Will we ever see base building in Elite?

Lucius Confucius

Lucius Confucius
Do not kill me, please.

It would be a great money sink! Better than carriers, because it would be more modular. Don't have a lot of credits? Smaller base for you!

Could perhaps work together with fleet carriers, in that the carriers would be the delivery platform. And those who do not have carriers of their own could either contract another player or an NPC carrier to deliver base parts?

Imagine flying several thousand light years outside the bubble and finding a small player outpost.
Fear that it might clutter up space? Limit base ownership to one per player. Want to move to another place? Then you would need to dismantle your base.
Upkeep should be similar to NPC crew, in that the base takes a cut of all your profits as upkeep, instead of weekly or monthly upkeep.

Uses?
-Storage.
-RP
-A home.
-Personal mission board where the base owner selects what types of missions should be offered.
-Can be attacked and looted by pirates/other factions at random. Storage remains intact(?), but buildings may be damaged and in need of repair.
-Could help populate the bubble and beyond without the need for Frontier to place bases themselves.
-Cost could also be calculated by distance from the bubble.

So what do you think? Will we ever see base building in Elite Dangerous?
 
Last edited:

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
Now we have FCs i struggle to see the point. A static version of something we have a mobile version of. Something that takes longer to reach than what we already have.

Personal mission board? Well, not sure of the wisdom on that, but if it were to be added, it could be added to FCs.

Attack and damage.... ugh, no. Imagine logging on to simply find the first thing you need to do is repair your base. Or returning from a long exploration trip to discover your base has been damaged.

I do see a potential use for expanding the boundaries of human space though... but if they didn't come with upkeep or were not limited in number (eg: 1 per person) then you'd just end up with bases all over the place.
 

SCiARA

SCiARA
Agony_Aunt said:
Now we have FCs i struggle to see the point. A static version of something we have a mobile version of. Something that takes longer to reach than what we already have.
Click to expand...

I think this, FC's has the potential to be developed into a proper base of operations
personally I'd like to see storage options for engineering/guardian mats with a larger limit and a simpler fuelling option, doesn't have to be quicker just more accessible
 

Lucius Confucius

Lucius Confucius
Agony_Aunt said:
Now we have FCs i struggle to see the point.
Click to expand...
It would be an intermediary between nothing and carriers. Not everyone wants to mine to afford a fleet carrier. Not everyone has the time to amass five billion credits in the game and maintain a million credit upkeep. This would open up for those who are more casual, yet still wants a place to call home. A base could range in price from tens of millions up to a few billion depending on what modules and parts you place.
And they wouldn't be as powerful as carriers since they can't move, which balances them out.
Do you see the point now?

Yeah, maybe the attack and damage could be done away with, perhaps that was a bad suggestion. But some sort of combat involved would be nice, that goes for the fleet carrier as well.

WhiteHaulerMan said:
Wasnt base building one of the mechanics mentioned in that 'leak' from last year?
Click to expand...
Could you link that leak, please?
 

Rat Catcher

Rat Catcher
Wasn't base building given a 'no' from the Devs recently?
(or at least a "not at launch")
Mentioned somewhere in the 300+ page Odyssey Launch announcement if my memory serves me well...
 

alexzk

A
Agree with idea in general. However, your influence as builder must end at quest "deliver 50000 people to start it operate", which basically picks initial side of base depends from where you deliver.
Then base operates like any NPC base, and maybe gives you 1% of profit weekly.

That would work like expansion of bubble in player's controlled way. Also many players could build it like CG but made by you.
 

Jingseng

J
It would have been much better than fc, more player emotional investment, and easier to expand on the back end.

but no, because we have fc instead, because stupid people cried for capital ships, thinking they would get what they were not in any way ever going to get.
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
Lucius Confucius said:
It would be an intermediary between nothing and carriers. Not everyone wants to mine to afford a fleet carrier. Not everyone has the time to amass five billion credits in the game and maintain a million credit upkeep. This would open up for those who are more casual, yet still wants a place to call home. A base could range in price from tens of millions up to a few billion depending on what modules and parts you place.
And they wouldn't be as powerful as carriers since they can't move, which balances them out.
Do you see the point now?

Yeah, maybe the attack and damage could be done away with, perhaps that was a bad suggestion. But some sort of combat involved would be nice, that goes for the fleet carrier as well.


Could you link that leak, please?
Click to expand...

Are you assuming bases won't cost 5 billion to build and require millions a week in upkeep?

That's very bold of you ;)
 

SCiARA

SCiARA
Lucius Confucius said:
It would be an intermediary between nothing and carriers. Not everyone wants to mine to afford a fleet carrier. Not everyone has the time to amass five billion credits in the game and maintain a million credit upkeep. This would open up for those who are more casual, yet still wants a place to call home. A base could range in price from tens of millions up to a few billion depending on what modules and parts you place.
And they wouldn't be as powerful as carriers since they can't move, which balances them out.
Do you see the point now?

Yeah, maybe the attack and damage could be done away with, perhaps that was a bad suggestion. But some sort of combat involved would be nice, that goes for the fleet carrier as well.


Could you link that leak, please?
Click to expand...

I get what you are saying and in honesty I like the idea of a planet side personal base
I think with odyssey you are almost describing a "home" station though
maybe if they allowed you to rent space/storage in stations ?
 

Alien

Alien
Something to take into account in the question of will we ever have base building, is Frontier's track record of trying new features and if it doesn't work, moving on.
Frontier tried a sort-of player-owned base idea with fleet carriers, and people are constantly mentioning (to put it mildly) issues with systems that have large numbers of fleet carriers. Given this feedback, It seems unlikely Frontier would pursue a similar idea with player-owned planetside bases.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
WhiteHaulerMan said:
Wasnt base building one of the mechanics mentioned in that 'leak' from last year?
Click to expand...
Yes, though it now seems fairly likely that:
- the leaker had misunderstood something they'd heard about Fleet Carriers
- the leaker was wrong

Rat Catcher said:
Wasn't base building given a 'no' from the Devs recently?
Click to expand...
"Not on the roadmap"

Which means "we have no plans to implement this at any semi-definite date" not "we will never do this thing ever", but still, it'll be the big expansion after Odyssey at the earliest.

Lucius Confucius said:
It would be an intermediary between nothing and carriers. Not everyone wants to mine to afford a fleet carrier. Not everyone has the time to amass five billion credits in the game and maintain a million credit upkeep. This would open up for those who are more casual, yet still wants a place to call home. A base could range in price from tens of millions up to a few billion depending on what modules and parts you place.
And they wouldn't be as powerful as carriers since they can't move, which balances them out.
Click to expand...
You can get a fleet carrier pretty quickly without mining once, and the upkeep is trivial for a "personal storage" model (one quick mission per week will cover it, or get a top 75% finish in a CG, or lots of other things). When people say "mining is the only way to make money" they are mistaken. (Certainly it's still the fastest way to make money, but there are lots of other options that earn >50M/hour)

The problem is that most of the advantages of a Fleet Carrier really depend on it being able to move.
- cargo storage: there's not much cargo which needs storing to start with, and most of what there is won't be a massive amount of use if you still have to carry it hundreds of LY from your base a T-9 load at a time.
- ship storage: again, the ability to have it follow you around is the key bit. If it can't move you can get that for free at most stations already.
- other services: sticking a fixed Cartographics base on a planet in deep space somewhere could be handy, but there are enough wealthy explorers that there's plenty of carriers anyway doing that

So it really comes down to "a personal home station with no significant gameplay benefit" - sure, they could sell a bunch of cosmetics that way, but it'd be a lot of work on the base models that could be going into something with more gameplay benefit.
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
Agony_Aunt said:
Now we have FCs i struggle to see the point. A static version of something we have a mobile version of. Something that takes longer to reach than what we already have.
Click to expand...

Sure Agony. It is a complete mystery why appartments still exist now we have caravans. A static version of something we have a mobile version of. Something that takes longer to reach than what we already have. I struggle to see the point. :cautious:

Instead of auto-resorting to your "if announced==1 object=best thing ever; if announced==0 object=pointless" script, why not just skip that routine and think a bit more creatively. Who knows, it might feel liberating in a way.
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
WhiteHaulerMan said:
Wasnt base building one of the mechanics mentioned in that 'leak' from last year?
Click to expand...

Yes, and that is till this day the only place that really made any such claim. In contrast FD said it won't be a thing with EDO. Maybe later, maybe something changed, maybe the leaker just made it up or was fooled by his 'source'.
 

Nadreck

N
It would be good to have. Yes, a Carrier is a "mobile base", but you can only have one per CMDR. Even if bases are also one per CMDR (as seems likely), that gives you two "bases", one fixed and one mobile.

And if I find a nice canyon / hilltop / whatever on a planet, I can't land my Carrier there. Hopefully bases could be sited in a specific location on a planet. Somewhere with a nice view.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom