Official Lore Factions

And this is why this server is still shit.

 

Elaborate, please?

 

This is the reason for moderator oversight. The entire argument behind "Rising up from scratch" came from factions that abused their power and cities, advertised as brand sparkling new, that were megacities already. If you say a faction flew a bunch of ships into the system, they'd have an acute number of resources. They could build quickly, supply quickly, etc. It makes sense then. The challenge, however, becomes retaining that supply. It is perfectly fine, in my opinion, to start with something. It is not okay, however, to start with everything and need nothing.

Even the fleet was guilty of being too self sustaining. While the claim that supply depots existed was an excuse, they were never necessary to materialize and they required not time to set up. What I'm saying is this: Balance things. Instead of stomping down a faction for having money, get them to supply only a reasonable amount of that money. Having quadrillions in disposable income is one thing, having the materials to outfit soldiers, build an outpost and sustain one's self long enough to get actual procurement in place is a totally realistic thing, however.

Even better if it means that factions and colonies need to live symbiotically, trade, etc. Having the ability to conjure unlimited resources is not an excuse to have them IC. But the backlash has been a little harsh.

 

This is still being tried to do with player factions, so it's not just an issue with lore factions.

 

Interest often rises in the planning phase. A lot of "I'll hold back and see how it goes, then see if I want to join in"s. Rarely does it translate into the actual process of it.

 

That's interest check. Did they (like the Miniknog one) finally start up?

I don't know about them personally, they were being talked when I went on hiatus I believe.

EDIT: I think there's another case going on right now in that sense of interest. I lately tend to differ between interest and 'interest' (eye-catcher, but not participative. Happened in Fleet later days)

 

Societies have common morals. Do not kill, do not torture, do not randomly blow up structures. Even "evil" factions like the Miniknog (who are, ironically enough, a better society to live in than the player factions on this server) do not advertise killing and torture as moral, instead disguising it as "thought reassignment" and such. If you think Florans prove this rule wrong, kindly remove yourself from the human genepool.

However, this server has always had the notion that "Mc. Billy's Band of Tards' faction" who spend their entire day killing anyone who insults them, must have the same 'power' as a faction that is an integated and functional component of a moral society. In other words, factions that are a component of society (like the Fleet) must not actually have any benefits from that society.


Do you know what that means?

You cannot have a faction that is punished by society for acting immoral.

But here's a translation:

Nobody is going to stop you from running a faction of complete fucking autists.

So not only is there no way for society-backed factions to be punished for acting immoral (and thanks to the new moderator mandates, autism is at an all-time high), there is no way for society-backed factions who are moral to punish factions who are acting immoral. Throw in a lack of conflict resolution due to the (lack of) mechanics of Starbound, and you have the recipe to get a server full of flaming shitlords who think they're entitled to be the King Shitlord and don't believe there are consequences for murdering random strangers.
Yes, the irony is intentional.

 

The effort isn't to balance out factions 100% of the time. Factions can grow more powerful than each other, a PC's skills can grow greater than another's. However, it's expected that a character do this in game. While life being unfair is just how it is, this is a community, and everyone is (Theoretically) here to enjoy it and have fun, and the easiest way to ensure that is to make as fair a starting basis as possible for everyone. Curbing a faction's power isn't something that really happens unless it is absolutely needed. Faction regulations happened because of groups like the USCM, RA, and Fleet walking in with massive amounts of resources and very, very little in-game justification of them. Until bad roleplay becomes a factor in a faction, they are free to do as they wish, within the bounds of the Code of Conduct and any other guidelines laid out for the community.

My main point here is that as long as a faction follows the guidelines, it can get as powerful as it wants, it just has to have the proper IC backing to it; balance is not a factor in anything other than the startup of the faction. Lore faction branches could even be brought in through an expeditionary force, or something of that nature. A small group of men on a ship coming in to survey planets for the USCM? Sure, as long as it's lore friendly. The main body of the USCM coming in to take over Antares with all its ships and firepower? That's a problem.

 

That's fine. I still think you're wrong. But that's fine. You don't expect a Miniknog faction to cobble together its elite scientists and soldiers from the dregs in Antares, do you? Or a new Fleet to gather a bunch of people? Simply put, it rarely works like that and so it means that lore-based factions are very hard, or even impossible, to create. Ensure that they are given a reasonable amount of resources at the beginning, that they have legitimate incomes of their resources by the time those run out, but making everyone start from the bottom is... well, it's been totally ignored so far, and it's something that I consider too constricting.

EDIT:
I.E. If a faction is surviving off of supply routes from their mother faction, ensure that those routes can be cut. Make them build supply depots or checkpoints that could be targeted by hostiles. Make them farm, make them mine. But they'd be likely to be given something to start with.

 

I'm not saying start with nothing, as that's not what's required. What's required is starting with something reasonable, but don't say "We're a lore faction" and then expect that to mean you get some extra bonus over everyone with it. It doesn't make any sense for you to be better off than everyone automatically.

Anyways, this is not the main issue with lore factions. The main issue is the abuse/warping of the lore, and the problems that stem from that.

 

Who would run said outposts?

EDIT: Regardless, faction core involvement in Antares is already not allowed due to reasons explained above. It is also worth noting that it's been established that the lore factions have very little interest in Antares at the moment, due to it not holding anything substantial compared to the rest of the universe.

 

The issue here is that NPCs have been banned because of the general abuse of them. Specifically: The Invisible Armies of the USAF. The Fleet was also guilty of their use, particularly early on, but they grew away from that over time. The NPCs eventually were no more useful than lemmings to the Fleet, bodies to fill space really.

Of course, Jim Harrison (God Rest His Soul) counter-abused them by "bribing" NPCs to turn their beak the other way and the Order used them to protect off-limits areas. THE point is, NPCs are too easy to abuse. It usually results in a faction saying "If you step over this line, you get sniper sploded by 50 dudes who you cant interact with and cant even see." So the hammer came down, no more NPCs. Which, of course, is its own stitch in the plan.

An Avian faction has sacrifices, priestlings, ships, etc. all around, but actually playing all of them would be a pain in the ass.
The Glitch have villagers, knights, sentries. "
The USCM has security personnel, maintenance crews, etc. "
The Miniknog has scientists, interns, test subjects, banana fetching robots, etc. "

 

NPCs are allowed with moderation. Specifically, for boring jobs. They just aren't allowed to simply bolster your own faction's numbers, ESPECIALLY in military positions. It's for this reason that the Order has had to switch to PCs as guards. NPCs are allowed as long as their numbers are fitting to the player size or prosperity of the faction. For example, you can't have a group of six semi-active guys and say "We have all this money because our mine has 50 NPC miners". You have to remain sensible about it, and with NPCs, you should roleplay occasional errors or hiccups in whatever menial task they have.

 

Generated towns are actually not considered canon, here, since lore faction involvement is meant to be minimal.

Regarding the outposts, it's a neat idea, but there are issues such as how much it's fair that they produce, how to protect them, what the consent rules regarding them would be, and so on.

And once more, lore faction involvement is not allowed, due to issues explained above.

 

Then who will run the NPC's? I can tell you by experience players even kill NPC's for fun, no matter how much you tweak them, starcheat has made possible for players tweaking themselves as much as they need.

Even with staff controlling them, they need to be unkillable first, standing in a passive stance until a mod can take care of a situation. Starbound mechanics renders them unusable for now, as they cannot be relied on for some tasks.