.map file relation to EoC geography?

@Jumbo: sure, post a little bit up somewhere we can listen to.


Tarcoon: Tell us some more about this station complex idea. What would a station complex look like? Break up the station modules into individual pieces?

-Gtrout

I was thinking about crowding some stations together.

Station 1 is for Defence Coordination and (Deep Space)Communication.
(few modules, few dockports, antennas, ...)
Station 2 is maybe small Habitat and Station Amusement Center
(two "living" modules, one "bar", dockports ...)
--> Shuttle Service between Habitat and Processing Units
Stations 3 and 4 are Processing Units - "LOMAX"
(IN: plastic, metall bars, neutronium ... -> OUT: hullplates, religious stuff ...)
Station 5 is small Docking Platform for Defence fleet
Station 6 is Trading Centre
(buys this - sells that, maybe very specialized)
Station 7 is Ship Repair Station
(one forklike module, some dockports for pods/ships ...)
Station 8 is Hospital/Pharmacy
Station 9 is Docking Platform for Repair Units
(Frogs, Flitters, Drones, Trucks...)
Station 10 is a Podstock-Station (maybe IN or OUT?)
"Station 11" is a Gunstar
Station 12 is a big Processing Unit with pod spit
Station 13 is a School and Church
Station 14 is a Casino
Station 15 is a Habitat

Now creating a light Industrial Complex:
Stations 1 + 2 + 2x "3/4" + 5 + 9 + 10IN + 10OUT all stations close together/5000 m distance

A Shipyard:
Stations 1 + 3x "7" + 9 + 10 + 2x "11" - close together

Small Village:
Stations 1 + 6 + 8 + 10 + 13 + 14 + 4x "15"

Add some inter-complex traffic (shuttleservice, repair units, maybe pod exchanger ...),
radiochatter, advertising ...
Depending on sort of Station Complex are different goods and jobs available/needed.

Now you trade some hullplates and religious stuff between industrial complex, shipyard and village - pirates destroy your ship and take your pods - you travel in your rescue flitter back to the shipyard and rent a ship - make some money with taxiing guys from village to industrial complex and back (job was offered by major of village) - buy the rented ship - upgrade it at the shipyard and take the job offer from industrial complex to hunt for some pirates who steal pods from their podstock...
Or maybe the story starts with your decision to do some pirating on a trader between industrial complex, village and shipyard:D...
The Casino may offer some slot machines? Or you may bet some money on the winner of the next truck race in emerald asteroid field?
"Recently lost your ship? Pilots for a truck race wanted!"

"Back to the stations now!!"

Create some stations with rather typical layout and put them together to some "whatever" representing complex.
These Complexes should be attractive for pirates, traders, spys, miners, noob pilots, freighter captains hiring guards ...

Interesting idea. Mehrunes was looking into modular stations long ago. This would be a simpler design. The station parts would not need to interconnect. There would not be a problem with collision hulls - because each module would be complete.

It would be easier to "grow" stations. They could just add more processing or crew or storage modules.

Another advantage, is that the EoC engine does not like station subsystems. So blowing up a subsystem has proven a problem. I worked around it by attaching icCargoPod class sims.

Once a station is modular, you can do interesting mission things with it. You can have a player destroy the reactor, or just the processing module to cripple production. Or you could have the player just kill off the crew module, to make an easy takeover.

Pirates could setup a base inside one of the cargo storage modules, and one way to get rid of them is destroy it.

Construction is simplified. Building a new station would be transporting prefabricated modules and dropping them off. Those would be really good escort missions, because a module would be worth quite a bit.

The modules would then be ships. The station itself would just be a marker sim in the middle. It could not be destroyed itself, but would be marked destroyed when the last module was wiped out. The modules could even be docked to an invisible station core, so they hold position correctly.

Abandond stations would just be stations missing the minimum number of modules for operation. Repairing a station is buying the modules needed to get it running again.

The "village" twist is a good one. When people first move to a system they would kind of huddle in this little system center. And that pattern would persist in the oldest parts of the system. Later developments would be much more specialized.

I like it. A good idea for phase two.

-Gtrout

I've been having a similar problem with the systems I am creating. Every time I create a station, I keep on thinking "Whats the point of this station" and "Why would the player want to visit this station".

I have been looking for a copy of Hardwar, but I have not been able to find one, used or new, anywhere. Tell us more about it (even launch a new thread!)

Items like stations are more interesting if they have a use to the player. The more unique the use, the more the player will try them all. EricMan did a good job of this in his Ultimate mod. Almost all the stations offer something unique for sale. It is worth having a look around.

The idea of stations forcing the player to new routes is an idea I like. My thoughts are that pirate bases near an Lpoint means the pirates will be operating a toll. If there is a police base near the lpoint police will be patrolling for smugglers. The player may not visit either station, but you can bet he will keep track of where the bases are located (depending on if he is carrying legal, or illegal goods).


-Gtrout

Hi GT I have put a couple of tracks on my personal webspace.

homepage.ntlworld.com/botworld/Halwa_City.mp3
homepage.ntlworld.com/botworld/Blue_Darkness.mp3

There are more tracks but I'm hoping these two fit the ambience you were looking for. If you like them I can do a full quality copy of the whole CD and snail it to you

Jumbo

<font color=gold>[wide beam,Marain clear.tra. @4.28.891.7393+]</font id=gold>
xGCU Grey Area
oGSV Sleeper Service
It's all right. Goodbye and farewell.

Hi Grandpa,

www.gamesdomain.com/demos/demo/30.html

Demo of Hardwar, not sure the one you are looking for

www.cornutopia.co.uk/lif/downloads.html

Demo of Flatspace - I haven't tried it, but it sounds interesting