Knack's Faction overhaul

[Knack]

I was thinking about not posting this, because Lancake postet this http://starmadedock.net/threads/different-faction-point-system-promotes-faction-war-expansion.7166/
But because this is different and I was thinking for a few days about this, here it is

This suggestion tries to improve the faction point system and make the faction-life a little more interesting.
At first I introduce a new system and security level system, in point 2 the faction point earnings an expenses are described, in point 3 the effect on gameplay is pointed out and in the last point you will find an example.

FP .. Faction point

1. Systems and scurity levels

1.1 Systems

• Inner (Core) systems
• Outer systems

1.1.1 Inner systems

• Cost FPs per turn
• More mining bonus
• Security-level: High
• Cheaper stations

1.1.2 Outer system

• Brings FPs per turn
• Normal mining bonus
• Security-level: Low

1.2 Security levels

Currently a faction can only set "Consider neutrals as enemy" to prevent others from flying into their territory.
I would change this to three security levels with three stages.

1.2.1 Security levels

• High (Inner systems)
• Low (Outer systems)
• None (All other systems)

1.2.2 Stages

• Faction only (Everyone but Factionmembers will be considerd as enemy)
• Allies (Neutrals will be considerd as enemy)
• Public (Nobody except enemies will be considerd as enemy)

You are allowed to freely adjust the security stage per level.
Also "auto declare war on hostile action" should take care of the security levels. If you are in a system where you haven't the permission to be in, if you get attacked by the owning faction, auto-war should not be applied. "Auto declare war on hostile action" should only work in neutral or friendly (not own) territory.
Additionaly there should be an option to auto declare war on territory violation, maybe for each security level. Territory violation would be, if someone doesn't leave territory within 30 (or 60?) seconds after a warning-message popped up.

2. FP income and expenses

Factions get basic income from members and claimed outer systems and additional income from things in their claimed territory.
Factions have expenses from inner systems, stations, negative things in their claimed territory and big ships.

This things give you additional income if in your claimed territory:

• Active trading stations (not the shops)
• Planets with intact planetcore
• Suns and massive suns.

This things cause additional expenses if in your claimed territory:

• Active pirate stations
• Enemy stations

If a faction runs out of FPs it will begin to lose inner systems and stations (Randomly one per turn), the Homebase will become vulnerable and the faction can't claim anything new. Max FP dept is caped at -100, to prevent that a faction has no chance to rebuild its empire.

2.1 FP Income (per Turn):

.. 20 FP per online Player
.... 5 FP per offline Player (not inactive)
.. 15 FP per Outer system
.... 1 FP per active trading station (not shops) in claimed territory
.... 5 FP per sun in claimed territory
.. 10 FP per massive sun in claimed territory
.... 5 FP per planet with intact planetcore in claimed territory

2.2 FP Expenses (per Turn):

.. 30 FP per Inner system
.... 1 FP per active pirate station
.... 5 FP per station in Inner system
.. 10 FP per station in Outer system
.. 20 FP per station in unclaimed or enemy system
.... 1 FP per 10k mass of faction ship. (Smaller than 10k mass cost nothing, all neutrals docked to homebase count as faction ships to prevent abuse)
.... 5 FP per enemy station

2.3 FP Expenses event based:

.. 20 FP per player death
.. 50 FP to claim a system
.. 20 FP to claim a station or planet
.... 5 FP to claim a ship (no matter of size)

3. Effect on gameplay

3.1 Singleplayer

At the moment your posibilities to expand your faction-empire are very limited.
With this system it would be possible to claim more than 2 or 3 systems. But in the end, there wouldn't change much, because in singleplayer you only need a faction for the mining bonus.

3.2 Multiplayer/Server

First, factions are able to restrict the access to certain systems. Not only to neutrals but also to allies. Adding restrictions per faction-rank could be implemented. Inner sectors also offer a little protection, because noone except a factionmember is allowed to build stations there.
There is a actual need of FP because without them, you can't claim ships and will lose stations and sectors and income and expenses are better balanced so it should not happen that a faction has hundrets of thousands FPs.
Because suns and planets give additional FP, the voids are not as worthful as star-systems. Massive stars or dual-star-systems are more worthful than normal star-systems. There will be war if there is a system with two suns and some planets. You would have to defend the planets.
There is a reason to clear your systems from pirate. On servers with many factions you will see, space is not infinite (or possibly it is and the galaxies just make sense).

4. Example

Example faction with 3 players, one inner and one outer system, 3 planets, homebase + one station in inner and one staton in outer system, normal suns:
60 FP from players online
or
15 FP from players offline
15 FP from outer system
15 FP from planets
10 FP from suns
------------
55 FP offline; 100 FP online
------------
-30 FP from inner system
- 5 FP from station in inner system
-10 FP from station in outer system
------------
-45 FP
------------
Total 10 FP offline
Total 55 FP online
This faction could hold the upkeep from 100k total mass of ships while offline. If they want more, they have to expand.


If we just had a MOD-API or something, i would try to implement this

Other (old) threads about factions:
http://starmadedock.net/threads/faction-points-for-claimed-territorry.6562/ <= similar in FP earnings
http://starmadedock.net/threads/faction-diplomacy-alliances-and-wars.6293/ <= suggesting diplomacy
http://starmadedock.net/threads/faction-owned-system-sector-custom-relations.6225/ <= similar to Inner/Outer sectors
http://starmadedock.net/threads/faction-points-and-capital-ships.5909/ <= Ships cost FP

Copyright of all spell-, grammar-, or other mistakes belongs to me :p

 

[NeonSturm]

Copyright of all spell-, grammar-, or other mistakes belongs to me :p

I don't simply do plaincopies, I already decided when I will re-create these before I got born :p

You are allowed to freely adjust the security stage per level.
Also "auto declare war on hostile action" should take care of the security levels. If you are in a system where you haven't the permission to be in, if you get attacked by the owning faction, auto-war should not be applied.

And your turrets won't react automatically ???
I think a conflict should happen (a temporary war as result of weapon fire directed to you).

Also it should show sector borders where you don't have permission in red.

No player shall be forced to remember these.
Also dis-orientation may prevent you from leaving these in time.​

What happens if you drop out of warp in the middle of one? 60s might not be enough to get out.

Perhaps you even get out of one just to get into the second you aren't allowed to be.
And if crossing would reset the limit, I would continue to hop between two through your territory.​

1.2 Security levels

Currently a faction can only set "Consider neutrals as enemy" to prevent others from flying into their territory.
I would change this to three security levels with three stages.

Just 3?

I would give players full 4 bit for each sector and for turret-ai (at least).

2 bit Sector : 0=faction-only , 1=with-allies, 2=with-ceasefire, 3=with-neutral

and enemy is enemy.​

2 bit Turret : 0=auto-attack-enemies , 1=return-fire , 2=hold-fire , 3=auto-attack-neutrals
1 bit : active.
1 bit for personal use (logic) or more security levels.


I really can't agree on the OP. This would introduce too many flaws.

But having at least more aggro-levels for AI and options for sector-permissions would be nice.​

 

[Knack]

And your turrets won't react automatically ???
I think a conflict should happen (a temporary war as result of weapon fire directed to you).

Why shouldn't the turrets react?
You fly in a forbidden sector, warning pops up, after 30 seconds everything becomes red (enemy) and all turrets will start firing. (Or everything in the sector is always red, I don't care)
I don't get your point.
It just should not auto-declare war, except territory violation is counted as war.

Also it should show sector borders where you don't have permission in red.

You can just open the galaxy map and enable the colour per relation option.

What happens if you drop out of warp in the middle of one? 60s might not be enough to get out.

So you blame the sun if you jump into one, because you were to lazy to look up the route?
A jump-drive charges at least in ~45secs, you are able to jump out (as long as you haven't really bad luck)

 

[NeonSturm]

It just should not auto-declare war, except territory violation is counted as war.

Isn't that what makes things red?

You can just open the galaxy map and enable the colour per relation option.

Don't want to check this every time I enter a new sector/system. It should be visible without entering the galaxy map (a bit like in shell-core command, a free2play flash game)

So you blame the sun if you jump into one, because you were to lazy to look up the route?

The positions of suns is more predictable. They are shiny things that you can see and scan from afar.
But knowing where faction territory is without exploring it? ??? ?

 

[Knack]

Isn't that what makes things red?

No, if you haven't the permission for a system, all within this system is hostile. That doesn't mean that there must be a war, that is the core point of differencing between inner and outer systems.

Don't want to check this every time I enter a new sector/system. It should be visible without entering the galaxy map

So you don't check if you are just jumping in an enemy system?
The thing is, I think it would be cool if we have an indicator if the system in front of us is hostile, but that isn't in the game now.

My whole suggestion doesn't need many rework, most game mechanics are already existing and just have to be expanded.
And that is also the main difference between this and Lancakes suggestion.

 

[Effane]

Going to comment a bit here. A parallel topic had a link leading me here. http://starmadedock.net/threads/better-faction-war-system.7497/page-1

I think the current aggro system works for the most part. More options would be nice, but kind of unnecessary.
The changes to FPs is confusing. A flatter system would be easier to manage mentally for players, and the layered complexity is not needed. Imagine playing a game like asteroids of space invaders and not knowing if you will get 5 points or 50 points for shooting something due to complex activity in the game.

Ships already have an upkeep, its called the cost to build, repair and replace. Additional upkeep from FPs seems superfluous. It would be nice to have these types of options though, but as options.

Admins should be deriving this security level system. Which sort of exist in a crappy way (/sector_chmod) and needs expanded.

In single player a person just needs to edit the customfactionconfig file and give cost of claimed systems a large negative number. Or admin themselves some FPs via the admin commands (And I now cant find where I wrote it down)

In multiplayer this doesn't address multiple play styles. FPs could have many sources and uses, not just PVP.

 

[Kaamio]

Well, this seems like a good direction to explore, I like the idea of gaining fp from holding dangerous areas but it seems easily exploitable as you could just go toss up some cheap bases somewhere far away to claim systems on a good jumpship.

I don't think it would be too complicated (except maybe ship upkeeps) but it would need an ui faction budget page to keep track of it all.

Do the stations get some benefit from being in faction? If not, they shouldn't really cost anything, maybe even generate points as they provide "better area control and monitoring" while being less useful than ships in actual game functionality.

Assuming jamming and cloaking a station is not possible, they would provide a target for roaming fleets... tjen again defending them as they are now is kind of difficult/impossible I guess.

 

[Knack]

but it seems easily exploitable as you could just go toss up some cheap bases somewhere far away to claim systems on a good jumpship.

Sure, everything is somehow exploitable. But don't forget that claiming a system costs also some FP and your enemies will try to destroy your systems as fast as possible.
But I agree some extra costs depending on distance could help the balance. Therefore the calculation becomes more complex.

Do the stations get some benefit from being in faction?

For sure, unclaimed stations are usable for everyone, don't attack your enemies, you can’t claim the system from there, ...

Ship upkeep is such a optional thing. But why would you want to claim more system if you don't need more points?
If there is anything other useful you can FPs spend on, just throw away the ship upkeep

To Effane:
For sure, everything should be full customizable for the server admins, as it is in the faction-xml
I don't think that system would be to complex or confusing, especially in comparison to the system we have now.

 

[Effane]

I REALLY like numbers, don't get me wrong. But does our normal player base? I just don't want to force them to 'spreadsheet' their battle plans and expansion to handled all the crazy numbers. I do like the idea of more options.

BTW, actually a ton you can do with the faction point system now. I should write a small guide on playing with it.

 

[Kaamio]

For sure, unclaimed stations are usable for everyone, don't attack your enemies, you can’t claim the system from there, ...

Ship upkeep is such a optional thing. But why would you want to claim more system if you don't need more points?
If there is anything other useful you can FPs spend on, just throw away the ship upkeep

I was thinking more on the line that they could get some extra benefits when being supplied with faction points and maybe even some trade goods should they get implemented, getting a serious buff to shield and weapon efficiency for being such juicy, stationary targets or something like that. Or maybe an EVE style reinforce timer that renders them invulnerable and unable to function for a period of time after their shields go down enough... that could be actually very expensive if triggered and not used routinely for every station.

But yes, in want of any other FP sinks I guess fleet and station maintenance could be mechanically sensible, if not particuly good pick.