What's the point of factions being shown on your GUI?

[DreamingOfRoundPlanetsAndNoBlocks]

If we can see where factions are allocated at across the entire universe.. what's the incentive of exploring?

Once you've see all possible planets and so on, the last incentive is going as far as possible to see if you find intelligent life (real people). It's kind of pointless doing this when you just can see where everyone is at from day 1 throught your GUI (correct me if im wrong but I think this is the case).
If this is the case, then it's a really dumb move design wise. We should be able to see factions only on our vincinity, maybe being able to spand the radious throught certain modules (scanner map modules or something) BUT those modules should expensive and would have a limit of area you can scan, so you are forced to travel yourself. Being able to see where everyone is at just makes no sense.

 

[Sgtwisky]

I somewhat agree with you. Instead of making it so you don't really see them unless your right near them, I would use this method.

You start without any faction info on your map. IF you find a faction's claimed system, then that system will show as that faction. If that faction un-claims it, you will still see it as claimed by them until you visit it again. Think of it like the fog of war in many strategy games. Of course you should always be able to see your claimed areas. And maybe allow options to share your claimed system locations with ally's and maybe send info (one time kinda thing so fog of war is still in play) to an individual.

I think this way we could get the best of both worlds. You need to explore to find people, or trade maps. Once you find a location, you can just look to see where it was. Though it could have changed depending on weather or not that faction still holds the system. AND you would not be able to automaticly see who was expanding nearby. Makes things a bit more tactical. Makes cloaked scouts more valuable.

 

[Ithirahad]

I fully agree. With exploration- and roleplay-based features incoming, it's high time we start talking about things like this. As the game is currently, any player can instantly communicate with any other player or players anywhere at any time, and every player can see every ship, station, planet, asteroid belt, faction territory, wormhole, and warpgate route in the universe all of the time. While that's all good and fine for early alpha testing, seeing as this is a space game we have to start taking a second look at these sorts of things. Some functions - mail, for instance - should be moved to blocks, and others - the ability to see everything everywhere from the map - should be limited. Still others, like global chat via personal communicator, should probably be changed entirely... That sort of thing should only be possible using mail or a comms terminal. Some form of local chat, along with faction chat, can stay, however.

Back onto the topic of the universe, in my opinion the map should start off only showing all systems' stars and planetary orbits. Upon coming within the vicinity of a system, planet locations could be revealed, but only as grey icons that give no indication of the planet's type. Entering a system and scanning anywhere within it should reveal its faction ownership and the locations of asteroid belts. Scanning within the immediate vicinity (scanning range) or arriving in loading range should be the only way to reveal the locations of stations. This information should be on a per-faction basis (or per-player if unaffiliated), and sharing it with other individual players should be possible but should require physically meeting up.

Also, scanning mechanics should change, in that stations should have some way (Based on module count per unit of mass probably, and with a cost - power and faction points?) to cloak themselves from lower-power scanners, incentivizing dedicated scanning ships.

 

[timethatswasted]

I like the idea, but it might be tricky to add it in.

Right now all map data is saved server side. So when one person discovers a station name, every one does.

Maps would need to be saved client side instead, which would be a huge problem when people have to delete or clean up the client.

 

[Ithirahad]

I like the idea, but it might be tricky to add it in.

Right now all map data is saved server side. So when one person discovers a station name, every one does.

Maps would need to be saved client side instead, which would be a huge problem when people have to delete or clean up the client.

Good point. Making it client-side would probably create lots of opportunities for hacks and exploits, too. I dunno how to solve this... Can the server not just log all of this stuff?

 

[timethatswasted]

I suppose the server could since it saves most of the other player data...

My only concern would be the lag is might cause as it constantly updates and refreshers said data...

*shrugs*

 

[DreamingOfRoundPlanetsAndNoBlocks]

I like the fog of war idea. There's just no incentive to explore right now, you can see everything from day 1. I also miss a sense of isolation on space. You should be able to communicate globally only with members of your faction if anything, the rest should be limited to a range.

 

[Fireshock]

To solve data saving issue. Just make permanent fog of war. If player wants to remember something, he can write it in his logs/display modules. Implement a feature that when you select a station/planet you can "save" it and add short text to describe it. Then it will allways appear on your map with that short text you wrote. That can easily be saved server side(few bytes of text and a pointer to an object). Limit the number of saves per player if needed.

Faction owned stations would show on the map always no matter how far you are. Add a function to faction permission module which choses the lowest rank of member for whom that station will show up on the map.

This belongs in suggestions now.

 

[Ithirahad]

I suppose the server could since it saves most of the other player data...

My only concern would be the lag is might cause as it constantly updates and refreshers said data...

*shrugs*

Meh, it is constantly managing player positions, faction data, and a lot of other things already. Furthermore, it only ever needs to update the data when you scan or enter a new system, or come near a new planet... Not constantly. The overhead can't be much more than that of, say, transferring a bunch of stuff into your inventory, or creating and configuring a faction.

 

[RabidBat]

I'm fine with visible factions myself, otherwise the problem becomes a case of needle in a hay stack when locating people. After all it is only the invincible homebase that is shown. Outposts undocked ships etc have to be located by the player. So there is plenty to explore in that regard.
I mean while we have servers that say 200 people limit, you're kucky to find 20 people at a time, and the game then becomes a bit unstable as numbers increase. So it can already be a challenge to find folks on any given server.

Now if home bases were attackable I could understand not having their location shown. I would guess it's a gameplay mechanic to help players interact instead of aimlessly wander the universe. Imagine you join a game and play for 6 months and never meet anyone? You build a massive war ship and there is diddly squat to shoot. How fun would that be honestly?
Every player goes to their own galaxy? Good luck finding them.

Want to build and not be bothered by other players, there is single player.

It's kind of like in real life, in most countries you can look up the address and phone number of your local military base or mining company, public and private traders, etc. Imagine if you had to just discover everything on your own when you left the house.
Hungry? Hope you can find the supermarket before you die from starvation because there are no maps. Want to by a car? Well start walking in the right direction.
We often are forced to deal with people we don't want to.

As for fogs of war there already is that, stations are undiscovered until you identify them.
Nobody has to claim a home system and make themselves visible to all. Nobody has to claim systems adjacent to their own.
Heck, I see factions with the same colors so I am forced to fly to those systems to see who owns them.
Another problem is if the developers or Java would be up to the challenge.

I too want to start seeing gameplay expanded, but I think there are a million other areas the devs could or should start in that regard.
For example getting a universe worth exploring. e.g races, missions, etc.

Problem with roleplay ideas is roleplay is just that, you play a role, you make it up on your own, you use your imagination. When a game hands you something via it's mechanics that is a game, not role play.
Role play for example is building a ship and pretending you're Captain Kirk and pirates are Klingons and making up rules to play by with other like minded people. Rolling some funky dice at a table and pretending you're a wizard, or having the wife put on a nurses uniform

But yeah, don't want your faction findable, don't claim a home system. The game needs to be balanced, hide factions? Sure but make home systems open to attack when you do. Have your cake but be prepared to eat it. :p

I think we have to remember, this is a game first and foremost, some realism may be sacrificed and it has to be fun for most if not all. :D

 

[Ithirahad]

Schine has said repeatedly that just going off and hiding in other galaxies or the outer rim will not remain feasible forever. I'd not be too concerned about it being too easy to just disappear and hide away out in the middle of nowhere as we go into the future.

However, yeah, factions should not be too hard to find, I suppose: in my scheme, perhaps you could scan in a system, say, spawn, and find factions in a 2-system radius from you. But then you would still have to explore the system and hunt down the faction homebase and/or other bases (e.g. faction base in a non-homebase sector) if you wanted to know where it is... which, if some kind of AI patrol system is implemented, may be risky.

 

[DreamingOfRoundPlanetsAndNoBlocks]

Exploration is part of the fun. The fact you see everyone from scratch is't fun because it kills the explorative vibe.

Scanning across sectors and being able to upload this device so it scans bigger radious across the galaxy map seems like the best compromise. I find myself ignoring entire sectors unless they have shops or whatever planet colour im looking for as well. Fog of war + masked factions + ability to scan across the galaxy map with a device that can be upgrade (by adding more module and power) seems like the best way to solve this.

Im all for having non invulnerable stations or whatever once claimed. I don't really know whow this works yet tbh. So if you put a faction block inside a space station it's invulnerable? how are you supossed to kill the faction block if it's inside the space station anyway?

Do planets become invulnerable too if you put a faction block for example underground and cover it?

 

[Ithirahad]

Exploration is part of the fun. The fact you see everyone from scratch is't fun because it kills the explorative vibe.

Scanning across sectors and being able to upload this device so it scans bigger radious across the galaxy map seems like the best compromise. I find myself ignoring entire sectors unless they have shops or whatever planet colour im looking for as well. Fog of war + masked factions + ability to scan across the galaxy map with a device that can be upgrade (by adding more module and power) seems like the best way to solve this.

Im all for having non invulnerable stations or whatever once claimed. I don't really know whow this works yet tbh. So if you put a faction block inside a space station it's invulnerable? how are you supossed to kill the faction block if it's inside the space station anyway?

Do planets become invulnerable too if you put a faction block for example underground and cover it?

Only for homebases, and each faction can only have one homebase. All other stations can be destroyed if their shields and structural integrity are brought to zero.

 

[alterintel]

Only for homebases, and each faction can only have one homebase. All other stations can be destroyed if their shields and structural integrity are brought to zero.

I would be cool if your could hide your additional bases in asteroids or planets, or in the middle of nowhere. Need a way of taking our bases off the galaxy map.

 

[Ithirahad]

They shouldn't be on the galaxy map in the first place. Not until someone scans you down. But even then only their galaxy map would show it; they would have to give someone their copy of the system map for another person to see it.

 

[Sgtwisky]

using fog of war also opens the possibility to broker deals using map information. Faction A wants the location of Faction B so they can plan an attack. Faction C has that info and is willing to share it for a price.

AND then you could also end up with.... Faction C is secretly allied with Faction B, and lets them know about an impending attack so that Faction C can set up an ambush.

Fog of War, and having to scan and making scanning range, and what appears based off scanning systems and power, would lead to the following:

1. Exploration of the galaxy being important. You don't just know where the materials you need are, you don't just know where every ones base is.

2. It adds more tactical elements to combat and base sieging.

3. It makes information valuable. This means you can trade it for a price. It also means that information warfare could be possible.

Other then getting board because everyone on a server is a hermit, I don't see much drawback. If you happen to join a server where everyone is a hermit, just find another server. Keep in mind, when empire building makes it into the game, we will have reason to expand and fight over systems. So its very likely that as development goes on cooperation or fighting with other factions becomes more likely, simply due to logistics.