Since cappies are coming, we'll need to dock them sometimes, either to repair, reload or pilot/owners go to sleep. We need some shipyards big enough to dock capital ship...

Since there are no heavy industries nor shipyards...

Suggestion:

Grow some stations, make them 5x (of 10x) bigger, and add lauch and docking bay big enough for capships.

This should include Capitals and a few "factory" stations, as TPG and Tunguska barracks becoming military industries. The "CapBay" should be a huge box, just like a supersized launch bay. Its external shield would prevent small ships from crossing, so it only can be used by cappies (maybe moths also).

For better visual effect, fill it with a dense fog, so it improves visual experience hiding that the ship simply vanished.

(probably all lauch/docking bays should receive the same "smoke box".)

As result, player-owned cappies should travel to nearest station with "CapBays" to be able to dock. Reasoning is that it is only possible to dock a Trident to a shipyard type station.

Except "dense fog" which has good reasons in your comment, but I don't like it too much.
+1

Really, a shipyard in space wouldn't need to be large. It would just need a large structure nearby for building/servicing capital ships. Something similar to the scaffolding used in Edras for the hive event we had in Nov would be suitable.

It would be awesome to stop by a TPG ship yard station and see a half-built connie surrounded by scaffolding with NPCs working on it. :)

I think abortretryfail's idea makes more sense.

either or both! I like the idea of having 10 times larger stations, it would look awesome.

Yeah, it would look awesome, but it would also involve a lot more work. I just don't see it happening anytime soon.

This general broad-concept of shipyards has been planned for years, yes, I agree.

It can be simply a (very) large cuboid (box), almost like an earth's factoly plant, with CapBays on each site, as a starter. Simple as possible to build, no fancy fexture required (despite some windows improve its look.

Just like that, purely functional design. And visually matching the remaing VO, re-using same textures and 3D objects and decorations from stations. Even the CapBays should be simply a oversize regular lauch bay... and filled with dense fog to make cappies slowly fade.

Maybe a few years later we could see bots assembling a huge ships in open space, but lets consider that cappies are build inside pressurized, life-supporting, closed areas.

Inc, is it possible to create the dense fog confined inside the CapBay?

Why not a series of very large octagonal superstructures where the capship simply stays, so there's a limit to how many are docked at once, and not a rather fake fog and disappearing ships? Docking struts could cling to the hull in various places depending on what ship it is when the activate is pressed, and maybe an airdock/airlock or something.

Somehow I don't like the idea of simply oversizing docking bays for capital ships. It seems less than creative.

but if you cant actually dock a capship somewhere, it'll be sitting around in space vulnerable to attack while the pilot(s) are afk, sleeping, eating w/e..

i dont think anyone would want to return from nessecary IRL activities to see their capship had been destroyed or in need of major repairs while it was sitting out in space not really 'docked'.

What's the alternative? Flying them into heavily fogged areas and having them disappear?

Give these spacedocks a certain amount of shields, maybe such that it could be downed by two rag bombers. If these shields are ever destroyed, whoever does damage to the ship should lose most or even all of their standing at whoever owns the station, down to a KoS even. This also paves the way for a type of insurrance, that all repairs will be covered after such an event for a small weekly fee, probably small enough that one capship repair could cover a few months of these fees. Or something. Just not disappearing.

I cant see players simply damaging a cappie and stopping. I also would be very upset if my cappie was ass-ploded while I was at work or sleeping. Docked Cap ships will have to be invincible or Incarnate will end up in an asylum from all the complaints.

Well PaK, you might have a point.. but I would like to have it kinda random. Just like if you park your car,
valet even.. it's a toss up if things get damaged or not. I might not drive your Chevy, but I'm definitely going
to test out your Porsche for possible defects. ;)

Please remember cappies aren't that easy to destroy in their own right, but with docking shields and extra turrets in the sectors, Strike Force and station guards... make the docking shields recharge when all players leave the sector. That could be another way to prevent coordinated strikes. Though easy to work around, removes one player from the equation.