I propose a new, spawnable core element; the Modular Component Core.
It works the same way as a ship core; you press X to spawn it into existence. If you have both a ship core and a modular component core in your inventory, the game will prompt you to "spawn ship" or "spawn component"; otherwise spawning works as usual.
Once spawned you can enter the core and build things off of it, as well as move it around.
Here's where the MCC differs from the SC...
- While "piloting" the MCC, you cannot use weapon or system computers or inner ship remotes. The only item that will show up in your weapons tab are rail dockers.
- An MCC on its own will show up on radar as a "component", rather than a ship or station.
- MCC's can dock to a ship or station. They cannot dock to other MCC's unless those MCC's are already docked to a ship or station. They can dock to turrets but only in a single chain - an MCC cannot dock to an MCC that is docked to a ship docked to a turret axis.
- When an MCC docks to a ship, station, or turret it is considered a part of it, and no longer shows up as a separate entity on radar.
- When an MCC docks to a ship or station, the attributes of that MCC are passed to the parent entity. This includes mass, block count, available thrust, power and shield recharge/capacity.
- When weapons systems are placed onto an MCC they are linked to the core like normal weapons systems, but they do not show up on the MCC itself. HOWEVER, if an MCC is docked to a ship, any weapon system on the MCC will show up on the Weapons tab of the mothership, and these weapons behave exactly the same as if they were on the mothership itself (missiles lock, beams and cannons follow cursor, etc.) A weapon computer on an MCC can be linked as main or support to a weapon computer on the ship itself. Finally, if a ship or turret is controlled by Bobby AI, weapon computers on the MCC are usable by Bobby AI.
- If an MCC is docked to a station it is considered a station for the purposes of placing station-only blocks such as factories, undeathinators, etc. These blocks can only be placed on the MCC if the MCC is docked to a station at the time. MCC's with station-only blocks on them lose the ability to move independently regardless of thrust, and cannot use weapon computers, nor can they dock to ships.
Basically, an MCC would be specifically designed for "add-on" components that are to be part of a ship or station. They can be used on ships for weapon pods, dockable jump rings, and shield/power/thrust boosters. On stations they can be used for just about anything, but most importantly they can be used to make factories, Undeathinators, and warpgate systems that move throughout the station. Think about it like this: you can have a shipyard where each construction gantry has a rail along it, and you can place a tram car that has your station's production and storage system on it so as to be able to bring it to you if you need something made while working on a ship design. You can use it to have a variable gate system, where each warp gate is a separate ring on a stick attached to a central axis and can rotate independently, you select your destination with logic and the corresponding gate will rotate downward until it lines up with the launch tube your ship is standing by in. There are a multitude of different applications for this capability.
Anyway I have no idea how viable all of this is. All that I know is that it covers most of the issues I've seen with rail-docked entities thus far.
