My apologies. I started by quoting your post but didn't mean your post specifically when I said the argument was bonkers. So I shall break down my thoughts on your idea now.
I'll break it down for you.
We're all, by default, affiliated with an existing group. The Pilot's Federation. Ergo, we should either need to leave said group to join a new one or be able to join two or more groups. I'd prefer the first option.
Makes sense. However, as we would (in lore) continue to do missions for entities who rely on the Pilot Federation's rank system to judge our worthiness as pilots, making players leave the pilot federation to show their affiliation with either a minor faction or player made faction (The secondary being something we could actively name, beyond the current "submit a name and system" setup that's going on) would mean Frontier would have to come up with some entirely new piece of lore to justify "my word on ranking" being good enough for the people I would continue running missions for. I think I can see your motivation for this but will reserve that assumption for later and just say that it's not a good idea.
As the Pilot's Federation are the ones supplying us our insurance, after we leave them we'll need to find another way of paying for our insurance.
Guild banks, in their many forms, are a source of drama and I believe they should be avoided. Above and beyond the issues of ownership, access and control they woıuld also provide a simple source for those wishing to sell credits for real money. I'm sure folks can work out how.
So how to cover the insurance? Having players pay a membership fee seem tricky, as we could have dormant/inactive accounts providing funding. So I propose the existing group members absorb the insurance costs from their own wallets. The more members, the lower the insurnace cost. The less members, the less of an insurance discount recieved. Sure, smaller groups will have it tough.
Large groups could potentially have it tough as well. If you've got a group of say, 100, with only the top 5-10 players being true million/billionaires then one of those players losing something like a Corvette or Cutter would be catastrophic for the younger, less financially stable members of the group. I think Frontier has it cornered already by forcing players to cover their rebuy costs with the pilot's federation.
Chat, tags and cosmetics are the reward for getting the group together and staying together.
Personally I'd say chat tags aren't needed at all. That's just a piece of vanity flair that could be done away with and replaced with something else, something organic to the game already.
Scanning members to reveal membership provides transparency and promotes accountability. Again, I hope folks can understand why such values are important.
Now this was where I scratched my head a bit, because in your original post you said the following:
"
- the number and the names of current group members can be identified through scanning a group member with a Kill Warrant Scanner."
Which made me scratch my head because "why does it matter?" No scan should be able to give you faction member names / the amount of members as it's not relevant information to the game.
So yes, I'd like a player faction to come at a real cost. Once we've established them and we've gathered data on how the game world responds, we can approach additional complexities such as player owned bases, markets and the like.
As for the rest, I am already a member of a rather large gaming group of over hundred members, one that has been around for many years. We have no problems with organising ourselves in Elite, communicating with each other or establishing our presennce. We have our own Minor Faction in game and it growing well.
So really, and this is directed at the OP: Elite already has clans/player factions. That we are smart enough to utilize third party software, run and maintain our own site and organize our members without having to rely on Frontier to develop and provide us with our own tools to do so is hardly unique. In this way we save development time from being wasted on tools and systems that already exist. And for those that can't make use of them or run such a group? Chances are they are not going to enjoy much success with their group, in game, even if Frontier wasted development time in giving them the tools to make and attempt to run one.
So here's where I shall expand a bit more:
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1: Yes, we already have player factions in game. I fly for one as well and we're also well organized between a number of forums and third party tracking/communicating tools.
However, what I think would really put these questions and debates to heel would be the ability to affiliate yourself with said player faction via the same method used for power play.
a) This solves your need to KWS scan a target, as their faction affiliation would be displayed the same way your power affiliation is.
b) This eliminates the need for any extensive changes to the game itself in order to integrate some type of clan/guild system.
c) I think this is really what players would like. The ability to make it known to whoever is targeting them/scanning them/flying around that they are a member of said faction. This would also be the stepping stone/foundation for better control over private groups, adding in more administrative type commands for a group leader(s) to control his/her group and remove troublesome players if needed.
2: Why is there a need to establish a "real cost" on the faction beyond what's already there? There's no need to add player owned objects to space, no maintenance needed. This screams to me "MAKE THEM SUFFER FOR TRYING TO PVP!" and nothing else, as that seems to be the underlying theme of the dissenting opinions gathered in this thread. "
Oh woe is me, player factions will make pvp more prevalent, gods no!" It feels like that may be part of your reasoning. Feels. There is no game mechanic advantage that faction-aligned players will have over anyone else and therefore no reason to impose further costs on them for wanting to say, "hey! I'm a part of Emporers Grace!" or whatever other faction they've chosen to help prop up in game.
3: There is no reason to do away with the Pilots Federation when joining another faction as they are a neutral party to anything going on. They act more as a regulating body than anything else and the other powers within the bubble rely on that regulation, as stated above. You would have to craft some kind of lore to cover why the Feds/Empire/Alliance would accept any privateer type pilot (Which is what we all are, technically) without the proper credentials. That would be like me showing up to the NNSA with a big rig and a "Republic of Texas" CDL permit, something not nationally recognized. I would get laughed out because that's not a valid credential.
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Note: When I say "like powerplay" I mean it as follows: When you lock on to a ship and it shows in the target info panel who they are associated with, for players it would potentially have two pieces of info vice a single line. One for their chosen power play faction (existing) and one for the player faction that they are currently supporting (the clan/guild piece, but that's it).
