Spitballing off of the thread discussing guild sizes, what if there were different tiers of guilds with different player requirements, but potentially some other advantages? Like, tier 1 guilds just need 5 players and gets current features except they can't capture stations. Tier 2 need the current reqs, but can post on the newbie recruiting and capture stations. Tier 3 gets access to some resource generating functionality as a credit sink

Ideas for tier perks:
* Existing guild social functionality
* Advertising on the Guild Advertising Board
* Guild credit bank
* Guild sigil - A simple mono-color or duo-color design. Can be emblazoned on ships and capture-able assets
* Guild Resource Capturing - Only certain tiered guilds can control the player owned stations. Or potentially different stations will allow different tiers to capture them.
* Inter-Guild Relations - Guilds can mark other guilds enemies, and players from those guilds will show up as hostile on radar.
* Guild Government Standings - Guilds can have standings with factions, which can override or factor into effective standings, e.g. a player who is Disliked is in a guild that is Admired, so their effective standing is Neutral.
* Guild item bank - Guilds can share items, but you still need levels (and maybe crystals?) to equip. Guilds would probably need to designate a station as their central station where the bank is located to avoid too much item teleporting. Changing the central station would be very expensive or time limited (e.g. once a month)
* Guild commodity ordering - weekly, guilds can purchase some commodities directly into the guild item bank, at an increased cost. Tradeoff, costs more but you don't need to haul.
* Guild hive manufacturing - weekly, can generate some SSS or other hive drops for a relatively high price.
* Guild unique manufacturing - weekly, generates a resource that can only be generated by guilds.
* Guild cosmetic manufacturing - weekly, generates a single cosmetic skin, like the alternate vulture skin. Or allows the guild sigil to be painted on your ship or other assets.
* Guild Capship Insurance - Move capship insurance to vouchers that only guilds can purchase
* Guild Escort or Mercenary Hiring - Pay for NPCs that will fly from point A to point B. Could possibly tie in to Guild Diplomatic Standings
* Guild Wormhole Beacons - Allow the guild to set up a wormhole for their use. It would persist for a limited time, and where it goes to/from is anywhere in the galaxy but can't be changed once placed. Would cost an exorbitant amount of credits.
* Guild Government Relationship Recovery - Guilds can pay for their members to have their standings increased
* Guild Government Bribery - Guilds can pay for a nation to look the other way if guild members have contraband in cargo or equipped. Expensive.

-1

"Tier 2 need the current reqs, but can post on the newbie recruiting and capture stations. Tier 3 gets access to some resource generating functionality as a credit sink"

-so you wanna make station combat exclusive to tier 2+ guilds, as i understand this
-resource generating is done by normal faction stations already or the hive, you just need to play to get it

"* Guild sigil - A simple mono-color or duo-color design. Can be emblazoned on ships and capture-able assets"

i actually like this idea

"* Guild Resource Capturing - Only certain tiered guilds can control the player owned stations. Or potentially different stations will allow different tiers to capture them."

-this would force every player to form/join a guild just to reach the ingame bottleneck that are the conquerable stations
-i think you intend to help create stronger/more stabile guilds, this though will probably result in countless alt-spawned guilds; more accounts, equal or less actual players
-and solo players get a huge disadvantage, unrightly so, in my opinion

"* Guild item bank", "* Guild commodity ordering"

-lazy game play in my opinion, do the work yourselves

"* Guild hive manufacturing - weekly, can generate some SSS or other hive drops for a relatively high price."
"* Guild unique manufacturing - weekly, generates a resource that can only be generated by guilds."

-overpowered and unfair towards lower tier guilds/solo/new players

"* Guild cosmetic manufacturing - weekly, generates a single cosmetic skin, like the alternate vulture skin. Or allows the guild sigil to be painted on your ship or other assets."

-same as sigil, nice idea

"* Guild Capship Insurance - Move capship insurance to vouchers that only guilds can purchase"

-so for all others cappies would be a one-time deal, hell no

"* Guild Escort or Mercenary Hiring - Pay for NPCs that will fly from point A to point B. Could possibly tie in to Guild Diplomatic Standings
* Guild Wormhole Beacons - Allow the guild to set up a wormhole for their use. It would persist for a limited time, and where it goes to/from is anywhere in the galaxy but can't be changed once placed. Would cost an exorbitant amount of credits.
* Guild Government Relationship Recovery - Guilds can pay for their members to have their standings increased
* Guild Government Bribery - Guilds can pay for a nation to look the other way if guild members have contraband in cargo or equipped. Expensive."

-for those i got not enough knowledge about guilds but especially relationship recovery & bribery sound exploity to me on first read

Although i generally dont like this suggestion, OP, i do think you have great creativity, keep going!

cheers all

I also appreciate the creative thoughts.

In general, I'm more open to possible "minor benefits" than to overt "advantages".

I strongly value solo playing, so I don't like to make too much stuff that's guild-exclusive, or things that give huge inherent guild advantages. Guilds already have major advantages because they're organized groups who can execute plans at-scale.

But, beneficial minor features, like cosmetics, item bank / shared-inventory, sigils, recruitment, that all sounds pretty interesting to me.

Shared inventory and obviously cosmetics are both things that sound really fantastic. Recent updates have shown significant improvement to game experience and I think one or both of those items fall in the same category.

Though most of the mentions in the OP sound really good to me.