When people can plant a flag somewhere, and develop a planetary outpost - the game will have a point. If you own something.. you become invested. Especially if something you own is related to a particular faction.
It WILL matter which political affiliation controls the system and you'll have to work to preserve it or you may incur fines or attacks from rivals.
It WILL matter which major faction is in control or you'll get caught up in a war.
It WILL matter how much money you have because you WILL need it to defend and supply your outposts.
It WILL be fun to manage and upgrade your station. You'll need to earn cash to keep the outpost going until it can provide for itself.
YOU WILL have a goal of growing an empire and forming alliances with players.
You CAN set up farms to produce foodstuff for nearby planets that are starving.
You CAN provide ore and other vital resources needed in the production of war material.
You CAN set up contracts to provide certain amounts of goods to be delivered to certain factories and stations / outposts. If you do not deliver your reputation will suffer.
Exploration will have a purpose.
So much will have a purpose if they can just set up some sort of ground based outpost system, even if it is a mini game of building structures with its own interface and does not involved planetary landings. I mean this could be developed as an entirely separate module.
But nope... WINGS are more important than adding depth, and purpose to the game.
Ok imagine you are building a colony/outpost. You need a power generation module. You'll need a ship that has the cargo hold and the team / people to build it. You'll need to have a T9 land on a planet pick a spot get your deed handy for the land you've scanned, and plotted. You bought the power module. It cost you almost everything you had. Now you want to start mining. So you need a Tier 1 mining module. You'll need to go out earn some money to get that. Then go get it and deliver it to your outpost. Now have the crew spend the time assembling it and then return to shuttle them back home. Now you have mining capabilities but nowhere to store and process your ore. You could manually transfer it to your ship and refine it into there sell it and then start the process of earning more money to set up storage hoppers on your base.
Now you want a safe place to land. How about a landing pad? How about an agricultural setup? How about defensive turrets? How about a 2nd landing pad for medium ships and a trading interface for other players? Set up what you want to buy and sell, leave some cash in the outpost. How about a bulletin board where you post your own missions?
How about now you can buy a fabrication factory. A robotic factory that can make many different things but requires raw materials. What about a food processing plant? You'll still need manpower to run these facilities you'll need to hire them too.
While all of this is going on you need to be out there in your ship making money. Getting parts. Delivering goods. Honoring contracts and protecting the stability of your home solar system.
Now you are seeing ships coming and going ... you are earning credits on every transaction and docking fees. Eventually you can earn enough money to produce unique and rare items that will draw in even more people.
--
Now I know planetary landings needs to come first that is a big step. But I'm seeing some seriously small operations pull this off. Hell they already pulled it off in earlier games. Many other engines do it such as space engine. It shouldn't take this long to start adding many things into the game. Even just walking around inside your cockpit could have been done by now even if you never left.
It WILL matter which political affiliation controls the system and you'll have to work to preserve it or you may incur fines or attacks from rivals.
It WILL matter which major faction is in control or you'll get caught up in a war.
It WILL matter how much money you have because you WILL need it to defend and supply your outposts.
It WILL be fun to manage and upgrade your station. You'll need to earn cash to keep the outpost going until it can provide for itself.
YOU WILL have a goal of growing an empire and forming alliances with players.
You CAN set up farms to produce foodstuff for nearby planets that are starving.
You CAN provide ore and other vital resources needed in the production of war material.
You CAN set up contracts to provide certain amounts of goods to be delivered to certain factories and stations / outposts. If you do not deliver your reputation will suffer.
Exploration will have a purpose.
So much will have a purpose if they can just set up some sort of ground based outpost system, even if it is a mini game of building structures with its own interface and does not involved planetary landings. I mean this could be developed as an entirely separate module.
But nope... WINGS are more important than adding depth, and purpose to the game.
Ok imagine you are building a colony/outpost. You need a power generation module. You'll need a ship that has the cargo hold and the team / people to build it. You'll need to have a T9 land on a planet pick a spot get your deed handy for the land you've scanned, and plotted. You bought the power module. It cost you almost everything you had. Now you want to start mining. So you need a Tier 1 mining module. You'll need to go out earn some money to get that. Then go get it and deliver it to your outpost. Now have the crew spend the time assembling it and then return to shuttle them back home. Now you have mining capabilities but nowhere to store and process your ore. You could manually transfer it to your ship and refine it into there sell it and then start the process of earning more money to set up storage hoppers on your base.
Now you want a safe place to land. How about a landing pad? How about an agricultural setup? How about defensive turrets? How about a 2nd landing pad for medium ships and a trading interface for other players? Set up what you want to buy and sell, leave some cash in the outpost. How about a bulletin board where you post your own missions?
How about now you can buy a fabrication factory. A robotic factory that can make many different things but requires raw materials. What about a food processing plant? You'll still need manpower to run these facilities you'll need to hire them too.
While all of this is going on you need to be out there in your ship making money. Getting parts. Delivering goods. Honoring contracts and protecting the stability of your home solar system.
Now you are seeing ships coming and going ... you are earning credits on every transaction and docking fees. Eventually you can earn enough money to produce unique and rare items that will draw in even more people.
--
Now I know planetary landings needs to come first that is a big step. But I'm seeing some seriously small operations pull this off. Hell they already pulled it off in earlier games. Many other engines do it such as space engine. It shouldn't take this long to start adding many things into the game. Even just walking around inside your cockpit could have been done by now even if you never left.
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