You know, I was thinking that currently, there is a lot of content and story that the players have created in large battles, but it seems that most of this will be meaningless to the storyline until control of stations or something like that is implemented.

However, here's an idea that requires no, or at least very little, coding. What if the Devs sponsor a few large battles a week, with the results furthering a storyline (i.e. a new segment is added to the backstory each week). This would give players something to struggle for, which IS story based.

I would, however, wait till a serco-slanted Backstory is in place. But all the same, this is an RPG, so lets build a story.

now your talkin smart!! =P

I think this idea has a lot of potental. I personaly would love to have a way of getting my charactor mentioned in the backstory (by doing something important or cool enough to deserve it of coarse). I think that dev sponcerd events or missions could help bring a grater level of player interaction, and may be a viable alternative (on the short term anyway) to expanding the mission tree.

Of coarse this requires the dev's to come up with justifications for the weekly battles and to write new chapters in the backstory fairly often, but i think it would be doable, and could be a way to add content to the game with little or no extra programming.

I love the idea, however I dont think it is the purpose of the backstory to reflect the current events in the ways you are envisioning (that's why they call it a back-story!).

This role can be filled perfectly by the in-game news system. The outcomes of these events could easily be collated into 'News from the front-line' or 'Itani repel a large-scale serco invasion' etc. with mentions of notable players exploits and each events place in the ongoing struggles of each side. The idea would be to tailor this news system in a way that allowed it to fulfill the RPing aspects that you desire from using the back story -- hopefully placing each battle in the larger context of the relations between the three nations and to tie it into a larger story. This could possibly even affect some of these random events ('Fire at this station has caused a short supply of this item') I have been reading about in the news, and give them more meaning for existing.

Also any ideas what these events/wars could involve? Maybe an optional mission broadcast to everybody in 2-3 local systems (preceded by a 10 minute warning on channel 11 of course)?

Of course it seems the devs have already started to conceptualise this idea, with their plans to introduce an NPC Capital Ship escort/destroy scenario. Looking forward to it...

I can dig it.

This would be vary cool. The winner, or participants should get some thing like money, access to better versions of ships, or new weapons, for helping defend their nation.

These types of events are what should lead to the unlocking or gaining of access to the faction specific ships. If you have participated in X number of border disputes or capital ship defense fleets, etc. you are given a badge, and a IDF Valk, Hog TD, or Vult TD should be accessable. This forces those nations to participate in the activities if they wish to fly those ships. Just makes more sense then reaching a license level and all of a sudden your a territorial defender, which to me is the cream of the crop pilots, not your average joe that just got a license.