Read by Schine The Nomadic Revolution [Motherships/Capital Ships as Homes]

[nightrune]

How is this a "wierd meta thing"?

I'm simply don't like the idea one block has different masses in different places.

 

[Aynslei]

I'm simply don't like the idea one block has different masses in different places.

But mass is irrelevant for stations, its only a meta concern for slowing down ships with station parts.

 

[nightrune]

But mass is irrelevant for stations, its only a meta concern for slowing down ships with station parts.

Forgot about that. So its not different just one parameter that you can use to balance the big capitol ships.

 

[Blaza612]

You STILL need some kind of home base

No, BAD, the whole point of the bloody suggestion was to not need stations in the first place. :/

11) Bonus thoughts: discoverable on the system map, just like a pirate, trade station, planet, or shop. For all intents and purposes you’re big enough to be seen on the galaxy map, even as an unidentified station, and can be found by anyone who’s really looking for ya. Yeah, that might need some tweaking, but still. Being as big as a trade station means you show up like one when ya park.

It shouldn't be seen as an unidentified station by everyone, you'll need to scout it out and it'll put a unique icon on the galaxy map where it's located. It should be as though if you're in the same system as it, and you scan, then you can find it and it puts it on YOUR galaxy map, not anyone else's unless we have a map sharing feature.

 

[QuantumAnomaly]

No, BAD, the whole point of the bloody suggestion was to not need stations in the first place. :/

I'm sorry we have to disagree here. As a coder and a gamer, and knowing how the meta flows, the minute you remove the NEED for a homebase, that's the same moment that "competitive" players abandon them completely (since the current meta of the game seems to flow largely around making the most powerful/cool ship, outside of being creative). Not to say all players would, but enough of them would that it would nearly make homebase/space station code obsolete, which is a huge waste of code and time. The devs have already spoken multiple times that IF capital ships make it in to the game, they wont completely replace stations, homebases, and planetary outposts (see prior Q&A posts, referenced in my first list). In fact, there have been hints that each of these things will be MORE diversified, and we as players might want a planetary base AND a space station to take advantage of different resource generation types. If your whole suggestion is "remove all stations and just have ships" then no, screw that. And I know that's not what you are directly suggesting, but it's the implications of such a suggestion as homebase captial ships.

It shouldn't be seen as an unidentified station by everyone, you'll need to scout it out and it'll put a unique icon on the galaxy map where it's located. It should be as though if you're in the same system as it, and you scan, then you can find it and it puts it on YOUR galaxy map, not anyone else's unless we have a map sharing feature.

Again, this makes them MORE powerful than a homebase and requires a LOT more code to be written to sustain, all while adding more systems to the game that would need to be balanced around. IIRC (unless it changed when I was gone) homebases can be seen from the faction menu, and are on everyone's galaxy map. If you make something more powerful than a homebase (by making it invisible unless scouted, which let's be fair wont happen if you have no reference point to start scouting from, and rely on pure luck or ridiculous determination), then a high percentage of people migrate to that thing to gain an advantage. As stated above I believe that having station modules on a ship are more than enough of an advantage, and NEED to have counterweights. Every superman has a kryptonite, and rightfully so. A super ship should come with super risks.

 

[Blaza612]

each of these things will be MORE diversified

That's the exact reason why they'd be able to be built without needing a station. Stations will have their own significant benefits in the future, and using capital ships/motherships will be an entirely different play-style, without replacing stations. Hell, having them in now will only create a divide of ~50%, since half of all people will always prefer to have a home that's safe and in a predictable place (hermits), due to how brain works and such, while other half would much rather carry everything with them and explore, never staying in one place at a time (nomads).

I'm sorry we have to disagree here. As a coder and a gamer, and knowing how the meta flows, the minute you remove the NEED for a homebase, that's the same moment that "competitive" players abandon them completely (since the current meta of the game seems to flow largely around making the most powerful/cool ship, outside of being creative). Not to say all players would, but enough of them would that it would nearly make homebase/space station code obsolete, which is a huge waste of code and time. The devs have already spoken multiple times that IF capital ships make it in to the game, they wont completely replace stations, homebases, and planetary outposts (see prior Q&A posts, referenced in my first list). In fact, there have been hints that each of these things will be MORE diversified, and we as players might want a planetary base AND a space station to take advantage of different resource generation types. If your whole suggestion is "remove all stations and just have ships" then no, screw that. And I know that's not what you are directly suggesting, but it's the implications of such a suggestion as homebase captial ships.

This suggestion is to allow for a nomadic play-style, as I, quite frankly, hate having to live in a singular place, since it's space and everything. I have a lot of freedom to explore and roam and some unique ways to play as a nomad which is what I personally want, thus I have the desire to be a nomad, to play in that way, rather than be a hermit. But that doesn't mean that I will only play as a nomad, I will become a nomad parallel to my nomad play-style, since I want to start up a faction, and thus I will need a proper home base and stations and such for it.

remove all stations and just have ships

This is in no way near to that, this whole suggestion is "Make us not NEED stations (but rather as an option of play) and have cool motherships AS WELL". I'm proposing to allow stations to be an option, rather than be a neccessity for the sake of play-style. This is a sandbox game, and a sci-fi space game as well. It will require a lot of different ways to play, and this is simply asking for a new one which isn't station centric. Capitals will have their disadvantages without having any debuffs, and yet more will still be added for the sake of balance and to still make stations relevant, as I fully expect to use them more at some point. Stations will never be redundant (unless Schine fucks up) and all I want is to be able to play one way, without restrictions.

Yo Criss or anyone who plays EVE Online, referencing the "all I want is to be able to play one way, without restrictions" and not what anyone is saying/implying, imagine CODE in Starmade... :p

Again, this makes them MORE powerful than a homebase and requires a LOT more code to be written to sustain, all while adding more systems to the game that would need to be balanced around. IIRC (unless it changed when I was gone) homebases can be seen from the faction menu, and are on everyone's galaxy map. If you make something more powerful than a homebase (by making it invisible unless scouted, which let's be fair wont happen if you have no reference point to start scouting from, and rely on pure luck or ridiculous determination), then a high percentage of people migrate to that thing to gain an advantage. As stated above I believe that having station modules on a ship are more than enough of an advantage, and NEED to have counterweights. Every superman has a kryptonite, and rightfully so. A super ship should come with super risks

It already does come with super risks without the entirety of the fucking server being able to see you. :p

Seriously, stations are going to be hidden without exploration, and even if they aren't why should a very VULNERABLE HOME be effectively a giant target on the map, with what I suggested you have to find it but it becomes obvious and a target when you do find it.

The capital is your home, and it comes with the debuff of having to compensate with the many more systems it needs to power and move with, being vulnerable to fire and being a HOME, and your home ultimately isn't safe if you're a nomad. Already that's a huge risk, if someone finds it, they can destroy it, and in turn, everything you own.

 

[QuantumAnomaly]

I don’t think that any of my suggestions would REQUIRE you to have a station, you just wouldnt get ALL of the benefits of having one if you wanted to be a pure nomad. If you look at almost any nomadic character group from any genre, show, or book, there are a few things that are taken in to account when you choose to always be on the move. If you truly want to be a nomad, then you are totally ok with the following:

1) You have to make do with spare parts: Mad-Maxing your way through the universe means you likely have a team of Jawa’s on standby to tear apart and salvage enemy ships. This is likely your primary means of income, since you won’t be claiming territory. Why use factories when there are perfectly good guns on that guys ship? Factories would be small and tight, and you would reuse much of what you find first. If you want to be a nomad, you shouldn’t ever be allowed to claim a system. Why? Strictly from an RP sense, that’s not what nomads do. System claiming should be for bases and stations only.


2) If you do end up mining for resources, you strip a planet and move on: Tyranid and other bug fleets are nomadic, in a sense that they eat and move on. The bonus resources from claiming territory are a kind of show of using some renewable resources to gain an edge or how having an established base warrants you the ability to set up sophisticated resource reclamation systems. You wont be setting up any mining outposts or farms, so you strip and move on. This is the nomad’s lifestyle.


3) When your home is a caravan, you’re likely to be ill-equipped: You don’t have the time or the resources to have a sleek elven stealth ship when you’re constantly doing repairs without the aid of an actual repair bay. Have a mechanic on standby to keep the Firefly running. Since you don’t get bonuses for having an established base, you will grow more slowly than someone who has mining bonuses and an invulnerable home with a blueprint of their ship on standby. Instead, you’ll be patching holes from battle with different colored armors and trying to remember where those wedges went. This isn’t a bad thing, I’d be pretty proud of my slapped-on armor and patchwork color, at least until I was an established pirate who could afford something nice.


4) A reason to always be on the move: Many nomads fill the role of “on the run” for one reason or another. You may not be a bad guy, but the Imperials are hunting you, or aliens are following the ion stream of your warp drive, always just a few short lightyears behind. In the same sense, that big floating fortress of yours is a gold mine of resources for any other player who thinks nomads are a nuisance, or worse food. In a gameplay sense, I’m all about making it easier for one player to find another, as PvP should be encouraged. Creative types already have an invincible base, if you are a nomad the risk of PvP should be REAL. If you were a nomad from the start, and never claimed territory, the chances of someone finding you are slim-to-none if everything worked the way it does currently, which in turn means NO RISK. Some sort of system to KEEP you on the move should be there. After all, claiming territory makes a giant colored blob on the map, and it doesn’t take long to find a named station in that blob. Maybe you don’t become a big target icon on the map, but SOME way to search and find you other than the current weak scanner antenna will give both you a reason to keep moving, AND players a reason to explore and hunt.

I’m not saying that I don’t personally want everything in the above, but I’m keeping balance in mind. If you ever think to yourself “If my opponent had that thing it would be unfair,” then it’s not fair for you to have it. I’m also a big fan of risk vs reward, where big risks have big payoffs, but those payoffs carry even bigger risks. It’s what makes things a challenge, makes them fun. I will concede that I don't know what the solution to that is, but I am merely playing devil's advocate to keep this thread from being a giant change to the power curve of the current state of the game.

 

[nightrune]

Ah, I've got it. I really love the idea that for the mothership to use the station systems it has to be stationary. There's a simple idea behind this that I think can probably balance the moving. I know I've always wanted to move my stations/reorient them. So why don't we just combine those ideas.

Idea 1) Anchor/ Unanchor with faction points, Possibly invulnerability

Building: To build a mothership you first build a station. You can claim it and make it your home. This makes it invulnerable. Just like any other station.

Moving: You can then spend faction points to un-anchor the station and move it like a ship, but it is no longer invulnerable but still your home. Also all the station blocks are inoperable (Possibly have a passive power draw as well). It follows all the same mechanics but to make it invulnerable you'll need to anchor it again. We then boost the mass of all the station blocks since, in combat, these are dead weight.

Anchoring: To anchor your station you need to use factions points again, but you can't anchor it in another sector that already has a station. I think you'd have to spend more faction points to make it invulnerable again, but needs it needs to be balanced since you could plop down right next to someones base and just factory build drones borg sytle.

This allows me and other players to slap an adhoc thruster system onto our station and move our valuable work to a better sector if we need to. This is good but it costs faction points which I think will be valuable later on. It also means you probably can't indefinitely anchor/unachor but you can move like a nomad. The long term meta play for this is during wars you might move your station closer as a forward base of operations, but its still got a ton of mass that isn't weapons, and even if somone built a station full of weapons they paid more for it and don't get any benefits to it.

Idea 2) Anchor/ Unanchor with a new block. Space Anchor

This idea follows both the build and moving of Idea 1 but differs in anchoring

Anchoring: You can't anchor it in another sector that already has a station, but you need to have a block called a space anchor. Once anchored you can use the station blocks. I think there are two ways to balance the anchor: power, and time. We may need to use both. One idea it draws a stupid but reasonable amount of power to hold a capitol/mother/ship still to use station blocks, but I also think it just needs a time component. It takes time to swap from one to the other. I think the ship should be all but useless during this time. Making it a hard tactical decision. This idea, I think this still gives most people what they want. You could make a small mining vessel that can anchor and start processing ores into blocks if there isn't already somone doing it or a station there, but you can also make a massive mothership that owns everything you have and anchor it, create the blocks you need and move on.

Well that turned out to be a lot of text.. Sorry for the wall.

I think this fits with our universe (even including the technical backend) quite well and allows for the nomadic lifestyle. What about that Blaza612 ?

 

[QuantumAnomaly]

Ah, I've got it. I really love the idea that for the mothership to use the station systems it has to be stationary. There's a simple idea behind this that I think can probably balance the moving. I know I've always wanted to move my stations/reorient them. So why don't we just combine those ideas.

Idea 1) Anchor/ Unanchor with faction points, Possibly invulnerability

I totally forgot about faction points. YES THIS! This opens up MULTIPLE styles of play. Nomads get to move around, but faction players get the ability to construct a forward base at their home, and move it where they want, instead of having to blueprint it, deconstruct it, and spawn it back in. You'll be claiming territory AND be invulnerable when you park, at least until you have the points saved up to move again.

It also addresses another issue of faction play, which is the inevitable depletion of asteroids from mining. No matter how careful you are, the odd server save WILL slowly drain a system of usable asteroids, and even hermits change systems on occasion, it's just an exhaustive process to blueprint everything, tear it all apart, and move it somewhere else in the current build.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

With the development team working on so many other projects, I have to wonder if they really see this as big priority. I don't know; maybe I'm missing something.

In any case, I just showed you all how to do this anchoring/un-anchoring station block stuff with the current game mechanics. All it takes to "anchor" and gain access to shipyards, shops, gates, undeatinators, etc, is 1 station block with a basic rail on it and a rail docker on (preferably inside) your ship. Just like that, you're anchored and you can go build your factories and shipyards. A little creativity can go a long way in this game and a lot of creativity will remove nearly all limitations from your designs.

The funny thing about this is; no one is ever going to be able to single-handedly control a mother-ship's movement, charge it's jump drives, and work in a factory/shipyard simultaneously. You'd need multiple human players to efficiently (perform station functions while mobile) operate this proposed class of ship. If multi-crew is what you're after, then it makes sense but I should point out that such a proposal would would exclude all well supplied solo players. I play solo (with allies) myself but I don't mind anchoring at a home base, however I cannot speak for all the other soloists out there who may or may not want to deal with OP warlords hovering over their base every other day.

Also, as it stands now, the empire/ faction territory strategy isn't very effective; as it's not easy to track down an intruder who enters your space. Also, if you ever go to war with someone, a player could just wait until all the enemy faction members were offline then strip mine every "non-faction-home" planet and destroy every "non-faction-home" station in their territory. In real war, the enemy can and will attack you while you sleep. The unclaimed sector stash idea is only valid until you meet some dedicated explorers who randomly happen across your monster capital then break out their trusty torch. The fact that you are ONLY safe at a faction home add fairness for all players. So that no established player is totally invincible and no (smart) newbie is wiped out.

 

[nightrune]

In any case, I just showed you all how to do this anchoring/un-anchoring station block stuff with the current game mechanics. All it takes to "anchor" and gain access to shipyards, shops, gates, undeatinators, etc, is 1 station block with a basic rail on it and a rail docker on (preferably inside) your ship. Just like that, you're anchored and you can go build your factories and shipyards. A little creativity can go a long way in this game and a lot of creativity will remove nearly all limitations from your designs.

If you are talking about this with the current mechanics, then this doesn't work. Currently, You can't take a ship dock it to a station and build a shipyard on it, or a warp gate. I wouldn't want to change that either. This doesn't even work if you have two capitol/motherships in my suggesstion since you can't anchor more then one entity in a sector.

 

[QuantumAnomaly]

With the development team working on so many other projects, I have to wonder if they really see this as big priority. I don't know; maybe I'm missing something.

This is actually something the devs have talked about for quite a while, and there used to be a "mothership core" object in game for this very design element, so I'd say its been on the table for a while, but implementation has always been a touchy subject due to balance.

As far as anchoring a ship to a station to build shipyards etc in it, the only issue with that is you dont get to take the shipyard with you, if I understand what you're saying. The whole point is to be able to move the shipyard/factory/refinery itself.

 

[Zekester81]

I don't think you should be able to claim territory with a mobile base. Typically, territory is claimed by people who stay put. It kind of goes against the whole nomad thing IMO. If you want to be nothing but nomadic you should have the drawbacks associated with it. If you want to own and protect a place, put down roots. Oh, and no invulnerability for a mobile base. I don't think stations should even get that. Maybe they should just get a gigantic boost in survivability, but not invulnerability. My 2 cents.

Otherwise, carry on.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

If you are talking about this with the current mechanics, then this doesn't work. Currently, You can't take a ship dock it to a station and build a shipyard on it, or a warp gate. I wouldn't want to change that either. This doesn't even work if you have two capitol/motherships in my suggesstion since you can't anchor more then one entity in a sector.

Sure you can. Like I said; you dock AROUND the station. The actual "station" will be inside your mother-ship's cargo/hangar bay. What you can build is only limited by the size of your bay and your imagination. Regarding multiple capitals; you can either dock the second ship to the first or build a long pylon from your "anchor" station with a dock at the end, then delete the connecting blocks; leaving only the 2nd basic rail. Anyone visiting the area would see 2 capitals anchored in place.

This is actually something the devs have talked about for quite a while, and there used to be a "mothership core" object in game for this very design element, so I'd say its been on the table for a while, but implementation has always been a touchy subject due to balance.

As far as anchoring a ship to a station to build shipyards etc in it, the only issue with that is you dont get to take the shipyard with you, if I understand what you're saying. The whole point is to be able to move the shipyard/factory/refinery itself.

I've heard about this proposition before. The concept just seems redundant to me since it didn't take long for me to pack up and relocate my Command System. To each his/her own.

I'm curious about what you guys think about the faction territory issue though. After all; station, ship or capital; you only benefit from it when you're online and actively occupying the area. Virtually everything else in your faction can be destroyed/stolen if not docked to your home base. I think such a thing is an important balance between players. In all fairness, if you want the turf, you should have to do the work to get and keep it. If your reach happens to exceed your grasp, there should be a price to pay and it should apply to capitals.

I'm sure many of you may think I am opposed to the idea of capital ships/mother-ships; I can assure you; I am not. What I am opposed to is a bully showing up with a 1 million+ mass capital ship that is armed to the teeth AND invincible due to faction home protection.

 

[nightrune]

What I am opposed to is a bully showing up with 1 million+ mass capital ship that is armed to the teeth AND invincible due to faction home protection.

I can absolutely agree on this.

 

[QuantumAnomaly]

I too agree that in no way should a mobile platform with invincibility show up anywhere. Then again, it's possible in the current system to go to a neutral zone while players are offline, build a station a sector away from their homebase, set it up with sniper missiles and homebase it, then declare war on the faction. The current system is kinda broken as it stands as well.

In the end, it's all about balancing fun and freedom of how to play a sandbox game, with limitations that (try) to keep abuse to a minimum. That's what we should focus on, if we want to make good suggestions.

 

[Blaza612]

So much to reply to, will reply to all one at a time. :p

I don’t think that any of my suggestions would REQUIRE you to have a station

O rlly?

You STILL need some kind of home base that has the capability to PRODUCE one of these suckers if you want one. Not to mention the resource cost. You probably want that homebase protection while you work out the finer bits. Nuff said there.

You did kind of say that we need a shipyard to build the thing in the first place, I just want to build off of my ship rather than have to construct it at a shipyard. :p

Mad-Maxing your way through the universe

How did I not manage to use these words to describe what I want...

4) A reason to always be on the move: Many nomads fill the role of “on the run” for one reason or another. You may not be a bad guy, but the Imperials are hunting you, or aliens are following the ion stream of your warp drive, always just a few short lightyears behind. In the same sense, that big floating fortress of yours is a gold mine of resources for any other player who thinks nomads are a nuisance, or worse food. In a gameplay sense, I’m all about making it easier for one player to find another, as PvP should be encouraged. Creative types already have an invincible base, if you are a nomad the risk of PvP should be REAL. If you were a nomad from the start, and never claimed territory, the chances of someone finding you are slim-to-none if everything worked the way it does currently, which in turn means NO RISK. Some sort of system to KEEP you on the move should be there. After all, claiming territory makes a giant colored blob on the map, and it doesn’t take long to find a named station in that blob. Maybe you don’t become a big target icon on the map, but SOME way to search and find you other than the current weak scanner antenna will give both you a reason to keep moving, AND players a reason to explore and hunt.

I agree that players should be always on the move, but again, your HOME being a giant target for every fucker on the server to see is NOT how to do it, if that was the case, then I highly doubt ANYONE would want to use them, since it's way to dangerous, and they have an almost 100% chance to lose all of their shit, whether it's to the Helkan Imperium or not. I'm 95% sure that in order to find most stations in the future, you'll either need to scan a system or run into them, so it should be similar for capitals and motherships. If someone scans your system, then your HOME will show up on the galaxy map as a nice big juicy target, and it will stay there and move without having to scan again, unless it moves into a different system.

This way, there will still be a reason to keep on the move, as you can actually lose players tracks on you if you're skilled enough, and it prevents you from losing EVERYTHING overnight from a group of random people immediately. It also opens up a new mechanic of hunting capitals, searching all over the galaxy and could prove to be very interesting. To help in the hunting process, I propose a new thingy.

Capitals and Motherships can use the normal jump drive (hopefully to be changed to a warp drive in future), but they can only go so far with it. Of course, to be able to travel long distances, how about a Wormhole Drive (or re-purposing the jump drive if warp is added in) which will leave behind a slight difference in the Dark Matter, which can be picked up be strong enough scanners (not sure how strong, I'd imagine the minimum would need to be between 40-50% of the ship). It'll give you the severity of the difference, and will give you the direction in which the ship jumped.

The severity would give you an idea of how far it jumped (by using math, you can only get an approximation which can be off by up to 50%, either weak or strong) but the direction will be exact, allowing you to find out where they jumped to with relative ease, yet still not too easy that they have a chance to get away.

If you guys agree on this, then I'll add it to the OP, and due to my references of wanting a warp drive, here's my suggestion on it for any who're curious on my hopes. Now onto the next replies. :p
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I really love the idea that for the mothership to use the station systems it has to be stationary.

You love it, I hate it, and from what I was talking about previously on other threads (where this originated from) there seems to be a 50-50 ratio of those who hate it and those who love it. I'm part of those that hate it. :p

Ah, I've got it. I really love the idea that for the mothership to use the station systems it has to be stationary. There's a simple idea behind this that I think can probably balance the moving. I know I've always wanted to move my stations/reorient them. So why don't we just combine those ideas.

Idea 1) Anchor/ Unanchor with faction points, Possibly invulnerability

Building: To build a mothership you first build a station. You can claim it and make it your home. This makes it invulnerable. Just like any other station.

Moving: You can then spend faction points to un-anchor the station and move it like a ship, but it is no longer invulnerable but still your home. Also all the station blocks are inoperable (Possibly have a passive power draw as well). It follows all the same mechanics but to make it invulnerable you'll need to anchor it again. We then boost the mass of all the station blocks since, in combat, these are dead weight.

Anchoring: To anchor your station you need to use factions points again, but you can't anchor it in another sector that already has a station. I think you'd have to spend more faction points to make it invulnerable again, but needs it needs to be balanced since you could plop down right next to someones base and just factory build drones borg sytle.

This allows me and other players to slap an adhoc thruster system onto our station and move our valuable work to a better sector if we need to. This is good but it costs faction points which I think will be valuable later on. It also means you probably can't indefinitely anchor/unachor but you can move like a nomad. The long term meta play for this is during wars you might move your station closer as a forward base of operations, but its still got a ton of mass that isn't weapons, and even if somone built a station full of weapons they paid more for it and don't get any benefits to it.

Idea 2) Anchor/ Unanchor with a new block. Space Anchor

This idea follows both the build and moving of Idea 1 but differs in anchoring

Anchoring: You can't anchor it in another sector that already has a station, but you need to have a block called a space anchor. Once anchored you can use the station blocks. I think there are two ways to balance the anchor: power, and time. We may need to use both. One idea it draws a stupid but reasonable amount of power to hold a capitol/mother/ship still to use station blocks, but I also think it just needs a time component. It takes time to swap from one to the other. I think the ship should be all but useless during this time. Making it a hard tactical decision. This idea, I think this still gives most people what they want. You could make a small mining vessel that can anchor and start processing ores into blocks if there isn't already somone doing it or a station there, but you can also make a massive mothership that owns everything you have and anchor it, create the blocks you need and move on.

Well that turned out to be a lot of text.. Sorry for the wall.

I think this fits with our universe (even including the technical backend) quite well and allows for the nomadic lifestyle. What about that Blaza612 ?

Now, while I hate the idea of capitals/motherships having to be anchored, I'm not ready to obliterate it just yet.

Something that I do like, is being able to move stations, and anchoring/un-anchoring them, for faction points. It's been said before that not only will stations be superior to caps/mothers in general, but they'll also be a lot more unique than they are now. So, why not make stations more lenient towards factions?

How about, we make it that you can move any station, at the cost of faction points. They can't use the station stuff while moving, but they don't have the kind of debuffs that caps/mothers have, allowing them to be significantly more useful, especially for factions. This way, if a faction uses up it's local resources, they can pack up everything and migrate elsewhere, still allowing for some more nomadic play-styles, and providing factions with chances to obliterate the faction(s) that is moving.
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I'm curious about what you guys think about the faction territory issue though. After all; station, ship or capital; you only benefit from it when you're online and actively occupying the area. Virtually everything else in your faction can be destroyed/stolen if not docked to your home base. I think such a thing is an important balance between players. In all fairness, if you want the turf, you should have to do the work to get and keep it. If your reach happens to exceed your grasp, there should be a price to pay and it should apply to capitals.

I'm sure many of you may think I am opposed to the idea of capital ships/mother-ships; I can assure you; I am not. What I am opposed to is a bully showing up with a 1 million+ mass capital ship that is armed to the teeth AND invincible due to faction home protection.

I've seen this come up a number of times...

Capital Ships/Motherships being invincible?

No, get the fuck out of here. :p

What confuses me is how you guys got the idea for this in the first place, because IIRC, I specifically put that Caps/Mothers will NOT have invincibility, Mothers will have a resistance boost, but I'd only ever allow up to a max of 50% for that, since again, it is everything you own.

In real war, the enemy can and will attack you while you sleep

But this isn't real war, this is a game. Games are meant to be fun, and what isn't fun is when everything you've owned and worked for is obliterated while you're asleep, and can't do anything to defend it. Random griefers going to a giant marker on the galaxy map and finding your Cap/Mother and torching their way in while you're asleep, is the exact opposite of fun, and thus there should be ways of hiding the Cap/Mother unless they actually try to find it using scanners or something.

 

[nightrune]

You love it, I hate it, and from what I was talking about previously on other threads (where this originated from) there seems to be a 50-50 ratio of those who hate it and those who love it. I'm part of those that hate it. :p

I suppose what I don't like is the idea of a long long drawn out fight between motherships that are both producing materials and essentially repairing/builidng new ships.

I know this isn't your specific intention but others could use it that way, but my fears could be unfounded since that might be rare. If it is your home you not take and attack that way, but if are aggressive you could use it endlessly attack/blockcade a smaller player around their planet.

I think the good thing about anchoring is, later well be able to have drone ships. I could imagine people using the drones to move race gates into position and then link by hand.

Lots to consider. I do like the idea to be able to live like a nomad though. The question is how.

 

[RedDwarfIV]

I like the idea of a Space Anchor.

A spacecraft that can only use Station parts when its Space Anchor is dropped would be good. No Warp Gates though, for previously mentioned reasons. Just factories and shipyards and undeathinators.

For invincibility, just build a very basic homebase station (as in, the start block, a faction block and a docking rail) then dock your mothership to it. That way, it's safe overnight - and because there's already a station present, you can't just leave your station systems running. Or you could risk it and run the factory systems all the time, with no invincibility protection.

 

[Blaza612]

I like the idea of a Space Anchor.

A spacecraft that can only use Station parts when its Space Anchor is dropped would be good. No Warp Gates though, for previously mentioned reasons. Just factories and shipyards and undeathinators.

For invincibility, just build a very basic homebase station (as in, the start block, a faction block and a docking rail) then dock your mothership to it. That way, it's safe overnight - and because there's already a station present, you can't just leave your station systems running. Or you could risk it and run the factory systems all the time, with no invincibility protection.

I'll just leave this here...

Now, while I hate the idea of capitals/motherships having to be anchored, I'm not ready to obliterate it just yet.

Something that I do like, is being able to move stations, and anchoring/un-anchoring them, for faction points. It's been said before that not only will stations be superior to caps/mothers in general, but they'll also be a lot more unique than they are now. So, why not make stations more lenient towards factions?

How about, we make it that you can move any station, at the cost of faction points. They can't use the station stuff while moving, but they don't have the kind of debuffs that caps/mothers have, allowing them to be significantly more useful, especially for factions. This way, if a faction uses up it's local resources, they can pack up everything and migrate elsewhere, still allowing for some more nomadic play-styles, and providing factions with chances to obliterate the faction(s) that is moving.