Permission to land the Space Station? - New Social Hubs in Space.

Permission to land the Space Station? - New Social Hubs in Space.
  • Thread starter Thread starter Petrifictus
  • Start date Start date
  • Open Space New Player Experience 
This idea/suggestion is Open. You can respond to ask questions or discuss the idea and either vote it up or down if you believe it should or should not be implemented, respectively. Popular suggestions and ideas will be considered by the development team to become reality in-game.
Proposal
Make it possible for the pilots to land at the different space stations above each planet.
A single station level where there is cantina for the entertainers to perform, bazaars and ship terminals, etc. (thus still keeping the Nova Orion special with its three levels.)
And option to pick Duty missions face to face with the NPC before departing, as well a vendor to sell mined space ore.

Faction locked space stations could offer some exclusive benefits, like the Alliance and Empire aligned players could buy ship deeds/schematics with the Duty Mission Tokens.
(minus the special reward ships like the Adv. X-wing, Imp. Guard Tie Interceptor, Vaksai, etc.).
These stations could also include their aligned recruiters, where players could visit, whenever they wish to enter on duty or leave, or wishing to join the faction.

Freelancers could also have their own pirate haven, where they could buy their ship deeds/schematics, access on bounties and smuggling jobs, etc.
For the new players/characters, this would ease getting access to the new ships when they level and expand.

I dont mean that every planetary station need to be visitable to land, as the community is not big enough to fill them all.
But maybe select number of them, like Tatooine, Corellia and Naboo, worlds where people often find their first Pilot Trainers.
Plus a single faction aligned outposts for the Alliance and Empire players.
Justification
Nova Orion Station was cool and wish we had more space stations to board in.
Giving more social hubs for the people to hang out, be it enteraining, roleplaying, etc.
Motivation
Merely wishing to expand places to visit and roleplay.
As someone who love roleplay and space content in the SWG, I would love we could have more places like the Nova Orion to hang out.
Yesterday I visited the Nova Orion Station at the Ord Mantel for the first time and was impressed how cool it was, which led me into discussion with the other roleplayers and spacers how it would be neat if we could visit the other space stations too.

Which led into pondering if it could be possibly to copy the single level from the Nova Orion as a base, which would be decorated a little anew to fit the planet's theme.
Like Corellia Station having CorSec as patrolling security, Tatooine Station being all shady with smugglers and bounty hunters, etc.
Thus why I voice the idea here at the Player Voice to discuss, if it could be possible and what they could have. :)
 
While i really like the idea for from an immersion standpoint and this would probably be great on a heavily populated server - however i see two major issues with this.

1. Selling ships there from NPCs is a big no go because we have an economy where we rely on crafters and selling ships directly from an NPC directly devalues their profession. Also accessibility to ships is not really an issue in the current state.

2. This takes a large amount of development time for something that simply does not scale with how small the community is - this will most likely be used by 0.5% of the players since which does not really justify the development effort for it i guess. Also the developers actively stated in the past that they don't want to introduce more "hubs" - Their goal is to keep Mos Eisley as a main-hub and avoid spreading people out too much.
 
There is a space station you can land on and hang out in its cantina. It is in Ord Mantell space. The most players I've ever seen in it at the same time was during voidfest when the vendor was there. The rest of the time there are like 4 max.
 
There’s a place similar to this as the Nova station, and an AoA lounge as well.

This idea might spread the space population even thinner.

I think if you wanted to add something to those already used hubs, that would be more of the direction I’d take an idea like this.

But as it sits the nova station is rarely used as is.
 
While its true that new stations could risk thinning and stretching the population in the SWG, yet at the same time I feel the stations would serve the Star Wars immersion.

One roleplayer I know mentioned how instead of Tatooine, the new players and characters could start at the station above it, where they could get their first starter ship too and being able to transport on surface.

Alternate idea could be simply lower the requirement demands to enter the system where the Nova Station is OR permit people fly there directly from the space port.
The Nova Orion is not that special that it should be exclusive for small group of people, as it feel bit wasted when there is so much potential use as social hub.
Could always tune that people with Ace level can only take quests there, while keeping access open for the players to visit.

And before someone reply about low tier pilots risk getting one shotted at the system if they dare to enter, thus the reasoning to keep it locked, by that logic we can as well lock high level planets like Dathomir off from people below level 80.
 
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I would argue that getting to the Nova Station is actually easy. Ord Mantell on the hyperspace map when in space.
I have had no problem finding it and finding out about it on both live and on Resto. It is also not exclusive for a small group of people, anyone can go there, flying around it might get you zapped but that is pretty obvious if you cycle targets.

The landing spot is also pretty much on top of the station so having a look around inside the station is not an issue either.
You arrive at about 1300m from the station. You will need to fly to under 800m away to use /comm on the station. I know this because I go to this system 2-3 times a day and I am very rarely attacked in my approach.

From an immersion perspective I get that the idea of a space hangout would be nice, but as others have said this already exists for spacers at the end game (or factional ace, which is debatably not the end game) and it is barely populated most of the time with less than 6 players (EU time).

Having one space station for starting pilots could be an idea but I would ask how often people are starting their space/SWG journey and this realistically would require it's own new area. Starting new characters in a new space station area would also lead to the appearence that the game is far less populated than it is compared to Mos Eisley for newer players.

Social hubs already exist in the game and as such I don't see the need for this outside of immersion for a select few.
 
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Love the idea of new planets and spaces for players to congregate in, even like the idea of new stations, but I don't think the purchase system suggested ties into the direction that the current space economy is going. A part of the idea I could possibly get behind is something that utilizes the ISD interior for an Imperial social space (could see a space themed guild forming out of an Imp-only, landable Star Destroyer) and maybe an equivalent for Rebels and their corvette, but ultimately the time spent designing those interiors would need to be justified by content and the designing of acquiring said content.

Overall, it would probably be time better spent on the design of new planets, new ships, etc., as well as new gameplay loops entirely.
 
While i do like the idea of a big sprawling world, I think this would be a massive undertaking for very little gained. They did this exact thing in EVE online and it just made everything take much longer and after the novelty wore off, people didnt use it. On top of that we got a very small population. If ot worked and players spred through these stations, new players would spawn in an empty mos eisley. Last thing we want for player retention.