Forums » Suggestions
Player Owned Station
I realize I'm just a wee bit early on this topic.
What I want to suggest for player / guild owned stations is that the construction not be a once and one, one size fits all design.
Rather, they should be something that can start out relatively small- smaller than current stations to which players add onto over time building them out according to desire or purpose. Basically something that once it's established the next generation of guild members can still make meaningful contributions to it's construction and capabilities.
What I want to suggest for player / guild owned stations is that the construction not be a once and one, one size fits all design.
Rather, they should be something that can start out relatively small- smaller than current stations to which players add onto over time building them out according to desire or purpose. Basically something that once it's established the next generation of guild members can still make meaningful contributions to it's construction and capabilities.
Start with something like joining 3 conies together and add modules to add docks and storage and features.
I've done two designs for this, historically. The original, back in the heady early 2000s, you could dynamically arrange "modules" however you wanted to actually build and design your own station and connect bits together. As you upgraded, new modules (manufacturing plants, whatever) would become available and could be added on. People could visually make long skinny stations or clumped-up stations or whatever. Our station assets were actually designed with this in mind.
More recently, in the realm of "oh god we have no development resources", we will probably end up pre-cooking a set of designs. A basic starter station, and various upgrade stations that you can work towards. There's still some variability of look, and there might be different paths and looks for like.. a heavy refinery station vs a heavy refinery station that also manufactures ships, or.. whatever. But it'd largely be pre-cooked assets so we don't have to spend 3 months building some kind of "build your own station!" modeler thingie. Even we pre-cooked assets, there would still be an on-going progression, and perhaps even a bit of a tree, but at least a linear progression. Upgrading stations would be "hard", so I imagine this would be a long-term goal, even for a well-organized guild.
Plus, in theory, we could always add the totally-custom thing at a later point. Anyway, that's where my thinking is right now.
More recently, in the realm of "oh god we have no development resources", we will probably end up pre-cooking a set of designs. A basic starter station, and various upgrade stations that you can work towards. There's still some variability of look, and there might be different paths and looks for like.. a heavy refinery station vs a heavy refinery station that also manufactures ships, or.. whatever. But it'd largely be pre-cooked assets so we don't have to spend 3 months building some kind of "build your own station!" modeler thingie. Even we pre-cooked assets, there would still be an on-going progression, and perhaps even a bit of a tree, but at least a linear progression. Upgrading stations would be "hard", so I imagine this would be a long-term goal, even for a well-organized guild.
Plus, in theory, we could always add the totally-custom thing at a later point. Anyway, that's where my thinking is right now.