization.
It would give us a feeling of owning something that's only ours, built by our hands, in a system of our choice, on a planet of our choice, in a crater, or valley, or mountain of our choice.
Our own space base where we could store our ships and goods.
Invite our friends, have a walk around.
Build fences, lookout towers, turrets, different building blocks.
Maybe in the future, have our ships do automated trading runs that we would program (similar to X series), then watch them leave and approach our base.
Grow a little empire of our own.
Maybe let people collaborate in building the first Space City (not base) on some planet. Have FD create that goal, define the materials needed, let people haul those materials on the predefined site, then watch it grow day by day to a fascinating megalopolis on some planet. And I mean really big megalopolis, with skyscrapers that you can fly around and all...not some tiny base size of an Asp shadow while flying high above. Stuff like that, you know.
It'd make people more interested in game, enrich the ecosystem, get them addicted to the game, make them permanent player base.
There are other games that offer something similar as far as I know, No Mans Sky, Space engineers ?
But they don't look or feel "right" to me.
ED could pull it off with much simpler mechanics than, ie. Space engineers, which goes into too much detail not necessarily required to enjoy base building.
If anyone remembers old space games that introduced base building, I was thinking ED could do it more in line with something that Battlezone (1998) and Uprising (1997) games did.
You have a predefined set of buildings that you can put around your core base building, then use those buildings for whatever.
Back then, devs were limited by computer resources, so the number of available buildings and vehicles was limited, but we don't have that nowadays. Plenty of processing power, it's only up to FD if they want to make it happen and how wide of a building variety they could give us.
Does this make any sense? Anyone wants this beside me ?
). There would be a possibility for interior layout customisation (pick 1 out of x) as well as minor interior/exterior cosmetics (similar to the FCs). This way, a base can end up large enough to resemble a city and at the same time not be so performance heavy (try building a massive base in a game with intricate base building design). And the larger the base, the more it will cost - an excellent credit sink.
