so I’ve been thinking about this idea a lot recently, as i’ve mentioned before i think the opportunity for something like this could be quite benefical to game play.
considering this idea has helped inspire my Boarding Parties post
link here: Boarding Parties
I’d like to circle back to this and mix in some of my previous ideas:
such as refining over time.
as well as intergrated ship modules
link here: Intergrated Ship Modifications - #9
I’ve basically cooked up a list of small structures which could be anchored with benefits to players.
Observation Post: this structure is literally designed to be your eyes and ears, it will observe solar systems for specific players, should you be looking for a specific player and they fly into a system where this exisits it will ping some kind of notification. my thinking behind this was for bounty hunters to find individual capsuleers with bounties on them, its not intended to replace human interaction in the game for intel channels.
Refinery: this small structure (maybe using a repurposed silo model from the game with a sexy new skin) is simply a refinery. perhaps you put some mining crystals into the industry BPO/BPC’s for flavour allowing structures to be made to refine very specific types of ores.
as per my previous post on which had this idea, the idea of refining over time will give you ultimately a slightly higher yield. me thinking is that these structures can be designed for specific ores as previously mentioned. the way i see this in my head is that you fill up the structure with ore, it will then compress it, then begin refining the compressed block, this way you can start work on filling up the ore hold again.
R&D Lab: this one links into my Intergrated ship modules idea. the idea is that you take your ship or perhaps a BPC of intended ship and then add in something like data cores or perhaps just the t3 subsystem that’s intended (same racial subsystems for the same ships, so caldari → caldari you won’t find a minmitar ship with caldari sub systems for example) my thinking is by keeping the sub systems linked to the racial ship groupings you could then recieve a BPC which allows you to create a ship which will also accept this sub system.
the subsystems are already meant to be modifications, so i figured best just utilise this system, perhaps smaller ships can only fit defensive and offensive subsystems, this would save a lot of time and work on the code (I honestly don’t know much about how subsystems work atm)
my thinking behind this structure specifically would mean capsuleers (boarding parties or not) will actually then be interested in stealing the research work and technology of opposing alliances / corporations, effectively creating a form of arms race.
alternatively, you could only permit sub systems which support that ships intended role / function to be fitted.
Biodevelopment lab:
this was actually more targeted for when the intergration of FPS Mercs & EVE Online becomes a reality again. working under the assumption boarding parties were factored into the game, prior to having warclone mercenaries, the idea of a Biodevelopment lab would be to actually genetically improve and increase the survivability of warclones in combat with say faster healing, the idea would be to develop skill tree’s, genetic augementations and such things, meaning more successful warclones, buy and upgrade their clones for better combat, similar to how capsuleers had to upgrade your clones when you died, but in this case it would be “once bought, this becomes your new standard”
Barracks: so the idea of having your own barracks again is linked to my boarding parties idea. the idea behind it is that if you get passengers and small arms and feed them into the barracks, they will recieve training and become marines.
in the back of my mind i was hoping that marines would be able to have different levels (perhaps meta levels?) which represent how well trained they are, the better trained the higher the chance of success of a raid. or perhaps they will level up as they raid, similar to the old command and conquer games, when one of your units does really well it gets promoted.
I personally thinkg they should have a t2 varient, i personally just like the idea of having them for variety and improved capabilities, i saw a video from the scope a while ago which had “cloaked structures” across the bottom and thought it would be cool if there were T2 varient of small structures they would be cloaked and only visible for a few hours, similar to how a main structure has a vulnerability window.
all these small structures (as well as t2 if they went that far) would also then work as viable strike targets for marines in relation to the boarding parties idea.
even if that feature wasn’t implemented small structures which performed these functions would still be useful to capsuleers who wanted to explore different aspects of the game.
personally i still think the idea of small structures has merit and genuinely could be an interesting take on things in the game.