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A lot of people are bringing some very valid concerns about the purpose and the future of the game. I have some proposals below that I would like to get your feedback on. These are not my original ideas, but rather conceptsI have seen mentioned by others, but I did try to develop themsomewhat.

Lets for a moment pretend that we can get whatever we ask for from the devs.So we ask forworldaffecting GCW (both ground and space). My main problem with that type of setup is -- what if one side overwhelms the other? If winning GCW battles (either ground or space) provides you with a lasting advantage...then if one side wins enough, it eventually gets unbeatable.

1. Howsignifficant and long lasting should be the effect of winning a battle?

This is a hard thing to balance. If it not signifficant or lasting, then why bother? If it has too much of an impact then it can alter the balance to the point where the other side can not recover.

2.Do you have a reset condition?

Some criteria where server decides that either the empire or the rebellion has won and resets everything back to default. Would you be satisfied with all your efforts in the end to be reduced to a single line in the server statistics Empire: 2 Rebels: 1?

And how do you avoid having the other side simply giving up on a "round" saying well they have it, lets go for the reset and try to get them back.

3. How do you get the two sides to fight?

What would bring the opponents into the battle ata given place and time? And how do you avoid the majority of the action being 4 am PvE sneak attacks?

Here are the proposals:

1.Disrupring/Maintaining supply lines.

This is a good idea.You can have NPCtransport convoys that spawn on a secret schedule in every system. A part of the ground game could be obtaining these schedules. A successful raid on a PC or NPC factional complex couldresult in getting a data disk witha spawn time of a convoy and WPs for departure and arrival.Thisgives an oppotunity for one side to go ahead and destroy a convoy. A factional NPC couldbeused to obtain the schedules of the convoys that were compromised recently. Thisgives an opportunity for the players of that faction to go up and escort convoys that are in danger of being attacked. This adresses item 3 above of getting the two sides together for a battle.

Each side needs aset number of supply convoys to get through within a24 hour period in order to maintain its war effort on the ground for the following 24 hours. Failing to get the appropriateammount of supplies will start hampering the ground war by reducing the damage dealt to factional enemies (PC and NPC) by some percentage related to the percentage ofnecessary supplies that failed to reach their destination (reflecting the poor equipment and the lack of spare parts).

Here is another interesting twist. The supply convoys themselves are generated by the faction complexes. There is always a set of NPC ones on every world that can not be destroyed (but can be penetrated to obtain the convoy schedule for that complex).The NPC complexesgenerate the minimum of the convoys needed to supply their side- meaning that if even one of those convoys gets destroyed, there will be consequences. However, PC factional complexes will generate additional convoysdepending on the size of the complex and howlong it stays operational. Thesecan be destroyed asnormal, or can be attacked for the purpose of getting the convoy schedulefor that day.This should be easier than destroying but should still require some serious effort. Getting supplies in exess of what is needed should provide a small bonus for the ground campaign.

To summarise there are several benifits to this proposal:

a) It ties space game in with the ground game. Each afects the other.

b) It gives purpose for ground factional complexes, for attacking them and for defending them.

c) It sets up the stage for PvP space battles by getting the two sides into a given location at a given time with a reason to fight.

d) There is an impact on GCW, but it is short term and does not give either side a permanent advantage.

e) There is little development effort required to get this done. Most of the components needed to accomplish this are already in the game.

2. Factional Space Assets.

There is a massive realm of possibilities here. But before we get to captal ships, how about PC factional space stations? These can spawn NPC ships for defense and have defensive weapons mounted on them. These can be operated by AI, or by PC defenders. PC defenders can be brought on board by multiplayer ship transports. In order to destroy a factional space station, the opposing side would have to defeat the defending PC and NPC ships and silence the defensive weapons of the station first. Then they would have to dock multiplayer transpots and send in boarding parties. These wouldhave to defeatboth PC and NPC defenders inside the station whiele slicing locks on bulckhead doors to reach the bridge andset the self destruct.

Whywould anyone want to have these?And why would anyonewant to attack them? Well having space factional complexes would enable theplayers on the ground to call in fighter strikes and orbital bombardment from the space stations.The player would have to be of the appropriate factional rank and would needasecurity code of anoperatingstation. The frequency and the effectiveness of these strikes would depend on the size of the station and the length of time in service (same as with the ground bases, it will pay to have an installation in operation for an extended amount of time giving an extra incentinve for attacking and defending these installations).

With space beingpretty vast, space stations will not be easy to locate.And stumbling upon one would not reveal itsvulnerability times. Howeverlooting convoy ships (see above) would providedata disks that when put togetherwould reveal a locationof time of a random space complex.Killing off NPC ships spawned by that station would drop data disks that when assembled would reveal vulnerability time(s) of that station. As with convoys, a factional NPC would be able to warn members of that faction when the location of a space station is uncovered and when its vulnerability time is uncovered. This once again sets up the potential for a battle. Vulnerability times for a given space station should automatically change once a week withing a window that is determined by the placement time.

This proposal has many of the same benifits as the one above, but will probably require a bit more development time.

In addition this gives a major role to multiplayer ships.

What do you guys think about these?