Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: Sutopia on January 06, 2017, 05:36:39 PM
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Since we get transponders to identify each other, is it possible to implement false flag?
For instance, you just beated an enemy enforcer fleet, you find their transponder and managed to copy the code to disguise yourself as one of them. Of course there will be some way to reveal your true identity, like making direct contact, but it might be useful when you travel around in a hostile area just to make enemy patrol not bother chasing you down.
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This might be fun. It was a widely used tactic throughout history for pirates, smugglers, etc. What is a transponder if not a modern analog to the flags and bunting of yore?
It's risky, since your allies might attack you, and they might not believe you when you reveal your true flag; or they might be vexed that you wasted their time and ding you rep.
It would also be funny if you're in a captured luddic cerberus or beatup smuggling hound, and try to broadcast a hegemony transponder but it just makes the patrols even more suspicious since your ship type belies your true nature.
If the player did it that would mean the pirates and other mercenaries should do it too. Identification would rely more on getting close enough to other fleets and surmising their affiliation by ship composition. Paranoia, confusion, and uncertainty would become a major focus of the game.
I personally would love that, but many people complain that the game is already too hard and just want to play a brainless shoot em up. (Which is a legitimate design focus for a game)
However the false flags might fit in well with starsector since it already has lots of cool wonky stuff like the sensors and economics.
(Episode 7 of the show Expanse has something like this)
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Smugglers already do this, sometimes to a beginning bounty hunter's frustration.
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sure, but it needs to be harder than merely selecting it.
a transponder probably squawks a reasonably well-encrypted identifier which means you'd have to buy, steal or loot it to know what it is.
being able to merely switch on an identifier at no risk or cost is too easy.
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Perhaps on defeating a fleet, there could be a chance to salvage a transponder code for its faction. It could then be used instead of your regular transponder--at least, for a little while. These codes would expire after a certain amount of use, and/or a certain amount of time (probably quite short for both).
Pirate and some independent stations could also sell these codes, giving reasons for the more deviously-inclined to keep the former around and not get too hated by them.
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Have them need to be bought, stolen or killed for, basically never dropped in combat (max level salvage only, if ever? Plus requiring (and costing) way more industrial equipment than is generally feasible to recover), and have it hav limited charge of how many relation points it can eat before the observers check your signal thoroughly enough to see through the rouse with the difference between your actions and the relationship between your victim and the flag you're flying multiplying the charge drain.
It'd tie in well with the accumulated relation hit you get currently with running transponder off and would function well either as a pointsink for relation hits or as an impromptu stealth system.
Also, the relation hit you've banked on a false transponder should be, if you escape eyes before you turn it off, rolled up into a number, multiplied by a factor based on the difference between the ending balance of your false flag's relation hit banked (starting from neutral) and the actual relationship between the target and the faction you pretended to be and then multiplied by the military strength of the two party's local markets and that number is used to determine how much fleet points get spent assembling and dispatching a joint series of hunter-seeker fleets that attempt to hunt you down and figure out who you were.
That way if you pretend to be someone that hated a faction and bombed their station out of existence, neither side would care or believe it when the report that that ship that did exactly what we expected the Pathers to do wasn't actually a Panther, and if you're hated by Sindria and use a false flag to safely run an atlas full of food to a famine-stricken Sindrian world for profit, once they realize you weren't the ally you pretended you were, everyone involved shrugs their shoulders, burns the report and moves on with their lives.
But if you pretend to be an ally to make a strike or pretend to be an enemy to make profit off of making peace terms, the two parties are hurt not just by your actions but by you undercutting their legitimacy, and governments HATE when you do that
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Smugglers already do this, sometimes to a beginning bounty hunter's frustration.
I think they only turned transponder off, not trying to pretend to be something else.
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Smugglers actually change faction between Pirate and Independent.
If they are close to a pirate base they become Pirate smugglers.
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Not to mention if you fight a pirate that suddenly turned Independent at the last moment, you suddenly become hostile with the Independents, probably losing up to 150 reputation for such nonsense.
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IIRC that was a thing back in .65.2, when pirate fleets spawned on non-Pirate worlds as Independent mercenary fleets and would then travel out of the system to an edge of the hyperspace to "switch" into pirates. Would love to see that bit re-implemented.
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Not to mention if you fight a pirate that suddenly turned Independent at the last moment, you suddenly become hostile with the Independents, probably losing up to 150 reputation for such nonsense.
Direct contact should force to show true flag.
Besides, you can disengage anyways.
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Yes, disengage is an option, and it is silly. If player can change flags, I would like to have NPC benefits when they change flag mirrored to me. "Oh, you switched to Independent instead of <some enemy faction> at the last second? Okay, we'll let you go!"
It is a bit frustrating to chase down a pirate only to have it change to Independent at the last moment. I feel like "No, you cannot fool me with that cheap trick!" or "You made me burn supplies and time chasing you down!"
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Yes, disengage is an option, and it is silly. If player can change flags, I would like to have NPC benefits when they change flag mirrored to me. "Oh, you switched to Independent instead of <some enemy faction> at the last second? Okay, we'll let you go!"
It is a bit frustrating to chase down a pirate only to have it change to Independent at the last moment. I feel like "No, you cannot fool me with that cheap trick!" or "You made me burn supplies and time chasing you down!"
Go chase pirate armada, they don't false flag ;)
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Not to mention if you fight a pirate that suddenly turned Independent at the last moment, you suddenly become hostile with the Independents, probably losing up to 150 reputation for such nonsense.
Your fault for not reading the intro carefully enough. Your problem. :P Besides, what the OP is suggesting wouldn't just outright change the faction of the fleet (hence the "false flag" thing).
False flag (or just saying you're someone else) is a fine idea. Although there should be ways for the AI to both use this as well as detect it if the player isn't careful enough (for example, if a customs agent comes knocking and you're not presenting the right faction, you should get exposed, etc.).
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Go chase pirate armada, they don't false flag ;)
Not something an early-game beginner can do and live. Players who just start the game need to find small targets, like scouts and smugglers, while avoid big death balls.
Your fault for not reading the intro carefully enough. Your problem. :P Besides, what the OP is suggesting wouldn't just outright change the faction of the fleet (hence the "false flag" thing).
Yes, OP suggestion is different from what is actually in the game. Current way in game makes no sense. If I do what makes sense (kill obviously evil enemy hoping to avoid death by changing faction clothes at the last moment), then the new faction gets very angry. Yes, after the first time it happened, I was surprised, and I do not do that anymore. But it is still aggravating. It is like an unknown criminal putting on police uniform in plain sight of officers chasing him, and cops act like "Oh, he's one of us!" That is looney tunes crazy!
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Yes, OP suggestion is different from what is actually in the game. Current way in game makes no sense. If I do what makes sense (kill obviously evil enemy hoping to avoid death by changing faction clothes at the last moment), then the new faction gets very angry. Yes, after the first time it happened, I was surprised, and I do not do that anymore. But it is still aggravating. It is like an unknown criminal putting on police uniform in plain sight of officers chasing him, and cops act like "Oh, he's one of us!" That is looney tunes crazy!
I wonder if you actually thought for a moment, "hey, this probably isn't intended and is just a limitation at the moment" because yes, I'm sure we can all agree that it's pretty silly. But complaining about it (and I seem to hear you mention that every time you bring up any thing for some reason) perpetually isn't going to get it changed any faster, because for it to be changed, it needs the basis of another mechanic, like this. You also fail to mention a fix every time as well. Just something I find annoying of you in particular.
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I do not think much of the smugglers' false flag because it is rarely impacts me (I do not play early-game for long). I brought it up to offer my opinion in this topic, even if it might be annoying for some, since it seems relevant. I doubt I would have brought it up otherwise.
I do not need to justify (i.e., offer solutions to) every gripe I have with the game. Just because I do not always offer a solution does not mean I cannot complain about something that bugs me.
Besides, if I complain that some ship has too few OP, do I really need to write "add more OP" for formality's sake of offering a solution?
P.S. Before anyone gets the wrong idea, no, I do not go out of my way to log in and deliberately troll people while I scheme with glee "Let's see what I, Megas, will post to agitate and start a flame war!"
P.P.S. Occasionally, I may lament and complain about a few things where the solution is something that Alex will almost certainly never do. For example, beams hit for soft flux and are not generally useful like bullets are. Obvious solution: Make beams hit for hard flux (and add another problem where AI cannot defend against continuous hard flux buildup). After years of beams being as they are in the game, I can bet that beams will not changed to hit for hard flux.