PROPOSAL - Life beyond "Allied" with Factions

[Dave G]

Once you are allied with a faction, and are getting the best paid missions, where do you go from here? There needs to be something to encourage players to invest in the factions in the game, impact the BGS, and gain benefits from being loyal to a faction in the game.

I would like to see special missions being unlocked once you are allied with a faction, and have completed certain activities (e.g. mined 100 tonnes of gold for an extraction faction, collected 100 bounties for a military faction, delivered 1000 tonnes of minerals to a refinery faction, etc).

At this point a mission for that specific faction should be made available (potentially multi-part), which would result in a faction-specific reward. Factions themselves should have "tinkerers", less experienced engineers, that provide a faction-specific module which has an improved capability (less than engineers, but a small increase in capability), so you could acquire a "Faction X Pulse Laser", which had 5% more power than your regular ones, or a "Faction Y Refinery", which allows an additional bin, etc.

In addition to these Faction-specific modules, another possible reward could be all the resources to allow you to visit an Engineer and get a specific blueprint generated. Another option is a new ship (given ships start around 36K credits, you could include a ship up to the size of a DBX as a reward). These ships could be configured for a given role (e.g. an extraction faction may offer a Cobra pre-kitted with mining capabilities).

Offering faction-specific rewards will encourage players to invest in these factions, especially as word will get out about specific factions offering certain modules/ships. These faction-specific modules can also be engineered for even more variety.

 

[Lemanrouste]

I feel like the problem with this is that you will only be able to vary it from faction to faction so much before you see repeats or just plain useless "upgrades". The bigger powers already have this kind of loyalty card deal anyway, with Federation giving you access to Core Dynamics shipyards and the Empire giving you access to Gutamaya. The weapons/modules are there too with power play, and of course you have the engineers.

Something that could work better would being able to requisition support from these minor factions, like an NPC wingman, or free refuelling/repair.

 

[Arry]

You talk of life beyond Allied, but unless you stay doing stuff of said faction; Allied soon becomes friendly, no matter how long you have been allied with them.

Being allied, dose have its advantages.

 

[Adhock]

I can already see the rage building for those in Powerplay who would see this as stomping on someone's toes because faction specialty modules are their thing.

 

[Ouberos]

Maybe they could just pay you a retainer or something every week they stay in Boom.

So you hit "Allied Elite" and then go on the payroll. But you could only have one faction giving you a paycheck. Like a loyalty issue.

It would give Player groups a sense of belonging too.

 

[veryinky]

It would give Player groups a sense of belonging too.

I'd love it if I could officially become a member of the "Deep Space Clan". It's a cool faction name.

A nice mechanical benefit would be to get wing navlock jump to allied controlled stations. 3x the safe drop speed/distance and automatically puts drops you when you reach it.

 

[JeffRyan]

I'd love it if I could officially become a member of the "Deep Space Clan". It's a cool faction name.

A nice mechanical benefit would be to get wing navlock jump to allied controlled stations. 3x the safe drop speed/distance and automatically puts drops you when you reach it.

I'd love to have some way to show my alliance with the Prismatic Imperium.... I founded the bloody thing. Robby Allison should be bowing before me when I show up, but no....

 

[-Joe]

I think they should add a new rank for minor factions "Champion". This would be above "Alied" and be short lived without heroic deeds to maintain it, degrading quickly to "Alied" over time.

Champions would get free fuel and much comms love from alies passing by or home stations, a little respect but that's all.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

I suspect that this is where the "Favour" mechanic will come in. Back in May, Sandro mentioned how they had been developing the Favour system for release with Factions, but decided to release it early-in relation to Engineers and Weapon Special Effects.

What impacts calling in a favour will have, I can't rightly say.....though I suspect that changing mission parameters will be at least one thing it'll do.

 

[Jmanis]

Might I suggest a topic title of "Life beyond Hostile" instead?

Literally, the "optimal" way to play the BGS is to just be allied with everyone, and not pursue any form of antagonistic behaviour. Case study, I went from Neutral to Allied with a faction in one night, despite earning a 10m cr fine and knocking that faction's influence down 11% that same night. I couldn't do that if I were Hostile to the faction.

Sounds daft hey? I would agree that that needs to be fixed, but you can't just fix that (by changing the actions I took to actually have a negative consequence) because I'll just stop doing those actions and substitute them with similar actions, of an equal impact. Trust me, under current game mechanics it's impossible to remove the ability to be "Allied and damaging" without gimping the rest of the game. But people who want to pursue purposeful antagonism against another faction get not just the short end of a stick, they get the negative stick.

Locked out of stations and kill on sight... that's literally the only outcome of being hostile. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I've been a long-time proponent of rewarding becoming hostile. People use terms here like "Champion"... champion of what? Hugging your enemy to death? I know people playing the BGS don't make themselves hostile... in fact, they actively prevent it because if you become hostile, in a lot of cases, it makes it impossible or at least much harder to continue flipping that system. Who'd have thought, in an attempt to instigate a war for control within a system faction that you might become hostile, but noooooooooope. Now you're hostile, you can't dock to hand in those combat bonds. You must stay at least unfriendly, or neutral, to most effectively bring the downfall of the faction. Backwards. Sure, "trusted insider" and all that, I have no problem with that sort of gameplay, but the absence of any more meaningful roles is a lost opportunity.

But that's also the problem with the Op's suggestions. It's even more reason to become Allied with everyone, and suddenly the whole universe is green and boring. What's needed is "Become hostile, and that faction's enemies will reward you" before any more boosts to Allied are put in.

 

[Mikalus]

I can already see the rage building for those in Powerplay who would see this as stomping on someone's toes because faction specialty modules are their thing.

Oh contraire.

Our faction module is so bad I wouldn't mind minor factions having something. I don't see how it can be done though without a lot of repetition.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Might I suggest a topic title of "Life beyond Hostile" instead?

Literally, the "optimal" way to play the BGS is to just be allied with everyone, and not pursue any form of antagonistic behaviour. Case study, I went from Neutral to Allied with a faction in one night, despite earning a 10m cr fine and knocking that faction's influence down 11% that same night. I couldn't do that if I were Hostile to the faction.

Sounds daft hey? I would agree that that needs to be fixed, but you can't just fix that (by changing the actions I took to actually have a negative consequence) because I'll just stop doing those actions and substitute them with similar actions, of an equal impact. Trust me, under current game mechanics it's impossible to remove the ability to be "Allied and damaging" without gimping the rest of the game. But people who want to pursue purposeful antagonism against another faction get not just the short end of a stick, they get the negative stick.

Locked out of stations and kill on sight... that's literally the only outcome of being hostile. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I've been a long-time proponent of rewarding becoming hostile. People use terms here like "Champion"... champion of what? Hugging your enemy to death? I know people playing the BGS don't make themselves hostile... in fact, they actively prevent it because if you become hostile, in a lot of cases, it makes it impossible or at least much harder to continue flipping that system. Who'd have thought, in an attempt to instigate a war for control within a system faction that you might become hostile, but noooooooooope. Now you're hostile, you can't dock to hand in those combat bonds. You must stay at least unfriendly, or neutral, to most effectively bring the downfall of the faction. Backwards. Sure, "trusted insider" and all that, I have no problem with that sort of gameplay, but the absence of any more meaningful roles is a lost opportunity.

But that's also the problem with the Op's suggestions. It's even more reason to become Allied with everyone, and suddenly the whole universe is green and boring. What's needed is "Become hostile, and that faction's enemies will reward you" before any more boosts to Allied are put in.

I don't think the two issues need to be mutually exclusive. As you know, I'm a strong advocate of paying more to Commanders who are prepared to work in Hostile Space-especially if that work is on behalf of an antagonistic faction .

I would argue that, now that we have a much clearer understanding of who these factions actually are, there is now greater scope for expanding the player-faction and faction-faction relationships over the next 3 updates.

For starters, there should be natural antagonisms between certain faction types-like Dictator vs Democrat or Communist vs Corporation. Basically ranking up with one faction type should make it increasingly hard to rank up with their natural "enemies".
Likewise, antagonisms could also exist due to Super Power or Power affiliations, or as a result of "lore-based" reasons....and yes, actively working against said faction should make it next to impossible to get beyond Neutral with them!

As mentioned before, jobs aimed at undermining an antagonistic faction should pay more (in monetary and non-monetary terms)-especially if its in a system that is Hostile towards your Commander.

If you lack the ability to land at any facilities within a system that you're wanting to undermine, then there needs to be other means by which you can pick up missions against them-either via representatives in neighbouring systems, or by non-mission board based means within the hostile system (NPC ships belonging to your faction, or the like).

As I said, I'd be more than happy to discuss further fleshing out Faction based relationships at both ends of the spectrum.

 

[Jmanis]

I don't think the two issues need to be mutually exclusive. As you know, I'm a strong advocate of paying more to Commanders who are prepared to work in Hostile Space-especially if that work is on behalf of an antagonistic faction . <snip>

Good post If it came off that I was saying they were mutually exclusive, that definitely wasn't my intention. I think the two are incredibly tightly-coupled, which is why yet more boons to being "Allied" without equal opportunities afforded to being hostile would be a bad idea right now.

Being Hostile needs a boost right now, because until that happens, silly scenarios like my "10 Million fine, knocked off 11% influence, and the end result is I'm allied" can't be dealt with in a way that doesn't result in ultra-conservative gameplay, because any extremes would land you Hostile which is simply an arbitrary "punishment".

 

[Mephane]

OP, I would expect such a feature to be open to massive manipulation. Very large player group X wants item Y for themselves, but no one else? Rank up to allied, buy stockpiles, play the faction to the ground in the BGS, so that they are present only in some small backwater outpost with little more than refuelling capabilities (so that no one else can rep up with them in a realistic time frame).

 

[Drelthar]

It's a great idea, and repetition of rewards wouldn't be a huge problem, there could just be small differences between them via a tiny randomisation. Full ship rewards sounds great too.

 

[[VR] Deggial]

You talk of life beyond Allied, but unless you stay doing stuff of said faction; Allied soon becomes friendly, no matter how long you have been allied with them.

Being allied, dose have its advantages.

He speaks about factions, not super powers.

Faction reputation doesn't decay and its benefits are more and better missions.

Super power reputation has its merits, too, by the way: with a high super power standing, you gain reputation faster with associated factions.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

My gut feeling is still that 2.2 will bring a Favour mechanic to factions, & that it will probably allow for the following:

1. Haggling over mission parameters (including payout).

2. Payment of your fines.

3. Discounts on ships, modules and commodities for 24 hours.

4. Better payouts on Bounties, Exploration Data, Combat Bonds and Commodities for 24 hours.

5. Tip offs and rumours.


Of course, that is just my gut feeling.....I could very easily be wrong.

 

[Arry]

He speaks about factions, not super powers.

Faction reputation doesn't decay and its benefits are more and better missions.

Super power reputation has its merits, too, by the way: with a high super power standing, you gain reputation faster with associated factions.

That IS nice to know: I am allied at Cubeo and surrounding factions and have been away for some time. Nice to know that I will get a good welcome home, when I get back there.