Here are a few images showing the new building mechanic which enables you to create your own modular space stations. These are only a few small parts of what we have planned; the left part is a basic cargo bay and the object on the right is the asteroid refinery.
Cargo bays allow players to mine/collect resources and then take them back to their base for storage. Players will need to do this if they want to use their own resources to reduce the cost of building objects in space.
IE If the player wants to build a space station piece they can either pay for it in cash, but in doing so the materials have to be delivered before building can take place. A good way to speed up the process and reduce the actual cost of construction is for the player to collect and store resources which can be used to build the object.
The refinery is a good way to get higher quality ores/materials which can be sold or used for building. Unrefined ores tend to be used at a higher rate in building due to their low quality. Refined ores however will pretty much have a 1/1 ratio when building.
To use the refinery players can push/launch asteroids into the giant crusher wheels and it will slowly break down the asteroid until all resources are refined into high quality ores. Players can also assign mining/delivery drones to drop their cargo directly into the refinery. This is a more efficient way of refining ores, as pushing asteroids into the crusher wheels will take time to break down the asteroid before refining can take place.
Upgrades can lower the time overhead of crushing, but it will always be better to refine broken down asteroids as opposed to whole asteroids. The refinery comes in two varieties so far; the crusher model which we have just talked about and the standard refinery which can only refine broken down asteroids.
More info coming soon..
