. . . an HUGELY expanded universe.
Let's say 10,000 star systems, minimum, each with at least one or more planets able to be explored, inhabited and mined, possibly even just an asteroid or two. You would still have the core systems as they are now, but the farther away you move from them, the less people you would see, the more remote the galaxy becomes. A starmap would show you the systems known to the empire (in three dimensions, of course) and the rest you would have to explore yourself. As you explore or pass through a system, it is automatically added to your starmap and you could trade portions of your own generated maps with other players.
The planets wouldn't have to have much, if any, star wars content except for mining resources and spawns. Occasionally, you might run into a planet with a story to it and civilization and the like, with missions available and NPCs to interact with. Also, travel to the star systems would be manual, i.e. you would have to fly across each system to a jump point and then Hyperspace from one system to another, so that the further you travel, the longer it will take you to get back.
Randomly interspersed would be ueber-resources on various planets or asteroids. Let's say every now and then you could run into a resource with a 1,000 as one or more of the values. Once mined, it's gone, possibly spawning again in a completely different system and planet. Also you could find rare loot on some planets or in some systems. Maybe a rare part that can be used in shipwright/weaponsmith/architect/armorsmith/tailor..etc. professions to create one-of-a-kind items.
Even more cool would be the possibility of planets that require environmental suits to explore, thereby giving more work to tailors and other supporting professions. You could mine and live on these worlds, although any time you're outside of your house or ship, an environmental suit would be mandatory. Maybe you could lay claim to an asteroid as the foundation to your new empire.
Build a large enough city on one planet and you could potentially participate in the shuttle routes and make yourself available for a direct hyperspace jump. This city would have to be quite large in order to accomodate the technology. The point is to reinforce the vastness of space, but if a lot of players gravitate (pardon the pun) to one particular region, then allow a direct route to that region.
Also create the concept of a true cargo ship. The existing POBs would already work. Make it so that when exploring the vast regions and mining there, that you would actually have to take the resources back to known space by ship. Cargo routes would then have to be used until a direct Hyperspace jump comes into being through a large enough colony city. An interesting twist would be to have parts (or all)of the route be through PvP space.
The cities would be aligned based on the faction of the majority of its citizens.
The same thing could be applied to the concept of space stations. Allow Architects to craft station modules and players to "glue" them together. The core module would provide a common area, observation deck, docking ring, cargo storage, bank and related services and then player "modules" could be added like houses to a city. The resulting station would get all the privileges of a city. Allow only a few stations per sector and the modules that are added would be virtual - you're basically setting up access to a two-three bedroom apartment at the station. The apartment would have windows showing actual views of the surrounding space.
Imperial player pilots could then fly patrols through these sectors, possibly requesting a payment to the Empire (i.e. them) to escort a player cargo ship. Rebels or freelancers could then make "acquisition" trips through these (PvP) sectors and any player ships destroyed would have their cargo contents float in space. Only a POB could dock with it and retrieve the cargo.
As you can see, you could go a million different directions with this, although admittedly it might be too much for current technology.
Any ideas out there to add to this?
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Korbyn Daxx
Master Shipwright
Daxx Shipyards, 200m East of Rebel Outpost on Rori, Bria.
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