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Faulty Faction Fights
So far I've been participating in the current Song v Scatterhome conflict that involves cosmpiercers and enemy status and here's my thoughts:
So right now, there's two ways that factions can fight: squabble over cosmpiercers (CP) or make deathballs to go "raid" a city. This also comes with a problem that was discovered: enemy status. Scatterhome has access to guards (because they can have leaders right now) and can post them to Reynolds station. Enemy status is a mechanic that comes from former IRE's and works generally alright, since they've worked out the kinks over the years in those games. SM provides a new challenge however: the orgs aren't just a single city-state but an entire zone of control. Additionally, guards can be posted at stations, restricting movement to the area control so that you can't get past the main station to other areas. If you're enemied to 2/3 of the game, then that's a big chunk of the game that's locked out with no real to defend it. You could possibly fly to a substation like Tethan or Norpisa or Barrack IF they are unable to post guards there too, but because you're in "enemy territory" they'd have RP justification for killing you. Does a CP also count as "their territory" for purposes of enemy status if you're fighting over it?
My idea is simple: make enemy status mean kill on sight in home planets (song, haven, litharge), but make it have negative effects for stations. These could be higher costs to use facilities (like cloning, repairs, SF), restrict cloning of being able to be used from these stations, station transfers cost marks now and voidgates have higher costs, etc etc. It would be less of a hard counter against enemies but a discouragement, as well as cost-benefit analysis. This wouldn't make the CP issue solved (although I personally believe that CP's should not be grounds for enemy status, given the constant take-and-retake model they're built on) but would make it a lot less punishing for a newb who has no idea the consequences of joining in what seems to be a friendly city activity, but ends up dying and gets enemied.
The second problem is a lot harder to deal with: deathballs. Right now, there is no mechanics made to let cities fight it out directly without using CP's as an intermediary (which has no warning systems for when a CP is being attack, captured, or lost) or the deathballs. It doesn't have to be perfect or something long-term, but having SOMETHING to let individual or group combat take place (ideally over something RP related) between the factions would be desired. This would reduce or eliminate the chance for questionable methods that could be used (*COUGH* Tanris 8+ hour raids *COUGH*) and would channel the group pvpers into a proper structure instead of the free-for-all we currently have.
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Comments
As far as the raiding stuff, should be left to the raiders to get enemied and not enemy a faction as a whole. They'll earn their status and suffer the consequences of attacking on home planets. I like your ideas on upping prices for enemies on stations, etc etc, cus that would still allow movement when we wanna explore.
I also feel we shouldn't be quick to enemy factions considering how early we are in this new game :P All in all, let the single raiders get punished and let us non-raiders explore!