Discussion of Conflicts in ST2

[Cory Trese]

Mar 21, 2016 14:16:06 GMT -5 Brutus Aurelius said:

Lol

That sounds like it must be fun to deal with. What kind of things would these anti authority Crew do?

They tend to loose Morale faster, they don't like taking Missions from powerful Contacts, cause problems with Officers.

The motivation engine entries for individual crew are still in development so I'm not sure what they'll do in the final build, but right now they're a PITA.

[johndramey]

How awesome. This may seem like a stupid question, but will crew sizes be scaled down for ST2? It seems like you guys would have a massive amount of work to do if the smallest ship needed 10 or more individually generated crew.

Either way, it's going to be so cool to have crew with names and personalities. What kind of interactions are you planning to build into the system? Will there be a friend/enemy sort of interaction between individual crew members, or would that be asking too much?

[Cory Trese]

The Crew size will range from a 6 to 60 ... yes, there is a massive amount of work needed

The game already supports Crews of up to 16 individually generated and active characters. That's about the size of a BF maximum squad (although the current maps limit you to 12.)

Crew member's personality traits will clash with each other.

For example, G. Tazzar hates Rychart. She looses Morale every time I recruit Rychart.

This guy D. White is a sadist ... his morale goes up when people are injured in accidents.

I've got another member of the Crew, Rachel, she's obsessed with death. When people die, she recovers morale.

I've also got a Navigator Officer who suffers from gravity sickness, so any time we land he looses morale.

The system has to run in simulator very, very fast on average PC and smartphones, so we won't be simulating individual shifts on the ship, or which crew are in close proximity to each other.

They won't form relationships, but they will have other Crew who cause them problems or give them bonuses.

[johndramey]

That is so cool. I'm going to have a lot of fun trying to build the perfect crew, spending hours and hours recruiting people and dismissing people (this will be an option, right?), only to have 5 of them die through a torpedo hit and have to do it all over again!

[slayernz]

As an aside, and back to original topic, it would be interesting to have a bounty placed on a particular crew member. That means enemy captains may be trying to stop/board your ship to arrest a particular crew member. You can then decide whether to give your crew member up, or put up a fight.

It would act in a similar way to carrying restricted goods without a TP in ST.

I love the crew interactions ...
If you recruit a Cadari during a solar war against Steel Song, then he/she would always have a dislike towards Steel Song. And rightly too!


In the end though I'd like the opportunity to cause factional dislikes/likes. By actively killing one faction whilst showing the flag of another, it has a percentage change to push those two factions apart. As a result
Faction A (who's flag you are flying) could go after you and request that you stop.

Oh oh ... would there be any chance that you can mask/hide your flag? Fool enemies into thinking you are flying for another faction?

If you get a majority crew from Faction A and you are flying Faction B, can that increase the chance of mutiny?

If you have enslaved the majority of your crew during hostile encounters, can that increase the chance of mutiny?

[johndramey]

The idea of having bounties out specifically for your crew member would be really cool, although I could see it as a bit of a hassle if overdone. How about this having a chance for a faction to take out a bounty on you or one of your officers if your reputation is low (like, criminal low) with that faction and a duel of assassins gets called on you or one of your officers faction?

[contributor]

I do like the idea of bans on particular goods. It seems very real-worldly to me. I have to say though that they would probably have to target the more lucrative cargos for it to have much of an effect on trading.

In the case of solar/spy wars one option would be crew members of an opposing faction would be quarantined on ship, planet side. Since trade plays such a huge role in quadrant it is hard to see a faction unwilling to trade with you because you picked up one Chowdar junky to fill out your crew. Rather once you land, that crew member is not permitted to leave the ship, i.e. they get no bonuses/spice etc. on the planet.

I think captain faction and ship flag should be far more important in determining the effects of conflicts on your ship. I would say that the cost of changing the flag of a ship should be substantially high, such that it would be a major decision to change the registration and allegiance of a given ship. This would make owning multiple ships with different flags more of a worthwhile goal to pursue. I'm thinking of factions A and B being in conflict. You have a ship of each faction on planet of faction C and use it as a base to swap cargo and ships and keep trading during the war...

I would also say that things like wars shouldn't automatically effect which goods people will buy. I.e. Thulun wouldn't turn it's nose up at buying a shipment of DV weapons even when they're currently at war, if the price is right. A weapon is a weapon and who cares if you're using it to shoot at the faction that made it. It seems like wars ought to drive the price of certain goods up. How many wealthy men were made providing their and other countries with arms and materials during a war (Bob Dylan - Masters of War anyone?).

I have a hard time seeing ship components having an effect on conflicts.

Have you given any thought to having people who can forge or launder goods? I can see that as a good use for an independent planet. It would cost good money, but hey if you just scooped up a big load of now banned goods that you want to sell into that shortage, you could still eek out a profit if you know somebody who can fix it for you. Maybe there is still a '% chance you would get busted at the market with forged goods, idk? Likewise everybody knows the Rychart hats are just a status symbol. Why not pick up a load of cheap indy hats and get a Rychart label sewn into them and sell em to unsuspecting Javat bumpkins. Again you'ld be gambling with your reputation, but hey who doesn't like to gamble?

[contributor]

This thread has probably got me thinking too much.

I just wanted to add, a typical war embargo (placed by an enemy or faction trying to stop a war for other reasons) would be raw materials (especially metals), weapons and foodstuffs. These would be the same things that would have higher prices during a war.

Also, thinking about the forger idea. I really hope the spice halls in ST2 operate more like the backrooms of CK. There could be a lot of hidden stuff only found by spending a lot of time talking to everyone in the Spice Hall. I'm thinking forging/laundering, black market sales, cheaper but riskier healing, contracts with different dynamics i.e. higher risk and higher pay. etc. You might only find that stuff if you have the right connections or are trusted on a particular planet.

[Cory Trese]

Lots of great stuff in this thread today ... I'll try to respond!

On Bounties on Crew
Most of the Crew you recruit will just be gravers hoping for a new life among the stars. With the advent of the HWD their is a great increase in the number of Factionites willing to risk it with a Star Trader ... they've been settled for several generations and the call of deep space is in the blood of every Star Trader. Recruiting one that comes with serious political baggage will be very rare.

However, it will happen. Crew members can have Faction reputation, positive and negative which will interplay with the Captain's Reputation in some scenarios. There are several types of Crew as well -- you have Enlisted, Guests and Prisoners. Guests will facilitate "Passengers" missions and "Prisoners" will be involved with "Hard Passengers" and "Bounty Hunting" missions. Even if you convince Crew to join from a defeat Ship, they still need to be paid or will simply jump ship the next time you land.


On Changing Flags
This won't be something that the Captain does very often. The naval architecture of each Faction is unique, and to the trained eye of a Star Trader, unmistakable. It isn't a paint job or a license plate ... changing it would be like saying you want to change manufacturers on your car. The only route is to replace enough components that the Ship flips over to Independent which isn't really an advantageous Ship Flag in most regards. You'll be encouraged to upgrade the Ship with the Faction that manufactured it (through price, install time and mass.)


On Wars and Crew
The Captain will be automatically smart enough to leave any Crew of the warring Faction on-board the ship. This means if Cadar is at war with Steel Song then any Cadar crew you have will be unable to level up, spice up, entertain or gain new equipment when landed on a Steel Song world. The Laws of Shalun are very clear on the procedures and the Captain is a Captain because she knows, and follows, those rules carefully.

As contributor said, the major driver for the fallout of wars will be Captain's Faction, Ship's Faction, Mission's Faction and Cargo's Faction. Basic materials like Ore, Metal, Fuel ... these items are Factionless and generic enough to be traded under any circumstances.


On Trade Conflicts
In ST2, Thulun will very much turn it's nose up at buying a shipment of DV weapons ... on the legal market. The US wouldn't have purchased Soviet weapons (in public) during the Cold War. There certainly were US-based weapon distributors that operated in the black or grey markets that would, but they did so in clandestine deals.


On Counterfeit Goods
There is simply no budget for this.

Spice Halls in ST2
Will share some of the features of the CK backroom ... but most of the features mentioned by contributor will be provided by Contacts, not Spice Halls.

[ntsheep]

Mar 22, 2016 9:42:08 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Lots of great stuff in this thread today ... I'll try to respond!


Spice Halls in ST2
Will share some of the features of the CK backroom

Proof that CK2 comes after ST2?

[contributor]

I'm trying to understand things a little better and am curious about the reputation system in ST2. In ST reputation was king and starting/flagged faction meant next to nothing. You could fly all over Cadar with a Steel Song flag when they were at war, provided you had good rep and permits with Cadar. This was especially weird with the military class. Will this be the same in ST2? It was like the player character was a totally different class from every other ship out there, or like you were really always an independent.

Thinking through the way that conflicts affect players, I'm just thinking that there should really be different effects for different classes. A duel of assassins should have a different effect on a licensed bounty hunter than it would on a merchant etc. I'm curious if the military class will come back too. ST was one of the few places where you could be a ranking officer in two militaries that were at war with each other, fortunately you never had to report to any higher-ups.

[Cory Trese]

The Captain is a Star Trader, first and foremost. Other distinctions are about profession or background -- not codified by the Faction laws.

Your relationship with a Faction is defined by your Rank, Permit, Warrants and Reputation. The Captain can call herself a Bounty Hunter all she wants, but without a Death Warrant, those are just words.

[tenbsmith]

I'm enjoying reading all this preview stuff about ST2, it sounds awesome. Y'all did a great job making Battleforce complex and approachable for new players. Based on other posts, sounds like you'll do that here too.

[Deleted]

Mar 22, 2016 10:38:55 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

The Captain is a Star Trader, first and foremost. Other distinctions are about profession or background -- not codified by the Faction laws.

Your relationship with a Faction is defined by your Rank, Permit, Warrants and Reputation. The Captain can call herself a Bounty Hunter all she wants, but without a Death Warrant, those are just words.

Speaking of faction laws, does each faction have their own laws seperate from other factions, or is there a central governing body that passes legislation for all factions (syndicate, clan, and great house) alike?

[contributor]

For some reason the conflict system and it's relationship to captain/ship/crew/goods faction, in ST still seems a bit opaque to me. But I can see some ways that knowing the origin of goods could enrich it.

Trade Alliances could provide an even greater bonus when you're trading goods of those two factions together. So if it's Javat-Thulun you would get a great bonus for unloading Javat weapons on Thulun as opposed to DV weapons.

I think it makes the records business much more interesting. No more spying selling on faction's records right back to them. Obviously they're going to want records that pertain to their enemies. Which raises the question will records faction be the one that created them or the one they pertain too?

In the real world there are more trade sanctions rather than total trade bans and in some cases these sanctions raise the value of particular items as well (Cuban Cigars?). Normally that pertains mostly to luxury goods though. It would be interesting to see sectorized trade bans, and I do think that raw materials trade bans are worth thinking about. Starving a faction of the materials needed to make weapons and ships is a powerful tool. Food stuffs should almost never be banned, at least not the basics. Looking at the current sanctions on Iranian oil is an interesting example.

I'm looking at the list of conflicts in ST4X right now. The Trade Route is an interesting idea. I imagine these as basically guaranteed safe money makers. When there is a trade route you can be certain that there will be some profits and a well patrolled corridor to haul those goods. You would have almost no risk, but the rewards would be meager too. It would be fallback work if you just need to grind out some cash for repairs/upgrades. On the other hand Trade Routes could be very specific agreements with higher rewards. Rychart is taking Javat Electronics and Javat is taking Rychart luxury goods etc. Trade Alliances would be more general.

When it comes to crew, it seems like they should be respected as the crew of the Captain as long as they stay on the ship. If they are going to go after crew based on faction than they ought to go after the captain too. If anything it seems like conflicts should have more internal effects on the crew. i.e. they hate you because you're selling weapons to the faction that just firebombed their home world or they love you because you're carrying goods made by their grand-pappy in the factories of their faction and selling them to a friendly faction.

Also any chance we would get to participate in Vax-Jak'tar Championship. Perhaps the crowing achievement or end-game for an accomplished bounty hunter?