If the fighter bay 3D prints fighters...

[-Joe]

Futher to my repairable fighter idea:

Fighter wreckage could be scoopable, providing spare parts.
Fighter repaired could be not as good as a new one. Fighters become a commodity
Fighter some parts could be synthesized.
Fighters to have very strong hull, yet very weak modules.
Fighter could be manned with all the risks of deaths to player or expensive NPC lessened.
Fighter still possible to be completly destroyed, but fighter emergancy get me home feature mostly ensures recycling.

In fights NPCs and wise players would do a Wedge Antilles and quit the battle if badly damaged.

In a way it would sort of explain the reason for fighters and why anyone would buy them and use them. A fighter would be a
fast agile weapon with sheilds, but when sheilds down exceptionally prone to module damage. The durable hulls allow for recycling.
The core of the durable hull also becomes a sort of escape pod. So fighter pilots know their is a good chance of rescue from a battlefield.

 

[Malkevin]

The concept of 3D printing ships has so many logical holes and contradictions with in game assets and economies and limited availability of parts and ships. I am surprised that Frontier thought we'd were dumb enough to buy it.

Just call it gameplay contrivance. We are all adults here.

We can instantly build complex plasma munitions and heat seeking missiles from a magic inventory crammed into the pilot's escape pod.

FDev has thought you were dumb enough to buy into it since 2.0.


One thing I do wonder about SLFs is if we'll be able to recover them or if they'll be toss away tech like limpets.
Its like the controlling corps went "We must artificially create demand to maintain a profitable economy in our resource rich present"

 

[Siranui]

As for materials, I already deal with 3d printed titanium and stainless steel parts at work.

CNC made parts? Yeah, we can already program machines to carve pretty much anything out of a block of metal and have used them in industry for years. We've also had robots assembling things in factories for 30 years.

FD were a little too eager to use a word de joure in describing the fighters as '3D printed', because then people assumed the 'printer' started with a pile of metal ingots and plastic and made the things from scratch, which is clearly not the case. If you just change the word '3D printed' in your head to 'assembled from pre-fabricated kits' then its a solution that not only makes good sense, but is also pretty cool. That hanger 'bay' is a pretty cool mini robot assembly plant!

 

[Muetdhiver]

This is another of those where no lore will work, and we are better off not attempting to come up with a justification. Just ignore it or just call it magic. After all, we have lots of magic inserted recently. In my case ignoring it will be easy, since I see no value in the functionality, and am unlikely to think the loss of cargo space and weight makes one worthwhile. And if the hangar is 'proper size' and not a Tardis (how much does a glass cannon weigh? The hanger is supposed to have the means to magic up 7 or 8 of them), then it will certainly not be something I would fit.

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I fully accept that by 3K we could have the technology to 3D print pretty much anything.

However, if we did, the whole economic basis of the Elite galaxy would work differently. Just why are we supposedly ferrying around stuff in spaceships being attacked by pirates when it could just be 3D printed? Etc. When you open up a can of worms, ...

Well, the thing is that even if you could print anything, the machinery to do it would be most costly, and some high tech parts would probably need multi-billion credit facilities
(think about our computer chips factories, they are indeed a form of printing and indeed cost billions.). IMO this would lead to :

• Printing food is probably a no go, still need to grow it and ferry it arroud (It's probably cheaper and easier that way)
• Large metal/industrial work : "3d printing" large stuff by casting/forging/bolting is probably still more efficient. No one will "print" a ferry boat from the mm scale. (so, industrial station are a thing)
• Medium sized - medium tech complex pieces : this is where 3d printing shines, also, custom parts.
• High tech - compley tech - complex pieces : huge, costly facilities, probably in high tech stations. Then, move the stuff.
• In any case, one does not pring things out of thin air, still need raw materials (extraction & refinery)
• Assembly of the prefab parts and printing of the med sized - med tech stuff can likely be done in any shipyard. However, it still needs the prefab components like computer parts, armor, thruster parts, specialized ceramics and so on.

IMO even if you print anything, it does not mean that you can do it anywhere or that it is always the most cost effective way of doing things.
Especially for high tech stuff or large scale stuff. And for large scale stuff, old school techs are still probably the way to go.
So, you would get station specialization, and trade like we got in ED along with mass standardization & on site final assembly.
Think massive IKEA corporations for a whole lot of things beyond furnitures on a thousand worlds. Like FSD's, shields, cars* and so on.

Finally, ED seems to be rather tech stagnant, so most of its tech would be on the far end of industrial standardization and consolidation.
Like the gas/diesel car market today.

Also, hand crafted fancy things would probably still be a thing => rares.

 

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

How about ammo printing? Please make this a thing

 

[Jypson]

How about ammo printing? Please make this a thing

Isn't that just called, Synthesis?

 

[veryinky]

I would like it if there was such a thing as a manufacturing bay that could print more fighters, srvs, ammo. Never seemed right to me that a guy in a sidewinder has the same manufacturing capability as a type-9 or anaconda.

Oh and if a manufacturing bay was a thing, I wish the materials would all be available for sale at a marketplace somewhere. Doesn't make sense that I can't buy iron or arsenic or tin from a mineral extraction facility on a planet but I can buy 400+ tons of palladium. That manufacturing facilities don't produce chemical processors/manipulators. That modular terminals aren't for sale at high tech stations.