eh id rather have my own cap ship that can act as a repair/rearm point and mobile hanger for me or current wing members.... and no you cant store cargo on it you can however store ships and with those ships bring in modules or transfer modules/ships for 1/3 price to your mobile base. however to move it you have to hall fuel to it and it can only travel in jumps of 20 ly or less and mini jumps cost alot of fuel and they can only jump out near planets in a 150 ls distance in their own private instance (only you or wing can see it when leaving)
How could player-owned outposts / bases work?
- Thread starter Cmdr Travers
- Start date
No thanks! I feel like bases go against what ED is about. Blizzard held out on player housing for a whole decade just to cave in and have it end up being their worst expansion ever. I would like FD not to bother with stuff like this as it always ends up being a what is called a 'progress trap' and ends up wasting time that could go into other things.
There are more reasons to not have it than 'good' reasons to have it.
There are more reasons to not have it than 'good' reasons to have it.
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I think that proper guild-faction and guild-megaships system should be sufficient rather than player owned bases. Players should own rooms in their guild megaships and they may also rent rooms and hangar on stations, this should be enough for casual game like Elite. Another typical simple barren housing like from other mmo will be totally waste of time. We need something meaningful and tied to other aspect of game.
Said it before and I'll say it again - NO to player-owned bases. This is Elite. Don't turn it into something not-Elite.
What reasons?
Elite is the only MMO that actually has the infrastructure to do it properly, ie: 200 billion star systems.
Low module integrity is what causes the kind of malfunctions you are talking about; However, that can be avoided by repairing the modules with an AFMU which can be rearmed via synthesis. There are TWO main limits to the AFMU though - Power Plant and Hull.
Power Plant malfunctions (due to low Power Plant integrity) are the only critical ones which could force a (perhaps) slow and painful return to a repair outpost. Low Hull integrity will probably just result in module repairs needing to be done more often.
I really do love my Asp Explorer for exploration (~30Ly non-boosted maximum jump range and >400Ly between refuels when kitted appropriately) and I have a Diamond Back Explorer (~40Ly non-boosted maximum jump range and >300Ly between refuels) that is in danger of competing for that particular honour. However, for extended trips out in the void I would not consider either a serious contender due to their lack of optional module space (insufficient module space for two AFMUs and everything else). For extended trips, I would be looking at the Anaconda/Corvette/Cutter (or possibly Orca/Beluga/T9/T7 - not seriously looked at these alternatives).
But back to the matter at hand, player owned bases...
The above "exploration outfitting/integrity discussion" may seem to be off-topic but it does have bearing when considering the alleged "need" for player owned bases that are arbitrarily locatable. If repair/refit/ship-switching is allowed at such arbitrary places, overall exploration balance could be adversely affected for new players since it would present a situation where longer playing CMDRs with huge bank balances could be in the situation where they dominate the first discoveries market. As it stands, we are restricted to a degree by integrity loss and that in itself is a form of balancing to avoid any one of us dominating the first discovery market since we all have to RTB (Return to Base) at some point.
Take away the repair/refit/ship switching options which some have been looking for and that leaves the data/material/cargo storage equation which mostly seems to have been ruled out to date... if storage of cargo were in ED's desirable feature set we would be able to store cargo with modules/ships.
With both of these options notionally ruled out for game balance reasons that leaves only ship re-spawning control, which while perhaps desirable for explorers creates a potential issue wrt (with respect to - for those not familiar with the typographic term) griefers/gankers unless docking is restricted even at their own base when it should apply elsewhere.
This brings me back to my original case - If FD were to allow player owned bases of operation they should be the ones to determine the locations of said bases and they should be largely cosmetic in nature (module/ship storage/switching at FD's discretion).
In addition, I think any implementation of player owned bases of operation should be limited to instances where the owning player actually is. No inter-player trading support, no player run economies, and certainly no area denial impact on other players.
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It's actually quite odd how much we agree upon to be honest. Hoever one point I fear we'll never agree on is FD having the say on where the bases are located. That's not any use whatsoever to players and far too much work for the devs.
I can see where you're coming from regards the effect on newcomers vs old timers, but in reality old timers have the advantage already simply by being out there longer by virtue of having started sooner. Also there would stull be plenty of need to return to civisation at some point to sell your exploration data if nothing else. Not to mention that the longer you leave it the more chance there is of somebody beating you to it.
I really don't want or need cargo storage, nor do I want or need trading between players as a base thing. Bearing in mind that trading can be accomplished with ease by simply dropping cargo near another player's ship if one wished. In that way cargo can be swapped between players at any time. Even donated if one wished to aid another player to become wealthy who had perhaps been forced to reset their save or whatever.
I would like to see data and material storage. I don't see how it would adversly affect anything since I have to collect them to begin with. However I could live without them.
I really don't want or need a megaship. That would be horrendous for a player to own such a thing. Factions, and player groups owning them is a debatable issue but they're in the game now and that's that.
I don't see why the base shouldn't be visible in all instances. If the base can't be interacted with unless you are home and in the same instance, why not show it?
I don't want or need a permanent base. I would like to see it be capable of being dismantled and relocated at will. Potentially at some cost, and an appropriate amount of time. I envisage several trips to move components to the new location perhaps.
I would probably make them impossible to construct in most, if not all faction controlled systems, and certainly no possibility of constructing one in any area of interest (ancient ruins, barnacles, POIs etc.).
Respawning when your ship is destroyed should be at the last permanent base you took off from, not your own base. I have been thinking about whether your base should be included in the respawn costs too but that doesn't make sense since you don't lose any stored ships when you lose the one you're flying, and your base would effectively be a ship that doesn't fly with some small additional features to aid repairs etc..
Gankers and greifers are a fact of life within the game and if you play in open then you accept that they might get you. If player owned bases open up new opportunities for them then so be it.
o7
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Thanks for the clarification but would I be right in saying that a hull with low integrity is easier to damage?
Sorry about the off topic meandering...
o7
verminstar
Banned
Im actually quite amazed at how much I disagree with on this comment, but as you have already stated that any and all counter arguments are , I doubt theres any point in trying to debate anything. The player run economy fer example...that would be a whole lot more fun than some stale npc market that cannot be influenced by players in any significant way.
The player owned structures though...lets just agree to disagree because I absolutely disagree with you. But this has become a pointless two way so whatever...Ill bide my time till the next time this comes up...which it will because Ill make sure it does ^
I don't disagree with player run ecomomy. In general it sounds like a good idea. It has to be better than RNG run economy, but I think it goes beyond what a player base is about for my take. I think there's a lot of facilty within player run factions to influence the game as they can and indeed do own stations within systems, and there's the potential for a player owned faction to grow large enough to become a major power if I understand things correctly.
verminstar
Banned
I have no interest in any other faction other than me...refuse to join one and refuse to support them in any shape or form because they dont appeal to me. My own case fer player owned structures was based along this reasoning that I want more independance from the stale bgs play that factions dominate. Thats why I dont understand the argument against that they would give factions more influence when it came to things like area denial. My argument was fer what are basically personal items.
But anyway...done now have lost interest in this...fer now ^
As usual with discussions like this, everyone wants something slightly different from the idea of player owned structures.
At one extreme we have the: "I want my own fully functional space station with all of the services included, trading, influence on BGS, security and access denial"
At the other extreme: "I never want to see any form of player owned structures other than ships....ever...period"
In the middle (and where I think most of us are within varying degrees): "I can see the benefits of some types of player owned structures but it all depends on how it's implemented and what features we get"
The real question (and only opinion that really matters) is what FDev think of this.
We know they have thought about this for a while as they've said so, but I honestly think they know how divisive this issue could be and how difficult to program and implement it would be.
One this is for sure....it will come up again and again.
At one extreme we have the: "I want my own fully functional space station with all of the services included, trading, influence on BGS, security and access denial"
At the other extreme: "I never want to see any form of player owned structures other than ships....ever...period"
In the middle (and where I think most of us are within varying degrees): "I can see the benefits of some types of player owned structures but it all depends on how it's implemented and what features we get"
The real question (and only opinion that really matters) is what FDev think of this.
We know they have thought about this for a while as they've said so, but I honestly think they know how divisive this issue could be and how difficult to program and implement it would be.
One this is for sure....it will come up again and again.
People talk about a player run economy, but it won't work on a game of the scale of Elite Dangerous. It would be fine if there where only a few hundred systems, but there are 10's of thousands of populated systems. So what happens to those systems when nobody is there. Nothing happens? I do agree that there should be bigger swings in the markets, but as the players are pretty much only a small cog in the galaxy, they really shouldn't be making that much of an imput.
There is no RNG economy.
Hmm. I'm pretty sure mine's at 0, and likely has been for some time. Maybe you're more susceptible to damage or having malfunctions when damaged or something like that? I sometimes just leave my ship at full throttle in supercruise heading toward the next system and go away from the game for a few hours at a time.
I suppose I should probably look into it more, but it hasn't seemed to be an issue so far over the past couple of years that I've been exploring in my Vulture.
Cheers.
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No more work (and probably less) than adding the ability for players to place their own... The locations could be handled by the procedural generation algorithms (notionally already done as part of the BGS) and notionally would have to be discovered before you could gain access to them. Whether some purchase price would be needed in addition to the discovery requirement is another matter. They could be littered at various locations c. 1000Ly (perhaps more) apart, at least 1000Ly from any current human populated sector, and perhaps be on/near the galactic elliptic plane - close enough for the location selection to be largely moot but far enough apart so as to not make things too problematic wrt any future BGS expansion along the lines of the build up around Colonia and Maia. The closeness to the elliptic plane should make finding them easier too. With the bases being far enough outside the current bubbles it should also avoid any adverse knock on effects in the PvP domain (in theory).
With the approach I am counter-proposing, the bases need not necessarily be "bought" but rented instead (as an option perhaps). If you found another base that was better suited for your current activities, you could pay for a moving fee and potentially transfer the rental agreement (and all contents with perhaps a delay and transfer cost impact - c/f current ship/module transfer fees). FD could also potentially restrict the player to only having access to one base at a time?
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Exactly - it is a Supply and Demand economy model (wrt prices/stock) which largely is determined by NPC and PC trading with those stations. I am largely assuming the NPC part but I do know that PC trading consistently and frequently over a specific route both drives prices up and down based on the available stocks. I have had to adjust some of my trade route runs in the past because of this.
As for price swings, I think they are mostly fine as-is. If you want to make bigger profits, choose the appropriate goods and trade routes - the longer the route the less chance you have of the prices being driven unfavourable too quickly.
There may be an element of RNG wrt restocking but it would be difficult to impossible to prove from empirical data at the client end.
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I believe low hull integrity increases the rate/level of damage to both hull and modules, never tested out the theory myself but based on what I have seen in the forums (and heard elsewhere) it is what I am led to believe.
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I agree. Building & Colonizing should be essential part of the game, as the iconic Trade, Combat, Mining, Exploring.
As Elite was the ORIGINAL TCME type game from which others were derived I mostly disagree...
Elite is (and always has been) more flight sim than a 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) game... if you want to build business/military/other empires then there are other games that are better suited for that gameplay... I play Elite primarily because it is not that kind of game, and I know of at least a few others that feel as I do.
I don't care if it will be not my personal base/station but my faction's or superpower. I just want to see how this world evolve and expand. That's why we have background simulation.
Right now everything is too static and dead. The game is still have great potential to evolve.
Right now everything is too static and dead. The game is still have great potential to evolve.