Read by Council Ability to join NPC factions and empires

[Cheapskate]

Who here read the latest dev blog post and is super hyped for the future of fleets and NPC factions?

Literally everyone? That's what I thought.

The Dev post talked about multiple procedurally generated empires all throughout the galaxy... which you have to fight, ally with, crush, or be crushed by. My thought is, in addition to initially trying to make your way in the universe on your own, why not also have the option to join a pre-existing empire as it's officer?

You could join with whatever ship you built (or be issued a small vessel if you have none), and perform missions given to you by the empire you serve(attack the planet/station of one of their enemies, raid their enemy's cargo lines, etc). You will be required to complete these missions... and you won't be going alone. A lot of the time, the empire you serve will send additional independent AI ships to help you complete the missions. This will give the sense that, at this stage, you're a cog in their imperial machine. The completion of every mission brings rewards of credits, a cut of the loot, and rank.

Every rank you gain, you will be given a fully constructed, fully crewed ship to do with what you please. Claim it as your flagship, add it to your budding fleet, or just break it down and sell it. Its yours to do with as you please. The ship rewards you are given are dependent on your rank, so lower-ranked players will only receive heavy fighters, runabouts, etc. As your rank improves, you can choose between battleships, light warships, cruisers, or a small fleet of fighters.

In the event the ship you worked really hard to earn gets destroyed, hijacked, etc, you don't need to worry. Earning a ship unlocks that ship's blueprint at your local shipyard. You can replace your destroyed ships, or spend the credits you've earned from missions to stock your fleet.

Once you've established a modest fleet, you can resign from the empire you've served, taking all you've earned with you. From there, you can become mercenaries for other the highest bidder or start your an empire of your own. Or perhaps, if your rank and reputation get high enough, you could perform a hostile takeover of the empire you serve.

Personally, I think this would add a totally new and unique dynamic to single and multi player games, especially for those who roleplay. I know this is long, if you make it to the end, thanks for reading!

 

[nightrune]

I like the idea of it to help jumpstart players into the game. It makes sense that a player could work in easy sectors delivering goods fighting scavs and pirates. Then start thier own faction doing that or something else.

 

[UpperFlagAstro]

I really like this idea, however I don't like the idea of permanently owning all of the ships your faction gives you. I think there are 3 ways this could be fixed.

1: Maybe you don't get gifted larger ships from the faction you are apart of

2: When you leave the faction you don't keep ships gifted to you, only the ships you buy

3 (my personal favorite) In order to keep the ships that the faction has gifted you you have to go through a mutany of sorts. The faction would probably not be fine letting you just leave with all of the ships they gave you, so you would have to fight against your old faction. You wouldn't have to destroy the other faction but just win a significant battle, just enough for the faction to be willing to accept your independence.

I think a combination of 2 and 3 would work best, you can leave peacefully with out the ships or fight to keep them. Let me know what you think.

 

[Cheapskate]

I really like this idea, however I don't like the idea of permanently owning all of the ships your faction gives you. I think there are 3 ways this could be fixed.

1: Maybe you don't get gifted larger ships from the faction you are apart of

2: When you leave the faction you don't keep ships gifted to you, only the ships you buy

3 (my personal favorite) In order to keep the ships that the faction has gifted you you have to go through a mutany of sorts. The faction would probably not be fine letting you just leave with all of the ships they gave you, so you would have to fight against your old faction. You wouldn't have to destroy the other faction but just win a significant battle, just enough for the faction to be willing to accept your independence.

I think a combination of 2 and 3 would work best, you can leave peacefully with out the ships or fight to keep them. Let me know what you think.

I really like this too. Ships that are gifted to you will be crewed by officers loyal to that empire. Whereas the ships you buy and hire the crews of, those crews will be loyal to you above others. If you want to add another layer of depth, you could implement crew opinion of you [a bar that goes from like -100 hate to +100 loyal]. In the event of a mutiny, each crew would be more likely to join or betray you based on how much they like you.

...Imagine it, though. you have a giant ship with half the crew that loves you, half the crew hates you, and as soon as you start the mutiny it all breaks down into 1-1 fighting between the NPCs on board... Beautiful.