- Joined
- Jun 10, 2015
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Hello, hello, thank you for clicking to read this, my first post on these here forums.
... Okay, pleasantries aside...
... Okay, pleasantries aside...
The TL;DR of this Wall of Text (Topside for EZ-Reading!):
I'd like to see an option for servers to have a per-faction configuration of how various blocks function and/or their availability to said faction members.
Actually Probably Too Long and Won't Be Read:
Imagine, if you will, a server where you join up and are assigned to an existing faction, either randomly, by request, or perhaps based on some test, quiz or trial (trial by parkour?). As it stands, the only difference between factions is the people in them, as all players fundamentally have access to the same pool of blocks and they all function more or less identically. If you ask me, thats kinda boring.
What I'm proposing is simply this: What if a server admin (or adventurous singleplayer... player) could assign a faction its own block config. As long as a ship or station is a member of that faction, blocks on board function according to the factions defined block settings, and as long as a player is a member of a faction they can only purchase or manufacture their allowed provisions from shops or factories (though, perhaps, could salvage some forbidden technologies from a felled enemy...). In essence, each faction would operate slightly (or vastly) differently from the others, and battles between two factions would be decided by the ability to build to the faction strengths more than the ability to build towards a single meta. In short, battles would become much more tactical than they presently are.
Now you may be asking, "Kimiro, what are you smoking to make you think that's a good idea?" The answer is, surprisingly, that I've never smoked anything in my life. If you're not questioning my sanity, please keep reading. Also keep reading if you are. Or don't. I'm not your mom.
An Example of What I Mean
There's an old (199X) video game originally released for Mac (it's been ported to Windows, though) called Escape Velocity: Nova. It doesn't have much in common with Starmade other than the fact you fly around in space, can harvest asteroids and have the ability to customize your ship (within the confines of pre-defined upgrades). Within that game's universe, there are several main factions - Federation, Auroran, Polaris, and Vell-Os just to name a few - along with several minor ones that could be variously counted as sub-components of the main ones or their own entities outright. In EVN, each of the main factions has it's own unique technologies, ship architectures, weapons, defenses and pretty much anything you care to name. This of course invariably leads to a situation where one faction (*cough* Polaris *cough*) is ostensibly the best. These differences in technology of course have little impact on you, the player, as through skill and a liberal application of cheese you can defeat even a superior force. So I put it to you, dear reader, to consider this: Would it not be interesting to have this as an option in Starmade?
Hypothetical Example Setup
Say you've got three factions on your server, CHUDs, Turtles and Spodermen. Each player belongs to one of these factions or is factionless. In the list below, each + or - represents a 25% change from the base; these of course would be actually done with block config files, which I'm not going to include here because:
a.) I'm lazy
b.) They're long and I'd have to spoiler them (irony!)
c.) They're not really reader-friendly to my point
b.) They're long and I'd have to spoiler them (irony!)
c.) They're not really reader-friendly to my point
CHUD Federation:
Bonuses: Reactor Output (+), Shield Capacity (+ +)
Penalties: Shield Regen (-), Armor (- -)
Turtle Alliance
Bonuses: Armor (+), Shield Regen (+ +)
Penalties: Thrust (-), Jump Charge Rate (- -)
Spodermen Union
Bonuses: Thrust (+ +), Jump Charge Rate (+)
Penalties: Armor (-), Capacitor Capacity (- -)
(This is just a rough example, please to not be nitpicking balance issues.)
Assuming that each member of those factions isn't a half-witted chimp, they're going to build towards their factions specific strengths rather than try to patch their weaknesses. So perhaps...
CHUD players would build massively shielded ships designed to serve as firing platforms for sustained firing but would have limited operating windows due to their shields needing time to spool back up under fire - and woe to them if their heavy shields fall.
Turtles would favor long-range combat with lighter weapons, relying on armor and shield regen to soak up heavy damage their slow-as-molasses ships will take. This faction would probably have to rely on turrets more so than the other two.
Spodermen will have to rely on hit-and-run tactics with large numbers of low alpha weapons, using speed and agility to avoid being blown out of the sky. If you come to a stop, you'd probably die almost instantly.
Suddenly you've gone from one singular meta to three different ones with invariably different tactics, build requirements and skill requirements. Arguably that alone would be enough to make this a great idea IMHO, but that's just my ego talking. So to keep me talking and my ego not, let's talk about the nitty-gritty.
How It Should Work™
First and foremost, it wouldn't change the base game too terribly much, as without actually changing the configs it'd more or less be vanilla - to anyone who says "I don't want to have players have different rules!", good news: It's optional!
To keep it clean, a separate file (something like "Faction_X.txt") should contain the changes for that faction to utilize. Functionally "Faction_X.txt" would override the default block config wherever they overlap, provided the entity in question is a member of "Faction X". Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
Why You Should Want This™
- Much Tougher AI's: If the built in Pirate faction suddenly gets 200% more shields and deals 50% more damage with all weapons, they're suddenly a very, very intense threat.
- Roleplaying Servers: You could simulate system-wide class systems! Or enforce a Federation versus Rebellion play style! Or cops and robbers! Cowpeople and Indians! Decepticons vs Ponies!
- Admin Trolling/Use: Make a faction that deals 0 damage with every weapon and has armor like wet tissue. Assign griefers to it and watch them rage-quit!
- It's totally optional: It's essentially "don't like it? don't use it!" up in here. Not everyone wants to make the universe less fair, and for those that don't, just don't!
- It promotes creativity: Depending on the rules established by the server owner, you may find that your Titan is suddenly about as useful as an umbrella in a hurricane while that dinky little Isanth modification you made is suddenly very potent stuff!
- It promotes player interaction: Depending on the exact config, if one faction has something that you don't have access to, you can either cry about it or go kill them to get it! Or maybe peacefully trade with them. Either way!
- Potential is only limited by server admin (or player) creativity while devising the rules: If this system were to be made, suddenly every server becomes a potential new challenge!
Reasons Why This Might Never Happen™
- Technical limitations: I don't know if per-faction block configs are technically possible without an enormous amount of work.
- Overhead: Large amounts of additional loaded information that would have to be communicated with the client. This could be optimized to have very little impact, but it would be a concern.
- Potential Bugs: This sort of system is the type of thing to produce a lot of bugs and headaches for the devs, especially complaints that "X on server Y isn't working like it's supposed to!" and the like. This is partially a technical issue but mostly one that should be pinned on the players/server owners to resolve.
- Conflict of Vision (?): I'm not Schine. I can't read minds. Maybe this whole idea conflicts with the final vision of the game.
- Unsure if per-faction block restrictions are possible: Could be an issue.
The Last I Have To Say On This Until I Reply To Your Posts
That pretty well sums up my idea. I've never been very good at endings, but I hope this has at least been an entertaining read for you. So cheers, mate. Keep your shields up!
- Kimiro
P.s. If this is already implimented, I'd like to know... I did a fairly exhaustive search of the forums and on Google but didn't turn up anything close to this idea as being either suggested or implimented.
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