Starbase Bidding Process

Starbases - A long time coming but the pinnacle of achievement for any Guild or Captain. Information as its released will be collated here in this section.
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Starbase Bidding Process

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As per THIS Post we decided to release Starbases in stages. This post relates to Stage 1, obtaining an actual Starbase deployment Licence. Once obtained and along with 10 Starbase Hubs you will be ready to deploy a Starbase at your licence location.

IT IS IMPERATIVE - That BEFORE planning to take part in the bidding process that you FULLY read and understand not only the process but what you are entering into. Therefore - PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE - READ this post fully. It is your responsibility to inform yourself of the process.

Starbase Current Overview
It's important that players thinking of going down the Starbase route have a grounded and informed view of what to expect. As per the linked post above I have decided it would be wise to release Starbases in Stages. But nonetheless you should have an inkling of what's ahead. I can't be specific as some specifics have not yet been ironed out, but I can give you an overview and generalisation of what to expect.

First off - unlike Settlements that initially are easy to set up and level initially, Starbases will be a far slower and more expensive endeavour. We made it so that single players CAN bid on a licence and deploy a Starbase, but the costs for a single player would be crippling to say the least. Guild licences and therefore Guild owned Starbases are likely to be more manageable due to the simple fact a guild has many more contributors and supporters.

The day to day running costs of a Starbase will be in a magnitude above that of even the largest Settlement. INITIALLY, I will keep this artificially lower whilst we are releasing the first few stages and working on the initial sections of Starbases. But this will rise after we have ironed out all the kinks.

Starbases will have promenades like normal docking locations, they will have access (over time) to offices and services that no other location can offer. They will also be able to offer manufacturing facilities that again no one else can offer. Enabling large scale projects and builds to take place. The creation of Player Battleships for passing through the nebulae network and back to the nearest nebula to Sol.

Starbases buildings will have to be crafted in Settlements that have Advanced SMR Manufacturing facilities (to be released). Hopefully all those settlements that CAN process and manufacture SMR resources have been doing so for the last year + as those resources will for the backbone of Starbase crafting.

Advancement will differ from Settlements. Instead of simply gaining research points and levelling up, Starbases will gain a type of XP and level up as they are used and utilised by players and NPC traffic. This means the more a Starbase is utilised the more chance it has of levelling up. Backwater less used ones will still level due to NPC traffic but not as fast as major central hub Player trafficked ones.

Starbase have a pictorial overview accessible by either the owner or if deployed for a guild any guild member. Control of a Starbase is locked to just the owner and again if guild controlled to officers that have been flagged as Starbase controllers via the guild interface. There are currently 79 (active) possible upgrade locations. Things like Hanger Bays, Defensive gun emplacements, Offensive Fighter platforms, Bio Domes, Space Parks.

Of course the usual gamut or Power, housing (both crew and visitors / residents) Research and a smattering of new ones you won't have seen yet. All in all the Starbase is a veritable titan of responsibility.

Income will come from NPC services, player interactions, mission based activities and anything else I can come up with in stage 3. Having said that to be honest I suspect it will be many years before ANY Starbase comes close to breaking even on its outgoings VS its daily incoming funds. But hey you don't own a Starbase because you need to make more money lol...

So... to wrap up to this precursor warning. Don't get involved in Starbase bidding unless you have some SERIOUS financial backing and the wherewith all to keep playing and working on the Starbase. They are wickedly costly, not only in credits but are also going to chew through mountains of resources as they begin to open each section and start to fully deploy.

You HAVE BEEN WARNED!!

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Starbase Bidding
You will find that once stage 1 is formerly deployed (this week) you will be able to locate a series of Offices called 'Starbase Licensing Directorate'. We will place 1 in each of the non Expanse Galaxies. These offices form two functions. The first is to allow players to purchase a Starbase Owner Account. Without this you will be unable to take part in any bidding on offered licences. The second function is to allow the player access to the actual bidding process.

Starbase Owner Account
These come in two flavours. The first is straightforward and is for a Single Player. This means that YOU are bidding on your own behalf and YOU will be the sole controller and operator of the licence. Only YOU can deploy a Starbase and only YOU will be able to manage it once deployed. Bidding on a licence using this account type is done from your 'Personal Escrow Account'.

The other type is a Guild Account. This is Still locked to the player, but it means you will be bidding using the Guilds Escrow account and should you win and are issued a licence you will be deploying a Starbase on behalf of your Guild. You will be marked as its owner / Deployment Officer, but the guild will have access to it based on their flagged security via the Guild Office.

A Starbase Owner Account costs 100,000,000 Credits. Funds to be taken from your Ships account.
These funds are returned on the successful deployment of a Starbase.


Starbase Owner Accounts : You may only EVER hold 1. Once issued you will NOT be able to apply for another one later or change your decision about Personal or Guild. PLEASE CONSIDER CAREFULLY! This means if you choose to deploy on behalf of a Guild you will NOT be able to later deploy one for yourself or visa versa.

The Bidding Process
Once you have obtained a Starbase Owner Account you will be able to review the 'current' licences on offer for bidding. An initial set will be posted and as these are taken new ones will be added to keep the list at a steady amount.

Bidding starts a 2.5 Billion Credits...
Incremental Bids are in 25 Million credit amounts...


All bid amounts are taken from the Escrow accounts. Personal ones if you choose a Personal Owner Account, or Guild Escrow if a Guild Owner Account.

Once you have an Owner Account the funds in the pertaining Escrow will be shown at the top of the office section. The bidding is open to anyone with an Owner Account. You will see the location, Galaxy, the highest current bid and bidders name. You will also see when the bidding on the licence completes.

Once bidding takes place on a location / licence you can review the bid history by clicking on the blue information icon. This will enable you to review who's been bidding etc.

A word of caution. Members will only be able to bid on ONE licence at a time. Again, THINK hard before entering into the bidding process.

Bid Time out / Completion
We wrangled over this one when designing the system. I wanted it to be as fair as possible as not everyone can log in every day and some only manage weekends to play. So Once bidding starts on a licence a TEN DAY clock is started. As each player then out bids the current highest bidder, the timer is reset to 10 Days. This means that the highest bidder needs to hold the bid until the timer expires.

Bid Escrow
When you make a bid the funds are taken from your Escrow account. Should you be outbid you will receive a PM and the funds will be automatically returned directly to the escrow account.

Guild Owners: Please take this in to consideration if having several members bidding on different licence at the same time. Funds will be coming out and back into the escrow account. You can monitor the funds being removed from the escrow either from the Starbase Licensing Directorate office bidding info button or from your Guild Logs.

Players will only be PM'd by the Starbase Licensing Directorate office if they are out bid. Once the Stage 1 is open and the Starbase Licensing Directorate offices are deployed everyone will be able to access a View Only version of the bidding process. (CE Guides Tab - Starbase Licences) This will open as a Standalone external site page and can then be monitored without being logged in to the game by bidders and interested parties.

Once a Bid Timer expires, the person with the current bid wins. They will be informed via PM and a licence issued to them personally.

Licence rules
Once a licence is issued the owner has 30 days with which to deploy the Starbase. You will need 10 active set Hubs (see your Hubs listing in your Captains Bio Page) and to be IN the system the licence was issued for.

Your licence is NON-refundable and will expire after 30 days!


DEV NOTE: At time of writing this we will be initiating Stage 1 (bidding). By the time a player has WON a bid we (I) will have moved Stage 2 code to the live server and tested it. This will then enable a Licence holder to deploy.


At the time of Deployment you will also receive the initial Starbase Owner Account 100 Million credits back into your ships account. Starbases will have a set name and will NOT be able to be named by players. They will all be named under the 'Archon' naming group. Guild Deployed Starbases will however have their guild Affix attached. IE Starbase Archon-1 or Starbase Archon-1 (CRB).

Once deployed you will be able to immediately access the main Loadout and review window. You will be able to set funding (from the Escrow Funding account you used for bidding) and ensure your Starbase has sufficient funding for the initial period.

DEV NOTE: At this stage it depends on how much coding I can complete, test and migrate to live as to how much functionality a starter Starbase will have. I hope to complete the basics and as stated earlier in this post will limit the costs of ownership until I have released large sections of stage 3.

Starbase Funding / Official Receiver
As Starbases are a massive cost and undertaking, it is my furvant hope that no one will take one on unless they know they have the FUNDS and TIME to manage one. Having said that we all have real lives and sometimes time away from the game can't be helped.

Initially the ONLY reason I will remove ownership of a Starbase will be funding! This is by no means set in stone, but funding will be the one and only initial reason a Guild / Player will lose control of a Starbase. Having discussed this with the staff over several years whilst in development, the consensus is that an Action would be best should a Starbases be removed from ownership and placed temporarily into the hands of the Official Receiver.

Starbases will form SUCH a large part of CE over the next few years that I simply can't face witting code to remove them and withdrawn all the myriad of services and functions that will eventually offer. So when a Starbase reaches a point whereby it's not been paying its bills it will be removed from ownership and a 'Value Assessment' will be carried out. This will include the original Bid, the resource sand building deployed and state of the Starbase.

Said Starbase will then be place for auction. Somewhat similar to the bidding process for new Licenses. NONE of what I just wrote (last few paragraphs) is coded yet, but this is how we will deal with Starbases that are not funded. I will of course work out a 'lee way period' but we simply can't have multibillion credit value items being unpaid for and maintained in game.

Starbases will ave their own 'Account' from which services and charges come from, funding into and out of that account will be via the Escrow account from which the Licence was purchased.

OK that wraps up what I can think of at this early pre-release stage. I will likely add or edit this post as time goes on. I cannot STRESS enough that you have READ the intro to this post. Owning a Starbase is a massive undertaking and will NOT be cheap.

Stage 1 will be released as soon as I have completed live testing. Might be a day or maybe two.

Coops

Last updated : 18th May 21
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Coops
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Re: Starbase Bidding Process

Post by Coops »

Just to be Crystal clear

Once a licence is issued the owner has 30 days with which to deploy the Starbase. You will need 10 active set Hubs (see your Hubs listing in your Captains Bio Page) and to be IN the system the licence was issued for.

Your licence is NON-refundable and will expire after 30 days!

PLEASE PLEASE keep this in mind if deciding to bid!

Coops
A Walk in the Woods helps me relax and release the tension from a hard day at the code.
The fact that I'm dragging a body behind me should be irrelevant!
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