Suggestions: Space Stations

[DangerousDD]

We have logistic stations so why not.

I am thinking of two types that will fit this game.

First, we need QoL with the PLS(Planetary Logistics Stations)
We need to have a PLS Panel where we can simply grab items from it, see a quick view, see which ones have vessels, put items in it, etc. But we have to be on that planet of course. And another for ILS but we can only view, not take items from it.

For this first one, the Buildings are actual buildings. No more building it and sticking it in your inventory.
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- Construction Space Station -
Oh ya baby! This bad boy works only with PLS and takes resources to craft buildings. (I am well aware of automating it with crafting stations but lemme finish.) Not only does this station craft items, it has a upgrade-able set number of constructo bots that can build blueprints for you!! *Shocked Pikachu face* Commence blueprint spamming!!
Not only that, but the CSS will be able to communicate with other CSS hovering over planets and send any player set overflow. Keep in mind, it is not super OP. I am thinking CSS Constructo bots will be as slow as PLS and ILS vessels starting off but end up being much faster then them later on.

- Dyson Energy Space Station -
The energy exchanger is poooo. This station can be transfigured to act as an upgraded Ray Receiver, taking energy from the sun or a planetary energy exchanger by taking energy from the planet. No matter the setting, it will be able to send energy to other DESS. The DESS should also have an upgradeable energy storage function, charge rate and discharge rate.

Both stations will have a Intergalactic Version.

Its crazy we're already looking into combat. Jahaha

[DangerousDD]

Yay 1 person agrees lol.

*Yes, this is a bump. I want OPINIONS!*

[LorDC]

Your ideas are nice but are kinda band-aid fixes that don't really look at the root of the problem. So what actually are the problems:
1) Need to manually put drones/vessels into LS.
2) Need to manually restock your inventory.
The actual sollution is not making those operations more convenient to do by hand but to actually automate them (in a factory automation game, no less). For (1) we need and ability for LS to request drones/vessel through logistic network. For (2) we need personal logistics akin to Factorio one.
3) Slow construction speed in late game (Compared to the size/number of blueprints).
That one can be solved without introducing any kind of additional entities. Just buff construction drone speed and count upgrades by 10 times and add drone range upgrade so that they can fly to the other side of the planet.

As for "DESS" I am totally not sure what problem it actually solves? It's not like there are any problems with energy transportation in game. Full-blown forge-world consumes a dozen GW. And dozen GW is a single vessel worth of AMFR per 15 minutes.

[Woodpecker]

DSP is great, but at the moment I don't see any reason to continue, once I build the Dyson sphere. Why go to next system and continue building dyson spheres on new systems. What about shipping resources from other systems, there should be warp gates and stuff like that. More research for quick interstellar travel.

[surfn1080]

Excellent suggestion!

[Subak]

I would maybe like orbital stations that act similar to logistics chests but way better.

What I want is once I get this station into orbit, it can be loaded with drones, new or existing.

No logistics chest toppers necessary. Otherwise logistics requests work much the same but these station bots? They're rogue. They don't need no stinkin' permission and will just swoop up whatever, wherever, to bring me what I asked.

No more caps on chests for the only reason that icarus may want some goodies. No more searching for the chest that has XXX until I forget why I need it,

I think I'd like that.

[Wiawyr]

In a game about large-scale space construction, the lack of any zero-g facilities really stands out to me. Once logistics vessels are outside the atmosphere of their starting planet (if they have atmosphere), it should be possible to make an orbital or deep-space construct for them to offload at. Since it would be in zero-g (or nearly so), it would be an ideal place to establish manufacturing and refining facilities as well as energy-receiving and copious amounts of mass-storage. I think I'd like to make one deep-space warehouse for every ore type, moon-sized of course. Or hell, build things on the Dyson Sphere since it has all the energy right there.

On the topic of space, I've noticed DSP doesn't really know how to handle it consistently. Logistics vessels can carry 2,000 units of anything, like small rockets or Dyson Sphere components, to other planets in the same solar system just using electricity from your grid; to get structure materials to the Dyson Sphere you have to launch small rockets one at a time from a planet, using a launch silo that uses electricity despite the rockets also requiring deuteron fuel rods. Meanwhile logistics vessels can travel to nearby stars and back while that one rocket is still flying to the Dyson Sphere. How did such glaring and immersion-breaking inconsistencies happen, and is there any expectation of when they will be corrected?

[Tijmuhhh]

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

In a game about large-scale space construction, the lack of any zero-g facilities really stands out to me. Once logistics vessels are outside the atmosphere of their starting planet (if they have atmosphere), it should be possible to make an orbital or deep-space construct for them to offload at. Since it would be in zero-g (or nearly so), it would be an ideal place to establish manufacturing and refining facilities as well as energy-receiving and copious amounts of mass-storage. I think I'd like to make one deep-space warehouse for every ore type, moon-sized of course. Or hell, build things on the Dyson Sphere since it has all the energy right there.

On the topic of space, I've noticed DSP doesn't really know how to handle it consistently. Logistics vessels can carry 2,000 units of anything, like small rockets or Dyson Sphere components, to other planets in the same solar system just using electricity from your grid; to get structure materials to the Dyson Sphere you have to launch small rockets one at a time from a planet, using a launch silo that uses electricity despite the rockets also requiring deuteron fuel rods. Meanwhile logistics vessels can travel to nearby stars and back while that one rocket is still flying to the Dyson Sphere. How did such glaring and immersion-breaking inconsistencies happen, and is there any expectation of when they will be corrected?

Its silly we cant build in space stations for sure. like a giant shipping center comes to mind, a planetary miner. as for the logistics its basically just warp speed vs sublight speed. they should be somewhat more equal tho.

[midnight]

I had a similar idea a while ago, but it would need some reconsideration for the existing transportation system.

- The transport ships would loose the capability to warp and are now restricted to interplanetary transportation (within a system).
- A new structure is introduced that can be deployed around a planet or around a star (depends, whether only one or multiple of these stations are allowed in one system), This structure is a transportation hub, maybe even upgradable. Transport ships can dock here to transport items on and off planet. I think this structure should become available in mid-game, at around the time when warpers become available, because this goes hand in hand.
- A freighter class transport ship is introduced to handle interstellar transportation with extreme capacity (to be consistent it should 10 x the transport vessel capacity). Freighters can only dock on the transportation hub.

However, I found this more appealing before the capacity of current transport drones and vessels was increased.

The responsibilities would be plain and clear.
- Logistics Drone: on planet logistics (the equivalent of a truck)
- Logistics Vessel: interplanetary logistics (the equivalent of a train)
- Logistics Freighter: interplanetary logistics (the equivalent of a container ship)

[Wiawyr]

Ahh, my old ball and chain, the Jump Freighter. Having purpose-built starships that can't do atmospheric entry or landings but coordinate between zero-g facilities is an extremely reasonable and practical idea. I like it!

[joebobku]

And after the space station.... DEATH STARS!!

[OBXandos]

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

Ahh, my old ball and chain, the Jump Freighter. Having purpose-built starships that can't do atmospheric entry or landings but coordinate between zero-g facilities is an extremely reasonable and practical idea. I like it!

My Ark was such a beautiful ship. I loved flying that thing around.
https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Ark

With the combat update maybe we will get some space station type stuff. I'd love to see a space elevator sort of building. IPLS serves a similar function to what is suggested but visually it doesn't feel the same.

[Wiawyr]

Originally posted by OBXandos:

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

Ahh, my old ball and chain, the Jump Freighter. Having purpose-built starships that can't do atmospheric entry or landings but coordinate between zero-g facilities is an extremely reasonable and practical idea. I like it!

My Ark was such a beautiful ship. I loved flying that thing around.
https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Ark

With the combat update maybe we will get some space station type stuff. I'd love to see a space elevator sort of building. IPLS serves a similar function to what is suggested but visually it doesn't feel the same.

My Anshar was just a headache, honestly. I used it to support my corp in 0.0 about thirteen years ago, and I had to multibox five accounts to move it around. That last jump into lowsec was the most stressful; even if my cyno pilots hadn't been added to watch for being online, everyone in local knew what a cyno in lowsec next door to highsec meant.

I still have nightmares about one of my first jumps that bounced it off a station. I was incredibly lucky that system only had two other players in it; one was the corpmate who lit the cyno too close to the station, and the other was docked and AFK. Waiting four minutes to recover and align to the gate was nerve-wracking, and motivated me to add two more accounts so I was always the one lighting beacons.

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The more I think about it though, the more I feel like they won't ever add zero-g functionality like we're discussing. The biggest reason is simply that they put a lot of time and effort into making planets and the mechanics of the game are focused around them; zero-g is superior in every single way to the point that planets would be ignored after being mined out. Energy costs for manufacturing, refining, and transportation would be drastically reduced; processing facilities could be vertically stacked without limit; no planetary rotation or atmospheric/magnetospheric interference would mean solar panels and ray receivers with 100% up-time and strength.

Even though the game should go there with the emphasis on large-scale space construction, it would invalidate planets after the early- to mid-game. It would need to have been planned and implemented from the start so there wasn't too much effort spent on planets that would become obsolete.

[Mike]

Great idea, would also be neat to perhaps ad a ship class to this that basically is an reusable sphere builder that can resupply at the station and head back and forth between it and the sphere. Kind of like we would do if we ever would consider such thing

[uhmdown]

well, there are space stations, they're just not yours : p

I agree that any space station gameplay should complement the dyson sphere related activities on planets. Like Wiawyr says, if it replaces planet activities completely, then the gameplay will go whack.

[Bobucles]

We can already build dyson shells, the next step would be to build on the dyson shell. If not building directly on the solar panels, then have a second type of dyson skin which is a structural platform.

That'd probably lag out in a painful way though.