This is a long one so bear with me...
One of he things that Elite lacks is a sense of player agency. There is simply not much we can do to affect in the universe we are a part of. I will propose multiple ways to change this in, what I think (as someone who does NOT have any experience with game design, coding, programming, or bug testing), would be fairly simple to implement.
1: In game player created factions.
Put as plainly as possible the current system for implementing "guilds", or player factions, is a joke. I appreciate the want/need to vet lore and community inappropriate content out of the system, but the current method is clunky, unresponsive and slow to implement. It takes way to long to get any progress and its kind of a crap shoot in regards to getting your faction in the game at all. I propose that instead is the addition of a sign up board at certain space stations. You can put all the information about your wanted player faction up on the board in game in a station, and visiting commanders can choose to sign up as a member there. Included can be report features so that the community can police itself to a degree in regards to inappropriate or IRL offensive factions being put in a game. Once a faction has enough people sign up for it, it gets added to the mission board/game as a legitimate faction, and members can also make deposits and withdrawals (regulated by group members in leader ship roles) of faction resources such as materials commodities or credits in exchange for the same to keep the faction above water and profitable.
2: Player generated missions.
Once a player faction gains enough in game support to become a legitimate faction, the leadership would be able to post missions of the existing mission types to the board for players to participate in. This could be a way for a faction to gather resources, generate revenue, or simply grow their power. The mission giver would have to place a own payment on the mission reward, say 20% (arbitrary numbers are arbitrary) of the missions total reward, and the rest of the reward comes out of the factions coffers making it important to keep the faction profitable. Player factions would be able to store commodities and materials gained this way at the station for use by the group regulated by members in leadership roles. In addition, individual player would be able to post missions on their own on a freelance board, but they would have to pay the full reward out of pocket. This could be used to as a method to gain materials for engineering or comodities for trading missions. The creation process of these goals would determine the cost of funding rewards, certain actions would increase the required payout. It would not be something arbitrarily decided by the faction, however they could increase the payout above average to provide incentive for non faction players to complete missions for the faction.
3: Player generated community goals.
Again, once a player faction gains enough support/power in game, the leadership can post community goals. Anything from bounty hunting a particular faction of pirates in system or gathering resources to spur the factions growth. Most importantly, goals for the expressed purpose of creating a new space station in systems where it is available. I understand that that last one would require significant vetting from the staff at Frontier Developments to prevent a flood of content to their servers, but I think it's doable, especially if it's limited to player groups that have the funds and size to pay for a large effort. Remember that tens of millions of credits would have to be paid to each participant from the player factions coffers, so only the wealthiest factions would be able to post community goals (for reference, the recent Combat Operation in the Pleiades Sector OI-T c3-7 CG had 409 contributors with an average payout of over 14 mil per person for a total of over 6 billion credits). The creation process of these goals would determine the cost of funding rewards, certain actions would increase the required payout. It would not be something arbitrarily decided by the faction, however they could increase the payout above average to help pull resources in.
4: Player generated bounties.
When a player is blown up by another player, the criminal in question is given a bounty and the victim gets a trip to the rebuy screen. I propose that at the rebuy screen, at the cost of increasing the price of your rebuy (by an amount you can determine) you can place a bounty on the player that killed you IF you yourself do not have a bounty on your ship. This adds a level of urgency to the C&P system, and create new lucrative business that commanders (or newly created player factions) can use to make money. It would make Open/PVP a more engaging and meaningful endeavor for people not interested in attacking players for the sake of it. Imagine wings of players flying protection around community goals and exacting just punishment on griefers for their attempted disruption of the event, and getting paid good money to do it.
5: Player investment into station.
This one is much more complex than the others, an in-game Stock market esq system where players can invest money into existing space stations and see monetary returns based on how profitable the station is.
As an example (keeping in mind that I am NOT an economist and do not know how this stuff functions in IRL) I donate 10mil to Fabian City, not a faction there, the station itself. Every week, when you get your PP rewards, you receive a voucher for a certain percent (say 15%) of your initial investment if the station has been succesfuly profitable within the background simulation. If they preform above and beyond, you get more (say up to 25%) but if they do poorly you get less or none, maybe even costing you money to help keep the station afloat. This would provide incentive for players to foster the growth of their home systems if they have them. This could also apply to stations founded by player factions. If the faction/station is profitable and the members work to keep it so, then the faction will get more investors and encourage people to reinvest in the faction or station, making these player communities real powers to reckon with in the Elite universe.
All of these propositions have a 2 goals: increase player and group agency, and provide a money pit for those with an access of credits just sitting in their account with nothing to spend it on. I am not one of those latter players, but I would much rather pay someone to gather materials for me than to do it myself (although the overhaul to the mission reward system makes me very happy).
Those are my ideas for improving agency and urgency in the galaxy of Elite. I know that there are a lot of kinks to work out and, as is, some of these things are ripe for abuse by the powerful. But I believe that Frontier Developments, in conjunction with this community, could make this a safe and viable method of engaging the core audience of this game in ways that it simply has not done thus far. I love Elite, and will likely continue playing for a long time. However I, and many others I'm sure, would love to have large, galaxy effecting, goals that they could strive towards as part of the hundreds of close nit communities that Elite has spawned.
One of he things that Elite lacks is a sense of player agency. There is simply not much we can do to affect in the universe we are a part of. I will propose multiple ways to change this in, what I think (as someone who does NOT have any experience with game design, coding, programming, or bug testing), would be fairly simple to implement.
1: In game player created factions.
Put as plainly as possible the current system for implementing "guilds", or player factions, is a joke. I appreciate the want/need to vet lore and community inappropriate content out of the system, but the current method is clunky, unresponsive and slow to implement. It takes way to long to get any progress and its kind of a crap shoot in regards to getting your faction in the game at all. I propose that instead is the addition of a sign up board at certain space stations. You can put all the information about your wanted player faction up on the board in game in a station, and visiting commanders can choose to sign up as a member there. Included can be report features so that the community can police itself to a degree in regards to inappropriate or IRL offensive factions being put in a game. Once a faction has enough people sign up for it, it gets added to the mission board/game as a legitimate faction, and members can also make deposits and withdrawals (regulated by group members in leader ship roles) of faction resources such as materials commodities or credits in exchange for the same to keep the faction above water and profitable.
2: Player generated missions.
Once a player faction gains enough in game support to become a legitimate faction, the leadership would be able to post missions of the existing mission types to the board for players to participate in. This could be a way for a faction to gather resources, generate revenue, or simply grow their power. The mission giver would have to place a own payment on the mission reward, say 20% (arbitrary numbers are arbitrary) of the missions total reward, and the rest of the reward comes out of the factions coffers making it important to keep the faction profitable. Player factions would be able to store commodities and materials gained this way at the station for use by the group regulated by members in leadership roles. In addition, individual player would be able to post missions on their own on a freelance board, but they would have to pay the full reward out of pocket. This could be used to as a method to gain materials for engineering or comodities for trading missions. The creation process of these goals would determine the cost of funding rewards, certain actions would increase the required payout. It would not be something arbitrarily decided by the faction, however they could increase the payout above average to provide incentive for non faction players to complete missions for the faction.
3: Player generated community goals.
Again, once a player faction gains enough support/power in game, the leadership can post community goals. Anything from bounty hunting a particular faction of pirates in system or gathering resources to spur the factions growth. Most importantly, goals for the expressed purpose of creating a new space station in systems where it is available. I understand that that last one would require significant vetting from the staff at Frontier Developments to prevent a flood of content to their servers, but I think it's doable, especially if it's limited to player groups that have the funds and size to pay for a large effort. Remember that tens of millions of credits would have to be paid to each participant from the player factions coffers, so only the wealthiest factions would be able to post community goals (for reference, the recent Combat Operation in the Pleiades Sector OI-T c3-7 CG had 409 contributors with an average payout of over 14 mil per person for a total of over 6 billion credits). The creation process of these goals would determine the cost of funding rewards, certain actions would increase the required payout. It would not be something arbitrarily decided by the faction, however they could increase the payout above average to help pull resources in.
4: Player generated bounties.
When a player is blown up by another player, the criminal in question is given a bounty and the victim gets a trip to the rebuy screen. I propose that at the rebuy screen, at the cost of increasing the price of your rebuy (by an amount you can determine) you can place a bounty on the player that killed you IF you yourself do not have a bounty on your ship. This adds a level of urgency to the C&P system, and create new lucrative business that commanders (or newly created player factions) can use to make money. It would make Open/PVP a more engaging and meaningful endeavor for people not interested in attacking players for the sake of it. Imagine wings of players flying protection around community goals and exacting just punishment on griefers for their attempted disruption of the event, and getting paid good money to do it.
5: Player investment into station.
This one is much more complex than the others, an in-game Stock market esq system where players can invest money into existing space stations and see monetary returns based on how profitable the station is.
As an example (keeping in mind that I am NOT an economist and do not know how this stuff functions in IRL) I donate 10mil to Fabian City, not a faction there, the station itself. Every week, when you get your PP rewards, you receive a voucher for a certain percent (say 15%) of your initial investment if the station has been succesfuly profitable within the background simulation. If they preform above and beyond, you get more (say up to 25%) but if they do poorly you get less or none, maybe even costing you money to help keep the station afloat. This would provide incentive for players to foster the growth of their home systems if they have them. This could also apply to stations founded by player factions. If the faction/station is profitable and the members work to keep it so, then the faction will get more investors and encourage people to reinvest in the faction or station, making these player communities real powers to reckon with in the Elite universe.
All of these propositions have a 2 goals: increase player and group agency, and provide a money pit for those with an access of credits just sitting in their account with nothing to spend it on. I am not one of those latter players, but I would much rather pay someone to gather materials for me than to do it myself (although the overhaul to the mission reward system makes me very happy).
Those are my ideas for improving agency and urgency in the galaxy of Elite. I know that there are a lot of kinks to work out and, as is, some of these things are ripe for abuse by the powerful. But I believe that Frontier Developments, in conjunction with this community, could make this a safe and viable method of engaging the core audience of this game in ways that it simply has not done thus far. I love Elite, and will likely continue playing for a long time. However I, and many others I'm sure, would love to have large, galaxy effecting, goals that they could strive towards as part of the hundreds of close nit communities that Elite has spawned.
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