meta for stations building

[shado20]

so with the new space cube uneasy build mode station and the siege mechanics involved, and hoping they increase the damage resistance of the station plating so its not swiss-cheese in 10 mints. the station build for defense is

you build the deck on the top most part of the build area, and the bottom most part of the build area. so the only attack-able part is the area between the 2 decks
you need to have players in the outer most part to capture this part, but this part will be a flat kill zone , the top and bottom outside parts don't matter as they are out side the station.
stations now go from an awesome looking station like this

to a minecraft looking box.

 

[Distuth]

Yeah. That's the ideal. But that sharply limits what you can actually put INTO the station. You could perhaps use the top and bottom sides for hangars? But EVERYTHING else that you want to protect has to be crammed into those areas. And you'd better hope those things don't need an access point outside the station. Because that real estate is going to get real crammed, real fast.

 

[IronGremlin]

As much as I want to see a station designer, and I truly, truly do, I have to point out that declaring the station building meta to be set before we have, uh, anything at all, to build in a station, seems a tad premature.

Like good on you for being ready to advance the state of the art given the limited tools at our disposal, but I cannot imagine that this is going to stay relevant even into the actual release of the station siege feature, given that we will end up needing a bunch of extra shit in order to build the cap ships to do sieges with in the first place.

 

[shado20]

As much as I want to see a station designer, and I truly, truly do, I have to point out that declaring the station building meta to be set before we have, uh, anything at all, to build in a station, seems a tad premature.

Like good on you for being ready to advance the state of the art given the limited tools at our disposal, but I cannot imagine that this is going to stay relevant even into the actual release of the station siege feature, given that we will end up needing a bunch of extra shit in order to build the cap ships to do sieges with in the first place.

the point of this is that the current easy build mode system is shit and will lead to stations being designed into crap the devs did not think of, the stations will be made and setup into platforms hard to impossible to siege and this may be a good thing from one point , but will not look cool. stations will be not like we see now, they will be minecraft boxes cause thats easier to defend. which is a bad thing as it will be much easier to just obliterate the station than take it, and this should not be easy. ether way the pvp ground game is gone, and that was one of the most fun things to do in CA!

 

[IronGremlin]

stations will be not like we see now, they will be minecraft boxes cause thats easier to defend. !

The point I'm making here is that you cannot reasonably assert that this statement is true without any idea what the station will need to defend.

As the attack surface area increases, options for defense decrease, and you need to start making compromises.

We do not have enough information presently to accurately predict what defending a real station that has actual facilities in it will look like because we don't know what actual facilities need to look like yet, how that will interact with rules for station expansion, etc.

We CAN accurately predict that they will look like shit - everything you make with EZ build looks like shit - but we cannot predict that the exact flavor of "looking like shit" will be a featureless cube, because we do not yet have enough information to establish whether or not this is a actually a feasible design for defending a real station with actual facilities.

 

[LauriFB]

We have a ton of technical, visual and gameplay features planned or already in work, which will effectively allow much larger stations, much better looking stations and also guide the meta a lot more than just cramming a massive grey box there. Ships didn't remain as EBM ships and stations will see the same facelift with enough features added.

You can already use single parts when building stations, and color them, just to test out something different.

 

[CalenLoki]

I love future meta predictions
My 2c:

1. Station plating not being tissue paper does not mean they'll be invulnerable barrier. I'm sure that even if we get chance to switch them for oninum, with enough dedication you can still create other entrances than those intended by station designers. So defending the entire surface will be important, as well as designing internals to give defenders advantage in CQC.

2. Stations being defensible is IMO a good thing. I'd never even attempt to defend open-frame megastations on the ground. So despite EBM limitations, it's still upgrade from "pretty pre-made background prop" to "ugly but important gameplay object we can design around".

3. It's (kind of) confirmed that to store ships on player stations, you need hangars. Each of them need access for the ships to fly into. That creates quite big opening.

4. There are few other facilities mentioned here and there on the roadmap:
-cap ship hangar, requiring (I presume) even bigger opening.
-gas capture, storage and refining. Storage and refining fits nicely inside, but collectors may benefit from spreading them far away from each other and/or having as little other station parts around them as possible (open frames)
-solar panels require large flat surfaces. That's helping the flat box design sadly.
-big ass reactors. If they blow up into really big fireball, it may encourage spacing that part of the station from the rest.
-pipes/conveyors for transporting resources can both create openings in the outer shell, as well as need for maintenance corridors through the station
-warp gates. Require external placement.

5. More game mechanics could be created to encourage spreading apart the facilities. I.e. some heat mechanic that decrease machinery efficiency based on their distance from heat sources. So i.e. a turret close to refinery would have it's ROF reduced.

So in the end an optimally functional station may look more like that:

With a central, heavily armoured bunker hosting all the facilities that don't need spacing up (hangars, storage), and spacious open frame connecting those that do (reactors and gas collectors)
So still a box, but at lest with tentacles.


My biggest issues with EBM is no blueprint saving (station need to be recreated block by block every time) and no non-90 degree angle support.
Building it by hand every time give the potential that each station will be unique. But it's so tedious and time consuming that pretty quick anyone competitive will go for a big grey box.

IMO ideal solution would be SSC-like editor for large sections (up to (100m)^3 each), with a "connection port" device for connecting those sections together on site.
Each section would be treated by game as separate entity for downloading/LoD related stuff.
Blueprints would be filled the same way as the ships gonna be build on player stations. But instead of factory hall, a construction ship would do the filling.

guide the meta a lot more than just cramming a massive grey box there

I'm very curious what you have in mind in that regard.

 

[Askannon]

Something that came up during the Destruction Event was the coordination, i.e. "where is the enemy?" "the halls" or "the yellow part"
So another thing that will probably happen is that colors will either be a mash of nonsense (not helpful in marking areas) or nonexistent and buildings will be quite uniform so as to not give the enemy an easy way to coordinate and orientate.

To have the homeground advantage I assume stations will have areas like Reaktor, Storage etc. in a single space (each) to allow coordination as the defender (since they are more often there and know what does what where) as long as their location/building does not indicate them as such from outside.

Another thing that might happen is the inclusion of staging areas (A,B,C..) that are known to the defenders but have no markings to show that they are important.

 

[LauriFB]

Ship blueprint saving for any ships (including EBM and in-world modified) is soon done, and we have also station blueprint planned. However, the fact that station blueprint needs a lot of work is not since EBM but since siege tech changed a lot of how the underlying tech works.

SSC for stations is also planned.

 

[shado20]

Ship blueprint saving for any ships (including EBM and in-world modified) is soon done, and we have also station blueprint planned. However, the fact that station blueprint needs a lot of work is not since EBM but since siege tech changed a lot of how the underlying tech works.

SSC for stations is also planned.

well
if you would have disclosed that stations where getting 100% changed and redone back in CA, we CA players would have told you not to launch this game as your not clearly ready to have players yet!

 

[shado20]

look if your staying with this easy build mode station crap then have it make sense.
a ship needs thrusters to move, but needs propellant and power...
a EBM station shields and safe-zone is a cube... witch i can deploy in 10 minutes...!!
get red of the cube, make the foundation(core) of a station looks like a generator capacitor bank shield generator and room to maintain it. have it use a couple fuel rods to maintain charge for a week,month or 2
so if a station is abandoned, it will power down and be a salvage or something
but make it make sense and not a 10 minute drop for a safezone/shield

 

[Corbs]

Optional Shield gens are a good idea. Placed over anti-cap ship gun batteries and over explosive station parts. We need some anti-ship dakka dakka gun batteries for good times!