When Outposts / Colonies Are Built - THEN This Game Will Have a Point

[Lazerus Artificial]

Player control of territory was never promised, it was explicitly never on the table. Player owned stations other than the still-mythical "inflated asteroid base" were never promised. Even the inflatable base only exists in a design intent that is not a promise and is subject to change. Nothing has been promised about what might or might not be in the planetary landing future expansion, players "building" or "owning" a planetary base has not been mentioned.



David Braben, CEO of Frontier has explicitly stated in multiple interviews and online venues that players controlling territory is something that was deliberately designed to be impossible in ED.

quote myself:

except small asteroid bases https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6tahRbkaq8&t=1283

player controlled stations and fleets: denied
a small outpost for you to own: planned

uh, maybe we can build a house on a planet later?
so you can live there with...ok forget that.

 

[bambam_ofc]

Wow. There's a lot of people on this thread that claim to know "What the game is about", and how dumb one idea or another is.

If someone wants to build a station somewhere in the 400 billion star galaxy, I don't see how that destroys the game for everyone else.

But some people have no interest in building a station. I get that.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

Wow. There's a lot of people on this thread that claim to know "What the game is about", and how dumb one idea or another is.

If someone wants to build a station somewhere in the 400 billion star galaxy, I don't see how that destroys the game for everyone else.

But some people have no interest in building a station. I get that.

actually...it can go wrong pretty fast.
look at Eve. some huge corps owning a huge amount of space, if you are from another corp or even neutral you get shot as soon as you enter "their space"
sure, there are enough systems in Elite...but the problem is the same. Sooner or later huge parts of space will be owned by players who kill everything on sight.

 

[bambam_ofc]

huge parts of space will be owned by players

By huge, what proportion of the 400 billion systems do you see it becoming? (on a more serious note, it should be possible to avoid major mistakes by learning from Eve. E.g. perhaps stations could only be built in previously unoccupied systems. Perhaps the workload in maintaining a station means that a player has to grind a couple of hours a week just to stop it falling apart.)

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

By huge, what proportion of the 400 billion systems do you see it becoming?

it would be enough when a "guild" decides to own a few hundred or even thousand systems near the empire cores.
(thats not unusual, it just takes a while, and the more players are active for them the faster it will be)
there are many players who will not travel to the far side of the galaxy and stay near those cores. so shutting them off or blocking them in...eeeh not a good idea.

 

[asagorth]

Recent Gainet news says Syrius Corporation is looking to build some new outposts. This could be a bad thing as the Sirius corporation are a bunch of mindless jerks who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.

 

[gmiddlemass]

Personally I think that he only people who should be able to "own" a system or station are the ones who paid for them with real money during the Kickstarter, I don't think you should be able to just buy one in game no matter how high the cost. If it's that important to some people then they could always add the option in the game store to buy one and it would help generate more money for the developers.

I would however have no objection to being able to "rent" some space in one of the existing stations using in game credits. Buying something outright would encourage people to just sit in one system all the time where if there was a rental system it would encourage players to move round a bit. Rental prices could fluctuate depending on how well the station/system is doing, how close it is to the core systems or frontier.

I have no desire to get involved in the day to day running of any station/outpost in game though, basically I would just want it to be a hanger where I could store my ships.

 

[Colonel Kenney]

Anyone should be able to own an outpost... but only ONE each. Even with 100k subscribers .. there are billions of systems out there to choose from. It isn't limited to 1 per system either. you could have dozens of people. On a single planet provided there are enough resources.

 

[EDbubba]

actually...it can go wrong pretty fast.
look at Eve. some huge corps owning a huge amount of space, if you are from another corp or even neutral you get shot as soon as you enter "their space"

Why is there a fixation on "ownership" and more importantly "control"? A Commander in ED is essentially neutral to all parties with respect to stations/outputs, why would/should it be any different with player-generated outposts?

This whole obsession of "Controlling the galaxy" is just weird, and really does not fit with the ED paradigm.

I'm a CPO in the Federation Navy, yet, I'm welcomed at either Alliance or Empire stations, or even at known pirate outposts(!), and that's the way it should be with player-generated assets.

 

[Colonel Kenney]

What is the ultimate point of the game? Other than having fun (it is a game of course). Its to make money. So by having an outpost it provides a whole other method of earning money. It establishes a "home" for a player instead of just wandering the galaxy. A HOME where they are invested in the politics of the system and galaxy. A home to protect from all sorts of things. Its also a bank for you to pool and store resources and ships.

 

[TheEponymousBob]

Ok imagine you are building a colony/outpost. You need a power generation module. [snip]

With no disrespect intended, that is not a game I have any interest in playing.

 

[Dominico]

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.

I actually like this idea its cool n well thougbt out.

Prolly not that hard to do either. But i think a long way off. But cool when we have planet landing. I wouldn't mind finding others bases. Keep them simple etc.

More money sinks are a great thing in any game.

 

[medwyn]

OP, you clearly used your imagination and see...

If it was implemented in ED I would be willing to come back and play. And I guess many of us abandoned ED would do the same. Just to fly another return trip or shoot another inconsistent load of NPCs I will not log in for. And I guess many of us abandoned ED would not do that too.

With something like you suggested we all could be happy: the players would like to see more and those too who are happy with just flying around for whatever. Recipe of satisfactory.
But stop using my imagination (and yours) because what's most important is that FD had a "clever" move to release a game as it is and their stock market values are desirable. Hallelujah.

 

[Talarin]

Player-owned colonies and bases; no thanks. For the technical, development and game reasons already given in this thread.
.
Better player impacts on the background sim, which may lead to minor-factions expanding (or otherwise interacting with the environment); yes please.

 

[bambam_ofc]

This whole obsession of "Controlling the galaxy" is just weird, and really does not fit with the ED paradigm.

I agree that's an important issue, but I don't see that me (or everybody that wants to) owning a station necessarily means I end up "Controlling the galaxy". I mean, Earth owns the ISS but we're not "Controlling the Galaxy" (or even the Solar System, or Earth either). Sure there are many ways this *could* be implemented that would screw up the gameplay for everyone that has no interest in 'owning' a station, but that risk isn't limited to stations.

I reckon, technically, because you have to supercruise to reach a station, there could be player stations dotted around that have a minimal impact on players that have no interest in visiting them. 'Owning' can simply mean choosing the name, it doesn't have to mean Death Star capabilities affecting a 20 lightyear radius (although that would be great if just I had it).

 

[W4rSkuLL]

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.

Sounds like a X-game on steroids, but I like the ideas. With planetary landings there will be bases on planets. How they will do it remains to be seen. I am really for asteroid bases. That would be cool.

 

[Munial]

I'd settle for a garage I can keep all my ships in, and walk around it at night in my dressing gown affectionately touching each one as I pass.

 

[Nerull]

OP, you clearly used your imagination and see...

If it was implemented in ED I would be willing to come back and play. And I guess many of us abandoned ED would do the same. Just to fly another return trip or shoot another inconsistent load of NPCs I will not log in for. And I guess many of us abandoned ED would not do that too.
.
With something like you suggested we all could be happy: the players would like to see more and those too who are happy with just flying around for whatever. Recipe of satisfactory.
But stop using my imagination (and yours) because what's most important is that FD had a "clever" move to release a game as it is and their stock market values are desirable. Hallelujah.

.
Amazing how people who quit playing the game because they don't like it keep haunting and posting on the forum.
YOU don't like the game, it doesn't fulfill YOUR expectations, it's not up to YOUR specs. So YOU quit playing. Ok, it's a logical step. Hoping FD will change the whole premisces of the game to make YOU and the other people who left the game because it's not what they want it to be, is not logical.
.
It's a space flight sim, not an RTS, not WoW, it's Elite Dangerous! .
Is it finished? No, FD is still working on it and we're getting regular updates (thx for that Devs).
Is it all it was promised to be? No, not yet, it's a WiP.
Does a company need money to pey their employees and maintain their hardware? Yes, the Devs need food and shelter too.
.
You had your rant, mine's finished for now.

 

[Jex =TE=]

I hear an awful lot from the people that love this game about using imagination except now, I'm seeing very little imagination on their part.

First off, if you don't like the idea of owning a station then don't own one - simple. In what universe did you think you would be forced to own one?

Controlling a 400 billion star Galaxy - lol ok. Why should anything change at all for independent, lone traders? Instead of the dumb AI controlling the station, you have human players controlling the station which costs a huge amount of money to build and maintain - it's not going to maintain itself, it requires trade to survive. You have a system where you kill everyone that comes into it - watch every trader in the galaxy avoid you like the plague and then see if you can find the c500,000,000 credits a month to maintain it (whatever the figure is, it needs to be high enough to be important enough that you need traders).

Just like in real life, people avoid idiots and this would promote systems that policed their space.

.
Amazing how people who quit playing the game because they don't like it keep haunting and posting on the forum.
YOU don't like the game, it doesn't fulfill YOUR expectations, it's not up to YOUR specs. So YOU quit playing. Ok, it's a logical step. Hoping FD will change the whole premisces of the game to make YOU and the other people who left the game because it's not what they want it to be, is not logical.
.
It's a space flight sim, not an RTS, not WoW, it's Elite Dangerous! .
Is it finished? No, FD is still working on it and we're getting regular updates (thx for that Devs).
Is it all it was promised to be? No, not yet, it's a WiP.
Does a company need money to pey their employees and maintain their hardware? Yes, the Devs need food and shelter too.
.
You had your rant, mine's finished for now.

That's fine and everything but don't expect ED to get any further in development when nobody buys the next DLC. Maybe the best idea is for the huge number of people already bored of the game to say absolutely nothing and then when ED produce their next DLC and nobody buys it, you can all wonder on the forums how ED just died "But it was brilliant", "How is nobody buying the DLC!!!!"

"Why didn't anybody say something BEFORE THEY MADE IT?????!"


Oh, we did and we are.

 

[777Driver]

So it's pointless

Cruise around in different combinations, what??? what is the point of doing that? "Oh I just have to go and get my other cobra out now because it as class A shields instead of class B oh this is so much fun flying around in a different configuration! Yipeee!!"

New ships are pointless too when you have nothing to do with them. You can't even see the skins you paid for when flying, can't add any decor to your cockpit, can't even walk around the ship and get exactly the same hud on each ship that you buy.

How is empire building going to affect you if it was added? You just said all u want to do is fly around in different configured ships so you're just saying no for the sake of being mean? It won't affect you so why on earth should you care?

Pointless to you, so why not find a game that appeals to you more? That's what I would do. anyway, I mix it up, ED and X3TC. It's not pointless to many others inlcuding myself. I have plenty to do with all my ships, but I come from a flightsim crowd, am more than happy cruising around in the DK2, I'd never get bored of this.

It's sounds like you really don't enjoy the game, so stop torturing yourself. Btw, I have nothing against empire building, but that is not what this game is about. If the devs decided to add it in the future, I definitely wouldn't complain. If you want to grind 10 trillion credits for your own starport, go right ahead