My current wishlist (obviously, not in this life or the next):
1. Extreme weather types ranging from strong winds to horizontal glass and diamond-raining storms and what other scientists´ exoplanet interpretations and insights could be incorporated. No complex weather systems spanning the entire planet - localised phenomena will do. Still water bodies and signs of wind erosion on the terrain. Which in turns paves way for:
2. Landable atmospheric HMC (as they are commonly dubbed) worlds as exemplified by the environment in this artwork for instance:
Adding to that, Proterozoic and pre-human Cenozoic-era environments for more or less primitive ecosystems and ancient landscapes.
3. Extended station interiors. The concourse was sufficient and bearable enough for those with an attention span of a fish - now, let the ones who appreciate and admire the monumentality and grandeur of orbital stations immerse themselves in their inner beauty up close, in first person.
Each landing pad could feature a standardised layout of basic offices, depots and service stations and booths for refueling and repairs for instance - except you walk from NPC to NPC to get things done. Add a handful of recreation areas, some vanity features à la "buy an ice cream" or even better - Wolf Fesh.
Other platforms not used as landing pads (might as well include habitat rings and noobhammers) could each house their specific set of amenities:
- Main administrative building (Administrative contact) and minor faction offices.
- Trade Plaza with commodity markets, rare good markets and the underworld den (Black Market contact).
- Defence Command Center (Combat Bond contact) featuring, among other things, external station and turret cameras (with the ability to override and man turrets if one doesn´t like how a particular CMDR flies).
- PowerPlay Authority Hall (PP contact).
- Recovery Center (Search and Rescue contact).
- Interstellar Factors.
- Stellar Archives (Universal Cartographics).
- Crew Lounge (so that CMDRs could personally adjust SLF pilot faces).
- Local Engineering Workshop - they already put one in the hangar, now let´s try a bit harder.
- Various vanity (but not necessarily) buildings reflecting the station economy; some are already present in the game in their low-polygon, low-resolution form.
- A platform customised by the System Architect, using cosmetic items and assets from ARX store for instance.
Since there are 40 landing pads, some of the above amenities could be housed on landing pads instead, making certain landing pads more unique, so one would have to travel to them in order to access those amenities. An excellent opportunity to accidentally scratch the paint of a disliked CMDR´s ship parked there for good measure. Commuting between each platform via lifts or these shuttles for more immersive experience:
I left out the plethora of potential gameplay loops these layouts could create, alongside integrating existing ones - for those who might otherwise complain, "there´s nothing to do there."
5. CMDR apartments in orbital stations, considering how colonisation could hint at player housing in the future. Reserved on a first-come, first-served basis - implying an instance with a long corridor of unique apartments, ensuring no shared or duplicated living spaces as seen in most MMOs. Windows offering views both outward toward the body the station orbits and inward into the station´s interior (though there are no such windows as of now). Multiple apartment configurations with each CMDR limited to 1 apartment per station/system.
6. 3D models for all commodities and rare goods, allowing them to be displayed in station markets and potentially within CMDR estates and cargo holds, should player housing and ship interiors ever become a reality.
