Faction Features: What would you like to see?

Vampiricdust

Learned-to-turn-off-magboots endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
47
#1
With factions being in the works, now might be a good time to get some input on what everyone would like to see for things for factions.
  • Access to the front page of each member's CV
  • Access control to faction owned rental lots
  • Faction relations (declaring enemy or ally status)
  • Setting lot permissions (who can manage lots owned by the faction)
  • Setting station permissions (who can manage stations owned by the faction)
  • Ranked based permissions
  • Insurance settings
  • Discount settings
  • Member payout (paying for participation in operations like mining or other profitable ventures)
  • Ranks management
  • Moderation system for reviewing reported members
  • Jobs system to specify needed tasks, assign them to members or outsiders, and payout the reward
  • Rank controls (names, insignia)
  • Logo editor
  • Insignia editor
  • An indepth faction wallet with multiple accounts with individual permission settings
Any other ideas or requests you'd like to see available for factions?
 
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Benno

Learned-to-sprint endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
21
#2
Very good points, I have to say. I'd like to add one more and we've already talked about it with VilleFB; a faction credits account/bank account. So maybe a faction leader could help pay a member something and it would go hand-in-hand with the Member payout and Job system.

I'd really like to see these suggestions get added to the game, so like this post people!
 

CalenLoki

Master endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
741
#3
I'd love proper chain of command implemented. So not only "every sergeant is over every private" but more like "private 1, private 2 and private 3 are under direct command of sergeant 1, who together with sergeant 2 and sergeant 3 is command by captain 1".

Either as long lasting assignment or pre battle/mission one.

In other words persistent or temporary fireteam/squad/platoon system.

Even better if there is option of volunteer assignment. So you choose your superior, rather than the other way around. That way ranks would show who has actual support in democratic factions.
 

Eranok

Active endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
40
#4
i d say nothing of the above list
or actually rather: all those things are doable with yolol and beams ;)
 

Vexus

Master endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
276
#5
I'm with Eranok on this. Give the players the tools to achieve all the functions on that list (and more) and don't set in stone any feature.

Putting in artificial means to achieve this same effect will bottleneck a lot of gameplay and require an immense amount of development time figuring out all the what-ifs that comes with artificial systems. In addition, creating all the wants and desires on that main list above is a lot of time developing every single one of those features that players could create themselves with the slightest amount of tools available.

As it stands, ranks can be achieved by players, by players simply giving other players access codes that YOLOL uses to control certain things. For example, if you're a "high rank" and have access to a certain area on your station, you'd be provided the passcode to the door you are trying to open. Not much different than code locks in Rust where if you know the code, that's indicative of your "rank".

The main faction features I would like to see are:
  • being able to invite people into a faction and have them join
  • a faction text chat
  • the ability to create internal, non-functional ranks for simple grouping of who is who inside a faction (basically naming categories): some rank permissions for which ranks can invite new members, and set other peoples' ranks, is good and common in gaming, basically controlling the limited functions of the faction like invite, kick, and change rank name and set rank of other members. Ranks in this case are simply grouping categories.
  • some simple 'message of the day' style feature
  • a grouping feature - temporary groups not related specifically to factions (factions being permanent groups)
Everything else can be handled with third party non-game-related tools, in-game code and most importantly, in-game gameplay. The third party tools do a better job than what the game needs to provide - Starbase does not need to recreate these tools in game. For example outside of a basic member list, guild management is mostly done with offline tools which are more secure, like direct communication of passcodes or resource locations or access to secondary accounts which contain certain funds. Players will solve these problems much better than what any developer can give players in the limited development time devs have to create these rule sets. In addition, players will inevitably find some dev-created organizational feature lacking some function and will revert to third party tools.

Much of Starbase's potential comes from an uncommon point of view; it will be in how little they can deliver to the players in terms of artificial rules, not how much they can define their game world. A fully-defined game world is like a single-player story-driven game, where you have boundaries, limits, a storyline, restrictions, defined gameplay. The more Starbase can give us the tools to achieve gameplay without funneling gameplay into a specific routes the more value we will get from the game.

A simple example of how rankings and permissions end up failing is for example if you have a door you want faction members to be able to use, but then also want some non-faction member to also be able to use it. If it is controlled by artificial, faction-only rules, that you must be rank 2 or higher to access this door, it cuts out a lot of gameplay. If instead, a passcode can be given to even someone not in your faction who can then use the door, you can convey to all your rank 2's and above the code, and give that code to any player who is not in your faction who has earned your trust. In addition, this allows for other gameplay to occur, like people infiltrating and sabotaging larger factions which are too loose on their security. Rust for example has guest-codes for their code locks; this guest code can be achieved with YOLOL, with multiple different codes possible and access logs and so on - again, all controlled with YOLOL - and turned on and off on demand from a central command center. Having the artificial rule of "I cannot access the door because I am not joined to the faction and not rank 10" is not a good way to solve this common gaming problem, and it has been tried a dozen times. Instead, give players the basics of a faction, and the in-game tools to create their own security and permissions, and unleash the creativity of players to solve all the problems, only adding in artificial rules when there is definitely no other better way to solve a perceived problem.
 

Eranok

Active endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
40
#6
imagine... If people can carry a yolol emitter with them, they can 'wirelessly send the password to the front door' to open it securely. They can also get killed and have their emitter stolen ;)
 

Vampiricdust

Learned-to-turn-off-magboots endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
47
#7
YOLOL is no where near secure enough for that. All it would take is some with physical access and everything your faction has is borked.

Devs would have to develop all these tools to enable such features. Especially since all of them are directly tied into game mechanics. Seeing members CV? Not possible without a new device and all you'd be doing is pushing it to a screen to be read and you'd have to set access controls via the totally insecure YOLOL or have a maze of doors and passcodes.

I don't even know how you would set up YOLOL to manage membership's ability to have factions pay for insurance when in built tools could do so much easier, more securely, and without the devs having to explain to people they need to spend dozens of hours just making a network of extremely slow and limited controls.

I would not play this game if faction controls and permissions had to be to be programmed by every new faction. It would take months to get everything bought or mined, setup, and then months more tediously fixing mistakes, dealing with losses because a syntax error let anyone access to the accounts.

There's adding fun gameplay and then there's stupid pointless grinding for features that other games dont make you do it yourself. Like, the radios have a limited range and would need a relay system between all your stations and everywhere your members might be that need funds... you wouldn't like it in practice as good as you think it sounds in theory.
 

dusty

Moderator
Moderator
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Aug 14, 2019
Messages
89
#8
I think there's a balance to be struck. Certain features like automatic payouts, insurance, faction chat, and other logistical mechanics ought to be a shipped feature rather than something created in YOLOL. On the other hand, station security, lot/hangar security, and other things related to physical access can and should be up to factions to create, as those features would alter faction vs faction gameplay in an undesirable way (eg: preventing many forms of sabotage and espionage).
 

Vexus

Master endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
276
#9
All it would take is some with physical access and everything your faction has is borked.
Not really. The scope of the game limits what a single person can do - I don't think there's a loot decay or a 'delete' option to delete loot, but really I do not know how that is handled and can only guess. But even then, yes, if you let someone into your main loot room and they end up stealing everything (by you know, bringing in 100's of ships with 100's of shipping containers to fly away with all your loot), that's on you. Still, some reasonable restrictions (see, safe zone) for this kind of stuff should be in play, because well, hacks exist.

I don't even know how you would set up YOLOL to manage membership's ability to have factions pay for insurance when in built tools could do so much easier
Maybe you've heard the devs speak of a faction insurance system that pays members' insurance costs? I haven't heard this is a thing. If it's not a confirmed feature yet, then you're asking for the devs to program all this outside of YOLOL to achieve the same function, and hard-code it into the game to make it impossible/unlikely anyone develops any better way to deal with the problem. After all, what you're asking for in this feature alone, is to have someone else pay your insurance cost upon losing a ship or robot body - how can this not just be achieved by you know... someone handing you the credits? Taking away this player interaction is dangerous to a game. Many games lose out on the value of player-to-player interaction when it comes to trading and other currency interactions where it's more impactful to have someone actually hand you the thing/currency you need. Both methods have their pros and cons however a major con for having these faceless faction accounts is it removes the person/player from the action; you don't need someone else to help you, your uncaring, unthinking faction wallet takes care of it. And again, the whole feature needs to be created by the devs, given permissions and limits and who can access it and this all needs to be created server side to hold all the values and make sure no one can hack the values and so many other rabbit-hole 'what-ifs' surrounding any single one of these features.

There's adding fun gameplay and then there's stupid pointless grinding for features that other games dont make you do it yourself.
That's a huge misconception and I'm glad you gave me something to bite on here. Just because you, or I, don't enjoy some aspect of gameplay, does not mean someone else feels the same way. In other words, by restricting what is possible by forcing these dev-created systems into the game, you devalue the player who really likes to do those kinds of things (or might want to do those things due to the profit they make on doing it). If you simply carve out that no player can compete with the in-game systems you ruin a lot of gameplay from people who would really enjoy playing that kind of game. Every sandbox game has 1000's of different ways players play the game, and thus every single system you set in stone in Starbase becomes the only way that system can be done, and removes so many people from the equation.

I highly doubt you would not play Starbase if faction controls and permissions had to be programmed by every new faction. In addition to common, copy/paste code available to any faction within the first month, you also won't be creating a new faction with new permissions every day. It's a weird statement to see being made by you considering everything else the game brings - being part of a faction isn't even required.

Instead, I think about the large amount of people who, for example, do enjoy, or are good at, managing people; who would find their personnel micromanagement skills devalued if the game hard-coded this one specific way they can deal with their faction. Nothing is required, but giving players at least the option is better than forcing a system/feature upon players that will constantly not be good enough for everyone. Give the basic tools to the players, and let the players sort it out themselves, and the players will bring massive value to the game and they themselves will be valued by their team for their efforts in solving perceived problems.

It's easy to get tunnel-vision into thinking of what things you want (this goes for everyone, myself included, even devs), for yourself, for your own convenience and pleasure, and just say, "Surely no one else enjoys playing differently than myself," - I think that kind of approach is incorrect. Instead, consider the demographic and audience the game is aiming at - people who enjoy open world sandbox MMO games with FPS combat and PvP - and look at the whole scope of the potential players in that audience (it's massive, reaching almost every single game-player). Then, consider how any set system drives away some huge number of players, and decide if that feature is worth it, if it can even be done correctly. For example, the User Interface of the game is a set-in-stone system; but it will not appeal to everyone. Some will hate the "bland look", or find it unintuitive, or think some other game did it better, and those players will be driven away from the game because the UI just didn't make sense to them. Obviously, this is something the devs have to decide on - losing those players who don't like the UI is worth the cost, because everyone else who finds its theme satisfactory are vastly more numerous. In the end, I agree with @Dusty in that there is a balance to be reached. Some things are worth the cost of loss of potential, and other things are not, and it's more about figuring out which ones maintain the most gameplay value.
 

Vampiricdust

Learned-to-turn-off-magboots endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
47
#10
Not really. The scope of the game limits what a single person can do
That's a lot of why I am against YOLOL managing faction stuff. Factions will be various sizes on scale with EVE with potentially hundreds of players. I think this kind of thing takes away from the game play as people spend a great deal of time on faction management.

Maybe you've heard the devs speak of a faction insurance system that pays members' insurance costs?
Not a faction insurance system, just having the faction pay for the insurance for ships made by members, mostly for the faction use is what I meant. The permissions would be who could authorize registering ships and use faction funds to pay for the insurance.

That's a huge misconception and I'm glad you gave me something to bite on here. Just because you, or I, don't enjoy some aspect of gameplay, does not mean someone else feels the same way. In other words, by restricting what is possible by forcing these dev-created systems into the game, you devalue the player who really likes to do those kinds of things (or might want to do those things due to the profit they make on doing it).
You can't make a game to please everyone. You have to decide if those things fit with the intended game play or distract from it. What about all the players that don't like building their own faction system and have to do it all and maintain it? I highly doubt many people beyond programmers will enjoy using YOLOL to control their factions.

I highly doubt you would not play Starbase if faction controls and permissions had to be programmed by every new faction. In addition to common, copy/paste code available to any faction within the first month, you also won't be creating a new faction with new permissions every day. It's a weird statement to see being made by you considering everything else the game brings - being part of a faction isn't even required.
I wouldn't play it cause I want to play the game and not make game features myself. Why waste my time in a faction where some screw up in a script or some exploit lets someone walk off with all our stuff? Might as well go play alone, but that'll get boring after awhile and I wouldn't play long.
If people copy and paste stuff made by someone else, they're at risk of someone leaving exploits in the code and being robbed blind. Which means every faction will have to do it themselves to ensure it's secure. Not to mention having knowledge of how something works makes it easier to exploit. I know what the game brings and I don't want a game you need to program every feature yourself to have it. I wouldn't trust anything made by someone else in a game like this.

Instead, I think about the large amount of people who, for example, do enjoy, or are good at, managing people; who would find their personnel micromanagement skills devalued if the game hard-coded this one specific way they can deal with their faction.
Imagine those players having to spend all their time tweaking YOLOL scripts across several stations instead of managing people at all. This is a weird argument. They'd be forced into being programmers rather just using the game features. I think the benefits of a hard coded feature far outweigh the small tweaks of a slow and cumbersome system they have to build all themselves even if they can just copy paste some code.

It's easy to get tunnel-vision into thinking of what things you want (this goes for everyone, myself included, even devs), for yourself, for your own convenience and pleasure, and just say, "Surely no one else enjoys playing differently than myself," - I think that kind of approach is incorrect. Instead, consider the demographic and audience the game is aiming at - people who enjoy open world sandbox MMO games with FPS combat and PvP - and look at the whole scope of the potential players in that audience (it's massive, reaching almost every single game-player). Then, consider how any set system drives away some huge number of players, and decide if that feature is worth it, if it can even be done correctly.
Apply this to your make it all YOLOL approach maybe? I don't know how many people want a build a faction management system game, but I'm pretty sure Starbase isn't meant to be a programming game. MMO players don't want to spend their time building management hardware and software on YOLOL chips with 70 character line limits and 20 lines with a .2 second delay. Sure, if you want to argue it should be an option, then I could support that, but forcing everyone to build it themselves (you can't copy paste the devices, wires, chips, and other hardwire) even if they can "just copy paste the code" onto hundreds of chips. Then spend hours on the Universal Tool changing device fields to match the code...

I think using YOLOL for faction management is going way too far down the YOLOL tunnel vision. It's far more limiting and constraining than in-built faction system. YOLOL is very limited and it's not a solution for everything. I can't think of a single thing I'd want YOLOL to be able to do in respects to managing a faction that wouldn't have to be almost entirely a device doing 90% of the work already.
 

Eranok

Active endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
40
#11
I would like to have a try on a barebone system.

It requires implementation of only one extra thing: an yolol terminal and a yolol emitter/reciever (as they exist as blocks) that the player can hold.
 

Recatek

Meat Popsicle
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
286
#12
String manipulation in YOLOL is slow and tedious. This is well beyond the scope of reality in a 20 line YOLOL chip, or even multiple such chips, without major sacrifices in functionality. It’s far beyond practical to make a hundred or thousand player database or messageboard in YOLOL.

If these tools aren’t fluidly available in game, people will just make and use them out-of-game (discord, various discord bots, guilded, enjin, etc.), which will be an inferior experience.
 

Eranok

Active endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
40
#13
I never talked about string manipulation
Just send 'Hello234" or "BABY77" and door opens thats all. Admin doors only open with "BABY77"

Barebone system doable, would be glad to experiment :)
 

CalenLoki

Master endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
741
#14
BTW. I wished for chain of command, and it seems Lauri think about something functionally similar:

LauriFB
"the plan is to have smaller groups which can pledge allegiance to a larger group
maybe we should name smaller groups something like company/guild and the larger one factions ...
...
so if all goes as planned, you can form your own small group which can be part of empire, kingdom or any other faction, or form your own faction, given that the faction also allows you as a member/support group"
...
well maybe the chain could be infinite indeed
...
so faction A can pledge allegiance to faction B, which again pledges to faction C .. hmm .."

Nothing decided, but I'm glad it's at least considered.
 

Burnside

Master endo
Joined
Aug 23, 2019
Messages
308
#15
I'd love proper chain of command implemented. So not only "every sergeant is over every private" but more like "private 1, private 2 and private 3 are under direct command of sergeant 1, who together with sergeant 2 and sergeant 3 is command by captain 1".

Either as long lasting assignment or pre battle/mission one.

In other words persistent or temporary fireteam/squad/platoon system.

Even better if there is option of volunteer assignment. So you choose your superior, rather than the other way around. That way ranks would show who has actual support in democratic factions.
Being able to assign Private x, to Sergeant Y, under the command of Captain Z is almost a must a in my opinion. The general wisdom is that a man can effectively command up to seven subordinates, sub-leadership staff like corporals and team leaders can extend this efficacy of command out to things like the 12-man marine squad (Sgt and up to two LCpls or Cpls, 3Pvts or Spcs each). Being able to set custom hierarchies and "unit maximums" would give faction leaders an unobtrusive way to design the command flowchart for their organisation at any given level of complexity.

Alternately, have a simple multi-modal rank hierarchy (i.e. Rank 5 = LCpl = Spc 2 = WO1 = etc, etc) where a baseline rank can be associated with multiple basic and specialist titles as needed or a simple linear hierarchy from 0-20 in "value" be established for ease of organisation. Adding to this the ability to create mission-based department groups or military taskforces to which memebers may be assigned, so a Sergeant and seven privates could be assigned to "Assault Squad 01" under "Taskforce Nighthawk" headed up by a Captain and their Staff Sergeants, each of which has a subsidiary leadership in one or more Operations Groups within the Taskforce that contain the Sergeants of each squad while the Captain has his own squad in addition to his Staff Sergeants- all of this, assumedly, being editable by the Captain or his superior offices in the "Operations Planning Department" who were assigned to the "Western Kingdom Theatre". Implemented this way with fuzzy associations between each subgroup and allowing for multiple memberships in several subgroups, squads and taskforces can even be reassigned or individually detached as needed. This organisational means works equally well for less militant factions who want to organize fabrication or mining teams and assign them to individual stations or resourcing ops in a given area.
 
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