Enemy bases in claimed territory should drain faction points.

[Ithirahad]

Currently there's no sustainable way of draining enemy faction points; this would create one. Every enemy station (Yes, including pirate stations) in your territory would cause you to lose a certain number of faction points per turn... maybe 25 or so.

EDIT: Having a claimed base in enemy territory would cost a small amount of FP as well, though. Just spamming hundreds of little block stations in someone's system wouldn't be sustainable.
Also, as Keptick said, it shouldn't be possible to claim a homebase in an enemy system, to prevent non-removable enemy bases. :\

I was thinking, perhaps, that active enemy players or even AIs within the sector of either allied or enemy stations inside your territory could lose you FP as well, but that was a random thought, not at all thought out, and may or may not pan out well.

EDIT2:

Systems, Entity Claims, and FP:

• Owning a planet in your own territory should reduce the amount of FP drained by enemy stations in that system.
  
• Owning a planet in enemy territory should significantly increase the amount of FP you drain with stations in that system. Heavily shield and defend these, as enemy factions will want to land on the planet and torch out the faction module or possibly detonate the planet!.
• Destroying a planet would destroy its faction claim, however planet destruction should require some sort of timed device on the planet rather than simply shooting at it with an immense gun.
• Stations/planets you own in non-claimed, neutral, or enemy territory should cost a smallish amount of your own FP per turn, to discourage station spamming to tear out someone's FP quickly, or claiming tons of planets in random parts of nowhere to screw up newbie factions' warfare FP mechanics before they're fully aware of how they work. However, it should not drain so much FP that things like claimed gate networks become impractical.

Home bases and protection:

• Any feature that allows you to protect stations/planets - preferably by simply using FP every turn - should only work in your own territory or possibly allied territory; additionally, losing a claimed system to FP loss (or unclaiming, or faction-module-eating robotic spider squid, or whatever else) should cause protected stations/planets in the system to become vulnerable, perhaps after 1 faction tick.
• Despite its protection, your home base station or planet should be exempt from the above rule, as well as the FP cost for owning a structure outside of claimed territory. Factions should not be obligated to claim a system.

 

[Keptick]

omfg yes, how did no one think of this before!!! It's so simple, yet it'd work so well. Thst way it'd be possible to siege other other factions, and a failure to respond would mean a loss of faction points.

Just to add, it should be impossible to make a homebase in territory claimed by an other faction (it currently is, which is kinda ridiculous). I suggest that you add that to the OP.

Now, to counter the inevitable "but large factions could rolfstomp small ones" agrument that will inevitably come up:

• It's generally badly seen for large factions to attack smaller ones.
• In the event that a faction doesn't care about the above, simply NOT homebasing a station means that it's practically impossible to find, especially if it's in an unclaimed system (no base coords in the faction menu). You can claim a different system for mining. Small factions generally don't have to worry about information leaks, so the method outlined above is a good way of avoiding combat. The beauty of it is that larger factions can't afford that luxury because of info leaks, making homebased stations pretty mandatory.
• An other good solution is just to ask for help. A lot of people (me included) will jump on the opportunity of combat. Just tell them the enemy outpost coords and tell them that they can keep the spoils.

 

[Aynslei]

While I mostly agree with the OP's suggestion and what you posted, I just have to point out this.

simply NOT homebasing a station means that it's practically impossible to find, especially if it's in an unclaimed system (no base coords in the faction menu).

That is far from true. If its out there it can be found relatively easy, and that comes down to the major flaw of just how damn visible every single object that exists in the game is.

Edit: I am speaking from experience here, if I want to know or find something I find it, I am sure I am not the only one.

 

[Ithirahad]

But if you find their homebase (which you can; the coordinates are listed on the faction menu) and they don't have the system claimed there's not much you can do. :P

It's only when a faction starts claiming territory that they can lose faction points, and once a territory claim disappears (typically from lack of faction points) the enemy stations can't drain your faction points anyway.

 

[Keptick]

While I mostly agree with the OP's suggestion and what you posted, I just have to point out this.


That is far from true. If its out there it can be found relatively easy, and that comes down to the major flaw of just how damn visible every single object that exists in the game is.

Edit: I am speaking from experience here, if I want to know or find something I find it, I am sure I am not the only one.

Well sure, you can use the debug menu or find some other shaddy way. Otherwise, unless you go through every solar system on the map and look at every station (which would be tedious as hell), you won't find it. Especially if it's called "unknown station" or some other generic in-game name.

 

[Harbinger_OF_Cthulhu]

Currently there's no sustainable way of draining enemy faction points; this would create one. Every enemy station (Yes, including pirate stations) in your territory would cause you to lose a certain number of faction points per turn... maybe 25 or so.

I was thinking, perhaps, that active enemy players or even AIs within the sector of either allied or enemy stations inside your territory could lose you FP as well, but that was a random thought, not at all thought out, and may or may not pan out well.

This is actually a suggestion that doesn't make me immediately slam my face against my keyboard in regards to faction warfare. However I'd venture to add; that instead of stations automatically draining the enemy faction's Faction Points you must install a system on the station that has a relatively large power draw (like cloaking or jamming for ships) that once turned on starts draining faction points from the faction that owns the system it's located in. (for balance reasons). Yes I know things turn off once unloaded from server when there isn't a player in the sector but this is more of a switch once on it just begins the take away until turned off or destroyed. They could also be added onto each other so you could have 5 stations in one enemy system draining faction points, etc.

 

[MacThule]

I like the OP suggestion, but consider - stations only cost 50K now. I can fly into a system and drop 20 stations right after someone logs for the night and by morning they'll have lost thousands of FP.

It's a brilliant solution, but needs strong controls or will be a trollfest.

 

[Ithirahad]

I like the OP suggestion, but consider - stations only cost 50K now. I can fly into a system and drop 20 stations right after someone logs for the night and by morning they'll have lost thousands of FP.

It's a brilliant solution, but needs strong controls or will be a trollfest.

For one thing, there would probably be a downward curve, maxing out at a hardcap of maybe 100 points per turn. Second, if we get NPC reinforcements, they'd be automatically sent to those stations...

 

[nightrune]

What if we look at it a little different. Maybe unapposed enemy ships/stations drain faction points? If they were in combat with you during that faction round its negated.

Specifically if an enemy base or force isn't being attacked in your territory then you get faction drain. This should encourage people to build defenses into stations.

It should also encourage people to remove the pirate stations from thier sectors, but could be offset with mining or active players.

 

[kookster]

Perhaps a idea for preventing said trolling methods above is, make it so if there is any hostile faction station in your system you lose whatever points, if there is 2 you still lose the same amount of points. Same with 3 4 etc. This would make the siege much slower, but at least someone couldnt drop 20 stations in your system and drain you super fast. Thoughts?

 

[terra mining corp.]

This is actually a suggestion that doesn't make me immediately slam my face against my keyboard in regards to faction warfare. However I'd venture to add; that instead of stations automatically draining the enemy faction's Faction Points you must install a system on the station that has a relatively large power draw (like cloaking or jamming for ships) that once turned on starts draining faction points from the faction that owns the system it's located in. (for balance reasons). Yes I know things turn off once unloaded from server when there isn't a player in the sector but this is more of a switch once on it just begins the take away until turned off or destroyed. They could also be added onto each other so you could have 5 stations in one enemy system draining faction points, etc.

the systems installed could be a factory system,and could be captured by your faction with all system blocks useable , thus negating the trollers setting up multiple stations to drain your faction points at little cost to them.

 

[MacThule]

Perhaps a idea for preventing said trolling methods above is, make it so if there is any hostile faction station in your system you lose whatever points, if there is 2 you still lose the same amount of points. Same with 3 4 etc. This would make the siege much slower, but at least someone couldnt drop 20 stations in your system and drain you super fast. Thoughts?

something like 10 or 20 per tick per hostile faction might work. encourages joining larger teams as well, since a 1-2 man faction wouldn't hold up very well without constantly being online or having good alliances.

 

[Ithirahad]

This is actually a suggestion that doesn't make me immediately slam my face against my keyboard in regards to faction warfare. However I'd venture to add; that instead of stations automatically draining the enemy faction's Faction Points you must install a system on the station that has a relatively large power draw (like cloaking or jamming for ships) that once turned on starts draining faction points from the faction that owns the system it's located in. (for balance reasons). Yes I know things turn off once unloaded from server when there isn't a player in the sector but this is more of a switch once on it just begins the take away until turned off or destroyed. They could also be added onto each other so you could have 5 stations in one enemy system draining faction points, etc.

That is actually a really good idea... kind of... ish. But there's this certain feeling I get when abstraction goes over the line from reasonable to eeeeh. Enemy bases in your space reducing your offensive, defensive, and diplomatic abilities? Sure. A machine that does that? Meh... It makes sense balance-wise but it's weird, unless some new system of energy fields or something is put in to make it fit in...

Anyway, though, I had another minor thought. Perhaps there could be a small, flat Faction Point cost for each base in enemy systems as well. That would help mitigate station-spamming.

 

[GRHayes]

Currently there's no sustainable way of draining enemy faction points; this would create one. Every enemy station (Yes, including pirate stations) in your territory would cause you to lose a certain number of faction points per turn... maybe 25 or so.

EDIT: Having a claimed base in enemy territory would cost a small amount of FP as well, though. Just spamming hundreds of little block stations in someone's system wouldn't be sustainable.
Also, as Keptick said, it shouldn't be possible to claim a homebase in an enemy system, to prevent non-removable enemy bases. :\

I was thinking, perhaps, that active enemy players or even AIs within the sector of either allied or enemy stations inside your territory could lose you FP as well, but that was a random thought, not at all thought out, and may or may not pan out well.

Ok, This leaves me with a few questions. From my understanding if factions loose enough points the home base becomes vulnerable.
The point of the home base not being vulnerable was primarily for two reasons as I understand give people a point to restart from especially newbie players and allow people to take a vacation or a break and not loose everything.

If your goal is simply to make the home base vulnerable then why not just go with the suggestion on making home bases vulnerable. I think there is actually a server setting that allows it though. After all that is all you are really accomplishing with this.

You loose points dying from what I remember as well. http://www.star-made.org/news/starmade-dev-update-introducing-faction-points
So war attrition takes down faction points.

If you are wanting to attack someone's base while they aren't online kind of cowardly I would say.

If you are wanting to discourage more players or get people to quit. This will do it. Because one thing I can tell you people hate in games is not being able to save and horde stuff. If they risk loosing their stuff going on a simple break or vacation they are going to quit.

So not sure what the end goal of this was supposed to be.

 

[kookster]

Another idea i had for draining faction points is, what about just having a ship in a claimed system sector. IE thier station is at 1,1,1 once your ship is in 1,1,1 they start losing faction points until you leave. This way you can at least defend. Thoughts?

 

[Ithirahad]

Ok, This leaves me with a few questions. From my understanding if factions loose enough points the home base becomes vulnerable.
The point of the home base not being vulnerable was primarily for two reasons as I understand give people a point to restart from especially newbie players and allow people to take a vacation or a break and not loose everything.

If you are wanting to discourage more players or get people to quit. This will do it. Because one thing I can tell you people hate in games is not being able to save and horde stuff. If they risk loosing their stuff going on a simple break or vacation they are going to quit.

Simple solution, don't claim your system... Then your homebase is as invincible as ever... You just don't get the mining multiplier.

If your goal is simply to make the home base vulnerable then why not just go with the suggestion on making home bases vulnerable. I think there is actually a server setting that allows it though. After all that is all you are really accomplishing with this.

You loose points dying from what I remember as well. http://www.star-made.org/news/starmade-dev-update-introducing-faction-points
So war attrition takes down faction points.

In practice, not nearly enough to bring down an enemy homebase, otherwise there would be at least a few actual wars happening. usually the enemy just loses 50 faction points or something then stops fighting, which doesn't matter because they have thousands stocked up. My faction has like tens of thousands or so, currently. And we're not the most active or populated faction, either.

Given the current scale of the game's netcode, and given typical player populations on a non-MMO server regardless of technical limitations, the only way to make war attrition take down faction points would be to set the death penalty really really high, to the point that two or three players dying once could easily un-protect the homebase if the faction hasn't been around for every long, which I think we can all agree would be idiotic. An alternate (but non-overpowered) method of draining faction points is required.

If you are wanting to attack someone's base while they aren't online kind of cowardly I would say.

Actually, I was trying to figure out a way to let an enemy faction affect some form of change/mount some form of attack without the ability to mount direct attacks on bases at any time, and this is what I came up with. Unless the enemy faction doesn't get on at all for... like, two weeks... this shouldn't really result in the ability to steal all of an established faction's FP and turn their home base vulnerable without their knowledge. The way I envision this, it wouldn't happen overnight. It all would be in the configs and you could balance it however you wanted, of course, including disabling it completely, but by default it should be balanced so that an enemy faction has a bit of time to respond (or contact their allies) before you can just blow up their headquarters.

So not sure what the end goal of this was supposed to be.

People want a way for faction bases to become vulnerable without directly removing homebase invulnerability or introducing some really weird mechanics to try and balance what can be made invulnerable and what can't... This is the best I could come up with.

 

[GRHayes]

....

I think the end goal is more to force people to actually participate and have some sort of interaction / war.

Let each person claim one home sector and base that is invulnerable.

Force them to leave their system to acquire resources. Fix it so that not every resource is in every system. Certain types of systems have larger amounts of specific resources.

In fact if they made it so the it was fairly good at re-spawning those resources in such systems those systems would become prize territories.
Control over those systems would be seriously fought over.

Maybe, part of the problem is the universe in the game is to big there is to many places people can go for a resource to avoid a fight. After all you would need more people than Eve online has to fill up the universe in this game and the servers couldn't handle it.

That way people would either have to pay the price someone else demands for an item or they would have to fight for control over it.

You would certainly have wars continually on going and yet space for people to build and save their work.

 

[Bench]

Factions and Faction Points are planned for an overhaul that makes the earning of Faction Points and the spending of them a lot more purposeful than their current usage. At this time a lot has already been planned but we'll still discuss ideas like this one to see if they fit within the current adjustments planned or whether it'd be in addition to. At this time I don't want to confirm anything but know that the team has been going over all the Faction point stuff over the past month or two to solidify its integration with the rest of the gameplay we'll be adding over the next few months.

 

[MacThule]

we'll still discuss ideas like this one to see if they fit within the current adjustments planned or whether it'd be in addition to.

Thank you for the update, Bench. You're on point as always. And do ask them to mull over this suggestion - it's an abstract concept, but I think that allowing conscious and deliberate sieging of factions needs to happen in some form or other.

The more complex a strategy required the better, really - I greatly prefer skill & learning based superiority dynamics to time/experienced based ones which inevitably lead to grinding and the inescapable dominance of the "dependant/unemployed gamer" over skilled, thoughtful casual gamers :-D

 

[Ithirahad]

Ghraal nak am kol khaghan rhaal...
Ghash nakh tir nol hih ghen kaal...
Dhal vhash
Dhal ghrash
Dhal thread dalakh mar ghraal gan khash!

Thread, be unbound from the chains of death! Live once more, and serve!

This is an old idea, but I find that it'd still make sense...
(If space station protection with faction points becomes a thing, by the way, it shouldn't be possible to protect stations in the system of an enemy faction. In addition, protecting a station in an unclaimed system or the system of a neutral faction should cost extra faction points, and if war is declared by the faction holding that system the station should lose its protection after a timer.)

HolyCookie