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Aywanez Posts: 64
6/29/2017
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So this was recently raised in a discussion:
Piracy should be a game feature and not an alt workaround in my opinion. So just implement it as a research and apply in this case on a group or fleet. On the other hand we need a second research to de-mask the pirate with a specific chance depending on the research level.
I think it's a great idea.
The way I see it working is: there's a special mode, where you can attack others and they have a chance (50% base, better for special attacker units/with research, worse if the stack has detector units/research) to attack without identifying themselves (just the unit types attacked with.) This entirely deprives attacker of reparations (even when detected.) Another interesting idea is for each player present (not attacked, present in square) to have a separate chance to recognize the attacker. That way there's an extra reason for players to talk to each other.
Edit: got confused about what "better" meant. oops.
edited by Aywanez on 6/29/2017
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
6/29/2017
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You're talking stealth mechanic to evade War reparations? I think War Reparation simply needs to be put to a vote. If tow corps are warring in small scale then there should be no reparations. If ones beating up 12 noobs then there should. The players need to make that call. If we're talking about Piracy only , thats a gray area. Commit Piracy outside the Planet or system and you will never get a War Reparations. Or maybe we make that a feature? War Rep excludes any combats outside the planet surface or ONLY happens when you attack structures? Or maybe ONLY if you hit a population?
Any other sort of actual stealth doesn't work in a game where we can all see all your assets
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Steffstoff Posts: 22
6/30/2017
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Thanks for quoting me and bring this into the forum Aywanez!
@Doctor Dread My initial though was more the stealth function under the research name piracy. It's about false flag or battle flag during a specific combat. There are a lot of possibilities to implement this, also with special abilities of units. Even the artifacts could bring this feature in. With that we'd create a complete new role in this game, the pirates.
Key points:
- Add ability to activate piracy mode
- Defenders see only a signature of the attacker.
The signature is a code which changes with every tens attack under piracy mode. This is important to identify pirates later on. Because this open a market for pirate bounty hunters with the help of the signatures. - Attacks under piracy mode causes less preparation costs. Perhaps 10 – 20% less?
- If you kill fleets or groups in piracy mode you will get bonus credits from the pirates account.
- Aywanez wrote:
...Another interesting idea is for each player present (not attacked, present in square) to have a separate chance to recognize the attacker. That way there's an extra reason for players to talk to each other. Sounds cool too!
Of course that’s not a final concept but more an rough idea.
Greetings
Steffstoff
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Aywanez Posts: 64
6/30/2017
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Reparations were kind of a tangent here. The idea was raised inside a discussion on reparations and piracy, so I included it here.
The main point is to support a different mode of play on the military branch: player perpetrated piracy! In order for that to work, however, a player needs some way of hiding his units (otherwise they will be immediately killed by, well, everyone- from victims to their senior guild-mates, to system governors.)
RP-wise this means scrubbing all markings from your ships and turning off the transponder. The simplest way to do this mecahnics-wise is to just not say who the attack was by (even though, as you point out, all assets are seen, not all players are online at all times, so you might simply miss the attack and still be none the wiser.) A more complicated way is to have either pirate ships, that are always removed from the ledger, or allow ships to go into pirate mode (and be removed temporarily)
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
6/30/2017
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Aywanez wrote:
Reparations were kind of a tangent here. The idea was raised inside a discussion on reparations and piracy, so I included it here.
The main point is to support a different mode of play on the military branch: player perpetrated piracy! In order for that to work, however, a player needs some way of hiding his units (otherwise they will be immediately killed by, well, everyone- from victims to their senior guild-mates, to system governors.)
RP-wise this means scrubbing all markings from your ships and turning off the transponder. The simplest way to do this mecahnics-wise is to just not say who the attack was by (even though, as you point out, all assets are seen, not all players are online at all times, so you might simply miss the attack and still be none the wiser.) A more complicated way is to have either pirate ships, that are always removed from the ledger, or allow ships to go into pirate mode (and be removed temporarily)
If you want to do stealth piracy, as in identity is hidden, Its something I can look into when the pirate factions come into the game. You can bribe them to attack, or maybe even raid(?) for money but no one needs to know who paid them.
Another option is that you actually gain control to issue orders, but not ownership, of a faction unit or group to go attack with. No one knows who's issuing its orders. Come to think of it that might work out really well. You pay to get "command" of a unit or entire group from a pirate faction for certain number of turns. With deposit if the unit is destroyed. Then do whatever you like with it. Go attack a city, raid a player, escort your own ships, whatever you like. You can pay billions and take command of a huge group. No one knows who took command, you can even attack yourself because its not your corp units =)
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Hutton Posts: 276
7/1/2017
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I'm going to risk stirring up a sh*t storm here and suggest that the controversial practice of creating an second account is a stealth mechanic, and a working mechanic at that.
This is why I like the policy of letting the community self regulate the multiple account issue and have pushed back against the calls for black and white rules with strict enforcement. Setting wise, it makes perfect sense to me that a game about Corporations with private armies would have those corporations setting up dummy corporations to do their dirty work. You just have to catch them doing it.
My take on this might be colored by my own professional experience. I'm a Fraud Investigator for a local goverment agency. And that is exactly what corporations do. They set up LLC's that own other LLC's. You have to subpoena the bank records to figure out who ultimately owns what. And maybe it's just me, but studying the contracts to figure out the relationships between different in game corporations is my favorite part of Barons of The Galaxy.
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Tahujoe Posts: 25
7/1/2017
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This raises the issue in RP of how orders are conveyed to units. So far, public activity has obviated the need for transparency in when orders are being set and who's setting whose orders.
As an intelligence layer counter: Listening stations (or units, as already suggested). Tie this system to the signature idea. We don't care as much about publicly issued orders, but we want to know about the following triggers that would indicate a switch to encrypted comms:
A ship is sent an order to begin or end engaging in piracy.
A ship has its orders changed while in piracy mode.
And two flag points, basically in a radius out from the listening centers: The HQ (or other structure?) sending the order and the unit receiving the order. We only care if a flag is switched on by the owning player messing with the orders list on a given turn. If they don't change the orders of a given pirate unit, that unit should not be giving any hints as to whose it is.
Uh, hm..
when changing orders
if pirate flags
check from ( HQ xor intelligence center) and target unit up to certain radius out
for each listening posts strong enough to pick up from their distance
send that user a PM about what just happened
that... MIGHT contribute to database bloat, though.
edited by Tahujoe on 7/1/2017
--
I swear I'm not trying to break things.
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
7/1/2017
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Hutton wrote:
I'm going to risk stirring up a sh*t storm here and suggest that the controversial practice of creating an second account is a stealth mechanic, and a working mechanic at that.
This is why I like the policy of letting the community self regulate the multiple account issue and have pushed back against the calls for black and white rules with strict enforcement. Setting wise, it makes perfect sense to me that a game about Corporations with private armies would have those corporations setting up dummy corporations to do their dirty work. You just have to catch them doing it.
My take on this might be colored by my own professional experience. I'm a Fraud Investigator for a local goverment agency. And that is exactly what corporations do. They set up LLC's that own other LLC's. You have to subpoena the bank records to figure out who ultimately owns what. And maybe it's just me, but studying the contracts to figure out the relationships between different in game corporations is my favorite part of Barons of The Galaxy.
We can always allow you to see all the contracts a corporations has done also, in addition to the assets screen you can already see. If you suspect alt account and military/money moving between them you will be able to take a look.
Transparency is is the best counter to stealthing your alts and I while I can police them when presented I can't realistically find them all. It's the equivalent of putting a "Kill Cam" in first person shooters so you can easily tell if someone is cheating
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