A collection of ideas accumulated since my company turned to 100% shipping and trading in Dec 2025. Some ideas are related to future updates or plans from dev team (such as shipping routes) while some just came to my mind on a random afternoon. Some ideas are different approaches to a same/similar issue/topic so there will be overlaps.
Very long post but I decided to put them together since there’re some interconnected ideas.
Labels:
minor changes/implementations upon existing system
major changes/implementations or require a new system
need universe reset or fundamental gameplay design/policy change
related to or is a future update or planned feature
draft idea
Storage Buildings
Stockpile
A type of either partially sheltered or not sheltered storage site and only have limits on volume.
Can only store ores, minerals, metals and alloys.
Area cost 15~20 (maybe upto 25) and can only be built on rocky planets, but require less construction MATs than STW (maybe even less than STO) and doesn’t need environment specific construction MATs.
Inspiration is from reality: We don’t build a fancy climate-controlled warehouse to store copper ores or steel rolls, instead we just pile them on flat land or at best build a shelter.
In short, it’s a contract that a player sign with others that one of them provides warehouse capacity and the other pay and use it.
Motion: Use More Planetary Warehouse Units
Motion to authorize a player to use more warehouse units, limit on rentable units for an authorized player is max 100x of a regular player
Available since warehouse lv 2.
Planet warehouse can be upgraded to above lv 20 but upgrade MATs can only be provided by those authorized players.
Envisioned use case is for planets with small amount of players yet have needs for more warehouse capacity. Current system have a level-dependent fixed limit for every player, which means only method to be able to rent more units is to upgrade the warehouse. Yet that would very likely end up being too costly as upgrading a warehouse mainly contributes to total units count rather than unit limit per player.
Shipping Routes
Shipping Routes
Planned feature. Based on my understanding, this would at least require Basic licence. Devs haven’t post anything solid on this topic so here’s all my ideas.
Limit one route to/via/from any base.
So for example you have a Promitor-Avalon route, you cannot create a Promitor-Boucher route as this will make Promitor have 2 routes. You could however have a Boucher-Promitor-Avalon route instead.
Space Stations can have infinite routes.
HRT-Promitor, HRT-Avalon, HRT-Boucher…
No restrictions on ships assigned to a routes.
Automatically operate based on pre-configured rules.
Route limit for a base could be increased by constructing a special building at the base.[1]
Allow/reject access for ships according to set of rules, restricted ships cannot land at location.
Rules includes shipyard the ship was built at, ship owner’s faction, and ship owner.
From planet level to faction level, set by respective governing body.
This would be a source for conflicts for example you could secure a planet this way. But at the same time it should have a method to fight against this mechanism.
Logistics As Profession
Logistics Profession As Starter Option
Start with 2 MCB ships (1000t/m³), enough fuel, and a base with some STO.
Under current game design and gameplay policy this have to be restricted to Basic/Pro players. And it requires a completely different tutorial as well.
I personally think this is too radical and is very unlikely to be implemented, yet I like this idea so never abolished it.
Service Depot
Apply a repair cost reduction for ships at location, but require 200 area. This is to prevent production bases planning on having this building.
Small percentage reduction (15%) in all (or most) repair materials. For optional shielding plates and modules: additional grade dependent percentage reduction. E.g.: BWH have an extra 15% reduction (30% total) and AWH have an extra 30% reduction (45% total).
Require workforce, workforce efficiency is an additional multiplier on repair cost reduction. Workforce would be SET, TEC, ENG at a ratio of 6:3:1.
Exact number of workforce required is a configurable value (with cooldown) rather than actually tracking how many ships are repaired, so if plan to repair 1 ship per month it only need say 10 workers, 15 ships per month would increase to say 100.
Overcapacity would have a negative impact on workforce efficiency.
Gain an expert in maintenance after certain amount of parts used for repairing.
This idea emerged when I was considering AWH ship designs. AWH right now have poor performance unless you live inside a grinder. Removing AWH from repair cost makes no sense as it expose to environment so certainly will wear out.
So I rethink about ship repairing: Ship crews replace worn parts with spare parts, so you need a lot of spare parts, and they can do it anywhere. But if there’s a group of specialist, they can analyse worn parts with tools and experience, this reduces requirements for brand new parts.
Service Depot As Service
Contract to provide repair service for other player’s ships
Logistics Office
Small building size (~20 area) but only one per base.
If present, allow one more shipping route being planned from/via/to the base.
Allow more shipping routes by assigning logistics experts, 1 expert adds 2 more routes.
Deactivated if Logistics Centre is present at base.
Does not gain expert, therefore rely on company level experts concept which allows experts to be assigned across multiple bases rather than tied to one base forever.
Logistics Centre
Requires 150 area but only one per base, this is to prevent production base planning on having this building.
If present, all warehouse at this base would increase their capacity to 135%, and allow infinitely more shipping routes being planned from/to/via the base.
Gain an expert in logistics for certain amount of cargo handled by this base.
Packaging Centre Redesign
Roughly equal to 3 PAC buildings in terms of area, construction cost and workforce requirements. Categorized under logistics.
Packing become very fast. Process rate should be designed that for one building alone is enough to process output of several fully developed production base (e.g. able to process 10k units of DW per day). In this way, packaging centre only becomes viable when there’s a large-scale steady flow of MATs to be processed, making it viable for a logistics base rather than production base.
Some MATs would have a “packed/compressed” variant which changes in weight and volume, those variants could have a separate recipe.
Gain an expert in logistics after certain hours of operation, same as how experts are earned now.
Container Ship
Containers
Constructed from (some if not all) existing ship cargo bays. Example: A LCB could be converted to a 2000t/m³ container, with a slight increase in weight and massive change in volume to say 225t / 2050m³.
Once converted, it acts as a portable shared inventory with an unique ID. The ID is for container market and contracts.
Could have a condition percentage just as ship, lower condition reduces container capacity.
Require dedicated storage sites. On planets, the site is space elevator. Each container takes up certain amount of site capacity (say a 2000t/m³ takes up 4) so the site need to expand according to demands.
Could be disassembled, but doesn’t return all materials even at full condition.
Central Truss Spaceship
A new category of ships, similar to concept art - ship 3. Unable to land on planet surface, does not have a cargo bay but use container modules instead. Require space elevator to be able to arrive at a planet. Require a base permit in order to be operative.
Construction require both a shipyard and a space elevator, so that the ship is built in orbit rather than on planet surface.
Cargo are stored inside containers and containers are attached around central truss of this ship. Therefore it have a variable operating volume and diameter. Loaded with more or larger containers results in a larger diameter and volume.
Perform FTL travel similar to Colony Ships, but require infrastructure. The infrastructure operates similar to a lighthouse which only acts as a guide for the ship.
Blueprint for this category of ships is infinitely scalable, but larger ships require shipyard to have corresponding skill/research points.
Container Market
A LM style market that only exists along with space elevators and space stations. Container owners post availability, estimated departure & arrival time, and unit cost.
Customer accepting an ad would be shown a command to book capacity, and have temporary access to corresponding container inventory. Customer could book more capacity than actually used by MATs (book capacity for 30k FF but only loaded 20k).
A contract would be created automatically when customer confirmed booking, between customer and container owner. Contract conditions as follows:
Conditions
Party
Book 123.4t / 56.7m³ of capacity in container CNT-1A2B3
Customer
Pay booking fee of 12,000ICA
Customer
Lock container CNT-1A2B3 for shipping at Hortus - Promitor (VH-331a)
Container Owner
Unlock container CNT-1A2B3 for unloading at Huber Station
Container Owner
Infrastructure Integration
Infrastructure Operating Cost
Players with experts in maintenance could operate infrastructures at a lower cost, however the expert must be assigned.
Players operating infrastructures receive expertise rating, which naturally drops over time. Higher expertise rating lowers number of experts required to reach a similar cost reduction.
refer to Logistics As Profession section Logistics Office and Logistics Centre part of this post ↩︎
Consider the implications of getting blocked from landing on a planet you’ve got a shipping contract for.
Alternatively consider a planet with a single player developing it. Two ne’er do wells establish bases on the planet elect each other to government, and block you from landing on the planet.
Of course, the way to protect from that situation of getting shut out of a planet is "I block anyone from landing on the planet and set up an allow list of who can … which then is setting up the universe to “players claim parts of the universe and don’t let anyone else play there, at all.”
This sets up way too many ways for players to grief each other.
That rather looks like a case for another WAR (cheap to build and cheap to rent) to me with units that have 500m³ and 10000t as if it would be built on a base it would be another inventory too. So I think renting a place on the planet to dump your stuff on sounds better.
And this kind of WAR would be nice on ore taps as building whole pressurized and climate controlled WAR units just to throw rocks into them is rather bizarre.
Warehouse units
Being able to allow more WAR units for players (for twice the cost per unit?) as gov sounds great because there is always only a fraction used of them. So I would rather see the total amount of units cut down but people can rent as many as they want until they hit the limit set by the gov.
Low level WARs would only have few units (50 on lvl 1 for example with default limit 10 per player) while max level would have the same amount like now with exponential growth in between. Every rented unit makes money so empty units don’t make sense from a capitalistic pov and govs want to earn money for the planet.
not sure what you mean by that…
Service Depot
I don’t think that is a good idea as it would mean that you would off set the repair math by that. So that shields would be way more cost effective there.
That sounds very complex, and with shields the amount of ships repaired per months will be very low.
And btw AWH are worth it, if you do in system travel which basically no one does because of how bad it is currently…
Packaging center is interesting but I think having multiple smaller ones (~20 area) to be able to scale with demand would be better.
No, please don’t. This would just dilute trade without bringing any real merit. Rather have more efficient xBUs according to Cyrups idea. Another thing could be CoGC packs once it gets a buffer like other POPI.
Containers
I think having dedicated Containers with the size 500/500 and a weight and volume variant made in PAC would be better. These containers can be “packed” (the container becomes big and its own inventory) and “unpacked” to get the inputs and the folded container (20t/20m³).
Container Ship
I think that one should rather be a corp project. A slow ship that can move a lot of wares for little costs. I find the idea of it running on VF interesting but not sure how that can be brought to fit as colony ships are slow and expensive in transportation and with a limited range and they are only 8500 m³. So I think a normal FTL reactor (or multiple) with a lower min speed would be better.
Container Market
Tbh, just sell folded containers on a LM and make it so that they can be used for LM shipping contracts. Having a “book x shipping capacity” would be nice though.
And I think you forgot some things about LMs and shipping contracts:
To fix the timers in shipping contracts so that the delivery one starts together with the others
To make LM contracts “bulk” compatible: You can post “need 2000C moved from A to B” and everyone can pick a size that fits them, reducing the remaining bulk. This would make LM shipping less click heavy for both sides
(needing to accept, pick up, load and deliver 10+ contracts for a single HCB is one of the reasons why I am not using LM shipping)
That the currently tight storages on planets make trading very difficult (A HCB is 5k/5k and so was the max WAR till not too long ago, now it is 2 HCB) which means that you can only buy / sell a certain amount, then have to send a ship there, and only then can buy / sell again. Higher WAR limits would really help with that and add a possibility to both combine shipping for people and trading resources, potentially between planets.
It definitely would swing towards that direction, but imo it’s a net good for everyone. As it would reward players with good reputation and encourage alliances being formed. Indeed it’s a great hit if I am the very one got restricted, but blocking would make it a strong and clear declaration of non-corporative relationship (if not hostile) so I’d consider it would be used only when necessary, unless the other party is a kid with nuke button.
Such as during the Promitor Event, EvoV could use one single motion that blocks FOXV members from using Amethyst b Gateway to put some disruptions on FOXV’s HRT-ANT logistics; Or similarly someone occupies HM-223 and completely cut ARC out. This would make politics matter much more than as of right now, and also act as a stepping stone for confliction gameplay molp mentioned in roadmap.
Gateways would need to be worth it for that to really be a impact.
There has to be more to politics than just “if you don’t vote it will hurt you” (somebody taking over and deactivating gates)
And I don’t think completely being able to lock down a planet is a good idea as resource taps are limited and if somebody goes there first and just locks down the planet…
And likewise, FOXV could have been able to block anyone who wasn’t a member of FOXV from landing on Promitor? … or alternatively, just a specific user that the government of a planet has issue with. You are now the only person who can’t land on Promitor for the next four weeks (until a new, possibly more sympathetic government gets elected).
First and foremost: core or at least starter planets shouldn’t be able to use these motions. (Gates are a different topic as they should be privately owned)
If a gov just block everyone how is a different gov supposed to be elected on a planet if you can’t even land there and make a base to vote?
That would effectively be a total lockdown and worst case somebody would colonize a resource tap, blocks everyone from landing and then stops playing and the planet is blocked for the next 7 months.
One way around that that would be to make the motion only last till the government period ends. That way that people would have a <24h window to land and do stuff which would kinda make the whole motion bad as all it would do would be create a inconvenience though it would open up opportunities for “Smugglers”.
But the biggest problem I have with it is that it makes the community of trust into a community of distrust. Most outside planets will just be locked down and every newcomer would have to get checked and so on. Even shipping wouldn’t be possible because you can’t land on the planet to deliver the wares.
This is indeed the biggest issue. The smaller worlds where a government is one or two seats could be changed to one of griefing those players.
It’s been shown that people will use game mechanics to grief others or make the game less enjoyable for specific players. The ability to prevent people from landing on a planet would provide another avenue for people to do that.
I recall individuals in Promitor chat wishing they could “blockade my planets” - and they would be able to do so at the cost of two users with a permit each… and making it so that I couldn’t reclaim my permit because I couldn’t ship everything off.
Being able to specifically disadvantage another player and make them rage quit through actions that they didn’t take (rage quit because they accidently sold 40k AFabs for 1 NCC rather than selling one AFab for 40k NCC is a “that’s a button you pushed” vs a rage quit because you can’t land on the planet you’ve got 3 permits on and a corp HQ because someone else pushed a button) … that’s something that PrUn currently doesn’t have and is much better for that.
There’s nothing that I can do that would make you quit… other than honestly forgetting that Fresnel Beacon is a HYF world for a third time.
I’ve also considered the scenario of being blocked off to your own base or a future base, I admit if that’s all the story it’s a terrible idea, literally having a space version of the Enclosure. I don’t have a more solid idea for counteracting approaches to this issue so I said this and also marked it as a draft idea:
I consider the idea as an opportunity for more political contents in game: able to implement blockade, more practical protectionism, operation of shadow fleets and shell companies, etc.
I just don’t know what good gameplay mechanisms should be in place to make it balanced and also not under consideration of most players unless you’re like literally own quarter of a faction.
What requirements do the government need to meet before able to setting up such rules? Population threshold? Special Infrastructure? Parliament size? Approval from higher levels of government?
How a government enforce the rule? Costly upkeep for an infrastructure? Automatically deducted from government finance? Adjustments towards local rules accordingly? Affects faction points/affinity?
Would military be involved in such rules? Put a turret on your ship to go through anyways? Bigger turret wins? Someone else’s SHPT could be gone if there is a fight? The ship or the infrastructure could be gone?
Don’t have an answer to even half of those and I don’t think I should single-handedly determine all those either, so I made a post for it, and here I am.
minor changes/implementations upon existing system
major changes/implementations or require a new system
need universe reset or fundamental gameplay design/policy change
related to or is a future update or planned feature
draft idea