I know there has been a lot of talk about a mutualy exclusive faction system coming into play, and i had a few thoughts on that.

For one, While I'm all for more limitations on military benefits of faction, I don't like the idea of mutually exclusive factions.

My point: What of traders?
Some players, such as Miharu, spent a lot of time getting loved by everyone, and do not use it for an advantage from a combat standpoint. I believe these benign players deserve the civil protections and favors they have earned from factions everywhere. Does it not make sense that a simple trader should be able to earn respect and protection from all nations? Even in war, there are conventions for these things.

My solution: Military responsibility.
Instead of having faction standing mutually exclusive, the military benefits of these factions should be exclusive. Like the Serco/Itani Border Patrol, which only allows participation of players whom are hated by the opposition, the military should only allow purchase and ownership of their warships and weapons by players whom do not have ties with the enemy. Someone with neutral or above Serco standing should not be able to purchase a valkyrie from the Itani, nor should a player with neutral or above Itani standing be permitted to purchase a prometheus from the Serco.

These limitations of course should extend to UIT/Corvus and indie political relationships as well; the Itani/Serco comparison was just an example.

Continuing with the above example, we could make rules for the purchase of military vessels and weapons which would give some breathing room depending on faction. So for the purchase of a prometheus, you could judge eligibility as follows:

If sercoFaction >= 800
. . . If sercoFaction - itaniFaction >= 1400
. . . . . . Allow Purchase
. . . Else
. . . . . . Disallow Purchase "We cannot sell this equipment to someone friendly with the Itanis."
. . . End If
Else
. . . Disallow Purchase - Insufficient STanding
End If

so fi you were Serco POS, you could buy a prometheus at -400 Itani standing, but if you were only Serco Admired (800), you would need to be Itani Hated (-600)
and so on...

It's just a rough example to demonstrate the concept, so the exact numbers may not be appropriate. </disclaimer>

/givemoney Devs 2c

Hmm? isnt the mutual standing system only effecting players and not nations? ie, if I shoot a trader, he can mark me as hostile, therefore i show red on his radar regardless of my faction standing, it has nothing to do with factions, and would not effect the way defences work now.

I'm talking about the 'mutually exclusive faction system' idea that's been going around (ie. you can only have good Itani OR Serco standing, and not both, etc...) not a player-specific IFF system.

But then I can't get my Valk of Scannage! :(

-Miharu

I liked the 13-dimensional Hypercube idea to represent your faction standing -- that (Phaserlight) started?

all you's with the hyper cube. bah! i cant picture it in my mind!

hyperwhat? link?

Celkan:
>>"But then I can't get my Valk of Scannage! :("<<

The way they were talking,y ou wouldn't be able to get it anyway... but at least this way you'd get to keep your faction.

If you want to fly a valk, create a character that can... *shrug*

it's why I've been levelling characters of the other two races now.

What if I want to be friendly with the nations in order to be a pirate killer? The Sercos ought to be happy that I kill pirates in Latos as well as Edras. I still like my idea where it is simply much harder to gain faction standing with a faction whose enemy(ies) you are also friends with. Also, it means you have to act diplomatically and treat everyone just right (i.e. "fair") in order to be and stay friends with everyone. [From a different thread, but oh well]:

Such strict polar opposites does not add much to the game, it detracts from it by limiting characters to a location on a line between two factions. I would prefer that the default view be close to what it is now (just a number between -1000 and +1000). However, I also agree that making the existence of opposing sides actually MEAN something WOULD add to the game, potentially significantly. I suggest that an alternate view be available -- a diamond. If you are at the bottom, you are hated by both factions, and both love you at the top. Your faction standing between opposing factions would be modified as follows:
[Edit: If you have between -800 and +0 faction standing, you gain one-tenth the standing you lose for actions against the opposing side].
If you have between +0 and +900 faction standing, you gain half the standing you lose for actions against the opposing side.
While you have less than +900 faction standing with one side, you lose half the faction standing you gain from the other side.
While you have at least +900 faction standing, you take a double faction standing losses.
[Edit: Ever hitting KoS permanently obstructs PoS -- once you have been KoS with a faction, you can NEVER be PoS with them].

For example, say I have 850 Itani standing and 825 Serco standing. Then I gain 50 Itani standing to 900 for some trading mission; my Serco standing automatically drops 25 points (half of 50) to 800 on completion of the trade mission. I then gain 100 Serco standing to 900 with trading missions for them; my Itani standing doesn’t change because I have at least 900 with them. As a second example, if I had 0 Serco and 0 Itani, and killed a Serco CtC transport for -10 Serco, I would automatically gain 5 Itani standing.

My rationale for this is: Doing bad things to the bad guys makes you more popular; Doing nice things for the bad guys makes you less popular; Doing nice things for everyone is okay; If you are a highly respected member of society, doing bad things is considered MUCH worse than if you are a nobody (hello Martha Stewart). This also has the advantage of being a simple rule-based change to the current faction system, which thus hopefully would be relatively easy to implement.

i've been toying with an idea for a standing system, that was basicly like what we have now (where you can become expreemly well likes with everyone and get all the benafits) but using the benefits of one faction signifigantly reduces your faction with their enemy.

so if i have +1000 Itani and +1000 Serco, i can buy a prom, or a valk, but buying a valk causes me to loose a LOT of serco standing (say around 400) and buying a Prom would do the same to my seco standing.

basicly the idea is this: you can be respected by all factions simultaniously, but if you show any sigifigant afiliation with one the other takes offence.

i hadn't perposed it before because i'm not certain i like the idea, but i figured i'd throw it into the pot

I agree with the general premise, Lord Q, that "if you show any significant affiliation with one the other takes offence". However, I do not agree with your idea/example of what is showing a "significant affiliation". People are not likely to care whose equipment you use NEARLY so much as what you are doing with it. I do not think that buying/selling anything (with few exceptions like CtC cargo) should affect anyone's faction standing. I could MAYBE see a -1 Serco penalty for purchasing a Valkyrie, but only if you had high Serco FS (900+) and on the premise that you flew it through Sercoland or the media showed you flying it. This would be on the idea the the president/CEO of Ford Motor Company should NOT be seen buzzing around Detroit in a brand new Toyota.

LostCommander,
i'll agree that using a valk in serco space would be more of an offence than just buying one but the point of the mutualy exclusive factions is to prevent the Serco with a valk, who isn't a trater (and coresponding scenarios from other facion combinations) and it should be an extreem hit. otherwise people wouln't care.

and i do think the government would care if you bought an enemy vessil. (they'd probably be more anoyed that you wouldn't let them tear it apart to see how it works than anything else but still)

actualy there's a posibility: add the ability to sell nation ships to their oponents (automatic KOS for the fastionb who's ship you sold, but a sisable inpruvment to the faction youi sold it to) i don't expect anyone would ever use that ability but it would add a litle more logic to the system as a whole

LC:
Excellent! I really like your faction relationship ideas... if we did it that way, I'm also for (to some extent) what LQ is saying; I can agree that there should be little if any penalty for purchasing enemy equipment, but perhaps a temp-dislike for flying it in the wrong place (ie. if you fly a prom into itani-monitored space, you are temporarily disliked by the itani until you leave or get rid of the prom) and of course, larger faction hits for doing naughty things while flying a taboo ship.

I do however still think there should be some limitation in place to make it very difficult to own both proms and valks at the same time - where the faction requirements for owning one include that you can't own the other, forcing you to work to change your standing before purchasing one over the other... however, with your system idea in place, you wouldn't need as big a differential there to make the limitation effective.

IDEAS RESTATED:
If you have between +0 and +900 faction standing, you gain half the standing you lose for actions against the opposing side.
While you have less than +900 faction standing with one side, you lose half the faction standing you gain from the other side.
While you have at least +900 faction standing, you take a double faction standing losses.
Flying a nation-specific ship in an opposing nation's space, sets a temp-dislike for the opposing nation until you leave or lose the ship.
Faction penalties and bounties for a nation are increased when using a nation-specific ship of an opposing nation to earn them.

Also require that faction for a nation be higher than that of an opposing nation to buy certian things there?

Great ideas! keep them coming!

Interesting ideas.

I've got a few significant comments on this topic, startying with my older thread on factions themselves located here,
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/10089
including mutually exclusive and allied factions, but i think i've got a more interesting and elegant solution involving a minor redesign of the factions themselves.

particularly sections 1,2,and 3 of the above post are applicable to the whole faction/reputation discussion.

I have a few thoughts on this but they arent coherent enough yet to post them in detail.

the rough idea is to break down each nation into closely allied subfactions and redistribute the equipment across them, make the military sub-factions mutually exclusive with each other and the opposite main faction to prevent someone from having access to both sides military hardware, but the commercial subfactions could still both be maximized.

I'll flesh out this idea later and hopefully post about it.

I got lost at some point. Why does anyone care about limiting faction ship ownership? Does the reasoning extend to faction equipment?

Many real life military special forces are trained in the use of opponent's weapons and equipment. They are certainly not penalized for using everything available to them in the service of their nation. I do not believe that Arab terrorists would be upset at the use of a Desert Eagle in their activities, even though it is Israeli.

Unless someone can present a good gameplay-based reason for further limiting ship/equipment purchases, I REALLY think the idea should be discarded. I can see RP reasons to take the issue either way.

IMO its not the use of weapons or ships that should be restricted... merely the sale of them.

While any military organization would (and logically should) be trained in using the opponents weapons, that doesn't mean the enemy is going to sell them to you, no matter how nicely you ask.

For example during the cold war both US and Soviet air force pilots were trained in simulators of enemy aircraft, but the fighters wern't sold to each other.

Besides, there is a significant difference between a handgun and a military vehicle, and security on a military class fighter should be much higher.

Logical reason:
One nation's military would not WANT to sell weapons of war to people who are friendly with their enemies.

Gameplay reason:
Some people feel violated when they get pwned by a traitor flying their own nation's ship.

Like I said, one can come up with a logical RP reason either way.

But, with a better faction system, traitors should no longer be able to buy ships. Besides, if the SCP wasn't so overpowered as a single-pilot fighter craft, the Sercos wouldn't have to be bothered by it because Itanis would not feel compelled to use them in B-8.

This all also might be made much easier with the full economy in place so people could freely buy whatever from UIT.

this has nothing at all to do with how good the prom is.

I've been advocating something like this since mid-ALPHA when the valk was the uber ship.

and.. NEWS FLASH... a better faction system is exactly what we are talking about.

Well, I still don't care who flies what to pawn me (not too hard, I know).

I sort of meant a better accounting of faction standing ... well, it still sounds dumb/wrong in writing. I have failed at communicating what I was thinking, I will possibly try again later. However, I do mostly agree with your other thread.

the gameplay reason for preventing players from ownin nation equipment from 2 oposing factions is diversity. when Serco can buy valks without loosing the ability to buy proms it reduces the differences between serco, itani, and serco trators. the same goes for any faction.

and like i said the nation wouldn't minde that you had an enemy ship so much as they would minde you not turning it over to R+D so they can reveese engineer it. (basicly it calls into question your loyalty when you somehow got an enemy ship the designes of which are kept under lock and key and wouln't turn it over to the athorities) in all honesty, it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to delcare you KOS imediately when you refuse to turn over the "captured" ship.

this is less criticle for faction weapons or equipment because they are both less noticable, and could arguably be more esily acuired than an entier ship. (it's like salvaging (or stealing) a gatling gun vs salvaging an entier F-18)