Forums » Suggestions

Joining the Military, Ships, and Traitors

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May 25, 2013 draugath link
I figured I'd revisit this suggestion since there has been such a furor over perceived imbalance between lesser military ships like the SVG and IBG and the top-end military ships like the Prometheus and Valkyrie (Change the SVG Drain value to 54m/s).

To summarize my previous thread, "Military ships (Valkyrie and Prometheus) should only be available for purchase by military personnel."

There has long been a complaint about one group or another flying the high-end military ships of the Serco or Itani. However, there has never been any mechanism to control who can fly these ships beyond standing.

The very first thing that needs to happen is that the Prometheus and Valkyrie need to be changed to Sanctioned Personnel Only. In this case, that sanctioning would be acquired by joining the military of the appropriate faction. I don't know the details of the mission to accomplish this, but if it doesn't already require an Admired faction standing it should be changed to.

Second, if a characters standing with their respective military permanently drops to Neutral or lower, they should lose their military sanctioning. My first thought was to have this happen when they drop below Admired, but standing changes are far too frequent and dramatic to be this hard on a player.

Third, and this is the only thing I can think of that might require serious extra work to accomplish, if a player is flying a military ship inside the space of it's origin and the pilot is not military sanctioned, they should be viewed as a traitor and given TempKOS.

Obviously, since it's extremely easy to change your faction this whole thing wouldn't mean much if a person just had to take the additional step of retaking the mission to join the military again. So I propose that this mission be limited to once in an arbitrary period of time. My first suggestion for this is once per week; it could be considered a traitor's timeout.

There's not a whole lot that can be done to prevent people from stockpiling these ships while they are sanctioned, so an additional sanctioning requirement may be needed. For this, I propose that the character actually perform in Border Skirmishes to prove their worth to fly these ships. Looking at the Deneb stats, I'd recommend that this be tied to Casualties Inflicted. This should either be tracked separately from the player total, or the player totals should be completely reset if they lose their military sanction.

The faction standing requirements should, of course, be unchanged.
May 25, 2013 tarenty link
+1, except getting to Deneb is a pain. Leave off the Casualty requirement until there is some easier way to get there than fly thirty minutes; partial implementation is better than none here.
May 25, 2013 draugath link
I felt that some involvement with the military should be necessary, and it would be less exploitable than perhaps participation in CtC. After all, the main military efforts are conducted in Deneb.

Plus, Incarnate has long stated he wants to give people rewards for their participation. This seems like a good first step.
May 25, 2013 TheRedSpy link
-1,000,000 to forcing people to play deneb for content.

+100,000,000 to Incarnate's military ranking system to decide this kind of policy
May 25, 2013 Snake7561 link
+1

A smarter idea would be being able to get that military standing by participating in CtC and Deneb.
May 25, 2013 draugath link
CtC is exploitable, unless the participation stats for whatever secondary condition is required are reset everytime military sanctioning is lost. Even then, CtC is still very exploitable.
May 25, 2013 tarenty link
Could base it on weekly CTC kills, one week removed. One ship purchase allowed per kill, requiring direct involvement. The game already tracks weekly CTC kills.

Example: Player A kills 10 CTC ships in Week 1. They can then buy 10 valks/proms during Week 2.
May 25, 2013 Pizzasgood link
+1

Personally, I'd make the traitor timeout two weeks or maybe a month.

I'm also of the opinion that being in the millitary should automatically drop you to Hated with the opposition and forbid rising above that for the duration of your enlistment.
May 25, 2013 Savet link
-1

Here's why: Many join a military before they understand the implications. Unless one can change their military alignment, ships should not hinge on this.

Additionally, the game prevents joining the enemies military, and participating in their CtC. Playing a traitor is a legitimate gameplay role, and this suggestion would kill that role.

I agree there should be more requirements around the ships, but a one-time military sign-up is not it.
May 25, 2013 draugath link
The game doesn't, or didn't at one time, prevent Serco from joining the Itani military and taking part in skirmishes. I've shared a skirmish group with a Serco before.

So far as it being a onetime decision, if you are the type of person to join the Itani military and then decide later you'd rather support the Serco, the military would find out eventually and you'd be court-marshaled. This then potentially opens the opportunity to join the Serco military.
May 26, 2013 PaKettle link
There should also be a way out of the military as well.
May 26, 2013 TheRedSpy link
Nah actually this is a bad idea. For starters ship restrictions doesn't solve the SVG incapability problem, it's a diversion from the actual issue and it won't address it.

But more importantly and more to the point is that the military organisational hierarchy, rules and agenda should be determined by the players themselves. This is an important level of player organisation and discretion to give to the major nations because if you don't give it to them then people will simply create their own roleplay-devoid player groups where they are given these freedoms and nationalism will look pathetic by comparison.
May 26, 2013 draugath link
The Military is an NPC organization not governed by the players. It should be used to dictate these types of things, partly in order to push the story forward. Players are always able to create their own story outside of or around The Military, but they shouldn't necessarily be the ones to dictate how it is organized. Obviously, threads like this smack right in the face of such logic, but that's partly what the suggestions forum is for, to help guide the process but not decide it.
May 26, 2013 TheRedSpy link
The Military are the same idiots that let Serco traitors dock in their capships. AI dictation will always be inferior to player discretion framework (like the guild system) and therefore the latter will always be more popular. Especially in the current state where the framework is broken beyond belief, but also in a state where its implemented correctly because there will always be nonsensical restrictions unless you give players the ability to take control.

It's the reason that the whole pirate/trader dichotomy was formerly so popular. There is no role defined stupid restrictions that are abuseable to contend with. Conflict was fought on the basis of whether or not you were for or against combat by consent in a video game, not whether you were a supporter of the Itani or Serco. So on the contrary lack of player control undermines the story of the game rather than furthers it.
May 26, 2013 Snake7561 link
I'd rather have the Military run the by the players. A simple way to implement this is for prominent guilds to be able decide who or who can't dock/enter your space. It would be the step in the right direction.
May 26, 2013 TerranAmbassador link
When there's guild-owned territory, that would be an option. With the NPC nations we have right now? Not so much.
May 26, 2013 ryan reign link
+1 to op.
+1 to linking it to Deneb kills.
- 10000 to linking it to CtC.
+1 to military only.
May 26, 2013 ryan reign link
There is already a way for guilds/players/groups to decide who can and cannot enter their territory... most folk are just to lazy to do it.
May 26, 2013 greenwall link
*yawns*
May 27, 2013 vanatteveldt link
-1 to doing this in the current state of VO. All we have atm is the faction system, and it doesn't make sense to bolt something on top of it without giving it a real overhaul.

[+1 for overhauling the standing AND license requirements to include more military aspects. It makes absolutely no sense that Serco will sell me more stuff after I shoot enough bots in Itani space or - even worse - somehow monitoring unmonitored space to award me licenses if I kill stuff, but ignoring faction penalties if I kill the wrong stuff. I think standing or military rank should be more important than license stuff, and should be a direct result of military action for the given faction, and not just of shooting anything anywhere. But that's another story...]