Politician Archive

Why place a recruiter at all? the city would already have one in the base?

Right now bases are only useful in that they have a recruiter, being required to declare your city would be a secondary benifit of having a base which we do not have now.

however with a city garrision, placed faction structures and flags and monuments or what have you all things that make the city factioned, the base in and of itself gets further devalued. The only reason people would have it would be for the recruiter, the only reason people would visit the HQ would be to use the recruiter.

placing a recruiter in town even requiring the base, basically makes the base a ghost town structure tucked in the corner of the city, more of an eye sore then a useful structure. We must leave the factional recruiter a unique feature of bases to retain thier desirability level, already fewer and fewer bases populate the servers as a they are deemed more hassle then they are worth.

They will have zero worth once we remove thier only unique feature factional recruiters, so I simply cannot agree to anything taking this unique feature of bases away.

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Bajeezus wrote:
I think that rather than argue with Jest3r's points or debating the things that he doesn't agree with, we can make great progress by starting with the things that both the politicians and the GCW fans both want. Take a look at the list and think of things that will work well together, things that make use of existing features and code from other parts of the game, things that will make cities work in the factions the way you want them to. Later, after everyone has had a chanceto discuss this list, we'll try to work that list into a polished proposal.

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Give some kind of bonus for selling to members of your own faction. Right now, exluding the enemy is more of a hinderance to factioned non-combatants than anything else.

I'm not a pvper, but maybe that's a viewpoint the devs could use. Something that might get someone into the gcw that's not really interested in bragging rights or who downloaded the best combat macro (PLEASE devs, take these things out of the game? We got the combat commands on the hotkey lists, take the commands out of thetyping interface? that would be a start. i'm here to play a game. Not let my PC play it for me.)

Anyhow.. For one, I need a reason to be overt. Just wearing ST gear isn't enough. Because frankly, it stinks. I got some chitin laying around with better kinetic and passable acid and energy, thanks to segment enhancers. That's just sad. I have a few suggestions-

Cut current factional armor cost in half. It's too much time and effort for too little reward.

Allow crafters to make the armor as well.

Add newer armor types. Scout Armor, with stats similar to average unlayered Ubese, with a low FP/crafting cost, and Storm Commando armors come to mind, with stats more in line with Composite.

Add in armor certifications. You should need novice in any advanced combat prof. for stormtrooper armor, explore 4 for scout trooper, novice commando for storm commando armor, and so on.

Make the faction bodysuits craftable, able to take BE mods, and able to use those new padded segments for some small measure of defense without totally killing our HAM. Keep in mind SMALL... perhaps normal resists, ie +20 kinetic and blast, +10 energy... but AR0. Not good for heavy combat, but will keep you alive if things turn ugly.

A 15 second timer for equipping weapons/armor. Combat does NOT stop it though, otherwise too easy to attack someone while changing weapons and they wouldn't be able to fight back. Allow certain profs to draw a weapon instantly- master swordsman, master gunslinger both come to mind. Others always have the timer to draw. Increase commando's defense and offense stats somewhat, but give them a 20 second timer as a trade off, it takes longer to get that big HAR ready than it does to sling a carbine up to shoot.

Bases should be captured, not destroyed, when taken. I liked this idea, and to be honest it's the ONLY reason I never placed a base, is the FP_ cost that goes down the crapper. As a side note, ONLY the original base builder could deed it, preventing griefing by capturing the base and deeding it.

Minefields should be only fillable by an overt, and should count as city structures if in a city, or if one is built there afterwards, Mayors should be able to pack them up as deeds. A master commando should be able to disarm a minefield, which deeds it in his/her inventory. Note he CAN place it after, complete with mines. So if you're in pvp, gives a nice reward to those who got master commando, or aim for it.

Two types of turets are needed as well. One, is a player controlled pet that may be called in addition to a droid, creature, whatnot. Perhaps have it based on faction rank. It would be unable to attack while moving, so the only use is to move it into position, and tell it to stay and guard. A good appearance idea is the small dish cannon from Empire. The other would be the current large turrets and such. Stationary, and placed as deeds. They could ONLY be placed within the radius of a faction declared city, or within the range of a faction headquarters.

Allow a pve only flag to be set, it would be a permanent flag set on the character, so it would only be used by those who have no interest in pvp in any case. They would not get a tef, even group tefs, but would be treated as neutrals for pvp purposes. They couldn't be targeted, couldn't target, and couldn't heal overts/tefed players.

Since the players refuse to police themselves... do it for them. Rebels are the heroes in the Galaxy. They're noble, brave, and above acts of terrorism. Any rebel who attacks inside a cantina or medcenter should get NO fp. Normally I'm against rules like this, but the players refuse to play as rebels, instead playing as Imps who want to be on the winning side, then someone's got to make the rebels the good guys, like it or not. As a trade off, give them a faction bonus if killing Imperials near a rebel base. The Rebels always fought hardest when their backs were against the wall, encouraging this would make the game more immersive. Give Imperials a similar penalty (you didn't see Troopers raiding medcenters. Cantinas yes, Medcenters, no) but a bonus to FP. WHEN ATTACKING. Give the Empire areason to be be well... the Empire. A purpose to being overt and kicking some butt. This would also encourage alot more re-enactments of battles, and new battles, as Rebels built bases near Imp spawning grounds (ie thehills near Theed) for the faction bonus while defending, and the Imperials hunted these bases down and seized them for the bonuses while attacking. The Rebels rarely seized Imperial bases, only when they had to, but they had a thing for popping up all over the Galaxy.

I like the /declare idea, with timer and all it is practically grief free. Another possible option too, one I'd like to see WITH the Declare option, is for Squad Leaders and Commandos. A master commando should be able to /declare with half the timer of other players, and should have the command /covertops which would make them covert for 10 minutes, allowing them to sneak into position. Sure, has griefing possibilities, but that's what a commando does. Raid. A master Squadleader need the command /groupops that allows them to mask their entire group for 10 minutes. Good for getting an attack squad deep into Theed before they go Overt and attack an imperial procession, or allowing a group of storm commandos to infiltrate a rebel controlled area for a raid.

For the stormtrooper wannabes, another great idea, that will also get a LOT of Imperials into the GCW. If you reach the highest rank in the Empire allowed, and complete the Imperial Themeparks, and master either Commando or BH, you get a very cool perk. A character slot, similar to the FSCS used to be done, and the character would be given a random, unique ID tag such as TK-421. This character would be permanently overt, and imperial, but would get Imperial faction bonuses at half cost as a tradeoff. Of course, the appearance would be fixed as well, it would always look like Jango/Boba from the films when out of armor. Do something similar to the Rebels, no idea what. Perhaps simply another character slot. Allow only ONE slot per account though, the normal slot, and the opened slot. This could also be used as a way for players to get another character slot after the FSCS is done away with, while still giving it a challenge, and limiting AFK macroing. It's hard to farm faction afk after all. Perhaps giving the Rebels the option of the Imperial soldier type character, or a permanently overt rebel, similar to Mon Mothma, or Admiral Ackbar, who I'm sure could never ever go covert. Not one of the movie characters, but one that NPCs would react to similarly (Right away sir!). Just a cool factor type thing.

Just my two cents worth. I'd even get into the GCW, if it was worth the hassle. Right now..It's not. One big griefjob/faction farm is all it is right now, I'm Imperial simply because I'm helping a friend with his ST armor. No other reason. Give me a reason to be Imperial, and who knows, maybe I'll be running around in ST gear someday. I'm not the only one who feels this way either, alot of my friends are out of the GCW just because it's such a pain, and the rewards, for lack of a better word, stink.

Nothing to do with player cities tho, so getting back on track, Ilike the idea that player bases get captured not destroyed, I think this is along the same lines of thinking as the liberation idea in some of the earlier posts and should be considered.

Idea number 1:

When cities declare a faction they get a 20% reduction in maintenance costs. This provides an incentive for the city to participate in the GCW. However a city can be brought to nutrality by the opposing faction, thus taking away the 20% maintenance reduction. Giving kind a "haha" reward to the attackers. The 20% reduction should appeal to all mayors, this will get the mayors and the residents who work closley with them wich will create an incentive to assist in defence of the city.

A cities vunerability will operate much like a faction bases vunerability, as discribed on this forum, and a city will nutralized in much the same fashion as faction bases. All the same rules will apply. The diffrence will be the manner in which nutralization will be achived.

For Imperials:

To declare an a city to Empire you will need to place an Imperial Barrack, Imperial Communications Center, and a Fussion Power generator. The Barrack will contain a Imperial Consolate and where citizens can dontate FP for the mayor to purchase defcense or ajust the troop garrison rate (The weekly charge to the city FP pool to have troops wander around the city. The mayor can increase this rate to have more troops wander the city in its defence). This is one of the buildings that must be destroyed when the city is vunerable.

The Imperial communications center is building where the uplink terminal is located when the city is vunerable. Its a small building that spawns defences around its perimiter. Alos a mayor is required to have normal fussion power generator in its city. When the city is vunerable the power terminal will spawn in a randomly selected fussion generator placed in the city. If there is no fussion power generator in the city at the time vunerability the city will automaticly nutralize. Finaly the security terminal that smugglers slice will be located in the city hall.

For rebels:

The way rebels declare a city is slightly diffrent to illumiate the diffrence in tatics used between the emipre and the alliance. The Alliance requres a rebel hideout which operates the same way as a imperial barrack however it will look like a large naboo,tatooine or generic house (in an effort to blend in with the rest of the city).

The power terminal randomly spawns in on a fussion generator, however another main diffrence is the uplink terminal will randomly spawn on the front of a random city milita members house. The power terminal will transform into two EG-G power droids that must be destroyed for Rebel cities. These power droids will randomly wander the city when its vunerable.

There is an obvious diffrence in cost associated in declaring a rebel city over an imperial city. This is due to the massive firepower the imperials will receive (perhaps up to AT-AT's walking the city) Thats why the imperials get more obvious targets. In turn the rebellion relies more on stealth and causing the enemy to spread out.

There are obviouse opprutunites for defcence as well as attack tatics.

What do you think Jester Baj or anybody else

Quite nice, however I feel that to neutralize the imperial city you should have to slice your way into city hall then slice the data terminal within (true that just means an extra molecular clamp but it gives more time)

As per the rebel way, it is quite nice however a little bit too hidden. It would be difficult to find the right house since there are plenty of towns full of larges. While true this is one of the purposes I still feel it is a bit too big of an advantage on our part. Perhaps have it look a lot like a large house but have a discernible difference. Maybe the top little roof exit is missin on the Noobian, the door is on the wrong side for the tat, and corellian architecture just doesn't exist so this could be a reason for the dev's to step that artwork into high gear (a house should be 2 stories minimum, have the bottom just be 1 room and then a stairway going to 1 room up top or something but look at the coronet, not 1 short building) or keep it as the exact same as a large and make the power droids spawn randomly at a power generator instead of a militia-man's house since the entire town could be a militia and 100 homes is a bit of an effort to go hunting after you finally found the magic house.

It is a great idea just needs to be tweaked a bit I guess so it isn't as 1 sided.

yeah your probably right. But i do like the diffrence of the Rebel Hideout looking a bit diffrent. I was attemting to find balance between the awsome technological fire power of the Empire and the stealth of the Alliance.

BTW I almost freaked when our new fourm tags came up then i rememberd its april 1st.

My first point is that the 'liberating' of a city seems to have focused on combat, again this seems like a lazy solution mimicing the existing gameplay for base capture. I think the Devs are capable of delivering a much better and more Political sub game which includes economic and social destabalisation of a target.

I'd like to see a complex sub-game evolve when a city declares to a faction.
A declared city would have:

1) maintainance deposits are caped - all funds must come from taxes, anything above the cap when you declare is frozen.
2) Ringfenced funding - sales taxes cannot be spent on defence (to avoid exploit of the sales tax)
3) special 'flags' in the city would have a 'vandalise' radial option
3b) The flags are attackable once per week, if the budget cant afford to replace then you go neutral.
4) Vandalising a 'flag' can be done by anyone but they get a 'city TEF' to all militia
5) Vandalised items would require cost to repair, based on how long it took a citizen to use the 'clean' radial option.
6) Factioned cities would get a 'none of the above' voting option for disgruntled citizens
7) The number of disgruntled citizens would cost the city money from its defence budget.
8) Citizens would be able to set alegence independantly, their taxes could be ringfenced against faction.
9) Mayor would be able to hire special NPCs
9a) Navy representative - enables commisioning of a shuttle for off world transport (very expensive)
9b) Military intelegence - Gives info on the treasury of another city (one city per NPC)
9c) Spynet operative - functions for player bounty missions.
9d) ordenance - enables the calling arial support, time and co-ordinates must be suplied (expensive)
9e) Quater master - acts as a junk vendor for all junk
9f) minesweeper - patrols city permieter removing minefields (actualy removes the plot)
9g) Drill seargent - enables an overt militia member to take control of a city squad for an hour
9h) military police - enables a covert militia member to take control of a squad

Methods of attack:
1) trade embargo - Obvioulsy setting up vendors near an enemy city to steal their trade would cut their tax revenu and undermine their Crafters ability to raise funds.
2) insurection - find unhappy citizens and get them to withold funding, pay them to vandalise stuff, vote against etc.
3) Physical attack - destruction of city factional facilities - this should only be posible once per week
4) coruption - bribe the mayor to sell out his town (best soften him up with 5...)
5) assassination - Player bounties should be posable on a city's special NPCs, factioned politicians and Smugglers (by a master politician). If a cities NPCs are killed they can simply be replaced by the Mayor but its a hastle and could wear down their resolve

Obviously this would need to be balanced but if a city were unable to pay its defence maintainance then it would cease to be factioned at the next update, its reserves would kick in and non factioned stuff would not be effected. More perks would become available the longer you remain factioned.

I think recruiters are a lazy way to put cities into CGW (a simple alternative is that action against the city gives you a 'city TEF' allowing militia or coverts to attack you) declaration should not be easy and is the only benefit of bases.

Edit:
Some of these ideas could be extended to 'large bases'. Furthermore I think that each city should exert a zone of control, within which enemy harvesters should not be able to be placed or some other more significant economic infraction.

Message Edited by aachil on 04-01-2004 06:30 PM

JEST3R, I was just thinking of an idea to make faction bases more valuable. Perhaps they could give missions(from the mission term inside the base) that are of a higher difficulty(and pay)than faction missions you can get outside the base. also perhaps different bases would give different missions or difficulty, i.e the more costly the base the higher the difficulty of the mission you can draw from it. Also I think it would be fun to have the city specialization of increasing mission payout to also affect the difficulty of base mission terms. And further more perhaps only then( the base has to be in the city limits, and the mission city specialty has to be set up, and the city has to be declared to a certian faction) then some portion of faction gained from base missions would go to the city.