Modular Station

[GRHayes]

I love the new docking system. It has been a tremendous improvement to the game.

It makes creating modular system pretty easy. Except in one aspect. If you have two station entities you can't build them separately then join them.

I can make something simple like a docking extension and increase the docking on the station. But if I wanted to make the shipyard as a module I have no way of moving it around and connecting to the other station.

We build real space station in modules. With the current docking system it makes sense.

The easiest solution I can think of would be to allow a second method of building a station. Let the player start with a ships core and then provide a menu that allows them to switch to a being a stationary object. You could even have the core convert to a build block. You could provide the same menu in the build block which would allow switching back.

 

[kiraen]

This idea has some issues, but if they can be worked out, I will support it.

The first problem I see is people being able to switch back and forth between station and ship. (It makes no sense to go just one direction)
It will need a hefty cooldown or player will just switch their ships to station mode whenever threatened for homebase protection. And then switch to ship mode when they have depleted a system and move to claim a new one. The whole point of stations is that they are immobile.

Also, there is the way the entities grid systems interact. This might be very lag inducing, but we already have turrets so maybe not.

I know there are plans to be able to move the core, and there has been some discussion about adding new core types. These idea might mesh with this somehow.

I like the concept, I'm just not sure of balance or implementation.