Instead of having to ask a dev to change your faction alignment for you, you should be able to do it yourself. The mission would only be available at capital stations (i.e. you could become a Serco in Sol II capital stations, a UIT in Dau, etc).

Mission requirements:
POS with intended faction

Mission would require 10mil to complete. Mission can not be taken more than once every 3 months.

Pros:
• Allowing faction changes via mission would make allying oneself with Corvus (or other subfactions) pretty simple.
• Devs would get to spend less time on mundane stuff :).
• Better immersion
• Probably not hard to implement
Cons:
• Faction alignment becomes far less permanent. Whether or not this is a con is up to personal opinion.
• Opportunity for Serco and Itani to directly defect is counter to RP given the current faction system. However, this inconsistency will be taken care of in the (near?) future.

Note: precise numbers edited to reflect comments below. numbers mentioned are currently guidelines. Please feel free to discuss/debate them.

If implemented I would suggest renaming a character to this.

I have reservations because I don't really like the idea of changing nation or names, though I know its done and the devs have always (to my knowledge and experience) happily obliged usually very quickly or if not within a reasonable amount of time.

I do understand the desire tho change a characters nation/name having done so myself. I personally think the cost is a bit low since faction recovery costs 30 million.

I'll give it a thumbs up though with the caveat that a player only be allowed to use this mission once with the same character. I also think there should be a public record that character Gargomel has changed from Serco to Itani and is now called Papa Smurf. This last is debatable though.

Edit: Disregard the bit about only once per character. The more I think about it, if a player can afford it let them- and just to step off topic for a moment, I have no objection to allowing the faction recovery to be repurchased, perhaps at a gradually increasing cost.

Given that faction is repairable at Corvus, the idea that a big cash bung gives you a new set of paperwork is fine from a game standpoint. A bit of skullduggery adds flavour, could be fun and saves dev time in the long term.

Ok, go for it.

I like this idea, but yes I think maybe it should cost a little more (15 mill maybe?).. and perhaps maybe once every 3 months just so people aren't switching all the time.

Perhaps also there should be some repricusion to doing so, such as say having the player lose a very large bit of standing from the faction they switched from. Say if you switch from UIT to Serco, Your standing with UIT would drop maybe 5 or 600. If a player switches between warring factions (like serco and itani) he should be made insta-KOS with the faction he changed from because it pretty much high treason and betrayal.

just some thoughts...

Willis, people constantly switching was my initial concern as well. However, if they can afford it, I have no objection to them running themselves broke by changing it everyday or every 5 minutes. The high cost, even at the original 5 million should be a deterrent to too much silliness.

As far as the Serco / Itani switches, since I believe that the majority of players 99%+ should be at least hate with the other, perhaps they should be required to go through UIT as an intermediary which effectively doubles their cost since they should not be able to dock with an enemy station. Of course this is long term stuff that should be worked out in conjunction with the faction changes. For the present, keep it simple and just allow any change at a capital station one has permission to dock with. I do agree though that for Serco / Itani switches the standing for the nation being switched from should be dropped to -695 which I believe is the starting point for new players. From UIT or to UIT, I'd say no or minimal faction cost- at most 100-200.

Perhaps also there should be some repricusion to doing so, such as say having the player lose a very large bit of standing from the faction they switched from.

I like this idea a lot. However, given that we are pre faction-redux, I'm hesitant to enforce some kind of standing hit. Once the redux takes place, then the prereq of being POS with the new nation would preclude Itani/Serco switching anyways (unless they first become UIT).

edit:
I do agree though that for Serco / Itani switches the standing for the nation being switched from should be dropped to -695 which I believe is the starting point for new players. From UIT or to UIT, I'd say no or minimal faction cost- at most 100-200.

I'm not against this. Death Fluffy completely beat me to the punch in his post.

I want to become grey.

If this allows me to be grey, I wants it.

You'll never be Grey. You may however be purple.

Seriously though, unless character nationality is critically embedded into the code, anyone kos with their nation should lose their citizenship and become Grey. And this should carry penalties beyond just KOS with the home nation. Since a character no longer carriers the 'protection' of the state, they are more vulnerable and less trusted and so incur higher costs for purchases and lower prices for items sold than someone within the 'system' would get. Worth debating anyway.

And this should carry penalties beyond just KOS with the home nation. Since a character no longer carriers the 'protection' of the state, they are more vulnerable and less trusted and so incur higher costs for purchases and lower prices for items sold than someone within the 'system' would get. Worth debating anyway.

Good idea. But no hijacking this thread :p.

@Impavid: I'd assume that this suggestion would allow you to become Grey (or at least Black for Corvus). I mean, I see no reason why not.

Black is WAY BETTER than grey.

I want to be black now.

Hm, that's something I hadn't really considered before. I would rather be unaligned than Corvus, but I'd still definitely rather be Corvus than UIT.

Interesting proposal -

BUT - dump the time requirement and bump the cost up a bunch. 30 million is for a faction repair. Based on that Id say 100 million for a permanent change to any other faction and the old faction should become KOS for the betrayal with a big bounty placed automatically as well. The new faction will also drop to neutral since no one trusts a traitor.

I dont see a reason for using an inermediate faction either. If your going to be a turn coat to your own people...

The mission should also be good to turn unaligned as well but Guild should fix the hive issues before they allow this.

BUT - dump the time requirement and bump the cost up a bunch. 30 million is for a faction repair. Based on that Id say 100 million for a permanent change to any other faction
I disagree. You pay for faction repair to save you work (moreover, that money is used in part as a bribe). Switching factions is not saving you work, and it's not requiring a bribe. The fee should be to discourage hopping from nation to nation, and also to cover paperwork and w/e RP reasons. Therefore, I honestly don't think the price should be more than 10mil.

and the old faction should become KOS for the betrayal with a big bounty placed automatically as well. The new faction will also drop to neutral since no one trusts a traitor.
This suggestion fits in with the overall faction-redux. But I don't think it's necessary to discuss that sort of thing here... as that's already being taken care of. However, others may disagree with me on this.

I dont see a reason for using an inermediate faction either.
Nowhere are we requiring an intermediate faction. If you are a Serco post faction-redux, my understanding is that you won't be able to achieve Serco POS (which is a requirement for the mission) without first becoming UIT. Discussion of intermediate factions is purely speculative.

The mission should also be good to turn unaligned as well but Guild should fix the hive issues before they allow this.
Eh. I don't know if the "unaligned" meshes well with the Capital System only idea (where is the capital of Unaligned??). But nevertheless, the idea is good, and I agree that if Unaligned is something that can happen, it should happen in a similar way.

Once you go Black you never go back.

Once you go purple, eventually you turn black

Very similar to already proposed many times, but top priority for me!

For me, much more important is the 4th "nation". But I would prefer to see a new nation for that instead of (Unaligned/no nation). Like a homeless faction, Paraiyar or Dalit or Outcasts. Give it any color, pink, purple, black...

We really should Ban Pirates and anyone who becomes hated->KoS with his home nation. Simply as that. Does not apply to temp KoS, and should issue a warning when ppl is hated. No mission required, one is banned.

As I see, this is more important and would improve everybody's gameplay much more than player owned station or capships, and should NOT wait for the major faction redux! I hate being attacked by someone from my own nation!

After that, start enabling Serco<>Itani change, requiring PoS/KoS with new/old nation before that, to make sense.

Later on allow pplz to join other factions, as a major faction redux.

@Alloh. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but most of your post is meandering off-topic. If I'm understanding you correctly, you'd like to see a 4th nation which people can join, but don't care for people joining subfactions pre faction-redux. Honestly, I don't see the point of this 4th "nation" for the time being. We already have subfactions with capital systems, so I'm proposing that we utilize the built-in systems that we have and go from there. We can add a 4th nation during the redux, but until then people should be able to change faction (or subfaction!) without dev intervention.

This suggestion is (hopefully) low(ish) developer time, while adding some much-wanted features to the game. It is, to quote some recent threads, "low hanging fruit".

Hopefully my final comment here, and hopefully not hijacking the thread too much. Going Grey should not require mission or cost credits.

I agree with the fluffer.

Going Grey should not ... cost credits.
I agree as well. But my suggestion does not open up the possibility of Grey... it allows you to go Corvus (or TPG, or any other subfaction with a capital), which I believe should cost money.

If I may gently poke the devs... does this idea have any shot of being implemented? Or is it counter to how you guys envisioned the faction redux? (Or is it unimplementable for some other reason, etc?)