I believe that kind of mechanic is pretty guaranteed, yes.

NPCs will be hiring each other to do various jobs and tasks as they go along, and we'll be able to do the same.

ThymineC wrote:

Lum wrote:-Small Station (3 modules / complexity grade 3) = time until completion with:
a) 10 drones = 1000 hours(!!)
b) 50 drones = 200 hours
c) 100 drones = 10 hours

Fixed that for you.

There is no fixing: they are the mysterious Wandering Exclamations...

When it comes to building items I think it would be best to use RTS times for building and unit construction. Take your favorite RTS game and look at how long it takes to build a structure. I think it should take somewhere between 20 seconds and 2 minutes to build most buildings and 20 seconds to a minute to build most units.

BFett wrote:When it comes to building items I think it would be best to use RTS times for building and unit construction. Take your favorite RTS game and look at how long it takes to build a structure. I think it should take somewhere between 20 seconds and 2 minutes to build most buildings and 20 seconds to a minute to build most units.

Even though these things are built RTS-style, that doesn't mean this is like an RTS game. In an RTS game, you typically build structures that last for a single match and therefore buildings and units are quick to construct.

Is it more appropriate for it to take 2 minutes to build a station that may last for real-life months and can significantly boost my economic foothold in a region, or two weeks?

ThymineC wrote:

BFett wrote:When it comes to building items I think it would be best to use RTS times for building and unit construction. Take your favorite RTS game and look at how long it takes to build a structure. I think it should take somewhere between 20 seconds and 2 minutes to build most buildings and 20 seconds to a minute to build most units.

Even though these things are built RTS-style, that doesn't mean this is like an RTS game. In an RTS game, you typically build structures that last for a single match and therefore buildings and units are quick to construct.

Is it more appropriate for it to take 2 minutes to build a station that may last for real-life months and can significantly boost my economic foothold in a region, or two weeks?

Two hours? 4 hours? I think 2 weeks is a bit much, but 2 minutes is in the extreme opposite direction. In X3, some of the ships took 1-3 days to produce, but you could also let the game run in the background while you do something else. I think having stations take a longer time to be constructed in understandable, but let's not be crazy. Unless LT can run in the background.

i'd opt in for a few hours of construction time with the maximum sensible amount of construction hardware used for the largest ships/stations
maybe 10 for a maximum size supercapital to about an hour for an medium-small sized outpost station or a cruiser

Charley_Deallus wrote: Two hours? 4 hours? I think 2 weeks is a bit much, but 2 minutes is in the extreme opposite direction. In X3, some of the ships took 1-3 days to produce, but you could also let the game run in the background while you do something else. I think having stations take a longer time to be constructed in understandable, but let's not be crazy. Unless LT can run in the background.

LT would be able to run in background, as it is AFAIK very alt+tab friendly, but the X series have something LT does not have, time acceleration as a game feature.
if the game is intended to be accelerated up to 10 times normal speed you can afford to have construction times of 3 days, as LT will not have such a thing, construction should be faster

Ah...now that I think about it, having LT run in the background means you aren't PLAYING the game...unless I am at work, or sleeping, or something. I would prefer not to have to stop playing the game to let something build...kind of ruins the whole idea of playing the game.

Since most movies last up to 90 minutes I think it would be wise to have all construction occur within that period of time. The player should NEVER have to alt-Tab out of the game and have it run in the background. If I get board waiting for something to build I'm going to close the game and do something else.

BFett wrote:Since most movies last up to 90 minutes I think it would be wise to have all construction occur within that period of time. The player should NEVER have to alt-Tab out of the game and have it run in the background. If I get board waiting for something to build I'm going to close the game and do something else.

That's why you go and mine, trade, visit planets, blow ships up, explore, and do one of the hundred other things that Limit Theory allows you to do. Multitask! The day where I do one thing, and cannot deviate from it at all, is the day where I blow up my computer and convert to being an anarchist.

BFett wrote:Since most movies last up to 90 minutes I think it would be wise to have all construction occur within that period of time. The player should NEVER have to alt-Tab out of the game and have it run in the background. If I get board waiting for something to build I'm going to close the game and do something else.

well, LT is not a movie but a game which is intended to be played for dozends of hours, so we clearly can have longer construction times.
and as we dont have to babysit everything we can go do something else while watching a small "progress" widget on a corner of our screen

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

BFett wrote:Since most movies last up to 90 minutes I think it would be wise to have all construction occur within that period of time. The player should NEVER have to alt-Tab out of the game and have it run in the background. If I get board waiting for something to build I'm going to close the game and do something else.

well, LT is not a movie but a game which is intended to be played for dozends of hours, so we clearly can have longer construction times.
and as we dont have to babysit everything we can go do something else while watching a small "progress" widget on a corner of our screen

I'm thinking more like weeks or months spent within a single world, like the longer games of Minecraft or Terraria. If that's the case, I'd be happy with it taking a few days to build the largest of things.

I personally don't feel the need for that 'instant gratification' rush of needing things done NOW rather than in a few hours. I know that my patience will pay off when that mining facility is completed or when my ship is done. I just do something else until the time is up, then I move on to the next thing. OR I spend that building time preparing to organize the NPCs or ships that will be assigned to the station and the 'pipeline' that will need to be setup in order to have it running smoothly.

And yeah, even a few days could be the extreme end for the largest of things. I could have multiple plans.
a) Start construction of super battleship
b) While it is constructing, go setup a new mining operation in system F.
c) While mining facility is being setup, go pirate some miners who are in an unprotected area of space in sector 12
d) If enemy ships come in force, retreat and sell off stolen cargo quickly in another system.
e) Check build time remaining for the battleship, if over 1-2 days, then work on expanding my corporation or w/e. Colonize a planet, etc

With the miracles of 3d printing, large space borne objects could be physically rendered in space in a matter of hours!

Draglide12 wrote:With the miracles of 3d printing, large space borne objects could be physically rendered in space in a matter of hours!

You still have limited throughput, you cant just put 40 billion tons of metal with micro/nanometer precision down in a few hours