Player Features and Ideas Discussion

After many years of waiting, modular starbases will soon™ be coming to Eve Online. What should it be like to use a new starbase? Today I’m going to look at a user case for setting up a corporation operated refinery. Make sure you click the links for the images!

It all begins with the starbase planner. From the planning window, the starbase can be designed for its intended role and have its services configured for their intended use. The full scope of this feature goes well beyond the scope of just the module positioning planner, so for now we’ll be focusing on just this feature. Once a player has fired up the starbase module planner, they can begin by choosing the size of the starbase they want to create. For today’s use case, the starbase in question is a medium sized installation.

http://i.imgur.com/3JqtQ.png

The purpose of this new installation is to provide refining capacity for their corporation in a system with no refinery. To get the ball rolling, storage capacity will be added with storage silos. To do this, the desired module can be dragged from the module selection menu into its desired location on the module placement grid. This task can also be performed by click selection and placement.

http://i.imgur.com/7YV9I.png

Once placed, the relevant statistics of the starbase, as well as its capabilities, are updated to accommodate the changes made by placing the new equipment.

http://i.imgur.com/InFID.png

Since 50,000 cubic meters wouldn’t provide very much net storage space to the players who would be making use of this starbase, lets add in a few more storage silos. 100,000 Cubic Meters is a much better amount of space to work with!

http://i.imgur.com/zbpGV.png

This drag and drop (or click and place) process is repeated as needed to provide the capabilities desired by the starbase’s users. For this user, several refinery modules, and a few module connectors to fill the empty space, are the next items to be installed.

http://i.imgur.com/uXiRK.png

We’re obviously running out of room here, so it’s time to take advantage of the camera controls. The camera menu provides zoom, pan, and rotation in increments of 90 degrees. In the event the user gets lost, the panning icon can be double-clicked to re-center the starbase planner on the control tower. A home button might be a good addition to provide this functionality. Let’s zoom out to a more appropriate size for the installation being made.

http://i.imgur.com/NHAxr.png

Perfect! With the screen zoomed out to an appropriate level, the rest of the modules are an easy addition. With one last turret hardpoint module, the refinery starbase’s components will be fully in place.

http://i.imgur.com/Wgpoo.png

And there you have it; a fully assembled starbase. While this refinery would not be ready to go right out the gate, as none of the available services have been configured yet, that is outside the scope of this mockup. Please comment and tell me what you think!

http://i.imgur.com/VOQOd.png

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Looks good, but the number of pos modules could be smaller. I would rather have fewer, larger and detailed modules than lots of small bits.

You started flogging the dead horse?

Looks like a good interface for proper pos setup imo. i didnt even realize they were going to implement the idea, i remember posting in that thread many times.