Forums » Suggestions
Manufacturing Expansion
Right now, manufacturing in game is pretty much, do some missions, bring some mats somewhere, get your item. I’ve always wondered what a system for a manufacturing license would look like, so this is my idea for the system. The goal here is to allow players to be more entrepreneurial and industrious, and self-powering some of the player economy. With this system, theoretically players can turn ore into materials into equipment, increasing mining/trading profits or decreasing combat costs. It admittedly does lean into the economic side of VO and not the combat/FPS side of VO.
Summary
Within each station, you can set up a singular assembly line to produce a commodity, module, ship, or other reward. The idea being that the station government/management has rented you out some space to set up shop. The player could play some mini-game to instantaneously produce the end product, or let the product be created over some period of real-time. The assembly lines would be like a ship layout, with the player being able to choose different components for their line allowing different types of functionality for what can be produced, the speed at which stuff can be produced, the efficiency at which stuff can be produced, etc. License levels could allow rarer, more specialized, or more dangerous equipment to be bought & installed, and manufactured.
The Lines & Component Types
I’m imagining here a UI kinda like a ship layout screen. Each line requires a Resource Storage, a Movement Medium, at least one Operator, and a Finished Product Storage.
* Resource Storage - Types can depend on what resources you want to start with. You can have Bins for ore or other unorganized solid, Tanks for liquids and gases, Shelves for premade parts/commodities (e.g. Ion Cores, etc). Each Resource Storage can hold a certain amount of CU. Higher license levels can allow for larger capacity Resource Storage. There can also be hybrid Resource Storage components that can hold multiple types of resources but with reduced capacity. I would keep this separate from general Station Storage as both a limitation (no loading 10000 CU or ferric into your assembly line and letting it run for two weeks without having to check in) and a way to prevent your manufacturing from eating everything (you can have your assembly line only use 100 of your heliocene, instead of all of it).
* Movement Medium - How you move your resources and intermediate product around. Conveyors are required for solids, Pipes required for liquids and gases. Higher license levels allow for better Conveyors/Pipes that allow stuff to be produced faster.
* Operators - These are components that ‘do’ stuff. So stuff like a furnace to melt ore, a mold or forge to make a component, a refinery/distillery to create chemicals, robotics for assembly, welding robotics, etc. Simpler lines (e.g. ore smelting) could require a single Operator or maybe two, while complex lines (e.g. ship construction) could require many Operators. Higher license levels can give access to Operators required to produce better equipment (The stations would trust a newb to smelt ferric ore into steel, but would want someone to have more experience if they were producing weapons or ships), and more efficient Operators (e.g. a low-level furnace could have a ratio of like 20:1, a high-level furnace could have a ratio of 4:1)
* Finished Product Storage - Bins, Shelves, Tanks, similar to Resource Storage, gotta store the end result somewhere, and similarly higher license levels mean more storage. I guess ships would probably want to go straight to your hanger/normal station storage, but I would still advocate for other components using non-station storage to provide limits on how long the manufacturing can run autonomously.
Other Thoughts
* Since the player is effectively renting space from stations, stations can charge some periodic rent. Rent can scale based on assembly line size and faction standings. Player controlled stations could let players set rent to what they want.
* Different stations can have different constraints for how big an assembly line can be. Smaller stations have less room and thus can only support smaller assembly lines, but there are many small stations. Capital stations can support larger assembly lines but there’s only a few Capital stations so a player can only have a few large assembly lines.
* Different stations can have different constraints for what can be manufactured, or have efficiency bonuses. Maybe weapons could only be manufactured at military stations. Smelting ore gets an efficiency bonus at mining stations. Stuff that requires advanced chemicals or a sterile environment can only be manufactured at research stations.
* Different factions/sub-factions sell specific components. Like ships, different factions sell different components, enabling the production of different stuff. Likely, a Serco would have access to the tools to manufacture a Vulture, but not a Centurion, and an Itani the inverse.
* This can play into the contraband cargo in the future. If players are manufacturing weapons, drugs, etc on their own, they could be contraband. Or they could manufacture weapons above their license level, but only be able to equip them in places that don’t care about levels as much. Alternatively, bringing Serco manufacturing tech into Itani space, or vica-versa, could get law enforcement to pursue you.
* While faction controlled stations have limits on what can be manufactured (e.g. medicine only at a research station), player-controlled stations could not have those limitations.
* I’m not sure how I would want this to interact with capship manufacturing. I think I would lean towards the bulk manufactured components e.g. FFSA and FCP being assembly line manufactured, but larger components and the ship itself being mission manufactured. I think it would depend on if the goal is to allow combat focused players the option to get a capship without having to invest into manufacturing.
Summary
Within each station, you can set up a singular assembly line to produce a commodity, module, ship, or other reward. The idea being that the station government/management has rented you out some space to set up shop. The player could play some mini-game to instantaneously produce the end product, or let the product be created over some period of real-time. The assembly lines would be like a ship layout, with the player being able to choose different components for their line allowing different types of functionality for what can be produced, the speed at which stuff can be produced, the efficiency at which stuff can be produced, etc. License levels could allow rarer, more specialized, or more dangerous equipment to be bought & installed, and manufactured.
The Lines & Component Types
I’m imagining here a UI kinda like a ship layout screen. Each line requires a Resource Storage, a Movement Medium, at least one Operator, and a Finished Product Storage.
* Resource Storage - Types can depend on what resources you want to start with. You can have Bins for ore or other unorganized solid, Tanks for liquids and gases, Shelves for premade parts/commodities (e.g. Ion Cores, etc). Each Resource Storage can hold a certain amount of CU. Higher license levels can allow for larger capacity Resource Storage. There can also be hybrid Resource Storage components that can hold multiple types of resources but with reduced capacity. I would keep this separate from general Station Storage as both a limitation (no loading 10000 CU or ferric into your assembly line and letting it run for two weeks without having to check in) and a way to prevent your manufacturing from eating everything (you can have your assembly line only use 100 of your heliocene, instead of all of it).
* Movement Medium - How you move your resources and intermediate product around. Conveyors are required for solids, Pipes required for liquids and gases. Higher license levels allow for better Conveyors/Pipes that allow stuff to be produced faster.
* Operators - These are components that ‘do’ stuff. So stuff like a furnace to melt ore, a mold or forge to make a component, a refinery/distillery to create chemicals, robotics for assembly, welding robotics, etc. Simpler lines (e.g. ore smelting) could require a single Operator or maybe two, while complex lines (e.g. ship construction) could require many Operators. Higher license levels can give access to Operators required to produce better equipment (The stations would trust a newb to smelt ferric ore into steel, but would want someone to have more experience if they were producing weapons or ships), and more efficient Operators (e.g. a low-level furnace could have a ratio of like 20:1, a high-level furnace could have a ratio of 4:1)
* Finished Product Storage - Bins, Shelves, Tanks, similar to Resource Storage, gotta store the end result somewhere, and similarly higher license levels mean more storage. I guess ships would probably want to go straight to your hanger/normal station storage, but I would still advocate for other components using non-station storage to provide limits on how long the manufacturing can run autonomously.
Other Thoughts
* Since the player is effectively renting space from stations, stations can charge some periodic rent. Rent can scale based on assembly line size and faction standings. Player controlled stations could let players set rent to what they want.
* Different stations can have different constraints for how big an assembly line can be. Smaller stations have less room and thus can only support smaller assembly lines, but there are many small stations. Capital stations can support larger assembly lines but there’s only a few Capital stations so a player can only have a few large assembly lines.
* Different stations can have different constraints for what can be manufactured, or have efficiency bonuses. Maybe weapons could only be manufactured at military stations. Smelting ore gets an efficiency bonus at mining stations. Stuff that requires advanced chemicals or a sterile environment can only be manufactured at research stations.
* Different factions/sub-factions sell specific components. Like ships, different factions sell different components, enabling the production of different stuff. Likely, a Serco would have access to the tools to manufacture a Vulture, but not a Centurion, and an Itani the inverse.
* This can play into the contraband cargo in the future. If players are manufacturing weapons, drugs, etc on their own, they could be contraband. Or they could manufacture weapons above their license level, but only be able to equip them in places that don’t care about levels as much. Alternatively, bringing Serco manufacturing tech into Itani space, or vica-versa, could get law enforcement to pursue you.
* While faction controlled stations have limits on what can be manufactured (e.g. medicine only at a research station), player-controlled stations could not have those limitations.
* I’m not sure how I would want this to interact with capship manufacturing. I think I would lean towards the bulk manufactured components e.g. FFSA and FCP being assembly line manufactured, but larger components and the ship itself being mission manufactured. I think it would depend on if the goal is to allow combat focused players the option to get a capship without having to invest into manufacturing.