Almost 8 years ago in Rubicon expansion CCP introduced Mobile Structures
Better Living Through Mobile Structures 2013-11-14 Devblog
Sharp readers will have noticed that I have been referring to all of these Mobile Structures as the “first four”. That is because we intend this to be just the beginning of our adventures with the Mobile Structure concept and our new space object codebase. Team Five O is already hard at work on another set of Mobile Structures planned for Rubicon 1.1, and we are investigating options for converting some existing objects (such as Mobile Warp Disruptors) into the new system and expanding the kinds of functions that the new style of space structures can employ.
First four were Depot, MTU, Cyno Inhib and Syphon, and later there were Micro Jump, Scan Inhib and ESS. There is also a Decoy in game files which would imitate a ship on dscan and probe scan. There was also a topic in old forums for player suggestions.
Sandbox is all about tools and emergent gameplay, they say. I think mobile structures as they are, are not flexible enough tools. They are still great, but there is a certain way you’re supposed to use them. You cant mess with them other than draw pictures on Jita undock. They could be so much better.
Space anchor with fitting slots
Unspecialized generic anchor with 1 high, 1 mid, 1 low, 2(/3) upwell. CPU and PG to allow or balance out weird combinations. Make highs and upwells mutually exclusive (or not). A bridge (upwell-upwell) to make a ‘dipole’, with the same 2 upwells in result but with 2 H/M/L slots. Or let chain as many as you like.
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Mobile Depot = this new structure with 3000m3 container in low, reinforcement core and fitting crane in upwells.
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MTU = anchor with tractor beam and autotargetting unit with wreck script in highs, 27000m3 container in upwell.
…and so on.
This is seemingly the same, but allowing fitting ship modules, allowing customizing your structures makes great difference in my opinion.