I have been participating in some threads lately where various problems always seem to lead me to thinking that NW is slowly but surely moving the political and social structure of the game to center on the large orgs. Many small orgs are being absorbed for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that they are the only ones that regularly have enough people online to defend a base that comes under attack.
I have put some ideas out, got a little feedback, and would like to present those ideas on a larger scale. Hopefully, some of you will see some worth in these basic thoughts and give suggestions on how to improve the idea (and maybe how to convince FC that it is worth implementing). I will include some of the feedback I've received elsewhere in a second post following the setup of the thread.
Note: I won't deny that these ideas are primarily beneficial to small guilds... but I have put in a little bit to make it worth while being in a large guild that doensn't regularly have to rely on outside assistance to keep their base.
I have added some further elaborations to the core ideas based on suggestions (current information time/date stamp is:
0500 GMT Dec 21, 2002)
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Set up code for a 'formal alliance' system:
1. Allow any leader to ally his/her org to another guild... and the receiving guild leader the ability to accept or deny the alliance. This alliance is a two-way agreement.
2. Give the leaders on both sides the ability to 'break' an alliance. Any towers built on the land of a former ally self-destruct instantly upon the breach of alliance. A destroyed alliance should be announced on org leaders channel.
3. Allow multiple alliances... however A&B allied and B&C allied does not automatically confer an alliance between A&C, etc.
Benefits of alliance:
1. All allied organizations of an attacked base receive comm reports when towers/controllers are attacked.
2. All allied organizations can use the grid features of controllers for organizations to which they are allied. This allows defense forces to be raised quickly and to disperse easily when the battle is completed. This also provides one of the more useful peacetime features of an alliance... ease of transportation and scouting missions on nearby enemy bases (and staging grounds for attacks on them). A skill check to use an allied controller vs. one's on org controller grid feature might be more difficult than normal (higher CL requirement perhaps).
3. Allied organizations can build towers on an organization site. These towers are labled as 'allied units' and have special conditions and limitations attached (see below). These towers provide personal bonuses to the builder and must otherwise meet all normal construction criteria (except the 'land owned by organization' check which would be also indicate true if it was owned by an allied org). This benefit allows orgs to 'share' bases up to a certain extent, since only those members who have the ability to build towers would receive personal bonuses (note: the ability to build towers on other bases does NOT confer the ability to build more towers than normally allowed based on level of the character).
4. Organization leaders are given the ability to synchronize their suppression systems with those of allies. Requires all allied leaders agreement to change this (and when done, it changes ALL gas times to match). [At this time, I'm not sure this requirement would be sufficient to keep org leaders from changing times to avoid battles... perhaps limiting this to synchronizing it by triggering 25% period on all bases in 5 min. time. Then, any change would make them all susceptible at a controllable time rather than giving anyone the chance of postponing it. Possibly, doing this might have a side benefit of reducing the time the base is in 25% by an hour?]
Limitations of alliance:
1. All alliance bonuses and abilities do not apply until the organizations have been allied for a minimum of 12 hours (12 prevents people from allying purely for a single defense time advantage and then dropping the alliance when it is over, but is short enough to prevent alliance breaking by moles from disrupting things for more than one danger period).
2. Allied organizations do not receive the contract bonuses, only the owners of the controller receive this. Thus, under no circumstances does any organization ever receive contract bonuses for more than one base of each 'type' (based on QL) ... and then only if the controllers for those bases are owned by that org.
3. Being in an alliance reduces the available contract 'points' received from all org controlled bases by twenty percent. This is a one time overall reduction. Thus, a ql200 controller only yields 160 pts for contracts... whether the organization owning the base has one ally or ten. This restriction prevents orgs across the board from simply allying with everyone without having some penalty. Organizations who are not allied with anyone will still recieve full value and be able to have higher contract bonuses. (This is the main factor in the favor of the large orgs)
4. If an organization makes an offensive strike on a base that lowers their own bases to 25%... all allied organization bases are also lowered to 25%. This is to ensure that alliances remain cooperative ventures and not simply agreements of expediancy for all parties. Also, it provides a significant difference in alliances for the defense of all members... and those alliances made for the purpose of staging/waging war.
** Allied units **
towers set up on a base by an allied organization's member:
1. May only be dismantled by the officers of the organization that owns the base or by the builder of the tower. They may not be removed by the officers of the builder's organization.
2. These towers have their local features disabled during 5% periods by automatic circuitry to prevent conflict with equipment owned by the organization controlling the site. During this time, they do not attack hostiles nor do they provide local effects. They do continue to provide personal bonuses to the builder.
An optional third factor to these allied unit type towers:
3. These towers are never considered to be owned by the organization controlling the base and are not. Thus, they can be attacked by any individual or group without the need to disable shielding as long as the proper suppression gas requirements are met. note: this is just an idea i had while putting these ideas down... I'm not sure if it serves any real value... but it would be a slightly interesting twist to strategy in fighting a base set up by allied forces.
Other notes:
In all cases, any attack on any tower or controller located on a base that the organization owns or is allied to should provide comm warnings to that organization.
Any significant attack on the property of an organization (destruction of a tower or PvP death of a member) to which you are allied should reset the alliance to a 'conditional' state that requires the leaders to reformalize the alliance. This should only be possible during 5% gas period... but allows moles to be slightly disruptive at a dangerous moment. The leaders should receive a report about the individual who is responsible for this. Ie... mole of this type is only effective once.
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Jaesic
172 NT (rk2)