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- Jan 31, 2013
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One of the topics that has come up on our esteemed public chat (Aptly named Crazy Train) is the dynamics behind factions. At the moment factions serve mostly as social groups. Most factions are groups of friends who use faction mechanics for protecting their home from constantly ravaging pirates.
I'd like this thread to be an empty slate for everyone to post their own ideas of what they think factions should become or to reply to other people's ideas. If you're going to pull a 'it's an alpha, stop talking about it' argument please do so in the nearest trash can.
I think the role of factions in Starmade should be directly related to the amount of players on the average server. Having a large amount of fleet-oriented game-play mechanics added into a game where the largest fight might be two enemies randomly running into each other while traveling will end up about as unintuitive as leaving factions as they are while the average faction has a complex social network with established territory, scouts, and regular fleet gatherings to make pushes into hostile territory.
So, too, must we take into account the variability in a faction's size and it's reason for being. Some factions will remain small gatherings of friends or adventurers even when the game's population grows. Others may grow to become the only huge interplanetary empire on their respective server. We have to create an environment that doesn't favor one too much over the other and provides mechanics to both fight and defend against small and large factions.
Here is my vision for a faction 'metagame'.
Every faction has it's home-base. The protection the home-base provides decreases as the amount of players in the faction increases. At first, every faction-owned entity in the sector is protected. As more people join, ships not docked to the home-base lose protection. More join, and ships/turrets that are on the home-base become vulnerable. Once the faction has a massive enough amount of members to ensure there are always a few on, the base itself loses it's protection.
Now, this doesn't mean that any rinky-dink battleship can come in during the exceedingly rare occasion that there are no faction members on and blast away everything.
Borders and territory! It's in almost every game. It's a system that has been refined since antiquity.
Every base gives influence in it's sector, which in turn gives the base (And only the base, not anything docked to it) protection from enemy fire. In order to make the base vulnerable you have to lower the sector's influence to zero. If the total mass of all entities in the sector owned by enemies is greater than the total mass of all allies, the difference is deducted from the total influence in regular intervals.
This makes capture take time, depending on how large the other side's presence in the sector is. Larger bases will require more forces to threaten, and smaller ones will take fewer attackers and capture faster depending on if there are any defenders.
Now to the meat of the subject; What makes territory worth the trouble of holding?
A home-base cannot be attacked while there is adjacent territory under it's control. This gives an incentive to expand outwards from the home-base without forcing the players to do that. You can still have a far-removed base out in the middle of nowhere, but it won't force the enemies to spend a year looking for it.
Give certain sectors a renewable source of materials, with a chance of rare materials spawning. This will make for hotspots to capture and hold as your miners get their grubby hands on more valuables! Maybe an 'asteroid belt' sector, or a 'junkyard' sector where objects would occasionally respawn. Holding a base there for prolonged periods of time would lessen the load of having to go increasingly long distances to get to unmined asteroids or planets.
Now that I've got all the major mechanics down, let's talk about some more minor things!
I'd love to be able to store credits in a 'faction bank' for safekeeping.
I'd love to have an automatic alert in chat when a faction base is under siege.
I'd love for there to be some sort of faction technology progression system where you get certain bonuses/weaknesses to faction ships to fit your faction's general play-style more. Stuff like +10% max speed and -10% energy capacity for a faction with a focus on skirmishing or hit-and-run tactics, or +10% turret range and -10% beam effectiveness for a faction with a focus on large ships and broadside bombardments. Little specialties just big enough to be felt that give a faction a flair that cannot be obtained by ship design alone.
Post your thoughts and I'll comment on them!
I'd like this thread to be an empty slate for everyone to post their own ideas of what they think factions should become or to reply to other people's ideas. If you're going to pull a 'it's an alpha, stop talking about it' argument please do so in the nearest trash can.
I think the role of factions in Starmade should be directly related to the amount of players on the average server. Having a large amount of fleet-oriented game-play mechanics added into a game where the largest fight might be two enemies randomly running into each other while traveling will end up about as unintuitive as leaving factions as they are while the average faction has a complex social network with established territory, scouts, and regular fleet gatherings to make pushes into hostile territory.
So, too, must we take into account the variability in a faction's size and it's reason for being. Some factions will remain small gatherings of friends or adventurers even when the game's population grows. Others may grow to become the only huge interplanetary empire on their respective server. We have to create an environment that doesn't favor one too much over the other and provides mechanics to both fight and defend against small and large factions.
Here is my vision for a faction 'metagame'.
Every faction has it's home-base. The protection the home-base provides decreases as the amount of players in the faction increases. At first, every faction-owned entity in the sector is protected. As more people join, ships not docked to the home-base lose protection. More join, and ships/turrets that are on the home-base become vulnerable. Once the faction has a massive enough amount of members to ensure there are always a few on, the base itself loses it's protection.
Now, this doesn't mean that any rinky-dink battleship can come in during the exceedingly rare occasion that there are no faction members on and blast away everything.
Borders and territory! It's in almost every game. It's a system that has been refined since antiquity.
Every base gives influence in it's sector, which in turn gives the base (And only the base, not anything docked to it) protection from enemy fire. In order to make the base vulnerable you have to lower the sector's influence to zero. If the total mass of all entities in the sector owned by enemies is greater than the total mass of all allies, the difference is deducted from the total influence in regular intervals.
This makes capture take time, depending on how large the other side's presence in the sector is. Larger bases will require more forces to threaten, and smaller ones will take fewer attackers and capture faster depending on if there are any defenders.
Now to the meat of the subject; What makes territory worth the trouble of holding?
A home-base cannot be attacked while there is adjacent territory under it's control. This gives an incentive to expand outwards from the home-base without forcing the players to do that. You can still have a far-removed base out in the middle of nowhere, but it won't force the enemies to spend a year looking for it.
Give certain sectors a renewable source of materials, with a chance of rare materials spawning. This will make for hotspots to capture and hold as your miners get their grubby hands on more valuables! Maybe an 'asteroid belt' sector, or a 'junkyard' sector where objects would occasionally respawn. Holding a base there for prolonged periods of time would lessen the load of having to go increasingly long distances to get to unmined asteroids or planets.
Now that I've got all the major mechanics down, let's talk about some more minor things!
I'd love to be able to store credits in a 'faction bank' for safekeeping.
I'd love to have an automatic alert in chat when a faction base is under siege.
I'd love for there to be some sort of faction technology progression system where you get certain bonuses/weaknesses to faction ships to fit your faction's general play-style more. Stuff like +10% max speed and -10% energy capacity for a faction with a focus on skirmishing or hit-and-run tactics, or +10% turret range and -10% beam effectiveness for a faction with a focus on large ships and broadside bombardments. Little specialties just big enough to be felt that give a faction a flair that cannot be obtained by ship design alone.
Post your thoughts and I'll comment on them!