[9:22:51 PM] Alexander Sexton: And what will that look like, player owned bases?
[9:23:06 PM] Justin Hopkins: Just need to steal the FLHook code from Cannon.
[9:23:09 PM] Alexander Sexton: Like, you spend 10 million credits for an outpost that can be destroyed by players, but can be docked?
[9:23:12 PM] Justin Hopkins: I'm not sure how it's done myself.
[9:23:15 PM] Alexander Sexton: I see
[9:23:15 PM] Justin Hopkins: And,
[9:23:20 PM] Justin Hopkins: It takes a lot to destroy it.
[9:23:25 PM] Justin Hopkins: And yes, they're dockabe.
[9:23:28 PM] Justin Hopkins: dockable*
[9:23:59 PM] Alexander Sexton: When they implement that, they should remove most of the stationary battleships and front-line war bases.
[9:24:09 PM] Alexander Sexton: So the battle zone is truly dynamic
So what exactly will player owned bases look like? I know they're a feature in .86 but I can't find any details. There are a couple of ways this can go down:
Bases could be established around areas that see a lot of fighting to provide resupply points.
As I said in the Skype conversation, all NPC bases would be removed from war zones, and players could then create bases and destroy enemy bases. This would make battlezones like Omicron Eta more intense when your base is destroyed and suddenly enemies are all over your jump hole.
Large trade stations are established and affiliated with a faction. Then, factionalized cargo spawns and is available to trade. For example, an ALG base would spawn fuel and Toxic waste. A BMM base would spawn metals. A Kishiro base would spawn electronics and Plutonium.
So let's talk about how player owned bases could be developed.
There should be different classes of bases with different properties/abilities at different prices.
Trading outposts should have good stuff to buy and sell.
Shipyards should offer caps and act as an armory of sorts for equipping and re-equipping.
Player owned bases should have proper names. Naming conventions should be approved by somebody before the base is put in game.
I don't want bases called "LaLaLand Base". They should follow the Freelancer convention of naming based on faction and location. Eg: A Libertonian base should be maybe... "Fort Knox" or "Dakota Shipyard".
-Make the stations fairly cheap. Destuction of Station/Structure is permanent.
-Make them slighly more expensive. Destruction is permanent until server reset.
-Make them *really* expensive. Complete destruction is not possible but a temporary shutdown of the station is.
Station shapes... there's about 10 progressive models thus far, ranging from a tiny little base to a huge beast the size of Southhampton. Cost and all other details are still in a TBD stage. Not yet alpha tested as far as I know.
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Obviously, bases shouldn't be free to construct for just any freelancer. Base price, I think, should be 100 million.
And as for destruction, they should be destroyable but HEAVILY armed with a variety of weapons. That would deter a capital ship from going on a mighty crusade.
And also, the matter of loot. Destroying heavily armed and defended stations should yield a wide range of rewards, from credit cards to valuable cargo.
Its still kind of weird, then you go offline and few people just joins up with lets say few bombers and go on rape battle against stations. Face it, thrusted SNAC from 3k, hardly any weapons can damage such bomber.
Construction wise I've noticed a definite segmentation to the stations which should leave a fair few construction options and personalization if it used a interface similar to /pimpship. balancing wise well see if you can put on BS turrets given there fairly long range but just one can do a heap load of damage so lets hope something is put in place to stop what reptile said because i would not want my personal station in wherever i decide to put it in public view.
If there will be player owned stations then only over the price of 1 billion (and thats not much) I think. Why should a station cost less than a battleship? Keep in mind that you can sell/buy cargo on them, set prices (not sure about this) and, yes, destroy them. So this should be much more expensive. Starting at 1 billion, or even more, credits for a small asteroid base for example to prevent single freelancers from building the the bigger stations because the max amount of money cannot reach 3bil.