Forums » Suggestions
Modify NPC stations to support Viking gameplay
This is a long post, sorry. You can just read the Overview and the Conclusion to get the general idea. But if you want to make comments you probably ought to at least scan through it to see if I covered them. I added convenient section titles to facilitate that. Also, remember that the "F" in "Ctrl-F" stands for Friend. :P
Overview:
We need a way to attack and occupy (NOT conquer) the NPC stations so that we can have Viking raids. Ideally after "capturing" it we'd be able to demand a tribute, and then set a tax on business that we'd collect as long as we remained in control of the station. If we leave the area (or dock) for too long (a few minutes) we'd lose control of the station. Also, they'd periodically dispatch a bunch of strike force to attempt to displace us.
And just to be clear, this is supposed to be a group activity. A really skilled individual could do it too, but he'd only be able to hold onto the station if he sets a very low tax rate.
.
Note:
Wherever I use "we" or "us" in this post, I am referring to the raiders. This post originally started out as a description of activities I'd like to do, so I wrote much of it in first person and I'm too lazy to correct that.
.
Occupying:
To trigger the occupation process, we'd attack the station guards. That should trigger the station to send out some strike force to kill us, which we'd need to kill. After three of the station's ships have died it will consider itself to be officially under assault. It would have an "assault defense budget" that gets used up the more ships we destroy during the assault. Eventually the budget would be expended, and the station would submit. At this point, it would give us a sizeable tribute, set the dominance level to 100%, and allow us to define a tax rate. We'd have a guaranteed period of peace for the next several minutes while we settle in. After that, tax collection begins, and periodic strike forces eventually get dispatched to fight us.
Those freedom-fighter strike forces might be constructed of a different mix of ships than the normal kind; not going to worry about that now. The game should track how many are currently active and not send any new ones out if there are too many (avoid mega-swarms). The deployments should be infrequent enough that a sufficiently large group of raiders could eliminate them all and chill for a while before the next wave is deployed.
.
Identification of Raiders:
Rather than mucking about with keys, the system would merely track who has attacked the station's guards and strike force, and consider them the raiders. Unlike conquered stations, occupied stations would only be held for a brief period of time (hours at the most), so keys would be excessive.
During the initial assault (starting after the third ship has died), anybody who has attacked the station's ships during the last five minutes is considered part of the attack, and attacked regardless of their current faction standings. Once the station submits, everybody it considers a raider is given an equal slice of the tribute, and begins receiving equal portions of the tax revenue. After submitting it no longer considers new attackers to be raiders, nor can it be occupied again until it has been liberated from the current raiders.
.
Dominance:
Dominance maintenance should work in sort of a defend-the-flag style: if we are not within 2km or so of the station (and undocked), a dominance meter starts dropping. When it gets empty, we lose control. While we are in the area, it increases based on the number of us within proximity and not docked (the relationship should probably be less than linear). Killing their strike force ships should also add to the meter, and them killing us would subtract. (Killing convoy ships should have no impact).
The drop rate when nobody is around should be greater than the rise rate when one person is around, so that when a person leaves for a minute, he has to spend perhaps two minutes in proximity to totally counter it. But the numbers in this thread are all mostly arbitrary and likely will need tweakage to ensure that this is a group activity - though once occupied, a single skilled person should be able to hold it on his own as long as the tax rate is set low. High tax rates would require more people. See next section.
Also, to avoid somebody just turboing around indefinitely, the dominance gain should gradually diminish whenever too much time passes without a strike-force dying. Killing another SF would result in the normal addition to the dominance meter and would reset the gain rate. Alternately, each SF buzzing about could have a negative impact on the dominance meter, so that ignoring them results in you getting outnumbered and losing dominance. That approach could result in larger numbers of NPCs flying around though (as it would need to be able to counter potentially large numbers of players).
.
Tax Impact on Dominance:
The level of taxation implemented would impact either (or perhaps both) the rate of dominance gained or the size and frequency of strike-force attacks, favoring the station more as the taxation percentage becomes larger. Going beyond 50% taxes would reduce the dominance gain rate to the point where it would require two of us just to hold it steady (not counting kill effects). So setting really high taxes should require a large and skilled group to maintain.
.
Tax Collection:
Every time anybody buys or sells stuff at the station (including us, for simplicity), we'd get a cut - whatever tax rate we set. The price the station shows for buying things from it would be increased accordingly, but only for humans. When an NPC convoy "buys" stuff to trade, the taxation would use the normal price. The station would continue paying the same price when anybody sells stuff to it as well, whether human or NPC. (Reasoning here is to keep business coming to the station, while providing a small incentive to other players to rescue the station once they discover that it has been occupied.)
.
Penalties and Retaliation:
Attackers would suffer all the normal penalties for killing admired ships within the station's space during the assault. If they succeed and the station submits, the attackers faction standing would be fixed at KOS for the duration of the occupancy (even if they do stuff that should fix it, like botting or doing the TRIPS missions), but that specific station would treat them as though they were POS for the purposes of docking and buying stuff.
Raiders would not, however, be allowed to home at the station, nor would they have any missions available from that station.
If the station in question is a minor faction within a major faction's space, the KOS applies to both the minor faction and the major faction. (Example: Latos N-15 would only get you in trouble with TPG, whereas Azek I-12 would get you in trouble with both TPG and UIT.)
Convoy ships should ignore the raiders unless they attack them, though it is okay if their turrets must fire.
The normal "zomg a KOS dude!" strike force deployments would not happen, as this would be handled instead by the periodic "freedom fighter" strike force deployments.
If the station has turrets (border stations, capital stations) they will stop firing on the raiders once the station submits, but will resume fire whenever a strike force is launched at the player (stopping again after all strike forces are dead, until the next one comes out). The turrets will aggro on a specific raider if that raider shoots them however, and will stay that way until the next batch of strike force are deployed.
.
Effects on the Station:
The NFZ would be totally disabled during the occupancy. For everybody. So hero-types can fight the raiders anywhere in the sector with absolutely no fear of negative consequences for killing them.
The license requirements to buy things at that station should probably also switch to Corvus's low requirements, as well as adopting the "if you own it you can equip it, even if you shouldn't be able to buy it" rule, for the duration of occupancy. Possibly only apply that to the raiders themselves, but I'd prefer it apply to everybody.
Non-raider's factions will continue to be taken into account by the station, so other KOS individuals will have the typical strike force dispatched against them.
.
Liberation / Rescue:
As I said above, liberation would happen when the dominance meter bottomes out as a result of insufficient raider presence or sufficient raider deaths scored by strike forces.
If other players want to be heros and help rescue the station, they could simply attack the raiders, which buys the station time to decrease the dominance meter.
Additionally, the station could offer a "Help us!" mission to non-raiders, which would make the mission taker an honorary freedom fighter, and allow that player's raider kills to subtract from the dominance meter just like if they were strike force. I'd like to also then allow the raiders to get the dominance boost for killing that player, but that might be exploitable (fire up an alt to take that mission, then let the raiders kill it for easy dominance boosts). For bonus points, put this mission at the very top of the mission list.
.
Post-Liberation:
Once the station has been liberated, anybody who officially helped as an honorary freedom fighter should get a faction boost. All of the raiders should probably suffer a redundant -1000 faction penalty at this point as well, just in case they somehow found an exploit to boost their faction during the occupancy.
The station probably shouldn't be able to be occupied again for an hour. Can't be much longer than that or people could exploit it by using an alt to very briefly occupy it and then log out, denying real players the opportunity to occupy it. The tribute however should be zeroed out and gradually grow back over the next 12 hours, to prevent the attackers from exploiting tributes via rapidly re-capturing the station over and over.
.
Misc. Thoughts:
This should also be possible in nation-space, but with much heavier retaliatory responses. At the same time, nation-space stations should have more NPC traffic than greyspace stations (fix this if it is not so), resulting in larger risks and rewards. Alternately, leave NPC traffic alone, but increase the tribute roughly proportionally to the increased defenses (the idea there being to make attacks on national stations about sacking, while greyspace stations would be more about holding it for a bit as a very short-lived fief).
When the economy becomes more dynamic, being occupied could have an impact on what goods a station wants for a while. There might be increased demand for things like Emergency Relief Kits, Pharmaceuticals, Janitorial Supplies, etc. Probably also raw materials, especially whatever is used to construct the strike force ships.
If dynamic economy stations actually bother to track their own performance, profits, etc, the tribute received when the station is captured should be proportional to the station's wealth. Also, station that are performing poorly should probably be less tolerant of taxes than stations that are doing very well. This has the benefit of helping to motivate raiders to attack popular stations that other players are more likely to try to rescue.
It would be cool if the strike force who are deployed after the station becomes occupied were called Freedom Fighters rather than Strike Force, because RP-wise, the station shouldn't be sending out any official opposition after it has submitted.
.
Conclusion / TLDR:
The idea here is that we could (as a group) attack a station and collect a one-time-per-conquest tribute, and then if we have nothing better to do, continue to occupy the station for a while to collect taxes as it does business as well as get access to all items it sells. We'd have to maintain an active presence to continue receiving the taxes. If we left the sector (or stayed docked), within a few minutes we'd lose control of the station. So occupations would usually not last more than an hour or so - eventually we'd get bored or be ousted.
Overview:
We need a way to attack and occupy (NOT conquer) the NPC stations so that we can have Viking raids. Ideally after "capturing" it we'd be able to demand a tribute, and then set a tax on business that we'd collect as long as we remained in control of the station. If we leave the area (or dock) for too long (a few minutes) we'd lose control of the station. Also, they'd periodically dispatch a bunch of strike force to attempt to displace us.
And just to be clear, this is supposed to be a group activity. A really skilled individual could do it too, but he'd only be able to hold onto the station if he sets a very low tax rate.
.
Note:
Wherever I use "we" or "us" in this post, I am referring to the raiders. This post originally started out as a description of activities I'd like to do, so I wrote much of it in first person and I'm too lazy to correct that.
.
Occupying:
To trigger the occupation process, we'd attack the station guards. That should trigger the station to send out some strike force to kill us, which we'd need to kill. After three of the station's ships have died it will consider itself to be officially under assault. It would have an "assault defense budget" that gets used up the more ships we destroy during the assault. Eventually the budget would be expended, and the station would submit. At this point, it would give us a sizeable tribute, set the dominance level to 100%, and allow us to define a tax rate. We'd have a guaranteed period of peace for the next several minutes while we settle in. After that, tax collection begins, and periodic strike forces eventually get dispatched to fight us.
Those freedom-fighter strike forces might be constructed of a different mix of ships than the normal kind; not going to worry about that now. The game should track how many are currently active and not send any new ones out if there are too many (avoid mega-swarms). The deployments should be infrequent enough that a sufficiently large group of raiders could eliminate them all and chill for a while before the next wave is deployed.
.
Identification of Raiders:
Rather than mucking about with keys, the system would merely track who has attacked the station's guards and strike force, and consider them the raiders. Unlike conquered stations, occupied stations would only be held for a brief period of time (hours at the most), so keys would be excessive.
During the initial assault (starting after the third ship has died), anybody who has attacked the station's ships during the last five minutes is considered part of the attack, and attacked regardless of their current faction standings. Once the station submits, everybody it considers a raider is given an equal slice of the tribute, and begins receiving equal portions of the tax revenue. After submitting it no longer considers new attackers to be raiders, nor can it be occupied again until it has been liberated from the current raiders.
.
Dominance:
Dominance maintenance should work in sort of a defend-the-flag style: if we are not within 2km or so of the station (and undocked), a dominance meter starts dropping. When it gets empty, we lose control. While we are in the area, it increases based on the number of us within proximity and not docked (the relationship should probably be less than linear). Killing their strike force ships should also add to the meter, and them killing us would subtract. (Killing convoy ships should have no impact).
The drop rate when nobody is around should be greater than the rise rate when one person is around, so that when a person leaves for a minute, he has to spend perhaps two minutes in proximity to totally counter it. But the numbers in this thread are all mostly arbitrary and likely will need tweakage to ensure that this is a group activity - though once occupied, a single skilled person should be able to hold it on his own as long as the tax rate is set low. High tax rates would require more people. See next section.
Also, to avoid somebody just turboing around indefinitely, the dominance gain should gradually diminish whenever too much time passes without a strike-force dying. Killing another SF would result in the normal addition to the dominance meter and would reset the gain rate. Alternately, each SF buzzing about could have a negative impact on the dominance meter, so that ignoring them results in you getting outnumbered and losing dominance. That approach could result in larger numbers of NPCs flying around though (as it would need to be able to counter potentially large numbers of players).
.
Tax Impact on Dominance:
The level of taxation implemented would impact either (or perhaps both) the rate of dominance gained or the size and frequency of strike-force attacks, favoring the station more as the taxation percentage becomes larger. Going beyond 50% taxes would reduce the dominance gain rate to the point where it would require two of us just to hold it steady (not counting kill effects). So setting really high taxes should require a large and skilled group to maintain.
.
Tax Collection:
Every time anybody buys or sells stuff at the station (including us, for simplicity), we'd get a cut - whatever tax rate we set. The price the station shows for buying things from it would be increased accordingly, but only for humans. When an NPC convoy "buys" stuff to trade, the taxation would use the normal price. The station would continue paying the same price when anybody sells stuff to it as well, whether human or NPC. (Reasoning here is to keep business coming to the station, while providing a small incentive to other players to rescue the station once they discover that it has been occupied.)
.
Penalties and Retaliation:
Attackers would suffer all the normal penalties for killing admired ships within the station's space during the assault. If they succeed and the station submits, the attackers faction standing would be fixed at KOS for the duration of the occupancy (even if they do stuff that should fix it, like botting or doing the TRIPS missions), but that specific station would treat them as though they were POS for the purposes of docking and buying stuff.
Raiders would not, however, be allowed to home at the station, nor would they have any missions available from that station.
If the station in question is a minor faction within a major faction's space, the KOS applies to both the minor faction and the major faction. (Example: Latos N-15 would only get you in trouble with TPG, whereas Azek I-12 would get you in trouble with both TPG and UIT.)
Convoy ships should ignore the raiders unless they attack them, though it is okay if their turrets must fire.
The normal "zomg a KOS dude!" strike force deployments would not happen, as this would be handled instead by the periodic "freedom fighter" strike force deployments.
If the station has turrets (border stations, capital stations) they will stop firing on the raiders once the station submits, but will resume fire whenever a strike force is launched at the player (stopping again after all strike forces are dead, until the next one comes out). The turrets will aggro on a specific raider if that raider shoots them however, and will stay that way until the next batch of strike force are deployed.
.
Effects on the Station:
The NFZ would be totally disabled during the occupancy. For everybody. So hero-types can fight the raiders anywhere in the sector with absolutely no fear of negative consequences for killing them.
The license requirements to buy things at that station should probably also switch to Corvus's low requirements, as well as adopting the "if you own it you can equip it, even if you shouldn't be able to buy it" rule, for the duration of occupancy. Possibly only apply that to the raiders themselves, but I'd prefer it apply to everybody.
Non-raider's factions will continue to be taken into account by the station, so other KOS individuals will have the typical strike force dispatched against them.
.
Liberation / Rescue:
As I said above, liberation would happen when the dominance meter bottomes out as a result of insufficient raider presence or sufficient raider deaths scored by strike forces.
If other players want to be heros and help rescue the station, they could simply attack the raiders, which buys the station time to decrease the dominance meter.
Additionally, the station could offer a "Help us!" mission to non-raiders, which would make the mission taker an honorary freedom fighter, and allow that player's raider kills to subtract from the dominance meter just like if they were strike force. I'd like to also then allow the raiders to get the dominance boost for killing that player, but that might be exploitable (fire up an alt to take that mission, then let the raiders kill it for easy dominance boosts). For bonus points, put this mission at the very top of the mission list.
.
Post-Liberation:
Once the station has been liberated, anybody who officially helped as an honorary freedom fighter should get a faction boost. All of the raiders should probably suffer a redundant -1000 faction penalty at this point as well, just in case they somehow found an exploit to boost their faction during the occupancy.
The station probably shouldn't be able to be occupied again for an hour. Can't be much longer than that or people could exploit it by using an alt to very briefly occupy it and then log out, denying real players the opportunity to occupy it. The tribute however should be zeroed out and gradually grow back over the next 12 hours, to prevent the attackers from exploiting tributes via rapidly re-capturing the station over and over.
.
Misc. Thoughts:
This should also be possible in nation-space, but with much heavier retaliatory responses. At the same time, nation-space stations should have more NPC traffic than greyspace stations (fix this if it is not so), resulting in larger risks and rewards. Alternately, leave NPC traffic alone, but increase the tribute roughly proportionally to the increased defenses (the idea there being to make attacks on national stations about sacking, while greyspace stations would be more about holding it for a bit as a very short-lived fief).
When the economy becomes more dynamic, being occupied could have an impact on what goods a station wants for a while. There might be increased demand for things like Emergency Relief Kits, Pharmaceuticals, Janitorial Supplies, etc. Probably also raw materials, especially whatever is used to construct the strike force ships.
If dynamic economy stations actually bother to track their own performance, profits, etc, the tribute received when the station is captured should be proportional to the station's wealth. Also, station that are performing poorly should probably be less tolerant of taxes than stations that are doing very well. This has the benefit of helping to motivate raiders to attack popular stations that other players are more likely to try to rescue.
It would be cool if the strike force who are deployed after the station becomes occupied were called Freedom Fighters rather than Strike Force, because RP-wise, the station shouldn't be sending out any official opposition after it has submitted.
.
Conclusion / TLDR:
The idea here is that we could (as a group) attack a station and collect a one-time-per-conquest tribute, and then if we have nothing better to do, continue to occupy the station for a while to collect taxes as it does business as well as get access to all items it sells. We'd have to maintain an active presence to continue receiving the taxes. If we left the sector (or stayed docked), within a few minutes we'd lose control of the station. So occupations would usually not last more than an hour or so - eventually we'd get bored or be ousted.
+my firstborn
hehe, i used to do this all the time at nyrius f6 and it's an awesome fun activity, especially in a group.
+1
This sounds pretty damn cool, I must say.
And the thought of establishing "dominance" over a faction while harvesting Lawneuts is quite appealing. If I understood correctly, as long as the "dominance-meter" does not reach 100%, normal Strike Force Vultures would continue to be dispatched for me to murder?
In any case, +1.
And the thought of establishing "dominance" over a faction while harvesting Lawneuts is quite appealing. If I understood correctly, as long as the "dominance-meter" does not reach 100%, normal Strike Force Vultures would continue to be dispatched for me to murder?
In any case, +1.
Leave it to Pizzasgood to come up with a way to implement Viking Space Pirates. :D
"If I understood correctly, as long as the "dominance-meter" does not reach 100%, normal Strike Force Vultures would continue to be dispatched for me to murder?"
I didn't specify a difference between dominance at 10% and 100%, other than if it's at 10% you are at a much higher risk of losing your occupancy of the station if you die. I suppose it could have an impact on the station behavior though. From an RP sense, a high dominance level should discourage attempts to fight you since you have them firmly in hand. But from a gameplay perspective, that might make it too easy to hold a station.
I also didn't specify a difference between the freedom fighter strike force and the normal strike force, other than it would be nice if their name were changed to Freedom Fighter, and the size of the squads might vary based on tax level and stuff. But I wouldn't be opposed to giving the freedom fighter SF some different weapons to make things more interesting.
One impact this could have on lawneut farming is the ability to dock with the local station. I'm not sure how big of an impact that would have and whether it's something that would need to be counterbalanced somehow. Of course, if you use the local station to stockpile them, you need to get them hauled out of there before you lose control of the station, because at that point you become treated like any other KOS person and your lawneuts would be stuck.
And to reiterate: this should be a group activity, and actually capturing the station solo should be pretty hard (maybe require killing a certain number of SF within a time period, rather than just a total number of kills). Ideally this would have minimal or possibly negative impact on solo farming (once the first three guards are killed and the station starts responding, it may overwhelm the solo farmer). Group lawneut farming, on the other hand, might be seriously improved due to larger taxes, higher rates of SF, and the ability to use teamwork.
I do like that doing this makes you solidly KOS with the faction owning the station. Currently there are few motivations to be KOS with minor factions, since the only thing it gets you is the ability to kill people in their space without regret, and that's just psychological. So the result is pirates like me who might be KOS with some nations, but carefully maintain high standing with all the grey factions (don't get me wrong, I'll still kill you in their space - I just take the time afterwards to fix it). With raiding, I could be KOS with TPG, and still occasionally (and with help from a group) descend upon Latos N-15, occupy it, and fly away with some XCs (which pirates do need if they want to steal some of the very large items that manufacturers sometimes cart around). The rest of the time, I'd be KOS with TPG so I couldn't use them as safe harbor in Azek or easily station camp newbs in Latos N-15.
"Leave it to Pizzasgood to come up with a way to implement Viking Space Pirates. :D"
I am originally from Minnesota, so that might have something to do with it. Not a fan of football though, nor the color purple. I prefer the Packers' colors, but I keep quiet about that when I'm back home.
I didn't specify a difference between dominance at 10% and 100%, other than if it's at 10% you are at a much higher risk of losing your occupancy of the station if you die. I suppose it could have an impact on the station behavior though. From an RP sense, a high dominance level should discourage attempts to fight you since you have them firmly in hand. But from a gameplay perspective, that might make it too easy to hold a station.
I also didn't specify a difference between the freedom fighter strike force and the normal strike force, other than it would be nice if their name were changed to Freedom Fighter, and the size of the squads might vary based on tax level and stuff. But I wouldn't be opposed to giving the freedom fighter SF some different weapons to make things more interesting.
One impact this could have on lawneut farming is the ability to dock with the local station. I'm not sure how big of an impact that would have and whether it's something that would need to be counterbalanced somehow. Of course, if you use the local station to stockpile them, you need to get them hauled out of there before you lose control of the station, because at that point you become treated like any other KOS person and your lawneuts would be stuck.
And to reiterate: this should be a group activity, and actually capturing the station solo should be pretty hard (maybe require killing a certain number of SF within a time period, rather than just a total number of kills). Ideally this would have minimal or possibly negative impact on solo farming (once the first three guards are killed and the station starts responding, it may overwhelm the solo farmer). Group lawneut farming, on the other hand, might be seriously improved due to larger taxes, higher rates of SF, and the ability to use teamwork.
I do like that doing this makes you solidly KOS with the faction owning the station. Currently there are few motivations to be KOS with minor factions, since the only thing it gets you is the ability to kill people in their space without regret, and that's just psychological. So the result is pirates like me who might be KOS with some nations, but carefully maintain high standing with all the grey factions (don't get me wrong, I'll still kill you in their space - I just take the time afterwards to fix it). With raiding, I could be KOS with TPG, and still occasionally (and with help from a group) descend upon Latos N-15, occupy it, and fly away with some XCs (which pirates do need if they want to steal some of the very large items that manufacturers sometimes cart around). The rest of the time, I'd be KOS with TPG so I couldn't use them as safe harbor in Azek or easily station camp newbs in Latos N-15.
"Leave it to Pizzasgood to come up with a way to implement Viking Space Pirates. :D"
I am originally from Minnesota, so that might have something to do with it. Not a fan of football though, nor the color purple. I prefer the Packers' colors, but I keep quiet about that when I'm back home.
I love it.
But, questions:
"Sizeable" may mean different things to different people; what did you have in mind for tributes? Millions, tens of millions, hundreds of thousands of credits? This question still applies on a dynamic scale (until the economy itself is dynamic); what would be the limit for each type of station? Sacking a station may become easy money if the tribute is too high.
How long would it take for the defense budget to run out? Twenty ships, thirty, fifty? One kind of SF flies regular Vultures, which are cheap as dirt, while another SF type flies WTDs and I have no idea what an Aerna costs. I'd suggest it depend on the type of station. Research having less budget, military more, etc. Military might also have stronger freedom fighters.
But, questions:
"Sizeable" may mean different things to different people; what did you have in mind for tributes? Millions, tens of millions, hundreds of thousands of credits? This question still applies on a dynamic scale (until the economy itself is dynamic); what would be the limit for each type of station? Sacking a station may become easy money if the tribute is too high.
How long would it take for the defense budget to run out? Twenty ships, thirty, fifty? One kind of SF flies regular Vultures, which are cheap as dirt, while another SF type flies WTDs and I have no idea what an Aerna costs. I'd suggest it depend on the type of station. Research having less budget, military more, etc. Military might also have stronger freedom fighters.
Yeah, I left a lot of numerical type stuff vague because I don't really know what the best answer is, and a lot of the numbers depend on what ends up being done with other numbers. That, and if I got to deep into those details the post would be twice as long as it already is.
I was leaning toward tributes in the millions range, maybe occasionally the lower tens of millions. Definitely not hundreds, as that would require extremely difficult capture to be balanced (perhaps capital stations could be made that hard though).
Capturing the station should probably take a five man team about half as long as it would take them to conquer a conq station, but again, I don't really know.
A lot would probably just need to be set based on guestimates, and then played with and tweaked until it is Fun.
I was leaning toward tributes in the millions range, maybe occasionally the lower tens of millions. Definitely not hundreds, as that would require extremely difficult capture to be balanced (perhaps capital stations could be made that hard though).
Capturing the station should probably take a five man team about half as long as it would take them to conquer a conq station, but again, I don't really know.
A lot would probably just need to be set based on guestimates, and then played with and tweaked until it is Fun.
If anything +100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 to this.
It'll be a big improvement to gameplay.
It'll be a big improvement to gameplay.
+everything
@Nahin: Aerna's are just tiny explosive bomb-bots, essentially. I'd imagine they're fairly cheap since they're disposable.
@Nahin: Aerna's are just tiny explosive bomb-bots, essentially. I'd imagine they're fairly cheap since they're disposable.
TL DR most of the prior comments so I may be repeating someone.
Firstly, on the surface, this is a brilliant suggestion. However ...
I have trouble with the taxation. You might do well at a Sedina station. They did have a fair amount of player traffic when I used to hang out there. But even at what I remember to be Sedina's height in popularity, I'm not sure the return would justify the effort. That said, I can't imagine any other station in any system that would do better.
So effectively, for the most part, the raiders would be depending on random npc deliveries and departures- which is an entirely different can of worms because I do not believe there is currently a transaction happening between the station and convoy. Maybe there is, but I seriously doubt it, and as such it would likely be a serious rewrite of the code to implement it as such.
Regardless, if your waiting for player transactions or npc transactions in order to get paid, I think your going to be disappointed.
If you set on this route, then I would suggest that instead of the raiding party being obliged to actively hold the station, that the station submit until freed. I'm not going to get into lengthy mechanics of how this might occur. I would rather suggest that a daily tribute be made to the individuals who have dominance over the station. Based on the amount of that tribute, the tax rate would be set by the station in order to make payments. Forced into charging excessive tax rates, players or strike force could be required to deliver the station from hostile control.
I realize that this completely undermines the spirit of the OP, which again, I believe is brilliant. I just don't believe that the taxation aspect of it will work.
Firstly, on the surface, this is a brilliant suggestion. However ...
I have trouble with the taxation. You might do well at a Sedina station. They did have a fair amount of player traffic when I used to hang out there. But even at what I remember to be Sedina's height in popularity, I'm not sure the return would justify the effort. That said, I can't imagine any other station in any system that would do better.
So effectively, for the most part, the raiders would be depending on random npc deliveries and departures- which is an entirely different can of worms because I do not believe there is currently a transaction happening between the station and convoy. Maybe there is, but I seriously doubt it, and as such it would likely be a serious rewrite of the code to implement it as such.
Regardless, if your waiting for player transactions or npc transactions in order to get paid, I think your going to be disappointed.
If you set on this route, then I would suggest that instead of the raiding party being obliged to actively hold the station, that the station submit until freed. I'm not going to get into lengthy mechanics of how this might occur. I would rather suggest that a daily tribute be made to the individuals who have dominance over the station. Based on the amount of that tribute, the tax rate would be set by the station in order to make payments. Forced into charging excessive tax rates, players or strike force could be required to deliver the station from hostile control.
I realize that this completely undermines the spirit of the OP, which again, I believe is brilliant. I just don't believe that the taxation aspect of it will work.
Yeah, that might be the case. This might be one of those things that couldn't really kick in full throttle until the universe is much more busy. On the other hand, even without the taxation element, there is the ability to buy anything the station sells part and the license stuff, which could be interesting.
Create an artificial amount of income based on the number and size of convoys in the system? Base it off the entire faction's income?
Also, unrelated, maybe an occasional attempt by the faction to pay off the raiders to make them leave? Cheating the faction by takimg the money and staying would result in a universal decline in faction standing, as your credibility is damaged by the betrayed faction, and might even result in outside help in liberating the faction.
Also, unrelated, maybe an occasional attempt by the faction to pay off the raiders to make them leave? Cheating the faction by takimg the money and staying would result in a universal decline in faction standing, as your credibility is damaged by the betrayed faction, and might even result in outside help in liberating the faction.
As usual, the more VO is like EVN, the better.
+1 to general idea... more layers are welcome...
As a first step, or reduction:
+2 = Make stations offer a "Help Me" mission on nearby stations. Whenever it is under attack. Quite similar to a Escort Mission, but for some time on a fixed spot. Rewards for killings and assistances, docking/repairs granted, mission fails if attack defenses or owners.
(First implement this simple addon, like PCC missions but Event-triggered availability)
-1 to nation's stations. Nations have a military fleet to deploy. I'd like to see this siege only *possible* at any station in grayspace. If tried in Nation Space, a serious military force appears, with capital ships and swarms of interceptors. Make it invincible with HACs, Teradons and top-tier fighters in hardest AI mode.
Finally, theme: Vikings, in space? That is quite more like a military siege or Naval Blockade. So, we'd better relate it to War Convoys like a "modern tatics" or "spacewars RoE". You can remain a Viking doing a siege... but now it has correspondence to NPC politics.
As a first step, or reduction:
+2 = Make stations offer a "Help Me" mission on nearby stations. Whenever it is under attack. Quite similar to a Escort Mission, but for some time on a fixed spot. Rewards for killings and assistances, docking/repairs granted, mission fails if attack defenses or owners.
(First implement this simple addon, like PCC missions but Event-triggered availability)
-1 to nation's stations. Nations have a military fleet to deploy. I'd like to see this siege only *possible* at any station in grayspace. If tried in Nation Space, a serious military force appears, with capital ships and swarms of interceptors. Make it invincible with HACs, Teradons and top-tier fighters in hardest AI mode.
Finally, theme: Vikings, in space? That is quite more like a military siege or Naval Blockade. So, we'd better relate it to War Convoys like a "modern tatics" or "spacewars RoE". You can remain a Viking doing a siege... but now it has correspondence to NPC politics.
I'm not a fan of magic invulnerability. It should technically be possible everywhere. If nations pull out all the stops to try to defend their stations, awesome! And if we managed to somehow get a big horde of vikings going, we could potentially take it anyway. Sure, it might only be for a short while before we are overwhelmed, but the reward should always scale up with the difficulty, so that it would be immensely lucrative.
Besides, it would be fun for everybody involved, and wouldn't hurt anything. It's not like a guild could permanently control Dau L-10. (If nothing else, make nations escalate their response every five minutes until the problem is removed, with no upper limit. Eventually sheer numbers would win out.)
"Finally, theme: Vikings, in space? That is quite more like a military siege or Naval Blockade."
I disagree. The main goal is to simply attack the station, steal a bunch of money, and have temporary POS-level access to their merchandise and ships (possibly at reduced licenses and prices). IMO that's essentially as close to a Viking raid as we're likely to get in VO, unless you give stations finite stocks and let us actually steal those (which I'm all for, but I didn't want this suggestion to be dependent on dynamic economy - it can be adjusted to work that way after it happens). The taxation element is just an extra thing I threw in to provide incentive to hold on to the station a bit longer, which gives the "good" players more time to play the hero and try to liberate it.
I ended up typing a lot more about that aspect than the rest, which probably detracts from my main point.
Besides, it would be fun for everybody involved, and wouldn't hurt anything. It's not like a guild could permanently control Dau L-10. (If nothing else, make nations escalate their response every five minutes until the problem is removed, with no upper limit. Eventually sheer numbers would win out.)
"Finally, theme: Vikings, in space? That is quite more like a military siege or Naval Blockade."
I disagree. The main goal is to simply attack the station, steal a bunch of money, and have temporary POS-level access to their merchandise and ships (possibly at reduced licenses and prices). IMO that's essentially as close to a Viking raid as we're likely to get in VO, unless you give stations finite stocks and let us actually steal those (which I'm all for, but I didn't want this suggestion to be dependent on dynamic economy - it can be adjusted to work that way after it happens). The taxation element is just an extra thing I threw in to provide incentive to hold on to the station a bit longer, which gives the "good" players more time to play the hero and try to liberate it.
I ended up typing a lot more about that aspect than the rest, which probably detracts from my main point.