Ability to build space empires?

[Pentallion]

I just learned about this wonderful, visually stunning game and have been reading up on it. You can mine, trade, pirate, bounty hunt and explore. But can you and your friends claim a section of space and claim it as your own? Can you build starbases? Fleets and defenses? Bring in colonists or cause a planet to be terraformed?

In short, can you have any great influence?

 

[STABB666]

I just learned about this wonderful, visually stunning game and have been reading up on it. You can mine, trade, pirate, bounty hunt and explore. But can you and your friends claim a section of space and claim it as your own? Can you build starbases? Fleets and defenses? Bring in colonists or cause a planet to be terraformed?

In short, can you have any great influence?

In short, no.

 

[Pentallion]

Thanks. Very disappointing. I really fell in love with the videos of the game and it looks fantastic, but being a spacetrucker would get boring after a while.

 

[Commander_Tin]

Thanks. Very disappointing. I really fell in love with the videos of the game and it looks fantastic, but being a spacetrucker would get boring after a while.

Luckily, there are other games for you.

 

[Belisarius]

Thanks. Very disappointing. I really fell in love with the videos of the game and it looks fantastic, but being a spacetrucker would get boring after a while.

Well, in future expansions you will be able to walk around on planets and in space stations ... but it will take some time till these expansions are there (especially considering the fact hat not even the basic game is released till now).
But with regards to "own" a section of space and/or found a space empire ... what STABB666 said

 

[Pentallion]

Luckily, there are other games for you.

yes, I am hoping that a game coming out next year lives up to expectations. This game looks fantastic too. Have fun.

 

[Ace Rifter]

Well in regards to claiming a star system or having a fleet or defence for the area, this could be done through brute force. Depending on how much an area can be impacted, theres nothing stopping you and a group of people simple killing everyone in a particular system and telling people to stay out, along with having other players acquiring a fleet of various ships to help with defending your "claimed" location.

This will become easier once the Wings section has been added to the game, but it remains to be seen how much we can affect or change a particular area. Although we can't destroy stations, I do wonder how the mechanics of the game will behave, if you had a group of people go in and kill off all security and stop people from coming and going from the station, although there is no way currently to take over a station and change its faction/owner.

The only real benefit I can see to doing all this at the moment, apart from being just for fun, would be to corner off a mining location, or a station with a particular commodity in order to keep it for yourself.

Although we will most likely never see an ability to build your own stations/outposts, it wouldn't take too much to implement the behaviour mechanics in allowing groups to be able to "own a station" in a way that just means the station would not fire on those that have taken over. This could then be further expanded on, by either having missions open up in order to reclaim the station for a specific faction, or take over the station yourself. Theres many many ways you could allow events to unfold and be acted upon and add in many variations of gameplay, without having to introduce new assets or large game changing modifications to the current engine.

I do look forward to what FD are going to introduce with and after launch, as with this game engine as it is right now, there are a lot of ways to introduce new gameplay mechanics and create a "living" galaxy and story.

 

[bitstorm]

There are 3 main factions, Federation, Empire, Alliance, possibly a few more as yet unknown.

Down the line you will be able to involve yourself in the conflict between these and the territory each holds, though "owning" planets yourself I think is highly unlikely.

 

[Vasea Azure]

As Ace Rifter said - You can claim whatever you want and defend it with friends. It's not like in game mechanics but you can try.

 

[Cody]

Islands!

 

[Vasea Azure]

I`m going to try this - I will find nice anarchy system and camp at the sun. And when other pilot warps in I will be like - No, this is my system! Go away!

 

[Asp Explorer]

That is likely to get you ignored rather quickly.

You can't own anything in Elite - it's kind of the whole point

 

[Alric]

You can't formally own territory in the game. But you can join the fight for your area of interest and help small factions or the main empires take control.

You can't build stations directly right now, but it has been suggested that you'll be able to build small bases in the future (more like mining facilities or asteroid bases than colonising whole planets). Also that some larger stations can be moved, and colonisation of new systems will follow player activity.

So the general idea is you're not a major player in galactic politics, who will be controlling large fleets and armies. But you can take part in events, fight in the battles and have an effect on how things go. Since there are tons of small factions in this game not just the three major empires, that has the potential to be pretty interesting.

 

[DaveB]

Well in regards to claiming a star system or having a fleet or defence for the area, this could be done through brute force. Depending on how much an area can be impacted, theres nothing stopping you and a group of people simple killing everyone in a particular system and telling people to stay out, along with having other players acquiring a fleet of various ships to help with defending your "claimed" location.

No, it couldn't. The game is designed to make this impossible. The players in private groups or solo mode will never even appear on your scanner and nor will you on theirs because they will never be instanced with you. If you're "claiming" an area with a fleet of your friends and I don't want to participate in your pvp scenario I just switch to a private group or solo mode and haul my cargo right past you. Alternatively I add you and your buddies to my ignore list and if there's even one live instance without one of you in it, guess which one the game will put me in when I arrive, even in open mode?

 

[Alex988]

Well, in future expansions you will be able to walk around on planets and in space stations ... but it will take some time till these expansions are there

Yeah unless Fd decides its to complicated for them.

 

[Daeron]

You can't build an empire, when the Empire is in the place of your empire. You can join us or be assimilated.

 

[Pentallion]

Well, there's 400 billion star systems out there. Seems it shouldn't be a big deal if a group of players want to build Star bases and establish their own territory. I read some more on here and I agree that griefers would ruin it if starbases could be destroyed, but with so many systems out there for the taking, it should be an option if you want to establish some of them as your own faction by building there. Maybe make it so player starbases are destroyable up until they reach the point where they are equal to the ones in the big three. Then you've established yourself as a new spacefaring civilization.

That's a funner goal than trade more goods, so I can get a bigger ship, so I can trade more goods, so i can build a bigger ship.

 

[foxpur]

I just learned about this wonderful, visually stunning game and have been reading up on it. You can mine, trade, pirate, bounty hunt and explore. But can you and your friends claim a section of space and claim it as your own? Can you build starbases? Fleets and defenses? Bring in colonists or cause a planet to be terraformed?

In short, can you have any great influence?

At the moment... no

 

[Pentallion]

Actually, it gets me kind of excited just thinking of the opportunity here if they DO allow us to build our own starbases. You get some minor base at first. You can spawn from it, maybe give it some defenses. But you need to collect the right materials to build it. Have to purchase certain things and bring them to the area where the base is being built. Plus, you need manpower. Have to bring the workers.

Now you need to feed the workers and pay them. So more trips to keep the supplies and materials coming in. Other traders will arrive and bring resources. You'll need something to export. That means mining colony or a planet with resources you can refine. So a refinery/mining outpost. More manpower. More supplies and resources needed.

At some point you've got a fully upgraded starbase that can't be destroyed. It will need to be productive. Colonizable planet? Rich mining world/belt? Something that makes this star system worth being a good place to build on. People can start spawning there. More trade. More things you have to go out and bring back. Defending it, if it's not indestructible yet, but a smaller version.

That's something a team of players could do that would give them a sense of ownership in the game. Keep them involved.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Actually, it gets me kind of excited just thinking of the opportunity here if they DO allow us to build our own starbases. You get some minor base at first. You can spawn from it, maybe give it some defenses. But you need to collect the right materials to build it. Have to purchase certain things and bring them to the area where the base is being built. Plus, you need manpower. Have to bring the workers.

Now you need to feed the workers and pay them. So more trips to keep the supplies and materials coming in. Other traders will arrive and bring resources. You'll need something to export. That means mining colony or a planet with resources you can refine. So a refinery/mining outpost. More manpower. More supplies and resources needed.

At some point you've got a fully upgraded starbase that can't be destroyed. It will need to be productive. Colonizable planet? Rich mining world/belt? Something that makes this star system worth being a good place to build on. People can start spawning there. More trade. More things you have to go out and bring back. Defending it, if it's not indestructible yet, but a smaller version.

That's something a team of players could do that would give them a sense of ownership in the game. Keep them involved.

I respectfully, but absolutely disagree.

How are you meant to fly your spaceship and have fun when you have all these menial tasks to take care of?

Seriously though - I can see small player stations coming, they have been mentioned and I can't see anything wrong with that. A simple place to stash some stuff, maybe a fuel supply and perhaps limited repair facilities for those who want it - but that's really it as far as I can see. There shouldn't really be any reason for you to spend much time there, as you won't be able to do anything with it. You can't make a tower defence game by building gun batteries outside, you can't make a pleb-control game by ordering underlings around to research this or build that, and you can't make an economy game by creating a market in a station population of one.

The game powers control space, and may not look too kindly upon someone taking up their resources. Even if you got hundreds, or even thousands of players to agree to "own" one section of space and make it into their own secret special base of specialness, it wouldn't take much for a real power to melt it into oblivion.