Proposed Chester Developments (.86 and beyond)

[jammi]

For several years now, Bowex has officially owned Chester as a 'guard' system. That of course gives us the right to develop it, within reason. Now, the system is currently fairly barren. It contains one planet, the Crewe Nebula and a Nomad Lair. Not all that inspired. Below, I've detailed Bowex's plans to spruce the system up and make it a more lively and interesting place to visit and explore.

Concept of Development:

The way Discovery usually works is a system remain barren until a faction buys it, then magically heavy infrastructure appears all over the place. I wish to subvert this trend by accurately depicting the exploration and chartering, then development of Chester. In this initial proposed version, I intend to add the system's natural solar features that would remain consistent throughout all later releases, as well as an 'exploration hub'.

In later versions, I'd like to add undockable bases that are under construction, which over time become fully operational. These developments would be indicated by NPC patrols, storage depots, news articles and rumours. In effect, we'd be paying a system developer to create three or four very similar versions of the same system, all of which would be submitted. The system could then be seamlessly updated over time, via the autoupdater.

Background lore:

After discovering a route to Chester from Dublin, Bowex launches a wave of surveys on the system, with the express purpose of locating and securing resources that the Kingdom of Bretonia needs. Planet Lymm is the focus of this search, as both a potential site for colonisation, and a source of mineral wealth. Alien ruins are discovered on areas of the surface, prompting Mi5 to move in and restrict access to the sites in question. The official government explanation is this was done to prevent looting, but in reality, they're attempted to limit access to potentially dangerous active artifacts. They're shipped to Sunderland Research Station in Newcastle, where the staff is attempting to reverse engineer Da'am Kovosh technology.

While chartering to the north, several Bowex ships vanish in the Crewe Nebula. Mi5 investigates, and fearing alien involvement, locks down civilian access to the Nebula. Their excuse for this is to prevent civilian navigation errors within the cloud. The hint is that Chester was once intended as a crèche system for the Nomads, due to the presence of a Hive and the ruins on Lymm's surface. Enraged at humans encroaching on another of their birthrights, the local Nomads are gearing for war.

System Information:

• Infocards and descriptions.
  
• Rumours and news articles (work in progress).
  

Disclaimer:

I know this can't be included in .86's initial release - we're resigned to that and accept it. You don't need to tell us it. Should these plans be met with acceptance from the Devs (no story line conflicts, etc), we'll contact system modders and see about about bribing this concept work into a reality. We want to have the system fully created (sans economy, which we wouldn't be allowed to touch) before we officially submit it, so the devs don't have to take their time to do it for us. Mostly, we're worried that if we ask the devs to make it for us, it'll never happen. From there, we can see about getting it included in either the late betas (unlikely) or through the autoupdater some time after .86's release. Hell, we've been waiting for years already. If we have to, we can wait until .87 - it doesn't make that much difference. (Unless .87 is organised like .86, anyway...)

So, with all that out the way, what do you guys think?

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