It might be interesting to make it possible for nations to occupy enemy border territories. It would help focus PvP a little more and make it so people wouldn't feel they need to become pirates to fight another player.

Obvious, you'd want to make sure that there are still unclaimed territories for the pirates, so my idea would keep unclaimed/unmonitored space from affecting faction.

You'd also want to make sure that an entire nation can't get overrun, so you can only have border systems invaded.

Basically, my idea is that nations that want to make an attack on a neighbor, will have to build a supply depot in the target sector. The invading nation will have to protect this depot inorder to continue attacking the enemies bases. The absence of such depot, would mean that it is impossible to capture any stations.

In order to capture an enemy station, attacking players need to disable a stations defenses by getting armor down sufficiently (although I should be impossible to destroy a station). After the armor is sufficiently lowered, attacking players would also have to have invasion troops contained in their cargo bay as well as a weapon called a "Troop pod launcher" or something like that. Troops need to be launched at a station until the station is sufficiently under the attacker's control. Once a station is captured, there is no longer a need for a supply depot in the system. Once all stations in the system are capture, the system is then under the attacker's control.

In order for the defender to retake a fully captured system, they must build a supply depot in that system in the same way the original attackers did.

If the developers want to encourage a ongoing story line, they can have nations declare peace and war at different times during the course of the game. Peace times make it impossible to build a supply depot.

Just a few ideas that might help cut down on random serial killers and bring more focus to the PvP. Why would players want to station camp or wormhole camp when there are more glorious battles to be fought. (Pirates would still exist, they'd just be less in number and they'd be after cargo rather than the thrill of the kill.) Capturing systems would give players goals and prestige. Plus, it would make another profession that players can use... Nation military pilot.

I'm sure there are a couple flaws in my idea, but it would make for some good starting point for ideas.

Another couple of notes:
- The sector and universe map could report the current status of captured territories.

- It's probably best to make the capture of a station non-trivial. They should have suffient armor to make an attack and capture take a very long time. This would give defenders time to respond.

- Maybe a station's armor can only be taken down at a slower/constant rate despite the amount of ships firing at it. This could ensure that a large quick attack force doesn't capture a station instantiously.

Well, I would be surprised if we couldn't at some point. This falls under the idea that we players can affect the path of the story of Vendetta. And I wouldn't mind seeing an ENTIRE nation overrun! :) That could leave to some VERY VERY interesting stories. IE say Itani overrun Serco... And Sercos are forced into guerilla warfare. :)

I hope they do end up doing something like this. A persistant universe that is constantly changing really appeals to me.

I used to play shadowbane the main appeal is that the cities can be overrun and destroyed. Granted, I don't think Vendetta needs to necessarily have that sort of player interaction, but having players being able to contibute to their nation's war effort would be pretty fun.

whilst the station idea is cool, perhaps sectors could be "owned" by having a superior force there. This would be more applicable to the "cap-ship" addon though.

For example, you can pretty much occupy a system by having a large capship and fighter presence there. It would certainly encourage more fun in regards to wars, with carrier strike forces entering enemy border sectors etc =)

Stations etc, can then just align themselves to whatever dominant force controls the system.

just an idea there though, sure there's loads of holes in it.

asphy

A good start would be to make the defbots and strike teams not infinite. I.e., A station only has so many defenders, so if they run low, they have to be resupplied. Then you could effectively occupy a station/sector by keeping the resupply ships out.
Eventually with sustained efforts you could take an entire system by choking off the wormhole sector.

Maybe the faction "alignment" of a station/sector/system could be determined by the defbot presence. If you defend the enemy station long enough for friendly defbots to arrive, that station would then be friendly. Any number of things could be tweaked to make this kind of activity sufficiently difficult. Maybe the number of defbots in the outer systems would be fewer than in the center of a nation, making it much harder to overrun a nation.

I hate comparing it to a typical FPS, but it's sorta like UT2004's onslaught scenario, on a much larger scale. There could be something you'd have to do to claim a station, call it "overwriting the station systems" or whatever. Then a supply of defbots would be dispatched to the station.

All we need are basic mechanisms for occupation to make it official, rather than just an ad-hoc game of king of the hill.

Have you guys read the In Progress area? We're going to need to keep our supply routes open for the bot convoys or we're going to be hurting! That's a good reason to occupy an area.

"Nation trade conflict. This is an Itani/Serco conflict which will be, at least for the moment, located in unaligned Neutral space. Automated cargo convoys will carry valuable ores from this space back to their respective Serco and Itani homeworlds. The number of ore runs that reach the respective destinations will be recorded and accrued on the website, where on a weekly basis they will be noted along with the pilots (and, potentially, guilds) involved in the conflicts. Over time, if one nation consistently finds themselves cut off from these resources, there may be a negative impact within their space (increase on price of derived items), along with accompanying storyline addendum and more far-reaching repurcussions."

Yes, but other than pride, what's the point of having healthy supply lines carrying raw materials? (yes, lower item prices, etc..)

They should be factored in to bot production. Low supplies, few bots, less defense. More occupied sectors, more mining, more supply convoys -> more bots, more defense. Eventually, nothing should be made by magic except materials gathered from roids. Bots should be made from raw materials in the bot-manufacturing sectors and shipped to where they are stationed. (I mean nation bots - pirate bots can just be a fact of life, built by the rogue army of queens...)

I'm sure this is something like what the devs are going for, since it creates a vastly deeper economy than just artificial material/widget transport. They even said so much: "... there may be a negative impact within their space (increase on price of derived items) ...", which I hope means that items will actually be derived, not just magically summoned and only the price depends on the raw materials.

The underlying story is a war, not just an economy.

Yeah, I read about the convoy conflict plan.

It's definitely a good start in introducing conflict between the races. It might help developers test the waters in regards to nation wars and help them gauge what steps they can take in the future as well.

True, It's also another good demonstration that their AI can operate in multiple sectors. If the convoys work out, who knows what's next?