Quote:So lets run a scenario. The Gaians want to capture Planet Gaia (surprising?). Cruisers may be slow but if they could muster some players over a couple of months, save the sicdata, they could still make the attempt at least.
That alone means so much occurs to play to for other factions like the Molly's, CR, all of Bretonia, etc. So say they get their week long siege, and they siege the base in orbit to stand for a base to target. What would happen?
Are you seriously asking what would happen if Gaians siege a NPC base in BAF zoi? I am sorry but you have played this game before yes?
The problem with Binski's pipe dreamTM, aside from the unwillingness to put in the actual work, is that it's still literally a half-hearted attempt at a solution full of holes that anyone who ever interacted with some people in this community can see from miles away.
CCP (not the Communist one, but the one that makes the other open world space sim universe) has been trying to do something similar for almost 2 decades now, and they have actual post-docs economists / game theorists / game designers trying to solve the conundrum of getting people to be active (and also pay up, since they are of course a for-profit company). They are also failing miserably lately, and some say it all started when their version of POBs was put into their game.
Simply said, people don't enjoy being forced to do / care about stuff in a game (besides those that choose to make the game their life, of course).
So how to solve this then? There are only two obvious ways, and both are kind of a lose-lose proposal. You either:
redesign the whole game with such a system in mind.
This will of course alienate everyone who is here just for some casual gaming, and you'll be left with just the people who want to live in a virtual universe.
or
tack on such a system on top of the existing mechanics
This will probably end up failing as it will never feel natural and people will find a million ways to "game" it. Which will eventually alienate everyone who tries to game it (due to bans) and anyone who ends up on the side being gamed (due to thinking the whole system is unfair).
The current Disco of course, wisely (or foolishly, depending on who you ask) chooses the third way: the status quo. Or the slow death, you could call it. Basically it declares that the current Disco's mechanics are the vision and that basically any new content (besides rebalancing and story) has to be just cosmetic fluff or a slightly different hitbox with a new texture slapped on it. Eventually people will lose interest and the population will shrink to a small base of hardcore fans. Some say this has already happened.
Also, the general stance of devs / admins not really being that open to anyone willing to put in some new, unconventional work does not help in Disco evolving any further in terms of the overall vision.
I imagine this is mostly because of the nightmare of trying to rebalance everything around it, and the devs' limited time. Remember, this is still an unpaid hobby for them, not a 9-5 job they have to spend their time on.