And what Tyrannis could have brought on the table.
Please note that this is mostly an idea that I have developed over time and that it could need a little more refining.
Please also note that I am definitly not talking about moon mining and tech 2 ore, POS warfare, or DUST. CCP seems (?) to be working on that and it is mostly independent to what I have in mind.
The thing is also that if you are expecting clear game mechanisms and details, that's actually not what I will get into. It's mostly at the conceptual stage. Developing details and precise game mechanisms would probably ask for a LOT of work (and create infinite walls of text and stats).
Sorry if it's still in a messy form. I may add stuff over time in the future too.
What is it you are talking about ?
Well mostly, it is about the non existing economy in nullsec mostly.
What we have in nullsec is : pvp, sovereignty warfare, and some other random industrial activities that can also be performed everywhere else, though here with some nullsec specific materials available too (like Arkonor, etc).
What we do not have is a true, nullsec driven economy. What we do not have is a way to make nullsec economy more dynamic.
So in short, I do believe that what cripples nullsec currently is its static resources and inability to provide a true interest in making industry on site, rather than just harvesting the raw materials and jumpfreighting them back to Empire.
What is the concept then ?
The idea is basically to compare Empire NPC sovereign entities with nullsec entities. It is true that nullsec entities are mostly driven by capsuleers and not actual governements of standard baseliner citizens, but they could still be compared adequately in terms of gamedesign.
What we currently have for example is the possibility to mine, or harvest planets, in empire regions, high or low sec. But the more the security status is high, the less resources we can find in space, or harvest on planets. That can easily be explained by the fact that the Empires are probably calling dibs on most of the valuable resources, without counting that this space has probably been exploited a lot more than rim space like nullsec. So, once you get into lowsec, it is probable that the Empire do not have the need or the will to make all the valuable resources their property. Less mining NPC corporations interest here, so that could explain why we can harvest more valuable stuff from there as capsuleers.
After this bit of lore oriented theory, it leaves nullsec as a space mostly untouched by the Empires, except NPC nullsec that is obsviously being exploited by NPC pirate entities. So, if there is no Empire interference here, capsuleers have access to all the valuable resources that they can find. They can also set up their own little empires and claim sovereignty. That is, basically, what we have now.
What if these little player driven Empires actually worked in similar ways than the true NPC Empires ? Meaning that they have a real infrastructure, with real normal people coming here to work for opportunities.
Getting back to what is one of the issues that makes nullsec like a giant napfest unlike the full scale wars in the old times, is that nullsec has become even more static. Juicy moon resources are static, valuable bits of space are static, everything is basically static. So, the idea is to make most of that dynamic.
How do you make that dynamic ? What does PI have to do with that ?
Well, remember the old 4X games like Master of Orion or Civilization ?
Consider that a barren solar system is mostly worthless dynamically, but still interesting for its static raw resources (asteroids, anomalies, etc). It is what we have now. You can perfectly harvest basic resources from every solar system like you do now.
Then start to consider that you can "upgrade" a solar system by making it productive. Claim sovereignty over a system, and start to make "settlers" come. Provide them space colonies around planets, build custom offices and startports, and let them settle on the planet itself. Then what ? Well, they need work obviously, because you know how people feel when they are unemployed : they just tend to leave.
What kind of jobs ? Well, planetary interaction stuff, to begin with. Make them work in your little factories like the demi gods you are, and make them create PI resources. They will then need those PI resources to actually construct their own infrastructure.
You know, the usual. Your little Empire will probably first need food and water, and they will just live in prefab stuff (like in Mass Effect new colonies). So, obviously, better to colonize temperate and oceanic worlds (waterworld yeaaww !) to make agriculture things. We already have some of these in PI, no ?
Then the trick is to tell how much of that, once produced, you want to give to your settlers. Will you make them starve to death with 10% or give them generous amounts like 80-90% ? Do not make them grow too fast though : it's a matter of good balance, and if you do it well you can even keep the excess for yourself. Win-win.
Then obviously they will start to need other kinds of materials. You know, like actual metals to build stuff to replace their old prefabs CONCORD generously provided to you before starting your own little empire. Where do we find these ? Well, barren, for example. Let's do it again then. Build startports and custom offices in orbit, let some of your citizens leave their temperate world and come on these less inhospitable planets to work for your metals and industrial basic materials. Start to settle your PI infrastructure to make that dream of them a reality, and be sure that you make them happy because they will obviously need a little more work on that side since a barren planet is less "okay" for life than their old shiny temperate/oceanic world.
And here we go again, you got basic metals and basic things to further develop your Empire. Make sure to build trading ports in orbit (like in Sins of a Solar Empire), and they wil start to make material transactions possible between all your planets. So your citizens on your temperate worlds will now have access to building basic materials, and your citizens on your barren worlds will have access to more food and especially, water, since they may lack of that a little.
After ? Well, you got the idea. You can start to colonize even less hospitable planets like arctic worlds, lava planets, gas giants, etc. Lava planets will provide for heavy (but more specific) industrial resources that barren were not able to provide (where barren resources are used for almost everything). Gas giants will start to provide stuff like isotopes, oxygen for your space structures, and fuel for the starships of your trading ports, for example. Ice planets could be a little more specific and used for sciencey things, creating a huge amount of technological development for your empire.
Of course, keep in mind since these worlds provide more advanced resources used for specific advanced things, they are harder to maintain. People are most likely to get unhappy if there is a shortage of resources, and they will start to leave. If they leave, then it means that maybe some of these valuable advanced resources will lack on your most hospitable worlds that make the core of your empire, and so, you will start to witness a technological reversal.
And then all of this for what you may ask ?
It is true that making your little empire grow up more and more is nice and all, but pointless if that is the finality of the thing. So, we obviously need a valuable resource, not for the citizens this time, but for us. The little excess of resources produced on all your planets is nice but ultimately, it is just a lot more profitable for us, eggers, to just set traditionnal PI colonies and get all the stuff produced here.
With that in mind, the capsuleer valuable here could be more or less based on the advancement progress of your little society. Basically, it is the level of technology available to them. So, the most developed they are, the more profitable they become (you know, like in the old city sims). You will of course be able to decide how much you want to tax them, and of course the more you tax them, the more the risk for those working on your harsher worlds to become unhappy. But overall, a lightly taxed advanced population will provide thousand times more than a heavily taxed, poor, prehistorical population living in prefabs and growing vegetables.
So, what does this imply ?
It's our new T2 moon el dorado alternative. The thing is, however, that it is definitly not static. It is completely dynamic, and anybody can create it anywhere in nullsec space, mostly through core metropolises on temperate/oceanic planets, that can host most of your population (yeah, lava, gas, plasma worlds have a very low population cap).
However, it would be too easy that way, and everyone would get his own cash flow. And thus, even less war in nullsec if everyone is happy with his own little, profitable corner of space.
So, let's say that the more a metropolis on a temperate world grows, the more cultural radius it produces, measured in light years (ala civilization). Meaning that the more a metropolis grows technologically, the more it starts to act as a "cultural blackhole". Which means your neighboring systems with temperate planets will start to seriously compete with it and at some point one will "win" over the other. For the fluff, all the civilian industries will start to gather around one, and thus amplifying the effect, for example. At some point, when you start to have a well developed metropolis, it can very well dominate a whole region of space culturally, and even more. At any rate, metropolises belonging to different nullsec empires will start to seriously compete with each other, and so, "eat" each other. And if you, the capsuleers on the top of this, let this happen to your own metropolis, you lose your own wealth, and eventually, your Empire might collapse since population will start to leave your planets randomly, thus creating huge depressions in your carefully planned net of resources. Some planets will start to produce too much, other not enough, and chaos will ensue.
Best way to deal with the issue ? Just go wage war on your annoying neighbor of course. Reclaim his own space. But do that at your own risks since the amount of population you can support is definitely limited by the PI you can produce, eventually.
How does the advancement of your society produce wealth exactly ?
Good question. I do not have a clear answer for this.
It can perfectly be a new system replacement for T2 moon mining. Meaning that the more advanced your empire is, the more you have access to the technology needed to harvest valuable moon products. A starting empire will only be able to harvest moons at a R2-R4 level for example, where a very advanced empire will be able to harvest his moons with R16 technetium and things.
Advancement and progress
Keep in mind that your empire does not systematically need to be a hundred stars empire to start to be "advanced". You can perfectly set up a "city state" like empire over a single constellation with all the right planets inside. But eventually, you are more vulnerable to outside influence since the buffer zone between your metropolises and the neighbors' is very thin.
But will that not favor "blob empires" ? Empires spanning over multiple regions ? Yes, and there is nothing wrong with that, but like everything it has to be well balanced. With Dominion you already have limits to the size of space you can claim. We can perfectly keep that kind of mechanisms to prevent people to expand too easily. For example, it could even be harder and harder to expand since the more far away your colonies are from your metropolises, the more difficult they are to make happy and the more corrupt they could be. Hell, they could even be easier to "convert" by the enemy and suddenly defect.
Whatever works, really. Matter of balance.
Sovereignty rights
I want to make sure there is a clear separation between standard "Capsuleer" Planetary Interaction and "Civilian" Planetary Interaction. The former is what we already have and my idea does not really concerns it. The latter however, would be a possibility at alliance level only. Which means that only an alliance can set up a limited amount of PI colonies working as described above. With command center replaced by colony capital cities, or whatever. They would of course produce a LOT more powergrid and CPU than usual colonies, and that amount could very well increase dramatically with population and advancement level.
Which also means that planets of interest for alliances exploiting that kind of empires will mostly can harvested for that, and setting up a standard PI on these will probably not get you more resources than doing so in high sec space since most of the resources will be reserved by the sovereign entity implanted here. However, alliances hardly need all the planets in the vicinity (especially when reaching higher advancement levels, with the blackhole metropolis effect and all), and these will remain fully available to standard PI.
Like nullsec alliance already often do, you can also make lesser alliances pay a rent to live in a corner of space. Here that kind of feudalism would be formalized, allowing them to become vassal states / puppet states to increase your weight as an alliance (since you are limited by the limits of the PI you can set up). Like for feodality then, manage your vassals well since eventually, a king can be overthrown if the balance of power is not kept in his favor, why not ? That sure would provide more conflict. More paranoid leaders yes, and rightfully so since their neighbors could very well decide to attack them when there is internal strife.
Trade and other agreements
Formalized treaties could be good, I think. Like trade agreements between alliances. When signing such a treaty, alliances could make their trading ports trade with each other too. They would of course have to set (or not) a limit to the trade that can occur to prevent their internal PI balance not to get completely screwed up by that new stream of lacking materials coming from the neighbor.
If a war happens, then of course a treaty would be considered void and traffic exchange would cease, and that could lead to interesting political dynamics where some alliances could pressure others through embargo.
Which could lead to casus belli and wars, of course.
Pirate and privateers raids
Can I cripple another empire economy ? Sure you can ! Just go over a planet and start bombing all the colonies with tactical orbital bombardment weapons. It will of course ask you to devote a little time to destroy most buildings on the surface, and since it will automatically ring alarms bells (via mail notifications or whatever) all over the alliance of which you are pissing in the cheerios, expect to see angry fleets of theirs coming up your way.
Of course, raiding a little colony on a gas giant is quicker that carpet bombing a whole metropolis. Like a matter a seconds/minutes vs a matter of minutes/lots of minutes.
Also, with the new POS mechanics planned by CCP, if am I not mistaken, you could set up POSes in planetary orbit. That would be a good way to prevent people to bombard too easily your valuable assets, and would also protect your vulnerable starports, custom offices, and trading ports, even if why not, you could add a limited amount of POS turrets around them, without a POS, but say, with a little unshielded listening post.
Considering that alliances do not (or should not) have the means to set up POSes around all their planets, only the most vital planets would be protected by POSes and death stars, while smaller colonies would only get a handful of turrets as their sole defense. It would allow for small skirmish gangs of raiders to raid the less valuables one, being able to harass the targeted alliance without completely destroying its society.
It could also be a vital tactic when enemy metropolises start to seriously threaten each other, to harass one and allow your own to get the advantage over the other. "THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE CAPITAL CITY IN THIS REGION, AND ITS OURS. BURN THEIRS TO ASHES."
Then the dilemna is "do we want to spend a lot of our income on POS defense or for other things ?".
Any link with industry ? And outposts ?
Of course there is. The main issue is that most serious industry is performed in high sec space since there is no true benefit to do it in nullsec (quite the contrary actually). The trick is not to destabilize the market by making it cheaper to do in nullsec for everyone. It would be totally unfair for all the producers living in high sec if nullsec people are more competitive due to various advantages. The idea is of course to make industry cheaper to do for people in nullsec compared to what it would cost them to move all the materials in high sec. But not cheaper overall (that's important).
I have not really thought a lot about what could be done and I believe that there is a lot of more knowledgeable industrials amongts us than myself.
However I believe that as long as there are true incentives for nullseccers to build a full, viable industry infrastructure in nullsec, we can make the advancement and progress of every nullsec empire even more valuable by basically making it necessary for industry. And the more advanced the industry is, the more advancement the alliance needs to have. Also, the more industrial need there is (in terms of amount), then the more population/citizens/planets you need.
Alliances could also, why not, conscript industrial capacities of their vassals if they have any, when in a dire situation (or in normal situation, just because they want to be tyrans, you know...).
So, well, if you have ideas to add here on the industrial side of things, I would be genuinely happy to hear it.
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Topic: What Dominion should have been (Read 806 times)