Letters instead of stars =). P for Pirate, E for Earthforce, B for Bounty Hunter.

I see stuff in alot of the posts about pirates,bounty hunters,junkyards and stuff but i think were over looking a area what about mercenaries?

Thro out history the mercenaries have allways been there people and players who only work for credits...

bounty hunters = mercinaries

pretty much killing for munayz

Mercenaries = Players

Think about it? What do you get when some one wants to do a mission for them? Payment in some form, be it experience, credits, or gear.

bounty hunters and mercinariers are not the same thing bounty hunters kill pirates and bad guys for the police for a fee a mercenary could be on eather side depending who pays more...

hmm, ppl buying stuff from me to kill me, but getting owned by my stuff, so i can take back my stuff to be sold to the next guy...hmm, i like that xD

I like the whole 'Faction' thing.

I was thinking things like

-Bounty Hunter's
-Outcast's
-Earth Force
-Paxian Commerce
-Pirate's

Bounty Hunter

Bounty Hunter's are a Hostile Neutral to all other factions. They do not work for any one particular faction, they will accept contracts from all factions. One minute they will be killing Pirate's for the Earth force, the next, they will be taking down a sector of Earth force defence for the Pirate's to slip through.

Bounty Hunter's may also receive bounties towards other Bounty Hunter's.

Outcast

The Outcast's are similar to that of the Pirate's. Thus they will have a mild relationship with each other, allowing each other access to their specific zones, however, Outcast's aren't all bad, the majority attempt to be good again, but are rejected from their former life.

The Outcast's are the criminals of the universe, they will steal for their needs. The Outcast's were thrown out by Earth force, Paxian Commerce and Bounty Hunter's, giving them a broader choice in gear. The Outcast's technology is a hybrid of all the minor blueprints they obtained from each of their previous factions.

Outcast's generally work together, and attempt to re-create their own society, which is just a hybrid of everything else.


Earth Force

The Earth Force are similar to how they are now. They attempt to 'Police' the universe how they see fit. Earth Force are Neutral, with the exception of Pirate's.

The Earth Force holds high values and morals, therefore they will only respect those who are of a legit and true cause. Hence the reason they are allied with the Paxian Commerce.

Earth Force simply enforce their rules upon other's, they will respond to any distress call, and use all their technology to remove the Pirate threat.


Paxian Commerce

The Paxian Commerce is all about trade, they will deliver any good that is requested of them (for a...small fee.) The Paxian Commerce, similar to the Earth Force have no tolerance for Pirate's, again partially the reason they are allied to Earth Force.

The Paxian Commerce are the capitalists of the universe, they will try to make a profit anywhere, colonizing any planet, hoping it will bring them more credits.

The Paxian Commerce build their gear for the purpose of Speed and Hull. They are required to make a speedy delivery of large objects. (The Faster they get their, the more credits they earn. The more deliveries they make in one trip, the more credits they earn.)


Pirate

Pirate's are the scum of the universe. They take what they want, when they want. They will do what they want, when they want. A Pirate has no values or morals, which is why they will attack anyone on sight.

Pirate's being criminals similar to the Outcast's give them an understanding with each other, which is why they will give each other access to their specific zoning.

The Pirate's being the thieves they are, have no real technology of their own. They attempt to make the ship's they have stolen, more suitable to the Pirate way, but not all experiments are successful.



That's just my suggestion on the Faction's backgrounds

I suggest they each have specific galaxies as I requested in the story lines. I would also suggest that each AI acted in accordance to their faction. So the Pirate AI will attack most neutral AI and attempt to attack the Pax Commerce AI. Generally the Faction's each stay within their specific zones, but on a set timer, they will occasionally 'drift' in war parties, in to the other's zoning. Or they will just meet their most hated enemy in neutral zoning.

This would add a new tab to the mapping, the standard one (Showing all galaxies as blue) The warp one (Showing the different sectors of warps) and then this one, showing the zoning of each Faction.

Enjoy and good luck.

hmm what about tying factions into the whole mzungu lore, blue research stuff?

Leet gears for helping them (was this mentioned deja vu feeling)

That looks awesome. Purely awesome. Seeing something other than just taking missions from every one with out consequence will be cool.

EF and Pax being towards Cap Ships isn't a great pleasure of mine, but the progress is amazing! Content will be great for everyone!

(Wonders if he'll be able to use his Constable Tractor without having to go full earthforce..)

hm, organic battleships and fleets. i like that

Organic...

"Organic Seer" - the ultimate scout/explorer ? Morphing the ships to my play-style, class? Being limited - but of course it has its special benefits - striving hard to return to normal society?

That'll make me beside my (our) plans go p2p (of course if I don't sit in a Space Rat like ship then) till end of the week - it sounds irresistable tempting.


Factions open up another question; As it was mentioned in your initial post if the content is done maybe a faction relation will be introduced:
How far may this go?
It'll be just a - you're a pirate (like you have Pirace miss. or Piracy skill) - you're not allowed to do the EF missions.

Or may it be more like Freelancer as example - if you belong to a specific faction you may looked upon from other factions as part of that faction - aka as pirate your not able to dock (without bribing?) at an EF AI base or even get hunted on sight?
This would be a drastical change to current gameplay style - yet very interesting: AI vs. player relations/reputations.
This would enforce and beef the RPG part of Starsonata - with all cons and pros.

I played on a freelancer server that did this it was not to bad for a while then they changed all the factions.
They made it so you had to pick one you couldn't be like a (junker) and be neutral to all when they made that change the game started to suck so i left...