Will there being long walks from one area to the next inside starports?
We want our Commanders to be able to enter a social hub and be able to do their business in a timely manner. This is why social hubs will be built for efficiency and quest givers and vendors will be 'roughly' in the same places from port to port. Accessible areas of the starport, such as the hangars where you disembark (and marvel at your ship), are connected by a system of elevators, this will ensure that you won't have to travel for hours to access your ship, to pick up missions or meet contacts - we don't want you to be late for your Apex Interstellar ride!
- perhaps you misunderstand... What if we WANT to wander about the place? Are elevator <cough>cutscenes</cough> the ONLY option?
Sadly I suspect this is going to be the case. Either
- an identical station layout interior for every starport and station in the galaxy --- regardless of size. Or
- one identical station for starports and one for planetary bases --- regardless of size. Or more likely
- several i.e. 1-3? different interior layouts which differ based on starport size (Orbis different from Coriolis v. space outpost etc.). And these interiors would differ from surface side. eg. planetary bases (being larger) than the outposts
However, they might make special custom interiors for:
- each of the 3 faction home world main HQ stations and
- Prison ships (all having the same interior) and
- Engineer bases (again all the same interior but different from any of the star ports/planetary base ones)
Don't know if this is possible, but I'm still hoping they can take advantage of random generation of interiors. This is much the way Bethesda custom built/designed Skyrim's home and dungeon interiors. Virtually every dungeon interior was unique and the majority of homes have different interior layouts/designs
Another dev who made this work was UbiSoft with the way they generated the massive Assassin's Creed cities. Like the way they did in AC1, AC2 Brotherhood, and especially how amazing they rendered Victorian England in AC Syndicate.
If FDev could make say 12 interior layouts, but be able to vary the layout design. For e.g. a "L" shaped interior station v. a "T" shaped layout, v. a square/rectangle loft like station etc. Say 12 such interior layouts where they could vary the color palette/texture graphical design of each to 24+ colors. That would yield a significantly large and diverse number of different interiors you would encounter throughout the galaxy.
No two star port and planetary station interiors would be alike for a perhaps a 100 LY radius.