whats the point of player made maintenance docks?

[Mr.Roboto]

Originally I assumed they were the only place to repair/change equip for a given ship size.. but then I was finally able to afford the s/m ship fab and now I know it can repair/change equipment.. Why would I waste space on my station with maintenance bays if fabrication bays do the same thing but also earn credits by making ships on the side? Am I missing something? Maybe they have a smaller module or something to make it worth the space on a station? To be fair I havint actually seen what it looks like yet..

The s/m ship fab is pretty compact though and besides the limits of needing space on the ends for ships to fly in and out I dont consider it unwieldy at all to work with. Am I missing something obvious? Feels stupid having to ask what the point of maintenance bays is but here I am..

Also with the upcoming addition of equipment ships that can travel with your fleet that would seem to make repair bays even more worthless. The only use I can think of is as an addition to frontier border defence stations maybe.. Just to save a little travel time, but honestly travel time in this game isnt that bad at all when your within a sector of the highway.. Also if you can afford it I would assume the ship yard would still be a better call to have in that scenario anyway..

[Substancer]

Equipment bay looks almost same, except it has light blue paint and it has grappling forks only on one side, while fabrication bay is brown and encases ship from both sides. Ships need just as much parking space tho. they dont save space.

They indeed dont seem very useful to most players, but what i can think of, you can build outpost close or into, as example, xenon territory. If you invade area with 10 destroyers relying heavily to missiles, fast resupply point can prove useful, large ships aren't that fast to maneuver through gates.
Building such station can be justified as modules can be dismantled back to building materials later, so theres no real cost. Of course such outpost is not essential first place.

About resupply ship i have no knowledge, but my guess is that they can supply only S/M ships.

You can most certainly live without equipment dock, but they are available to NPC's to why wouldn't they be for player aswell.

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Originally posted by Mr.Roboto:

Originally I assumed they were the only place to repair/change equip for a given ship size.. but then I was finally able to afford the s/m ship fab and now I know it can repair/change equipment.. Why would I waste space on my station with maintenance bays if fabrication bays do the same thing but also earn credits by making ships on the side? Am I missing something? Maybe they have a smaller module or something to make it worth the space on a station? To be fair I havint actually seen what it looks like yet..

The s/m ship fab is pretty compact though and besides the limits of needing space on the ends for ships to fly in and out I dont consider it unwieldy at all to work with. Am I missing something obvious? Feels stupid having to ask what the point of maintenance bays is but here I am..

Also with the upcoming addition of equipment ships that can travel with your fleet that would seem to make repair bays even more worthless. The only use I can think of is as an addition to frontier border defence stations maybe.. Just to save a little travel time, but honestly travel time in this game isnt that bad at all when your within a sector of the highway.. Also if you can afford it I would assume the ship yard would still be a better call to have in that scenario anyway..

I use them as a dock. AI ships will dock and trade at them. They have more landing pads for ships than a regular dock does. They also look cooler as a dock.

[Mr.Roboto]

Originally posted by Substancer:

If you invade area with 10 destroyers relying heavily to missiles, fast resupply point can prove useful

Building such station can be justified as modules can be dismantled back to building materials later, so theres no real cost.

You know I wasnt really thinking about an offensive station scenario as my mind thinks of proooofffiiittssss so Defense is usually my main concern haha. Thats a great point that gives it a niche use worthy enough of being in our arsenal.

Originally posted by |█|:

They also look cooler as a dock.

Honestly thats enough to make me wanna buy it just to see it..

Thanks for the ideas, I will no doubt pick up the blueprint at some point. Ive been working on my second station ever, Babylon 6 and at the very least I wanna see what each module looks like! I love just flying around stations they are so cool looking.

[| |]

Originally posted by Mr.Roboto:

Originally posted by Substancer:

If you invade area with 10 destroyers relying heavily to missiles, fast resupply point can prove useful

Building such station can be justified as modules can be dismantled back to building materials later, so theres no real cost.

You know I wasnt really thinking about an offensive station scenario as my mind thinks of proooofffiiittssss so Defense is usually my main concern haha. Thats a great point that gives it a niche use worthy enough of being in our arsenal.

Originally posted by |█|:

They also look cooler as a dock.

Honestly thats enough to make me wanna buy it just to see it..

Thanks for the ideas, I will no doubt pick up the blueprint at some point. Ive been working on my second station ever, Babylon 6 and at the very least I wanna see what each module looks like! I love just flying around stations they are so cool looking.

If you visit a wharf, it looks exactly like that. I think it looks more proper for a dock and the ships seem to enter it in a better fashion than the regular landing pads.