dynamicbob
Banned
remains totally relevant, megaships if they are fleshed out and used in a semi procedural way by the devs could be the start of something progression wise
A question about player owned stations.
- Thread starter Garzini
- Start date
remains totally relevant, megaships if they are fleshed out and used in a semi procedural way by the devs could be the start of something progression wise
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I certainly do want my own base be that a station or a planetary object, as for owning stations for make credits.... hmmm sounds like X4 will be the game you're looking for whenever its ready.
There is a way it could work. If FD were prepared to put in the effort to code it that way, I'd be for it. However I don't think it will happen so I remain against player-owned installations existing in the game.
The ONLY way I'd support it is if the player-owned station contained not even the tiniest hint of territorial control. No BGS activity (so no faction presence, no market, etc) No restriction on who can dock there - meaning that the "instance size" of "your" base would be restricted to the number of docking pads you installed. I'd be fine with you being able to store modules and cargo there that you'd purchased elsewhere but nobody else would be able to outfit there or load any of that cargo. (although that restriction might be a little fuzzy - if you and a buddy are both docked at the your base you might be able to give them some of what you got stored - that wouldn't break anything) Anyone can dock and refuel at "your" base IF you pay for maintenance of a refueling facility. (If you do, then of course you personally refuel there for free) There is no NPC security presence - again, unless you pay for it and pay to build their support facilities. There isn't even a no fire zone unless you bought the guns with which your base tries to enforce that. If you build it in an unpopulated system even the option of paying for NPC security isn't available to you, because you have to buy it from the local ruling NPC faction. If there isn't one, there aint nowhere to buy it from.
Basically, the moment any kind of player-generated base influences the BGS or PP or any other element of the "galactic story" in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER or imposes ANY kind of territorial control, my support for it evaporates. Up to that point, however, if FD want to code it I'd probably build one.
The ONLY way I'd support it is if the player-owned station contained not even the tiniest hint of territorial control. No BGS activity (so no faction presence, no market, etc) No restriction on who can dock there - meaning that the "instance size" of "your" base would be restricted to the number of docking pads you installed. I'd be fine with you being able to store modules and cargo there that you'd purchased elsewhere but nobody else would be able to outfit there or load any of that cargo. (although that restriction might be a little fuzzy - if you and a buddy are both docked at the your base you might be able to give them some of what you got stored - that wouldn't break anything) Anyone can dock and refuel at "your" base IF you pay for maintenance of a refueling facility. (If you do, then of course you personally refuel there for free) There is no NPC security presence - again, unless you pay for it and pay to build their support facilities. There isn't even a no fire zone unless you bought the guns with which your base tries to enforce that. If you build it in an unpopulated system even the option of paying for NPC security isn't available to you, because you have to buy it from the local ruling NPC faction. If there isn't one, there aint nowhere to buy it from.
Basically, the moment any kind of player-generated base influences the BGS or PP or any other element of the "galactic story" in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER or imposes ANY kind of territorial control, my support for it evaporates. Up to that point, however, if FD want to code it I'd probably build one.
I like the idea of being able to declare for a minor faction, and this displayed unless you have a power play pledge. I like tour gating mechanism, not sure I like the limit on the numbers. How exclusive something is and the rewards for achieving is always a balance, I just feel the rewards for the "hero" of the faction are too great, and the with the limits, shuts off content to other players just because they joined the game later. Not sure I like.
Anyway that is flavour and opinion, I like the way you are trying to re-use assets already in game, rather thn create a new game though.
Simnn
Maybe I'm just stating the obvious but I think the biggest problem with player-owned stuff is the 3 different modes in which the game can be played.
If players own any kind of real-estate which is persistent within the game then somebody (or a group of somebodys) could locate that real-estate and then use Solo or Private-Group modes to do stuff to it and you'd have no way of preventing them.
Now, if you're talking about stuff that isn't persistent, I guess that'd be more viable and might even form the basis of some serious Solo/Group gameplay.
The only problem is whether the game could handle players entering and leaving "private" locations while they were in Open mode.
I mean, if I was to watch somebody land at their base, presumably it'd just look like they'd vanished from the game and then reappeared again when they leave it.
The way you address that is you make the place persistent but give it no persistent effects.
If there's nothing you can do with somebody else's base that will make a persistent difference, there's no issue with which mode you;re in when you encounter it. Problem solved.
True enough.
I suppose the first thing is to acknowledge the difference between a player-owned station and something that's just a "base".
Stations are probably a non-starter but I don't see a problem with bases, especially on planet surfaces.
You probably wouldn't want to clutter up systems with 10,000-odd extra private stations but it probably wouldn't be such a big deal to have 10,000 private outposts among the existing planets cos they wouldn't need to "exist" until somebody entered a planet's surface.
In fact, a fully-operational base could also feature some nasty sentry-skimmers and an exclusion-zone so another player couldn't actually land there anyway and the skimmers would deter people from screwing around near to a private base.
Set it up so that almost every planet has 1 or 2 procedurally selected "plots" which deliberately aren't near any other POI and then a player can claim a plot and then develop it into a base.
You could do a detailed surface scan from orbit to see if a planet has an available plot then you'd have to land and use an SRV to locate it.
The plot would have some kind of marker which could be scanned.
That'd tell you to go see some faction to claim the plot.
You'd then have to become allied with that faction, whereupon they'd offer to sell you the plot of land.
You could then do extra stuff for that faction (in the same way as naval rank-up missions) to upgrade your base until it's got as many facilities as possible.
Also, each player could only have ONE base at a time.
If you decide you want a new one you'd have to relinquish the one you currently own.
That'd be necessary or people would try and be greedy.
Player "owned" assets go against the core design. Player groups support their chosen faction however if 1000 cmdrs decided to take that faction in a different direction they could.
Fitting into that design would be functionality for minor factions to develop their assets with the support of their player group. This could take the form of developing services in a station, building cosmetics such as installations - or indeed new stations themselves.
It would be relatively easily (hah!) implemented with existing game infrastructure. Have an automatic CG like mission (or a number of them) running for a faction in a system, triggered by a running tally of certain actions (trade, explo etc) which would determine the type of structure to be developed. This then could require certain resources (or combination of same) to be provided to the faction over time.
This could be developed further in that building certain structures makes changes to the local economy. e.g factories/refineries increasing production/wealth, or security levels. This would give player groups an additional focus and allow us to give our favoured locations/factions some love without too much disruption.
Fitting into that design would be functionality for minor factions to develop their assets with the support of their player group. This could take the form of developing services in a station, building cosmetics such as installations - or indeed new stations themselves.
It would be relatively easily (hah!) implemented with existing game infrastructure. Have an automatic CG like mission (or a number of them) running for a faction in a system, triggered by a running tally of certain actions (trade, explo etc) which would determine the type of structure to be developed. This then could require certain resources (or combination of same) to be provided to the faction over time.
This could be developed further in that building certain structures makes changes to the local economy. e.g factories/refineries increasing production/wealth, or security levels. This would give player groups an additional focus and allow us to give our favoured locations/factions some love without too much disruption.
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Erm, yeah.
I didn't claim I was was being original.
But, hey, if it works, where's the harm in "borrowing" a mechanic that works from another game, right?
TBH, I was also going to suggest that your base could only become fully operational if you hired a handful of NPCs to put in charge of stuff like defence, repairs, upgrades and missions etc.
Not quite a wife, a steward, a housecarl and 2 orphans but, y'know....
Anyway, point being that a fully operational base could become quite the credit-sink.
It'd just be up to you whether you just use it as somewhere to dump ships, which'd cost very little, or whether you really planned to use it as a base of operations, in which case it'd become quite an investment.
In principal, the idea of player owed stations/bases/outposts, would work & add extra content & a new dimension to the game.
More so if this involved a player exploring to find an ideal site, then providing all the raw materials to the site for it's construction. Maybe based along the X3 idea of building a specific type of station providing products from delivered raw materials, brought to the finished station by the player, other players or NPC cargo ships.
Sadly though, in practice the reality is, as Elite currently stands, a game rife with griefers, gankers & station bombers, the idea is unlikely to be successful unless stations were immune at least from bombers.
More so if this involved a player exploring to find an ideal site, then providing all the raw materials to the site for it's construction. Maybe based along the X3 idea of building a specific type of station providing products from delivered raw materials, brought to the finished station by the player, other players or NPC cargo ships.
Sadly though, in practice the reality is, as Elite currently stands, a game rife with griefers, gankers & station bombers, the idea is unlikely to be successful unless stations were immune at least from bombers.
This is pretty much what I had in mind.. I like the idea of players only being able to own planetary outposts.
I would like to have "my" home. I would like the computerized ATC (like engineer bases have) to speak to me as though this is my home. The Human ATC at the station I stay at drives me insane when they tell me to enjoy my visit, dude, I have 2Billion credits worth of ships parked here and I'm here more than I'm anywhere else in the galaxy. How about a little acknowledgement.
I don't want to have any sort of market or mission board, or any of the current contacts options. I don't want my base to be vulnerable to other players, the same way that the current NPC stations are not vulnerable to players. I would rather not have any NPC activity around my base, although the idea of hiring local faction NPC security sounds interesting. The bottom line is, at some point I'm going to go to Jaques, or Sag A, or Beagle and I don't want to worry about something happening to my base while I'm away.
I would like to have the normal shipyard and outfitting sections, but nothing should be available for sale. But if I want to store something or module transfer or ship transfer that should all be available. Not sure how I feel about that being available for other people. I kinda like the idea of only allowing my friends list to dock at my station or something like that. I see a potential for a rival group to block the pads at my base as a way to annoy me, not allowing them to dock would solve that. I would like to be able to refuel, repair, and restock at my base. I don't have a problem with others doing that at my base either.
I like the idea of having an extra large storage capacity for modules and ships at my base. As well as having the ability to store some commodities at my base only.
Obviously the base would be extremely expensive. I like Dave's idea about being able to purchase it modules at a time. Maybe the base is cheaper, but I have to buy landing pads individually, I have to buy refuel, repair, then restock. etc. So the total cost is still very high but maybe mid-game players could get into one for a little less.
I think there is potential for some additional stuff too, such as an SRV race course, maybe gates for fighter racing, or other things like that. I'm imagining I could host an interplanetary BBQ for my friends who could come to my base and we could do some sort of activity together using specialized equipment/facilities that I purchased.
Anyway... I hope they are able to do something like that in the future.
I'd love to have a deep space gas station for explorers, a planetary base selling souvenirs, limpets, heat sink ammo and hydrogen fuel and maybe planetary vehicles.
Every major piece of base building equipment would have to be bought at some high tech core system and transported to the planet by some specialized spacecraft. Each major building piece would cost hundreds of millions so that even a small base would have a price tag in excess of 1 000 000 000 Cr.
I wouldn't expect to make any money with it, the base would be essentially a money sink. I'd like to see following facilities:
Landing pad
Repair shoppe
Warehouse
Mining facility
and maybe later some defences.
I could choose to install a beacon to make it visible and attract some explorers in dire need of heat sink ammo and repairs.
Every major piece of base building equipment would have to be bought at some high tech core system and transported to the planet by some specialized spacecraft. Each major building piece would cost hundreds of millions so that even a small base would have a price tag in excess of 1 000 000 000 Cr.
I wouldn't expect to make any money with it, the base would be essentially a money sink. I'd like to see following facilities:
Landing pad
Repair shoppe
Warehouse
Mining facility
and maybe later some defences.
I could choose to install a beacon to make it visible and attract some explorers in dire need of heat sink ammo and repairs.
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my thoughts exactly.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
A few things would be broken in my opinion:
1) replace "buddy" with "client" (who "bought" the module for real cash outside of the game) and re-read....;
2) it would circumvent the current required gameplay by giving Engineered modules to players who do not have access to those Engineers / materials necessary to Engineer the module.
3) any modules given to a player could probably then be sold - introducing player/player credit transfer on a much larger scale than the drop/scoop cargo transfer we have at the moment.
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The way I read it, he was talking about stored cargo(commodities), which you can already transfer by meeting up in space and abandoning / collector limpetting(is that a verb?).
Yes you can do that, but it's a fiddle, having a transfer feature in a base means that opportunities for no effort transfers that would give rise to the arrival of gold farmers.
Ay fair point, hadn't considered that. Would be a bit odd if they got them working as persistent in Open etc but then excluded them from Solo (and perhaps limited them to friend groups in Groups.
I guess a kinda immersion-friendly solution could be to have any defences become completely OP in Solo etc, to prevent unpreventable griefery.
My suspicion is that automated defences would be the way in any player-build scenario. Breachable under 'fair game' conditions, but providing enough delay (and allowing you to heavily prep) to allow you a chance to defend. (Again not really my bag, I'm totally not into the Rust style 24-hr-alert game model.)
There could be room for a couple of strands though. How about:
- Essentially impregnable locations in existing stations etc.
- Frontier exploratory bases that are never likely to be forever, but could involve some asset loss if discovered
I could live with that, given the above safety nets.