Currently I feel as though the environment in Elite Dangerous lacks any content that has serious impact however, I believe the groundwork for that content is there.
When I first read about ED I thought it would be awesome if as a player or a group of players we could through the reputation system take over a system and as time went on begin to run and manage that system potentially splitting off from the main faction and creating your own faction or joining another faction such as a neighboring group of players Players could sell goods they crafted (ship parts and the like on their stations commodities exchange) allowing players to become known throughout the sector as the best crafter for X. Resources and such would come from multiple sources, PVP through dumped cargo and PVE sources such as mining. As your groups resource pool and area control grew you would be able to build bigger and better space stations, defensive stations, research stations, and other specialty structures throughout your sector of controlled space all using resources your group had gathered whether physically through mining and combat, or by purchasing them.
Now I know a large section of the current player base is against large scale group content such as guilds however, I believe this completely negates content that is extremely relevant to how human society would realistically evolve and operate. We may not operate as guilds but we do naturally organize ourselves into groups whether it is nation based or what have you.
The reason I believe the foundations for content like this currently exist is that traders would make large profits selling resources controlled by one group to another group that didn’t have access to those resources providing an avenue for economic warfare through pirating an opposing groups supply lines. PVP would be driven as player groups attempted to expand to control new resources and new supply lines. PVE would be driven as players tried to take control of faction controlled areas or say you raided faction controlled research stations to get plans for advanced weaponry and structures.
Players that wished to play solo or in smaller groups could operate as neutral or work for the military factions that currently exist in game. As neutral they would be able to do much the same thing they do now except they would have large player organizations to work with. For example trading between organizations, hiring yourself out as a mercenary and/or just selling your loot to them. If you worked for the existing military factions you could assist in preventing new factions from taking control of individual systems by conducting large scale military raids against player run installations with capital ship support. In order to receive upgrades to gear as a neutral you would merely have to purchase it from a faction that would allow you to do so. As a military faction member you would have to obtain a certain rank and achieve certain proficiencies such as number of kills, planets explored, resources harvested, or trades made much the same as the current ranking system currently is in order to obtain the advanced upgrades from the faction you were working for.
Crafting would require a lot more work than other systems to implement at this point as a procedural generation system for resource stats such as the one that existed in SWG would have to be developed if they wanted an in-depth crafting system. However, since Frontier has already stated in their future developments video that they would like to add in planet-side exploration I believe they could add all that in at that time along with player housing on worlds. I do believe they would need to keep the explorable and buildable area of planets down to a reasonable size in order to make it reasonable for server side resources. Remember you would only be able to build a house on a planet that had an oxygen based atmosphere such as agricultural based planets making these systems prized possessions for large groups. Other planets could have special structures such as automated mines and factories placed on them but living in a house on a planet with a nitrogen based atmosphere would be unrealistic. The other advantage of placing a system for building special structures such as these on planets is that while a large group would get added resources and such it would also force them to defend that world from other groups as those structures would be strategically valuable and if captured would then be under the control of the new group.
I can elaborate on the ideas for these systems if anyone is interested I just didn’t think a post lasting 10 pages would be read by anyone. Let me know what you all think? Does any of this sound interesting to anyone else?
I would appreciate if comments/discussion were kept respectful and constructive, I am looking for viable ideas that Frontier could use to develop the game further.
When I first read about ED I thought it would be awesome if as a player or a group of players we could through the reputation system take over a system and as time went on begin to run and manage that system potentially splitting off from the main faction and creating your own faction or joining another faction such as a neighboring group of players Players could sell goods they crafted (ship parts and the like on their stations commodities exchange) allowing players to become known throughout the sector as the best crafter for X. Resources and such would come from multiple sources, PVP through dumped cargo and PVE sources such as mining. As your groups resource pool and area control grew you would be able to build bigger and better space stations, defensive stations, research stations, and other specialty structures throughout your sector of controlled space all using resources your group had gathered whether physically through mining and combat, or by purchasing them.
Now I know a large section of the current player base is against large scale group content such as guilds however, I believe this completely negates content that is extremely relevant to how human society would realistically evolve and operate. We may not operate as guilds but we do naturally organize ourselves into groups whether it is nation based or what have you.
The reason I believe the foundations for content like this currently exist is that traders would make large profits selling resources controlled by one group to another group that didn’t have access to those resources providing an avenue for economic warfare through pirating an opposing groups supply lines. PVP would be driven as player groups attempted to expand to control new resources and new supply lines. PVE would be driven as players tried to take control of faction controlled areas or say you raided faction controlled research stations to get plans for advanced weaponry and structures.
Players that wished to play solo or in smaller groups could operate as neutral or work for the military factions that currently exist in game. As neutral they would be able to do much the same thing they do now except they would have large player organizations to work with. For example trading between organizations, hiring yourself out as a mercenary and/or just selling your loot to them. If you worked for the existing military factions you could assist in preventing new factions from taking control of individual systems by conducting large scale military raids against player run installations with capital ship support. In order to receive upgrades to gear as a neutral you would merely have to purchase it from a faction that would allow you to do so. As a military faction member you would have to obtain a certain rank and achieve certain proficiencies such as number of kills, planets explored, resources harvested, or trades made much the same as the current ranking system currently is in order to obtain the advanced upgrades from the faction you were working for.
Crafting would require a lot more work than other systems to implement at this point as a procedural generation system for resource stats such as the one that existed in SWG would have to be developed if they wanted an in-depth crafting system. However, since Frontier has already stated in their future developments video that they would like to add in planet-side exploration I believe they could add all that in at that time along with player housing on worlds. I do believe they would need to keep the explorable and buildable area of planets down to a reasonable size in order to make it reasonable for server side resources. Remember you would only be able to build a house on a planet that had an oxygen based atmosphere such as agricultural based planets making these systems prized possessions for large groups. Other planets could have special structures such as automated mines and factories placed on them but living in a house on a planet with a nitrogen based atmosphere would be unrealistic. The other advantage of placing a system for building special structures such as these on planets is that while a large group would get added resources and such it would also force them to defend that world from other groups as those structures would be strategically valuable and if captured would then be under the control of the new group.
I can elaborate on the ideas for these systems if anyone is interested I just didn’t think a post lasting 10 pages would be read by anyone. Let me know what you all think? Does any of this sound interesting to anyone else?
I would appreciate if comments/discussion were kept respectful and constructive, I am looking for viable ideas that Frontier could use to develop the game further.
