Own your own space station?

I didn't see this in the other posts.

Was thinking it would make an interesting game feature to buy your own space station (Lots of under-developed systems out there to establish one in orbit). The owning player can take a % of all commerce transactions on their station. Gives groups and factions a place to assemble as well.


Then you can have station owners posting missions to undermine neighboring systems / stations / players by issuing their own missions allowing you to upgrade your station to more landing bays, etc.

Would be the ultimate goal for traders I would think.
 
This has been discussed a lot actually. My personal feeling about it is that it would be an awesome feature if implemented correctly! First of all I think building a space station should be an overwhelming task, only achievable by players that have a huge surplus of money, and a lot of time to spare. It should also basically require a group of people cooperating to achieve this, due to it's cost and requirements. This would promote interaction and immersion all the more. In addition to this, having a space station should not give you "power" over a region. You're still a pilot that has his own ship, not a god that controls solar systems. It shouldn't be as simple as going to the shop and buying a space station either. Rather, it should start off in the very small. A small station in orbit somewhere, which gives you access to the basics, such as ammunition and repairs. As the group of players work together to expand on this, upgrades are obtained and purchased, adding more elements to it. Landing pads for more ships, different trading commodities, etc. As time goes by, the players would have gotten themselves a space station. They could travel to far away stars and open trading routes to their own station. They could hire security to scan for illegal cargo, or perhaps the players want to do this job themselves! As time goes by, this station has the potential to influence local politics. Pirates may want to stage an attack on the station, and the players can outfit new and better protective systems on their little piece of home.

As a design, I think stations like these can be incorporated, but it HAS to be done properly. It needs to be an absolutely massive undertaking, and something that is utterly rare. Small hubs for your ship and some friends? Yes, but it would take a loooong time. A fully specced space station with trading and outfitting? Yes, but holy cow this would be time consuming and extremely expensive for everyone involved. We're talking a LOT of people to achieve this.
 
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I think that they should design a station gestion game as a stand alone then merge both once the system is good.

The good point with ED is that there is plenty of space, so I guess that there are enough room in the empty system for nearly everyone.
 
The owner then needs to sit in front of screens all day and manage the station. Sim (yawn) station style. No more flying for you, you have responsibilities now son. You want to be a station owning big shot? Trade in those pulse lasers for project management spreadsheet. You have to make sure system influence is balanced and your markets are booming and take care of getting that bulletin board up to date for players passing through.

I kinda think it would be fun...
 
Well stations could be used for some stuff, as far as I understand astroid stations are sorta intended for this?

Either way, yeah, your own base would be kinda cool, though that said, a 'personal' base could maybe work, but should be something that requires quite a bit of time to create, maybe need x materials to make module y and so on, then the ability to buy stuff you need from traders by setting your own price and such, and sell stuff you create/mine? Should allow some sort of remote control of sort, maybe the ability to when you are flying around make burst transmissions for changes in your base from your ship? that would take x amount of time to get to you base depending on your distance? But yeah would be nice with a place you could store your own ships and such, maybe store various components so you can easier change between ship outfits?

could also be cool if wings(guilds) could create bigger stations and run it together in some fashion, allowing them to create missions perhaps? declare an alligence and work to spread their influence in a system, (could promote pvp if two wings want same system and battle for it?, or somesuch, point being it should be something that is long term and take a lot of work.

But most importantly it needs to be made in such a way that it fits elite.
 
The fear, of course, is if you allow one station, then why not ten? A hundred? Suddenly you have people creating an empire of stations - and keep in mind how many people are involved in this game.

That could get VERY messy within a short amount of time.

However, I did have a thought on a way to expand the frontier pioneer style that might be appealing and not turn the game into something empire based: Sponsorship.

Picture it this way. Let's say you're an explorer and you found a really good system away from civilized space. You want to set something up there. Imagine within the Stellar Cartographers section there was a submenu for proposing and funding an outpost. You choose the star system and planet/moon you want to put a station around. It has to be a planet you surveyed, and the value of the survey has to be such that it indicates it would be a profitable location for the corporations who would exploit it.

But you don't just buy a station and have it put there. For one thing even a basic non rotational space station would be far more expensive than a bunch of Anacondas. It's not just a floating box, it's a floating city.

Once proposed you can sponsor it getting made, which is a target number representing a fraction of the total station cost (still bloody expensive). You can add to that number over time in donations, doesn't have to be all at once. And here's the thing - sponsorship is made open. If I propose a station location, you can help contribute to sponsorship if it's in a location you'd also like to see a station in. In fact, the costs should be so high that crowd sourseing station sponsorship would be preferable to you slogging it on your own.

That said, the station is never yours. It belongs to the company. You and others just put in the seed money to get the wheels turning.



Why would you want to do it this way? Well, for one thing, as I said, it helps reduce the idea of Empire building. The last thing Elite needs is for several grinders with hyper fine tuned rare trade routes and billions of dollars at their disposal to flood the systems with stations. And they will.

But you still have your own perks for doing it. Since you initially sponsored the station, you get to name it (pending approval no doubt), and you could effectively consider it your personal base, even if you don't "own" it. I'd say repairs and refueling could be free for you there, commodities at a discount, and a personal black market even if it doesn't have a black market for others, to represent the "pull" you have there, but I'd be wary of the idea of any income being provided for it. Again, that would encourage spamming of stations by grinders looking for cash cows.

Does that idea hold any appeal?
 
I didn't see this in the other posts.

Was thinking it would make an interesting game feature to buy your own space station (Lots of under-developed systems out there to establish one in orbit). The owning player can take a % of all commerce transactions on their station. Gives groups and factions a place to assemble as well.


Then you can have station owners posting missions to undermine neighboring systems / stations / players by issuing their own missions allowing you to upgrade your station to more landing bays, etc.

Would be the ultimate goal for traders I would think.



A tiny outpost might be feasible, but a Coriolis, let alone an Orbis Class station, is far beyond the means of an individual.
 
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A tiny outpost might be feasible, but a Coriolis, let alone an Orbis Class station are far beyond the means of an individual.

For sure, and even a tiny non-rotational outpost would cost more than a small squad of Anacondas, realistically.
 
All good points. One outpost per position is not unreasonable.

mossfoot - Buying into a station would work. Then those who contribute get access to interior bays with trading options while those who don't can only access exterior refueling and repair bays.

You could also establish a base in dead space well away from established systems to keep it secret. Pirate base, smugglers haven, black market operations? You can only go there if you know where it is located.
 
Does that idea hold any appeal?

This is quite an interesting idea, and might actually work, though the whole 'empire' thing could happen anyway, since wings/guilds, would have an interest in defending and maintaining this place, though they would be under the umbrella of a corporation/faction. And actually has some interesting appeal on its own.

+1 :)
 
The owner then needs to sit in front of screens all day and manage the station. Sim (yawn) station style. No more flying for you, you have responsibilities now son. You want to be a station owning big shot? Trade in those pulse lasers for project management spreadsheet. You have to make sure system influence is balanced and your markets are booming and take care of getting that bulletin board up to date for players passing through.

I kinda think it would be fun...

Assuming you had built up a group of like minded players to assist building, you could have a few assigned as 'management', so that you could leave the station in the hands of others for stretches of time.

I'd definitely be interested in this feature.

The fear, of course, is if you allow one station, then why not ten? A hundred? Suddenly you have people creating an empire of stations - and keep in mind how many people are involved in this game.

You could set a minimum of 'management', so that it was at least 20 people per station (number is random). 5 Stations over 1-5 systems, needing at least 100 people co-operating.. now THAT is some multiplayer :)

Edit: (some basic ideas)
Station ranks that could give access to different station features.
Security - extra range on checks, able to trigger security lazors, bonuses for killing player/npc criminals.
Traders - sets buy/sell orders, bonus % of selling/buying items, sets items to be used/converted for automatic creation by station AI.
Management - Sets system to system trade routes, starts system to system faction wars/peace, sets other ranks for players, open/closes station docking.
 
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I'd like to see more management in this game. Owning a small station (buying an existing or starting from scratch) and managing it (trading, assigning missions, expanding the station) would be very fun. But it has to be... I mean, hard and expensive to do so. Otherwise you'll end up in a situation where every player owns a 100 million population station and that's just... that's no fun.
 
It needs to be a group effort of people with a lot of money, not something an individual can realistically achieve. Not impossible, but so expensive and difficult that it would be mostly "Wings" that have them :) Sort of as a base of operations :)
 
I think the game needs this very badly. It gives the game a sort of end game play. You can only bounty hunt and trade so much, and what for? To buy the next ship? To make this game interesting you need something to work for. A goal. If there was a small % chance of finding an abandoned space port by dropping into an unidentified signal source, I think that would be great. A very small port in bad shape. You would have to raise credits and buy upgrades to bring features on-line. Upgrade much like you would a ship perhaps but much more detailed. This has a lot of potential to provide longevity for game play. ie. Give me something to work for.. keep it interesting!
 
I think the game definitely needs this. The more choices for the player the better and the more like the 'reality' of owning a space station the better.

Player owned Station
Obviously extremely Expensive
must be supplied with resources to run
can set missions on bulletin board to help control system or gather resources
gives the ability to manufacture goods with the supply of certain resources
gathering other types of resources builds the population
a large enough population gives you control of the system
once population is large enough and you have the faction standing you may get offers from the Federal/Alliance/Empire to join (maybe you get an income, resource supply or pay ) or the choice remain Independent/Anarchic.
If you lose your faction standing, engage in too much illegal activity,etc you may find yourself at war.
you can pay a fee for mercenaries both NPC and players through the bulletin board to enforce your system. If you are aligned to a faction it is likely their NPCs will help patrol.

You can upgrade defences to keep it safe, and upgrades for difference manufacturing / refinery / high tech manufacturing plants etc to allow you different income stream and to generate the income/resources you need to keep the system running.

and yes destructible, although I am assuming this would come with a large enough bounty that you would never leave the dock again and possible a loss of faction standing with all the factions (if you're bada$$ enough to destroy any station you are obviously a threat and your name will probably be known throughout most of the colonised systems)

obviously all this stuff and all the options I haven't thought of would be balanced to take a sufficient time to develop the station, system control etc to give another journey of player development beyond just getting the most expensive ship and upgrades
 
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