More faction relations that simply "hostile"

[Proasek]

From an in-universe perspective, it doesn't make sense for all factions to equally dislike each other. It does not make sense, regardless of how heated debates get in the Federal senate, for Jerome Archer to dislike Felicia Winters as much as he does Yuri Grom. Does it make sense for Admiral Denton Patreus to shoot down the ships flying the flag of his boss? Does it make sense for Sirius to sully their relations with the Alliance prime minister by attacking anyone who works for him?

From a purely mechanical perspective it is limited, and expansion would be beneficial. Changes in galactic politics per in-game events would feel less disconnected from experienced gameplay. Further, for community goals or equivalent all-players events it would be sensible for factions actively asking for assistance to allow for said assistance to arrive unharmed. It also opens back up civilised space at least marginally to those invested in powerplay, should aggression of powerplay-related ships be increased, allowing for interaction with player-run events without giving up on the feature. Situations where game features and community events are in conflict should be avoided.

There's no need for friendly or neutral factions to roll out the red carpet or bend over backwards for other powers' agents, but there is a wide range of behaviours between outright aggression and being the best of friends for all time.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

It does not make sense, regardless of how heated debates get in the Federal senate, for Jerome Archer to dislike Felicia Winters as much as he does Yuri Grom.

Quite true - he dislikes Winters considerably more. Grom is a traitor and a long-term thorn in the side of the Federation, that's true - but Winters is the one stopping Archer rolling out the surveillance policies and increased military funding he knows will fix all the Federation's problems, while Grom makes a good bogeyman to justify them with.

Remember that close friends of President Hudson conspired (without his apparent knowledge, yes) mostly successfully to have President Halsey, Vice-President Naylor and Vice-President Smeaton (and numerous members of their staff, bodyguards, and anyone else vaguely in the same area) killed so that Hudson could take office.

On the Imperial side, the Emperor had several Senators summarily executed on the Senate floor, and their supporters rounded up and purged over the next few days - and herself spent a year in cryo-storage after several lower-profile friends of those Senators attempted unsuccessfully to take revenge. Even in the Alliance which has had fewer high-profile disagreements, one of Mahon's corporate allies for high office was killed by a rival shortly before the election.

All minor factions will engage in all-out war against other factions from their superpower at the most trivial of excuses, sending thousands of soldiers to their certain death just to control some minor hydroponics plant that was already in Federal (or whoever) hands.

These are not nice cuddly 21st century social democracies who only openly commit human rights abuses against other countries' citizens.




Ignoring the lore, on the game mechanics side, there are multiple problems with making same-superpower conflicts much tougher:
1) It raises the question of why have multiple powers per superpower at all - in Powerplay 1 where same-superpower attacks were virtually impossible, all superpowers essentially acted as a single unit. There aren't actually many effective undermining methods which don't involve violence or illegal actions.
2) It gives the superpower Powers a "friend" (or three friends, in the case of the Imperial powers!) and therefore a mostly-secure set of borders, while the independent Powers remain hostile to everyone including each other.
3) It gives an odd situation where if the supporters of a Power really want a same-superpower system for their own Power, the easiest way to take it might be to defect to an independent, undermine the system, then defect back to take it for their own Power. A honest direct attack seems preferable to that.

 

[metatheurgist]

There's just so many problems with the social sim in this game. Funny thing is, if they thought hard and made it a more credible experience, they'd probably also come up with a more interesting gameplay experience.

 

[Factabulous]

I'd say the bigger issue is that Hostile means nothing. It hasn't changed the way I play a bit. If I'm in an Allied or Hostile system - nothing changes apart from how I earn merits.

 

[Greasetrap42]

I visited a HOSTILE system. Yep, they were hostile.

First I flew to the orbital station just fine. The station is green in my HUD. They greet me, say they a glad to see me, a landing pad is waiting for me. I am friendly and allied with these guys, even though the HOSTILE is showing. I get fueled up and head out to collect escape pods. Everybody is friends.

But when I visit Power Wreckage Sites I land to collect escape pods, ships come blazing in firing at me. They are labeled as clean. Not enemy, not wanted. But they are from a different power. I have nothing illegal on board. I am doing no hostile action, yet these guys are attacking me.

Okay... they don't like me in their system. Apparently we are in a state of "shoot on site". But its weird that 5 minutes ago I was best friends with everybody at the big orbital station.

 

[Greasetrap42]

In the above post I was in the Haritanis system. Its a Li Yong-Rui system.

I am best buddies with all the various organizations in that system.

When I was rescuing escape pods I was attacked and without thinking, I fired back. Guess who was attacking me?

Okay, ya I get it. Its a game mechanic. But it doesn't make much sense that my best buddies back at the space station are trying to kick the snot out of me when I am rescuing possibly their own friends that are floating in space. Then I return to the space station and we are great drinking buddies again.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I visited a HOSTILE system. Yep, they were hostile.

First I flew to the orbital station just fine. The station is green in my HUD. They greet me, say they a glad to see me, a landing pad is waiting for me. I am friendly and allied with these guys, even though the HOSTILE is showing. I get fueled up and head out to collect escape pods. Everybody is friends.

But when I visit Power Wreckage Sites I land to collect escape pods, ships come blazing in firing at me. They are labeled as clean. Not enemy, not wanted. But they are from a different power. I have nothing illegal on board. I am doing no hostile action, yet these guys are attacking me.

Okay... they don't like me in their system. Apparently we are in a state of "shoot on site". But its weird that 5 minutes ago I was best friends with everybody at the big orbital station.

It's perhaps not the most clearly presented, but there are two layers in play here

- the stations are controlled by minor factions, who do like you just fine (and may be branches of the same minor factions present in systems that are part of your Power)
- the Powers are broader and somewhat more covert organisations trying to influence those minor factions towards their larger goals
- Power actions in a system are designed to encourage the minor factions of a system towards being influenced by your Power, whether by making them think your Power is great or by bringing the other Powers into disrepute.

So when you visit the station, you're mostly interacting with the minor faction, who like you.

When you visit a Power Wreckage Site ... well, that wreckage got there because the enemy Power ships you met blew something up. They don't want you coming in and rescuing the important bits before they can be cleaned up - sure, it's "legal", but lots of things are "legal" [1] - so you get shot at. And because their Power has a strong level of influence over the minor factions in the system and yours doesn't (indicated by the "Hostile" tag) some minor functionary gets bribed to delete the records showing that they shot first and you get the bounty. [2] In your Allied Power systems, this effect works out in your favour.


Think James Bond or similar: Bond is operating in some country being covertly managed by the supervillain of the show, but the local police mostly ignore him if he's not doing anything openly illegal. Then an enemy assassin tries to kill him - they fight, Bond wins, and now he has to flee the scene because the local police aren't going to believe that the other guy started it, not when that assassin's boss regularly gives lavish gifts to the head of the police department.


[1] Part of the reason the crime system gives bizarre results in a lot of the non-Powerplay game is that it merges "legal" and "popular"/"morally right" far too much - and so when Powerplay (or Odyssey...) doesn't do that, sure, it's a shock, we're not used to our actions having consequences. So shooting a faction's own ships down - so long as a different faction had a bounty on them - you can do all day without harming your rep with that faction at all. Even if those two factions are currently in open war, or from different superpowers, or one of them is an Anarchy faction, or any other conditions you might think might cause them not to respect each others' legal systems.

And in a minor faction warzone, because combat bonds have a big +rep effect, switching sides after each round will get you up to Allied with both sides, rather than down to Hostile with both sides. Everyone loves a traitorous quintuple agent in Elite Dangerous. Again, Powerplay introduces the concept that "you're on opposite sides here" and it can be a bit unusual.

[2] Everyone knows this is what's going on so you don't get notoriety or minor faction reputation loss any more than you do for gunning down hundreds in combat zones. It's all above-board political kills in that respect, not random murders which make a mockery of the whole planned murder system.

 

[Jmanis]

It's perhaps not the most clearly presented, but there are two layers in play here

- the stations are controlled by minor factions, who do like you just fine (and may be branches of the same minor factions present in systems that are part of your Power)
- the Powers are broader and somewhat more covert organisations trying to influence those minor factions towards their larger goals
- Power actions in a system are designed to encourage the minor factions of a system towards being influenced by your Power, whether by making them think your Power is great or by bringing the other Powers into disrepute.

So when you visit the station, you're mostly interacting with the minor faction, who like you.

When you visit a Power Wreckage Site ... well, that wreckage got there because the enemy Power ships you met blew something up. They don't want you coming in and rescuing the important bits before they can be cleaned up - sure, it's "legal", but lots of things are "legal" [1] - so you get shot at. And because their Power has a strong level of influence over the minor factions in the system and yours doesn't (indicated by the "Hostile" tag) some minor functionary gets bribed to delete the records showing that they shot first and you get the bounty. [2] In your Allied Power systems, this effect works out in your favour.


Think James Bond or similar: Bond is operating in some country being covertly managed by the supervillain of the show, but the local police mostly ignore him if he's not doing anything openly illegal. Then an enemy assassin tries to kill him - they fight, Bond wins, and now he has to flee the scene because the local police aren't going to believe that the other guy started it, not when that assassin's boss regularly gives lavish gifts to the head of the police department.


[1] Part of the reason the crime system gives bizarre results in a lot of the non-Powerplay game is that it merges "legal" and "popular"/"morally right" far too much - and so when Powerplay (or Odyssey...) doesn't do that, sure, it's a shock, we're not used to our actions having consequences. So shooting a faction's own ships down - so long as a different faction had a bounty on them - you can do all day without harming your rep with that faction at all. Even if those two factions are currently in open war, or from different superpowers, or one of them is an Anarchy faction, or any other conditions you might think might cause them not to respect each others' legal systems.

And in a minor faction warzone, because combat bonds have a big +rep effect, switching sides after each round will get you up to Allied with both sides, rather than down to Hostile with both sides. Everyone loves a traitorous quintuple agent in Elite Dangerous. Again, Powerplay introduces the concept that "you're on opposite sides here" and it can be a bit unusual.

[2] Everyone knows this is what's going on so you don't get notoriety or minor faction reputation loss any more than you do for gunning down hundreds in combat zones. It's all above-board political kills in that respect, not random murders which make a mockery of the whole planned murder system.

The irony is that the best situation to be in is allied with a faction, and hostile with that faction's superpower allegience. Rep changes (not gains or losses, just changes) have a multiplier based on superpower rep, for those that have one. Worse your rep, smaller the multiplier, better is bigger.

So when you go crazy on an allied faction whose superpower is hostile, rep loss is drastically slower.

But all that aside, the rep system is horrid and hasn't been tweaked ever except that time when they made hostile stations lock out players, which is dumb when wanted players can just switch on anonymity protocols.

The whole thing needs a complete overhaul... needs things like:

• superpower- specific notoriety
• positive and negative notoriety
• allow docking when hostile or wanted, and give access to a criminal mission board that is functionally opposite to the regular one, rewarding better for missions to hurt the local factions, where your rep is worse
• make hostile rep commensurate to the level it applies (eg superpower hostility should have whole-of-superpower consequences, and rewards)
• commoditise reputation to as an alternate means for getting various widgets, and for management of minor crimes.
• evolve on foot contacts to tier 2 npcs with more complex and rewarding procedural activities, with major rep consequences.

Same should apply for Powerplay.

 

[Greasetrap42]

So when you visit the station, you're mostly interacting with the minor faction, who like you.

When you visit a Power Wreckage Site ... well, that wreckage got there because the enemy Power ships you met blew something up.

Except, in the example I gave:

1) The ships that were attacking me were quite literally belonging to a local faction I am best buddies with.

2) I was doing nothing illegal. I was carrying nothing illegal. I was not (initially) wanted, no notoriety, no fines, no bounty. I was clean.

3) Presumably their ships are similar to my ship: ie: attacking other clean ship gets auto-reported. It is a built-in ship feature that can't get disabled. It doesn't matter if there are no witnesses. So regardless of what their "feelings" are about people doing legal activities in their system... playing by the overall galactic C&P rules... they should have fines and wanted status placed on them. Unless we are actually at war? -> see point #4.

4) If they aren't playing by the galactic C&P rules... possibly in a quasi state of war... why aren't these same guys attacking me at their space station? Why do they greet me as a friend and let me land and trade with me? And why does my faction have a powerplay contact at their station capable of accepting large quantities of escape pods and wreckage?

It doesn't make sense to me.



Edit:
Very strange paradox. While I understand it, it doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

1) The ships that were attacking me were quite literally belonging to a local faction I am best buddies with.

That's unusual, then, and probably a rare bug - I've never seen anyone other than Power-aligned ships in the initial appearance of a "Power ..." signal source, and only later if the battle has been going a very long time and the system authority ships have shown up to see what's happening.

In that case the rest of your confusion makes sense; what's supposed to happen is Power-aligned ships who are definitely not your friends show up and shoot at you, and the Power bribes the local minor faction to ignore the minor illegality of that.

From what you said above I hadn't got that impression, though.

First I flew to the orbital station just fine. The station is green in my HUD. They greet me, say they a glad to see me, a landing pad is waiting for me. I am friendly and allied with these guys, even though the HOSTILE is showing. I get fueled up and head out to collect escape pods. Everybody is friends.

So far so normal, the station is owned by HIP 1234 Crimson Corporation, a minor faction you're allied with. They like you, they let you dock and do your business. Maybe there was a hostile Power agent hanging around as well but you got in and out before they scanned you? Maybe they scanned you and decided that as you weren't carrying specific Power cargo that right next to the station wasn't the time to make too much fuss.

But when I visit Power Wreckage Sites I land to collect escape pods, ships come blazing in firing at me. They are labeled as clean. Not enemy, not wanted. But they are from a different power.

That to me implied - and as I expected from my own experience in wreckage sites - that you'd met some Power agent ships (listed faction "Jerome Archer" or whoever you were undermining), rather than ships belonging to the station-owning faction. And then they opened fire because you were the enemy.

(They probably should be labelled as "Enemy | Clean" in the same way that they get labelled as "Enemy | Wanted" in your Power's own space - but "Clean" is the important point for "what will happen if I shoot them" here so the interface emphasising that is probably a lot better than it just labelling them as "Enemy" as if it were an official CZ and then you getting surprised by the assault and murder bounties when you fire back)

And why does my faction have a powerplay contact at their station capable of accepting large quantities of escape pods and wreckage?

Same reason the Black Market has a big button apparently in plain view saying I WOULD LIKE TO SELL ILLEGAL GOODS - the actual process of quietly meeting up with your hidden contact at the station to arrange a covert exchange of materials is abstracted because it would take too much time away from the spaceship flying to simulate it.

(Your Power Contact is available even with Anonymous Access, which implies it's not necessarily an "approved" transmission you're making)

If they aren't playing by the galactic C&P rules

Ultimately Powerplay has to break from the previous C&P rules to avoid your own Power having you executed on your return from an undermining trip for hurting the opposing power's feelings - and even then, notoriety being global still leads to some silly results if you commit crimes against people other than Power agents in the process.

It probably doesn't break far enough, but going further would require also fixing the minor faction C&P and Reputation systems not to be so absolutely player-sympathetic, and there are probably reasons that Frontier wants to keep that sort of "wait, my murder spree might have minor consequences even though I was following orders" as a purely opt-in part of the game.

 

[Greasetrap42]

In that case the rest of your confusion makes sense; what's supposed to happen is Power-aligned ships who are definitely not your friends show up and shoot at you, and the Power bribes the local minor faction to ignore the minor illegality of that.

From what you said above I hadn't got that impression, though.

See my above screen shots. I am allied with Milkyway Minor's Union.

I was attacked at a Power Wreckage Site and I fired back at a ship blinking red in my radar. There were definitely no innocent bystanders. The fine popped up and voila... fined by my best buddies in the Milkyway Minor's Union. I'm not buying them drinks anymore!

 

[Ian Doncaster]

See my above screen shots. I am allied with Milkyway Minor's Union.

I was attacked at a Power Wreckage Site and I fired back at a ship blinking red in my radar. There were definitely no innocent bystanders. The fine popped up and voila... fined by my best buddies in the Milkyway Minor's Union. I'm not buying them drinks anymore!

Yes - you fired at a Clean ship, so the local jurisdiction gives you a bounty for it. That's the same as any committed crime - the bounty is issued by the jurisdiction owner, not the ship you shot at [1]. Power signal sources don't generate their own Power-based jurisdiction to override that (it might be clearer if they did, but Stronghold Carriers doing that is causing enough weirdness right now).


Is it fair that they - as a representative of the local Power - didn't get a bounty for assaulting you first? Well, they'd spent weeks (or years, depending on how long they'd had the system in PP1) bribing that faction to ignore minor crimes [2], and you'd get the same advantage in your Power's own space, so it's different to normal minor faction relations, but not exactly unfair. (And since you don't get notoriety for Power kills, also only mildly inconvenient - I've picked up more murder bounties undermining one system in the last week than in my entire ED career, because now there's actually a reason to shoot down Clean ships)


[1] I've been a long-standing advocate of having bounties be issued by the faction you're shooting at, but "every bounty hunter in the galaxy also has a price on their head from a hundred Anarchy gangs" probably isn't what most people mean by "Elite Dangerous needs C&P reform".
[2] Major crimes like loitering, the minor faction will still execute allied Power agents for. There are limits, you know.

 

[Greasetrap42]

Is it fair that they - as a representative of the local Power - didn't get a bounty for assaulting you first?

While I understand the mechanisms, it still doesn't make sense. My best buddies shot at me, and then (after paying the fine) they welcomed me back to their station. While carrying tons of escape pods and wreckage.

Similarly,
I went to a system I was labeled hostile. I docked my ship in their coriolis station. I purchased a recon limpet controller and a bunch of limpets from them. I exited the station and hacked all their holo ads. I got a bunch of fines. I docked at the same station, paid the fines, purchased more limpets and did it again... and again... and again. It just seemed so weird.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Oh, it's certainly weird - but I think it's mainly weird because the pre-existing game deliberately doesn't make sense in terms of consequences for actions, so the times where Powerplay actually gets it right (or closer to right) are strange.

Similarly, I went to a system I was labeled hostile. I docked my ship in their coriolis station. I purchased a recon limpet controller and a bunch of limpets from them. I exited the station and hacked all their holo ads. I got a bunch of fines. I docked at the same station, paid the fines, purchased more limpets and did it again... and again... and again. It just seemed so weird.

That does fairly rapidly drain your reputation with the station controller, though - much quicker than opposing them in a war or massacring their personnel for missions would.

 

[metatheurgist]

This game really needs to make up its mind. Are we The Princess Rescuers or not?

Apparently we are so powerful we personally decide who runs systems and which powers are in charge and the 6 trillion NPCs that live in the galaxy are meaningless and yet one shot while working for a power gives us a bounty? Don't they know who we are?