Excellent explanation. We can even leave the whole part about game modes and instances aside - having ubiquituous access to technology that effectively enables at-will long distance teleportation as the FSD does is so disruptive to the very foundations of warfare (and of course lots of other things) that any traditional concept no longer applies.
Will a Federation v Empire war happen in the foreseeable future?
- Thread starter RellTyr
- Start date
Excellent explanation. We can even leave the whole part about game modes and instances aside - having ubiquituous access to technology that effectively enables at-will long distance teleportation as the FSD does is so disruptive to the very foundations of warfare (and of course lots of other things) that any traditional concept no longer applies.
Huge 5 year war that is in one agreed upon area. Players can enlist if they want, sky battles and ground battles. Eventually a new superpower rears it’s head and war stops between the 2 powers, they now have a common enemy which is larger in power and scale. Superior.
The Universal Communist Party. All ships are now the same, no one owns any land, all hail our hammer and sickle overlords.
There are many issues and problems with attempting to represent such a war, given ED's current political mechanisms.
- The Superpowers in ED aren't traditional "Superpowers". They're confederations, and rather loose confederations at that, given at how often a "green-on-green" war occurs. The Superpowers don't own territory directly.
- In attempting to make neither the Empire nor the Federation seem like "the obvious good guys", they have instead designed it so that the vast majority of players and player groups choose to be Independent. Both the Feds and Imps are in an existential fight, but it's the Indies that they are fighting against. The Federation has lost a third of its territory to the Indies since the game began. That's like 16 states seceding from America, and nobody in America really noticing or caring. But it also means that vast tracts of the Bubble would be "neutral" in any such war.
- The Powerplay camps wouldn't necessarily want "their side" to win any such war. Hudson and Aisling, in particular, would be severely handicapped if they were forced to accept switching their systems over to their nominal superpower alignment because Hudson hates democracy and Aisling hates imperialism.
And all that speed that those drives can achieve are a weapon in itself. If there's some kind of hack for the SC to disable the emergency drops when going too fast into a body - a sidewinder at those superluminal speeds would be the ultimate weapon. Every ship, a doomsday weapon.
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Not necessarily. I don’t think we have a good enough technical explanation of the FSD to say that. Remember the ships are not actually going faster than light, they are in a different frame of reference. The fastest they seem to be able to go in the same reference as “normal” objects like planets and stations are 900 odd m/s under their own power. This is a pitiful speed even when compared to modern day spacecraft.
For all we know the physics of that universe will not even allow something travelling in another frame of reference from colliding with an object from another frame of reference (like a planet) because the closer they get to each other their masses will interact and repel each other with grater force approaching infinity the close they are, thus never touching. I’m sure that’s as much b.s. as the FSD itself but the point is we don’t know.
The idea of a war as the OP proposes would be highly welcomed, the same has been suggested for Thargoids.
I'm not well-versed in the back end of what makes this game go, but I suspect that a large scale conflict above what we already have via PP may not be possible.
One can ask and wish.
I'm not well-versed in the back end of what makes this game go, but I suspect that a large scale conflict above what we already have via PP may not be possible.
One can ask and wish.
The super powers seem pretty meaningless in the context of wars and influence despite what intuition might suggest. For example you can enter any given imperial or federal system to find 2 federal minor factions at war, 2 imperial minor factions at war, an imperial and federal minor faction at war, and independent faction fighting anyone and so on. Also, there are federal systems with federal aligned controlling factions that are also Li Yong Rui controlled power play systems. So which is it? Federal or independent? None of it makes much sense when you realize that you can buy both federal and imperial ships with a LYR discount or than alliance factions can be at war with a federal faction in Duval controlled space. Its an incoherent mess. TLDR powers overlap and superpowers are rife with infighting.
There wont be a war, there will be a massacre of the Federation that should not take longer than a few weeks.
It will be the equivalent of the Empire sweeping the dirt of the rug, what what
Toodly Pipsky old bean
Definitely agreed there - the BGS can tell good stories, but it's like the joke about the person who shoots first, then draws bullseyes around the holes afterwards.
Even the individual wars while they were going on, a passer-by could even take part in without ever realising that they were part of a bigger conflict.
(This is where Frontier's advantages through both Galnet and being able to force-apply BGS states across a wide area could theoretically help out, but in practice the scale is too much and the main visible effect of most BGS states is which annoying passenger liners you get)
And this is why it will always be a cold war, fought locally. At worst / best you could have roving Fed / Imp aligned wings of navy in opposition held territory but not much more.
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Powers and superpowers are diffuse overlays on the map. But there's still broad coherence in terms of concentrations, according to allegiance - remanent from the days of slow, 3200s travel, one assumes. LYR is a bad example there since, as an independent power he's bound to overlap and coexist with the different superpowers - he has a corporate interest in having stakes within each superpower. I don't see all this as a problem.
But there should be more consequence from power control. You could have a two-way impact between minor factions and powers depending on the faction's gov type and allegiance. Alternatively, shouldn't powers be vying for some centralised influence over their superpower? I.e. have superpower characteristics that the powers can influence depending on their standing. For the independent powers, perhaps they could influence all superpowers but to a lesser extent. Some of these things are sort of there already, but in such a dilute or niche form that no-one notices.
Agree with some earlier comments that war systems should be more of a noticeable mess, at least for control wars - in terms of a feeling of lawlessness (perhaps temporary lowered security level), navy forces throwing their weight around and maybe even pirating in the fog of war, refugee distress calls with threat levels, etc. A war system should be a place that a tin can trading ship wants to avoid, but a tooled-up CMDR seeks to exploit. Oh, and give a jump warning or galmap overlay to show where to avoid/exploit.
If they were going to implement a full on Superpower war, they'd have to add a lot of functionality to both the client and server side. The server side would have to keep track of the war's progress and which side had the upper hand. Players would, obviously, have to be involved either by choice. There is a problem, as we've seen from CGs, Federal players outnumber Imperial players 2 to 1.
I still remember the Lugh event quite fondly. It would be epic to get massive multi-player furball in conflict zones with Capital Ships. Although I think I would prefer it that if you entered one of those combat zones, you automatically joined the side you had the highest rank or highest friendliness with to stop players playing for both sides.
I still remember the Lugh event quite fondly. It would be epic to get massive multi-player furball in conflict zones with Capital Ships. Although I think I would prefer it that if you entered one of those combat zones, you automatically joined the side you had the highest rank or highest friendliness with to stop players playing for both sides.
Generally, I think a larger scale/scope war should be possible, it just requires localisation of objectives. Powerplay, BGS and CGs do this already, of course. For instance, a superpower campaign could involve a sequence of objectives, each in a different location, that need to be completed in order. It could be CG style, combining combat and logistical supply running under fire like a modern war. It means there are key systems/facilities that when taken/compromised, move the conflict on to the next step, and consequences for the losing/winning superpower on final victory.
Another idea would be to have a war for control of an area outside the bubble. But that would involve the area being imbued with some quality that made it crucial for dominance or advantage. A simple (and probably flawed!) example would be a tritium rich system where facilities were set up to sell tritium cheap, but much cheaper for CMDRs whose allegiance was to the winning superpower in a conflict there. Allegiance decided by squadron, powerplay pledge or relative superpower reputation/rank (i.e. CMDR needs high rep with the winner, low rep with the losers). Better if it was a region and not just one system, of course, in terms of being "large scale".
Another idea would be to have a war for control of an area outside the bubble. But that would involve the area being imbued with some quality that made it crucial for dominance or advantage. A simple (and probably flawed!) example would be a tritium rich system where facilities were set up to sell tritium cheap, but much cheaper for CMDRs whose allegiance was to the winning superpower in a conflict there. Allegiance decided by squadron, powerplay pledge or relative superpower reputation/rank (i.e. CMDR needs high rep with the winner, low rep with the losers). Better if it was a region and not just one system, of course, in terms of being "large scale".
I support the idea of a war between Empire and Fed. And when they have finished nuking each other the Alliance will take over everything remaining!
Hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha.
Oh wait your serious, let me laugh even harder.
Hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha.
Reading this thread reminds me why I play Stellaris - real wars with real choke-points where you can hold the line, or push into enemy territory.
I've thought now and then that ED needs some kind of FSD Disruptor Beacon tech - these beacons would ping out a signal which would have range of a few light seconds. Any ship that gets pinged during super-cruise would drop out back into normal space and perhaps a lengthly FSD cooldown would follow (we're talking minutes here). At least then defenders hanging out near the beacons would have a chance to intercept incoming enemy ships before they have the chance to high-wake.
I thought this (perhaps?) would open the door for escort missions, maybe for wars as well? I'll leave questions like 'how many beacons can be deployed?', 'how many times a beacon ping can force a ship to drop out of super-cruise' and 'can they be blown up?' to wiser people.
Either way, there needs to be a way and location for the two sides to meet, and that's before taking into account what platform the player is on. I'll suggest that cross-play should be added before any Fed-Imp war is rolled out to the player base.
I've thought now and then that ED needs some kind of FSD Disruptor Beacon tech - these beacons would ping out a signal which would have range of a few light seconds. Any ship that gets pinged during super-cruise would drop out back into normal space and perhaps a lengthly FSD cooldown would follow (we're talking minutes here). At least then defenders hanging out near the beacons would have a chance to intercept incoming enemy ships before they have the chance to high-wake.
I thought this (perhaps?) would open the door for escort missions, maybe for wars as well? I'll leave questions like 'how many beacons can be deployed?', 'how many times a beacon ping can force a ship to drop out of super-cruise' and 'can they be blown up?' to wiser people.
Either way, there needs to be a way and location for the two sides to meet, and that's before taking into account what platform the player is on. I'll suggest that cross-play should be added before any Fed-Imp war is rolled out to the player base.
Yes, but battles would be fought over focal points, like stations or settlements - it wouldn't make sense to zip behind the line, you'd be sitting ducks with no logistical support. A carrier could easily get jumped by a fleet of Cutters or Majestics for example.
I guess in order to fix this, when in a state of war, make every system be on Defcon 1, with NPC's or players waiting to pounce.
Huzzah, a man of quality!
Pretty difficult without a proper military!
fixed that for you
You’re missing the point - there is no line.
It’s just as easy to provide logistical support from 500LY away as it is from the system next door.
Basically, nowhere is safe and the glorious leaders can’t sit in safety while the grunts take the bullets.
No safe havens for them means no all out war.