Istvan's Update:
The NEW Way to War is the Big Four
In my last column, I promised to
describe some of the big pieces of the warfare project. I think of the system as having
four major and a horde of minor components. The four big ones are Building Damage,
Territorial Conflict, the Military Flight Registry, and Privateering.
One problem facing the warfare system is that factions have no obvious assets to fight
over. I hope to present additional solutions, but the first, fastest way out of this
problem is to make it possible to damage the many valuable buildings around TRI space.
Please note that "buildings" doesn't include stations, but does include things
like Custom Producers and Naval Yards. It will also make sense to make long-desired
adjustments to the Bomber class ships at the same time.
Besides attacking and defending buildings, I also want to offer factions the ability to
fight over real territory. I fully intend to set up a method to change factional ownership
of sectors. In its present concept, capturing a sector will involve building and defending
some type of structure. I expect to dispense completely with the present, squad-based
"sector claim" mechanics. This will end up forcing me to consider changes to the
game's venerable tax systems, too. Changing sector ownership is going to require serious
concern for balance: The process cannot be too easy, or it will be ridiculous. Yet with
the game's present population size, it cannot be overly hard, or people will simply become
frustrated and give up trying to claim a sector for their faction.
Possibly the most controversial piece will be the creation of a Military flight registry.
It will probably surprise many people to learn that I expect this to be the most difficult
part of the entire system to set up. The Military registry is going to largely supplant
the old Honor Guard, but I'm going to keep a version of HG Tag around for special use
(such as for future WoWs and other no-repercussions combat events). The Military registry
will be focused on exactly the kind of activity we normally see from factionalist RP, but
I intend to set up a special mission system specifically for the Military pilots that will
allow them to select tasks that directly benefit their faction, tend to get them into PvP
situations, and reward them well for their service. Military mission income is intended to
be a big part of solving the PvP pilot cashflow problem. I plan several types of Military
missions, but the most obvious type will be the return of the old PvP Combat missions,
which some veterans will remember from Beta. Note well: the PvP mission targets will be
opposing faction Military pilots, never Civilians, and I intend to keep that as a guiding
principle in all attempts to foster conflict through the mission system.
Since I don't expect all the factions to be in a constant state of war, the final major
feature I'm describing here will be very important: once the other major portions of the
warfare system are working, I intend to add a Privateering system, which will allow
players of one faction to take up service for another's military. This means that if
Solrain and Octavius are at war, a Quantar PvP pilot isn't forced to watch from the
sidelines, or to use a second account to get involved in the fight. This "foreign
legion" system is meant to allow anyone who wants to get involved to do so, in any
fight happening in the game, without violating their own faction's Rules of Engagement.
The group of changes that comprise the warfare system are the most ambitious project to be
tackled within Jumpgate since Episode 2 during 2002-2003. Unlike the Episode 2 project, I
am attempting to assemble these changes while continuing to release incremental patches.
The unfortunate result is that many of the recent patches have seemed a bit skimpy, and I
keep running to delays because after ripping apart a bunch of stuff for warfare, it has to
all be put back together in some functioning form in order to relase other material.
Hopefully the dry spell will be worth it. The biggest lesson I've perhaps learned is that
any significant changes to a running game should be approached with extreme care, and in
the meantime I've come to develop a much deeper respect for what Josh undertook when
Episode 2 was originally announced.
At the moment, I'm dealing with some special work pertaining to things that will no doubt
be announced by NetDevil in the very near future, and feverishly trying to make good on my
previous announcements that major changes will be made to the systems governing conflux. I
consider these flux issues to be a very important preliminary for the warfare system,
because of longstanding complaints that the conflux get in the way of a good PvP fight. I
hope the results will be that flux are even more fun for the career fluxers to deal with,
and that the flux impact on PvP will be helped by the new approach. The Test Team and I
are trying to beat this conflux material in shape to go live as rapidly as possible so I
can focus for the balance of the summer on the warfare features.
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