I think it could breathe a lot of vibrancy and life into Elite if a couple of things happened.
I foresee the first being the creation of a Station Administrator role that a player could fulfil. The role would involve setting missions, tweaking economics, setting the station type, establishing trade routes, setting faction attitudes, etc. A ratio could be created between the performance (population, economic performance, etc.) of the station and the player's rank with the faction, with a minimum threshold before the player could apply for the role. A weighting for the last time a player logged into their management station could be applied and other players could apply to replace the player if their ratio exceeded the weighted ratio of the sitting player.
The second thing would be allowing players to modularly build stations. I imagine the various modules would be extremely expensive, but the first module could be the administration module, which would allow someone to become the Station Administrator, and they could set missions to acquire station modules, which would mean that once a station was up and running, expanding it could be something an administrator could fund from the station's economy, and toward the beginning, players or administrators would still have to fund it out of pocket (which would be a cool community effort), but they could split up the task of going to the various places that make modules and acquiring them. Obviously transporting a station module would require a big cargo ship (but I'm assuming it could be flat-packed and constructed at the destination so we're not talking as-big-as-a-station). Anyway, getting into nitty gritty there. Features of a station could be a factor of not only modules being available to support the feature, but also station population, and station economic performance could generate transport quests for colonists on other stations (i.e. if it's doing well it becomes desirable to move there for people on other stations that are doing less well). There would have to be a minimum set of modules a station would need in order to come online at all. A station's economy should trundle along on its own, but I'd foresee a minimum amount of hand-holding either in terms of players coming and going to do quests or in terms of the administrator logging in to manage things or a combination of both. That could allow stations to go derelict, and after a period of neglect maybe become available for another player to either repair and bring online under their own management, or pillage modules for sale as scrap (or as second-hand modules). This would also create the interesting situation that explorers might come across derelict stations in weird places from time to time, which could be quite lucrative.
Land-based bases could be built similarly. Perhaps less expensive (but requiring pilots to actually land making them slightly less desirable, presumably).
I think that could be a really solid basis for not only setting up a player-drive economic model that could add a lot to the game, but also for allowing player-driven expansion, and the opportunity for oddball ventures into deep space. Obviously allowing station administrators to set missions and faction relationships would allow the creation of political elements to the game backed up by military actions, organized pirate communities, and organized anti-piracy groups. And frankly, it could address a lot of the "there's nothing to do, fans of Euro Truck Simulator will love this" cachet E
has.
I foresee the first being the creation of a Station Administrator role that a player could fulfil. The role would involve setting missions, tweaking economics, setting the station type, establishing trade routes, setting faction attitudes, etc. A ratio could be created between the performance (population, economic performance, etc.) of the station and the player's rank with the faction, with a minimum threshold before the player could apply for the role. A weighting for the last time a player logged into their management station could be applied and other players could apply to replace the player if their ratio exceeded the weighted ratio of the sitting player.
The second thing would be allowing players to modularly build stations. I imagine the various modules would be extremely expensive, but the first module could be the administration module, which would allow someone to become the Station Administrator, and they could set missions to acquire station modules, which would mean that once a station was up and running, expanding it could be something an administrator could fund from the station's economy, and toward the beginning, players or administrators would still have to fund it out of pocket (which would be a cool community effort), but they could split up the task of going to the various places that make modules and acquiring them. Obviously transporting a station module would require a big cargo ship (but I'm assuming it could be flat-packed and constructed at the destination so we're not talking as-big-as-a-station). Anyway, getting into nitty gritty there. Features of a station could be a factor of not only modules being available to support the feature, but also station population, and station economic performance could generate transport quests for colonists on other stations (i.e. if it's doing well it becomes desirable to move there for people on other stations that are doing less well). There would have to be a minimum set of modules a station would need in order to come online at all. A station's economy should trundle along on its own, but I'd foresee a minimum amount of hand-holding either in terms of players coming and going to do quests or in terms of the administrator logging in to manage things or a combination of both. That could allow stations to go derelict, and after a period of neglect maybe become available for another player to either repair and bring online under their own management, or pillage modules for sale as scrap (or as second-hand modules). This would also create the interesting situation that explorers might come across derelict stations in weird places from time to time, which could be quite lucrative.
Land-based bases could be built similarly. Perhaps less expensive (but requiring pilots to actually land making them slightly less desirable, presumably).
I think that could be a really solid basis for not only setting up a player-drive economic model that could add a lot to the game, but also for allowing player-driven expansion, and the opportunity for oddball ventures into deep space. Obviously allowing station administrators to set missions and faction relationships would allow the creation of political elements to the game backed up by military actions, organized pirate communities, and organized anti-piracy groups. And frankly, it could address a lot of the "there's nothing to do, fans of Euro Truck Simulator will love this" cachet E