Let's put all criticism aside and just look at an option for the future:
To pledge allegiance not to a particular power, but a major or minor faction. This should be a much bigger decision, and defection should have vastly harsher consequences. Here are some ideas how it could work:
To pledge allegiance not to a particular power, but a major or minor faction. This should be a much bigger decision, and defection should have vastly harsher consequences. Here are some ideas how it could work:
- You can join a single minor faction. If it belongs to a major faction, you automatically join that one, too.
- You can also only join the major faction directly, and not become a member of any minor faction.
- If you are a member of a major faction, you cannot join any minor faction that is not itself a member of the major faction.
- Joining a faction requires at least friendly reputation. And if you fall down to hostile, you are automatically kicked out.
- By joining a faction, you are shown to other ships as a member of that faction (just like it is currently listed in the info panel of an NPCs).
- NPCs with act accordingly, i.e. treat you the same as any other NPC of that faction.
- However other NPCs or players treat you, they experience the same effects (e.g. reputation loss or gain) with your faction, as if doing that to an NPC. For example, if you are a Federal citizen, attacking you would lower their Federation reputation, unless you have any Federation bounty on your head.
- In wars and civil wars that your faction is involved in, you automatically side with your own faction. If you only join a major faction, you automatically side with any minor faction that belongs to that major faction. If it is a conflict between two minor factions from your own major faction (it can happen, I have seen it myself), you are free to pick either side.
- When you are member of a faction, anything you do that increases its influence, has its effects doubled. Anything you do in a system where that faction is active (a major faction through the proxy of one of its minor factions - you don't have to have joined that particular minor faction) and yields influence for other factions (and not belonging to your major faction), is halved.
- Only if reputation decay is there to stay (I still hope it gets entirely reverted): Positive reputation never decays for the major faction you have joined
- When joined with a major faction, you cannot rise beyond friendly with the other major factions or their minor factions; if you are already allied with some, they immediately drop down to friendly.
- When joined with a major faction, you cannot gain military ranks of any other major faction; any ranks you already have are removed.
- You can defect from your faction. If you are member of a major faction and one of its minor factions, you can only defect from both together.
- Upon defection, you immediately fall down to hostile reputation, and a very high bounty (e.g. 1m) is put on your head, and it takes several times longer than usual for that to expire.
- Any property you have within that faction's territory will be seized. For example, if you have ships parked in Sol and defect from the Federation, these ships will be repossessed.
- Any military rank with a major faction is immediately forfeited when you defect.
- Other minor or major factions may offer you missions to defect to them. If you accept and fulfil them, you automatically join that other faction. If you merely defect without such a mission, other faction will be suspicious and don't trust your loyalty, and won't accept you into their ranks for a period of several weeks.
- If you have defected from a faction and later wish to rejoin, the required reputation for that is allied, not friendly, and you will have to make amends (e.g. a large monetary donation, fulfilling several special missions etc.).
- If you are member of a major faction, you can only pledge allegiance to a power aligned with that major faction. If you are aligned with any other power, you automatically defect from that one, with all consequences.
- If you pledge allegiance afterwards with a power not aligned with your major faction, you automatically defect from that major faction, with all consequences.
- Beyond that, joining factions is orthogonal to powerplay, you can just as well only join a faction and no power, or only join a power and no faction.