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Author Topic: Faction control: commodity legality toggles!  (Read 1475 times)

DeMatt

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Faction control: commodity legality toggles!
« on: November 29, 2018, 09:49:26 AM »

I'd like to be able to toggle individual commodities to be "legal" or "illegal" (or if you prefer, "traded" versus "embargoed").  Want to starve out the Sector by only providing Food to your own faction?  Embargo it, then raid everybody else's farms!

Of course, toggling every commodity to be illegal comes with consequencesTM.  The more out-of-tune with another faction you are, the less they like you - say, a perfect match nets you +5/month in Attitude, while each differing legality is -5 to that.  So, theoretically Hegemony and Luddic Church would have a permanent -5/month to each other because of their disagreement over trading two commodities.

In combination with my tariff slider suggestion, this would obviate the utility of the "Free Port" button.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2018, 09:51:37 AM by DeMatt »
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c plus one

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Re: Faction control: commodity legality toggles!
« Reply #1 on: November 29, 2018, 11:17:28 AM »

I like how this would introduce more nuance and granularity to the game. As you observed, I also think that in concert with implementation of your suggested Tariff Slider in-game control this legality toggle would serve the player well.

Would the buffs/nerfs stack across time?
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SCC

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Re: Faction control: commodity legality toggles!
« Reply #2 on: November 29, 2018, 11:21:48 AM »

At the moment, Alex has a stance of "free port gives just about the same effect anyway". Until commodities have different effect on colonies, there's not much point in allowing or disallowing any of them.

TaLaR

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Re: Faction control: commodity legality toggles!
« Reply #3 on: November 29, 2018, 08:33:41 PM »

There is a potential use for this already:
1) Disrupt/decivilize all Heavy Industries of other factions
2) Prohibit export of ship parts.
... Pity we can't enact the second part. And it seems other factions still can use normal ships (albeit at low quality), when importing only (ie not Venture/Condor/etc that player is limited to, when player has no heavy industry).
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DeMatt

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Re: Faction control: commodity legality toggles!
« Reply #4 on: November 30, 2018, 12:35:49 AM »

I like how this would introduce more nuance and granularity to the game. As you observed, I also think that in concert with implementation of your suggested Tariff Slider in-game control this legality toggle would serve the player well.

Would the buffs/nerfs stack across time?
The way I imagine it, toggling a commodity to "illegal" has three effects:
  • You gain no profit from exports, due to it being smuggled instead of properly taxed.
  • Accessibility for that particular commodity goes down, for both imports and exports.  Hope that supply of Drugs wasn't keeping your colonists stable!
  • At the end of each month, any faction which disagrees with its illegality gets -5 Attitude.  Start a new game, toggle Metals to illegal, and 20 months later every faction is Vengeful (-5 times 20 equals -100) to you!
The exact numbers are, of course, up for debate.  Maybe it caps at -49 total, or maybe it caps at -20 per disagreement, etc.  Similarly, to keep players from gaming it, maybe the change only takes effect at end-of-month.
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