My relatives have been fairly active in deneb of late to test the border conflict missions. Today in the large sector I sat and watched a tedious standoff ; the itani terradon shooting at the serco hac , the serco terradon shooting at the itani hac . All nose to nose with little effect for 30+ mins.

As an idea , how about player suggestions to the admiral? A popup, a tab in the capship, or even a set of / commands along the line of :

1) Sir , I suggest our terradon makes their terradon a priority target .

2) Sir , I suggest our hac nears to gunnery range to assist out terradon on the enemy shields

3) Sir , I suggest that our connie turns so that all its turrets come to range .

4 ) et al ..

The "Admiral" would have a set of ai controlled responses, simple probabilities of taking notice of the player or not taking advice.

1) You are just a gunner , shut up and shoot the thing ..

2) Good idea gunner approach to gunnery range ...

3) Pimms in the wardroom, ramming speed.. .... ( bit of history there ) .....

4) et al ....

You get the idea .

At the moment the border battle mechanism is just a spectator sport, shooting 100 + of the opposition makes no effect on the outcome. If the overall mechanism is to be extended to other areas of space some player influence over capship behaviour would make the whole experience far more immersive. Given that level of immersion it would give the player a feeling that they were influencing the overall outcome of the idea of taking and holding areas of space. In turn that would hold player interest long term; tie it into the military medals badges systems and folk have a reason for staying past the 3 month " well thats vo played" mark .

Anyway , something to think about in the medium term.

Admiral - "You're out of line gunner! Someone send this pilot to the brig!" - mission failed/canceled?

I like the idea, only concern I would have is as follows:
* I login as a serco.
* I dock with the serco Hac.
* I tell them to do stuff that will make the serco lose (on purpose?)
* They actually listen to me?!?

It would definitely make the war more immersive though, which is a good thing :)

It'd be 'easy' to only offer suggestions that might actually help. The problem would lie in checking that.

Great idea ecka!

Reputation could have something to do that, coupled with how many "victories" you have been in.

Or, if you suggest something and the ship is destroyed, your reputation (NOT faction) is negatively affected. The "ranking" system I have heard rumors about could facilitate this with a demotion or promotion.

I think it has to do with the collision avoidance thing, Teradons very rarely get close enough to knock out the shields of any ship aside from the tridents. Very noticable when a teradon tries to attack a connie. Unless the shields get dropped on the teradon's initial approach on a connie / HAC then the shield will most likely never fall

We're already doing something like this, but it's still in testing. The "military rank" progression will factor into this.

I like it when the devs go 'way ahead a'ya, pardner'.

Combined with the new faction system, rewards and penalties for behaviour would probably serve to keep people in line regarding the wilful destruction of government property.

Fair enough Inc. Looking forward to it .

Dangit, another cool thing that Leebs can't participate in. Drat drat and double drat. Maybe I'll kill Leebs off again and make LeberMac Mk. V with good standing, working the standing back up is like WAY too much effort.

your only up to mkV? i'd've guessed atleast M by now.

Seriously - leveling a new LeberMac up is easier than regaining lost standing with all 3 nations PLUS TPG, I think.

I like the idea, and I know of a good solution.
You could base the probability of the admiral taking your advice in battle to your combat licenses and the amount and/or the amount of skirmishes you have participated in and won. Maybe also your kills while in battle, number of casualties, etc, etc. There could be a range of things you could base the admirals' compliance on.