Disclaimer: the following is just some raw ideas to fill an empty gap between Elite ships and fleet carriers. I fully understand current situation with bugs in Odyssey and limitations of Elite's p2p networking. Hope you will enjoy it and point me to the weaknesses of this idea in comments.
All of this is possible by using personal fleet carrier and InterAstra services, but...
Current implementation of fleet carriers seems to be exceeding some of the requirements, while being (relatively) hard accessible to be solution "for everyone"
If you read/scroll it to the end I made small animation in Blender (as it is my first time experience don't judge harshly)
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzpBOJ6Ff0M
Happy Friday evening to everyone!
General
For multiple reasons there is a need to travel the galaxy having multiple ships at hand, e.g:- visiting distant engineer sites for upgrades (e.g. visiting Colonia engineers)
- exploring with friends
- participating BGS (e.g. relocating to different system and be able switching activity/ship there)
- competing CG (e.g. convoy trade caravans and then switch to hauling)
All of this is possible by using personal fleet carrier and InterAstra services, but...
Current implementation of fleet carriers seems to be exceeding some of the requirements, while being (relatively) hard accessible to be solution "for everyone"
- requires persistent slot on system map (limiting overall number of carriers)
- have relatively high cost (hard to collect necessary amount without excessive "grindy" playstyle)
- provides unique capabilities unavailable to players having no fleet carrier
- in the end why does everyone has to own huge fleet carrier (or have a friend at hand owning one)?
- potentially having multiple models playing different roles (warship, trader and explorer) - different number of hardpoints/turrets, tritium depot size and cargo bay
- costing ~1.5 billion credits
- it could be given as accomplishment for getting (and keeping active) PP ranks (admiral/king, may require to sign a Navi contract)
- or from some anarchy faction as pirate mobile base with appropriate outfit/style
- temporary for certain missions (like getting a captain for distant expedition) etc
Navigation and control
Motherships are fully controllable like a normal ship in normal space and supercruise- they have control panel and pilot seat (connected to concourse), co-pilot and crew seats (possible cabins)
- pilot can leave its seat only when ship is stationed (speed at 0 and drives deactivated, see more below)
- handles as heavy vessel in normal space, slow speed up to 100m/s, low rotation speed etc
- visible in SC as marker on the radar, when it is controlled by its owner (hollow marker) or when its owner in SC (as filled marker as controlled by NPC, like Apex)
- not shown on the radars (when being dismissed by its owner and when its owner is offline, like a normal ship being dismissed from planet surface)
- cannot be interdicted by FSD interdictor (probably due to its excessive mass)
- drop out of supercruise on low/high-wake signals, stations, outposts and POIs - almost like as normal ship, but at larger distance (~20-30km, outside of station's no-fire zone)
- mass-locked by station/outpost/structures and cannot jump from the distance less than 10km (so allowing to be attacked by pirates)
- affected much more by gravity forces of star system bodies
- using tritium to the distance of up to 200ly
- with a initialization and cooldown timeouts (~5 minutes between jumps)
- not landable on planets and cannot even approach planet surface (again remember the mass)
- owner can recall it while flying normal ship in space and being in the same star system (same as calling from SRV/on-foot)
- depending on the distance (and also NPC crew level if applicable) it would drop to the owner signal beacon within certain time
- owner can dock it using one of the landing pads (2 large, 2 medium and 4 small)
- owner can switch control from normal ship to the mothership while being docked
- via local tele-presence (if mothership is not stationed)
- by going to mothership pilot seat via concourse (if mothership is stationed)
- can be stationed in normal space, in this case it will be immovable (and require 30 seconds reactivation timeout for its engines, similarly as normal ship take off the ground, but slightly longer)
- if NPC-crew takes mothership control (while being dismissed), it reduces time to recall (based on NPC level) or provides extra commands available (like travel to certain station/POI)
Multiplayer
- other players can dock it while being in the same instance with owner and if they have permissions to land (set by owner, similarly as embarking a ship in multicrew while on-foot)
- landing pads should be suited for "dynamic" landing (allowing to land while mothership is maneuring, equipped by magnetic pads, similar to SLF docking)
- if owner exits the game (or crashed, disconnected etc), other players have limited time to leave it before they will be forcefully detached from the landing pads, after that mothership will jump to supercruise (and be de-instanced)
- mothership can be equipped by crew compartments - in this case other players may choose to exit the game on the owner exit and will re-appear docked if logged in back when owner is back online (or choose to respawn in last visited port)
- when being stationed (due to danger of high-G-forces) its concourse can be accessed by its owner and also other players (permission based)
- it doesn't have normal concourse elevators and hangars (otherwise what purpose it is for? after disembarking player appears in front of airlock door which opens immediately, when player goes back it appears in the ship seat as soon as door closes behind the player)
- the concourse is represented by single large room with multiple layers and staircases, multiple entrances from different sides/levels (access to landing pads and cockpit/pilot room)
- based on the outfit there may be visible/accessible fighter bays, crew compartment blocks and turret control seats/cabins, piles of containers, data ports to access container management/exploration data storage, recharge sockets, ammo boxes etc
- players may use handheld weapons, may shoot light panels (change lighting conditions), fuel tanks (causing local fire and explosions)
Outfitting and customization
- it has cargo bay with significant capacity (possibly up to 5000t, depending on the model)
- limited version of commodity market (cargo management, functioning while in same instance with owner, also suited for wing-mission-related or PP commodities)
- it can be outfitted while in the same instance with station/outpost with shipyard (being stationary "docked" outside of the station at dedicated positions)
- changing weapon/turret types
- restock ammo
- use other station services
- load cargo (could be done via limpets cruising between mothership and station cargo port)
- repair
- resupply tritium from station commodity market
- owner can enable refuel/restock ammo service onboard by having specific commodities to the cargo bay (e.g. hydrogen fuel, raw materials etc) and equipping production/refinery module
Combat
- cannot be destroyed, but instead does emergency jump to random system (in 100ly range) when receives critical damage
- shown as POI to its owner and wingmates (also while being deactivated/damaged)
- if damaged should be repaired (by bringing certain commodities and/or materials, depending on the outfit and type of damage)
- by default it has only automatic turreted weapons (less DPS)
- turret groups can be controlled by NPC-crew members or other players in multicrew (more DPS in manual mode)
- multiple people/NPC can be assigned to different turret groups (e.g. left and right sides or by type thermal/kinetic/missiles)
- it can have multiple fighter bays, to be used by NPCs or in multicrew (via tele-presence)
- individual turrets can be damaged and malfunction or be completely disabled
- mothership thrusters can be damaged and temporarily disabled (leading mothership to be just stationed, without automatic emergency jump)
- when stationed, mothership may be (forcefully) accessed (docked) by non-permitted players
- by applying security breaches mothership concourse may be accessed by enemies
- thrusters repair procedure can be initiated from mothership pilot seat (physically or via local tele-presence, requires commodities/materials in cargo)
- to repair damaged mothership thrusters faster its owner (and wingmates) can access special panels via concourse to perform repair procedures
- emergency jump can be activated by anyone from concourse (with a timeout, similarly to shutting down settlement powerplant)
- players use magnetic boots and can use all supported surfaces to move (e.g. levels floors/staircases from both sides, concourse internal walls except non-magnetic surfaces)
Extras
- mothership can be a mobile base to use SLF instead of normal ships (mothership performs hyperjumps, while SLF could supercruise and land on planet surface and small outposts), so SLF has to be landable and potentially allow limited outfitting (mining equipment, small cargo, planetary scanners, etc)
- opportunity for piracy and stealing cargo, via illegally accessing it and hacking cargo control panels in the concourse (also while it is stationed to load cargo)
If you read/scroll it to the end I made small animation in Blender (as it is my first time experience don't judge harshly)
Happy Friday evening to everyone!
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