Currently beyond cobra level, the only occupation that pays is trading. When you get on to the bigger ships, trading really is the only way to make a buck... you can engage in missions, piracy or what not, but it's really just for your own amusement.
Beyond Anaconda level there is no purpose except to get more credits. There are no more targets to achieve. There is ranking up in the factions and achieving the elite statuses but they are rather hollow to be honest.
So I have been thinking... what could you add to the game to create perpetual meaningful targets that hold some interest for players indefinitely.
The basic idea has a couple of strands:
1. Player driven content (e.g. ability for players to post billboard missions - more on this later).
2. Player factions
3. A mechanism to "settle" uninhabited systems (that would work for player factions and NPC factions and CMDRS could play a role in both). This would mean that FD don't have to create arbitrary community goals and have to patch the game to add a new system - it has to be dynamic
4. The ability to challenge control of a station and system
5. Joining the dots in the background sim to allow all this to happen
6. Closely related to 5. above, everything players AND NPCs do should be meaningful in terms of the background sim. Whether it's trading or combat, it should all be affecting the background sim in some way
Some core principals so that the toys stay in the pram for now (based on my understanding of what is important to much of the player base)
1. There should always be relatively low risk options for players
2. Risky play should be opt-in so there should be high security systems and systems of systems where penalties for griefing style play are severe and policing is very high. In fact, lets have policing as a player career option with ranks etc.
3. The game remains relatively unchanged for players that choose to remain away from the frontier systems
Please note that this isn't a fully thought through idea, but I think it lays out some of the basic elements for what could be a REALLY interesting game.
So... joining it all up.
The objective is to create player driven goals for players beyond the anaconda that require no intervention by FD. The idea is to allow single players or groups of players (player factions... but a faction might only have one player) to take control of space stations and to settle uninhabited systems and build new space stations. These would all require investments in terms of combat, credits and resources but once a player faction controls a system, it would provide an income based on it's economy and trading activity - this is the end goal. This would eventually supply enough income and resources to look at settling/taking over another system... it should take a long time however.
How could this work?
Colonizing a new system
- A suitable planet would have to be settled before a space station could be built
- Some game mechanism would need to be devised to allow a system to be scanned for its ability to support life and then identified as a target for settlement
- The system would need to be "cleared" of any existing pirate activity or otherwise unwanted unlawful elements - this would be the combat phase. To clear a system if undersirables would require player posted billboard missions. Players and/or factions would control and supply the reward and provide the moderated text. These missions would all need to be completed before the system could be settled.
- There could be a commodity called "settlers" that would have to be brought once the system is clear. The faction who brings these settlers would determine the relative influence of the faction in control of the system.
- After some predetermined amount of time after a predetermined minimum settler colony is established, a space station would need to be built to support them.
Creating a new space station
- A new space station would need investment in terms of credits and resources.
- A certain amount of resources of type X, Y and X would need to be brought to a system along with commodities such as "labourers" which would need to be paid
- After sufficient resources have been supplied and credits to pay the labourers, a barebone station would exist. This would have basic functions
- Now the station is basically like a ship and it needs to be equipped with modules, like laser defenses, outfitting facilities, refueling facilities etc.
- A functioning commodities market will now be the basis for survival of the system. Depending on the planet type, system and it's settlers will produce A, B, C... commodities to be sold via the commodities market and the system will need commodities X, Y, Z... to survive. The controlling faction set the prices of these commodities and this drives the cost of maintaining the system vs. the income it receives. This in turn controls the faction income. The faction can control prices to attract supply of commodities which would grow the system and the same for exports and resultant income etc.
- As well as upgrading the space station's facilities and defense, credits could be invested in NPC defense - a new type of NPC that can actually fight... or at least groups of NPCs that would be able to defeat at least a single player
- The player faction can post missions that will allow players to participate in the defense of the system
Taking over a space station
- A prerequisite for making a gambit for control of a system would be that faction has greater than X% influence in the system
- A faction could have influence in a system by initially supplying some of the settler population
- If a faction starts off with no influence in a particular system it would need to establish a foothold and then increase it's influence to the threshold level through the usual methods... trading etc.
- A mechanism would be needed to allow a new faction to gain a foothold in a system
- Once a foothold has been established, player or NPC factions could post billboard missions that would increase that faction's influence in a system
- The players and factions decide how much to reward for specific missions... this will achieve a number of important things
a. It will allow players to control the reward and attract more skillful players to missions and thus the likelihood of success
b. It will create missions with increased difficulty and reward and enable a new "mercenary" career
c. It will add variety and by allowing players to write the (moderated) content will address the arbitrary feel to current missions
- These missions would create persistent conflict zones where players and NPCs would fight it out to increase their influence.
- Once an influence threshold has been exceeded, a battle for the station would ensue and this is where investment in the stations defenses and NPC defense will bear fruit
Player factions are key
- The players could define their own rank structure
- The players would define the types of missions and reward required to rank up and so can control the quality of players in their faction and also compete with other player factions
- Factions would have influence and income and can pursue galactic domination
All this combined would create a persistent universe where players drive the content, create the missions and fight for galactic domination. Players who like the game as it is can continue to play in the home systems and beyond while the fight for domination rages in frontier systems. This should even give the pirate types plenty of other targets!
Although the idea here is to create player driven goals and objectives, NPCs would be doing all this too... therefore making their activities less arbitrary. I.e. NPC factions would also be vying for control of systems and players would be free to help these NPC factions too... but player controlled factions would be in there too... driving the interesting content.
In summary, we get:
- Player driven content
- Persistent meaningful goals beyond ship and rank attainment
- A new "mercenary" career
- Meaningful NPC activity
Maybe I'm a dreamer?
Edit: Player and faction postable missions could include:
- Bring my ship from X to Y
- Bring stuff from X to Y (such as commodities required to settle/sustain a system)
- Assassinate X player (player bounties) subject to certain conditions to prevent abuse (such as reputation, wanted status, faction bounties etc.)
- Police station X (prevent wanted criminals or unlawful goods from entering and protect clean players)
- Kill X number of ships from faction Y in conflict zone Z (mercenary missions - in system takeover bids).
- Etc.
