Admin Notice: Factions

[SparkyRailgun]

The obvious solution to Official Factions dying is very damn simple, but I think the people in charge are afraid of ruffling too many feathers.
Reduce the rights of independent players on faction IDs. Give them a reason to join the faction. People will cry about 'factionlancer' and all that bullocks, but in the end all they're complaining about is their own loss of power.

Discovery has little to lose by making such a change, and would stand to gain so much from it, especially if it came with increased ability to alter the course of mod development through faction interaction. As far as I can tell, the players at large think Discovery's story sucks. Why cling onto something that is bad, when you can open it up to more people in the hope of something great? The chance of it being terrible is still there, but at least it gives people the opportunity to see that before it happens.

That said, most of this post is a discussion for another thread... Sadly I don't really care enough to put it there.

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[Ryummel]

Stop keeping this stranglehold on every little microcosm of Discovery, devteam. Player facilitated change is what drives people to do great things, instead of just random krieg or sitting around and cybering.

Was always unable to describe the problem of ]bd[ until I finally did read this. +1

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[Rodent]

I pretty much agree with what Tycho said.

A phrase about deaf ears comes to mind though. Although I've managed to get a few changes done by talking to the devs, It's still a bit of a tricky process.

[Pavel]

... if folk can think of activity boosters that do not rely on any new goods or FLHook being created, feel free to share thoughts.

remove Food Rations commodity from the game. Keep Paste and Rice, Buff Paste routes. Activity boost for LWB and FA ( or do you consider merging LWB with hessians?...)

As for the AFA... another victim of the indy pirate ID is my personal feel on it.

not only them, de facto all unlawful factions suffer from that.


As for people joining factions, there needs to be a motivator to do so. IMG| tends to do well because of 2 things: We run coordinated, protected convoys that almost always make their destination, and have frequent (semi) organized pews, usually with the Outcasts Tauside. Generate such events on a regular basis, invite your indies, make some screenshots to show people the result and invite more to join the fun the next time. Even getting wiped out can be quite fun if you've had a good brawl prior to it (going in with the expectation of eventually getting blown up is a nice mindset for such events).

the Guild has excellent leaders, who know what they do. But you can't organise people in an unattractive faction, Kruger let's say. At this moment there's no reason to play as Kruger, while IMG in this mod version got bonus to every single real ore on the server except Aluminium and Helium-3, while having zoner-like diplomacy with many unlawfuls, capitals in the ID, own shipline and possibility of trading in every house including Gallia in a 5ker, and lack of sworn enemy ("may treat as combat targets IMG IDed vessels"), what means IMG player always have an option to pay, he won't hear just "die IMG!"
In such situation that would be difficult to not have people playing as IMG, while house mining factions are dying.

I also hope you're not talking about official factions, because forcing certain groups of people to work together against their will wouldn't end well, trust me.

Of all people , official faction leaders shóuld work together.
If any leader has a problem with that he ain't fit for the job.

heres my idea:

Stop letting indies use ID's other than freelancer.

If they want the perks of a faction ID they can join the faction that works hard to keep the ID.

yeah I dislike Indies.

This would actually save a lot of bullshit.
It's not like the freelancer ID leaves you with too limited options.
Better communication would keep things like fair play and stuff like that easier to manage.

In return official factions(leaders) should be way more responsible,
there should be harsher rules keeping them (and especially their leaders)
in line, and punishments for malicious behaviour.

And I do not dislike Indies at all.
There's just a overkill of indies present at the server.

If some factions would radiate a different attitude there would be way more faction members though.
Factions should be open to the input of it's members , not just a faction leader's private army.
remember it's supposed to be fun and entertaining , not for the select few but for everyone who's not here to take joy out of ruining someone's disco experience.

edit: sorry for going a bit off topic, I'm not pointing fingers at any of the factions listed here, but in my opinion these things are related to the shrinking of official faction numbers.

Joey said exactly what I think. If you, admins, have problem with faction leader being complete retard, you should be able to dismiss him. More power for officials, but not without more responsibilities, and more power for admins over faction leaders.

[AeternusDoleo]

Oh, okay. So you're trying to tell me that a corporation with the know how to terraform entire planets would be bought up by a shipping corporation. Or the sole faction capable of constructing lanes and gates for that matter.

Yes. Considering the players only run the space defense and logistics parts of those corporations. If Ageira/Planetform/Synth outsource that part to dedicated haulers (who have better experience in those matters anyway) it would simplify things a lot.

I've got a better idea. Allow people to hire these factions. Allow people to hire Planetform for terraforming operations, allow people to hire Ageira to construct gates and lanes. Allow people to hire DSE to turn their playerbases into permanent ones.

Stop keeping this stranglehold on every little microcosm of Discovery, devteam. Player facilitated change is what drives people to do great things, instead of just random krieg or sitting around and cybering.

Set up a proper system for it. ie; Planetform is contracted to terraform a world, like they currently have been with Murilo. They construct a playerbase in orbit of the planet and deliver a specific amount of goods to it and get paid a certain amount of money from their employers each month until the next mod version, with which the planet draws closer to completion, going from say a frozen wasteland to a Harris type planet, or an ocean one to a Los Angeles type one.

As is proven by both Harris and Ayr, it takes several hundred years to terraform a planet. This period is WAY too long for players to influence.

The same system can be applied to permanent bases, jumpgates, and tradelanes. Stop trying to point the finger elsewhere. If you want people to continue playing this game, you're going to need to loosen your grips and allow people to change things.

The economy balance is heavily dependant on where bases, jumpgates/holes and lanes are in respect to eachother. I don't think you quite realise how complex the economy is. Over 50 goods, times 100 bases, times 100 destinations. That's well over 500000 potential entries (and I took a low estimate on both numbers) that need to be checked when the galaxy takes it's final shape for a version. Yea, we keep that on a "tight grip" so we don't end up with a 500+ cr/s run across a single system or similar.

If there are any factions that should be merged, it's the generic trade ones, of which Gateway/Bowex and Universal/Interspace fit the bill. The in RP tensions between Kishiro/Samura and DHC/Kruger should be kept in place.

Gateway/Bowex have severe tension as well - if anything, Bowex/BMM and Gateway/IMG would be fair matches. Universal/Interspace is a poor match since Interspace is not a pure Liberty organisation.

Note: This is just my personal opinion, not neccesarily reflecting the rest of dev central.

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Wide awake in a world that sleeps, enduring thoughts, enduring scenes. The knowledge of what is yet to come.
From a time when all seems lost, from a dead man to a world, without restraint, unafraid and free.

Mostly retired Discovery member. May still visit from time to time.

[Ursus]

Planetform, Synth, Ageira... these are all niche factions which frankly, can be merged into/made subsidiaries of respectively Bowex, Universal and DSE. I'm sure there'll be some strong opinions about this, but frankly, we don't NEED a crapload of house haulers. 2 per house more then suffices. Kruger and ALG merging was also something that was thought of.

eh, the problem is too many player factions. NPC assets add to the game and cost nothing, deleting those would be self-defeating. Figure out a way to get rid of the player factions that are causing the drain, or figure out how to make them easier to operate if you want to keep them.

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Discovery 24/7 Negotiating Tactics:

[Alley]

dev team forgets this is a game and not everything necessarily have to make sense.

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Alley was right.

[Durandal]

Yes. Considering the players only run the space defense and logistics parts of those corporations. If Ageira/Planetform/Synth outsource that part to dedicated haulers (who have better experience in those matters anyway) it would simplify things a lot.

That makes sense in theory, but with the system I had up it'd basically mean people were getting paid for sitting on their asses doing nothing.

As is proven by both Harris and Ayr, it takes several hundred years to terraform a planet. This period is WAY too long for players to influence.

What Alley said. Positively unfun and bland to not be able to change this stuff. If it matters that much just retcon it or ninja some new lore in just like Friday did with Gaudalajara magically not spinning anymore.

The economy balance is heavily dependant on where bases, jumpgates/holes and lanes are in respect to eachother. I don't think you quite realise how complex the economy is. Over 50 goods, times 100 bases, times 100 destinations. That's well over 500000 potential entries (and I took a low estimate on both numbers) that need to be checked when the galaxy takes it's final shape for a version. Yea, we keep that on a "tight grip" so we don't end up with a 500+ cr/s run across a single system or similar.

I exactly realize how complex the economy is, and what Alley said again applies. I don't think you realize how much Discovery's population is dwindling, and will continue to do so unless you do this stuff. Maybe making a 500+ cr/s run the norm wouldn't be a bad thing.

Okay so this is kind of a lame answer, let me expand on it. Remove a a lot of the useless/redundant commodities, and don't allow permanent player made bases to influence the economy at all. Should help a bit.

Gateway/Bowex have severe tension as well - if anything, Bowex/BMM and Gateway/IMG would be fair matches. Universal/Interspace is a poor match since Interspace is not a pure Liberty organisation.

Didn't even know about the Gateway/Bowex thing. Just like you, I believe that strict trade only factions are incredibly boring. I don't see why Interspace being Sirius wide makes it a bad match with Universal. Makes perfect sense to me. Infact that's an even better idea; merge interspace with one each generic house trade corp.

[Wolfs Ghost]

As is proven by both Harris and Ayr, it takes several hundred years to terraform a planet. This period is WAY too long for players to influence.

Actually, there is a way for players to influence some sort of terraforming, it wouldn't be Harris / Ayr terraforming but it'd make a hostile terrestrial planet habitable.

Bio-domes.

It'd work practically like what was suggested, the faction(s) build a playerbase in orbit of the planet that they're wanting to terraform, then transports come and supply the necessary commodities to construct a workable bio-dome planet side. Going about this way will take ten/twenty years rather than a hundred or more.

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[Quorg]

Police factions dying? I'll bet nobody saw that one coming!

jkjkjk

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The obvious solution to Official Factions dying is very damn simple, but I think the people in charge are afraid of ruffling too many feathers.
Reduce the rights of independent players on faction IDs. Give them a reason to join the faction. People will cry about 'factionlancer' and all that bullocks, but in the end all they're complaining about is their own loss of power.

Discovery has little to lose by making such a change, and would stand to gain so much from it, especially if it came with increased ability to alter the course of mod development through faction interaction. As far as I can tell, the players at large think Discovery's story sucks. Why cling onto something that is bad, when you can open it up to more people in the hope of something great? The chance of it being terrible is still there, but at least it gives people the opportunity to see that before it happens.

That said, most of this post is a discussion for another thread... Sadly I don't really care enough to put it there.

Yeah um independent ID's had waaaaaay less restrictions 2+ years ago and official factions weren't dying out en masse back then like they are today.

The problem isn't independent ID's. The problem is changes to the rules and to Disco that have caused folks to flee from this server and game, as well as poor leadership in the factions that discourages people from joining.

tl;dr rule changes, changes to Sirius, and adding Gallia are killing this server and killing Factions.

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ATTENTION SMUGGLERS
The Midnight Express: A Slaver <strike>who doesn't completely realize what he's doing.</strike> (video)

Quorg, you're officially a moron.

...mongs like Quorg being like a malignant little cancer...

Way to be useless, Quorg.