Contested Faction Area Control/Faction Beacons

[Parameter]

Sha3es and I were brainstorming earlier and had some neat ideas for contested faction control. Originally dreamt up in Edymnion's Yet Another Asteroid Respawn Thread

Introduction
Currently, factions can claim sectors, planets, or systems as their own. Factions get a mining bonus for claiming areas, encouraging them to claim systems they will be harvesting resourcing in.

One problem is this system doesn't promote much faction interaction. Once a faction has claimed an area, no other faction can contest the claim without destroying the faction block that's claiming it. There's not much reason to intrude in another faction's space unless you're going to destroy their station and claim the system yourself. With game changes like no asteroid regeneration, there's not even much reason for a faction to stay in a system it's been in for a while - the natural resources get depleted.

It would be nice if there was a better territory control mechanism that encouraged factions to interact and compete over important areas of the galaxy.

Here's some ideas for a possibly better approach.

Strategic Locations and Contested Space

1. Focus on adding and improving "strategic" regions of space
   
   • Sector or system resources: respawning asteroid fields, gas giants, ship graveyards, derelict stations, special shops, etc.
     
   • Travel resources: Wormholes, derelict warp gates, paths through nebula, etc.
   • etc.
2. Allow faction claims to overlap outside of faction home systems. Two or more factions can stake competing claims on systems or sectors.
3. Systems or sectors with overlapping faction claims are "Contested"
4. Each faction laying claim to a Contested sector could get a partial faction bonuses, Ex. maybe a 6x mining bonus instead of 12x.
5. Contested regions provide additional opportunities for opposing factions to gain FP, and provide a path towards one faction eventually "winning" the contest and claiming full ownership. (explained in more depth below)

How Factions Could Claim/Contest Space

• Factions can claim a system like they do now, using a station with a faction module.
• Factions can claim planets/sectors like they do now, using a faction module.
• Factions can claim 3x3x3 or 5x5x5 sector cubes inside systems using faction beacons/outposts/waypoints.
• Factions can create a contested region by claiming an area already claimed by another faction
  
  1. A faction can contest sectors in a system already claimed by another faction using faction beacons, a new faction structure.
     
  2. A faction can contest an entire system by building a competing station in the system
• Home base systems belong to the home faction cannot be contested
• Station sectors belong to station owners and cannot be contested

Faction Beacons

• These would be small, under 500-1000 mass non-combat structures that could be placed in an unoccupied sector, like an immobile mini-station.
• A Faction Beacon would claim a 3x3x3 or 5x5x5 sector cube of a system centered around the beacon for a Faction.
• Your faction could not place a faction beacon within the range of one of it's own previously-existing faction beacons.
  
• Faction beacons would cost FP to deploy and be invulnerable to normal damage, limited in mass, and unable to house weapons or station-only blocks.
• Faction beacons would be visible on the galaxy map, so you can navigate to them.
• Faction beacons would have "Influence Points" that functioned kind of like HP. Initially a beacon would have Influence equal to its FP cost. Doing things to earn your faction FP in the region of a beacon would add to its influence. Other factions doing things to gain FPs in your beacon region would damage its influence.
• Perhaps once per day or some such a faction could spend X FP to increase the influence of a beacon
• If a beacon is reduced to 0 influence, it shuts down, isn't navigable in the galaxy map, and the faction's claim on the surrounding sectors is removed.
  
• After X days of 0 influence, a faction beacon is removed from the world.

Benefits of Contested Space and Faction Beacons

• Factions can claim "interesting" or valuable areas in systems using beacons.
• Factions get bonuses in the claimed areas around beacons
• Opposing faction beacons can overlap yours, leading to contested areas
  
• Factions can't just fill a system up with beacons to prevent competition.
• Activity in a system strengthens your beacons and hurts opposing ones
• Beacons are physical representations of a faction's influence in a region.
  
• Beacons can't just be destroyed by a titan passing through. You defeat an enemy beacon by having a larger long-term presence in the region than them
• Beacons aren't big and can't be weapon platforms, but could still have beneficial stuff for a faction, like repair stations, storage, medical bays, etc. They provide a staging point for faction activity in the region
  

Actions in Contested Space

• Doing certain things in contested space would gain your Faction FP, increase the influence of your factions nearby beacons, and decrease the influence of beacons from other factions. All of the below could gain you FP, and shift influence from enemy beacons to yours:

• Mining asteroids (+ x influence to you)
  
• Destroying enemy ships (+ x influence to you, -x to influence )
  
• Destroying contesting faction ships (+ x influence to you, -x to influence )
  
• Killing contesting faction players (+ xx influence to you, -xx to opponent)
  
• Having faction players in the area (+ xx influence every interval to you, -xx every interval to opponent)
• Having allied faction players in area (+ x influence every interval to you, -x every interval to opponent)

The following actions might be applicable to a contested system:

• Selling items in faction-owned shops (+x per 100k credits)
• Building items in shipyards (+x per 10k blocks built)
• Total mass of faction structures in system (+x per 1k mass)
• Warp gate usage (+x per warp)
  
• In the future, having capital ships in contested space could give additional influence bonuses

Additionally, would be nice if there was a way to incentivize players with influence awards in contested space for doing things on planets, besides just blowing them up or mining them.


So, that was a lot of stuff. I can't claim that it's perfect, but it's interesting and will hopefully spark some conversation. Thoughts?

 

[Lecic]

4^3 would be better. It'd fit in 16^3 systems better than 3^3 or 5^3.

 

[SkyphosToTheStars]

Nothing to see here, move on

 

[Valck]

4^3 would be better. It'd fit in 16^3 systems better than 3^3 or 5^3.

True, but

• Allow faction claims to overlap outside of faction home systems. Two or more factions can stake competing claims on systems or sectors.
• Systems or sectors with overlapping faction claims are "Contested"

explicitly mentions "bleeding" into adjacent systems, so it may be of no consequence, or even desirable, if the claimed space doesn't fit nicely.

I would favor even larger volumes, say 9^3, so a system could be claimed with eight beacons (and have some overlap), provided they can be placed optimally. Even with 4^3 you'd need at least 64 beacons to fully claim a system, which seems a bit excessive. I understand you could also claim the whole system with one station, but it doesn't seem fun to have to fight around literally dozens of beacons if the defenders pepper their space with them. Having a few, but decisive battles might be more satisfying to both sides.

 

[StormWing0]

Could also make it a sort of Computer/module type thing where it has to be built into a specific shape. The Wargates are circles, the shipyards are arches, maybe the Faction Beacons could be some form of shaped box. ??? This box shaped setup could be used to scale the size of the area contested based on the size and shape of the box in question.

 

[Parameter]

True, but

explicitly mentions "bleeding" into adjacent systems, so it may be of no consequence, or even desirable, if the claimed space doesn't fit nicely.

I would favor even larger volumes, say 9^3, so a system could be claimed with eight beacons (and have some overlap), provided they can be placed optimally. Even with 4^3 you'd need at least 64 beacons to fully claim a system, which seems a bit excessive. I understand you could also claim the whole system with one station, but it doesn't seem fun to have to fight around literally dozens of beacons if the defenders pepper their space with them. Having a few, but decisive battles might be more satisfying to both sides.

Yeah, my thinking was that if you really wanted to contest an entire faction-owned system, you could build a competing station and stake a claim on the entire system using the station's faction block. The problem is the original owner could blow up your fledgling station with big guns, so if you contested the entire system you'd have to be willing to really defend the contested turf until you could take out the other faction's station.

The odd-number sector cube size for beacon claims were so that they could be easily centered around a faction beacon. I don't have a strong opinion on what the best claiming size would be for beacons. It should be big enough that it can encompass "useful" portions of system and that contested regions from overlapping opposing beacons are large enough to fight in.

The faction beacons might be a better option for claiming space if you didn't care about contesting/owning an entire system, just a specific section that had, say, respawning asteroid fields. A faction might move into an insignificant system and drop a faction beacon near some planets and asteroids, and get a faction mining bonus in the area around the beacon. However, a competing faction could drop a beacon nearby, overlapping the areas claimed by the beacons. In the contested region they would get a reduced mining bonus until one could drive the other away. They could do that by hanging out in the region, killing nearby enemy ships, and mining. Basically just doing things to exert control of the region. While they do this, they weaken the influence of the enemy beacon AND gain FP they can use elsewhere or sue to bump up their beacon's influence. Eventually, one beacon or the other runs out of influence and dies, ceding the area to the winning faction, or both factions fight over the area, both gaining FP and presumably having fun. Imagine fighting over 4-5 sectors of regenerating asteroid fields. Miners are encouraged to salvage in the area, but constantly have to watch out for raids from enemy ships, trying to destroy ships and get player kills to weaken you influence in the area. FP bonuses for being present and winning combat means contested space turns into a battleground where you fight for FP and bonuses/control over strategically useful areas, which hopefully adds some incentive to fight other factions.

 

[Sha3es]

Could also make it a sort of Computer/module type thing where it has to be built into a specific shape. The Wargates are circles, the shipyards are arches, maybe the Faction Beacons could be some form of shaped box. ??? This box shaped setup could be used to scale the size of the area contested based on the size and shape of the box in question.

It would more or less be a block that would exist in a structure, which when you loose all influence points would then destroy the structure. Or perhaps just the block itself which would then cause you to lose the ability to gain additional faction points based upon your actions in the contestant zone. Of course this is in addition to the loss of the mining bonus.
[DOUBLEPOST=1443148804,1443148587][/DOUBLEPOST]Of course the stipulation with the zone capture block is that it would only be usable on a station without existing weaponry, which is purposeful on the grounds that it will pull more players into a contested zone for the purpose of space engagement over resources and mining rights without having to worry about straying too close to titan killing base defenses in a small mining ship. Or in a small fighter for the purpose of harassing the enemy zone capture block.

 

[Sha3es]

True, but

explicitly mentions "bleeding" into adjacent systems, so it may be of no consequence, or even desirable, if the claimed space doesn't fit nicely.

I would favor even larger volumes, say 9^3, so a system could be claimed with eight beacons (and have some overlap), provided they can be placed optimally. Even with 4^3 you'd need at least 64 beacons to fully claim a system, which seems a bit excessive. I understand you could also claim the whole system with one station, but it doesn't seem fun to have to fight around literally dozens of beacons if the defenders pepper their space with them. Having a few, but decisive battles might be more satisfying to both sides.

We were thinking that a smaller area would work best since the sectors have gotten a bit bigger. Additionally, we still have the fact that you can create two stations to contest the whole sector, or create zone capture blocks for smaller areas. This way a faction cannot simply just take an entire solar system with just zone capture blocks.

 

[Sha3es]

Another thought that we had thrown around was that asteroids in these contested systems would be allowed to re spawn at some low rate or something of that effect. Only in order to keep the need for these zones to be contested

 

[unelsson]

This is the kind of development this game really needs! Possibilities for actual faction wars, contesting areas, yet keeping this all in balance with people who do not wish PvP.

The best idea is that player actions would affect system claim viability. I would like to see this along with http://starmadedock.net/threads/new-territory-system.8552/ . So instead of artificial beacons you would have stations with TCP (Territority Control Points) that would change through player actions. Not Territority Control Mass as in previous suggestion.

I´d definitely still vote for http://starmadedock.net/threads/base-invulnerability-bought-with-faction-points.20131/ to make certain important outposts invulnerable with the drawback of increased Faction Point cost per turn. This is important for balancing PvP when people are offline without hurting PvE players.

 

[Sha3es]

This is the kind of development this game really needs! Possibilities for actual faction wars, contesting areas, yet keeping this all in balance with people who do not wish PvP.

The best idea is that player actions would affect system claim viability. I would like to see this along with http://starmadedock.net/threads/new-territory-system.8552/ . So instead of artificial beacons you would have stations with TCP (Territority Control Points) that would change through player actions. Not Territority Control Mass as in previous suggestion.

I´d definitely still vote for http://starmadedock.net/threads/base-invulnerability-bought-with-faction-points.20131/ to make certain important outposts invulnerable with the drawback of increased Faction Point cost per turn. This is important for balancing PvP when people are offline without hurting PvE players.

It is a shame that this topic has not gotten a lot of views

 

[Valck]

I've been thinking a bit about the faction beacons; I don't particularly like the way they are essentially duplicating stations on a smaller scale.

How about having any faction module act as a "beacon"? Instead of placing a faction beacon, you'd simply create a zone of influence by being present in a region of space. Of course, "influence" wouldn't happen instantly, but after a certain time spent in the same general area, maybe (just for argument's sake) after ten full minutes spent in a 5x5x5 cluster of sectors, those sectors would begin to count towards influence, remain so as long as there is no competing influence, and fade slowly when presence is no longer maintained.
Faction modules don't show up on the map (at least not currently), but influenced/contested space could just as well be represented in the same way faction territory is.

It could work essentially like the beacons you suggested without the need for another kind of structure, and at the same time be more dynamic, if you will. You could still just park a ship and leave it there, but I think it would actually encourage player presence and involvement, and in a way feel more integrated.

 

[Parameter]

I've been thinking a bit about the faction beacons; I don't particularly like the way they are essentially duplicating stations on a smaller scale.

How about having any faction module act as a "beacon"? Instead of placing a faction beacon, you'd simply create a zone of influence by being present in a region of space. Of course, "influence" wouldn't happen instantly, but after a certain time spent in the same general area, maybe (just for argument's sake) after ten full minutes spent in a 5x5x5 cluster of sectors, those sectors would begin to count towards influence, remain so as long as there is no competing influence, and fade slowly when presence is no longer maintained.
Faction modules don't show up on the map (at least not currently), but influenced/contested space could just as well be represented in the same way faction territory is.

It could work essentially like the beacons you suggested without the need for another kind of structure, and at the same time be more dynamic, if you will. You could still just park a ship and leave it there, but I think it would actually encourage player presence and involvement, and in a way feel more integrated.

I generally like your idea, and would have followed something like it to begin with, but I couldn't work around a couple of issues I saw.

In my mind, conflict between factions should be focused around "hot" areas, places where the factions are drawn into competition over space or resources. This is especially useful in Starmade because of the relatively low player density - you want to give players a reason to hang out in the same area and duke it out with each other instead of spreading out and rarely contacting each other.

This led to the idea of Contested Space - a region multiple factions could fight for. Mechanically, contested space should give players a reason to do stuff in it, so the idea of partial faction bonuses and FP for actions in Contested regions were developed.

The problem was how to designate contested space. Initially, I thought maybe a faction leader would spend FP to contest other faction's claims via the galaxy map - after all, it's where the faction region's are shown. However, that fails to give any in-space indication that a region is claimed, and could lead to a lot of regions that are contested "on-paper," but have no actual players involved in the area.

So, next I thought about placing a marker in sectors that are claimed by a faction. You could build a station that exerted a claim over a small region. The problem is that stations are expensive in both resources and time to build, and if you build a station you already have the ability to claim an entire system. Why would you only claim a 5x5x5 region of space when you could claim an entire system? Only being able to claim or contest an entire system diffuses players over too large and area, IMO.

The other, bigger problem with a station, or any physical object that represents a claim for that matter, is its lifespan. Ideally, a space contested by two factions should be won by the faction that is most invested in keeping it. Imagine two factions - both moderate-sized factions with a dozen players with mid-sized ships. They both want control over a respawning asteroid field, so they both build stations and claim it. This results in contested space where they fight, mine, and generally have fun. Now imagine a third faction, The Trollface. It's a single person who hangs out in the edge of the galaxy, and has a massive titan. He flies his titan through the contested space one night and insta-gibs both stations, then sails off into the void. Now, no factions have any claim on the asteroid field, and no longer get any bonus for mining there. They have to go off in search of other, perhaps worse mining locations to gather enough resources to rebuild their stations again before they can restake their claim on the asteroid field.

The above scenario seems unfun. Someone passing through with no lingering presence should not have a direct impact on who "owns" an area. Sure, a passing titan could potentially annihilate a small regional squabble, but the squabble should still be able to continue after the titan passes through, even if a large part of their infrastructrue is destroyed. Associating territorial claims with destructible objects means battlefields only last as long as the first titan attack or midnight raid.

That's why I suggested that beacons be indestructible mini-stations deployed with FP.

• Beacons have no HP/are immune to normal weapons. Beacons are destroyed only when a faction loses influence over a region, not when the first successful attack is mounted on it. This makes region control a series of battles, not a single skirmish.
• Beacons are glorified territory markers. I suggested "mini-stations" so that factions could customize the look to suit their faction, and maybe add some small non-combat resources.
• Beacons should help with faction coordination in a region. Beacons would show up on the galaxy map, so they're easy to navigate to. ("Alpha and Delta Wings deploy to Beacon 4 and lead the assault. I'll jump Bravo Wing to Beacon 2 once you engage and hit their flank."))
  
• Beacons define "their" side versus "ours" in a conflict ("Push them back to their beacon so we can take out their mining convoy!").
  
• Beacons only require FP to spawn. Factions should earn FP doing "fun stuff," whether mining or fighting or trading, etc., so it shouldn't be a grind to deploy faction beacons. Also, contested areas give more opportunity for FP gain, so they breed additional conflict when factions look to use that FP.

 

[Valck]

If influence is something that accumulates over time, and on the other hand takes some time to dissipate, I don't see how the passing titan would change that. Sure, it could destroy any entities currently exerting influence and add some of its own if it stays long enough, but once it is gone, the established influences would continue, albeit beginning to diminish, unless or until the competing factions renew their claims by sending new ships. Those wouldn't even need to be war ships, if you just mined some region long enough, you'd establish an influence simply by being there, whether you care or not.

As to beacons as tactical assets, I'd rather use pre-shared waypoints than give my positions and intended movements away to the enemy. Of course a means of sharing waypoints among your faction would help, but that's not really relevant here.
Likewise, why would anyone need to push the opposition back to some beacon, if the goal is to drive them away from that convoy - the convoy itself being the marker that is required. Again, it would help if there were some way to mark tactical waypoints and regions on the map for members of your faction/task force, but that's another topic.

I'm still not convinced there needs to be another kind of structure for the sake of marking territory, I think maybe with some more brainstorming and finding corner cases, it could be pulled off without requiring additional helper entities.

 

[Sha3es]

If influence is something that accumulates over time, and on the other hand takes some time to dissipate, I don't see how the passing titan would change that. Sure, it could destroy any entities currently exerting influence and add some of its own if it stays long enough, but once it is gone, the established influences would continue, albeit beginning to diminish, unless or until the competing factions renew their claims by sending new ships. Those wouldn't even need to be war ships, if you just mined some region long enough, you'd establish an influence simply by being there, whether you care or not.

As to beacons as tactical assets, I'd rather use pre-shared waypoints than give my positions and intended movements away to the enemy. Of course a means of sharing waypoints among your faction would help, but that's not really relevant here.
Likewise, why would anyone need to push the opposition back to some beacon, if the goal is to drive them away from that convoy - the convoy itself being the marker that is required. Again, it would help if there were some way to mark tactical waypoints and regions on the map for members of your faction/task force, but that's another topic.

I'm still not convinced there needs to be another kind of structure for the sake of marking territory, I think maybe with some more brainstorming and finding corner cases, it could be pulled off without requiring additional helper entities.

The only way a passing titan can gain influence in this zone is to set up its own zone. Therefore, we reduce some of the risks taken by simply operating in systems away from large forces. This would hopefully ensure that a passing titan can not simply pass through a regional conflict and just destroy all the two conflicting factions have worked for. Which of course would be a higher asteroid re spawn rate and a potentially higher mining bonus based on the influence points that the factions zone has.

 

[Parameter]

If influence is something that accumulates over time, and on the other hand takes some time to dissipate, I don't see how the passing titan would change that. Sure, it could destroy any entities currently exerting influence and add some of its own if it stays long enough, but once it is gone, the established influences would continue, albeit beginning to diminish, unless or until the competing factions renew their claims by sending new ships. Those wouldn't even need to be war ships, if you just mined some region long enough, you'd establish an influence simply by being there, whether you care or not.

As to beacons as tactical assets, I'd rather use pre-shared waypoints than give my positions and intended movements away to the enemy. Of course a means of sharing waypoints among your faction would help, but that's not really relevant here.
Likewise, why would anyone need to push the opposition back to some beacon, if the goal is to drive them away from that convoy - the convoy itself being the marker that is required. Again, it would help if there were some way to mark tactical waypoints and regions on the map for members of your faction/task force, but that's another topic.

I'm still not convinced there needs to be another kind of structure for the sake of marking territory, I think maybe with some more brainstorming and finding corner cases, it could be pulled off without requiring additional helper entities.

So, are you suggesting that just the presence of a faction's entity is enough to claim a sector or contest it? That would seem a little strange to me. A faction's miner would "carry around" a faction mining bonus wherever it went just by loitering for a bit before eating asteroids.

I would expect that claiming or contesting territory should cost a faction something, to prevent a faction just claiming all of known space for the bonuses.

I agree that physical beacons aren't required to have contested space. You could forgo having a physical representation of claimed space and represent everything in the Galaxy map, as an example.

However, physical marking structures do provide a tangible indicator as to where and why a given set of sectors is claimed by a faction. As proposed, beacons also act as a kind of "outpost" for areas that don't warrant the cost and logistics of maintaining a full station in the region. Watchtowers and guard houses are historically ways that empires have maintained control over larger areas without the expense of castle or larger fortification at every major intersection. Starmade could use similar feature, even if it's not tied to faction area claims.

 

[Valck]

So, are you suggesting that just the presence of a faction's entity is enough to claim a sector or contest it? That would seem a little strange to me. A faction's miner would "carry around" a faction mining bonus wherever it went just by loitering for a bit before eating asteroids.

I would expect that claiming or contesting territory should cost a faction something, to prevent a faction just claiming all of known space for the bonuses.

I agree that physical beacons aren't required to have contested space. You could never have a physical representation of claimed space and represent everything in the Galaxy map, as an example.

However, physical marking structures do provide a tangible indicator as to where and why a given set of sectors is claimed by a faction. As proposed, beacons also act as a kind of "outpost" for areas that don't warrant the cost and logistics of maintaining a full station in the region. Watchtowers and guard houses are historically ways that empires have maintained control over larger areas without the expense of castle or larger fortification at every major intersection. Starmade could use similar feature, even if it's not tied to faction area claims.

Basically yes, the presence of an entity is what constitutes influence.

With regards to mining, whether that in itself brings a mining bonus, and if so the exact value, would require balancing of course. Consider if you mine an area for an extended period of time (not to be confused with the hypothetical ten minutes to begin accumulating influence in my earlier post), you might become more familiar with the distribution of resources, which might or might not give a bonus, and in itself might be an incentive to establish a continued presence there. "Claiming for the bonus" could easily be balanced by adjusting the rates at which "influence" accumulates and diminishes.
Also, a mining bonus might require expenditure of faction points once the faction has accumulated significant enough influence. That could be the case within minutes or days, again, a balancing issue.

Watchtowers and guard houses already have their equivalent in the form of stations and patrol ships. If you don't want to build a station, just "anchor" a ship to oversee a region. It wouldn't even need to be manned, and if you wanted a navigational beacon or border marker, you could simply use cores with minimal systems. No need for new mechanics there.
The amount, and maybe the radius, of influence gained might be connected to ship mass and/or value, however that would be defined, to counteract factions swamping regions with two-block "ships".

Please understand that I am not trying to shoot down your ideas, but to give (hopefully) constructive feedback ; )

 

[Sha3es]

Basically yes, the presence of an entity is what constitutes influence.

With regards to mining, whether that in itself brings a mining bonus, and if so the exact value, would require balancing of course. Consider if you mine an area for an extended period of time (not to be confused with the hypothetical ten minutes to begin accumulating influence in my earlier post), you might become more familiar with the distribution of resources, which might or might not give a bonus, and in itself might be an incentive to establish a continued presence there. "Claiming for the bonus" could easily be balanced by adjusting the rates at which "influence" accumulates and diminishes.
Also, a mining bonus might require expenditure of faction points once the faction has accumulated significant enough influence. That could be the case within minutes or days, again, a balancing issue.

Watchtowers and guard houses already have their equivalent in the form of stations and patrol ships. If you don't want to build a station, just "anchor" a ship to oversee a region. It wouldn't even need to be manned, and if you wanted a navigational beacon or border marker, you could simply use cores with minimal systems. No need for new mechanics there.
The amount, and maybe the radius, of influence gained might be connected to ship mass and/or value, however that would be defined, to counteract factions swamping regions with two-block "ships".

Please understand that I am not trying to shoot down your ideas, but to give (hopefully) constructive feedback ; )

I think our intent was to give a faction the ability to control and harvest resources. Of course without having to worry about needing to expend the resources necessary to create a fully operational base of operations.

Thus the reasoning for the influence zone being a small part of the system in question, which would also allow other factions to roll in and try to fight for the same material gains. Or if you would desire, being able to enter a system where there is a fully operational station from another faction, and then poach and collect resources from them in their own system. All while your activity in the part of the system you control allows you to mine more/ faster it would be a choice for the faction to decide.

 

[Parameter]

Basically yes, the presence of an entity is what constitutes influence.

With regards to mining, whether that in itself brings a mining bonus, and if so the exact value, would require balancing of course. Consider if you mine an area for an extended period of time (not to be confused with the hypothetical ten minutes to begin accumulating influence in my earlier post), you might become more familiar with the distribution of resources, which might or might not give a bonus, and in itself might be an incentive to establish a continued presence there. "Claiming for the bonus" could easily be balanced by adjusting the rates at which "influence" accumulates and diminishes.
Also, a mining bonus might require expenditure of faction points once the faction has accumulated significant enough influence. That could be the case within minutes or days, again, a balancing issue.

Watchtowers and guard houses already have their equivalent in the form of stations and patrol ships. If you don't want to build a station, just "anchor" a ship to oversee a region. It wouldn't even need to be manned, and if you wanted a navigational beacon or border marker, you could simply use cores with minimal systems. No need for new mechanics there.
The amount, and maybe the radius, of influence gained might be connected to ship mass and/or value, however that would be defined, to counteract factions swamping regions with two-block "ships".

Please understand that I am not trying to shoot down your ideas, but to give (hopefully) constructive feedback ; )

I definitely appreciate the discussion so far, let's keep it going! My hope in throwing out my original wall of text was that it would inspire some constructive conversation like this.

I can get behind the idea of ships building influence wherever they go. It's a nice, clean, intuitive setup. I might suggest, though, that player actions build influence in a sector, in addition to their presence. Actively mining or destroying enemy ships, for instance, should also increase influence. I still don't know if it buys you the flexibility of defining contested areas that strategically placed beacons do. Sha3es did a good job of laying out some of the benefits of the original approach in the post above mine.

If player/ship presence is how you build influence, how do you determine if a sector is contested? How do you resolve it in favor of one faction or another? It would be weird to me for a single ship loitering in another faction's system to initiate a contested claim for that region. I would expect either officially staking a claim (like dropping a beacon or some such), or a repeated presence in an area would be required to make a region contested. Similarly, in a contested region, would anything "degrade" another faction's influence besides time? What would you suggest as a mechanism for determining when one faction has "won" control of a contested region?

Thanks for the continued interesting conversation!

 

[Valck]

Thus the reasoning for the influence zone being a small part of the system in question, which would also allow other factions to roll in and try to fight for the same material gains.

It would be weird to me for a single ship loitering in another faction's system to initiate a contested claim for that region. I would expect either officially staking a claim (like dropping a beacon or some such), or a repeated presence in an area would be required to make a region contested. Similarly, in a contested region, would anything "degrade" another faction's influence besides time? What would you suggest as a mechanism for determining when one faction has "won" control of a contested region?

Good point, contesting claims should only be possible if the parties are hostile towards each other. A possibly interesting edge case would be a unilateral declaration of war. However, some mechanism might be required in general to ensure consensual PvP, either as a server setting or moderation guideline, or between players themselves in some form of opt-in or -out.
A neutral or allied faction should have no negative effect on existing claims or influences, maybe even contribute to the influence of the established party (through trade and general traffic, tourism, what have you).


Please don't feel offended if much of the following may seem obvious or repetitive, and please voice concerns if you feel it doesn't make sense ; )

Generally, any individual ship would only exert influence over a limited volume of space, like the n^3 sectors that were discussed earlier, possibly depending on its mass or some other statistic. Influence in that volume would increase over time if uncontested, and once a certain threshold is crossed, the whole (16^3) system might count towards faction space. This threshold could be reached immediately if a station claims the system as it is now, or even a station might need some time to build enough influence.

Likewise a contestant would have to maintain a certain presence in order to build enough influence, and once that reaches a certain threshold, the region/system would count as contested.
If a system is claimed and controlled by a faction, it should be in their own interest, and fall in their own responsibility, to limit hostile presence there.
Of course, if neither peace nor victory is an option, both parties might settle for reduced, diminishing boni, and contest along happily ever after until the region is exhausted.

During the time the system itself is not claimed, maybe only the directly "influenced" space might count as faction space, or it might give no benefits at all until faction points are spent to make it "valuable", as an abstract development of infrastructure.

Every time period (could be the same as faction turns), in any influenced region without sufficient presence to renew the influence, a flat value is subtracted from the influence total, such that a region will return first to a claimed, and later a pristine state after continued absence. Game play considerations may or may not require this to follow a logarithmic function (higher influence=higher decay), to cap possible gains with asymptotically diminishing returns.

If a region (n^3, or entire system) is contested, the contestant's influences might be subtracted from each other, with the difference given to the highest contributor, until all but one party leaves. Being contested might result in a periodic subtraction of an additional flat value, such that if a region is contested long enough, all parties would incur a net loss of influence in that region despite their presence there (again, mirroring the destructive effects of a prolonged conflict), down to no influence at all. If and when the contestants' influences fall below a certain value, the contested status is lifted. After the conflict ends, it might even take some time before any party could begin building influence again.

I very much agree with your detailed suggestions regarding player actions that should definitely be the most instrumental part of influence gain or loss, above and beyond any mere physical presence - after all, what's the point in the server playing against itself ; )