Hi all. I've been casually following VO since it's initial commercial release and had an epiphany for an idea I wanted to share. It's one of those 'down the line' ideas, and makes lots of assumptions about how the whole manufacturing system and player owned stations would work, but I think parts of the idea can be implemented in stages and have the potential to provide some interesting depth to the universe, along with providing a framework for more player-driven content.

First off, I'll cover my thoughts on how player owned stations would work, because that was the initial inspiration for my idea, although it is important to point out that I don't believe manufacturing and player owned stations would be necessary to start the implementation of the idea.

I believe that stations would be module-based. A player/guild would front the initial resources to build a basic docking bay, and then add modules for ore processing, widget building, ship building, etc. Each module would require a steady inflow of money and other resources to continue operation. The more advanced the module, the heavier the resource demand. Among the most basic modules would be the ore processors. If the station cannot maintain a module it would steadily degrade until the module, and eventually the entire station is destroyed. Thus the number of stations would be limited by available resources. Nation space would be largely devoid of player stations because the majority of the resources would tied up by the nations and it would be exceedingly difficult to carve out a niche.

This is where roids start becoming a valuable catalyst for new gameplay, as a station would need to secure a steady supply of raw materials through trade and/or direct mining to maintain operation. Station owners could tag, or lay claim to a roid and then hire npcs and players (through missions available on the station) to defend claimed roids against unauthorized miners. A player could become an authorized miner by taking a mining mission from the station. If two stations lay claim to the same roids, this could become a hotpoint for conflict. There are a lot of implementation details that would need to be worked out with these conflicts, but there is also a lot of potential for dynamic content there.

In the universe as it currently stands I think the idea of roid ownership for nations could still add depth to the gameplay. Each nation would obviously have ownership over a large portion of the roids in its nation space. Along the borders and in hive infested space conflicts could arise as nations commit resources and create missions to defend contested roids. In some systems nations may decide to concede ownership of roids as long as the nation is maintaining a sufficient stockpile of that ore and the cost of defending that space becomes too great. Maybe the availability of some weapon or ship could be contingent on the nation having enough of certain rare ores and players would have a vested interest in either defending contested belts or adding to their nation's stockpile through trade.

Beyond or rather than claiming roids, I'd like to see the ability to construct mining structures around them. Construction would take time and money, and the structure would be vulnerable to attack, but it would process ore from the rock at X rate without player intervention, store it, and also preclude (or lower the rate of) other players mining said rock.

I could see this sparking conflict inside nations as well.

It's threads like these that really frustrate me the most.

Sweet. Keep it up, then, tomfoolry.