Just a thought about rank-locked ships...and rank.

[DukeIronHand]

Just throwing this out here to see if my thinking is straight.
I get the game/Lore/whatever reasons for rank-locked ships and it's a fine idea.

On a personal note I once spent 3 days running missions to gain rank for a ship then, seeing how much progress I actually made, took a 6 week break from ED but that's another story.

The Cutter or Corvette, etc, are "special ships" made for/by a major power. No sweat.
To get one of these ships you have to do things for a government (gain rank by working for them) and once you have that status you are afforded the opportunity to buy one of their ships. Fine.

With that said should you be able to rank up with both powers? Guess I can't see being a "Admiral and King" (did I get that right?) at the same time even in a game sense. Either you are working or supporting one power but how can you do it for both? Guess I think of this when I see Cmdr with a full line of all faction ships and high rank in both.

The amazing (or incredible!) time commitment aside should players be able to only hold any rank with one power and not both? That would seem to make sense to me but I am not always correct.

 

[fademist]

maybe that will change ..if they go to war ...but is like the powerplay now u take what u want from one and then u go to the other...

 

[Stealthie]

To be brutally honest, it probably doesn't make a lot of sense that you can be prominent in both the Empire and the Federation at the same time but, then again, it also doesn't make any sense that when you re-buy a ship you get all your engineered parts returned to you as well.

Let's face it, ED is all about the ships so I'm glad FDev have prioritised the ability to own all the cool toys above being "sensible" about what sort of status a person should have at a given time.

If they were going to "tweak" anything, perhaps they could make it so that doing missions for one superpower causes your rep' with the other one to reduce?
You wouldn't actually lose rank but you wouldn't be able to jump from the Empire to the Federation and back again and continue to be given the most lucrative missions immediately.

 

[Gunnet]

They're just honorary ranks. I kind of feel like the superpowers not caring if mercenaries take jobs from both sides fits with the principle that we're all nobodies.

I wouldn't be surprised if the proper naval career system we get at some point in the future does force you to choose a side. But I imagine it will be a powerplay style "make one side like you, buy all their ships, resign, make the other side like you, buy all their ships too" deal rather than something which actually removes the possibility of players owning all the rank locked ships at once. Which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned, since permanently locking players out of owning any ships is a terrible idea.

 

[Riverside]

They're just honorary ranks. I kind of feel like the superpowers not caring if mercenaries take jobs from both sides fits with the principle that we're all nobodies.

I wouldn't be surprised if the proper naval career system we get at some point in the future does force you to choose a side. But I imagine it will be a powerplay style "make one side like you, buy all their ships, resign, make the other side like you, buy all their ships too" deal rather than something which actually removes the possibility of players owning all the rank locked ships at once. Which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned, since permanently locking players out of owning any ships is a terrible idea.

I think you're probably right about how war will work in 2.4, but I'd like to think a longer term solution with a see-saw approach could add a little depth. The more you work for one, the less you are welcomed by the others. Yes you can unlock stuff by ranking up but you lose reputation (if not rank) with the others.

With this approach it would effectively take twice as long to gain enough Empire rep to unlock the Cutter if you've just unlocked the Corvette, much like becoming allied again with a local pirate group after you annihilated them in a RES.

 

[Don Alvarez]

I think you're probably right about how war will work in 2.4, but I'd like to think a longer term solution with a see-saw approach could add a little depth. The more you work for one, the less you are welcomed by the others. Yes you can unlock stuff by ranking up but you lose reputation (if not rank) with the others.

With this approach it would effectively take twice as long to gain enough Empire rep to unlock the Cutter if you've just unlocked the Corvette, much like becoming allied again with a local pirate group after you annihilated them in a RES.

I think the intent might be that you would choose one over the other. At least, if this were thing, that is how I would envision it to work.

 

[Riverside]

I think the intent might be that you would choose one over the other. At least, if this were thing, that is how I would envision it to work.

Choose only one forever? I'd like to think even a hardened fed could one day decide to 'defect', and there would be some consequence to that. That's why i described it as a longer term solution

 

[Don Alvarez]

Choose only one forever? I'd like to think even a hardened fed could one day decide to 'defect', and there would be some consequence to that. That's why i described it as a longer term solution

Perhaps. But using other MMO's as a guideline, it a common theme that once you choose a faction it is generally irreversible (alliance/horde). Unfortunately, unlike that example ED does not allow multiple commanders under a single account, I guess that would be problematic.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

In Frontier as you ranked up it makde ranking up with the other side progressively harder.

I'd like to see a similar system in ED as well. Of course there is the problem of people who are already ranked up in both and how to handle defections.

Perhaps in the future they can put in military ranked missions and then lock them, force people to choose one side or the other and add the ability to defect. Of course, at that point there should be Alliance ranks with corresponding military missions as well. Perhaps there could also be some sort of Pirate "faction" it would be possible to gain ranks in, missions avaialble from all pirate systems.

 

[Sapyx]

I don't mind the "ranking up with both superpowers" idea; it is consistent with the lore. The Empire and Federation are not at full-scale war with each other and the ranks/titles are "honorary", not "real military". However, I would like to see two alterations to the rank system to make things perhaps a bit more sensible:

- If you actively work against a superpower (eg destroy their navy ships) you earn negative rank points with that power. Eventually, you earn enough negative points and don't earn any positive ones to counteract, you'll get demoted.

- When you get demoted below the rank required to purchase a ship, you lose the ability to re-buy that ship if it gets blown up on you.

That way, the "collect em all" crown still get to collect em all - they just should have a reasonable expectation of losing some of their toys if they betray the superpower that sold them the ships. And those fence-sitting players who are patiently working to support both superpowers without actively attacking either superpower, get to keep all their ships. And the upper-echelon superpower ships would likely only be flown into combat by the dedicated supporters of those superpowers. Seeing a Corvette deep in Empire space should be a rare thing, as should seeing a Cutter in Federation space.

I will agree that "demotion" is going to be an unpopular concept while promotions are such a long grind. Perhaps concurrent with this should be the introduction of the long-promised "fast-track military career", allowing the gaining of rapid promotions by doing special military missions for a superpower you are Allied with and to whom you have proven your military skills.

 

[Bortas]

The amazing (or incredible!) time commitment aside should players be able to only hold any rank with one power and not both? That would seem to make sense to me but I am not always correct.

Personally I would find it very hard to chose between my imperial and federal ships if i had to. Both are great in their own regards.

Doesn't matter now, tough, since that ship has long sailed. Everybody and their dogs already own both imperial and federal ships. Good luck trying to take them away from them.

 

[fademist]

Personally I would find it very hard to chose between my imperial and federal ships if i had to. Both are great in their own regards.

Doesn't matter now, tough, since that ship has long sailed. Everybody and their dogs already own both imperial and federal ships. Good luck trying to take them away from them.

dont think any of that will happen though..atleast with the ones already bought ...

 

[Alex Brentnall]

<Snip>

So you've said a lot I agree with on the ranking system. Its the one time I resorted to mode-switching for the mission board. For the Cutter and trading it was worth it. The Corvette is a combat beast but I could have lived without if needed. I would support a major overhaul of the whole rank system and rank-up system. Make it more unique and less "do 5000 identical missions", maybe even script a few things and lead the player through a mock escalation battle phase.
Rank 1 - Ferry data over there (10 missions).
Rank 2 - Ferry goods across federation space (10 missions)
Cue tons of interdictions that lead into:
Rank 3 - Take on these pirates here (100 ships, 3 week period)
Comms message: Well done, from the data you moved earlier it seems those pirates were fed/emp backed
Rank 4 - Lets take it to them, go here and destroy authority ships!
The Fed/Emp are retaliating, whilst we were busy over here they were cutting supply lines over there
Rank 5 - Do x missions to help system y out of famine state

More stories linking in, harder and harder missions, skimmer missions, base assaults etc right the way to Assassinations, war-zones etc:

Theres a war on, get there and make sure this system stays ours (or becomes ours):
Rank 12 - Fight in this system and win the war there

Then have ranks 13 and 14 as really long term like flip 5 systems to Fed/Emp.


Just my 2p on how they could easily generate a mini-storyline thats based on the events at the time. My 10 minute roughed out version probably requires a lot of thinking as to how it can be done with scaling to make it hard but do-able and gotta work out what happens if you fail a mission but thats something that mostly could be done with stuff already in game but plus a bit of fluff and structure.

 

[DukeIronHand]

- If you actively work against a superpower (eg destroy their navy ships) you earn negative rank points with that power. Eventually, you earn enough negative points and don't earn any positive ones to counteract, you'll get demoted.

- When you get demoted below the rank required to purchase a ship, you lose the ability to re-buy that ship if it gets blown up on you.

I like this idea. People ofttimes complain here that their actions mean nothing (long lasting) and here is a logical first step.
Of course there will be a howl but that seems to be expected any more.

 

[Vorxian]

To be brutally honest, it probably doesn't make a lot of sense that you can be prominent in both the Empire and the Federation at the same time

Absolutely this.

Doesn't make sense at all.

It's like being a Caliph in Islam, and at the same time being Pope.

It's a daft implementation.

There should be a sliding scale. You make progress in one and lose progress in the other. Make extreme progress in one and lose extreme progress in the other. It means that you can still buy their flagship at the time of rank, but as you descent in ranks by working for the enemy, you'll lose the right to buy another, and you'd expect insurance to refund you the cash than be denied by federation / empire to replace the one you lost. Naturally if yous till hold rank, and you lose your corvette then if it gets popped you'll get it replaced.

It would give the ship a true sense of possession, knowing if you lose it, you got some serious ball ache to replace it, if you're not holding rank at the time.