That's a hard no then.
Player owned settelements
- Thread starter frostthejack
- Start date
The bubble already has a hundred billion tonnes of commodities in its markets, and if people did somehow haul those there'd be tens of billions more generated each day. For this to be a useful feature would need a massive rewrite of how the markets worked and what they were for.
I think the problem for me with player-owned settlements is that we already have Fleet Carriers.
- Fleet Carriers obviously have the advantage over settlements that you can move the Carrier somewhere else
- what features could settlements reasonably be given that couldn't also be given to Carriers?
I agree absolutely. They'd have to invent some other mechanic, like barring certain factions from being mission-givers at your settlement (so you have vague control over missions) and perhaps allowing you to raise mercenary groups/armies. Otherwise it's just a fixed-position carrier with fewer hangars.
It could be a DLC Base Building
Allowing Cmdr to create their own goods via a crafting system would be nice :
Build a base
Build a Beer Facility
Import Water, Cereales, aluminium
--> Exporting Beer
There is a whole system of crafting ideas that could be made to allow Cmdr to create and export goods. Just get inspiration from Ark Survival Evolved.
Allowing Cmdr to create their own goods via a crafting system would be nice :
Build a base
Build a Beer Facility
Import Water, Cereales, aluminium
--> Exporting Beer
There is a whole system of crafting ideas that could be made to allow Cmdr to create and export goods. Just get inspiration from Ark Survival Evolved.
Last edited:
Sure, but why would you want to export Beer?
There's 300 million tonnes of Beer already available on NPC markets for around 100 credits per tonne.
The only defined use of Beer is to sell it to other NPC markets for a higher price than you bought it.
Why would you go to the trouble of building a base, adding a beer facility to it, and then keeping it topped up with multiple types of supplies ... when you can buy Beer by the T-9 full already at almost every Agricultural station in the game?
Or - perhaps put another way - what changes would be necessary to the NPC trade market and related economy so that owning a base with a Beer Facility was a useful thing to do? (And, implicitly, would the major effects those changes had on the rest of the game be worth it to make this the purpose of base building?)
Player Owned Settlements have been suggested many times.
I have no idea why Frontier felt that Fleet Carriers was a better first steps than a planet based locations.
I would very much subscribe to the walk before run approach.
Dont try to do too much in the first iteration, look what the players like / use and build from there.
Start with what Fleet carriers do and build out.
i.e. a Player owned settlement is a planet based fleet carrier
Possibly add something like PowerPlay, BGS system faction or Squadron alignment providing some form of benefit but if a player owns and runs a market / outfiting / repairs etc they can probably do that themselves
I have no idea why Frontier felt that Fleet Carriers was a better first steps than a planet based locations.
I would very much subscribe to the walk before run approach.
Dont try to do too much in the first iteration, look what the players like / use and build from there.
Start with what Fleet carriers do and build out.
- All settlements are one of x number of pre-canned looks
- Owners can purchase one settlement from a series of settlement vendors dotted around the bubble - when purchasing, they can select system and planet from a look-up / drop down list.
- (unlike Fleet carriers) There are a fixed number of settlements per planet - established based on size of planet - when they are gone, they are gone.
- Settlements are persistent across all platforms and instances.
- Settlements cost a certain upkeep per week - Upkeep dependent on the number of facilities available.
- Look & feel of settlement can be tweaked in the similar way Fleet carriers
i.e. a Player owned settlement is a planet based fleet carrier
Possibly add something like PowerPlay, BGS system faction or Squadron alignment providing some form of benefit but if a player owns and runs a market / outfiting / repairs etc they can probably do that themselves
If you look at the other big MMOs that try to keep you engaged way beyond the natural life of the story, I would say 95% of the busywork is nothing more than 'because it's there and I feel a sense of achievement doing it'
For example - Final Fantasy XIV - you need just one tank, range attacker or healer to complete the game. There are a whole host of different Tanks, range attackers, healers, support roles (carpenters, miners, weavers, blacksmiths, etc) that fulfil no direct purpose than giving you something else to do.
Why make beer? - Because I can.... (and I will make the best beer in the galaxy)
That could be a Rare Beer goods like we have Bucky Ball Beer Mats or Gerasian Gueuze Beer.
Cmdr Facility could produce rare goods with quantity exported based on the quantity imported of needed goods (Water, Cereales, aluminium for example to produce Beer keg)
This would give Cmdr insensitive to load their Fleet Carrier to bring imported goods to their facility, but also import many more via Commodities Market to other Cmdrs.
This could provide the opportunity to introduce Players driven economy.
I can already see many players doing trading loop to provide imported goods and exporting the Rare Cmrd Goods to others systems.
Some system could have high demand of Rare Cmrd Goods to create some interesting Trading gameplay mechanism.
There were a mega threads about Cmdr owning station. It had almost 50 pages or something. That brought the eyes from FDev and Sammarco. They decided it was a nice idea.
At the time 50% at least of people were against of Players owning stations, coz they didn't want Elite Dangerous to become like Eve Online.
Many players wanted to own a Home Base (on surface ?).
Fleet Carrier wich is not a station, nor a Home Base Settlement won the approval of FDev.
It was something really appealing that content a lot of people. It was something hype that pleased people.
Some sort of huge ship that eat Asteroids and produce a lot of minerals, metals could be good, with one landing pad to unload it on a Fleet Carrier would be nice.
It couldn't land anywhere and would needs to be refuel with ships.
At the beginning Fleet Carrier were supposed to be dedicated to Trading, Mining, Exploration, Bounty Hunting... and then they decide that one Fleet Carrier could do everything, with differents possible Layouts.
Having the possibility to remove some landing pad to increase Fleet Carrier storage would be nice.
Last edited:
I like the idea but to be able to build it anywhere in the galaxy. and to build it in a modular way and with purpose you choose. it is mining facility it can mine resources that you can transport and sell to stations.
I'd like to see player-owned bases, but I hope the system is designed from the outset with both multiplayer squadrons and single players in mind.
For instance, if numbers are capped, it could be one settlement per CMDR plus one larger base per squadron. Of course that would tempt people to make one-member squadrons to get two bases, so the facilities of the squadron base could be linked to squadron size.
And it should be possible to relocate a base by building a new one, which causes the old one to become derelict and eventually disappear.
For instance, if numbers are capped, it could be one settlement per CMDR plus one larger base per squadron. Of course that would tempt people to make one-member squadrons to get two bases, so the facilities of the squadron base could be linked to squadron size.
And it should be possible to relocate a base by building a new one, which causes the old one to become derelict and eventually disappear.
As for "why, when we already have Carriers"...
One reason is to provide a more affordable alternative, for those who can't afford a Carrier. Though they'd need to be less conspicuous than Carriers to avoid "system clutter". Not visible on the system map until you zoom in on the planet, and maybe not visible on the nav panel to others unless they're within 1ls of the body.
Another reason (for those who can already afford a Carrier) is to provide a way around the "one Carrier per CMDR" limit. You can have both a Carrier and a personal base (and a share of a squadron base too).
You should also have more positioning options. With a Carrier, you can choose the body it orbits, and that's it. You can't even change its orientation. With a base (hopefully), you can put it in a valley, of at the foot of a mountain range, or next to a bay (when we get seas...) etc.
A very basic Odyssey settlement (one Small pad, no hangar, CMD/PWR building, nothing else) should be cheap. Maybe 50 million? Comparable to a stock midrange ship. No facilities other than Refuel for a ship on the pad. A small upkeep fee, but failing to pay the upkeep just mothballs it (staff leave, taking the power regulator). The owner can pay to add more facilities, this increases upkeep, but manufacturing facilities generate income that offsets upkeep.
For squadron bases, use the same starting point, but the upgrades are free and based on current membership. This gives a disincentive to use a one-player squadron to get a second base: you can't upgrade that one on your own.
Something like this, maybe:
2 members: +1 Medium pad, +Repair
3 members+ +1 Large pad, +Armoury
4 members: Retractable Small pad with underground ship-storage, Outfitting on Small ships in hangar
5 members: Retractable Medium pad, Outfitting on Medium ships
6 members: Retractable Large pad, Large-ship Outfitting
etc.
One reason is to provide a more affordable alternative, for those who can't afford a Carrier. Though they'd need to be less conspicuous than Carriers to avoid "system clutter". Not visible on the system map until you zoom in on the planet, and maybe not visible on the nav panel to others unless they're within 1ls of the body.
Another reason (for those who can already afford a Carrier) is to provide a way around the "one Carrier per CMDR" limit. You can have both a Carrier and a personal base (and a share of a squadron base too).
You should also have more positioning options. With a Carrier, you can choose the body it orbits, and that's it. You can't even change its orientation. With a base (hopefully), you can put it in a valley, of at the foot of a mountain range, or next to a bay (when we get seas...) etc.
A very basic Odyssey settlement (one Small pad, no hangar, CMD/PWR building, nothing else) should be cheap. Maybe 50 million? Comparable to a stock midrange ship. No facilities other than Refuel for a ship on the pad. A small upkeep fee, but failing to pay the upkeep just mothballs it (staff leave, taking the power regulator). The owner can pay to add more facilities, this increases upkeep, but manufacturing facilities generate income that offsets upkeep.
For squadron bases, use the same starting point, but the upgrades are free and based on current membership. This gives a disincentive to use a one-player squadron to get a second base: you can't upgrade that one on your own.
Something like this, maybe:
2 members: +1 Medium pad, +Repair
3 members+ +1 Large pad, +Armoury
4 members: Retractable Small pad with underground ship-storage, Outfitting on Small ships in hangar
5 members: Retractable Medium pad, Outfitting on Medium ships
6 members: Retractable Large pad, Large-ship Outfitting
etc.
I strongly suspect it will happen eventually, IF the game survives long enough.
Was there not something about this in the early game design documents? Something about a future update bringing the ability to build things and cache items on planet surfaces? I think there was. And some of the early leaks surrounding what later came to be known as Odyssey -- including leaks own FDev's on website -- mentioned base building and customising "your buildings", so I think it was, or is being, worked upon to at least some extent.
I could see it dovetailing with the fleet carrier marketplace to allow the development of entirely player-generated inhabited bubbles. If you build a settlement that has farming or extraction or manufacturing capability, you semi-passively produce commodities that can then be sold at your fleet carrier. "Semi-passive" because it would probably require some degree of maintenance and upkeep to continue operation from one week to the next (and if that sounds like too much work, you can just build a simple hideout//silo without those facilities, and maybe you can chip-in to help maintain a friend or squadron-mate's manufacturing base). You'd probably only be allowed one base per Commander, and there might be an element of having to pick a planet with a good environment and resources for what you're hoping to use it for (the right star type and good location for a farm, a planet with plenty of metals for a mine, etc.).
The tricky issues would be working out how it interacts with existing economies (would they only allow building in uninhabited systems to sidestep this?), dealing with new exploits that might creep in, and most importantly, how piracy and criminality by other Commanders is handled. Can others come and steal your stuff? Kill your employees? Shut down your settlement like any other even when you're not around to defend it? How does that impact your operation? Do you lose everything? Or does it just get abstracted to a slight downtick in your productivity, kinda like how faction influence is currently impacted by annihilating their settlements? Even that seems like it could be abused to target and bully specific individuals (you can't fly away in a settlement). Or are the settlements invulnerable like fleet carriers? Or hidden to everyone but the owner and their team members? Lots of tough design choices there, and I think whatever route they picked, some people would be outraged by it.
It's not top of the list of things I'd be looking forward to, but I wouldn't be opposed to it either.
Was there not something about this in the early game design documents? Something about a future update bringing the ability to build things and cache items on planet surfaces? I think there was. And some of the early leaks surrounding what later came to be known as Odyssey -- including leaks own FDev's on website -- mentioned base building and customising "your buildings", so I think it was, or is being, worked upon to at least some extent.
I could see it dovetailing with the fleet carrier marketplace to allow the development of entirely player-generated inhabited bubbles. If you build a settlement that has farming or extraction or manufacturing capability, you semi-passively produce commodities that can then be sold at your fleet carrier. "Semi-passive" because it would probably require some degree of maintenance and upkeep to continue operation from one week to the next (and if that sounds like too much work, you can just build a simple hideout//silo without those facilities, and maybe you can chip-in to help maintain a friend or squadron-mate's manufacturing base). You'd probably only be allowed one base per Commander, and there might be an element of having to pick a planet with a good environment and resources for what you're hoping to use it for (the right star type and good location for a farm, a planet with plenty of metals for a mine, etc.).
The tricky issues would be working out how it interacts with existing economies (would they only allow building in uninhabited systems to sidestep this?), dealing with new exploits that might creep in, and most importantly, how piracy and criminality by other Commanders is handled. Can others come and steal your stuff? Kill your employees? Shut down your settlement like any other even when you're not around to defend it? How does that impact your operation? Do you lose everything? Or does it just get abstracted to a slight downtick in your productivity, kinda like how faction influence is currently impacted by annihilating their settlements? Even that seems like it could be abused to target and bully specific individuals (you can't fly away in a settlement). Or are the settlements invulnerable like fleet carriers? Or hidden to everyone but the owner and their team members? Lots of tough design choices there, and I think whatever route they picked, some people would be outraged by it.
It's not top of the list of things I'd be looking forward to, but I wouldn't be opposed to it either.
Last edited:
Yes, there should be a way to stop other players from ransacking the place. And a rationale for why NPC settlements can still be ransacked.
It could be cost. If we assume that settlements are cheap, with prices starting at 50 million and upgrades going up into the hundreds of millions, then maybe it costs another 2 billion to turn an Odyssey-style "settlement" into an invulnerable "planetary base". NPC settlements are built by those who don't have the budget for that.
It could be cost. If we assume that settlements are cheap, with prices starting at 50 million and upgrades going up into the hundreds of millions, then maybe it costs another 2 billion to turn an Odyssey-style "settlement" into an invulnerable "planetary base". NPC settlements are built by those who don't have the budget for that.