The ideal Sci-Fi MMO (at least the Crafting part)
Sitting around as DPS in RIFT waiting for a LFG queue, I got bored and spent an hour writing this as what would MY idea of the ideal crafting system in a MMO would be! I still lament on the death of SWG post-NGE, and while Minecraft is okay, I would like to someday play an MMO that is actually fun to play and implements this awesomeness.

MMOs have basically static environments and crafting systems which serve no purpose than as a controlled method of getting gear, which I'm almost certain WoW will remove in favor of getting stuff from an auction house and buying it from a vendor at some point in the future.

Anyways, I was considering posting this on a wikia and letting you all add stuff to the wish-list, but the forum works too -- so what would you want from an epically immersive world that closely resembles Battlecruiser 3000 in over the top features?

And as far as the list goes -- I went a little far...

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-Index-
1.1 Planets and their Features (Terraformation, housing, custom species, eco-terrorism and doomsday devices)
1.2 Crafters and Combat (Max level without ever engaging in combat)
1.3 Assembling Truly Custom Items (Sniper shotgun with a mace bayonet)
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-Skill sets-
2.1 Scavenging (Mining, surveying, battlefield scavenging and farming)
2.2 Xeno-Archaeology (Space fossils and such)
2.3 Invention! (Design, experiment and create schematics for Production)
2.4 Bio-Engineering (Create your own cyborgs, animals and effect the Ecosystem)
2.5 Production (The Big Business types who run the factories)
2.6 Entertainment (Electronica, dancing, and space ship drag racing)
2.7 Newsfeeders (History, hard hitting news, and Facebook)
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-Additional Notes-
3.1 Housing
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-Unfinished-
4.1 Server Types
4.2 Types of Combat (Ship, Ground, In-Door)
4.3 Police vs. Criminal System
4.4 Crime/Police Mission System
4.5 Planetary Conquest/Destruction System
4.6 Player Governments/Corporations
4.7 Planetary Land Ownership
4.8 Player Cities/NPCs
4.9 Player Run Missions
4.10 Commanding Squads
4.11 Anything else you think I'm missing

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-Index-

1.1 Planets and their Features - Elements from Wurm Online/Minecraft, Spore, ??

• Planets are undamaged and procedurally generated with potentially varied or mono-climates, as well as accurately (% of Gases on a Gas Giant will effect its color and appearance for example)
• Planets can be terraformed into habitable worlds using alien or bio-engineered species or abused to the point that they turn into barren-like worlds and even destroyed outright using doomsday level machinery.
• Planets can also be artificially modified, lakes drained, mountains flattened, caves and tunnels dug (to only a certain depth), forests grown, burned or polluted, minerals pillaged -- the choice is upto the player if it should resemble Tattooine.
• For example, introducing waves of highly aggressive diseases, plants and animals will adversely effect a planet's ecosystem and potentially cause mass extinctions or adversely effect a planet's wellfare and income as part of a war effort by a potentially warring nation.
• As well, the specie's attitude, harvestible resources, what it consumes/produces can determine if it is able to survive in a particular region of a planet and become apart of its eco-system or die off after a while. Players will be able to hunt other player's creations.
• Housing, Facilities, Military installations, Cities, and Shield Generators are all placeable on either the sky, land or underground and the environment can be modified to suit them.

1.2 Crafters and Combat

• Crafters can entirely avoid conflict through following methods, thereby not being forced to fight to advance/level
• Paying players/corporations to safeguard them through the most dangerous areas
• Hiring NPC convoys to battle pirate fleets, they can be leveled or better equiped in more dangerous locations to engage hostiles (Non-combat Mastermind pets from City of Heroes)
• Bribing and/or persuading governments, pirate fleets and officials to avoid armed conflict/jail time altogether
• Arming your ship or person with stealth/speed/impersonation equipment to escape detection altogether by players/npcs

1.3 Assembling Truly Custom Items - Based on... Not sure, no game lets you make truly custom weapons, armor or vehicles

• All Items, Housing, Vehicles, Robots, Weapons and Armor can be assembled from individual pieces/mods designed by inventors, they can be customized from function right down into aesthetics.
• Emphasizing more building from scratch available parts to a gun, chest piece, vehicle rather than modifying an existing item with minor benefits. You can radically alter their purpose upon creation, examples such as...
• Weapons where you start with a gun grip and work from there assembling pieces and working out the benefits and drawbacks to that rifle with 5 barrels with 4 ammo types, 3 scopes, 2 grenade launcher attachments, and that greatsword bayonet attachment you've always wanted.
• Different vehicles being able to be retrofitted with any kind of purpose, using nodes to attach pieces to.
• Armor or cybernetic prosthetics being able to have plates, addons, hidden weapons which radically alter its use and appearance to players.

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-Skill sets-

• Depending on the type of skills you train, titles, achievements, mission quotas, even commendations from player or NPC governments for success.
• Items have durability loss, which make players buy more items, thus driving an entirely in-game economy, inventors creating exceptionally good items will draw premium prices.
• As a result, the best items in game will have to be player-made/found or modified by a player.

2.1 Scavenging - Surveyors, Miners, Farmers, Collectors - Mass Effect 2 Planet Scanning/EvE Online if Mining didn't suck

• Scavengers are explorers whom search the cosmos for valueable resources
• Scavengers can survey planets/deep space, or tear apart ship graveyards/battlefields
• They are the only class that can completely harvest ships, deposits, organic matter/species
• Resources include mineral/gas deposits, Ship Graveyards and vehicles from previous pvp battles, planetary eco-systems, destroyed player cities, and Archaeology sites
• Needed during a raid or battle, as massive amounts of resources can be gained by a corporation having them loot a battlefield for resources
• As well, planets resources shift on a weekly basis so Surveyor ships can find hotspots to harvest from
• They can sell discovered locations as well to other interested players/corporations for titanic profits
• Also they can drop heavy machinery onto locations and mass harvest resources or vehicle to harvest resources or look for them - automation is slower than manually piloting for them
• NPCs will also offer equivelent rewards, quests, and fetch quests as well

2.2 Xeno-Archaeology -

• Archaeologists can dig through and discover forgotten technologies, artifacts, history, fossils/DNA of long forgotten human or alien societies.
• Procedurally generates archaeology sites on planets/deep space with valuable items, artifacts and equipment
• Digging through the ground, individuals can tear apart the landscape in search of artifacts or pieces of artifacts similarly to Minecraft/Wurm Online
• Archaeologists can also scan unrefined minerals or equipment from Scavengers or the auction house to discover items

2.3 Invention - Based on Star Wars Galaxies (Crafting/Experimentation System)

• Inventors can work on and improve schematics for manufacturing and create extremely valueable equipment for production
• Working on and experimenting with schematics for any weapon/armor/item/housing.
• Experimentation can dramatically increase the quality of items.
• Schematics can be sold to corporations/large manufacturing businesses who have the industrial might to mass produce your product
• Schematics have an artificially limited use (100x), so buyers must come back to buy from you and other inventors.

2.4 Bio-Engineering - Based on Spore/SWG's Bio-Engineer

• Work on improving the human condition using cybernetics, animal/xeno-DNA, robotics or creating/resurrecting them yourself.
• Can modify or enhance humans into physical perfection by re-working their DNA, or into monsterous hybrids of either animal, alien or machine. Allows mix/match parts from various species to change players visually or simply improve their stats/abilities.
• Can create fauna with modified stats/personalities to be used as pets, decoration, for sport, as weapons, or to inhabit a an ecosystem as either apart of terraformation or as part of biological warfare against warring nations on planets.
• Can create medicals, diseases, poisons, mechanical enhancements, drugs, as well for any number of uses including assassination, warfare, or recreational purposes.

2.5 Production - Based on EvE/SWG/Entropia Universe

• The producers of this society, the mass content creators
• Can create Spaceships/Vehicles/Robots, Equipment/Weapons/Armor, Housing/Facilities/Building Material
• Using Facilities/Housing they can refine scavenged resources or produce items from blueprints by inventors
• Blueprints have limited uses so extremely good resources have a huge market value.
• Procurement of resources can come by auction, smuggling, import, backroom deals, government contracts, etc.
• At low levels, criminal producers can create illicit drugs and weapons, on upto operating plutonium refineries and nuclear weapons at their highest.
• They can produce materials for NPCs as well as players for auction, even super corporations can rely on NPCs, however with limited expansion.
• The name of the game is expansion, filling quotas, sales, etc. maybe the most boring class potentially, but theyre the movers and shakers, the EvE-style super corporation's profits.

2.6 Entertainment - SWG/Loads of other game's systems

• Dancing, Music, DJs, ????
• Competition - Vehicle/Ship racing, Bowling, Darts, Gambling, Chess, Puzzle Games, Marksmanship, Hunting staged with cash prizes by players or NPCs
• Courses can be procedurally created or player-made using check points on planets or player cities.

2.7 Newsfeeds

• Players can subscribe to Newsfeeds operated by other players for in-game money on a monthly basis, or have corporations/governments pay for ad space.
• Highly successful feeds will be able to pay writers, and become the voice of the galaxy.
• Can create classified ads or accept pre-paid player missions straight from them.
• Newsfeeds can be anything from breaking news, announcements, social events, historical events from conflicts, bounties or hit contracts, trade channels/classifieds, even ad revenue from player corporations or outright propaganda from nations.
• Newsfeeds an have graphics--
• They can probably be retrofitted into a wikia or directly linked to one, along with facebook/twitter/friendster integration or whatever else you fancy.

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-Additional-

3.0 Housing - Elements taken from SWG/Spore/EQ2/

• Within the realm of reason and gameplay, no company can allow players to create truly unlimited  housing, because it would lead to players making hill/corridor death traps covered with landmines to make sieging/entering/stealthing into a building totally impossible other than nuking from orbit.
• Rooms can be scaled up or down easily and come in pre-made shapes that can be nodally connected with their exteriors customized however seen fit with aesthetics or military design taken into mind (Lots of columnades for cover from gunfire or a giant space phallus :/  ).
• Items/Industrial Equipment/Furniture do not have to be placed on a grid, but have defined zones around them so they cannot justbe stacked into forms of cover or door blocking. (Similarly to Command and Conquer building placement)
• People and Vehicles can be rendered outside of a misty glass window, they update every 3 seconds (+3000 ping ms), it allows players to see potential threats (police, pirates, criminals, soldiers, guests) approaching their facility/house without impacting game performance

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-Unfinished-
4.1 Server Types
PvE

• Players can only participate in PvP in specific zones or instances

    
PvP

• Players can kill anyone at any time
• Regular Players will not lose anything other than time
• True risk is placed on large corporations and government leaders who will lose territory, money, everything from open conflict

Hardcore

• Players can be killed and have all their equipment stolen, have their houses and factories destroyed and lose everything if a planet is wiped out.

Roleplay will be enforced by governing nations on all 3 servers, players must agree to a contract and entering a nation without consent will result in all players and NPCs being able to kill you.

4.2 Types of Combat (Ship, Ground, In-Door)

4.3 Police vs. Criminal System

4.4 Crime/Police Mission System

4.5 Planetary Conquest/Destruction System

4.6 Player Governments/Corporations

4.7 Planetary Land Ownership

4.8 Player Cities/NPCs

4.9 Player Run Missions

• Arson, Vandalism, Delivery, Terrorism, Theft, Assassination, Eco-Terrorism, Escort, Arrest Warrant

4.10 Commanding Squads - Inspired by SWAT 4/Republic Commando

• Not only do units gain passive advantages (health/damage/reload speed), but actively following the orders of a Commander will net them additional experience.
• Commands will be issued by holding [command key] then selecting from a list of the following
• Provide covering fire, suppress target area, focus fire on target, retreat from area, Advance past here, provide medical attention at here, setup sentry/outpost/cover in this area, laze target area,
• Commands to other players will appear like blue ghosts of the action requested

4.11 Anything else you think I'm missing
 

Saved...

I've been waiting on a game like this for years.  And I'm still waiting. 

There's one game that might still be in development that's pretty close to what I'm looking for, but it seems to still be years away, if ever-  http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/241/view/forums/post/3975698#3975698 

NOTHING would EVER make me enjoy crafting in ANY game.  I loathe and despise it.  I've worked every day for 40 years and when I'm having fun I DON'T want to replicate having a day job in my "kick back and relax" computer game.

Originally posted by Dibdabs

NOTHING would EVER make me enjoy crafting in ANY game.  I loathe and despise it.  I've worked every day for 40 years and when I'm having fun I DON'T want to replicate having a day job in my "kick back and relax" computer game.

I would also imagine the game would be an on ground FPS and in space would play like EvE. Nobody would put a gun to your head and make you do it.

Terra forming is great and all but it can kill the exploration for a suitable area to build. It can't be so easy/ inexpensive that you can set up your ultimate mega badass base just anywhere.

Use of NPC mercs is questionable. It could be really useful but incredibly expensive or not very expensive and everyone uses them. Paying NPCs to do the work for you could be bypassing something fun just because you are rich.

I like making your own weapons but theres got to be a limit to what you can do. 5 barrels is absurd unless its a minigun, but a minigun with 2 gren launchers and 3 scopes? wtf lol (bayonet isn't scifi)

Are all skill sets equally useful and profitable? Production vs Entertainment doesn't seem so.

"Different vehicles being able to be retrofitted with any kind of purpose, using nodes to attach pieces to.
Armor or cybernetic prosthetics being able to have plates, addons, hidden weapons which radically alter its use and appearance to players."

thats cool aswell many of your other ideas, theres just so much going on that I wonder how well it would work in unison (like the salvager + archaeologist, building cities + tera deformation or things that affect eco systems)
I imagine a lot of planets will shrink in size after 1000s of players dig in :)

You covered a hell of a lot of stuff but didn't cover the crafting process itself which is usually the what all of this comes down to. Do I just collect a bunch of junk and then click a button? Or do I play a minigame to craft it?

to add:
Housing with security systems - wall turrets or anti-space ship cannon

wrap around planets - no flat map with unreachable boundaries

something like this would be good for crafting

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/598909-making-gathering-more-interesting/

High Def characters, humanoids should looke like one, smart NPC responce  - "stalker, rage", weapons, ammo that realy changing your DMG output.

Teraforming:  if you can create your own planets and teraform those only. 

I would love Game like that.