It may be several years until we get the ability to build or own bases, with our own or a friend's Pioneer or in some other way, and with enough of the resource management system they talked about at CitizenCon to make it feel real. But I like the idea of it in abstract.
I just watched a video BoredGamer posted a week or so ago (before CitizenCon 2952), on the topic of what's planned for persistent player hangers, habs and bases. It got me thinking.
The point of building a base is presumably to have a place to call home, where you can store some of your useful stuff and resources, and also as a 'resource farming' facility (mining, agriculture, research or whatever process that generates income or resources). The idea seems to be that we will be able to choose to build a hab or a base pretty much anywhere flat enough. We might build it in UEE controlled space, and benefit from some protection, which presumably has an upkeep cost - a tax - that the usefulness of the base makes justifiable. Or we can choose to build it on a planet or moon outside UEE protection, and set up our own defenses. You'd probably want some defenses of your own in both cases, as a fast raid might be over before UEE security can be alerted and respond.
However... how much protection would you need around your base to disincentivize other players from a.) raiding it to steal your resources, b.) just blowing it up for fun or to deny those resources to you, or c.) both?
I think it's a LOT!
Your typical player has easy access to cheap, effective man-portable weaponry. Rail guns. Grenade launchers. Sniper rifles. All very cheap in game. Players do bunker missions and can get good at avoiding, disabling, or otherwise defeating a base's defensive systems. And we have ships with lots of big guns all over them, some with air-to-ground bombs. Players are supposed to be GOOD at defeating these sorts of things - and it's supposed to be fun!
For this reason, have difficulty picturing a player base that can't very easily be blown to bits or raided successfully by your average player. It would have to be some kind of fortress in comparison to current bunkers for that to be much of a challenge to even a fairly low-level solo player.
Then we need to consider the rewards for an opposing player who succeeds in destroying or raiding your base. What do they get to take from you, or deny you? You might have been thinking of storing a significant portion of your resources at your base/hab. But one way to avoid being attacked is for the meta behavior to be that players store so little in the way of valuable resources at their bases that there's typically little point raiding or destroying one. You might keep all your loot there, and hope to go unnoticed, but if everyone does that, a base will be assumed to contain good loot. So the meta behavior of players might tend towards keeping relatively little in their bases, so that on average the reward for raiders is not worth the risk. But then, what's the point of spending all the time and money building - and defending - a hab or a base?
I don't think the answer is that we'll defend our bases ourselves, for two reasons. First, players are offline more than online. Second, there's a rich universe of things to do in SC, and it's getting richer all the time. Who would want to spend much of their time online defending their own base from potential attackers, who turn up infrequently but are in and out in a few minutes when they do? Not me. So it will be a rare thing to find a player at home in their base - they'll be deserted, or only guarded by NPCs the vast majority of the time. And if a player IS home, a would-be attacker can make a note of where the base is and when they saw it occupied and simply come back later. With friends.
My conclusion is that base building will only be worthwhile if players can be restrained in how much of their stuff they store in their base, to make it a less tempting target, and can also cheaply buy/build/install a LOT of highly effective defensive measures to protect it from aerial and ground raids. I haven't heard anyone talk about those defensive measures so far. Have you?
I just watched a video BoredGamer posted a week or so ago (before CitizenCon 2952), on the topic of what's planned for persistent player hangers, habs and bases. It got me thinking.
The point of building a base is presumably to have a place to call home, where you can store some of your useful stuff and resources, and also as a 'resource farming' facility (mining, agriculture, research or whatever process that generates income or resources). The idea seems to be that we will be able to choose to build a hab or a base pretty much anywhere flat enough. We might build it in UEE controlled space, and benefit from some protection, which presumably has an upkeep cost - a tax - that the usefulness of the base makes justifiable. Or we can choose to build it on a planet or moon outside UEE protection, and set up our own defenses. You'd probably want some defenses of your own in both cases, as a fast raid might be over before UEE security can be alerted and respond.
However... how much protection would you need around your base to disincentivize other players from a.) raiding it to steal your resources, b.) just blowing it up for fun or to deny those resources to you, or c.) both?
I think it's a LOT!
Your typical player has easy access to cheap, effective man-portable weaponry. Rail guns. Grenade launchers. Sniper rifles. All very cheap in game. Players do bunker missions and can get good at avoiding, disabling, or otherwise defeating a base's defensive systems. And we have ships with lots of big guns all over them, some with air-to-ground bombs. Players are supposed to be GOOD at defeating these sorts of things - and it's supposed to be fun!
For this reason, have difficulty picturing a player base that can't very easily be blown to bits or raided successfully by your average player. It would have to be some kind of fortress in comparison to current bunkers for that to be much of a challenge to even a fairly low-level solo player.
Then we need to consider the rewards for an opposing player who succeeds in destroying or raiding your base. What do they get to take from you, or deny you? You might have been thinking of storing a significant portion of your resources at your base/hab. But one way to avoid being attacked is for the meta behavior to be that players store so little in the way of valuable resources at their bases that there's typically little point raiding or destroying one. You might keep all your loot there, and hope to go unnoticed, but if everyone does that, a base will be assumed to contain good loot. So the meta behavior of players might tend towards keeping relatively little in their bases, so that on average the reward for raiders is not worth the risk. But then, what's the point of spending all the time and money building - and defending - a hab or a base?
I don't think the answer is that we'll defend our bases ourselves, for two reasons. First, players are offline more than online. Second, there's a rich universe of things to do in SC, and it's getting richer all the time. Who would want to spend much of their time online defending their own base from potential attackers, who turn up infrequently but are in and out in a few minutes when they do? Not me. So it will be a rare thing to find a player at home in their base - they'll be deserted, or only guarded by NPCs the vast majority of the time. And if a player IS home, a would-be attacker can make a note of where the base is and when they saw it occupied and simply come back later. With friends.
My conclusion is that base building will only be worthwhile if players can be restrained in how much of their stuff they store in their base, to make it a less tempting target, and can also cheaply buy/build/install a LOT of highly effective defensive measures to protect it from aerial and ground raids. I haven't heard anyone talk about those defensive measures so far. Have you?
