[Solymr]

Originally posted by Puke:
The problem with resource (or any kind of point) generation in space, is that its cascading. Normally, you are limited by what planets you can colonize and how many facilities you can put on each, and also by how close your neighbors are.

If you can start generating resources without expanding your borders and without needing to invest in planets, then you can grow exponentially as long as you have spaceyards free. the more you build, the more resources you have, so you dont have to worry about the investment cost. And if you have a 20K ship limit, you dont really have to worry about running out of ships.

Something like this might realistically represent some kind of new economy, but its only a playable idea if you have an artificial ship limit of a couple hundred. That way you have to trade off between warships and resource bases.

Yeah, one thing i was seeing was where a player would just build tons of bases with resource components and could stay in one system. I can only see a few ways out of this, a small ship limit or making the resource generating components highly expensive, yet generate enough resources to make building one or two worthwhile.

One reason I think having a base as an "ore processing station" is due to the logistics involved taking minerals from one planet to the planet in a system that has a refinery/smelter/whathaveyou rather then having a processing station in space. Even though this has no real effect on things in SE4, I think it'd add to the feel of roleplaying.

Another thing that comes to mind is in that using such components it frees up slots on planets. I'm not sure if this would really change much myself, but I'm thinking I could be wrong.