Eventually... some where down the road when all or most of the bugs are worked out with the stations and new ones are added, I suggest that the Devs do not announce the stations being added or the locations of the stations. Not in the forums or even in the updater. This way, people will be forced to search for them, dedicate some time to space exploration. It will add potential risk to finding them as well as conquering them as opposed to... "ok the new conquerable station is here, lets all jump in and take over!"

maybe at least tell us what week they will be added but not the day or location but yeah that sounds like fun. Oh also say like 5-10 stations added? not the exact number?

That wouldn't be so bad I suppose, as long as it's nothing too specific and its intentionally vague.

I like the idea of adding anything that causes a break from monotony, and hidden stations would. The only problem is that they would all be discovered within a week and the monotony would return.

What if

new type of station, rotating, orbital moving, and jump capable.

Make station able to jump 1 sector (to adjacent one) per day. Not able to cross WH. So it slowly moves like a king on chess.

Hhmmmm... that is between a capship and a station... and seems the perfect tool for deep space mining, discrete operations, and an ideal motive for that "pirates hideout exposed" event proposed...

moving stations would be annoying as hell alloh what are you supposed to do in the middle of an assault when it just warps out of sector.

Follow it, since it will not move again in the next 24h, and will be 1 sector away. Even it you don't see where it jumped to, in worst case you do 8 jumps and find it again...

peytros: Don't feed the troll.

Hah, I actually kinda think that's a cool idea, if not impossible to implement. Finding where it went during an assault wouldn't be an issue. The thing would move so slow you would have no issue keeping within it's notification sphere. And it would be very cool for a rogue guild's hq.

Even having the ability to slowly maneuver the station out to some essentially invisible distance from the sector's core would be useful.

Anyway, file that all away under wishful thinking.

The issue with a staion jumping even one sector is that you must be 3000m from large objects to jump, a station is beyond large. Also it would be slow as hell and likely require a distance of around 15000m from other large objects to jump. At any rate, Alloh its an interesting idea but it seems unlikely.

I think its an interesting idea. I wouldn't mind seeing it here.

I've been planning a "moving" station for years. It would be a capship, actually, and would contain all sorts of black-market items and things. Pirates and others of dark affiliations would be able to get its current location from their contacts, but it would move fairly often.

Anyway, cool on the whole "don't tell us where the stations are" thing, I concur. But I would say that we added them.

Wouldn't 5-10 stations spread out the already thinned player base? For the first time in months, the devs have added a central choke point for the community to gather... and now you want to dash that across 5-10 probably far apart sectors?

I think viewing the station conquer mechanic as a manner in which to gather the population to a specific spot is a bit off base Smit. There will still probably end up being only one or two stations that have any real strategic importance. The rest, especially any in nation spaces, will likely change hands very infrequently.

I've also said five stations, in the past, not ten. I think five would be a reasonable number for existing grayspace size. Different stations will likely have different tradeoffs. Five would probably be small enough that there would still be contention, especially if they have specific benefits (like unique equipment per station).

I agree, Inc. The player-base is so small that 10 stations would be too much. They would lose their value. With 5 stations, we would still view them as something fairly rare, and therefore valuable, so we'll have more motivation to fight over them, etc... If the player-base increases at some point, more than 5 might make sense.

a rouge capship like a mother ship makes sense. But a station which has no visable means of moving and for the most part is generally anchored and has no defenses aside from the turrets floating around it would be kind of annoying. Oh and if there is going to be this huge moving pirate station there should be some super huge static stations to keep things in scale.

"there should be some super huge static stations to keep things in scale."

I agree, I've always found it odd how small some of the UIT based stations are... given that the whole of the UIT society is space based. Really UIT stations should be at least 5 to 10 times their current size, at a minimum.

As long as there are awesome benefits to owning stations, then having 5 (or a few more) would be damned cool. I can imagine some guilds trying to conquer all of them just for the benefits...

The whole "location of new conquerable stations aren't known" thing is a bit silly from my perspective. As soon as one (or so) person finds it, then everyone will know, and the search will be over. Will create a little fun for an hour or so... but maybe that's worth it.

And now for a thought which really deserves its own thread (or at the very least it shouldn't be here): Conquerable stations should sell materials which are used for bulk procurements in neighboring systems.
I'll let that thought fester. Moving on.

Atice... if you can explore every sector of space in an hour... you are awesome. Now, I disagree about...

"As soon as one (or so) person finds it, then everyone will know, and the search will be over."

Any guild that finds it, the info won't go beyond their allies, if it even goes that far. I realize this would make things a little less instantly gratifying... but it would give us a reason to explore, which in combination with the conquerable stations gives us fur new things to do...

1. explore
2. find
3. conquer
4. defend

New stuff is good stuff. If we are going to know exactly where... or even the general vicinity of the new stations are, what fun is that? Its as challenging as playing a fun filled exiting round of "wheres daddy" with my nine month old. Its exciting for him because babies are idiots, where as I get bored of it pretty quickly.