ZeroEffect
Using the void between my ears.

* Drone Repair Bay - this is a required module in your base if you plan on using drones of any sort.  This bay helps restore and improve drones working effiency and also allows players to upgrade different drone modifications.l This bay has the necessary pace and requirements for you to install drone manufactures, which allow you to build drones from scratch out of the materials that you collect. you can also use drone repair lasers, drone shield installers and any other thing that I can think of. The repair bay only opens to the inside of the base, meaning that you can only get to it form the inside and there are no exterior exits. You can also preform drone memory wipes for those times when you drones are hacked or sabotaged by enemy forces.  Having ones of these eliminates the cost of repairing or upgrading your robots by either not using government services or the services of other players.

* Weapons Control and Targeting System - This little device controls the automated defenses for the base. The mian thing is the target and aiming of the large cannons that are mounted along with any mini-gun turrets, missile launchers, scuds and even up to the level of wmd's. This system also allows the use of namual firing so people can actually get behind the controls of the guild's base defense turrets and missile batteries and participate in their bases defense. The starting WEPS system will only be able to automate 4 defensive turets which will most likely e come verion of a minigun. Any additional turrets or missiles will have to be controlled via a player. The more you upgrade this system the better and more accurate the guns and missiles will be and the more defensive weapons it will be albe to handle under computer control.

* Generator - This is a vital piece of equipment that is required to be purchased with any base. This devices provides the power to all the onboard systems and will be a prime target for enemies. Generators are large, bulky equipment that take up a good amount of space. All of the pieces required to run a generator are self-contained an maintence is very low. Generators come in many different flavors and looks. These upgrades will imporve the amount of stress the generator can handle and the overall output that will be used for other systems. you can install back up generators to increase the overall power output of the system or enable it to take over if the primary generator has a problem or fall siee to enemy forces.

* Storage Bays - These are used to store anything and everything from guns and ammo to vehicles and spare parts to ore collected from mining operations. The general trend here is the bigger the bay the more space it gives you but the bigger bay also needs to be installed into a bigger ship. A thing here about base size is that once they reach a certain size they will not be allowed re-entry into a planets atmosphere because of its sheer size and weight it would crash and burn.

* Drone Security Force (DSF) - this is another utility that guild can use to help defend their guild base. These drones will require you have to a drone repair bay along with a weapon and ammunition bay. This is to allow your drones to upgrade their weapons along with other offensive and defensive capabilities. Your DSF can grow into a full fledged army, numbering into the thousands to protect your hard earned guild items. This force also has a convience feature of being active 24/7. This means that your base can be protected even if no on in the guild is online. This system can be either very cheap or very expensive to maintain, but it all depends on how much your droids have to fight and engage enemies. These drones can also accompany your mining drones to provide security backup just in case hostiles are encountered.

* Stealth Field Generator - This is one of the most prized pieces of equipment for a guild base because if your enemy can't find you, they can't attack you. This is the one system that uses stealth like in other games where you simply won't be able to see the base unless they get close enough. Stealth generatores produce massive amounts of stress for your bases computer system, requires a ridiculous amounts of power to run and you can't move when its on or the field breaks and thing is the size of a bus. But the pros outweigh the cons because its an added layer of defense to everything in the base and is insurance when nobody is online to defend your base.

* Navigation Computer - This base feature is one of the more important functions needed to operate your guild base. The nav computer controls all of the bases movement functions as well as any droid navigation that you may require, like mining and sentry droids. This computer also enables you to teleport items using the PAD system in the game. The nav computer will link up to your command center and allow it to download topographical maps of certain areas for battle planning and whatnot. This will be a faily large device that takes up enormous amounts of cpu and memory because it preforms billions of calculations per second that are needed to navigate such a large structure effectively. The nav computer has to be in the same room as the command center which is most likely be on the command deck.

* Command Center - This is the holy grail for commanders of the base. This system allows them access to necessary maps, enemy info such as radar, sonar, and other tracking methods and utilites they need to turn the tide of a battle. inside of the command center, the maps can be written on like a dry erase board to allow the planning of attacks, enemy movement and other strategic tactics in war. This is another system that takes up huge resources but is necessary to run the guild base. More detailed look at this later since it contains more systems.

* Pick Up and Delivery System (P.A.D.) - this is only able to be purchased if your base has both a SRS system as well as an item teleporter. The range and # of items are directly related to the limitations of the other two systems. So increasing these will improve this system along with the others. This system allows you to call in supply drops and pick ups anywhere within range of the system. So if you need a jeep and your in the middle of nowhere, just call one in and in x amount of time you got your jeep. Items can only be dropped to places located on the planet your guild base is on or is orbiting around. On the reverse side of things you can also call on the system to pick up the jeep that was dropped off. This allows you to never leave unused equipment stranded somewhere. The part of the system that you can upgrade is the speed and accuracy of the drops. This is done by upgrading the transport robots. This also goes into the two different delivery methods.

The first one I described above is the teleportation method, where items are instantly transported to their location and dropped from high altitude. This method is best for large objects or for use in critical battle situations where supplies must get to their destination fast. The second method involves carrier robots to fly to your location and deliver the supplies. The main advantage of the second method is that you can increase the number of simultaneous deliveries fairly cheaply and the resources required to operate the system are substantially less than the first.

But you can upgrade navigation, body material, as well as generator and boosters to increase the accuracy and speed  of drop off and pick up of items.

* Mining Utility Drones - This system allows your guild base to become one step closer to a automated mining operation. This system requires a heavily upgraded navigation computer and a robotics repair and upgrade bay inside of your base. Your base will also need to have ample storage space in the base to store the mined materials. if you have all of these things you will also need to be in a space worthy guild base as the droids can't withstand re-entry through a planets atmosphere and don't have the energy and power to move around on a planets surface. That and you won't have as many people in space to complicate things. But you can upgrade any part of the mining droids. This can include the body armor material, mining laser type and how much material it can gather per cycle, the droids speed and control though zero-g as well as the quality of parts so that the droids can operate longer without needing your attention. The mining droid utility system is extremely expensive and is geared towards the hardcore indy-minded guilds. This system will allow them to shift more of the focus to crafting and making items, rather than the gathering side of things. The reason we want it to be expensive because we only want a few guilds using it so we can keep the inflation down on mined or other materials. This system will be in the hundred million credit range because it will continue to work even when you are offline. This is the beauty of this system and is well worth the high price tag.

A guilds base is the functional core of its infastructure. It allows guilds to provide convience services for its members. it also acts as a weapons platform and serves many different purposes. Here is a list of the base utilities and their functions:

- Sat Relay System (SRS) - this is not only useful to its members but also to the guild itself because it can be used as a sources of residual income. This system is the same one that city governments offer players that give them access to map, coordinate, and tracking information. Players pay a weekly fee to access these services. Guilds however can provide the same systems to players but they have to build the SRS inside of their base. These systems will be very pricey but are well worth it. The first SRS model that guilds will purchase is the E1-00 model that is the lowest, most affordable one. This model can support up to 10 simultaneous users with a range of 200 miles from source. This model costs around 200,000 credits plus installation costs. With each upgrade to the SRS you can increase the number of users, increase the range of the service, and the direction of the service. (This means that the service only emits parallel to the base but now the signal will emit in a spherical radius and allow service to work at higher altitudes.) The other upgrades you can preform the the system affect your guild base systems. You can reduce cpu usage, power consumption, size foot print, amount of memory required and amount of power required. These upgrades allow you to put more system in your guild base such as more turrets and defense systems.

- upgrade # of user ladder : Start 10, 20, 50, 150, 500, 2000, 5000

- upgrade range ladder - Start 200mi, 400mi, Planet, Planet + 100mi, Planet + 200mi, Planet + 500mi

The starting system will be very large, taking up a small room in the guild base and its overall efficiency is around 80%. Even though each upgrade is pricey, your guild will reap the benefits if they can supply their services to others.

* The Teleport System - is the next in the line for the convience features. This system will allow players a quick and easy way to get to the guild base then back to the area they were located at before teleporting. Tleporter upgrades comig in many different flavors because you can modify the effect that the teleporters make and the color it produces. This will be one of the coolest systems inside of the base visually because it is the one most people will see often. Along with effects and colors you can imporve the number of teleports per hour, the size of the object you are teleporting, and the number of teleports you can preform at one time. you can also improve the cup load, memeory and power consumption as well as stability controls. (this allows you to keep teleporting when you are moving. The important thing here is that the teleporter can only teleport members to the base and back and no where else. This is to prevent the overuse of teleporting in the game to the point where people exploit it.

Picking up where we left off:

- Guild have the ability to create and build guild outposts and bases. Outposts are similar to a fortress or keep and can be used in a variety of different ways. These outposts can be located on land, on or in the sea, or float in the air or in space. These outposts have some minimal defense systems installed, but in most all cases guilds will have to build and setup their own defense network to repel intruders. Outposts all guilds to store and access materials locally without having to haul resources a great distance.

- Guild bases are like outposts but are mainly used for guild services like controlling their outposts defense or production network, a place where guild meetings are held, managing sat relay systems, and the main storage for guild items and weapons or vehicles. Guild based will be heavily fortified and basically be gunships that are used in siege warfare. These bases again can be land, sea, air, or space but they move at a snails pace of around 1-2 mph starting. Before guilds can start establishing outposts it is wise for them to have a smoothly running guild base with upgraded equipment. This will make defending and managing them a lot easier.

- Guild bases also add convience features to its members of supplying them with Sat relay system for tracking and map purposes, ability to call in supply drops from anywhere on a planet, and the ability to get a teleport to the guild base so that members can group quickly.

- Guild will impose a tax on its members for providing these services which will be clearly listed in the guilds info. All funds collected will go into a separate guild fund to allow the guild to purchase supplies and upgrades.

- Guilds can also take advantage of the SFG (Search For Guild) system in the game. This system is a way for guildless or people looking for a guild to find a guild suited to their needs with as little of a hassle as possible. Guilds can basically post advertisements to possible recruits and these ads will give valuable info about the guild. here is an example

------------------      Guild Name Here                                 Type

|     Pic           |            - Slogan Here -                               Tax %

|                     |      Leader: Name               Active Members: #

------------------

Welcome and recruitment msg goes here. You highlight what

your guild does and what kind of environment you create for

new players

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is for contact info about recruitment and requirements that

new candidates must meet along with any other info you can

think of

*Type - is the overall guilds designated purpose such as : PVP<>PVE<>RP or some mix

*Tax - is the amount taken out from any source of income (Quests, Bounties, etc...)

*Guild Symbol/Pic - are player created pictures that can be uploaded from any standard picture

format or file - jpeg,gif,png,tiff,tga,targa and bmp.

This is what I have recently written about guild development for the game.  This is very long.

Guilds or corporations will be the driving force behind the player driven content on the macro scale. They will will be the ones starting up most of the wars and effect the greatest number of people. Taking that into account we wanted to make guild management more functional. Here are some of the tools that help us do just that:

- Guild LFG System  - This is where players within a guild can make or join groups that are guild only. In this system, attached will also be a calendar that breaks down to hourly time of any given day. This attachment can be used by guild members to organize events, schedule raids, or just to tell fellow guild mates what you are going to be doing at a given time. This system will hopefully eliminate chat spam of people that want to group up. - Similar to LFG System on reverse (pic not included yet)

- Each guild will be able to assign up to 30 different ranks within the guild. Each rank will have its own settings for Storage, Area, and Item access.

- Starting guilds will automatically have the ranks of GM, Member, Initiate, Recruiter, and Trainer to help them transition to the role of management.

- Guilds will have the standard chat channels designated to officers and other higher ranking officials.

- Guild Motd will display in the middle of the screen instead of in the chat panel so GM's can better communicate to the guild about what's happening in the world at any given time. They will also be able to attach progress reports about what the guild goals are currently and status updates about their war efforts.

- Inside of the guild tab there will be a new members tab where Trainers or GM's can help new members be welcomed into the guild, get them up to speed on who in the guild they need to talk to for their questions and other information such as guild websites and/or vent/TS servers and passwords. From here trainers can take over and not have to repeat the basics a hundred times over.

- Guilds will have their own designated storage where extra resources can be kept. Guilds will start out with one storage container that can hold 10,000M^3 of space. From there guilds can purchase more containers, giving them as much space as desired.

- Containers can be passworded by those with permission, and any container that is passworded by someone without authority, the password will be void and removed when moved into guild storage. Guilds will also have designated storage tabs where they can setup ranks to where only certain people have access to certain tabs. This goes for viewing the contents of the tabs, taking and giving items.

- Along with these features the guild tool will include an alliance/war tab. In this tab members of the guild can see alliances their guild has formed with other guilds and their conditions as well as any war declarations that other guilds have posted against them.

- Guilds must have a unique name upon creation

- Guilds will also have a special section of the arena where they can preform guild vs guild battles in the forms of a friendly match or some kind of wager. These wagers vary from items and equipment, to credits and even going as far a putting their own guild's name at stake.

Before you even read a single article about my game design and you want to participate in the madness I need you to do a couple of things before hand so you are not completely lost and are actually useful.

Step: 1

The first thing to do is to figure out which area you would like to focus on. This is vitally important to me and you because if you just dab  a little in many areas nothing really ever gets finished and you have a whole bunch of random ideas with no dots connecting. And I've made it easy for you, here is a list of game design categories for this MMO:

Story Arc - For the mmo genre this basically amounts down to the series or chain of quests that players will and/or can complete to learn whatever information we deem to be the main quest chain. This will also encompass creating other series of quests involving different factions/governments and involve tons of npc's as well as other players possibly.

Combat - This is how to take combat for a mmo and make it more interesting without having to button mash or memorize button combos like in some other games. Our goal here is to make combat as fun as possible because it is the bulk of what most pvp/pve oriented people will be doing through out the game. This is basically fighting other players or npc/creeps/mobs or whatever else you call them. This will also incorporate character balance section since it is directly related to it.

Crafting - This is where you taking crafting to the next level and actually make it the main thing people do in a game. It is no longer going to be just an after thought or a grind fest. We are shifting the focus of traditional crafting away from the gather/hoarding of materials to the actual crafting part where players will use their own wit and connections in game to potientially be the single best crafter in the game. You will be discussing topics such as incorporating player skill and bpo's or blueprints or recipies and labs and all sort of other technical terms that scare people away.

World - I have created the basic layout and theme for the planets and have given them the needed reference pictures and have an idea about what the armor and weapons and vehicles will look like. I have also established what each planet will mainly be used for in the great scheme of things. Since I have the theme and the planets and the various city types we need to create other players in the world to go to !

Character Creation - This is where you scrutinize about the character creation process and what is should and should not incorporate. This is where you think about features that the system could have and how much of a difference it would make on achieve character uniqueness, since this is the goal. Then once you have an idea explain how to do it (theoretical)/ how it can be implemented and whether or not it is plausable.

Progression System - This is where we taking new ground because we have rid ourselves of pesky levels and classes and a conventional skills tree. Now we have to fill in what those systems did which was give us a clear cut progression that the player can see and justify his/her strength. Now we have to create the system that does that. This includes the skill and talent system too. (have not done much with this) Warning!

Single Element Design - This is the part where you basically pick one single aspect of a game like the "guild" structure. This break down the different elements and functions and describing every possible element that "guilds" will encompass and use such as "guild bases" and "guild outposts". Note (you will have to go into a lot of detail about each individual element about what its purpose is and what players can upgrade and so on. (This is most peoples cup of tea)

ok, so now that we have out categories to choose from I need you to pick 1 and 2 at max. Pick the one that you feel is your strong point in creative design and have the most ideas on.

Step 2

When creating ideas please remember to not base the outcome based on previous games or past experiences. Most of the systems I have already created will not work in games like WoW,Lotor,EvE or any other big named mmo out there today because these system were built from the ground up knowing that there won't be any character levels, mob levels, or character classes to get in the way.

Step 3

Go to my post in the Developers Section > Help Wanted and read the feature list and get to know it because it is what the game is all about. Try to imagine how a game would work with those features and then start thinking up all those brillant ideas that you have.

The link : www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/171710

Step 4

Actually think about your ideas longer than 10 minutes. Run them through your head and see if they could even remotely work. Do this enough times and you will basically be evaluating your own ideas.

Step 5

even if the topic is not about what you are developing I encourage you to stop in for a read, because the more you know about the world and the developments in the other areas of the game, you are all the more ready to create a system that can co-exist with the others.