[Feedback/Proposal] Station building.

[vvvvvvvv]

THe situation.

I'm constructing yet another megastation, apparently it is day 3 in terms of gameplay time and this thing is still building.

Slow building process is (as far as I know) inherited from rebirth where things were different, running a station required a huge investment and effort. Things are different in X4 where the game apparently expect factorio-level complexes to complete some missions (paranid questline, terraforming), but does not let the player quickly build. The shortest build time is 1 minute. Worst case scenario can be 45 minutes. A megastation can easily have 900 modules, and that's what I call "medium-sized".

Possible ways to address it. Sorted from simplest to most complex solutions:

* Remove drone cap. Apparently currently only certain number of drone is used and the maximum is either 15 or 30, while construction ship can carry 80. So allowing it to scale further would help great deal.
* Allow parallel construction of multiple modules. Probably with limitations, like all new modules should be attached to already finished modules or only player ships can do multi-build. This will also encourage planning ahead. I suppose multi-build could also work with other builders being assigned to the leader as subordinates.
* Go all out and alter the mechanic. Imagine if it was possible to MOVE a finished module with tugs. Right now if you want to rotate anything, you must fully deconstruct it an then rebuild. What if we could just drag modules around with tugs? And tugs worked together with builder or builders? Or if it was possible to prebuild them and quickly deploy, like in X3 stations could be moved around?

Anyway, I hope some improvements to the mechanics would be considered. Right now feels like the game is conflicted between encouraging the user to turn this into factorio and trying to keep building slow and glacial. Meanwhile running multiple stations results in clutter, and supplying resources between them is not always reliable.

[adeine]

This has come up before, and I agree that parallel construction with multiple build ships is the way to go.

It allows the game to scale in a way that is credible while still making build times relevant for small stations.

[PV_]

It was discussed many times before

I didn't see response from developers directly, but the only counter argument some zealous protectors of status quo may squeeze out is performance drop newbies may experience. Proposition to hide the opportunity from newcomers behind some relatively hard achieving trigger has no impact on these guys. They either don't build big stations (so nobody else should do - quite obvious reasoning) or they're enjoying pew-pew, taxi driving and other activity while 1 real time week of construction time is happening (and so should I, as if lifetime has no limits).

While your "ping" efforts are gratifying I highly doubt the suggestion has chances to be implemented.