1001 MORE things you can do with faction points

[QuantumAnomaly]

Well, ok, not really a thousand and one, but hopefully the title brought you in. I'm gonna get straight to the point (for once):

Time-Based faction abilities that apply to your system!
There are a TON of ways this could be played off, giving useful credence to your faction points. Think about it. (effects, times, and points are all guesses and would need balancing, price is per system used on)

• Gold Rush: 1 hour of a x2 mining bonus (on top of faction/claimed/server bonus) - 500 faction pts.
• 360 Radar: 10 minute full-system scan permanent reveals any non-factioned cloaked or jammed units in your system - 1oo pts
• Microwave power emitters: 5 minutes +1 mil/sec power boost to all factioned ships/stations in system - 750 pts
• Impenetrable shields: 5 minutes 50% bonus ion boost (can go over cap of ships with ion already) for factioned ships/stations - 2500 pts
• Warp Bubble: 30 minutes of no jumping in (or out?) of system - 5000 pts
• Moar Boosters: 15 minutes 25% acceleration and top speed boost (up to server cap) - 500 pts
• Blot Out the Sun: 1 minute all factioned ships are cloaked - 1000 pts
• Block all communications: 5 minutes all factioned ships are radar jammed - 1500 pts
• Aggressive Negotiations: 1 hour reduced sell prices at all shops in system - 2000 pts
• Benevolent Trade Deal: 1 hour increased purchase prices at all shops in system - 2000pts

A Friend in Need
These apply to your allies

• Cloaked Trader: A one time transfer of any amount of credits: 100 pts
• Make Yourself at Home: Allies benefit from any of your current faction abilities: 2500 pts

There Will be Blood
Make your foes quiver in fear

• Basically any of the above abilities, only applied in reverse (benefits become opposite) to a faction system that you are currently at war with, for anything from 50-100% increase in faction point cost.

I think that's a good enough start to get your mental juices going. Please, provide your ideas and thoughts on this below!

 

[alterintel]

initially I didn't like the idea of faction points at all. But I really like this idea. Nice one

 

[ltmauve]

Let's not get specific with the numbers here. The costs might need to vary with territory size or faction count., and also there should be the option to set different intensity for some of them (like gold rush)
Also, these should be continuous things, costing FP every minute rather then having fixed durations. If you have the FP, keep the mining party going a little longer.

• Warp Bubble: 30 minutes of no jumping in (or out?) of system - 5000 pts

Why not:
Subspace damage: prevents nonfactions from jumping in or out of faction space.
Transwarp network: All faction ships in faction territory have their drives charge instantly for no energy cost.

Also: (And half of these are totally broken. I know)
Advanced munitions: increases damage for all faction ships
Never enough dakka: increase fire rate, reduce energy cost of firing. ( to balance increased ROF)
Overcharged launchers: increase projectile speed
Advanced targeting: increase range
Predictive algorithms: increase the accuracy of all faction AIs.
Super effective: All attacks by faction ships gain <effect> for 1/3 damage on top their normal attacks.
Valkyrie pods: All missile attacks launch way more missiles at the same target, over a few seconds.

Composite armor: All factions ships in range gain additional armor rating.
Fly her apart: All faction ships in territory get overdrive for no energy cost.
Assault carriers: All faction ships in territory get 100% defensive stop effect.
Inertial dampers: All faction ships in territory get 100% defensive explosive effect (or whichever prevents stop, push, and pull attacks).
Layered armor: Get piere and punch resistance
Reactive armor: Get explosive resistance
Hardened circuits: Get EMP resistance.
And if missed one, it'd also be here.

Hurt itself in confusion: Enemy AIs in your territory will also consider their own allies and factionmates as targets. Players have all HUD icons turn red. (AIs will only attack when actual enemies are in range.)
Dialed a black hole: One-time massive cost. If a faction ship is taking damage from a star, you may detonate the star, doing ridiculous damage to everything in the system.
Mainframe hack: If you have a ship in the same sector as an enemy station, you may lock down the station, deactivating any AIs docked to it, locking up rails (no movement or undocking,) and deactivating any ships docked to it. (No power regen, no shield regen, weapons won't fire)
Incite revolt: If you have a ship in the same sector as an enemy planet, deactivate any ships in the sector, and perform mainframe hack on all the planet plates and any stations in the sector.
Automatic redialing: subvert any enemy warpgate connection to a connection of your choice. You must have a ship in the sector of the entrance gate.

Industrious populace: Repair any entities in the same sector as a planet.
Orbital Friendship bombardment: Any enemies destroyed while this effect is active will respawn at a base. These ships have build mode disabled and cannot be blueprinted (you can't copy them)
Rush Act Loophole: Cancel Incite Revolt and Mainframe Lockup for all your territory and base.
Manchurian Agent: You may now view the locations of an enemy ships.
Raiser Sword: Sacrifice a unit. Deal its mass in damage to any enemy entity, regardless of location.
Manly Combining: Sacrifice 1+ units. Add their stats to another unit for the duration of the effect.
Hit and Run: Every time you destroy an enemy unit, gain jump drive charge.


So, as I said above, some of these are broken. Also, most of those names will cause problems for Schine, so

 

[Ixalite]

I think that many of these should be accomplished by the ships themselves. I have an example...

You could increase the range of the "push pulse" device and cause it to totally drain all hyperspace energy stored in ships in the bubble (even the carrying ship and allies) This way you could cause a "hyperspace denial" effect by ship systems.

If you want to have a secret transaction between factions, just build a stealth ship and carry the credits over manually.

I do think that utility beams should be usable by AI, so you can have AI power supply and repair turrets. Also Hyperspace denial drones.

There should never EVER under any circumstances be a ship that is completely invulnerable.

 

[ltmauve]

You could increase the range of the "push pulse" device and cause it to totally drain all hyperspace energy stored in ships in the bubble (even the carrying ship and allies) This way you could cause a "hyperspace denial" effect by ship systems.

Except that is entirely impractical. And also that'd affect your own ships as well. You can't cover your entire territory with that. The point of it is to prevent your enemies from just jumping past your fleet.

 

[QuantumAnomaly]

Let's not get specific with the numbers here. The costs might need to vary with territory size or faction count., and also there should be the option to set different intensity for some of them (like gold rush)
Also, these should be continuous things, costing FP every minute rather then having fixed durations. If you have the FP, keep the mining party going a little longer.

I highly agree with you there. I wanted to state that very idea but didnt want to clutter the original post because i tend to write novels and people dont read those things. Thought I'd get right to the point first, then discus the rest. Lovely idea tho eh?

Hurt itself in confusion: Enemy AIs in your territory will also consider their own allies and factionmates as targets. Players have all HUD icons turn red. (AIs will only attack when actual enemies are in range.)

And THAT would be the perfect counter to a surprise storm from a drone carrier. Suddenly, the drones fight for YOU!!!!! Though I may go for a name along the lines of "Hack the Planet" (because I love using movie quotes that are a little lesser known lol)

I think that many of these should be accomplished by the ships themselves. I have an example...
If you want to have a secret transaction between factions, just build a stealth ship and carry the credits over manually.

This is true, but not always possible. That's why it should be cheap-ish. If your ally is being blockaded, or is far away, or there's too much of a risk of leaving your own station, being able to remotely send credits or items would be neat.

 

[Ixalite]

Except that is entirely impractical. And also that'd affect your own ships as well. You can't cover your entire territory with that. The point of it is to prevent your enemies from just jumping past your fleet.

I don't know... I think having faction abilities be useful tactically in any way is not what this game is about. In StarMade, we make space ships. Faction wars are just a minigame (or metagame?) within the overall spaceship theme. I feel that in every instance of potential conflict, the SHIP should come first, and complicated meta rules and gimmicks should come second if they matter at all. I'm all about neat power supply features and hyperspace denial. I like extra intelligence and cool defenses. I just think these need to be based on what you BUILD, not how many alt accounts you have running at the same time. *YES I AM LOOKING AT YOU YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE*

 

[Nauvran]

I'm just leaving my old idea here
http://starmadedock.net/threads/add-on-to-the-planned-faction-system.2629/

 

[Reilly Reese]

Dialed a black hole: One-time massive cost. If a faction ship is taking damage from a star, you may detonate the star, doing ridiculous damage to everything in the system.

 

[QuantumAnomaly]

. I just think these need to be based on what you BUILD, not how many alt accounts you have running at the same time.

Yes, indeed this can be troublesome, but should somewhat be handled through admins and server settings, to at least make it more difficult to do. Almost any game you play that isnt a deathmatch style game has this issue.

To counterpoint, this could aid in things like gigantism. Want to give your ship that one-in-a-million chance to survive a run-in with an opposing titan? (not saying kill it, but maybe make it think twice about attacking you while you're mining). This is exactly the kind of solution that could turn the tides of battle and make claiming systems useful.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

Honestly, I really don't like the idea of ships stats being affected by anything other than what's in the ship systems wise. Larger factions already have the advantage of resources and manpower (at least they should), arbitrarily better ships is really pushing it.

 

[Reilly Reese]

I think a good way to spend money is just have the game initiate a wave of your faction ships as AI anywhere you want on demand. # different sizes with different costs and the game gets them based on their perms being set to faction.

 

[Ixalite]

I think a good way to spend money is just have the game initiate a wave of your faction ships as AI anywhere you want on demand. # different sizes with different costs and the game gets them based on their perms being set to faction.

I like this idea.

 

[Jh]

Or send catalogued ships out. Would have to be much more expensive but it would be like hiring mercenaries to attack someone pick which ships, how many of each, pick where to attack. Then click pay. The 'mercenaries' could then fly to the target and attack.

 

[QuantumAnomaly]

THAT would be awesome! Like hiring your own pirate wave!!!

 

[nightrune]

I thought of another use and I'd be interested in what Bench thought. We could use faction points to influence trade guild expansion. I've always thought it was silly they were everywhere from the beginning, but spending faction points to get them to build a shop close would be awesome.

 

[Bench]

I thought of another use and I'd be interested in what Bench thought. We could use faction points to influence trade guild expansion. I've always thought it was silly they were everywhere from the beginning, but spending faction points to get them to build a shop close would be awesome.

Won't really play into the plans for NPC factions going forward though.

 

[nightrune]

Won't really play into the plans for NPC factions going forward though.

Ah unfortunate, Thanks for the response.

 

[TomW1605]

can i say i think this is a great idea but it will probably be necessary to include some way to acquire faction points other than just being on line.

 

[QuantumAnomaly]

can i say i think this is a great idea but it will probably be necessary to include some way to acquire faction points other than just being on line.

I agree. I think that "questing" for the various other factions could provide small boosts of faction points as "recognition". The more your faction does to help (or hinder) others, the more well known you become after all....