Just shooting the breeze, really. If repair items were split off from the licenses we have, and placed in an Engineering set, with things like Scanner addons, SRXs, mines, and Radar links- and then, added to them, you have deployable widgets that can be constructed on the field into Cool Stuff. To do this, you'd need an Assembly Beam of some sort (split in a similar way to mining beams) and appropriate resources in your hold as well as the "hub" widget (the one you'd actually deploy.)

The idea being that you assemble the thing with the resources in your hold via the Assembly Beam, as if it were a reverse mining beam. This would not be instant, so you can't have a MkII Prometheus dump a Sodomy Turret MkIV and start wailing on you immediately- it has to be something you either prepare for or take significant time out of a fight to construct. They would either be completely immobile, or have diminished effect. They would become inactive as soon as you leave the system (not sector) or dock. Once they become inactive, the resources spent assembling them are gone, and the widget returns to its inactive hub state- and can be picked up or re-assembled in the conventional way by anyone. The Assembly Beam would also double as a way of repairing these devices for additional resources.

There are lots of possibilities.

Remotely detonated, tough-to-detect explosives. (EMP, concussive, or just BFExplosions)
Turrets. (Combat, repair, even mining!)
Remote radar beacons.
Energy siphons (draining a small amount of battery power from enemy ships nearby.)
Field generators (which create planes of shield with the nearest 2 near it- or hell, simple shield bubbles.)

Then you might want to think about ship devices that enhance these doohickeys, or are capable of upgrading them on the field.

I just think it would be cool.

That's a pretty cool concept. I'd probably follow this path if it were available.

Interesting. +1

I agree with the suggestion. +1

What about in-field bot construction, and not just limited to players but NPCs as well, say Hive Queens and cappies spawning their cannon fodder.

+1

This would be nice to see ingame.
+1

+1 to idea,

But I'd like to see a specialized ship for that. Like a factory-ship similar to those in Battlestar Gallactica.

It should be ugly, almost a brick, and slow. But able to produce some stuff. Limited number, one ship per player at most.

Now, to make this more interesting, make possible to dock externally to stations and operate as a automated factory, even without the owner online. This will require another UI screen/tab for (Manufacturing). But have a huge potencial for economy development...

Allowing us to launch and remotly pilot aerna seekers would be nice, though they'd have to only go 100m/s and be much less nimble.

+1 This has some cool potential.

Like making gravity wells to inhibit jumps.

ooo so people could set up a gravity field on common routes and fill it with turrets, then just watch the kills come lol

To clarify- I didn't mean this to go as far as huge factory ships, or even drones, for a long time. My intention was that a small group of players could set up ghetto fortifications that would require more than jamming down turbo or spamming missiles from afar to bypass.

I strongly disagree with the idea of making items in space... some ships are fine, cappies and moths for example but other ships? I can not see a fighter having the room to make anything in its hold. Better for crafting to be done on stations.

At any rate, this idea clearly gives an advantage to large guilds or anyone who has been hoarding items... in that they would have the manpower/means to mass produce. Interestingly enough, I am not opposed to the OP. Even more interestingly... if the production can happen in space, I am not opposed to Allohs idea.

[EDIT] Larger guilds/groups/hoarders should in my opinion have certain advantages over solo pilots/smaller guilds. I am still very much against ONLY guilds having access ot things... (cappies, stations equipment...etc...etc... ).

I cannot accept, RP-wise, Building Beams, specially not weapons, specialized devices.

But on the other hand, a support ship similar in size to a trident, sluggish to move, with a dock bay where one ship can dock, deliver items and receive manufactured items, even complex ones, sounds a very interesting idea. Give it no shields, since its not a warship, and it feels balanced, something you'd love to take to a remote sector mining, or near the frontlines...

And a 'military' version of same Support Ship, able to repair, reload and upgrade/replace weapons, enabling one to change setup during fights?

Those turrets proposed, are like defense turrets or ship's turrets with AI gunner? Or both?

That is absolutely *the* stupidest reason for not wanting something in-game. I'm literally struggling to Be Nice when someone presents RP as a legitimate reason to not include something in a universe of Made Up Science.

If you want an RP explanation, the Assembly Beam transmits the resources from the hold to the hub, just as the Mining Beam transmits ore from an asteroid to your hold. The hub itself has a bunch of nano-whatevers that do the actual construction. The structures would be like weaker defense turrets, that's all, and considerably smaller than your average fighter ship. Nothing more than a jury-rigged Neutron Blaster on a swivel-mount. A group of two or three players could easily set something up to defend a mining operation, and a large guild could have a grid built around a conquerable station. This is not something intended for a single player alone to do, because we already have more than enough of that.

"This is not something intended for a single player alone to do, because we already have more than enough of that."

Fair enough but, what we do not have more than enough of is players.

Doing this on a station and transporting the gear to the destination is fine.

Doing this on a large ship is fine.

A couple of fighters and a cargo ship using their "magical make stuff beams" is is absolutely *the* stupidest, most laughable idiocy I have seen on the forums. Congrats, you just surpassed Alloh for idiotic ideas.

This would be a cool thing to have in the conquerable stations though.

A behemoth has a large enough cargo hold to, realistically, pop out 2-3 small turrets. Perhaps create the turrets in stations and just jett them outside, or carry the items required for one and use an Assembly Beam mounted on a large port to construct the device outside a station.

+1 to UncleDave so far.

+1 to Alloh's factory ship.

I have no issues with a Moth doing this, just anything smaller. Just for funsies I'll throw out an rp situation that involves no magical make stuff beams too..

The moth has a large enough cargo hold that you could conceivably go to the hold and put stuff together, go back to the controls and eject it.

[EDIT] But still it should be restricted to stations.

[EDIT] Tarenty, let people know when you edit your post. Tarenty's original post which this was in response to...

"A behemoth has a large enough cargo hold to, realistically, pop out 2-3 small turrets"

Magical make stuff beams? UncleDave provides a viable explaination. Nanotech works.

"Assembly Beam"+"nano-whatevers"=Magical make stuff beams

You say tomatoes, I say thank what ever you chose to thank that this idea will never make it in game as it is suggested in the OP.