Military Rank System rework and Duty System idea

[CMDR Hawkyn]

Military Rank System rework and Duty System idea

The MRS (Military Rank System) in this game is really disappointing since Elite is considered a space adventure, trading and combat simulation video game and from the simulator side the MRS is just poor. There are three ideologically different Major Factions with their own territory and military power. Other than these there is nothing that corroborate their simulation being. You can go up on the MRS by grinding the hell out of a Major aligned Minor faction's mission board then you can buy their military spacecraft and as soon as you got what you wanted you can leave them and forgot about the whole thing. Not to mention the nonsense that you can rank up every each of them, like they doesn't know each other. Meanwhile there are massive wars and conflicts between them politically and ideologically as well. I heard lot of camplaint about this in the past and we talked a lot about the MRS in my gaming community too. We came up a bunch of idea and now I try to bring them together. In before anything, I want to apologies for my bad english, I hope you'll be able to understand me.

The writing below contains my ideas along with my friends' from our gaming community.


The Idea:
Currently the state of the MRS is ridiculous. Its like you could be an Admiral in the Soviet Union and in Reagen's America at the same time. There are no actual benefits to be a soldier of your Major Faction. This and the grind-based "challange" needs to be changed if Frontier ever want to move forward with the Major Factions before they became meaningless. We don't know Frontier's plan on this, so we tried to approach it from the current state.


Step #1: Your Mission as a Double-Agent is Over

You log in to the game and suddenly a message arrives for you. If you click on the massage, a big window shows up with the title "Congratulations Commander! Your mission as a double-agent is over, the operation is succeeded, now you can finally come home." Under the title there are three option to choose: the Federation, the Empire and the Alliance. You click on your favorized superpower and you got a confirmation request: "Are you sure? If you choose this Major Faction you will lose your ranks from the opposite factions. In compensation you'll be able to choose a reward for your work as an undercover agent and for your gathered intelligence." These reward could be Credits/Reputation/Materials, and the values are based on your other reputation levels. This decision would be a mandatory for anyone who has ranks with more than one Major Faction. However you have a fourth choice. Instead of choose a side, you could use this to retire from the military and became fully independent. This means your ranks will be wiped and also you'll get a bunch of reward for your work, and if in the future you decide you want to join a Major Faction you can start it from scratch, like any independent pilot out there. This message would be unavoidable. Until you decide you would be in independent state plus locked away from any Major Faction (in the following I will call the MF) aligned mission. This first step meant to be the watershed for your future progress. You can make stronger your relationship with your favored superpower or you can leave them and walk away with a big reward.


Step #2: Advantages and Disadvantages, Duty System, Consequences

The first step does not make sense if there isn't a fair Advantages and Disadvantages system. Among them the most important is the advantage part. Currently the only advantage is the possibility to buy the MF's ships. Of course I could mention the permits but its too small to consider them as an advantage. In our idea the rewards should be constants. I think we should feel our commitment's affect on our gameplay and overall game experience. These features should be accesed based on your rank, so lets gather up these:

1. Advanced Military Navigation Acces: If you are in wing, you can use wing-beacon and nav-lock to jump on your wingmate's signal from a longer distance. Imagine, if you would able to do the same thing to any stations where your MF is in control.

2. Military Wardrobe: Its a very awaited think and we talked about this a lot of times. Frontier is making money from customization, and as long as they won't sell ships and modules for real money, I say its a good thing and we should appreciate this. But ingame earnable military clothes, batches, decals would be awesome. Many says this game has no endgame but I think they are wrong. In my opinion this game's endgame is your costumization possibilities and it should include military rank based items. Store still offers the bigger variation but you should have the alternative with it's lore-friendly restrictions. Also these rewards shouldn't be obtainable from store.

3. Cheaper modules and ships in you MF's space: Not too much, a 5% would perfectly do it, just to feel the care of your faction, to feel that you are more important here, than in any other space.

4. Lower rebuy cost on MF ships: Since you are in the military, the ship is not entirely your's. And since its not entirely yours, your MF would pay it's part from the rebuy. This should be true only for MF ships, but at any place you go.

5. Heavily icrease the friendly fire treshold on friendly MF aligned vessels based on your rank: You are respected, and more they respect, less they'll be mad at you for your mistakes. This would make High/Medium/Low RES more player-friendly in your MF's systems since you would not be abused if a suicidal authority runs in your fire.

6. Call to Arms: We saw NPCs in wing with you (training missions), we saw how "Call Ship" works in your SRV and we also saw the new ATR NPCs. If its possible to combine these three thing into one feature, then Frontier should do it. I'm not talking about hire some NPC to fight on your side (gameplay and balance issues), I'm talking about a button like in your SRV. You could activate that and then a Quick Reaction Force would jump in instantly to help you. Also it should be based on your rank and should have a heavy timer on it since it could be a decisive advantage in all situations. Of course we saw SRV system and MultiCrew in work, and still its a technicall issue that they can't combine that two thing into one (according to Frontier), so who knows what is possible and what isn't. Just an idea.


This second steps also contain disadvantages because its must to do to balance the whole system. I would start with the Duty System, that needs to be implemented for this reworked MRS:

1. Active Duty: You are in active duty, means you benefits from its advantages, can use military rank required ships and your life is much easier in their space. But what can you do to maintain, to evolve, to get ranks? Sign up for active duty! In this stance you are an active pilot of your MF, so they can count on you if the time comes. In game this means whether you go you considered a representative of your MF. Lets say you are Federal. In your ship's holoscreen (FUNCTIONS/FACTION) you can see your alignation to the Federal Minor faction. If there are more than one Federal Minor Faction in that system, you can chose which one you want to support. If there is no Federal Minor Faction in that system it remains None, as before. But while you are in Active Duty, you can't fight against your own MF. So since you are in active status, you must do your job. You will receive a call-in time to time from the Federation when they are in conflict in some of their nearby system. This means you have to go there and kill a fair number of 'enemy-of-the-federation' ships in the Conflict Zone then you can go on your way. If your are more like a logistic agent, you could choose to do some non-combat military action, for example provide necessary goods for the Federation during Backgroud Simulation's preparation phases (inside the mission system maybe). This should happen at every 40 PLAYED hour in the game and you should have 10 PLAYED hour to accomplish your duty, so it could not pass by while you are away from the game, then hit you like a bad surprise when you comes back. The Active Duty would be an ongoing status and you would be payed for your services with REPUTATION. You won't grind your way trough the rank system beacuse it will TIME BASED. Of course it should be very fair and not unreal at the same time but I think this is the ultimate solution for the whole navy system.


2. Reserve Duty: This should be the alternative of the Active Duty status, and should be switchable (with time lock). If you are a proud officer but you don't want to do the job, you can became reserve pilot and benefits everything (including commander suits, decals, discounts, etc.) except rank based ship/module (if this comes in the future) acces. In this stance you won't lose ranks and you don't need to answer the call-ins, but you also won't be able to fight against your MF's Minor Factions either in conflict zones.

3. Lose Acces: Its not realistic if you reach a rank and you don't do anything to maintain it. In real military you can't earn a rank then forgot about the duty without consequences. Don't misunderstand me, I don't want MRS to be like PowerPlay (if you become a deserter the whole gang will be after you), no. But also I would like to feel that I'm really part of my MF military and I have obligations. If you choose to sign up to be a militant in an MF, you must accept this. You also can be militant as independent but then you shouldn't have acces the goods of your Major Faction. In our idea you could lose your rank (I will explaint this below) and when you does you should loss your acces that you got from being in the MF's military.

4. These ships are belongs to the superpower, not to individuals: In current system if you are a Rear Admiral in the Federation, you can buy a Corvette and you'll be able to buy it forever. In our idea if you drops below Rear Admiral you should lose your acces to your MF ship requires a rank. In my idea it should be non-rebuyable when you lose the required rank. If you die in it, the Detention Facility will impound it and you could buy it back only if you reach that rank again. So if you abandon the Federation you won't be able to run up and down in a Corvette anymore like you can buy back if you blow up in. As soon as you reach your the required rank again you would be able to purchase it back from the MF's "pawnshop" (with all your fitted and engineered modules) and if you didn't lost it at all (for example, you just parked it somewhere) then you can use it again by right. In real world I can't be a tank-driver then leave in an M1 Abrams after decomissioning.

5. LOSE RANKS: It should work like a balance sheet. You start rank up your reputation in an opposite MF and you'll lose your originally favored MF's rank at an increased rate. This could prevent players to have rank in two faction at the same time but would let them to switch from a way to another if the player willing to. It should work like this: Lets say you are a Federal high-ranked officer with it's benefits but you want to turn cloak. You go to an Imperial system, to an Imperial controlled station. You land on and there you could choose to contact with an Imperial Recruitment Agent. Then there you could have the ability to pledge to them, which means your Federation Rank will be frozen. With this you lose everything you got from the Federation (commander suits, cloths, decals, ship acces, discount acces in fed systems, etc.). Thats not means you'll lose those ranks yet, its just frozen, which means it cannot be increased and you lost your acces to its features. This Imperial Recuirement Agent could recruit you and you can start to go up on the ladder. As you go up on the Imperial ladder so you lose your ranks in the Federation, but on an increased rate. For example if you become a Master in Empire, you'll lose your Admiral rank in the Federation, and so on. If you suddenly change your mind you can go to a Federal Recruitment Agent and do the same. As many times you do this the negative reputation rate will increase. So you'll still have the ability to choose but you'll suffer its consequences in a fair way.


This is it so far. Whats your thoughts?

 

[Cosmo]

The military ranking needs some special story-line driven missions to immerse people in the lore.

People like to rank with both Federation and Empire. After they reached the top rank, they could choose which one to dedicate themselves to. Switching should only be possible with a cool-down period. So people can only serve the Federation or Empire or Alliance at the same time.

There's no military ranking with the alliance, because they don't have a united navy. Each Alliance system has their own navy of which they can dedicate a part to the Alliance Defence Force if called upon.

 

[Bonzodog]

Nope, sorry, this idea is totally unworkable without a full server reset of every single account, which is never going to happen as it would lose a huge amount of players.

You see, there are people out there whose only goal is to collect every single last ship in game, and engineer them. I actually know a couple who are already there with this. There are a LOT of players out there who see this a pew-pew arcade game and care nothing for the story, immersion or roleplaying, and they have both a fully engineered Cutter and a fully engineered Corvette and over a billion credits sitting spare. There is no way they would willingly give up their ships.

 

[Lt.Nagae]

double post....

 

[Lt.Nagae]

(Sorry in advance for any errors, as english isn't my first language and here it comes a wall of text....)

Unless i got it wrong, at first look, while this system makes sense with the whole military theme, i think gameplay wise isn't a good idea.

Step one, as i see, is pretty much(considering a player that have duke/rear adimiral) getting all the time used on the grind of one of the factions and throwing it away or both if choosing to retire. Considering you lose access to the faction ships, the "final" reward would need to consider not only the rank, but also the ships owned and its modules.

on the step 2:honestly, i think the disadvantages outweight vastly the advantages.

botton line of the advantages are:

• outfit on the holo-me
• -a distress call
• -a discount on locations controled by your faction,5% and being effectively 22% considering stacking(this one is actually nice, as on the endgame ends being a LOT of money saved)
• -bigger FF threshold(in theory military are FAR more restrict on this matter...and as i recall this is being handled on 3.0)
• -wing-like nav beacon on a station(no offense...but what the use of it?)

Against the fact one line is locked away(if one faction is chosen) and the other have a constant upkeep if you want to use it, as you need to be on active duty to be able to use the ships, because the ship isn't yours(But you paid the full price for it and modules/engineering) and If you go on reserve......1 billion of your assets is seized until you get back(Full A rated cutter)

And, for example, if you're doing the imperial line and wish to get a federal ship...all your imperial work is thrown away and you begin from square one, because you're not a double agent anymore.

honestly, as one of the fun points of the game is to build your own fleet,(at least for me) this would discourage player attempt to get these ships at all, in the end, being even a bigger grind than the actual one...

On the missions: this can get a little complicated, as if implemented, no important missions could be related to the superpower factions, like community goals. for example, a imperial CG, the federation and maybe alliance players would be kinda locked away unless they go on reserve(losing access to their ships) OR work against the CG....the only way being killing the imperial players, and we all know how that goes(CGs and PowerPlay)...


To make a system like this work, 2 things have to be considered:

1 -> the whole "this ship doesn't belong to you" need to go all the way, meaning you reach the rank and you're assigned a vessel, getting it as is, no modifications allowed(including livery ones), but as counterpart, instead of rebuy cost, punishment on the reputation(ammount on the point 2)

BUT gameplay purposes, as no one is going to fly a stock vessel, the modifications could be handled like:

• modifications being limited to fixed outfits at no cost(field modifications/loadouts)
• "free" choices(that means on a set list of modules, so no exploration/trader fit) but on player's tab(but with a big reduction, like 50%)<- this one being the most likely to be used[tab]

2 -> the can of worms know a the mission system, because at this moment, the most effective way to get to top rank is being a delivery boy than being a proper military officer.

So, a whole dedicated system would have to be made to support the military lines, ranging maybe from assingments, like patrols, blockades, interceptions; to even going to full blown warzones, going from dogfighting, capital ship strikes and, if ground forces are implemented, QRF and hot zone extractions. And, of course, having the missions balanced to make the player reach the rank goes within reasonable time, comparing to the actual system(not considering data delivery stacking and considering the fact E isn't a F2P GAME)

-> on the reputation loss, that can work like this: weighted on the way you died: lots of rep loss you die by stupid reason, like messing around and shoving your face on the mail slot, medium loss if you died on the duty, while doing standard assignments, and minimal ammount if you died on a high risk assingment, or in the mid of a warzone

OR at least make missions like massacre ships on conflict zones give more reputation, as while it was fun doing it, 3 hours killing ships gave the same ammount of a 2min data run...

So...Main question is: what's the player incentive to go on the military line(by the way, as you're part of the military, in theory your payment is a fixed rate...), knowing in the end, all you're getting is a leased ship and if you change lines, kiss your work goodbye?

Here i come with a idea:

Make the rank of Admiral/King meaningful(i think would be a good idea to keep military ranks for both sides...as having a crapton of kings is odd....) by allowing the player to actually buy the ships on the way its working at this moment(buy as many as you want, at any moment, no matter your situation with the superpowers), even if you retire from the faction. Because at this point, you proven your worth to that faction. Maybe even keeping some advantages mentioned above(retired veteran outfit, decals, discount(modules only)) and if the modification system is the "free" one, the player gets to keep all the modules they bought, and probably engineered it.

 

[Cmdr Thrudd]

Nope, sorry, this idea is totally unworkable without a full server reset of every single account, which is never going to happen as it would lose a huge amount of players.

You see, there are people out there whose only goal is to collect every single last ship in game, and engineer them. I actually know a couple who are already there with this. There are a LOT of players out there who see this a pew-pew arcade game and care nothing for the story, immersion or roleplaying, and they have both a fully engineered Cutter and a fully engineered Corvette and over a billion credits sitting spare. There is no way they would willingly give up their ships.

They wouldnt necessarily have to give up the ships though, something could be put in place to allow access to the other factions ship. Maybe though a underworld 'past contact' from your time in the military for people that never had the rank some sort of contact could be provided that would offer ships of the other faction in parity for the rank youd gained with your primary faction. There would be ways to make it work.

 

[metatheurgist]

There is no military ranking system in the game. There is a system of honorary public titles with military and feudal sounding names. That is all.

 

[Ulaidian]

It is a facet of the game that is woefully undeveloped. Personally I think the op has the right of it, and the devs should be looking into it.. of course they might already be all over it.
As for those that aren't into the whole game, focusing on other narrow aspects (which is fair enough btw), make the open server area the only place you have to choose, with private groups, solo etc allowing play without the choices.

 

[Justinian Octavius]

I have long said that the ranking system has huge potential if developed though I don't fully agree with the OP's solution. For me it should be about building your character & perhaps learning about the lore of the Empire & Federation. Some quick ideas that FDev could possibly realistically implementable imho (but I'm not a coder )…

• You only go up in Rank with a Superpower if you are pledged to a Power that is Allied to it (eg you would only increase in Federal rank if you were Pledged to Winters etc). This means that if you defected from Empire to Federation etc then there would at least be a consequence as the Powerplay mechanic would have the Empire 'hunt you down' etc
• Unlockable cosmetic awards for doing particular missions which are also rank locked & you can only have either an Empire or Federation equivalent; eg if you get an Imperial medal for assassinating someone & you then do the Federation equivalent mission then the Fed medal will replace the Imperial one.
• More purchasable cosmetics from the FDev store. I'm not sure how popular the Empire/Federation nameplates are but I certainly want & would buy more Superpower branded stuff!

FDev have indicated that changes to Powerplay are now being considered, including the integration of missions (though I suspect not until 2019 at the earliest). This would seem like an ideal opportunity to make the game feel more coherent & linking rank progression to being pledged to a Power could be something that does achieve this.

 

[Eidolon]

There is no military ranking system in the game. There is a system of honorary public titles with military and feudal sounding names. That is all.

This.

Its all honorary titles. We are independent pilots who's training was paid for by the Pilots Federation. Technically PF affiliated, with the freedom to work for who we see fit.

Ranking with a Major Factions military just bestows an Honorary title to determine how much priviledge we are afforded by the power. We never join their military.

This may change at some point, but this is how the PF pilots are treated in the current lore; ie you never were an Admiral, but are given the prestige and respect as if you were one with the Major Faction.

 

[Jaiotu]

This.

Its all honorary titles. We are independent pilots who's training was paid for by the Pilots Federation. Technically PF affiliated, with the freedom to work for who we see fit.

Ranking with a Major Factions military just bestows an Honorary title to determine how much priviledge we are afforded by the power. We never join their military.

This may change at some point, but this is how the PF pilots are treated in the current lore; ie you never were an Admiral, but are given the prestige and respect as if you were one with the Major Faction.

Exactly. Several individual States within the USA bestow honorary titles such as "General" or "Admiral" or "Colonel". I was on-hand at one such ceremony when a coworker of mine was bestowed the title of "Alabama Admiral". Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame received his coveted title as a Kentucky Colonel and, while it granted him no real power or authority, it did help him sell a lot chicken.

I would really love to see a military progression system implemented in which there were real duties, responsibilities, obligations and progression but the current system as it stands ... it's pretty meaningless.

 

[Ryan P Bodfirst]

Yes I agree with your overall idea - there's a lot of detail to flesh out and many different ways to do it - but yes factions should be cut throat. If I get friendly with one faction I can't expect to be friendly with the other,

and If I rank up with one I should be less friendly with the other - "having your cake and eat it" makes the factions feel static and doesn't stack up with the Elite Lore at all.​

Currently I'm allied, friendly or neutral with everyone - it feels like the opposite of cut-throat.

Making the factions behave in a more believable way like this would really add to the feeling of tension in the game. I'd also like to see some new engineers linked to each major faction at higher ranks, which are each different, or other services unique to a particular MF.

 

[Cosmo]

This.

Its all honorary titles. We are independent pilots who's training was paid for by the Pilots Federation. Technically PF affiliated, with the freedom to work for who we see fit.

Ranking with a Major Factions military just bestows an Honorary title to determine how much priviledge we are afforded by the power. We never join their military.

This may change at some point, but this is how the PF pilots are treated in the current lore; ie you never were an Admiral, but are given the prestige and respect as if you were one with the Major Faction.

I think it are more than just honorary titles. Do you have a source for that?

If it's just honorary titles that is lame after doing so many missions for them.

 

[Eidolon]

I think it are more than just honorary titles. Do you have a source for that?

If it's just honorary titles that is lame after doing so many missions for them.

Sorry I can't seem to find M. Brookes quote on the subject. I know I have read it on these forums, but can't locate since the forum reorder a couple of months ago. Perhaps someone can help with that?

But it is pretty much considered standard practice in the Elite franchise, in all of it's iterations to date. We are independent pilots, who are free to help (or hinder) whom so ever we see fit. But we retain our independence.

It would be cool to see an actual military career come into the game at some point, but I would suspect you would have to forsake most of your independence and autonomy as a pilot. After all you must follow your orders and not go AWOL.

 

[Justinian Octavius]

Sorry I can't seem to find M. Brookes quote on the subject. I know I have read it on these forums, but can't locate since the forum reorder a couple of months ago. Perhaps someone can help with that?

Sorry, no. I googled & searched but no luck.

But it is pretty much considered standard practice in the Elite franchise, in all of it's iterations to date. We are independent pilots, who are free to help (or hinder) whom so ever we see fit. But we retain our independence.

It would be cool to see an actual military career come into the game at some point, but I would suspect you would have to forsake most of your independence and autonomy as a pilot. After all you must follow your orders and not go AWOL.

It is true that in the previous Elite games you could work for both the Empire & Federation at the same time but that doesn't mean it made sense then either & the system did have medals so had more value from a role playing perspective. From a lore perspective Imperials are pretty xenophobic towards the Federation & both sides have been at war; it may have been possible in the previous series of Elite games but sometimes when something contradicts logic it needs to be amended. Every week in Powerplay you have hundreds of commanders trying to kill each other & the Empire & Federation Powers are hard coded as enemies; considering the number of Feds I've killed President Hudson would not want me to be an Admiral in his navy even if it is honorary

 

[Iskariot]

Military Rank System rework and Duty System idea

The MRS (Military Rank System) in this game is really disappointing since Elite is considered a space adventure, trading and combat simulation video game and from the simulator side the MRS is just poor. There are three ideologically different Major Factions with their own territory and military power. Other than these there is nothing that corroborate their simulation being. You can go up on the MRS by grinding the hell out of a Major aligned Minor faction's mission board then you can buy their military spacecraft and as soon as you got what you wanted you can leave them and forgot about the whole thing. Not to mention the nonsense that you can rank up every each of them, like they doesn't know each other. Meanwhile there are massive wars and conflicts between them politically and ideologically as well. I heard lot of camplaint about this in the past and we talked a lot about the MRS in my gaming community too. We came up a bunch of idea and now I try to bring them together. In before anything, I want to apologies for my bad english, I hope you'll be able to understand me.

The writing below contains my ideas along with my friends' from our gaming community.


The Idea:
Currently the state of the MRS is ridiculous. Its like you could be and Admiral in the Soviet Union and in Reagen's America at the same time. There are no actual benefits to be a soldier of your Major Faction. This and the grind-based "challange" needs to be changed if Frontier ever want to move forward with the Major Factions before they became meaningless. We don't know Frontier's plan on this, so we tried to approach it from the current state.


Step #1: Your Mission as a Double-Agent is Over

You log in to the game and suddenly a message arrives for you. If you click on the massage, a big window shows up with the title "Congratulations Commander! Your mission as a double-agent is over, the operation is succeeded, now you can finally come home." Under the title there are three option to choose: the Federation, the Empire and the Alliance. You click on your favorized superpower and you got a confirmation request: "Are you sure? If you choose this Major Faction you will lose your ranks from the opposite factions. In compensation you'll be able to choose a reward for your work as an undercover agent and for your gathered intelligence." These reward could be Credits/Reputation/Materials, and the values are based on your other reputation levels. This decision would be a mandatory for anyone who has ranks with more than one Major Faction. However you have a fourth choice. Instead of choose a side, you could use this to retire from the military and became fully independent. This means your ranks will be wiped and also you'll get a bunch of reward for your work, and if in the future you decide you want to join a Major Faction you can start it from scratch, like any independent pilot out there. This message would be unavoidable. Until you decide you would be in independent state plus locked away from any Major Faction (in the following I will call the MF) aligned mission. This first step meant to be the watershed for your future progress. You can make stronger your relationship with your favored superpower or you can leave them and walk away with a big reward.


Step #2: Advantages and Disadvantages, Duty System, Consequences

The first step does not make sense if there isn't a fair Advantages and Disadvantages system. Among them the most important is the advantage part. Currently the only advantage is the possibility to buy the MF's ships. Of course I could mention the permits but its too small to consider them as an advantage. In our idea the rewards should be constants. I think we should feel our commitment's affect on our gameplay and overall game experience. These features should be accesed based on your rank, so lets gather up these:

1. Advanced Military Navigation Acces: If you are in wing, you can use wing-beacon and nav-lock to jump on your wingmate's signal from a longer distance. Imagine, if you would able to do the same thing to any stations where your MF is in control.

2. Military Wardrobe: Its a very awaited think and we talked about this a lot of times. Frontier is making money from customization, and as long as they won't sell ships and modules for real money, I say its a good thing and we should appreciate this. But ingame earnable military clothes, batches, decals would be awesome. Many says this game has no endgame but I think they are wrong. In my opinion this game's endgame is your costumization possibilities and it should include military rank based items. Store still offers the bigger variation but you should have the alternative with it's lore-friendly restrictions. Also these rewards shouldn't be obtainable from store.

3. Cheaper modules and ships in you MF's space: Not too much, a 5% would perfectly do it, just to feel the care of your faction, to feel that you are more important here, than in any other space.

4. Lower rebuy cost on MF ships: Since you are in the military, the ship is not entirely your's. And since its not entirely yours, your MF would pay it's part from the rebuy. This should be true only for MF ships, but at any place you go.

5. Heavily icrease the friendly fire treshold on friendly MF aligned vessels based on your rank: You are respected, and more they respect, less they'll be mad at you for your mistakes. This would make High/Medium/Low RES more player-friendly in your MF's systems since you would not be abused if a suicidal authority runs in your fire.

6. Call to Arms: We saw NPCs in wing with you (training missions), we saw how "Call Ship" works in your SRV and we also saw the new ATR NPCs. If its possible to combine these three thing into one feature, then Frontier should do it. I'm not talking about hire some NPC to fight on your side (gameplay and balance issues), I'm talking about a button like in your SRV. You could activate that and then a Quick Reaction Force would jump in instantly to help you. Also it should be based on your rank and should have a heavy timer on it since it could be a decisive advantage in all situations. Of course we saw SRV system and MultiCrew in work, and still its a technicall issue that they can't combine that two thing into one (according to Frontier), so who knows what is possible and what isn't. Just an idea.


This second steps also contain disadvantages because its must to do to balance the whole system. I would start with the Duty System, that needs to be implemented for this reworked MRS:

1. Active Duty: You are in active duty, means you benefits from its advantages, can use military rank required ships and your life is much easier in their space. But what can you do to maintain, to evolve, to get ranks? Sign up for active duty! In this stance you are an active pilot of your MF, so they can count on you if the time comes. In game this means whether you go you considered a representative of your MF. Lets say you are Federal. In your ship's holoscreen (FUNCTIONS/FACTION) you can see your alignation to the Federal Minor faction. If there are more than one Federal Minor Faction in that system, you can chose which one you want to support. If there is no Federal Minor Faction in that system it remains None, as before. But while you are in Active Duty, you can't fight against your own MF. So since you are in active status, you must do your job. You will receive a call-in time to time from the Federation when they are in conflict in some of their nearby system. This means you have to go there and kill a fair number of 'enemy-of-the-federation' ships in the Conflict Zone then you can go on your way. If your are more like a logistic agent, you could choose to do some non-combat military action, for example provide necessary goods for the Federation during Backgroud Simulation's preparation phases (inside the mission system maybe). This should happen at every 40 PLAYED hour in the game and you should have 10 PLAYED hour to accomplish your duty, so it could not pass by while you are away from the game, then hit you like a bad surprise when you comes back. The Active Duty would be an ongoing status and you would be payed for your services with REPUTATION. You won't grind your way trough the rank system beacuse it will TIME BASED. Of course it should be very fair and not unreal at the same time but I think this is the ultimate solution for the whole navy system.


2. Reserve Duty: This should be the alternative of the Active Duty status, and should be switchable (with time lock). If you are a proud officer but you don't want to do the job, you can became reserve pilot and benefits everything (including commander suits, decals, discounts, etc.) except rank based ship/module (if this comes in the future) acces. In this stance you won't lose ranks and you don't need to answer the call-ins, but you also won't be able to fight against your MF's Minor Factions either in conflict zones.

3. Lose Acces: Its not realistic if you reach a rank and you don't do anything to maintain it. In real military you can't earn a rank then forgot about the duty without consequences. Don't misunderstand me, I don't want MRS to be like PowerPlay (if you become a deserter the whole gang will be after you), no. But also I would like to feel that I'm really part of my MF military and I have obligations. If you choose to sign up to be a militant in an MF, you must accept this. You also can be militant as independent but then you shouldn't have acces the goods of your Major Faction. In our idea you could lose your rank (I will explaint this below) and when you does you should loss your acces that you got from being in the MF's military.

4. These ships are belongs to the superpower, not to individuals: In current system if you are a Rear Admiral in the Federation, you can buy a Corvette and you'll be able to buy it forever. In our idea if you drops below Rear Admiral you should lose your acces to your MF ship requires a rank. In my idea it should be non-rebuyable when you lose the required rank. If you die in it, the Detention Facility will impound it and you could buy it back only if you reach that rank again. So if you abandon the Federation you won't be able to run up and down in a Corvette anymore like you can buy back if you blow up in. As soon as you reach your the required rank again you would be able to purchase it back from the MF's "pawnshop" (with all your fitted and engineered modules) and if you didn't lost it at all (for example, you just parked it somewhere) then you can use it again by right. In real world I can't be a tank-driver then leave in an M1 Abrams after decomissioning.

5. LOSE RANKS: It should work like a balance sheet. You start rank up your reputation in an opposite MF and you'll lose your originally favored MF's rank at an increased rate. This could prevent players to have rank in two faction at the same time but would let them to switch from a way to another if the player willing to. It should work like this: Lets say you are a Federal high-ranked officer with it's benefits but you want to turn cloak. You go to an Imperial system, to an Imperial controlled station. You land on and there you could choose to contact with an Imperial Recruitment Agent. Then there you could have the ability to pledge to them, which means your Federation Rank will be frozen. With this you lose everything you got from the Federation (commander suits, cloths, decals, ship acces, discount acces in fed systems, etc.). Thats not means you'll lose those ranks yet, its just frozen, which means it cannot be increased and you lost your acces to its features. This Imperial Recuirement Agent could recruit you and you can start to go up on the ladder. As you go up on the Imperial ladder so you lose your ranks in the Federation, but on an increased rate. For example if you become a Master in Empire, you'll lose your Admiral rank in the Federation, and so on. If you suddenly change your mind you can go to a Federal Recruitment Agent and do the same. As many times you do this the negative reputation rate will increase. So you'll still have the ability to choose but you'll suffer its consequences in a fair way.


This is it so far. Whats your thoughts?

Some worthwhile ideas for sure. I am not going to give my 2 cents on all of them, but what I would not like is being locked out of certain ships.
If for example I would be locked out of the Federal Corvette or the Imperial Cutter, that would be very problematic for my enjoyment. The Cutter is very different from the Corvette and not being able to use one or the other for the remainder of the game would be depressing.

Perhaps we should still be able to acquire such a ship, but with a 10% markup at some illegal dealer.


Some ideas I had about military ranking:

- No more military missions via the regular mission board. I would want special military contacts in stations, capital ships, military bases etc.

- I would like to get truly military missions, like escort missions, espionage missions, planetary assault missions, military assassinations, military (troop) transport missions, combat missions etc. etc.

- for some of these missions we will need special tools. For example the espionage mission might require you to photograph fleet movements, certain ships or bases (like in the X-Wing and Tie-Fighter games) We would need a camera device with zoom to do this with.

- For planetary assault missions I would like air to surface missiles and rockets and also a heavy assault SRV with optional surface to air missiles.
Or imagine assaulting a planetary pirate base in a Federal Gunship together with 2 npc controlled dropships. Your task would be to take out base defenses and protect the operation. The dropships then land and you see military troops entering the pirate base. In the mean while you attack a few incoming pirate ships etc.etc.

- The military sometimes might provide me with a military ship to do the mission. This means I would get the chance to fly a Federal Gun or Assault ship before I have the rank to own one. At the end of the mission the ship would be taken away of course.

- I want it to be impossible to openly have a rank in the Federal military and the Imperial military at the same time (like you proposed).
But... it might be possible to be a double agent so you would openly rank up in the Federal military, but you might acquire Imperial ranks in secret or vice versa.
I think double agent mission could be very cool and exciting and there should be a chance of being discovered of course
As I mentioned above: If certain ships are rank locked based on military rank then something like this has to be implemented, or otherwise there need to be an alternative way to get certain ships. I do not want it to be permanently impossible to get an Imperial Cutter if I have a military rank in the Federal navy.

- There could be a connection with Powerplay too. You might get military missions from a Power and rank up with a Powerplay power. This should not have an effect on the territorial gameplay of multiplayer Powerplay that we currently have. I want powers to play a role in the broader game, not just the powerplay mechanic.