Will a Federation v Empire war happen in the foreseeable future?
- Thread starter RellTyr
- Start date
The Imps and Fed groups in Powerplay hate each other and are always fighting.
FDev are caught between a rock and a hard place here.
On the one hand, there could be total war, Federation and Imperial factions hit by war, terrorism, infrastructure failure and all kinds of stuff happening in systems meaning lots of "why you poopoo on my BGS garden?" threads.
On the other hand it could be a background thing not really affecting players that much, in which case we'll get "this superpower war is meaningless" threads.
Personally I'm all for them throwing a grenade in the room because as with the Thargoids vandalising stations in the bubble a couple of years ago, a huge interstellar war should be a mite inconvenient and I don't believe players should be in control of absolutely everything. I'm not convinced they think the resultant complaining would be worth it.
On the one hand, there could be total war, Federation and Imperial factions hit by war, terrorism, infrastructure failure and all kinds of stuff happening in systems meaning lots of "why you poopoo on my BGS garden?" threads.
On the other hand it could be a background thing not really affecting players that much, in which case we'll get "this superpower war is meaningless" threads.
Personally I'm all for them throwing a grenade in the room because as with the Thargoids vandalising stations in the bubble a couple of years ago, a huge interstellar war should be a mite inconvenient and I don't believe players should be in control of absolutely everything. I'm not convinced they think the resultant complaining would be worth it.
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Its funny you say that, I had this idea a while ago that makes local wars have bigger consequences:
Superpower BGS effects: make superpower alignment numbers have BGS consequences
Issue: IN ED we have the BGS, which via abstractions simulates human activity in the bubble. We have Superpowers (Fed, Imp and Alliance). At a local system level we have factions and PMFs that are 'aligned' to these superpowers- these fight and sometimes you will see Imperials v Fed...
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Hard to say. There's already been a skirmish between the two over the Marlinist refugees, though neither side really wanted that escalating further.
The Empire probably is aware that in an all-out fight it would almost certainly lose - it may have slightly more systems now, but it has only about half the manufacturing base, its military technology is generally inferior to the Federal equivalents, and it has less ability to hire mercenaries.
Equally, the Federation is being torn apart from within by its own struggles, and has systems defect from it daily - any victory over the Empire would come at a massive cost in lives and resources, and probably lead to its eventual collapse too.
That won't stop it happening, necessarily - and both Utopia and Sirius are concerned enough by the possibility (for rather different reasons, I suspect) as to try to de-escalate things further - but it's going to need a fairly significant spark at the moment. It wouldn't surprise me if there was one before the end of the year, though...
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In practical terms, how such a war would be represented in-game is tricky to imagine: there are a bit over 4,000 systems on each side, and neither Powerplay nor the BGS nor CGs are really set up to deal with that sort of all-out conflict on that scale.
BGS problems:
- deals system-by-system so a hundred-system battlefront would be tough to represent
- doesn't have any meaningful representation of logistics overheads, so the side that wins the first battle is probably going to win the rest too, it'll just take ten years to prove it
- superpower support for individual member factions is not well-represented
Powerplay problems:
- Powerplay control officially doesn't mean anything and is largely irrelevant to the underlying superpowers
- Powerplay strategy is highly counter-intuitive and so any victories in the official war might end up being countered by a logistics collapse elsewhere
CGs:
- a fair bit of per-event effort for Frontier, and one battle a week is hardly a good representation of a major war
- we all know who's going to win already
The Empire probably is aware that in an all-out fight it would almost certainly lose - it may have slightly more systems now, but it has only about half the manufacturing base, its military technology is generally inferior to the Federal equivalents, and it has less ability to hire mercenaries.
Equally, the Federation is being torn apart from within by its own struggles, and has systems defect from it daily - any victory over the Empire would come at a massive cost in lives and resources, and probably lead to its eventual collapse too.
That won't stop it happening, necessarily - and both Utopia and Sirius are concerned enough by the possibility (for rather different reasons, I suspect) as to try to de-escalate things further - but it's going to need a fairly significant spark at the moment. It wouldn't surprise me if there was one before the end of the year, though...
-=-=-
In practical terms, how such a war would be represented in-game is tricky to imagine: there are a bit over 4,000 systems on each side, and neither Powerplay nor the BGS nor CGs are really set up to deal with that sort of all-out conflict on that scale.
BGS problems:
- deals system-by-system so a hundred-system battlefront would be tough to represent
- doesn't have any meaningful representation of logistics overheads, so the side that wins the first battle is probably going to win the rest too, it'll just take ten years to prove it
- superpower support for individual member factions is not well-represented
Powerplay problems:
- Powerplay control officially doesn't mean anything and is largely irrelevant to the underlying superpowers
- Powerplay strategy is highly counter-intuitive and so any victories in the official war might end up being countered by a logistics collapse elsewhere
CGs:
- a fair bit of per-event effort for Frontier, and one battle a week is hardly a good representation of a major war
- we all know who's going to win already
Apart from the incident that led to the formation of the Alliance, if I recall correctly, haven’t the Feds and Imps been in a state of ‘cold war’ for nigh on centuries now (if I recall the FE2 lore)? Wars are expensive, potentially unpredictable, and I’m not sure they’re in any major powers’ best interests at the moment. Now smaller proxy conflicts, like the Marlinist escapades, I can see igniting like wildfires if the galactic tensions continue to ramp up. Let’s see where this peace summit ends up!
If you're expecting weekly superpower wars you're probably playing the wrong game, it takes years for things to move in the game politics. Kinda like IRL politics I guess
A week is a long time in real politics 
I like that idea. Something that gives the superpower alignment a bit more depth would definitely be interesting.Its funny you say that, I had this idea a while ago that makes local wars have bigger consequences:
Superpower BGS effects: make superpower alignment numbers have BGS consequences
Issue: IN ED we have the BGS, which via abstractions simulates human activity in the bubble. We have Superpowers (Fed, Imp and Alliance). At a local system level we have factions and PMFs that are 'aligned' to these superpowers- these fight and sometimes you will see Imperials v Fed...forums.frontier.co.uk
Although I think it's a very good point raised that we already know who will win that war. Maybe we should be looking forward to the Alliance v Thargoids war because at least there there's nothing set about the strength of one of the sides. Especially if there's some kind of space kraken Thargoid variant in the works for later this year.
Dear Feds/ Imps, (*)
I sincerely support your justly cause and am a great advocate towards your very good political choices. In this regard I can tell you my ships are in pristine condition to aid you wherever and whenever you need it. Be it the delivery of weapons, food, recources, my services are yours at the blink of an eye. As you can imagine I will be confronted with costs regarding buying the things, taking risks in transporting them and the maintainance of my ships. But I am convinced we can work those minor issues out like we always do. I can also add the fact I won't forget the poor people and my Dolphin is at their disposal. As I've mentioned earlier I'm very close to join the top 1% ranks.
* strike what's not applicable
I sincerely support your justly cause and am a great advocate towards your very good political choices. In this regard I can tell you my ships are in pristine condition to aid you wherever and whenever you need it. Be it the delivery of weapons, food, recources, my services are yours at the blink of an eye. As you can imagine I will be confronted with costs regarding buying the things, taking risks in transporting them and the maintainance of my ships. But I am convinced we can work those minor issues out like we always do. I can also add the fact I won't forget the poor people and my Dolphin is at their disposal. As I've mentioned earlier I'm very close to join the top 1% ranks.
* strike what's not applicable
Yes, although Frontier's ability to set the Thargoid strength to whatever it wants comes with its own set of problems.
- players generally like to win
- players generally do win the individual tactical battles
- for the Thargoids to be taken seriously as the existential threat the lore says they are, rather than a minor nuisance, they need to win the vast majority of the early strategic stages of the war
At the moment, they come in, blow some stuff up ... AX squadrons move in to take them out, and Op IDA repairs the damage.
(But equally, if there are so many attacks that it overwhelms the AX squadrons - and the current wave took three weeks to clear, so if they'd actually followed that up with another set of attacks on more systems, it would have - what's going to have changed three/six/twelve months in to allow the tide to be turned? It might be a good sendoff event when they finally close the game down to ensure later demand for an Elite V ... but before then?)
As with the Imp-Fed war I don't see a good in-game way to represent this sort of thing over the scale of the bubble ... equally, no-one cares enough about WHN or Coalsack for the attacks there where the scale does work to feel important enough.
Surely by fighting you mean debating their differently worded pamphlets?
I think the danger for some (which has been raised) is that a devastating conflict would (ironically
) have too much of an impact on the BGS and general play- the Thargoids need this threat to be credible, but I don't think it 'suits' a inter superpower war in the same way. Its why I went for the gentle route, where isolated local events collate into a bigger picture, since the structures for conflict / expansion/ retreat are there. In the end its on FD themselves; right now we never really have seen a 'lose' state thats really made life difficult for everyone. Maybe they need to have one and see how we react.
They hate each other, trust me
Debate is with PA.We kinda had that when the Thargoids went on the rampage across the bubble, breaking several PMF's stations on the way. I remember a few who were annoyed at the game impinging on their faction - and some refused to repair 'their' stations IIRC.
As ever with humans - we always want more drama and action - until it happens to ourselves
Edit: Even the station repair experts got a bit frustrated by the 2nd or 3rd time they repaired Celeano / Asterope etc
We kinda had that when the Thargoids went on the rampage across the bubble, breaking several PMF's stations on the way. I remember a few who were annoyed at the game impinging on their faction - and some refused to repair 'their' stations IIRC.
As ever with humans - we always want more drama and action - until it happens to ourselves
Edit: Even the station repair experts got a bit frustrated by the 2nd or 3rd time they repaired Celeano / Asterope etc
Its an ironic situation- until we see systems go dark we'll never see Thargoids as a threat.
The other possibility is that rather than the systems themselves they go after FSD traffic and Megaships- so as well as station raids (every so often) they become more of a wider commerce raiding menace. But again the 'don't touch me' squad will see that as being unacceptable.
sigh