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[Teneb]

Spaceports are a thing now.

Seems it should be called just "space station", but it matters little.

[Sirus]

Spaceports are a thing now.

Seems it should be called just "space station", but it matters little.

No, there's an important distinction. When people say "space station", they're referring to any artificial (relatively stationary) structure in space. Spaceports are a specific type of space station, but there are other types of space stations like research or (I assume) defense stations.

[Shadowlord]

I always pictured spaceports being on planet surfaces, like on Tatooine, and in MoO 2,

[Aklyon]

Spaceports also go there.

[Sirus]

True. Then again, in other games (Distant Worlds for one) spaceports go in orbit.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I think the obvious distinction is between a port an a station. A station can be anything, pretty much any posting anywhere, a port is a port.

[Zangi]

Station = Not connected to anything else.  Intermediary for transfer of stuff/people between boats and itself.

Port = Connected to some town/village/city/planet.  Intermediary for transfer of stuff/people between boats and planet.  Also can be referred to as a Dock.

[forsaken1111]

Just MHO but ports generally specialize in facilitating the loading/unloading/transfer/storage of goods and are mostly trade related. Space Stations may contain ports in addition to other things.

[forsaken1111]

Just MHO but ports generally specialize in facilitating the loading/unloading/transfer/storage of goods and are mostly trade related. Space Stations may contain ports in addition to other things.

Or, in space settings, construction of ships.

Generally a shipyard or "drydock"/spacedock in that case, but again can be part of an overall structure. The terms aren't really fixed, so yeah could be

[Jopax]

I think it's fairly obvious that spaceports are located in space, I mean, it's in their damn name :V

Also from a practical perspective, it's much more fuel efficcent to do all the big loading and unloading in an orbital area (to say nothing of the ease of handling cargo in zero G compared to doing it on the surface) and then using specialised craft or space elevators to distribute it planetside.

I also really hope we get space elevators, those are cool.

And with that I just realised how cool a Gundam mod of some sort would be, tho those usually take place in the solar system so there'd have to be some adjustments of scale I think.

[sambojin]

So definitely a port, that happens to be a "whatever you want" space station as well. Sounds good, and is a reliable concept in these sorts of games. Especially if there's also construction ships and carriers floating about in the mix too.

The thing about hydroponic space farms bugged me, but we don't really know what sort of scale they're going for. Or even how techy the basic civ is. They might be massive, thus actually offering substantial food for the world below (rather than just being a way of lowering resupply costs to your station/port). Is growing food for 10,000 people in space particularly helpful to the millions or billions below? Yes, but not due to gross food output. It makes things a lot better for the world supporting the station infrastructure, energy and resources wise. Unless they're huge farms that actually can feed millions.....

I do hope you can have some other more focused stations (science/defense/trade etc) eventually though. More than one per planet/star in any case, even if they're essentially immobile ships with more gubbins on them. Might get complicated, but I like complicated if it's done well. Or just plenty of customization with one available, and the techs/modules to back it up might work. Maybe with some essentially immobile ship hulls that are mini-stations for the very purpose of defense/trade/science/manufacturing. We'll see.

The rare resources sounds very well done though. Rather than the "You need uranium for nukes!" style, being able to put it into various things is great. Because uranium does more than kabooms. So should rare resources in a space game.

[Majestic7]

I hope special resources mostly allow new options, rather than just giving 5% minerals or something. Percetage bonuses are boring and forgettable; a resource allowing you to build PLANET BUSTERS is not.

[Leyic]

I think it's fairly obvious that spaceports are located in space, I mean, it's in their damn name :V

Airports.

[Hanzoku]

I think it's fairly obvious that spaceports are located in space, I mean, it's in their damn name :V

Airports.

In the sci-fi I've read, spaceports tend to fall into three categories:

1 - a ground installation used to travel to space stations or large ships in orbit. Smaller spaceships can land and takeoff from here.
2 - A ground installation and its associated space station. Large ships dock at the space station and once through customs, passengers then take shuttles/teleporter/orbital elevator down to the associated ground installation.
3 - Or indeed, a space station in orbit around the planet.

But yeah, I do agree with Leyic, just because it has space in the name doesn't mean that it has to float in space, the same as an airport isn't hovering above the ground or a seaport isn't floating in the ocean with no attachment to land.

[Majestic7]

Well, first, I don't think names matter.

...buuuuuut... in the grand old man of science fiction RPGs, Traveller, spaceport is a generic term for any place where spaceships dock/land. Highport is an orbital station serving such function, while low/groundport is a ground installation.