Yet another take on C&P and a way to make the game better!
NOTES (Also denoted by a ** - **)
The idea behind the system breakdown/reorganization is to move factions and boundaries around to support mission making between low and high security space, rather than the current setup we have, where low security space is restricted strictly to the frontier worlds. This idea keeps players from having to move back and forth from center to edge to seek out missions for high payout assasinations, cargo finding or data mining and presents them in workable bubbles within the main bubble itself. Think of it like Power Play, but for cops and robbers.
In addition to the changes mentioned below. I personally would like to see the counterpart to the Pilot's Federation, the Dark Wheel, introduced as a main stream faction. It would also have it's own backer's type system, preferably located within an anarchy system that breaks it's own rules by has a security force of its own. This one system being the odd-man-out in regards to Anarchy systems in general.
** Major (The Big 3) faction system boundaries should be broken up in such a way so as to insert anarchy/pirate/unknown space inbetween or within faction borders. Placement should be reasonable and utilize common sense where possible. **
Empire:
** Player Created Factions will be moved as necessary to remain game compliant. Exceptions made for established factions with acceptable lore reasons for being where they are (EDF, Adles Armada, Hutton etc) **
Reorganization thought process:
1.0 to 0.7: High Security Systems
0.7 to 0.4: Outer systems. Still a part of the core influence systems but on the outskirts.
0.4 to 0.1: Edge Systems. These systems are at the periphery of the major faction's influence.
0.0: Lawless/Anarchy systems
The purpose of the Security Forces breakdown is to establish the amount and types of ships that systems will utilize in their response to crime. This is just the types of ships, not the actual ships you would see in response to a crime committed. Ship selection is based off of the notional wealth (Whatever mechanic/number FD Has for this) of the system ruling faction and the major faction they are supporting. That way you wouldn't see SF responding with Imperial ships in a Federation aligned system.
System security rating also plays into selection and response times.
NOTES (Also denoted by a ** - **)
- All fines/bounties/etc are simply filler numbers. Frontier would have the information needed to decide upon what would actually be a painful fine for said activity.
- Nothing is black and white, this is a generic breakdown of what I've been rolling over in my head for awhile. If you see something that doesn't jive with you, say something and I'll respond accordingly.
- There is influence from EVE Online here, yes, but that's because the game has been around for over a decade and has some good ideas for how to control player activity within a sandbox, regardless of the horror stories you've heard.
- I'm not sure how much, if any, lore would need to be retconned to make this happen. I would hope not a lot but I'm also not super familiar with all of the different pieces of lore that make up the Elite universe. Another part of my motivation to write this is based off of Frontier's willingness to retcon where needed.
- I am more than likely going to repeat myself at various points. Keep your weapons stowed.
System Breakdown:
The idea behind the system breakdown/reorganization is to move factions and boundaries around to support mission making between low and high security space, rather than the current setup we have, where low security space is restricted strictly to the frontier worlds. This idea keeps players from having to move back and forth from center to edge to seek out missions for high payout assasinations, cargo finding or data mining and presents them in workable bubbles within the main bubble itself. Think of it like Power Play, but for cops and robbers.
In addition to the changes mentioned below. I personally would like to see the counterpart to the Pilot's Federation, the Dark Wheel, introduced as a main stream faction. It would also have it's own backer's type system, preferably located within an anarchy system that breaks it's own rules by has a security force of its own. This one system being the odd-man-out in regards to Anarchy systems in general.
** Major (The Big 3) faction system boundaries should be broken up in such a way so as to insert anarchy/pirate/unknown space inbetween or within faction borders. Placement should be reasonable and utilize common sense where possible. **
Empire:
- Reorganize, keep core systems in place, redistribute secondary and tertiary systems along new frontier.
- Reorganize, keep core systems in place, redistribute secondary and tertiary systems along new frontier.
- Reorganize, keep core systems in place, redistribute secondary and tertiary systems along new frontier.
** Player Created Factions will be moved as necessary to remain game compliant. Exceptions made for established factions with acceptable lore reasons for being where they are (EDF, Adles Armada, Hutton etc) **
Reorganization thought process:
1.0 to 0.7: High Security Systems
- Inner systems have higher security rating, higher security presence. These are closer to the major power's core/home planets.
- Heavy lawful NPC traffic, heavy security traffic. Rare pirate presence.
- Missions could spawn small pirates for seek and destroy. Think newbie missions.
- Station safe zones/no fire zones extend to mass lock break point.
- System security forces are made up of deadlier ships.
0.7 to 0.4: Outer systems. Still a part of the core influence systems but on the outskirts.
- Outer systems have lower rating, lower presence, weaker force distribution. Minor bounty hunter presence.
- Minimal pirate presence. Moderate Lawful NPC traffic. Moderate security traffic.
- Missions spawn average difficulty pirates, ranks 3-4, for seek and destroy.
- Pirate/Renegade/Outlaw friendly factions/stations would spawn missions for search and destroy/piracy/assassination contracts.
- Station No-fire zone is unchanged.
- System security forces utilize fighters and some heavier ships.
0.4 to 0.1: Edge Systems. These systems are at the periphery of the major faction's influence.
- Systems bordering Anarchy/no security systems only.
- Minimal trade/security presence.
- Minimal/Moderate pirate/renegade presence.
- Moderate Bounty Hunter presence.
- Mission system would focus on clearing out pirate threat for faction rep within system and spawn NPCs accordingly with player pilot combat rank/wing average.
- Pirate/renegade/outlaw friendly stations would spawn missions to procure goods from within higher security systems, assassinate targets, etc.
- Station no-fire zone is unchanged.
- Security forces use small fighters, some larger ships.
0.0: Lawless/Anarchy systems
- These systems have security at stations only, in the form of controlling faction ships. So the security for Station A may not be provide the ships for security at Station B if that faction doesn't also own it.
- Faction security ships only respond to threats to the station or NPC Faction traffic for that specific (Controlling) faction.
- Heavy Pirate/NPC presence. KWS required for bounty hunting.
- In the case that the system is not populated the security rating would reflect it's complete lack of such. Rather than the "low" security rating we currently have for systems out in the middle of nowhere, with no organic human life.
Security Forces Breakdown:
The purpose of the Security Forces breakdown is to establish the amount and types of ships that systems will utilize in their response to crime. This is just the types of ships, not the actual ships you would see in response to a crime committed. Ship selection is based off of the notional wealth (Whatever mechanic/number FD Has for this) of the system ruling faction and the major faction they are supporting. That way you wouldn't see SF responding with Imperial ships in a Federation aligned system.
System security rating also plays into selection and response times.
High security systems will utilize the following ships.- Vulture, Python, FDL, FAS, FGS, Clipper, Cutter, Corvette, Anaconda.
- Vulture, Python, FDL, FAS, FGS Clipper, Cobra (3 & 4), Viper (3 & 4), Iggle, Eagle.
- Vulture, Cobra III & IV, Viper III & IV, Iggle, Eagle.
- All of the above.
As the Security rating of the system drops, the frequency with which players should see the larger ships in the pool should drop as well. Poorer systems should not be running fleets of Clippers, FDLs or Cutters/Corvettes/Anacondas. The same goes for Anarchy space and it's associated faction(s).
** NOTE **
Anarchy systems ONLY have station / asset defense. Not a system-wide response force. Each station's defense is made up of a ship contingent corresponding to their individual influence within the system.
** NOTE **
Security/Response Force Engineering:
This might be a touchy subject, but given that there are one off engineers out in the middle of nowhere pulling random crap out of their bums and throwing a roll of the dice at it for the cost of a few minerals, then I firmly believe that larger factions/factions supported by the major factions etc, should be able to engineer their war ships appropriately. If Engineering is here to stay, as it seems to be, then the NPCs need to get on board and the people who don't play with them (Myself included) will have to step up to the plate as well to get basic modifications done. At the same time, I feel that some basic level 1-2 Engineered components should become available on the market for a premium fee from large factions.
They (we humans) have been in space for centuries at this point. There is absolutely zero reason why this should not be available. (IE: Bring back the crap you started with, Frontier.)
Infraction Breakdown: Crime Response
Response times:- Response times should vary accordingly on multiple factors.
- How violent/damaging was the crime? The more violent, the quicker the response.
- What kind of crime was committed?
- How much resources does the controlling faction have at its disposal? A system with less won't be able to move ships very fast.
Ultimately I'd like to see response times pan out to anywhere from 5 seconds to almost a full minute depending on the system, it's security status and the influence/financial capability of the controlling faction(s).
Minor Damage:- Damage does not breach negligble threshold.
- Negligence fine. No police activity. This is more to keep NPC police from immediately swarming players due to an accidental grazing shot on any NPC, structure or player entity. Fine should be substantial enough to make the player take caution with follow-on shots but not so much so that it potentially bankrupts newer players. Perhaps base fine off of a percentage of the players current account balance.
Intentional/sustained damage:
** IMPORTANT** Damage threshold must be reached or object destroyed for increased response. If threshold (Say, 20% shield damage or equivelant hull/structure damage, not including stations/orbital bodies) is breached, then a physical response is accrued from faction/system security.
Threshold not reached, damage greater than 10%:- Assault fine, warning to leave immediate area. Then security force responds if threshold is breached or offender does not vacate instance.
- Outpost/Land Base: Warning to vacate immediate vicinity upon risk of armed response. Send NPC response if player entity does not vacate instance/50km perimeter or continues to cause damage. Step up NPC response in a linear fashion with damage done.
- Station response values remain the same.
- Minor impacts in RES against NPC and Player Entities warrant verbal (text) warning from local security/faction forces. Heavier, but not deadly, impacts result in negligence fine of up to 250,000c.
Threshold Breached, Target = Structure/Skimmer:- Immediate NPC response and fine that's in line with damage done/profit lost.
- Response is adequate for situation but not overkill. If you blow up a generator, send a fresh wave of skimmers or maybe a couple of SLF. A player shouldn't be staring down a wing of Elite FDLs for blowing up a skimmer.
Threshold breached, Target = NPC/Player Ship:- Immediate NPC Security Reaction, to include any NPC Bounty Hunters in the area. System wide broadcast of crime committed, including the name and general location of the guilty party.
- Security Force reaction should be adequate for situation and not overkill.
- If player continues to commit said crime (Keeps shooting) then the reaction should amp up accordingly. Where they may have once been two vultures there are now 4, and so on, so forth until a maximum of two wings have been committed to the destruction/running off of the guilty party.
- Security Force ships sent to interdict the player should be chosen based on the type of ship the player is flying and his or her current combat skill. So an Elite Viper should still warrant a heavy response, whereas a Harmless Cutter might only get 2-3 normal or heavy fighters.
- Fines should reflect damage caused, fuel and rearm costs of response force and the penalty for breaking the law.
Murder:- Powerplay is the exception to this rule.
- Murder should be treated the same no matter if it's an NPC or Player being killed.
- All previous warnings/fines/reactions apply, to include the following:
- Massive fine and bounty.
- Immediate heavy NPC response.
- NPC response should take into account whether or not the player is in a wing, what their combat rating is and what they are flying.
- NPC response should also take into account the amount of engineered components in said player or wings ships.
- NPC response in high security systems should be able to match, within limits, player engineered shields, hull and weapon output.
- NPC response in medium security systems should be able to match weapon and thruster output.
- The author of this is a wishful thinker.
- NPC response in low security systems should pray.
- NPC response in Anarchy systems shouldn't happen except for at or around stations. Then it should be quick, brutal and extremely overpowered (Remember, Anarchy systems don't care who you are. You will not be targeted by security forces for being a carebear bounty hunter... but for example, if you came into the Diamond Frog's home system and shot a DF aligned trade ship as it was entering the mail slot.. you might not live very long. Best to do your hunting away from stations in this scenario).
I mean, if I can drop into a USS with 12 Vultures waiting to carve me up over 4 tons of gold, we can drop 12 Vultures (or some other combination of heavy hitting ships) onto a murderer within 10-15 seconds, lore/realism be damned.
Fines and Wanted status would probably be extended under these rules to last a month, vice 7 days. Especially if you murder someone.. a month is a cakewalk compared to having everything taken away from you.
Piracy:
Now, the above rules make Piracy sound like it would be pretty hard to pull off. It should be.
Piracy should require a fast ship that can hit heavy, hit hard and then be gone before local forces can interdict it.
There needs to be an actual threat there that the pirate can leverage against the trader/explorer (Assuming someday explorers will be able to bring things back from their trips). Without that leverage piracy is a joke that is almost entirely based on mutual cooperation between two random humans on the internet.
We need pirate specific tools that can only be acquired in the low/anarchy systems, with the better rated components coming from the Anarchy systems themselves. We need a way to lock down another player's FSD so that they can't high wake away from a pirate. Of course, that's about the only one I can think of since we already have cargo and wake scanners. However, it's a horrible tool that could have horrible repercussions if not balanced properly. I, however, wouldn't recommend balancing the tool itself. I would give the trader/explorer/random joe a counter of their own. I would give them some kind of jammer that incapacitates weapons or distribution rigs so that the pirate can't effectively engage his target quick enough to destroy them. FSD shields, items that can be countered only by stronger jammers, etc.
Of course, the FSD jammer would be contraband in a high security system, which would make items pulled from missions into HiSec by pirates all the more valuable in regards to mission contracts.
Feel free to add on to these thoughts (piracy tools) in the comments.
Mission makeover w/ a touch on BGS:
The mission system is the driving force behind what would make a setup like this work. Currently we don't really have any incentives via mission to go into low or high security space (not that security ratings even matter) and, with the systems structured as laid out at the top of this wall of text, we'd finally have the foundation for such a thing. The whole idea here is to give lawless players a place to live within the galaxy, a place where they have the same creature comforts (to an extent) as lawful players while also giving each type of player the incentive to visit the other's safe space, thus promoting the mixing of the two player types without making it so that pirates and murderers can bunk across the station from little Johnny and Susan with their first Sidewinder.
We'd retain the normal gambit of smuggling, piracy, assassination and search & destroy archetypes but we would add on to them at this point. The addons would include the assassinations of low key political figures in higher security space for pirates and the targeting of pirate lords and outlaws in anarchy space for bounty hunters coming out of high sec. You would also need to add in item retrieval missions to mirror both sides, with pirates seeking out luxury goods that aren't made in their sector of anarchy space while players trading out of high/medium security space may need to venture into anarchy space to get that one specific kind of rum that's next to impossible to import because nobody wants to fly out there and risk their lives/ship.
The BGS wouldn't need to be changed I don't think (does anyone really know how it works? And I mean works. Not just how to manipulate it). I would imagine that the ebb and flow of anarchy/low security space would be ever changing as different factions fought to expand against each other and pirates/outlaws fought to maintain control over their little system within the red bubble of lawlessness.
KARMA!
No.
Okay, maybe. Obviously our current system for figuring out if someone is a bad guy or not is pretty worthless and while I'm not exactly fond of a "Karma" system I can see it's use, especially when I look back over all of this and see that there's really nothing there to tie it together. Just some rule and location changes.
Bounties for you and bounties for you! Bounties for you! BOUNTIES FOR EVERYONE!
Yes, player bounties made by players, for players and via players.
The entire bounty model I have in mind follows CCPs bounty system in EVE Online almost exactly. Allow players to put bounties on one another but don't tie them into the karma/wanted system. Bounties would show up in the info section once a ship was scanned and have no upper limit. However, to avoid having situations crop up where you just have your buddy kill you or you hop into a suicidewinder and smash yourself against the walls at Zhen Dock to avoid having to do time, the bounty can only be lowered by another player destroying your ship and, even then, it will only be a percentage of said bounty.
So, if I had a 500,000,000 bounty placed on my head and Ziljan rolled up out of his hole and popped me, he'd be rewarded a percentage of the bounty. Not the whole thing. Probably enough to make it worth his time, so say 5-9 million depending on the ship I was in or how much damage he did to me (if multiple parties were involved). This would be taken from the bounty and it would keep getting chipped away like that until there was nothing left. There is a flaw with this, however, where Elite Dangerous as a game is concerned. Flagging another player as Wanted with a bounty would make them fair game in the eyes of the authorities. That being said, the potential for abuse is there in the form of continuously murdering a player until his bounty is gone. Trapping them in a station or on a planet until they switch to PG/Solo to get away.
I'd thought that maybe, maybe we could limit it to one pop per 24 hour period, give a cool down of sorts. Who's to stop people from lining up though? Hmm.. Something I hadn't thought about. I'd also like to see the 1 million credit cap on player bounty payouts removed, if nothing else, simply due to it being so easy to earn more money than that. That 1 million cap was introduced back when 1 million credits was a good chunk of change.
Thoughts?
Sorry, no TL;DR.
Point out things I no doubt missed.
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ie: If you destroy an NPC for the lolz, this action should be no different to destroying a CMDR. Note: This may make some players collection materials by farming innocent T9s unhappy - But it's totally logical.