DevTracker: About Starports

Constructing Stations through the Event System

One exciting feature that we hope to implement is the opportunity for players to be able to view a station in its various stages of construction. A precursor to a new station would be the arrival of a large ship that would fulfil the role of a temporary station, or colony ship to a specific system. This would then act as the primary hub for trade and missions, until work on an adjacent static station was complete.

The construction of a station would be managed by the events system and as such would generate missions and opportunities for the players, allowing you to help or hinder the progress of a station. By helping the station you would advance its construction, opening up a potentially lucrative new trade and mission hub.

You would be able to see firstly the framework structure, constructed of metals from local asteroids or brought from afar, and gradually the station would build up from that point. The station would become habitable (and trade could start with it) long before it is fully complete- much like a house development, the extra space would gradually be built as it was needed.

Players could also opt to undertake more insidious tasks that would damage the station’s progress for personal profit. If enough players choose this route there is a chance that it will affect the project so negatively that the construction team would cut their losses and move onto the next project, leaving a half-finished station behind.

Outposts

The giant star ports already in game are the space equivalents of surface cities and towns. Each is a vast, bustling metropolis inhabited by tens of thousands of people or more.

But what about the other end of the spectrum? Places you find in the middle of nowhere that can be a life saver - or something different.

“Outposts” are coming to Beta 2 - they are the equivalent of the run-down road-side café, the isolated fuel station, the research outpost, the deep-space shack where Joe the Hermit lives. Most outposts only have a few landing spots. They’re out in the open, so even on the pad you can see the planet revolving below (or is it above) you. You feel exposed. You are exposed!

Outposts are mostly zero-G too, and ships are held magnetically in place. Outposts are often unsafe. It may have been a cheap refuelling stop last time you visited, but can you be sure it hasn’t been taken over by pirates since?

Not all outposts will be able to accommodate all ships. Some of the smaller outposts will only have small landing pads, so to visit them you will need to have one of the smaller ship types.

Also you may find that the pads are all occupied when you arrive, so you cannot stop until someone vacates the pad. Looking on the bright side, in areas without law enforcement there are several ways to encourage people to move on…

Gravity

Stations will operate as homes and workplaces for many of the galaxy’s citizens and while working through the designs of these stations, the team also had to consider the implications it might have on the game universe.

One such consideration came when considering if there were ever situations when a station would not need to rotate. Research shows that a completely zero-gravity environment would be extremely uncomfortable to live in, as water would not be able to settle, so it makes sense to assume that at least a small amount of gravity is always preferable to none at all.

In the Elite universe humans have since colonised a wide range of different planets, all of which would have their own levels of gravity. This means that different colonies would have their own preference as to what was a comfortable level of gravity to live in, which may also affect their physical appearance.

A low-gravity environment is considered easier on the body, but growing up in this environment may also make you taller, but much more frail. People from this sort of colony might be significantly restricted in where they can safely travel to for health reasons. Likewise, someone born in a high-gravity environment might grow up squatter, but with a stronger heart and more tolerant of strain on their body. Retirement would likely be to a lower gravity location. On 1/3 g and below, flying is possible with strap-on wings. Some manufacturing techniques would work better in zero g- whereas high g worlds might be a good source of certain raw materials.

Revoking Docking Permission

Starports will deny and revoke docking permission for the following reasons:

1. A ship commits a crime which results in a bounty being issued against them in the session.
2. A ship with an active or dormant bounty for the jurisdiction is detected by an authority vessel.
3. In anarchies, an attack is detected against a vessel inside the no-fire zone.

If docking permission is revoked/refuse without violence being involved starport defences will not activate. Be aware though, if permission is revoked and you are inside the docking barrel you will now be trespassing and at risk of being heated up by starport hardware unless you leave immediately.

If violence is detected, then as well as docking permissions being revoked/refused you will be attacked by the starport immediately.

The Law

– If you are carrying stolen goods "avoid" being scanned by authority vessels. If detected, the starport will respond.

– The same goes for if you have a bounty. Should you be scanned by authority ships you will be smoked.

– Firing in the no-fire zone should be a fine offence. Firing in the no-fire zone and hitting something will trigger starport response.

– The starport is really big and extremely heavy. Collisions, even at low speed, are not going to go well for you. We've tried to soften this impact, but it's still best to keep a good distance from any part of the starport (or other ships) until you are on final pad approach.

– If you hang around a crime scene in a non anarchy system authority ships will eventually be dispatched to your location. It is possible to avoid them, but if you are detected the fight should be endless (reinforcements can be called indefinitely) and it should scale.

– The response time is based on the system's security rating – the more secure the system, the faster the response (though there is always a small amount of randomness involved).

– Starport guns are effective at up to 8km.

– Unless the system is an anarchy, the response time for authority vessels to be summoned when a crime is detected is about 90 seconds.

– The maximum response from the authorities includes anacondas, and it is based on bounty. The quickest response time is around 90 seconds.

– I agree that a very powerful ship can menace via interdiction, and I like the concept of additional security vessels in supercruise being generated when especially wanted felons are on the loose. We'll consider what kind of addition tweaks we might want to try once wings has gone live.

About Stations

– always rotate counter clockwise regarding docking entrance;

– the arrows are baked onto the model as if there were arrows painted on the sides of the station pointing to the side that is the front – to ensure that those that didn't know how to find the station door can now find it where as those that already know how to do that can continue using their current method without having to have the station targeted.

– have insane fire power that can kill in seconds and can reach enemies up to 6km away;

– the orientation of the station is fixed and so at certain parts of it's orbit it'll be aligned with the planet but not always;

– except in anarchy systems – will dispatch police ships if you are causing any trouble, but that force is not impressive;

– will attack you if you have bounty (even 50 cr), illegal goods in cargo bay (after scanning) or if you are attacking any ships or station itself;

– have 3 types of landing pads: with one blast shield for smallest ships, two blast shields for middle size ships and three blast shields for biggest ships;

– have only one entrance/exit and that's protected by force field that keeps atmosphere inside the station;

– in docking bay gravity is 0,1 G and a regular person can lift up to

1 tonne, while in habitat rings gravity is closer to 1G;

– Orbis station's habitat ring is as big as playable area in GTA 4;

– there are green and red lights outside/inside station showing which side of docking bay entrance you should fly in/out of station;

– there is a docking computer that will perform docking operation for you;

– docking bay entrance is huge: even the biggest ships can easily fit there with plenty of space around them;

– Each faction has its own colour scheme and lighting effects on stations, plus the faction symbol displayed on the hull of the station. (the Coriolis for example has faction symbols on the triangular faces if you look carefully).

– not all stations have black markets;

– it takes the stations awhile to complete their orbits in most cases;

– just pitch up and down a bit, wiggling your flight in to see the parallax effect of the station icon against the planet, that usually can tell you whether it's in front or behind the planet;

– If you turn off Rotational Correction whilst inside the station you'll already be matching the rotation and so will maintain that when you turn off flight assist and rotational correction. Then it's just a matter of carefully thrusting down and sideways to remain "in orbit" around the axis of the stations spin until you touch down. So long as you don't mess that up it is pretty easy to do.

– shooting at a docked ship (regardless of its wanted) in future might result a fine.

– As for station visibility – the Aulin station, if it was infact a full sphere enclosing its longest axis would be about a pixel at 500km away.

About Outposts

– basic services usually are provided at any outpost, including Cartography, Law Office and Pilot's Federation;

– some outposts have Commodity Market;

– usually have no Shipyard;

– many outposts have Outfitting section sometimes with great variety of modules and weapons;

– some outposts have Black Markets;

– usually you can visit Bulletin Board for missions;

– i think outposts have 3 landing pads and only small and mediaum size pads, at least i saw forum posts that with big ships they were not able to receive docking permission at outposts, but medium size ships like Lakon Type 6 and Asp Explorer can land on most outposts;

– some outposts might not even have medium landing pad.