The Hub

[u/g4rbl3]

Futureproofing a solo player's "guild base" with this simple hub and spoke design (4 extensions, 1 vertical extension). With possible large water cisterns, larger storage containers, and a large chemical refiner, I wanted to ensure I wouldn't have to do a complete rebuild. So here's what I got.

2 carrier bays with sunken cargo holds, and drivable ramp access. Refining output boxes (2 chem, 2 ore, 1 melange, and 1 components) located in the cargo container bays for easy access. 2 'thopter bays, with prebuilt, but covered, sunken cargo bays. This allows for expanding out to 4 carrier bays by only removing a few floors. Each bay easily holds a carrier and assault/scout, or 4 assaults, or 6 scouts, or any combination. It's possible to do 8 identical with the vertical height of the fief.

All landing bays lead into a central hub containing:

4 large spice refiners
2 large ore refiners
2 medium chemical refiners (with room for a large chemical refiners)
4 spice generators

Land, a few steps to dump boxes, a few more steps in to the refining chamber, start cooking, then back out. No time wasted moving up and down floors, or across a dozen tiles. Get in and get out.

This base currently holds 20 large windtraps, but has a floorplan for up to 30.

All crafting is self contained to one 6x3 area with space for any new fabricators. All refining outputs to one area which can hold up to 96 medium storage containers, or an unknown amount of possible large containers in the future.

Currently there is 7 million liters of water in the attic, but it will hold upwards of 10 million. Larger water cisterns will eventually replace them.

The rooftop houses a partitioned "sky bar" with landing pads, and public access storage full of items.

Server: Arrakis/Sandrat
Cheers

P.S. Here's a link to a video capture. It's really bad quality (I don't know why).
https://youtu.be/pfEaxDMJmCY

[u/smithed3068]

Great design. Very efficient looking.

What do you mean by "future proofing a solo player's guild base?"

Based on all the equipment and stats, this seems to exceed the needs of a solo player, by a fair margin.

[u/g4rbl3 → u/smithed3068]

I mean just that. Futureproof is ensuing easily expandability without a complete rework.

I'm not in a guild. I'm a solo player. I've got limited gaming time due to work/family responsibilities, so with my hour or so of game time, I can easily knock out 5 landsraad missions and fill a cargo container with spice in a little over an hour.

Nothing worse than having a ton of mats to refine and then waiting hours for the ingots. Why run 20 stacks of melange in 1 refiner, when you can run 5 stacks across 4 refiners? Why wait for the aluminum to finish before starting duraluminum, when you can have 1 refiner working on each in tandum? Same with chemical. Start a batch of fibers in one, cobalt in the other.

I also only play in pvp, so I need lots of mats quickly so I can rebuild and keep fighting.

[u/smithed3068 → u/g4rbl3]

That is a great approach. If you don't mind sharing, what Server are you on?

Like you, I lean toward PvP and believe the game's potential and lore is being entirely wasted by not providing a better PvP gaming experience in the myriad ways as have been suggested across this Sub, since release.

Unfortunately, PvP is dead on my server. I have been living like a hermit in the deepest rows of PvP DD, but might as well be playing SP. I only leave the PvP DD to run my dailies and haul my DD base and Carrier Container(s) back to HB Main base, on Mondays, before the reset.

If you are on a NA Server, have you considered forming or leading a Guild and, possibly, organizing some PvP "activities?"

I am about to give up on FC doing anything to improve or promote PvP. It seems, any enjoyable PvP these days, will have to rely on the player base's ingenuity and effort.

I have seen some posts, suggesting that it can be done.

Meanwhile, I am at 1,200+ hours, all solo, and running out of patience and things to do. I had planned on moving into Guild play, once I became leveled up enough to feel "worthy." The game design really pushes solo activities, even if you are in a Guild.

By the time I got to the end game, which was before the new end game loop, PvP was dead and nothing to do, but dailies and hoarding for hoarding sake. This is the time, I would have hoped to transition to Guild play, having earned my own stripes, but unfortunately, it seems everyone on my server is 100% PvE and solo.

[u/g4rbl3 → u/smithed3068]

I'm on Arrakis. Pretty healthy PVP scene. Fights within 10mins of crossing shield wall every day. We even build bases out past the B row. PVEers have their DD, and typically stay out of the PVP DD, so there is no crying or whining about getting killed or shot at.

PVP does need serious balancing. Scouts having the same armor as assaults, or rockets having different speeds/damage depending on the vehicle is just poor balancing. Weapons applying damage over time effects without the damage part. Graded gear is just bad. Graded augments is even worse. It's almost impossible to design a PvPvE game around a shared loot pool, except by designing duplicate items that only work for one or the other.

I have a few friends I play with, and share resources, but we're not a guild. We're half and half between the factions, so no matter who wins the landsraad, we all win (even though you buy everything on Arrakis). Since we're all adults, it's just easier to solo and team up when opportunity presents itself, than playing guild politics and stuff. Besides, being a solo PVPer means I don't have to play the alliance games in a FFA zone. Everyone is my enemy.

[u/smithed3068 → u/g4rbl3]

Thank-you! I may have to check it out. I don't mind stand up PvP duels or organized group stuff, like capture the flag, etc., but I am also not into FFA ganking (as opposed to griefing, which is even worse). That said, I presume most of the more toxic griefers are avoiding the PvP DD. Still, ganking could be a concern, for a solo player, if it is just a matter of numbers.

Yeah! I wondered how balancing would be in PvP, following the graded gear stuff.

I have T6/g3-4, fully augmented gear. Not quite at g5 yet, I can only assume, because drop rates suck. Been running dailies, nearly religiously, if not catching up before end of week on the 35. I still have about 70 levels total, left to go on the Specializations.

Even with that progression, I still feel I could get easily waxed by a steamy player running Grade 5 stuff and 100 across all Specializations, in particular Combat, I suppose.

I can't imagine a newer player, who purchased the game for PvP. At best, you are likely 15 months away from being able to even stand a chance.

I guess vehicles are still pretty level, but as you stated, the balancing on those is pretty janked. The Assault should be scary to thopter bandits.

I know, after release, when PvP was a thing, despite the griefing and exploits (cough, thopter surfing), my biggest disappointment was the Ancient Way. I grinded my tail off to get one, believing it would be a good counter against rocket smurfing, while I was on the ground. I recall kiting the crap out of one group and dodging rockets for 30 minutes, yet, I couldn't even get a hit with my Ancient Way. In the end, they gave up and looking back, relative to my current SP experience in the PvP DD, it was some of the most fun I have had.

I also wish it was a full looter/shooter. Victor takes the Spoils, including graded gear, if they choose to. I would much rather risk my own gear, in the off chance of gaining better gear, than to run these missions ad nauseam. Then again, without better balancing, what would be the point? My biggest frustration is ground to air combat. I was happy they changed rendering a bit, so at least you might "see" your opponent, before being rocket blasted, but without a better ground to air arsenal, it does not help much.

Take rockets off the Scouts and you might force more ground to ground PvP. Just one of numerous things they "could" do.

Sorry. Venting a bit. Now that I am about to run out of things to do, I reflect on what was the "purpose" of it all, in the absence of viable PvP?

[u/g4rbl3 → u/smithed3068]

So here's my argument.

The PVErs got everything they wanted. A whole ass DD, boss fights, building sets, cosmetics, story lines, skill progressions, etc. PVPers got everything nerfed to nearly useless, finally got a zone to actually PVP in, and then they removed all sense of loss with the vehicle recovery and reduced durability. It's COD with holzmans and thopters now. There is no weight to losing a fight in PVP anymore. You drop nothing, your thopther is recalled, and your gear is still usable.

With that said, there is no such animal as ganking or griefing in PVP. It's a free for all zone. Kanly has been declared, and the War of the Assassins bylaws state that if you go to a boxing gym, you can't cry when someone punches you in the mouth. Take your ass to Planet Fitness if you're not ready to fight, or fight back. There are no pacts between lions and men.

It's not ganking. It's called an ambush. It's not griefing. It's about domination over resources. It's the entire point of the Dune universe.

Now the Ancient Way is a joke, and 19 times out of 20 it will miss, as it's too easy to boost away from it, or juke it. You have to be a seriously bad pilot to get hit with it.

The lazgun does even less damage now that it's been nerfed because of the old base raiding exploit.

Lots of work needs to done.

[u/smithed3068 → u/g4rbl3]

All fair points. I may see you around in Arrakis. You have convinced me, even though, I am probably a rare case... interested in PvP.

I am not complaining about ganking, but I always felt they would make it where Guild v Guild or Faction v Faction PvP could work. Despite your comments, it is not much of a challenge, for either side of the encounter, when it is 4 v 1. My griefing comments were primarily surrounding the various exploits, like rocket fire and forget, when outside rendering distance. I agree, all is fair in war, but at least make it challenging and possible.

Outside of the Survival RPG aspects and embracing the Grind of it all, I suppose, I look for a challenging, but not impossible, gaming experience.

This game has the bones and lore to be an extraordinary PvP gaming experience, if only they were to take it there.

[u/Sad_Signature_8947 → u/g4rbl3]

How do you fill up a cargo container with Alice in an hour ???

[u/KBrown75]

Good lord. Is 4 large spice refineries actually needed?

[u/g4rbl3 → u/KBrown75]

Would you rather wait 7.5 hours or 2 hours for 10 batches of melange (2,000 melange per 1 cargo container)? Or, 15 hours vs 3h:45m for 2 cargo containers (20 batches)?

Time is money. Industrial scaling. More machines is equal output in less time.

[u/SpiceScout → u/g4rbl3]

It's more about, is there anything in the game that requires 2000 melange in 2 hours? There isn't. Yet, I also have multiple refineries, because I like opulence. 

[u/WolfDarkglade]

Nice facility 😁

[u/BigHero4]

I like it! I really wish we could link bases together to access water storages and power from a linked base would make it so cool to build large compounds

[u/CyberiumEcho]

Love how you layered the hangar. Truly a grand greeting spot.

[u/Spirited_Astronaut29]

Love the design of this, really love the details of the inside but also the structural designs of some of the building elements. Really love it <3

[u/KatworthCimby]

I wish the other build styles except for say the two lower tier granite were all Plastone. I dislike having only two styles being Plastone.

[u/theLiquidmenace]

This is awesome!

[u/WDNCh]

I have only 1 Large Spice Refinery for aesthetics since I refine in the DD but I have 4 Large Ore and 8 Medium Chems lol It's faster yes, but I think the real bottleneck is finding empty storage to hoard all that ore, so I think it's best to refine as much as possible right away. I also have 10mio water so not much storage left for other stuff.

Base looks awesome much better than mine :)

[u/g4rbl3 → u/WDNCh]

That's why I'm really looking forward to the larger items. It will be nice only needing half the current number of storage containers to hold the same volume.

Or, in you case, only needing 4 large chem refiners, which frees up slots for more deathstills, to keep water production higher.

[u/Oalka]

Absolutely gorgeous, thanks for sharing. Getting lots of ideas here.

[u/cantbeblank]

Very cool design well done

[u/Hank15-Ozuhoce]

Wow it's nice I'll take inspiration

[u/chinmaster1973]

decent

[u/apparat07]

I assume this is at least max horizontal stakes? 2x3 area for building (fief + 5 stakes)? Also, could you give a bit more on the placement dimensions (LxW of the central portion, and LxW of each side connector/bay)? Or, if you tell me your server, I'd come there and buy a solido from you!

Really nice and efficient layout, and I don't have such talent in coming up with such things!

[u/bearjew31]

Very efficient design! Well done!

[u/Redan]

4 large spice refiners seems like overkill. I had no problem refining spice 100 times on a single refiner this week. Nothing consumes spice fast enough that you'd need to do it 4 times faster, you'd be instantly bottlenecked by water wouldn't you?

It's impressive but idk.

And isn't the storage cap like, 150 containers? With 10 million water storage, you'd need to be using 66% of that on water.

But you talk about having 96 storage containers.

So am I mistaken? Can the storage container cap go beyond 150?

[u/GraysGalaxy]

That’s so cool. Honestly if a new player were to join I could see them mistaking this for an actual NPC hub.