OK, I dunno if this should be a separate thread, but it has to do with crafting and implementation, so here goes...

Player-owned stations & Guild-owned stations

Pros:
Gives players a sense of "home", accomplishment, and belonging
Something to build and craft, occupying players with tasks besides fighting
Allows players/guilds to have operational bases away from the "crowd"
Something for players to defend
Something for players to attack

Cons:
Will probably be built EVERYWHERE, possibly cluttering up game

(Please feel free to add pros & cons)

I don't think you'd be limited to one station per sector. HECK, I think you could have 20 stations in one sector. Just in different locations. Take the maximum physical size of a station with every possible amenity (say 1 km) triple that number (3km) and then you can have a station every 3000 m in a 3-D space. Sound familiar? The distance checking is already there.
I say no stations in WH sectors, and no stations in existing planet sectors.

I think that having stations require regular maintenance would be neat, and perhaps solve a few problems.
Have them require something like the following:

Sedina V Hold (Sedina D-14) is at 78% Structural Integrity
Supplies needed for repairs:
28 cu Steel
21 cu XiRite Alloy
18 cu Vismetal
6 cu Heliocene
Once supplies are obtained, repairs will cost 278,400 credits.

Or something like that. Say that even the BIGGEST station, if left unrepaired, would decay into a floating hulk in 6 months.

The existing stations would be run by "Station A.I." that takes care of the maintenance issues, spawning NPC traders and whatnot to go get stuff for it, and using money gathered from rent (?) or sales of items (?) to pay for the repairs.

SIEGE WARFARE: Technically, a player (or more likely, a guild) COULD destroy a station by staying online for weeks and popping every NPC that came out of the station, preventing maintenance supplies from reaching the station. The Station A.I. would send out distress calls, and players could choose to run the blockade to help the station, or they could choose to help blockade the station. Eventually killing it. Like a SIEGE. Or a BLOCKADE.

So, a SIEGE would be the only way to destroy a station. Perhaps the Station A.I. might be intelligent enough to switch allegiances if it comes under siege, in order to save itself. (Oh noes! The siege of Latos mining by Tunguska has ended with Latos mining switching allegiances to Tunguska, from Orion! The station is damaged but Tunguska has promised to rebuild it... etc, etc.)

So, stations would have a decay rate, with materials and money needed to maintain them. No maintenance, eventually no station. Larger stations will obviously require more maintenance. So there will be a theoretical upper limit to station size.

That will keep the number of stations down. If a player makes a small station and then quits, the station will probably decay into nothing in 2 months.

Nevermind that the Hive may decide to set up a bastion in your station sector and pop all the NPC's that come out of your station. Then you'd need to get out the [RAID], kill off the bots before you share your station sector with a Levi. Oops. (Help! My station's under Siege by three Queens and their entourage! Aaaaah!)

Which brings up derelict stations. (Which can be destroyed). You can blow up parts of derelict stations easily, but they would be fun to fight in/around. Fighting in a destructible environment would be kickass.

And I REALLY like the insurance idea. (WOW really excellent idea tkjode) That would have to be built-into the game system like the banking system. You could have various providers (even players and guilds) that would charge a fee per week or month. You insure the station for X amount of dollars and if it goes under siege and dies you can make a claim. (But I think making a claim on just a DAMAGED station would be forbidden.) The in-game insurance system would REQUIRE that the insurer (NPC/Guild/Player) keep funds on-hand to be able to cover ALL of your obligations. No S & L scandals here, ok?

And if we are gonna have stations that grow/shrink/decay, then I have another point to make...

If we have stations that grow/shrink/decay/can be beseiged, We'll need to have the stations be modular and actually represent the size of the station. Kinda like SimCity or something, but a space staion.

Stations will need to have "X" amount of services for each cu of space they can rent out.
Fire/Emergency/Police services
Docking bay space
Strikeforce ship space
storage space
prototypping labs space
assembly line space
communications space
life support space
etc, etc.

And these things are like modular parts that grow on the stations. This seems like it will be a lot of work for the devs to implement. I'd like to see the most popular stations be physically HUGE, and the actual dimensions of the stations be relative to their usage and/or popularity.

How hard would it be to have the stations cobble on parts as they grew, or shed parts as they shrunk according to the laws of economics? I think this one requires a dev-answer.

Makes sense John. It also adds a level of corporate policy, as we have guild ranks that somewhat parallel corporate ranks (eg. Commander = President, Council = Board of Directors/Chairmen, Lieutenants = whatever)

Aspiring station owners would need to have buy-in from other players and form their team before getting started with station building activities.

And people complain there are too many guilds now!? Oh boy!

Leber:
Nice idea on the maintainence + Seige dynamics! Though, if it would take 6 months for a station to fall apart, I don't think any players would sit around popping NPC bots that long :) But if a station were to have an operational lower limit, say like 75% integrity... anything below that and operations shut down. You can still fly in and out and buy and sell, but things would get expensive as stock and supply dropped rapidly. NPCs could have a rule that they no longer deliver to a falling-apart station... even commercial stations that simply buy and sell and don't manufacture would be affected by that.

So, if that were the case, after 2 weeks, a large station would go from 100% integrity, down to 75% and operations would cease. The union would refuse to work in such conditions :P After a month, it'd be a floating hunk of metal.

i think stations should be destroyable (but perhaps very difficult to destroy), and anyone with enough resorces should be able to buy a station.

loosing everything in your personal station is a potental risk taken by anyone who owns a station solo. a guild would be better able to deffend a station than a lone player, and lone players should have enough sence not to "carry all their neut 5s in one station".

as for how to destroy a station, i'd like to see a range of station capabilities. Some should be fairly easy to destroy (similar dificulty to destroying the leviathin or a HAC) while others (nation stations would be nearly imposable. I think this could be accompleshed by allowing stations to laucch repair bots that would repair the station, but in doing so depleet it's supply of various resorces.

This will mean that the best way to destroy a large station is to besege or blocade it, whereas destroying a small poorly supplied station may only take a few houres of bombing.

And of coarse stations (PC and NPC) need to have a variety of weapons and defenceve bots avai9lable for purchass and equiping.

also i'd rather see player owned stations create trade missions than NPC traders (perhaps missions for small stations while larger stations use missions and NPC traders), when they run low on materials. That way a secret station has the lyability of having to remain secret while still getting it's resorces.

johnhawl said: ... why not make players bound to stations that already exist?

Excellent. The space is already claimed (except for grayspace). If you want to build a station, you must lease your spot from the current holder (Serco / UIT / Itani)

In grayspace, you would need to pay "protection" to someone, usually Corvus I guess.

You are "bound" to the landholder's NPC station. I'd hesitate to make it any kind of feudal system in space, although that worked with Battletech, so ... hrm. Maybe a feudal system WOULD work!

Richer players and guilds would have sub-fiefdoms where players paid "lease" agreements for the use of that space.

Mining rights would have to be negotiated for owned 'roid sectors.

You could have trespassers and mining "poachers", cool!

[another clerifier for Lebermac =) ]

Guilds could create stations in any sector, excluding special sectors like suns and wh's_(maybe).

Individule players on the other hand, who can't manage an entire station by themselves, could "add-on" to an existing station, and pay an owners fee for a node or a rental fee for the space, to be decided.

tkjode said: if it would take 6 months for a station to fall apart, I don't think any players would sit around popping NPC bots that long :)

OK, well then let's make it shorter. HOWEVER.
I got into a disagreement with Spellcast on another thread, and it was made clear to me that some players take off for 3 months at a time and expect to be able to come back without ramifications.

So, I suggest that stations can have a "Stasis" mode. Before going away for long periods of time, guilds and players can choose to shut down operations at a station, pay a lot of money up-front, and then put that station into Stasis mode for a predetermined amount of time that the guild or user can select.

The station cannot be attacked and just sits there for the determined length of time. Whether or not the players or guild comes back, the station comes out of stasis mode at the end of the time period.

If not immediately tended to with influxes of materials and such, it begins the decay process as stated above.

If players and guilds FORGET to put stations in stasis before they leave, then OH WELL.

I also like the idea of "unions" or whatever refusing to work in substandard conditions. Once a station reaches a threshhold level of 75% (Or whatever, we can determine the levels later), it ceases to function at a proper level.

Or, even better - have the station's efficiency go down with it's integrity level. At 75%, it's only 75% efficient, and a quarter of all money, goods, and services that go through that station are wasted. Hence, NO ONE will like to use a station that is even as low as 95% efficient, requiring players and guilds to maintain their stations in good order.

AND...

Lord Q said...i'd rather see player owned stations create trade missions than NPC traders (perhaps missions for small stations while larger stations use missions and NPC traders)...
OOh! YES! Of course! (/me smacks self) The missions are initially offered by the Station A.I. in the trade missions tab. After a certain length of time (i.e. until the station REALLY needs those parts now and no player has taken the mission), then a NPC is "spawned" to take care of the mission.

Perhaps the station A.I. will gradually increase the XP award and the pay for the mission until it nears crunchtime. If STILL no player has taken the mission, then the NPC does it.

We seem to have drifted off-topic towards solely talking about stations. Let's tie it into talking about crafting more...

Well, it got off topic cause we were talking about additions to stations that were assembly lines for manufacturing, and only certain stations would have certain facilities.

What we really need to do is break down the widgets and see what is a sub-component of others, and then see what esle is needed to make crafting work. Where we get the datapads, or are mission needed to obtain them. Who offers those (research stations).

I think basic crafting should be handled before we start talking about uber items. Just being able to construct your own weapons, equipment, ships, etc vs. buying from stations.

OMG! This thread is HUGE!
johnhawl, leber, tkjode, lordq, BREATHE!
press the pause button! geez.... (ok, that's all in good humor! just messing with you all)

Only problem I see with all of this is that what is basically outlined here would mean a lot of time spent crafting. If I want an ubergauss, it would take me a month to make one. If it's only marginally better, (with balancing tweaks outlined somewhere in there) I'm not going to bother with it. The way ships get popped, and the way most people go through guns, there's no way in hell i'd take my ubergauss to a fight. There's no way I'd take anything that took a week (or even a few days) to build out to a spam session in b8! Not to mention that this could increase the Running issues. Everyone would want to keep their ubergausses and not die.

UNLESS...

What if *Crafed* items were more permanent!
What if my ubergauss, that took a couple days and 100,000 credits to create, would be dropped as cargo when i popped? That way the *better* opponent could pick up the ubergauss, and use it for him/herself. (with the proper license requirements, of course), and someday I may be able to *win* back the ubergauss.

A point on crafting regular items. I really don't see the point. If it takes me any time at all, i'd rather go pop some bots for the few hundred credits to purchase it instead. I know the crafting itself is what is wanted, but it should be for things we don't already have.

my 2cr.

kernel.panic

Well, I think that the crafting folks would very quickly have AMPLE supplies of all their material needs to make whatever they liked. Making an ubergauss prototype would perhaps take 2 or 3 hours of playing, and then you could load that "blueprint datapad" into your assembly line that you have contracted, and crank out the weapons, provided you have enough raw materials, and that you crafted the ubergauss correctly in the first place.

I really like your idea of salvaging the materials from your exploded foes. (That way, the guild will not trust their uberweapons with lesser-experienced PvP folks, lest their enemies get some of their cool stuff.)
Yeah, the opponent would still need the licenses to use it, but hey, if they can't use it QUITE yet, that gives them something to work towards. Although the parts wouldn't ALWAYS stick around after you /explode. Only the really HIGH quality items (like above 90% quality) would survive a ship's explosion, and then only a small percentage of time.

I think that if we implement some kind of quality rating, that the "normal" equipment that we have now would end up being a 50% on the quality scale. Better items would make ships better, more efficient, etc.

Crafting normal items would need to be less expensive and not very time-consuming to make. The cost of the "normal" items as they are now will most likely need to be adjusted upwards.

I'm zee newbie here, but one thing I think is important to highlight is to not be too proud to steal ideas from other games if you like them and think they will work well in yours. Especially if you can polish them and make it work even better for this environment by tweaking.

Maybe you liked Betrayal at Krondor's word puzzles for opening special chests- you could do something similar for certain special cargo drops, but better. Maybe you're fond of the class specialization in Lineage and really thought it was a great way to bring groups of people together and make them cohesive- cool, steal that and make it better. Maybe you like Eve-online's time based skill system. Or WoW's tedium based skill system. Or Final Fantasy's mini-games. You could have MOO2 based research or SaGa Frontier based inspiration or any number of ideas that could be truly great i they were implemented well.

Unlimited Saga turned all the battle sequences into mini-games by making the player match spots on a spinning reel to accomplish tasks thereby integrating player twitch skills into a turn based rpg. Will this work for Vendetta? I don't know but it gives a good example of how something twitch oriented can be integrated into something that is so completely non-twitch and even make it better by doing so.

My vote is for integrating enough mini-game/twitch mechanic aspects that I'm not just grinding through tedium like WoW or time like Eve-online, but at the same time I want crafting to be cerebral enough to feel like I've accomplished something. I want building a capital ship or a space station or a home to be challenging and special.

Maybe have the game give us guidelines on the pieces and design constraints and have each crafting session be like putting together a 1000 piece 3d puzzle where there is no 'right' way, but design decisions will affect how efficient x or y is. Maybe not (sounds like alot of work to implement).

-Firetear

Only problem with mini-games are that they need to be designed and created along with all the databases and blueprints, etc. that are needed for crafting. Not that they wouldn't be fun, but that it's even MORE time spent programing etc. A lean, working crafting system would be nice for the soon(TM) and then add eyecandy etc. as needed afterwards, like most of VO.

Actually, at this point, I think we have a lot of good ideas, perhaps the devs could share some of their views on what's been suggested and which things we might need to flush out more and what to disregard altogether.

to LeberMac's ideas about deteriorating stations:

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11318

My ideas about stations that grow or deteriorate based on business. I suppose, theoretically, if a station is left alone for too long, it would turn into a floating hulk, like the one in one of those Sedina Racetracks.

Yeah, there ya go, cp. I KNEW I had read that stuff somewhere. (Most of my ideas on this thread are not original, especially my crafting ones, they're ripped off almost verbatim from ATITD.)

I have no idea how hard that would be to implement. I am guessing about an 7 on the hardness scale of 1-10. But having stations grow/shrink/decay based on realtime economic conditions and the Station A.I.'s reactions to the conditions would be quite cool.

You'd need to have a kind of modular system for swapping out components and adjusting the overall size of stations, and textures that make it look brand-new or decayed, based on it's "health."

They already can alter the look of ships when they sustain damage (clean, smoking a little, burning, etc.), so it can be DONE, but I assume it will take a little work from a 3D artist.

Wherever will they FIND a 3D artist? (cough...Seldon!..cough)

But yeah, we've gone 4 pages of wild speculation. Anyone at guild have anything to say re: this? Perhaps some parameters to think within would be nice? Nothing focuses the mind like limits.

give 'em about a week and a half to read it...lol

Leber, at the very least, I think that simply making new texture maps that indicate extra corrosion, no operational lights, etc, would be easy to do. Swapping the actual components would be cool too, though.

I think that when ships are damaged, it's less that they've changed the maps, and more that they add particle emitters that do the burning and smoking.

Hi. I think the response on this thread is fantastic, and no, I haven't had a chance to read through it all yet :). I skim it periodically to catch the high points being debated, but will wade through it more thoroughly sometime this week and respond.

I'll throttle back to allow Inc to catch up on all of our wild speculation. Hehe.

*bump*
I refuse to let this thread die. It's important!

waiting for a second responce from Inc. before making further comments. =) it will not die, the devs started it afterall.