This is not entirely the fault of StarMade devs, this is also the servers fault for not giving people anything to do, the one exception to this was EI, their faction config gave players much more PVP content so the players had something to acheive, something to defend, something to PVP for, if more servers used it, it would be marvellous!
While I did like the mission of EI, to promote better PVP. Even their approach left much to be desired, "much more PVP content" is a vast overstatement. What EI was set up to do in practice was punish anything except open/total warfare between factions.
Except in PVP terms that is the most excessive and wasteful form of PVP, leading to mass resource and time investment loss for one party while the other snowballs in power and resources. The cycle repeats and one is left king of the hill, eventually to either lead to boredom or to lose stuff in offline attacks.
If we want PVP we also want to allow it below total war levels so that it's made sustainable for a server population. Things like bounty hunting and PvPvE type events where people fight over x-macguffin short-term. Having two factions fight to the death justs leads to less PvP over all in the long term.
If we can't achieve that then perhaps at least we can make attrition-based warfare part of the faction PvP dynamic. Have it require a certain number of deaths/losses before territory can be taken(or at least make it harder otherwise?) To promote longer term warfare.
Unrelated to my previous point but imagination building for some is it's own endgame, they like to recreate their favourite franchises ships and etc. And honestly I would think that 90% of the playtime across the community for starmade is probably building, not only because it's the most fleshed-out part of the game but because it's the most time intensive part. (Mining is a close second, but building is more fun than mining.)
Aannnnd third point. Not directed at imagination.
We do very much need PvE content, high-risk high-reward options as well as possability to grind in relative safety. Pretty much the kind of starmade universe that I would hope to have is one where ai and player factions (as well as sub-faction entities.) are part of a single interactive universe.
Some space would, at least at the start, be relatively lawful. Everyone would start as part of a public galactic federation-type faction. Bottom rank only giving one the ability to dock and to have permissions set to personal. You'd then have access to what could be early game content.
Early game content - PvE
- trading (/w possible missions. Bonus credit rewards?)
- Ai-pirate hunting. (w/ possible missions. Bonus credit rewards?)
- Exploration? (We've had suggestions for things like this before. Credit rewards etc etc)
- Escort missions? - (Missions are going to happen, so why not the most hated kind? More credit rewards.)
- Missions in general (Defend x to its destination, deliver y cargo to z sector.)
Early game content - PvP
- Piracy (Might be difficult in what is lawful space, also will lead you to being ejected from the Galactic Federation. Should allow for forgiveness after x-amount of time. )
- Player pirate hunting. (These targets will be free PvP for everyone.)
- Merc work. (Weaker factions might benefit from some extra help, integrate with missions and a possible temp_faction system and you can have easy merc hiring and combat.)
- PvP missions are also an option, what about defending a convoy v.s a player pirate? (The player pirate getting this information from the ever present pirate faction.)
After gathering credits and blocks you reach the mid-game. Where you go into wild space to either tame it for your own or for those loner-types extend the reach of the federation.
Now your future path likely depends on how you acted towards the Fed. If your membership is pirate heavy then they will not hesitate to declare war and war missions against your faction will be given out. Kill x number of players or conquer a territory.
Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing, if those missions fail it will increase (some equivilent to FP, but not as excessive or useless as FP, will still call FP) and if they succeed it will decrease your FP. Territory in this system doesn't increase FP but is required to store FP. The more FP is stored in a system the harder it is to take. FP cap is related to how far a system is from a claim station. (more than 2 systems away means practically none.)
Mission failure doesn't mean that the mission runs out of time however. It means that the defending faction completes the conditions instead of the attacker. (Ie fed calls a war mission on, the galactic empire. But the galactic empire kills all the attackers.)
How we make high FP systems harder to take? No idea there, I thought maybe applying a damage reduction to the station might be the way forward. With the homebase by default being a 100 fp system(which only loses FP when all other systems are depleted. And even then only if that's enabled.)
10fp = 10% damage reduction. Etc etc.
However all this is just for endgame pirate PvE...
Faction PvP:
Requires war missions to be called by either faction if you want to eventually kill the homebase. Trying to wipe out a faction on good terms with the Fed is probably difficult as well, best targets are fellow warring factions.
As battles are won the losing side suffers FP decrease. Stations begin to become more and more vulnerable. Depending on the target factions might decide to sacrifice certain claim stations since they control their distribution of FP.
Faction PvP war missions are long term and if they lapse then both sides suffer major FP loss. Say maybe a week in length, most should resolve before then. But some may prefer it lapse since both sides will become very vulnerable.
Pretty much this system will either result in one side trying to go for peace or suffer total destruction.
Economic PvE:
Now these guys are the opposite of the faction PvP crowd, no fighting. Only money. And lots of it. Very likely to be allied directly to the galactic fed or another player faction.
In a normal faction FP would spread from a claim system and spill over into neighboring systems, to expand owned territory. However an option exists to instead turn excess FP into credits, to symbolize the power of economic clout to produce dividends. Power begets money and money begets money.
Once again the mission system comes into play. Economic-based factions can take on supplying missions with an increased frequency and with increased rewards. The missions they give out are also tipped advantegously to their side of the bargain. Although these missions aren't likely to be taken by players (because players don't get the concept of bulk-discounts at all.) they will eventually be completed by ai allowing the faction to gain blocks en-masse.
Pretty much for these guys obtaining resources is a matter of time. Except with FP caps and limited systems, they aren't all that good at warring.
With their excessive wealth they can pay top-prices to nearby PvP and PvE factions to ward off any threats player or otherwise.
Now there was more, but I lost my train of thought after this.
TLDR: Starmade needs content, im not saying implement this but it feels like a step in the right direction.
