Station Models

Cambragol (who has been doing the cluster setup) and I have been discussing the station models to leave out of the cluster. Some are flat broken, missing things like docking ports.

We are looking for input on our latest idea, which is to remove all stations that do not have a working Pod Spewer. This would include all asteroid stations. (Instead, all mining stations would be placed into orbit over the asteroid they are mining.)

I know this will cause some outcry, because the stations are pretty much all exactly alike. And docking onto the surface of asteroids is pretty cool.

There are a few reasons for doing this. The main one is to get everything consistant for later traffic code and pod handling code.

The other is to change the emphasis away from a station as a single monolithic entity. And instead change it into a cluster of nearby modules. A sort of city. The central core becomes the reactor and pod handling facility. Living spaces and other pieces are placed nearby in space. Which makes building stations with a new “feel” much simpler. They don’t have to be complex models.

If you want a refugee station, you put in a basic station with a bunch of refugee habitat modules floating around it. They can be all junked up. The project is much smaller and simpler. The player should still soak up the graphical complexity – despite the lack of physical connection. Perhaps even more, as they must pilot around all these objects.

And the tools already exist to do this today. The same ones that are used to place asteroid fields near stations and place wingmen for hire.

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