New faction Concerns

[Vengeance42]

The details of the new faction system is not yet in place. However, the point system is, and I think its a bad mistake to base faction points largely on membership size for several reasons.

First, this encourages factions to recruit as many people as possible, no matter how unskilled or untrained. Its a body, its worth points. I have 10 dummies in my faction , you have 5 good players, I prosper more.

Secondly, this will encourage people to join the largest faction, which creates a feedback loop.

Thirdly (as pointed out in another thread by the K1own) it punishes any faction that has multiple members off of one IP. (I have this problem to a limited extent also).

I don't have a good answer. But I suggest something that is more directly related to production of the faction. Maybe you buy faction points with a combination of circuits and mesh? Say (just to toss out a number) 1000 of each for 1 FP? Maybe even have to produce some sort of factionpoint block, one that needs to be delivered to some location (even creating a nice scenario for raiding transports of enemy factions).

That way, there is no path to gaming the system, as there will be if its based on membership.

 

[Comr4de]

I have 10 dummies in my faction , you have 5 good players, I prosper more.

You have 10 idiots who die every ten minutes, I have 5 skilled pilots kicking your ass and killing your FP income.

Secondly, this will encourage people to join the largest faction, which creates a feedback loop.

Not really. You underestimate the human desire for independence.

Thirdly (as pointed out in another thread by the K1own) it punishes any faction that has multiple members off of one IP. (I have this problem to a limited extent also).

There really isn't much that can be done about this without also encouraging use of alts. It sucks, but I'd rather have this than have a faction with ten smurf players and two active players.

1000 of each for 1 FP?

As someone who relies on crafting for production of materials I can tell you right now that 1000 mesh/crystal is chump change.

 

[karkinosz]

From what I can tell basing faction points on membership makes sense.

If you take low quality members and find yourself in conflict, they will be easily killed. Death causes FP loss for the faction, when you run out of FP the homebase is vulnerable.

FP will probably have other uses, members are not just a source of FP but a drain on it.

Relating it to the production of a faction has other issues, now instead of being related to member activity its how deep your pockets are. Meaning a single person could support an entire faction indefinately by remburising their FP loss.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

I feel that killing a player from an enemy faction should also grant FP. Otherwise my poor 1 man faction will cease to exist in no time.

*gets really sad*

Edit: Wait, currency in diplomacy missions? So in other words, if my one man faction is good at something in particular, a bigger faction could help me survive and maintain my system?

*gets really happy*

Edit 2: Wait, planned mission system?

 

[Glutton]

This faction setup is similar to ones I've seen in Minecraft. Rarely was the largest faction the most in control of territory. Most members ended up losing the factions so many points they couldn't pay for any of their land. On one server, my faction of 7 people decimated a couple 30+ members. Most of their team was offline or new. They did not have the resources to spread around to all members and it left weakness in their defense and offense.

Well managed factions will be rewarded in this system. If you work with a small group of people that are competent and you can trust them, you will never run low on FP.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

I just re-read the post and found some fun stuff:

Roaming vagabonds are still a thing since they don't use too much points (the first system is free). However they don't have the luxury of a bigger base of course.

Yes! I can still be a nomad!

In the future, faction points will be the main currency for diplomacy and missions. The only way to earn additional FP is to do missions.

Diplomacy and missions

But also factions themselves can issue missions. A faction can pay FP for a bounty on the head of another player, or for a mission taker getting them an amount of resources. And many more.

This of course always is nice to have.

Mining bonus in that galaxy system of 6x (other factions get 3x still in an owned galaxy system so be alert of eventual thieves.

Makes owning a system actually worth something.

Faction points will also be usable to replenish asteroids in a galaxy system.

This last one in particular is interesting. It makes owning asteroid systems actually worth something, which is nice for the asteroid fans (like me).

 

[BeefBacon]

I can definitely see mercenary-type factions becoming more common. They fight for a larger faction in return for faction points. Mercs use the faction points to either expand their merc outfit or start their own faction to compete with their old employers. Very interesting.

The feedback loop might be a problem, but I daresay the other points brought up will be non-issues. As has already been stated, however, many players feel a desire for independence. A couple of extremely large factions will crop up (as they do now) but there will still be smaller factions that will be relevant.

 

[MossyStone48]

There's a reason it's DEV only for the time being. Go test it. Find real issues and report back. Being pro-active is a major quality in testers and we're always on the look out for new testers with fresh input.

 

[K10wN]

One question that I asked and has not been answered yet is does this new faction system remove the homebase protection?

And about the "everyone in the faction from the same IP issue"... this will severely disadvantage my faction in the online server (MikeLand). All members are from the same IP, myself and my 4 sons.

Also no answer has been give to local area network games where all players have the same internet IP but a different local IP and connect over the LAN. Who, if anyone in this case gets the faction points?

This update could very well ruin StarMade for me from a multiplayer perspective (which has been how I've played for the last 16 months).

Another thing I notice. Look at the player numbers per server on Starmade-servers.com. How many servers are actually going to be able to make decent use of this. The vast majority of servers simply don't have the player base for 'factions' as such.

How to farm Faction Points:
Scenario 1: You live in close proximity to many neighbours who do not bother to secure their wi-fi. So you 'borrow' it once each day to make your 'smurf' players active. If you have multiple computers, you leave them connected to your neighbours wi-fi and connected to the server. Each player is unique. Unique Username and Account, unique computer, unique IP.

Scenario 2: As with most Austrialians, we have dynamic IP addresses. Turn off your modem, wait 10 seconds and turn it on again. Insta-new IP... Won't this keep those 'smurf' player active each 48hr time period if they are connected in cycle with a modem reset?

 

[Mr.Steam]

Maybe I missed something, but what are faction points used for? I know if you run out of them you can lose your system, but why would you want to have a lot of them?

 

[ltmauve]

You can issue bounties with them, it's just a good idea to prevent running out, use them to provide boosts to your fleet (I could spending a few points for a shield boost in a given sector.[DOUBLEPOST=1414457931,1414457901][/DOUBLEPOST]

One question that I asked and has not been answered yet is does this new faction system remove the homebase protection?

You can turn it on and off in the config.

 

[karkinosz]

More faction points means a larger territory for your faction, which brings its own benefits. Running out causes you to lose systems starting from those furthest from your territory. Eventually culminating in home base loss if the server has that option.

For the "multiple people from one IP issue" it may be possible for (my pleading with schema) an option to ignore the fact some players have the same IP. Not sure how this will be implemented however. Perhaps a server admin could mark an account as a "unique player" or some similar thing.

 

[kupu]

@K10wN

As an option for admins to turn on, the home base will also become attackable when the faction loses all its territory and are below 0 at the next turn.

For this to be possible, the homebase would be invulnerable by default.

@Mr.Steam
Points are spent on issuing bounties / player generated missions, trades, regenerating resources, expansion of territory and potentially more unannounced uses.

 

[K10wN]

For the "multiple people from one IP issue" it may be possible for (my pleading with schema) an option to ignore the fact some players have the same IP. Not sure how this will be implemented however. Perhaps a server admin could mark an account as a "unique player" or some similar thing.

Something does need to be setup before this goes mainstream to address the two scenarios I put forward in the previous post and the case of legitimate players from the same IP.

I have looked through the logs and I see that over half the factions on the server that have two or more people in them are connecting from the same IP yet are unique players. This is not just going to affect me, but many others who are not here voicing thier concerns as I am.

 

[Ithirahad]

You have 10 idiots who die every ten minutes, I have 5 skilled pilots kicking your ass and killing your FP income.

He has 10 idiots who die every ten minutes, you have 5 skilled pilots kicking his ass and killing his Faction Points, and I have 20 semi-idiots in a really far away galaxy, not disclosing their position but just sitting out there noobing around and contributing nothing to the server or the game. Guess who prospers more? It ain't either of you.

...Out of all the concerns listed here, this one is the only one I find to be legitimate. No matter how much "human desire for independance" there is, 2/3rds of players will just want to join the faction that has the most stuff, and that faction will want more players so that they can get even more stuff. Result: Feedback loop until you just a have a few one or two-player factions and one huge one. There's no reversing that once it happens, either, unless you get a massive wave of players from one specific other faction.

 

[Mr.Steam]

Would it fix the feedback loop problem to put a cap on the number of members allowed in a faction based on systems controlled? If you want a faction with lots of members you must control lots of systems. Therefore, huge factions would need to also maintain huge space holdings. Like ancient Rome, huge factions might overextend themselves and possibly become vulnerable. The larger your borders, the more areas of weakness. Look out, here come the Germanic Tribes!

 

[SilentRider_14]

I actually the think the system is quite fine already with the level of forethought that Schema revealed

All spoilers are copy of the related section of the news post

I think this clause is enough to discourage overly large factions:

Spoiler

You can also lose FP from player deaths

• Each player death costs a fixed FP amount
• Each player death costs also an FP amount times the amount of members in the faction. That means that while you get more FP each turn with a bigger faction, you lose more when someone gets killed.

A player could theoretically buy 2 galaxy systems from just being on for 10 min every 48 hr but theses rules come in to play:

Spoiler

• Each owned galaxy system costs FP in the distance in systems it is from the homebase (or a random owned system when no homebase exists)
• Each owned galaxy system costs FP in the distance it is from a galaxy center (something that will be more clear with the structure update. it is the galaxy system 0,0,0 in this case)
• The cost for center distance will decrease the more total territory is taken. This means, factions will probably move together a bit. Roaming vagabonds are still a thing since they don't use too much points (the first system is free). However they don't have the luxury of a bigger base of course.

Just because someone bought the claim on a system doesn't mean you cant take it:

Spoiler

• if you scan in an owned system, you always get the location of the station that has the faction module owning it.

Taking a sector can be done easily with the faction module on a station or planet. If someone else has already taken the galaxy system, that faction module has to be destroyed before another faction can take the system.

Even if you don't take it:

Spoiler

other factions get 3x still in an owned galaxy system so be alert of eventual thieves

 

[Criss]

I heard that one or more of the devs dislikes the fact that we can salvage a planet so easily from our mega space salvagers. I really really hope that there is some sort of base a faction needs to set up in order to extract regenerating resources. I am sure the devs can come up with cool ways to make FP worth owning. This game is adding all the features that I've been wanting lately. :D

 

[FunnyBunny14]

I heard that one or more of the devs dislikes the fact that we can salvage a planet so easily from our mega space salvagers. I really really hope that there is some sort of base a faction needs to set up in order to extract regenerating resources. I am sure the devs can come up with cool ways to make FP worth owning. This game is adding all the features that I've been wanting lately. :D

Super advanced quarries!

 

[NeonSturm]

If we get our factory system, some AI and there is still no solution to planet mining, I may program a GREY-GOO that self-replicates throughout all player-usable terroritory around spawn :D

Yes, I know I mixed terror and territory in one word.