People might not like this, but this could all be solved by making construction "instant" in the options menu. You only need one constructor at that point.
Gotta give that a "Good Grief". If I'm building a base for PvP, I'm building it deep underground - bedrock level, Land Claim device placed to keep moles out, and may even fill in the hole with a little terrain edit so I have to drill out to leave. It's hard to attack what you can't find. My Standard PvE base has 6 turrets - 2 multi-cannons, 2 cannons, 2 rockets. Only Zirax bombers ever get to deliver a hit, and if bombers show up, shields go up.
And where do you park your CV? Sooner or later every base gets found when you piss others off enough. And when they found you you need proper defense than a hole in the ground. You main don't see it in my pictures but the main part ist also underground. I think you are not really playing PvP, you are just hiding there. And you are hiding alone. For a faction with more than one CV this is not an option.
I don't PvP often, and when I do, it's with a group I know and play with some frequency. As for what I do with my CV's... I typically have two different types of CV I use - the basic "get out of Dodge" CV, which is small, fast, made mostly of container extensions, and gets completely disassembled after landing. The second is larger, more versatile, and doesn't typically make planetfall, but rather delivers small fighters and the rest of my faction. This typically stays with the pilot, in orbit, while everyone else comes down in a small SV fighter. Hiding? Not really - there are turrets and other defenses as well, but they're inside the base area, in narrow passages, creating choke-points. A plasma cannon point blank is devastating to an enemy on foot or a micro-HV used for infiltration. As for alone - yeah, a lot of times I do occupy a base alone - someone has to operate the Constructors and make food. Of course, I have little compunction about picking up a plasma rifle, T2 sniper, or T2 Rocket launcher, and meeting unwanted "guests" either. It's just a different sort of coordinated play style that my group happens to enjoy. We also tend to have somewhat limited time - usually not more than an hour per session, as we typically play at the office during lunch, or at the end of the day. Sometimes we have longer sessions on Saturdays, with out longest being a six-hour session with two teams of 8 and one team of 12 (though to be fair, that team of 12 were mostly non-gamers wanting to see what all the fuss was, so they were really more like a team of 6, with 6 sub-newbies - but we all had fun). But I do understand what you're getting at too - when you're operating a major space port for large faction, with all your assets in one place, it's a ripe target - which is why we like to break ourselves up into smaller cells, with smaller bases, even when they're clustered close together (as close as allowed). This lets us build more defenses per square foot than a single base can support without needing to go T3 or T4. Visually, it's not very different though - large swaths of turrets around and between building structures, a small building here, a greenhouse there - same effect, just a little harder to take out, since there could be a dozen cores controlling a conglomerate rather than a single core for dozens of structures.
The problem with cells and more small bases is, that the more bases you have and the more your faction is splitted up on smaller bases instead of a proper HQ you start running (flying) from one base to another to get enough ressources for your next build, to gather ammunition for a defense base or simply to fuel them up. So at one point you are so busy to run your infrastructure than you cannot do anything else anymore.
Eh, not really. Yes, you'll use a bit more resources making additional cores, but the rest of the building blocks (literally) are the same. When we build ours we typically output production into one bin, where everyone can pick up what they need to construct the part they're working on - no real difference for a single base made of 5000 blocks or 10 bases made of 500, except the extra core materials.
I may expressed myself too improper as i got misunderstood here. So i try it again: If i split up my HQ into several smaller bases (SB) than and then i want to build something and equip myself for my next mission i start travelling from SB to SB to get ready. The same i experience with running these bases. To fuel them up with energy and O2 i need to travel more until some point i am so busy travelling from base to base to keep them running that i barely have time to do anything else.
Many times smaller units can operate entirely on solar power. Planet-depending, Oxygen is not always a requirement, but I get what you're getting it - yes, it can require a bit more effort to operate. Being able to link cells to common power sources and the like would be far more efficient, but we're not to that point yet, and we may not get to that level. However, if it requires, let's say, 190 Fusion Cells per hour to operate a massive city-sized monolithic base, or 19 Fusion Cells per hour to operate 10 smaller Cell bases....
Sure but when i use solar panels it gets way easier to find it again, so that weakens the argument to build smaller bases again. Nonetheless I don't like to be forced to build more smaller bases when i prefer one big base. One of the greatest characteristic of empyrion for me is, i can choose how i want to handle a task. Many small bases or one big. I don't like to be limited in my options that way. Last but not least: Quality > Quantity
Oh, believe me, I get it. Completely. I like the freedom too. My current session is dedicated to "baseless" operations. We did start with a fairly simple, hidden base to do our heavy production - 4 generators, 5 Constructors, and churned out a couple of functional CV's that now serve as our "bases", with our old terrestrial base having been disassembled, with the exception of a pair of furnaces, a pair of Deconstructors and an ATM machine... there might still be a fridge there, I know I didn't pick it up. It's certainly more defensible to have a base that can warp jump than one that is rooted to the ground (or in our case, in deep space - the other guys are searching the moon right now trying to figure out where we're hiding), and the options to dock HV to SV has been a huge help, since we can build short-range warp SV's to carry mining HV's to planets, and bug out when we need to. I'm not trying to get you to change how you play - that's all on you - I'm just giving you some ideas of what someone else does that works for them.
