After giving some thought about the current star base issues and seeing them in my fleet. It all made me think a fundamental idea that the fleet advancement system is missing..
A star base should have a return on investment. Making a Starbase and all the other assets requires a major amount of resources. Now if the reason to make the Starbase was just Military Strength, then it would have been very weapons heavy but it isnt.
So what income could a star base generate?
Income from refueling of freighters and merchants. (Energy Credits)
Income from repairing ships and merchants (Items used for Provisioning missions)
Income from re-stalking freighters (Energy Credits)
Temporary Starbase doffs, from ships docked. (Duty officers)
Lease Com Array time to Star-fleet and other Agencies. (Energy Credits)
Allowing Mail and Civilion transport companies to use Starbase as hub. (Duty Officers)
Allow for Civilian stores in star-base, much like in DS9. (Energy Credits)
Supply items from industrial replicator to nearby systems (Enegry Credits)
Make ships for merchants and other agencies. (Dilithium, Energy Credits)
Allow Trans-warp gate to be used for civilian ships. (Energy Credits)
These are just some examples. But the key is the Starbase should have revenue for the fleet.
Anyway this is just a idea i have.. Please add to it
Comments
The problem with the idea is that PWE finally created Starbases to sell Zen, and to act a resource sink. I wouldn't hold your breath to see them returning anything anytime soon.
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"Dan and Cryptic have spoken out the sides of their mouths so much I expect beads, whiskey and Polio blankets for the KDF any day now." - Roach
The tuq should start selling indentured duty slaves on the exchange if it wants a ROI.
As much as I agree 100% with the OP I also know that This^ is absolutely the case.
Yeah, gaming gods forbid that these GIVE something you DON'T have to pay for.
While that is true.. there should still be resource trades for services..
I would not mind something like this lol:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj88w-VToJk
But chances aren't too good..
To expand on this ^ Starbases were also there to try and kill the Dilithium exchange as well I think, to encourage more people to buy Zen with real money than grind up by playing dailies and such. Sadly for them it hasn't really seemed to work, in fact it's made it even more profitable for grinders trying to gain Zen with dilithium.
do you invisage getting it all to yourself as fleet leader or it getting shared between fleet members according to contribution
and whats to stop an individual building a base with fleet members and then kicking them all and keeping all the revenue for thereselfs after a long grind he/she would never had done without help ?
very legit point the OP has here, right now it is like building a Shop, but you are not the owner, you are the customer, not to mention actual Zen/$/Dilithium cost attached to it.
The Starbase could produce those fleet buffs, give them away for free, i am not going to buy that consumable stuff anyway (if i can get DOffs for fleet credit, why waste it on consumables?), they could just as well give that away for free, amount/quality depending on Starbase level...
maybe make it like a daily, you get 5 buffs to use per day and if you want extra buffs you can still buy them...
on that note, the fleet base could have a daily to give you some random fleet DOffs, with a low chance at something actually good, just like the other doff pickups at SFA.
*some* Return of Investment would be nice.
I wish this was true in this game, as then I could build my SB for free and only time was the factor
It would be nice to have special fleet DOFF assignments unlock, the more you upgrade your SB and these would be chain assignments, that could be shared with your other fleet members. in that, they could contribute Doffs to them. They would be extreme risk, but award nice rewards.
I think they could add a new slot to the starbase and they act as a giant doff job. they require doffs to start it like normal but instead of giving back starbase xp they give back a very large amount of commodities, EC etc that go into a small bank and has to be cleaned out by a fleet member with the required permission. the trade off could be we have to use a pre-existing project slot. so we lose time but gain future resources.
or even if these are just smaller DOFF jobs that can be used inside the starbase from the different NPC and offer doff jobs you cant get anywhere else in the game.
To the fleet bank to be used on projects, if the fleet leader takes it so what, he recruited you into the group, sets the projects, being a fleet leader is kind of a job, always recruiting, dealing with issues in the fleet. I hate when people complain about promoting, demoting, or fleet leaders taking first dibs at stuff. WHen your in the military, the higher ranking get their stuff first.
I would like to see the starbase offer something back since we have to put so damn much into it, feels like im building a bbq pit in my back yard, bought all the meat, and yet i dont get to cook on it yet i still have to keep paying for all this nice meat to cook on my stove inside just becuase the pit looks purdy. I would at LEAST like the damn dilithium cost taken off of ****, making fleet marks, and then dilithium is a joke when we already have to contribute dilithium to the projects.
I'd imagine you could lock the resources gained into a Holdings Bank, which could only be used to fund more holding creations.
I love that we finally have Starbases. However, I have noticed that as the novelty of "OMG WE HAVE A SB!" begins to wear off, it becomes nothing more than a grind and several fleet members have simply lost interest. So something to make having a SB more interactive and beneficial would be greatly welcomed.