Got an amusing idea from an argument in another topic and thought it deserved a bit of thought.
Why don't we start listing out ideas for how to limit the player dynamically without making them feel they are forced to do something? Basically how would you curb the players building up massive amounts of stations and ships in an area or in general massive stations and ships? Hint it has to be done in a way it doesn't stop them from building to those numbers and masses and is also fun in some way at the same time.
1) Player VS AI Conflict: What happens here is this exploits the fact both the player and AI are going to be working with limited resources even if the resources being mined in a system are respawning at a set interval. Enemy NPC Factions to a given player would try and attack them as able and the more mass a player has in a given area the more likely this is to happen. The more mass a player concentrates in an area the more dangerous the attacks on that area will get until the mass amount starts going down either by losing that mass or it just moving out of the area. Now the player could use their NPCs armies to do the same thing to other players or the enemy AI factions as well allowing them to trim them down so they don't get too dangerous. Keep in mind though as a Faction builds up mass in an area be it player or AI the likelihood of it being attacked by its enemies goes up so even AI factions would try to blow each other up if they got enough mass in an area. So this wouldn't mean to much of an issue for server stability since these fights would likely end rather fast unless loaded but each time a fight breaks out it means there are less ships and resources for them to use if they want to keep fighting and at some point they'll run out and have to hide.
Anyone else got some ideas?
Why don't we start listing out ideas for how to limit the player dynamically without making them feel they are forced to do something? Basically how would you curb the players building up massive amounts of stations and ships in an area or in general massive stations and ships? Hint it has to be done in a way it doesn't stop them from building to those numbers and masses and is also fun in some way at the same time.
1) Player VS AI Conflict: What happens here is this exploits the fact both the player and AI are going to be working with limited resources even if the resources being mined in a system are respawning at a set interval. Enemy NPC Factions to a given player would try and attack them as able and the more mass a player has in a given area the more likely this is to happen. The more mass a player concentrates in an area the more dangerous the attacks on that area will get until the mass amount starts going down either by losing that mass or it just moving out of the area. Now the player could use their NPCs armies to do the same thing to other players or the enemy AI factions as well allowing them to trim them down so they don't get too dangerous. Keep in mind though as a Faction builds up mass in an area be it player or AI the likelihood of it being attacked by its enemies goes up so even AI factions would try to blow each other up if they got enough mass in an area. So this wouldn't mean to much of an issue for server stability since these fights would likely end rather fast unless loaded but each time a fight breaks out it means there are less ships and resources for them to use if they want to keep fighting and at some point they'll run out and have to hide.
Anyone else got some ideas?