Idea: creating deep space colonies

This was inspired by a create your own bubble channel in the Fleet Carrier Owner's club discord.

Establishing player driven deep space colonies.

One of the things that really kills my interest in deep space exploration and hauling is the lack of meaning. Sure, being deep into unexplored territory thousands of light years from the bubble is cool, but it gets dull. Hauling can give rewards, but none that really produce satisfying material outputs.

Enter deep space colonies.

Procedure for colonizing deep space.

First of all, I want to say this would take a lot of effort by the player or player group. It would cost a large amount of credits and commodities. However, I have some ideas on how to keep this from being haul x to y reskin 10012.

Finding a Suitable Area

The first thing that would have to happen is the finding of a suitable area. The qualifications would be:

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1. At least 3000ly from Sol
2. At least 500ly from Colonia
3. At least 250ly from Sag A*
4. Has at least 3 ELWs mapped within 100ly
5. 3 Terraformables can be substituted for 1 ELW, but this will have consequences later.
6. Systems these planets are in will be referred to as "pillar" systems.

Once a suitable area has been found, any systems within 20ly of the "Pillar" systems must be fully discovered. After this, a "Colonist Contact" must be located. They will be about as common as Fleet carrier administration systems. You must then select your pillar worlds in the galaxy map. For 250mcr, you can claim the area. This must be done to progress. After this, no player can use your pillar worlds as theirs, or claim an area within 20ly of yours.

Next, a pillar world must be selected as the capital. This will be where your first station is built, which is the next step.

Creating a Station

The first station will likely be the hardest. I have created a few lists of commodities for the next few parts as starting points, they are just starting numbers.

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1. Once the capital world has been selected, the colonization contact will send a megaship to the planet. This will take 1 hour / 1000lys, but the time can be halved for 10mcr/1000ly.
2. Once the megaship has arrived, it will open its commodity market. Anyone may sell to this commodity market, however it will not pay for the commodities. It will also sell 50 tons of tritium a day, for 120% of the galactic average. The materials supplied will be used to start construction of the first starport, in stages. The list could be as follows:

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• 2000 tons of water
• 2000 tons of survival equipment.
• 10000 tons of ceramic composites
• 1000 tons of insulating membranes.
• 4000 tons of polymers
• 500 tons of semiconductors
• 2000 tons of energy grid assemblies.
• 500 tons of exhaust manifolds
• 6000 tons of power generators
• 12500 tons of power convertors.
• 500 tons of thermal cooling units.
• 2000 tons of aluminum
• 8000 tons of titanium.

1. Next, 1bcr must be payed. This will begin the starport construction, starting with a wire style frame. It will take 2 days.

2. Next, the starport will enter the second stage of construction. It could ask for the following commodities, totaling 70,000 tons.

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• Synthetic Reagents
• Survival equipment
• CMM composites
• Ceramic composites
• Insulating membranes
• Microweave cooling hoses
• Neofabric insulation
• Polymers
• Semiconductors
• Superconductors
• Articulation motors
• Heatsink interlinks
• Power converters
• Power generators
• Beryllium
• Copper
• Titanium
• Advanced catalyzers
• Computer components

1. After all materials have been delivered and 7bcr have been payed, construction will resume. This time, it will take 14 days. This will be a great time to return the bubble or other inhabited space for the next stage.

2. After construction halts, the megaship will begin asking for engineering materials. It shouldn't be too outrageous, but not easy. Again, these can be delivered by anyone.

3. Once delivered, the megaship will once again resume construction. It may ask for random commodities and materials throughout.

4. Finally, the starport will open. It will have basic services, a small shipyard, and very limited outfitting. It will also have a "management" contact available to the creator and whatever friends they allow. Management will control the following things:

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• Add facilities (requires mats/resources and the colonial megaship to be present
• Invite factions. Any faction the player is allied with is eligible to be invited. The chances of them accepting vary based on government, states, etc. They may request passengers of theirs to be brought to the station.
• Manage the megaship. It can be summoned to the location for 1mcr/10ly. If it has automatically returned to the bubble (7 days after starport construction), it must be recalled for the original fee. Alternatively, 10mcr/week can be paid for it to stay.
• Add economy. Any new starport constructed will start as a colonial economy. Economies can be added like services, but not changed.
• Create a new starport. This will be the same as the first one, but the costs and commodity requirements will be reduced by 10%, and assistance from npc factions being given.

Notes

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I hope this would give some meaning to fleet carriers, deep space exploration, and hauling. Since you have to carry fuel on a carrier as well as what you're carrying, it is likely that a highway or groups of civilizations will emerge as CMDRs and CMDR groups set up places to help with station building.

Stations built around a terraformable world could default to a terraforming economy. After enough terraforming supplies have been delivered, terraforming will start. Eventually, we could see the planets they orbit terraformed.

Npcs factions could automatically start planetary base construction. These could be accelerated by players. Maybe npcs could start starport construction too, should their economic status remain very high.

After all pillar worlds have had a starport constructed around them, another earthlike or terraformable and its surrounding 20lys could be claimed in the same way as the original, this time through the management contact. Starports could also be constructed around any planet in the player's claimed space.

Starports and systems could be named by players, but would obviously have to be approved by frontier, possibly in the same way player factions are added.

This seems like a very fun addition to the game, and I hope that frontier considers something similar to the idea.

TLDR: Starports constructed in deep space by players could provide new depth to multiple game mechanics and make the game feel more alive.