Allow Special Nodes to be claimed by building Space Stations

Numinumi wrote:

Wanted to throw in my comment that I love this idea! I think generally having more things outside of planet systems would add a lot to the strategic gameplay. It's what made EL fun when it came to the resource nodes you could find and raid, I could see these could act very similarly where if left unprotected another player can take advantage by raiding it and taking the resources without destroying the station unless the player owning it intervenes. It'd add more to the positioning and movement strategy, since a well timed raid on far nodes could distract your enemy.

i still believe if we add a way to make ships sitting into those Special Nodes like unfallen ships does, we can add that strategical gameplay you just told! Imagine if we create a new gamephase of taking control of special nodes, because they vastly improve system rewards?

IceGremlin wrote:

Alternate idea: Special Node exploitation modules for Civilian ships, essentially allowing you to create Worker ships that exploit a special node much like Leecher ships do for Vodyani around inhabited systems.

I definitely think that would be the best way to initiate the construction, especially if we're trying to reuse existing game concepts so players aren't confused

IceGremlin wrote:

Alternate idea: Special Node exploitation modules for Civilian ships, essentially allowing you to create Worker ships that exploit a special node much like Leecher ships do for Vodyani around inhabited systems.

Hey ice gremlin idea is pretty good too. it could influence ships to stay onto orbit of those Special nodes and trigger theater effects. but in order for it to work, i think that i got a alternative idea too:

Instead of creating worker ships to mine the ores and deliver it to the closest system or something, why there isn`t a module that creates Probe Worker ships that build Space stations on those nodes, and takes several turns to be build the spacestations per probe module... like... 10 turns?

if we find a way to keep ships onto those theatre systems, we can increase even more the effectivity of those special nodes.

I also thought we could make this Worker Probe researchable at some tier 3 technology, or maybe even tier 4. by creating this limit for researching worker probres the game might find itself into a later -game phase, like late-game or mid-game. by allowing "Exploitation" or "Colonization" of special nodes all over the empire just like the unfallen do, by Probe ships into mid-late game, it would be a very bad idea (sometimes) to capture a special node sitting a fleet for over 7 turns into a special node where every single point into the empire seems contested by space ships waging war whitin themselfs. We can also create this idea a new sort of expansion, the Special node expansion phase! then ships will attempt to seek out special nodes, claim special nodes , protect they're newest territory and make sure the enemy wont come over for it. 

i believe that if we create probes that constructs space stations we wont even need to worry about single explorer ships fleets capturing those nodes for free. Because they would lose curiosity expeditions and they would be unprotected, and if everyone knows that mid-game or late-game is filled whit explorer ships into special nodes, they will launch ships to claim those sectors and create a new game phase, called Special Node expansion! :D

I like it but I'd like a more robust general Space Station creation system to replace the colonization of Gas Giants and the like. That way we can A. have non-planet objects in systems for more variety, like Asteroid Belts and B. not have to read about the surface of Gas Giants being "like quicksand" and facepalming hard enough to leave an imprint.

Wanted to throw in my comment that I love this idea! I think generally having more things outside of planet systems would add a lot to the strategic gameplay. It's what made EL fun when it came to the resource nodes you could find and raid, I could see these could act very similarly where if left unprotected another player can take advantage by raiding it and taking the resources without destroying the station unless the player owning it intervenes. It'd add more to the positioning and movement strategy, since a well timed raid on far nodes could distract your enemy.

Alternate idea: Special Node exploitation modules for Civilian ships, essentially allowing you to create Worker ships that exploit a special node much like Leecher ships do for Vodyani around inhabited systems.

I've also thought something new for my own idea: Instead of building Worker Probes for building space stations onto Special Nodes, we could also make the opposite: we place Worker People, or Manpower to enter those Special Nodes and "forge" whit they're bare hands a space station on they're own. And in order to run that station effectively, the manpower spent will not return to the ship after it deployed onto the special node, to forge that system. 

There is only one thing that should be putted on attention too: it takes about 7/10 turns to build a space station, and the ships must stay onto the system to provide the "construction resources" or something so the manpower can work on building the space station. 

i believe that, around 150 Manpower for the construction of those special stations would be enough... Also it would be needed to research a special upgrade in wich its description is explained why the ships must stay into the system briefly for the duration of the construction by some complex name interactions that i probabilly dont know what i means... 

this research would be found on Science and Exploration quadrant and would be around tier 3 or tier 4 . i think i still have to decide about it. 

It would be called "Space Station Building Operations" or something ^^

I like this idea a lot. The only downside is the space station building which requires additional resources and content production to get working. 

Someone suggested using civilian ships for moving resources from the special nodes and I like this idea also. The first civ ship to get there could setup a "staging area" to prep the node for exploitation and subsequent ships would establish a trade lane type of link between the node and the desired system. If another empire wants to make use of these nodes, they would have to blockade the node and destroy the current holder's staging area before their own civilian ships could come in.

Slashman wrote:

I like this idea a lot. The only downside is the space station building which requires additional resources and content production to get working. 

Someone suggested using civilian ships for moving resources from the special nodes and I like this idea also. The first civ ship to get there could setup a "staging area" to prep the node for exploitation and subsequent ships would establish a trade lane type of link between the node and the desired system. If another empire wants to make use of these nodes, they would have to blockade the node and destroy the current holder's staging area before their own civilian ships could come in.

Yup, that was the intitial idea. Esentially mirror how colonization works now, but with civilian ships carrying industry instead of food. The only wrinkle is how to make it work for Vodyani.

Say, this is a pretty neat idea. I don't know if other people have suggested this already but maybe they could also add bonuses to trading routes.

A way to make special nodes worth fighting for is desperately needed! In over 100 hours of ES2 I have had one single fight at a special node. One!

Good idea. 

My one suggestion is that the Space Station grows every 15 turns once built. Once the Station is bigger then the first lvl, you can then put modules on it and build a trade, military, civilian, or diplomatic section. 

The Station well have 4 lvls like the system building. 

Lvl 1: Station is built. 

Lvl 2: Adds 4 all in one modules and lets you build 1 of the sections listed.

Lvl 3: Adds 6 more all in one modules and lets you build 2 more sections.

Lvl 4: Adds 8 more all in one modules and lets you build 3 more section.

Total of 18 modules and 6 sections.

Trade: Adds Dust per turn. Times 2 for every trade section added.

Military: Adds manpower to the station. Times 2 for every military section added.

Civilian: Adds a population slot and increases effects of othe sections. Times 2 for every civilian section added. 

Diplomatic: Adds influence per turn. Times 2 for every diplomatic section added.

Fleets must first destory modules before they can invade the station, could make it so that the station does not get destroyed but taken over at the cost of reseting the station to lvl 1 and the fleet must stay there for 5 turns, if the fleet leaves before the count down is done the station is destroyed.

Really good idea, Ridiculli. there is just one question i have whit it either: Will the destruction of those outposts be done by manpower too? just in order to make sure. :)

i liked it. i guess we will keep it that way. :)

The idea too is to have the effect diminish the further the system is from the special node, so node effects would be most effective going to the system nearest to them, but it might be worth it to send the benefits to a further away system depending on the situation.

It could definitely be implemented that way

i also thought you could add different industry prices for different special nodes. What about?

Wait, would it be possible to redirect the hangar benefit from the new Vaulters expansion (the one that gives 20% extra repair rate to ships on hangars) to systems too? like, mining the ore from those special nodes and giving those special alloys to the selected systems?

The creation of one would act just like an outpost would. Once the station is created and the node claimed, the only action you can take after that is directing which system gets the node's benefits.

am i wrong?

i thought the process was quite simple: you select a system, place a Shipyard on it, and collect the benifts.

let me see... these outposts would function like a colony then? i dint really understood it...

I'd say keep it the same as the colonies (which I think is around 450?) There is no natural growth since there is no planet, so the player would have to rely entirely on the industry supplied by the selected colony, making it a bit more challenging than trying to start a normal colony.

Yea i agree... i just hope that the cost - efficiency of capturing those nodes feel rewarding! did you thought about the industry shipment cost price?

I'll have to look at it again once the expansion is live :P  Either way, claiming  it with a Space Station provides a benefit to your empire and may prove to be extremely helpful during a war.

intersting... i just thought that the new node they released for Vaulters expansion provided no bonus for systems, so there was no reason to expand your system to it... well, just something i thought here. :)

My inital thought would be to make it manpower, to keep it more in-line with how pirate lairs work so as not to confuse players.

As for effects being tweeked, I don't think that will be needed, as a lot of how that would be handled is already shown by The Unfallen

it seems very well thought from the beginning to the end... but i also have another question: there is a special node they just released, the one that grant extra rejuvenation speed for ships that goes there... Do you think that implying an alternative bonus for those Special nodes like, extra dust for those nodes too, could help to make those nodes a bit more usefull? 

Because, whit your idea, once we create a space station on it, it might grant extra generation speed for ships onto that system, but nearly to not benefit on your other systems. Maybe we needed to add an alternative bonus for that node, like... 10% ship buyout reduction? im still not sure about it. :)