Player Factions & Wing Enhancements
Proposal for actual player factions to be added to the game
At this time of writing, Elite: Dangerous is in a strange place when it comes to player-factions; they exist (as in-game factions), however the way players are able to interact with them is pretty minimal & unsatisfying.
This is because;
These issues reduce the appeal of getting involved in player-faction activities and I think they need addressing to make faction & wing play more meaningful and enjoyable.
Suggestion: Use & expand already existing private group mechanics to manage faction rosters
Joining a Faction
Player Faction Tagging
Internal Faction Ranks
Faction Overview
Megaship Location Voting & Management
Faction Chat Channel
Manifest Scanner Upgrade
Player-Faction Scan Concepts
Proposal for actual player factions to be added to the game
At this time of writing, Elite: Dangerous is in a strange place when it comes to player-factions; they exist (as in-game factions), however the way players are able to interact with them is pretty minimal & unsatisfying.
This is because;
- They are essentially standard factions that someone has asked to be put into the game, with no extra features or mechanisms
- Founders & leaders (players) of the faction have minimal control over the actual tactical direction or politics (in-game) after the faction has been created
- There is no way to control/administrate faction membership/roster within the game
- No dedicated method for displaying player faction identification (tags have to be requested from FDev, which is a hassle as you have to go through supprt)
- NPC's who belong to the player faction treat member players the same as everyone else, even hostile
- If the faction owns or is getting a megaship, the process of moving it around is manually controlled directly by FDev - involving communicating with support
- Any player can become 'Allied' to the faction, but this is meaningless as far as player faction politics goes (there is no way for faction players to tell what relationship other players have to the faction as all this info is hidden)
These issues reduce the appeal of getting involved in player-faction activities and I think they need addressing to make faction & wing play more meaningful and enjoyable.
Suggestion: Use & expand already existing private group mechanics to manage faction rosters
It is my understanding that most player factions aleardy get a private group assigned to them with multiple admins/moderators setup to manage it, so it is logical we should use this system to enhance faction membership functionality.
On the 'Friends & Private Groups' screen, there would be another tab labelled 'Faction'. On this tab you would be able to see the faction you are a member of/admin of, some details on the faction (it's focus, member count etc..), and a list of all faction members with their status & rank in the faction visualised in some way.
Expanding upon the current PG functionality, there would need to be three levels of faction membership:
With these features, faction admins would have direct control over who joins the faction and what access-level/internal-rank they have. This would be an excellent method of faction management.
On the 'Friends & Private Groups' screen, there would be another tab labelled 'Faction'. On this tab you would be able to see the faction you are a member of/admin of, some details on the faction (it's focus, member count etc..), and a list of all faction members with their status & rank in the faction visualised in some way.
Expanding upon the current PG functionality, there would need to be three levels of faction membership:
- Super-Admin : Most likely the faction founder, plus a couple of other designated super-admins to manage the faction, their powers would include:
- Accept or reject new applicants
- Set membership level of members (Admin or Member)
- Set member faction rank of any member (custom rank names)
- Suspension of membership of existing members
- Removal of membership of existing members (kick)
- Set members into 6 internal faction ranks (each with standardised icon)
- Set rank-names
- Set default faction tag status (for everyone in the faction)
- Set rival player faction relationship status (Hostile, Unfriendly, Neutral, Cordial, Friendly, Allied)
- Issue faction orders/directives
- Set megaship location if faction has one (once per week)
- Set megaship visiblity to non-members
- Set megaship accessibility to non-members
- Set each rank's megaship voting strength (rank vote strength cannot exceed rank level e.g rank 3 could not exceed 3 votes)
- Admin : Slightly less powers than super-admins, but given a few powers to help manage the faction:
- Accept or reject new applicants
- Set member faction rank of any standard member (custom rank names) up to rank of themselves
- Suspenion of membership to existing members
- Issue faction orders/directives
- Member : Standard faction member, has no management powers
- All membership levels :
- View all members in the faction from the list with their status, rank and membership level (Member, Admin or Super-Admin)
- Set own tag status (only for themself)
- Use a 'Faction' comms channel in game (and on faction menu) to talk to all members at once
- Has access to faction mega-ship if owned by faction
- Gets a vote on megaship movement if ranks is high enough
- Can access 'faction overview' screen
With these features, faction admins would have direct control over who joins the faction and what access-level/internal-rank they have. This would be an excellent method of faction management.
Joining a Faction
Unlike Powerplay, which is an open system for any player to join any Power at will - player factions usually require that any applicants formally request membership to become a member. Currently this is done outside of the game, which again, requires research and external websites, tools etc. With the roster system suggested above, players would be able to request membership inside of the game, in the same way as joining a private group works now.
The player wishing to join would send a membership request to the group, the faction admins would then either accept or deny the membership request, with it showing as 'Membership Request Pending' until an admin either approves or rejects the request.
On completing an application to a player-faction, the admins of the faction would be presented with the applicant's ranks and powerplay status, along with a list of their owned ships.
A player could only be a member of one player-faction at a time.
The player wishing to join would send a membership request to the group, the faction admins would then either accept or deny the membership request, with it showing as 'Membership Request Pending' until an admin either approves or rejects the request.
On completing an application to a player-faction, the admins of the faction would be presented with the applicant's ranks and powerplay status, along with a list of their owned ships.
A player could only be a member of one player-faction at a time.
Player Faction Tagging
One of the main multiplayer issues in Elite Dangerous right now is that players don't know what player-factions other players belong to. Knowing who is representing who is necessary to increase the amount of emergent, inter-faction gameplay in ED. You might say that players have this facility in Powerplay, but PP is not really used for serious faction role-play by the majority of open players, who instead prefer to use it to 'module-shop' (one of powerplay's numerous design flaws). The interdynamics of player faction interactions are far more interesting/emergent to most players than powerplay is, as there is a greater sense of tribalism with factions that you just don't get with powers (which are too sprawling and internally-annonymous to get that effect).
The way I see it working is that Super-Admins will have control over how their member's default identification tags are displayed by setting a couple of options on the faction-administration screen.There would be the following tagging options;
The reason for these options is that some groups may wish to hide their faction name in certain zones as it can give away their intent or compromise their safety. For example, pirates may wish to hide their faction tags in supercruise to avoid arousing suspicion, but then when in normal space want their faction membership to be known.
Faction tagging would also be very useful for large-scale multiple wing-battles. Currently there is a problem when player-groups bring more than one wing to a fight - all wing-mates are clearly marked as blue, but allied players not in the wing appear as neutral yellow. This can cause friendly-fire incidents, especially if someone is new to a player-group and doesn't know all the members. With my idea, everyone would have their membership clearly marked because allied players would always show tags to other members - and also everyone in your own faction would appear on the scanner as green, so confusion would be significantly reduced.
Tags would have a custom faction colour which would be set by super-admins in the faction management panel. This would make identification easier at a glance.
The way I see it working is that Super-Admins will have control over how their member's default identification tags are displayed by setting a couple of options on the faction-administration screen.There would be the following tagging options;
- Always show faction tags
- Show faction tags in normal-space only
- Show faction tags in supercruise only
- Never show faction tags
- Show tags by rank (checkbox list for faction ranks, set tags to only show on specific ranks)
- * There would be a checkbox to either show or hide the faction member's rank (icon-only) next to their faction name tag
- * Tags & ranks would always be displayed to fellow faction-members regardless of option selected here
- * Choosing to hide your own tag-status would override the default option set by super-admins (but not for showing)
The reason for these options is that some groups may wish to hide their faction name in certain zones as it can give away their intent or compromise their safety. For example, pirates may wish to hide their faction tags in supercruise to avoid arousing suspicion, but then when in normal space want their faction membership to be known.
Faction tagging would also be very useful for large-scale multiple wing-battles. Currently there is a problem when player-groups bring more than one wing to a fight - all wing-mates are clearly marked as blue, but allied players not in the wing appear as neutral yellow. This can cause friendly-fire incidents, especially if someone is new to a player-group and doesn't know all the members. With my idea, everyone would have their membership clearly marked because allied players would always show tags to other members - and also everyone in your own faction would appear on the scanner as green, so confusion would be significantly reduced.
Tags would have a custom faction colour which would be set by super-admins in the faction management panel. This would make identification easier at a glance.
Internal Faction Ranks
There would be 6 internal faction ranks with standardised icons (to keep consistant UI), but the names of these ranks would be editable (by super-admins) as different groups would want different rank-names. The purpose of these ranks is to formalise in-faction status and provide a method of showing external players how senior the player is in their faction (has emergent gameplay value e.g. inter-faction politics). It is also used for internal-faction voting strength (see megaship control below)
As shown above, there should also be an option to only show faction membership tags on specific faction ranks (some player factions have semi-member ranks that the group may wish to supress tagging on).
As shown above, there should also be an option to only show faction membership tags on specific faction ranks (some player factions have semi-member ranks that the group may wish to supress tagging on).
Faction Overview
Once a commander joins a player-faction, they would get access to a UI area that is not usually accessible by non-faction players. The faction overview would provide an interface for summarising all the important information on faction activities and status. Without this it is very hard for member-players to keep track of what the faction is supposed to be doing, where they are supposed to be or how much success/difficulty they are experiencing in achieving objectives. Faction overview would contain the following sub-areas (tabbed):
- Overview landing screen forming the central hub of the faction menu (like the station menu home screen):
- Faction Name
- Logo (FDev approval needed on image used)
- Government type
- Home system (& station)
- Number of controlled systems
- Number of systems present
- Member count
- Introduction text (paragraphs)
- Focused activities (primary, secondary, tertiary)
- Current orders (up to three active)
- Megaship name, status & location ('no megaship' placeholder if not owned)
- Orders Tab
- This screen would show the current active orders for faction members (up to three directives at any one time. Ones set by super-admins would take priority and be highlighted in yellow).
- Orders would not be editable text, but would function much like squard orders in an MMO shooter (text would be hard for FDev to moderate & maintain)
- Admin set order directives:
- Go to <system(s)>
- Attack <faction> in <system(s)> (kill specific faction ships)
- Bounty Hunt in <system(s)> (earn bounties off wanted ships)
- Defend <controlledSysyem> (kill rival-faction players in contolled system)
- Destablise <system(s)>/<station(s)> (kill clean ships, pirate clean ships, smuggle illicit goods)
- Consolodate (distribute Powerplay cargo) for <power> in <system(s)>
- Explore <planet(s)>/<system(s)>/<nebula(s)>/<sectors(s)>
- Mine <commodities>/<materials> in <system(s)>
- Pirate <system(s)> (pirate any ships)
- Protect <system(s)> (kill wanted or aggressor ships)
- Sell <commodities>/<explorationData>/<bountyVouchers>/<combatBonds> in <system(s)> at <station(o)>
- Smuggle <illegalGoods>/<stolenGoods> in <system(s)> at <station(o)>
- Support <faction> in <system(s)> (missions, trade, exploration data, bounty hunting/combat bonds for specific faction)
- Support <power> in <system(s)> (sell PP commodities, undermine, military strike)
- Support <superpower> in <system(s)> (missions, trade, exploration data, bounty hunting/combat bonds for any aligned faction)
- Trade <commodities> in <system(s)>
- Undermine <system(s)> (kill local PP ships)
- *(s) = max 3
- *(o) = optional
- There would be an orders completed feed on this screen, updating whenever a member successfully follows a directive (member name, order followed, log description)
- Completing orders would generate some credits or merits for the member (depending on order type). Not excessive amounts though as to avoid exploitation
- By default, orders would last a week, but they could be either repealed/changed early, or renewed every week (this is to avoid orders becoming out-of-date)
- Faction orders would display markers on the galaxy map (pink)
- Local news/galnet stories could report on player factions issuing orders on systems dynamically (increasing emergent gameplay). *This reporting could be disabled for opsec purposes
- Using a data-uplink scanner on an admin member of a player-faction would show the scanning commander the target's current orders until they leave the instance, providing some espionage gameplay potential
- Membership Tab
- Screen would should show a list of all the members of your faction and if you are an admin or superadmin, you would also see a seperate tab for new member applicant requests.
- Members Subtab:
- Scrollable list of all faction members
- Search filter facility
- Commander name, avatar, faction-rank, other ranks (combat, trade, exploration, naval + any others that get added), powerplay faction, orders completed count & current location (system + station if docked)
- Send Message (switches to comms panel as a direct message)
- Voice comms link request
- Admin actions (edit rank, suspend, kick)
- Super Admin actions (edit admin status)
- Standard member hightlighted orange, admin highlighted white and superadmin highlighted yellow
- Applicants Subtab (Admin Only):
- Scrollable list of all applicants (including rejected)
- search filter facility
- Commander name, avatar, faction-rank, other ranks (combat, trade, exploration, naval + any others that get added), asset wealth(poor, low, moderate, high, wealthy), powerplay faction & current location (system + station if docked)
- Send Message (switches to comms panel as a direct message)
- Voice comms link request
- Admin Actions (accept application, defer application, reject application)
- Territory Overview Tab
- Shows a listing of all systems where your faction is present, whether they are in control or not.
- Each system in the item list would display:
- System name
- Economies
- Security status
- Population & Station count
- Distance (ly) from home system
- Faction influence % (+ rising/falling indicator)
- Current state
- Controlling faction name if not owned
- Admin option to issue order on system
- Controlled systems are highlighted green
- Controlled systems under threat of losing control are highlighted purple
- Non-controlled systems are shown as orange (or whatever the default UI colour is)
- Non-controlled systems on the brink of control are highlighted yellow
- Non-controlled systems recently lost are highlighted red
- Megaship Tab
- If a faction owns a megaship, members could view information about the faction's megaship and cast their vote(s) on where it should be moved to if anywhere. The megaship overview screen would display:
- Megaship name
- Megaship hologram (in style of station menu hologram)
- Current system + time spent at location since last moved
- Distance from star (ls)
- Distance in ly from faction home system
- Destination voting panel (switching to galaxy/system map to pick system/body)
- Megaship Mangagement (Super-Admin Members Only) * See 'Megaship Location Voting & Management' below
- If a faction owns a megaship, members could view information about the faction's megaship and cast their vote(s) on where it should be moved to if anywhere. The megaship overview screen would display:
- Diplomacy Tab
- Shows a list of all the player factions in the game with their relationship towards the player's faction highlighted (standard faction relationship types). Unlike relationships with minor factions, these relationships would be decided by the leaders of the faction based on encounters between members. This UI would inlclude the following features:
- Listing of factions, with each one showing; Faction name, logo, home system, government type, allegience(superpower and/or power), number of systems present & controlled, member count, relationship towards your faction
- Faction name search filter
- Each faction in the list would have an overview page containing more detailed information about them (description, favoured activities, names of systems and stations they control, interraction feed between their members and your faction's members)
- Super Admin option to set relationship for that faction (default is 'neutral' like always)
- After setting relationship, ship contacts for the faction in question will be coloured accordingly (hostile being red, unfriendly-cordial set to UI default & friendly & allied set to green)
- Shows a list of all the player factions in the game with their relationship towards the player's faction highlighted (standard faction relationship types). Unlike relationships with minor factions, these relationships would be decided by the leaders of the faction based on encounters between members. This UI would inlclude the following features:
- Faction Management Tab (Super Admins only)
- Allows Super Admins to set various global options that apply to the faction, these would include:
- Member Tag default visibility
- Edit rank Names
- Edit rank voting strength
- Enable or disable dynamic order reporting in station/galnet news feeds
- Set faction tag UI colour from hex colour picker
- Allows Super Admins to set various global options that apply to the faction, these would include:
Megaship Location Voting & Management
Faction super-admins would be able to decide which system (within a certain maximum range) they would like to move the megaship to (and which system body they would like the megaship to orbit). Each member of the faction would get to vote on the proposed destination system if they have sufficient internal-rank. (voting strength depends on the member's in-faction rank which is set by super-admins & admins).
If there is insufficient votes (less than minimum number), the megaship remains in situ until another vote is successful. The megaship can only be moved once per week, but can be moved any day (megaship locations will have a 'tick', like the BGS, where they all update).
Super-admins would also be able to set the sensor-visibility/accessibility of the faction's megaship to non-faction members, options would be:
Sensor Visibility
Megaship Docking Accessibility
Super-admins would also be able to set the station's defensive/offensive behavior:
Megaship Offence & Defence
If there is insufficient votes (less than minimum number), the megaship remains in situ until another vote is successful. The megaship can only be moved once per week, but can be moved any day (megaship locations will have a 'tick', like the BGS, where they all update).
Super-admins would also be able to set the sensor-visibility/accessibility of the faction's megaship to non-faction members, options would be:
Sensor Visibility
- Visible to all
- Visible to all (excluding hostile player faction members)
- Visible to members, allies, friendlies, cordials, neutrals & unfriendlies
- Visible to members, allies, friendlies, cordials & neutrals
- Visible to members, allies, friendlies & cordials
- Visible to members, allies & friendlies
- Visible to members & allies
- Visible to members only
Megaship Docking Accessibility
- Accessible to all (excluding hostile player faction members)
- Accessible to members, allies, friendlies, cordials, neutrals & unfriendlies
- Accessible to members, allies, friendlies, cordials & neutrals
- Accessible to members, allies, friendlies & cordials
- Accessible to members, allies & friendlies
- Accessible to members & allies
- Accessible to members
Super-admins would also be able to set the station's defensive/offensive behavior:
Megaship Offence & Defence
- No hostile action
- Defensive fire only (protects members from external aggression too)
- Defensive fire & offensive fire against hostile ships
- Defensive fire & offensive fire against hostile and unfriendly ships
- Defensive fire & offensive fire against hostile, unfriendly and neutral ships
- Defensive fire & offensive fire against all non-members
- * Offensive fire would require a scan (NPC or player) before the station opens fire
Faction Chat Channel
Currently in ED, communication between players in a large group can be quite difficult. If they are not in a wing, players either have message eachother directly or have to rely on using external apps such as Discord & Teamspeak. These apps are very useful, but Sometimes it's easier just to use in-game chat so the players involved don't have to minimise their window etc. Currently however, there is no way of sending a message to a group who are not in a wing or in the local instance. With that in mind it would be a good idea if we had a 'faction' text chat channel as a suppliment to this proposed player faction system.
This would operate much like 'local' chat, but instead it would only be visible to members of your faction who are currently online and not be dependent on local proximity. This would make it easier for faction members to organise themselves quickly if something is going on, and would not require organising wings - which can be a bit of a distraction because it requires messenging serveral players individually.
Faction chat would appear as green blocks to distinquish it from local, direct or wing chat.
This would operate much like 'local' chat, but instead it would only be visible to members of your faction who are currently online and not be dependent on local proximity. This would make it easier for faction members to organise themselves quickly if something is going on, and would not require organising wings - which can be a bit of a distraction because it requires messenging serveral players individually.
Faction chat would appear as green blocks to distinquish it from local, direct or wing chat.
Manifest Scanner Upgrade
As players would now formally belong to factions, there should be a way for players to discover what missions other players are running (to see if they are working against their faction). I think that the manifest scanner should be updated so that it shows not only cargo & passengers, but also shows active missions the target is running, and for who.
This would provide a method for faction players to defend their controlled systems from BGS manipulation by other player factions (if they are in open... don't get me started). If the interferring player has faction tags, it could cause political drama (which makes the game more interesting and provides opportunities for diplomacy and/or meaningful PvP).
This would provide a method for faction players to defend their controlled systems from BGS manipulation by other player factions (if they are in open... don't get me started). If the interferring player has faction tags, it could cause political drama (which makes the game more interesting and provides opportunities for diplomacy and/or meaningful PvP).
Player-Faction Scan Concepts
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