Drones attacking the base only when you are nearby is a quite silly.... Also it would be cool if drone attacks occurred against your capital ships. Sometimes i find myself not even making bases and just flying around planets with the capital ships and i never really have to worry about base attacks anyway. I love the idea of base attacks... It sets this game apart from games like minecraft where nothing ever happens to your bases/villages and things just get so static and boring. I love how they can destroy your stuff here. Just makes the world feel more alive and engaging knowing someone is actually angry at you and wants to actually find your base and remove the threat. It might not be possible for the engine to support the base under attack while you are gone though... It would probably need to load that section of the map during that time and consume resources of your computer.... But its just a suggestion.
It may seem silly but it's a game limitation currently. As you guessed already those sections would need to stay loaded for this to work. There's also the issue of the base not being capable of defending itself if it was attacked while you were away. Turrets only function in a relatively small area centered on the player. They don't work once you get a very short distance away from them and they sit completely idle until you return. This would be cool to have happen eventually. Right now it's not really likely to happen with the current attack mechanics. Let's say I was exploring a planet with my CV and am just flying around for hours. How does the game handle those attacks? My ship is constantly moving, so where does it send the drones too? Currently the base attacks are just spawned 1000m or so from your base. Your CV though keeps moving, so does the game just keep spawning them within 1000m of you over and over and over as you travel? Things like that have to be worked out before we ever see attacks being specifically sent for your vessels. Once they get the AI working much better we may start to see some of this happening though. Once the AI can pilot vessels (this is coming soon) and they can control those vessels at the same speeds as a player and with relatively the same piloting accuracy as a player we will see things change a LOT.
It used to be so that drone attack could go for the base 'back in the day' and base would defend itself. Then it was changed to the current manner because of performance reasons and it was a bit annoying that the player had to blitz back to the base every 15 minutes or so. Interruptions were quite regularly, exploring and resource gathering were still by hand only if i recall, meaning the long process got even longer with these alert intervals. Wishfull thinking is nice, not getting this old dream back in. Don't know why you seem so confident it is 'coming soon'. (soon™ lol) Might be around the time of the second coming then
From what I saw of the most recent live stream blog, this IS coming. They talked about POI's calling in vessel reinforcements. We've also been told that the AI piloting vessels is planned. Will they ever be remotely close to a player piloting them? I doubt it. Hopefully they at least get better than a drone one day though.
I would say a fast moving ship can be spawned in and tractor beam your ship. Forcing your ship to straighten up and stop moving. Then your ship gets boarded and footsoldiers are teleported randomly inside and ontop of your vessel and go for your core/go after you. Perhaps there can be a time limit on how long you can be in the tractor beam and you can also destroy the other ship to end the event. Time limit is there in case you are incapable of destroying the ship. Base attacks you cannot reach in time might be somewhat troublesome sure, but all the more reason to spend more time and effort fortifying them. Also, put all these extra amounts of resources to good use. This could maybe be a feature for more difficult planets only or maybe even a toggle difficulty option. If the game world can be made to process this kind of stuff happening when the player isnt around maybe they can evolve it into ai factions actively attacking eachother and dynamically conquering parts of the map and building/rebuilding bases and such. I know, its a dream.
This already happens. I have triggered the troop transport attack while shooting down drones, weather I am out exploring, or going somewhere. I have wondered where exactly is transport going. It used to just get hung-up and stop in mid-air. Not sure what it does now.
