A good design.
Many factions are fundamentally flawed. Instead of focusing on the benefits of people coming together, They exist just to carry the ego of the leaders.
in reality, the moderators in a faction should exist to serve the core group of the members.
Viewing this from a design point of view. A design solves a problem. A faction should be engineered towards it's members's wants and needs. "I should be better off joining you than going it on my own." Sounds obvious, doesn't it?
You'd be surprised at the amount of factions that do not understand this
Here's the worst one I've been in:
- Asks if I am loyal before recruiting me (red flag for REALLY incompetent leadership)
- Gives me a crappy miner i'm not supposed to modify (with complimentary lack of mining knowledge)
- Takes everything I mine, and locks it away from me.
- Asks me to submit resource requests if I need anything. (which i may or may not get that day)
- Does not allow personal storage, or personal ships except for ranked officials
- Wonders why members are leaving or becoming inactive
I approach factions from a social/game design point of view.
People join you because they got needs.
Do they need to blow shit up?
Do they need security?
Do they want to be seen?
Do they need dueling partners?
The whole thing is pretty complicated, but if you want a simple tip for normal factions, The one box you need to tick, is "It's better to be with us"
Right away I usually start by giving them some standardized ship frames to modify as they please.
- It's a welcome gesture. pavlov them.
- The ships reduce the initial building grind are a good starting point for inexperienced players that prevents them from getting overwhelmed
- Having similar ships provides a sense of being on the same team
Here are some of the faction ships I designed for this purpose. They're like almost-complete puzzles.
Oppaius Consortium Ships
Miners.
Squire - For newbies, Give them a small mining ship so they don't feel overwhelmed, but one that teaches them weapon mechanics
CSM - For more experienced players, comes with a 50x50x100 mining waffle (Mining standards, Set.)
Fighters
Lancer - Big cheap gun they can afford to lose. (good for gaining pewpew experience)
Valken - Small fighter with tons of power leftover. (They're gonna stick a huge gun on it, They're going to shoot things with it and feel proud)
And a section of the space station dedicated to them, It's starmade, They're here to build.
(This is also conveniently in full view of the parking lot and other personal spaces, so as you are envying other people's babies, you are being reminded that you are, quite literally, part of this place)
Of course, this is just an idea of getting started. If you're in an aggressive faction that's not wolfpacking, this whole ship thing may not work as people feel more pride in pwning others with THEIR ship. Different social layouts work differently, such as how materials are shared. Do you want everyone to have access to a shared resource pool, or do you to create a sense of progression and ownership with personal storage. The only real constant is creating a system that is tailored to the needs of the members.