Kenneth Skybound
Skyefleet
118
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Posted - 2015.03.23 22:06:04 -
[1] - Quote
===Market hubs===
OPTIONS.
Maybe the default is homogenous, with trade/office/clones/insurance/customisation all provided at some level. Perhaps smaller structures have less immediate access to everything, instead with some built in access.
But then the fitting/upgrading comes into play.
Basic upgrades would hopefully come with little cost other than the slots or whatever they fit into.
More impressive upgrades may come at significant fitting cost, or even at the detriment of other services, making them less attractive or entirely unavailable.
- Trading could see an increase in the maximum amount of orders a player could list at that structure, adjustments in terms of tax (basic access should see higher taxes than normal, as the benefit is the utility of having the market wherever it's been placed) and allow for increased ranges of influence. Higher upgrades could allow for the owner to collect more of the taxes through normal trade, or to allow for increased (possible trans-regional) visibility. Debuffs may include higher taxes, massively reduced number of listings per player or perhaps even reduced visibility (seen from upto x jumps away or only in constellation, not region).
- Offices could increase or decrease in number, cost and utility provided as per upgrades. Not a whole lot of flexibility in these.
- Cloning is entirely dependent on what happens to it. I cannot comment on this at the time.
- Insurance depends on what is implied here - NPC or player insurance. At this point I cannot comment.
- Customisation could provide the option for players to apply ship skins that are owned and rented/offered on standings by the station or module they're at. The customisation upgrades could allow players to take on skins they don't normally have access to, which would persist until removed elsewhere.
In all cases, increases to the utility and capability of a section should come at limited cost to others, but extensive upgrades (ie specialising) would mean the others would suffer. OPTIONS, CHOICES, that kind of thing.
==Harvesting==
Oh MY.
In this area, I'd consider MANY things to be on the table.
There's options for structures that do boosting of mining capabilities of ships in system, or platforms that mine autonomously. There's room for perhaps supplying some industrial depot with ships such as ventures that can mine automatically (at a reduced rate) for the individual and for the group. Such ships could be spawned into anomalies, signatures or just in space to be scanned down allowing for interdiction on a smaller scale that a siege.
Scale and autonomy I feel are the biggest ones here. Options that allow players to go off and do other things (like moon mining does, or PI does) rather than actively not play the game (asteroid mining and netflix). Being able to scale up individual platforms with upgrades, supplies and perhaps skills could lead to a new means of industrial might, and give many smaller groups or players that feeling of an empire of many. After all, a capsuleer's pocket should be able to fund entire colonies of humans to work in various ways for them!
I'm imagining dragging fitted ships into a "Fleet composition" window at a platform, such as perhaps an orca, 5 covetors and 2 falcons. With some basic AI options (Always flee, flee if attacked, never flee) selected per ship, the 'fleet' could spawn as a cosmic signature to go about business, and be an interesting means of PvP. In the illustrated fleet, the Orca and covetors could be set to always flee if someone warps in, but the falcons might be set to flee if damaged, meaning they'll try to jam first (freeing the barges hopefully) before then bailing when the enemy targets them. Obviously no AI will be truly clever, but using existing rat AI with certain checks (such as what range a ship can operate at or is it being locked) should be sufficient.
Content where a player's job is to do nothing but sit and watch the almost unchanging scene (mining) should be done away with, and these platforms can be the answer to that!
==Post Harvesting==
See the trade hub section, but apply the concept to this area. Choice, adaptation, cost benefit, specialisation etc. |