Something I was musing about.... but with the size of the later level starships, what if there was a "starship modules fabrication station/bay"? Something that would specifically allow us to craft new, Rooms-sized(as in, the size of one of the actual starting "rooms" in the ship), "modules" for the starship which would add unique functionalities to it(and thus being placeable only within the starship itself). One of the first could be a "Dropship Bay" module: Basically, a large room-sized "fabber" bay(it could even come with some platforms of it's own). It would be able to craft(and hold) one unique "dropship" vehicle of sort. Starting out "Empty", it would be "filled" when crafting a new dropship altogether. When a dropship is crafted, the related craft would then fill the bay within the room. When away on planet, it would be replaced by an "AWAY" sign making it unable to be used and unable to craft another. Current dropship could be "unassembled" to make room using one of the station's commands. Once and when currently "filled", using it would function akin to the "beam down" feature.... except instead of "beaming down", the player would spawn already within the "dropship" vehicles at the uppermost atmosphere of the planet. From then on, they could fly and travel wherever they want a bit on the planet until they either lands and exit the dropship(like any regular vehicles) or go back in the sky and hit up the "return to starship" function. At first it could be only the one non-armed or armed dropship, but alternatively the station might actually allow multiple kinds: an unarmed one-seater landing ship, larger "landing barges" that could carry an entire party(other players could get inside the ship when it's still not being deployed) and other models could even include small fighter crafts or armed planetary assault and "troop transport" able to carry a party while also possessing some weapons platform. But really, just something like "dropship deployed from dropship bay on starship" would already be QUITE something to behold in-game in the mid-late game due to the ability to quickly explore a planet's surface from the air.
I really think this idea sould make it into the game, not just looking at dropships but also looking at the upcoming mechs wich will be implemented either before or during 1.0
Why don't we expand upon this, since I have an idea for another "module". Something I've always wanted is a module to "Beam up objects" using a placeable object. So a cargohold that comes with massive amounts of storage and has the ability to 3D print "Warp capsules" could be an idea. The room would have a large amount of personal storages all having 64 slots and a console inside it would allow you to make this warpable capsules with a large wall rack for these capsules. You'd place them down, fill them with things you want to send to the ship cause your inventory is full or you're carrying resources you don't want to lose. Then you'd activate it, and similar to the terramart selling machine they have in nightly, it'll play an animation and the pod will get warped back to the ship and be visible on the wall rack. When you want to take stuff off the wall rack you simply press E on the capsule you want to salvage and it'll bust open with a bit of steam coming out as it depressurizes and the capsule will drop your stuff that you can then put into the main storage since you're back. Since the warp capsules are 3D printable and are only used in this area they'd be disposable and would need to be remade each time. Alternatively supply drops in the other way could be assembled from the same room with another console where when you use it you can define up to possibly 3 different capsules with about 8 slots, that when you load into the ship they remain there uneditable on a rack and you get a remote that can call one down. Then when you next use a planet side it simply teleports the contain to the point you "place it" and it animates in and you can take your stuff in the same way. so you can organize lunch drops while you're on the planet to save space for traveling.
I've been putting major thought into this as well, I have a few dropship ideas I'm thinking over for creating after 1.0 release. I like darkmega's idea because it would lend itself to beaming npcs into prison cells. When the bounty needs to be alive of course
Since you had the idea about a crafting station to make prefab rooms on the ship,how about a medbay,a mess hall and stuff like barracks and captains cabin?
Idea for capsule: Prisoner Capsule When this capsule is implemented into a room, the room gets an unbreakable prison cell with a little teleporter inside. There will then be a new button to right of screen under "beam up" button and it will look like a poptop with a beam above it. when you press it, all npcs and monsters (unique monsters, procedural four-legged, two-legged, flying, large and small monsters, friendly monsters/npcs, and hostile npcs, no critters) will become highlighted green if friendly, red if hostile, ect. in this mode you cannot move and when you click ona monster you will have to do a button-spamming minigame which is harder the more powerful or rare the npc/monster is and if you succeed, the npc/monster will get beamed up to your ship, and into the teleport in the prison cell, and then the teleporter explodes.
