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[xenoargh]

TL:DNR version:  Players should be able to talk to empires.  Players should have to confront major Plot Events that force them to adjust their resources.  The Space Empires need personality, goals and behaviors at Fleet, Colony and Empire levels.

******************************************************

So, we're getting close to 1.0!  This is super-exciting stuff, honestly; I've been writing critiques, game-design ideas, etc., for this game for quite some time now; it's great watching it reach a final form.

Starsector has evolved, over the years, into a game with:

1.  Perhaps the most detailed take on "2D tactical 'smup" ever built, in terms of systems.  I have various quibbles with balance, etc., but those are addressable through mods or changes, and none of them are truly game-wrecking.

2.  Broad and deep modding support, so there's potentially endless variety of Content available, for players who are bored with Vanilla, and (potentially) a huge sales tail once the game's available to a wider audience through Steam / GoG / etc., rather than word-of-mouth. 

I can see a modernized Ironclads, various forms of specific game (for example, a mod set entirely in one solar system, say a super-detailed version of Sol set in The Expanse's universe, for example) and other things working really nicely to boost visibility over time.  I definitely think that we'll see some pretty amazing stuff happen as the game's core gets finalized and the API's stable.

3.  Various structures that create endless missions; while most of these missions are still a little shallower than I'd prefer, as they're generally, "go here, kill this / click on this" at least they feel solid and there's enough variety.  I particularly like how the current Named Bounties don't give us the direct location of our quarries; this encourages exploration in a fun way.

4.  A potentially deep secondary game level, where players go from, "I'm an individual pilot" to "I'm a Space Admiral with my hearties roaming the black" to "I'm a Space Lord, here are my Space Fiefs".

It's that last part, where the game transitions to a Mount-And-Blade-like meta, that I largely want to talk about here, in part to avoid its problems (it'll be interesting to see if Bannerlord fixes them, but after seeing Taleworld's blog posts about their economy design... I'm afraid they've largely screwed it up, again).

OK, so, in my analysis, the skeleton's reasonably solid; the economy, after a few dead ends, feels like it works, the UI for installing things into our Space Fiefs works well, etc.

When we get past that first layer, i.e. "Is setting up Space Fiefs working", I think the answer's also largely yes.  I'm not entirely sold on having limited slots available to choose from, so that Colonies' economies are pigeon-holed; if I want to set up Mining on an inefficient rock, just to mess with local supplies, and am content with taking a loss, it seems reasonable I could do that.  But let's presume that that feature's staying, because adding complexity to that UI would be annoying, and move on to what to do with those limited resources.

So, what would make this game feel feature-complete?  Essentially... it's time to get past what the Exerelin / Vacuum projects did six years ago.  But better!

We need empires that behave dynamically, have character, and whose evolving story becomes a vital part of the player's experience- their behaviors should become the canvas the player paints their experience upon.

OK, enough rambling at the edges.  How should this actually work?

Diplomacy

Diplomacy is "war by other means", in the context of the Starsector universe.  With limited resources, constant problems with Pirates and Pathers and [REDACTED] and so forth, the empires need to deal with one another constructively whenever possible, if they're going to survive.  Of course, that depends on rational leaders who want the Sector to thrive, not just their own States, and States that set goals that ensure the survival of the Sector.  Given that this is Starsector's dystopian universe... well, it might not work out in practice, lol.

How would Diplomacy work?

1.  There's already a basic skeleton for AI-to-AI diplomacy.  It could get fleshed out more, with the suggestions below, but essentially, it's already there, it just needs some tuning.

Where I'd tune it, to be frank, is in terms of dealing with time-scales and behaviors.  First off, Faction wars ought to be Really Serious Events; for the most part Factions shouldn't actually be "at war" with one another, but instead are going to "be hostile".  "Be hostile" should be a sliding slope; everything from, "we put Tariff barriers onto your commerce" to "if we encounter your fleets in our areas, we'll engage". 

The current systems, where it feels like hostilities are binary on-off systems, should be refined, so that players get a sense of rising tensions, diplomatic incidents and minor hostilities, rather than constant warfare.

Actual all-out warfare between States should, imho, be a Plot Mover, forcing players to decide whose side (if any) they want to be on.  If a player owns one or more Colonies, they should be contacted diplomatically, not just sent a little text blurb in the Intel tab. 

Wars should have levels, as well:  everything from Raids to Saturation Bombardments are all Acts of War.  If two Factions have reached the point where they're actually using AM, that should become another Plot Mover; does the player act to prevent the destruction of the Sector, or sit out the carnage and pick up the carrion?

2.  Player-to-AI diplomacy is the larger design concern here.  Once players have established themselves as Space Lords, they need ways to talk to the other empires as Heads of State.

So, let's revisit the classics, starting with the greatest of them all, Master of Orion II.  Yes, it's a 4X, but stay with me, folks; it's one of Starsector's obvious touchstones, and in this case, it's almost perfect as a model.

I really love MOO II's diplomatic systems and the UI design.  They're simple, easy-to-understand, and pretty well match what I'd like to see in a Starsector context.  I feel like the system was very carefully thought-out and designed; there isn't any extra fluff, clicking or confusing mechanics.  Every action feels meaningful; if you've agreed to something, or have spurned the advances of another empire, or have agreed to join an Ally in their war on another party... it all feels hefty; you actually feel the weight of your responsibilities as Space Emperor.

Like so many things in Master of Orion II, I feel like it was a brilliant bit of polish on what was already a great game design.

Let's look at how not to do it (imho):

I really dislike Stellaris's diplomatic systems.  Note a few things:

1.  It's visually busy, with all of the other elements behind it, drawing through it, etc.  That by itself is a bit Yuck; it takes away from the gravity of "hey, I'm talking to the leadership of an empire here".

2.  It's comparatively simplistic.  This suits Stellaris, where, frankly, sooner or later the answer to all diplomatic problems is, "exterminate" or "devour".  I don't think that's suitable for the Starsector universe's feel, where (personally) I think that if the player's nuked everybody else, they should probably lose to one of the Plot Mover events (but, ah, more on that later).

In general, while I feel that, other than the visual treatment, Stellaris's system is adequate for the game design it serves, it's less "how to do this right". 

If we want to talk about more examples, I'm fine with that; I think these are two examples of UIs that demonstrate some key points:

1.  I'm expecting David's art front-and-center here.
2.  I want to see clarity of design; simplicity rather than busyness; something that says, "hey, this is serious business; we're talking about the fate of the Sector"
3.  I want the actual gameplay mechanics to be pretty straight-forward, in terms of player choices, rather than a muddle of numbers, percentages, RNG or other obvious game mechanics.  If those factors are absolutely necessary (for example, the percentage chance of being rebuffed when asking for lower Tariffs between empires) then it should be shown explicitly, rather than being hidden, as in MOO II; I think that is maybe my only real complaint about its design here- hidden (and in a couple of notable cases, buggy) mechanics aren't usually good mechanics.

OK, so that's it, in terms opening up Diplomacy and talking to the other empires.  I'd suggest, pretty strongly, that Starsector borrow very heavily from MOO's base systems in terms of "when do we see the Diplomatic Window open because of events"- i.e., if you have an Ally and they've just decided to declare war, they're going to initiate contact; when players found their first Colony, they should expect to be contacted by the three nearest Factions and probably one more outlier, a weak Faction perhaps, that wants to become stronger by finding friends.

[xenoargh]

Plot Movers

So, I've referred to Plot Movers ahead of actually explaining them conceptually.  Ahem.  But I think that a little context for them was useful.

So, what's a Plot Mover?  In game-design terms, Plot Movers are events, scripted or random, that will have a major impact on how the player will play the game.  These are largely things that the player will react to, but they may also be things the player has done that have a major impact on the Sector.  Here are some ideas / examples.

Early-Game:

Pirates getting ready to Raid a Colony; player is told through somebody at a bar, if they're paying attention.
Pathers preparing a major terrorist operation.

Both of these are already in the game, but as you can see, they move the player's attention and activities.

Mid-Game

Player establishes first Colony.  All other Factions are effected; multiple diplomatic ramifications.
One Faction declares war on another one, dragging in allies and enemies.  War may heat up, wrecking the Sector, or the player might be able to intervene and cool things off.
A weak Faction offers player <a lot of money> to buy one of their Colonies.  Player may agree / refuse, but not without complications.
An Alpha Core goes Full Rogue.  Tri-Tachyon wants the player to capture it for "re-education"; Hegemony wants to nuke the place from orbit, and the Luddites want to declare war on whoever was using the "heathen technology".  What's the player to do?  What if it's their Colony?
Sindria implodes as a Faction, after too many Pirate raids and brush-fire wars with the League's mercenaries.  Market for AM Fuel goes crazy; it's an opportunity and a disaster all at once.

Late-Game

Starsector definitely needs a series of late-game crises to give players a final act.  A sandbox without clear resolutions won't be satisfying; a sandbox where we overcome obstacles and reach resolutions, but continue to play afterwards, would be much more suitable.  There are plenty of ideas about how to get there that we've all bashed around:

The Domain returns, and attempts to take control of the Sector back, and it turns out that the Domain isn't terribly nice and cuddly for <insert reasons> It would somewhat play out like the Antarans in MOO II, where the best resolution is probably to defeat their forces, but it'd leave room for a sequel
The Third AI War starts up, and this time, the [REDACTED] are really grumpy.
Von Neumann domain drones start a cascading catastrophe as they invade everywhere at once.  The player must convince the other Factions to drop their petty feuds and unite in time to defeat the ever-cloning menace.
All-out war becomes nearly inevitable, as the player's Colonies disrupt the existing order or <insert critical thing> becomes scarce because of <event>.  The player can either join a side or watch it all burn to ashes; if AM starts getting used against populations, the chances of the Sector making it are almost nil.  Personally, and this probably belongs in another Suggestion entirely, since I generally don't know whether Alex reads these things, I think that AM attacks should increase a planet's radiation levels; an attack that wipes out humanity on a planet probably doesn't leave anything else alive, either.  This would prevent the player from thinking, "hey, it's cool if they all nuke each other, I'll just come in to their Decivilized locations and take over", which I don't feel conveys the Starsector feel very well.
Aliens arrive, and they aren't friendly.
The Pathers decide that little acts of techno-terrorism just aren't fulfilling Ludd's plan fast enough, and start using bio-weapons.  Pretty soon half the Sector is a charnel-house of the dead and dying, and the rest are on the brink of war.  There's a cure available, but the player will need to raid the Path's ultra-secret base orbiting a black hole to find it... and when they get there, they find out that <insert ironic hook here>.  Boss battle, followed by confronting <faction> and defeating <some ultra-Boss>.
The Hegemony gets a new leader; he's Julius Caesar, cloned from his DNA and he's very serious about making the Sector great again.  Will the player join him, or resist?
The player gets a long-range Gate working, which takes tons of questing and resources and research and help from all the major Factions (i.e., you need to make friends with everybody to do this).  The player assembles a fleet, uses the Gate, and... the end?


Anyhow, I think you get the point; by late-game, we're pretty powerful, and there oughtta be things out there that give us an end to a run, good bad or ugly.  It would be satisfying, even if we "lose", whereas, "I'm ultra-rich, but there's nothing to spend money on, because I have all the good planets in the game colonized and I've nuked the Path and Pirates" isn't.  Honestly, I think the Pirates should be just about done as a threat by the end of mid-game, and the Path should probably have shot its final bolt before the final act, whatever that is.

[xenoargh]

Imperial Behaviors

So, to give Diplomacy an in-game structural skeleton and provide Plot Movers with their fulcrums, we're going to need the Factions to exhibit some distinct personality.  This is rough. I don't think it's fair to ask Alex / David to come up with novellas of dialogue and color pieces and whatnot, when in the end, what we really need is mechanics that create a sense of leadership styles.

Here are a few ideas.  I've somewhat deliberately kept this a bit vague here; I don't really want to try and define the business case, so much as discuss some parameters that I think we'd want available for Factions, both Vanilla and modded, to drive their behaviors.

First, some leadership traits, starting with a couple of obvious spectrums.  I like spectrums when constructing behavioral gamecode; the intersections can give rise to novel-feeling behaviors.  It's a bit like using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, but intersecting with a hierarchy of Want or Do.  MOO II used this technique to build AIs that felt a little unique in terms of basic motivations, but profoundly different each run when their wants and needs and their position in the game started having more influence.

Baseline self-vs-others:  **Psychotic**, Selfless, Kind, Compassionate, Reasonable, Unreasonable, Uncompassionate, Unkind, Selfish, **Sociopathic**
Baseline parameters of Wants:  Technologist, Conservationist, Religious, Anarchist, Statist, Fascist, Communist, Materialist, Militarist
Baseline paramters of Dos:  Warlike, Pacifistic, Xenophobic, Tolerant, Bureaucratic, Relaxed, Disciplined, Lax, Violent, Gentle, Exploring, Incurious

**Psychotic** and **Sociopathic** aren't necessarily per current psychological definitions.  Here, we're talking more about "when my Faction decides you're a sinner, you are only redeemed with fire" and "my Faction will not keep its word unless it's entirely in our favor, ever"

So, now we've got three themes, each one can be used in a decision matrix; this seems fairly straightforward, for a lot of decisions, like whether to build a new colony or nuke the player into oblivion.  Major decisions don't have to be made constantly; maybe once a game-month or so, distributed over the Factions to keep load reasonable.  Obviously, the Factions should react to what the player does, and in some cases, react to each other.

Nuts and Bolts

What about low-level nuts and bolts, like "should we spend money on building a new Industry here?"

I'm going to repeat, again, what I've said pretty consistently about these areas of the design.  When in doubt, go for the dumbest, easiest solution possible. KISS. 

Generally speaking, there should be straight-forward rules for the AI to follow. 

If --> Minerals > Median --> build Mining
if Minerals > Rich --> Built Refining

Yes, some players will moan that the AI "always does the same thing".  Fine; put a smallish randomizer in there that sometimes just picks a random thing out of a hat.  Just keep it largely sensible; the core mechanics right now aren't bad.

Don't worry about actual money, etc., in terms of basic Faction behaviors.  Just let 'em go out and expand over time.  This isn't a 4X; we don't need it to be "fair to the player" and "totally free of exploits" or have "well-balanced factions".  OK, so maybe preventing serious exploits might count as an issue, but still; this is like the early versions of the economy- it's far worse to build a bad, very complex system and try to "fix" it, as problems cascade, than to build a simplistic-but-robust system, where it's a little dumb but it works, darnit.

Causus Beli

Well, wars between Factions should arise largely from three things:

1.  RNGs piling up.  I mean, uh, "diplomatic incidents".  Nexerelin already does that, and it works.
2.  One Faction gets much bigger than the others.  Time to cut 'em down to size.
3.  One Faction is much weaker than the others.  Cull the herd.

Obviously, no. 3 would cause a lot of problems for players early on, so I don't think it should start applying until the player's Faction starts getting big enough to take care of itself a bit.

War Goals

War goals, for AIs, should be straightforward:
1.  Tariffs on enemy increase until trade stops.
2.  Fleets get "attack when near our bases" orders.
3.  Mercenaries and privateers get hired to do un-attributed attacks on enemy shipping.
4.  Fleets do battle with one another in Hyperspace, but not in Systems.
5.  Fleets do battle anywhere.
6.  Fleets are sent to Raid or tactical-bomb.
7.  Serious war, ended by one Faction using AM strikes on population.
8.  All-out war, where both sides continue to use AM strikes until one Faction is gone.

I really feel that there should be methods of military invasion / conquest, rather than AM strikes.  It doesn't make sense to nuke civilians, when you can just invade them and keep their economies rolling.  Honestly, I'd think that invasions would almost always be the main resolution, because all of the Factions know what happened after the Domain collapsed; I seriously doubt they'd want to use weapons of extinction unless their backs were to the wall.

Espionage

Espionage between AI Factions shouldn't really be a thing, unless it's in the category of "RNGs piling up" or allowing them to steal tech from each other. 

But players, on the other hand, should not be given much information about the Factions unless they engage in espionage.  For example:  what are the real defense numbers for Jangala?  That's a state secret, buddy- Need To Know.  Players shouldn't have these wonderful numbers they use to know pretty much exactly how much AM it'll take to flatten a place or raid it; it should be difficult to get that information and it shouldn't be 100% trustworthy. 

Taking on a Station, without spending real money on getting accurate intelligence, should be a roll of the dice.  Maybe it's just a tin can rotating around a central spoke... maybe you'll attack without bothering to check it out... maybe you'll find out they've hidden 50 ships in there, and you've walked into an ambush.  Same goes for ground defenses; getting the number, let alone doing something useful, either should require massive, overt overkill... or rolling some serious dice.  Right now, it just feels like we line up resources and boom, we did the thing.  Well, other than the weird limit on how many Industries we can nuke at once, which feels pretty arbitrary.



Anyhow, that's it.  I haven't said much lately about the game design; I've been waiting for 0.8/0.9 to get flesh on the bones of Outposts, so it's been a while.  This is probably the last major layer of the onion, honestly; everything past this is extravagance.

[Megas]

Bombing of any sort on a Habitable world permanently adds Pollution (+25% hazard).  Big disincentive to tac bomb their defenses if you want to decivilize the place and steal their planet.  I have considered colonizing some non-habitable worlds in case factions ever become mad bombers in a future version.  I do not want them ruining my low hazard vacation resort worlds with bombs.

I guess if Pollution is not enough, there is always the Irradiated property, which just adds +50% hazard to the planet.  Bombing cannot be any worse than getting bathed constantly by pulsar beams.

Pirates as they are could be done early if they stay as they are, or they can evolve into the final endgame threat, especially if player keeps feeding them blueprints.  Currently, I consider pirates the final enemies because they never die permanently, and core worlds are practically defenseless against them.  Pirates are doing things I expect the Remnants to be doing.

If player does not attract Pathers at all (they are a huge babysitting annoyance), then why should he care?  Once again, core worlds are helpless against them like Pirates, but unlike Pirates, player that does not use cores have incentives not to be hostile with them for 1) more accessibility and 2) less babysitting headache.  Pirates are obviously evil (and recurring) villians, but Pathers can sort of be reasoned with.  Player can dump a bunch of excess cores at Pathers' feet and player can be friends, and stay friends if he does not overdevelop a world or use cores.

[xenoargh]

On the Pirates and Pathers; I don't think either should be immortal, frankly; I think that we should be able to invade their home bases, take over their population centers, and wipe them out, however gradually.  At the very least, I think that if we've wiped them out in the Core (i.e., all their bases have had their infrastructure wrecked) that ought to translate into a long period where they cannot build new bases in the middle of nowhere, supported by no resources.

While I think it's reasonable that the Pirates / Path might be a way to lose by midgame, I don't think it's reasonable that they're the endgame threat.  They're just not big enough or scary enough to be plausible.  Pirates ought to mainly be a problem for very small Markets; the Path should be a solvable problem.

Whatever the endgame looks like, it needs to be strong enough that the player's own resources, solo, won't be enough; cultivating relationships will be key to surviving (or, if you're going full-maniac Space Emperor, your objective is to conquer enough of the Sector before it happens that you're big enough to stand a chance, solo; that's not entirely unreasonable).

How that should work, mechanically, is probably a matter worth debating, but essentially, I think that the endgame crisis should involve some form of diplomacy, strategic placement of defensive and offensive resources (a topic that I feel is best-left vague, but I really do think there oughtta be a way for players to more-directly direct fleets, so that there's a strategic layer) and of course, the direct intervention by the player's main fleet.

On the whole Pollution thing... yeah, it's there.  Maybe it should scale up with population size, or something; if you nuke a Size 3, fine, it's not a bid deal, if you nuke a Size 5, it's Polluted... if you nuke a Size 7, it's Irradiated, and basically worthless.  I think all of the incentives should push players towards invasions, even though they should be expensive (all those Marines and the gear to move them) and not-permanent, in the sense that the enemy may come back and re-take the location.  Using AM should be more of a last-resort tactic, which works, but leaves us with a less-productive planet. 

[Megas]

Space Emperor with huge sector-wide territory will not happen unless player employs a bunch of alpha cores as administrators, and that got me thinking...

Why should Alpha cores always be loyal to the player?  When they become sticky and do not allow themselves to be removed, you should get the bad feeling that it has its own agenda and ready to do some harm later.  But as implemented, they act more like jealous girlfriends who do anything to stay with you.  If anything, I feel more like I got hooks sunk into the alpha and got a permanent loyal slave that will run my colony forever, as long as do not try to force its replacement.

If player over-relies on core administrators, like having dozens of worlds far exceeding what can be managed with skills alone, then most of those alphas could outright secede from your empire after a while and start killing everything.  Maybe outright convert colonies to new Remnant Nexus systems.

[xenoargh]

I'd certainly think that would be one of the "fun" outcomes, yeah.  I don't think that we should have a cap on Administrators, though, and I think they should be able to level up and I think that there ought to be more skills available, so that they're part of the story and matter a lot, much like MOO II's Governors. 

I think that Alphas should exceed any human Administrator, and learn faster, but the chance of them going Full Remnant should scale with how many you employ; at roughly 10, it should be 10% per month or something horrid like that, and the only way to prevent it would be some sort of expensive Big Red Button that takes up an Industry or something.  That, or going on <some quest> where the player opts for full nano-conversion of themselves into a Peripheral of the Remnants (i.e., may get a say in their agenda and gets <some advantages> but is essentially their creature for the rest of the game).

I think it's the same with the Pirates and Pathers.  There's really no long-term upside to making friends with either; there's no "good" Evil Ending, other than, "well, I helped wreck the Sector".

[Schwartz]

To pick just one point: I think the player should be able to stem Pirates and Pathers to a large degree. But we don't control the world. All it takes is one economic downturn or one juicy freighter fleet for someone to decide to turn to piracy. Luddic Path is a spiritual movement. You can't make war on your own population. You can eradicate all their bases and planets, but you can't kill an idea.

I'm a big fan of the overall theme of your post and have brought this stuff up in the past. Diplomacy, personalities and emergent storytelling are key to get Starsector to the next level and keep the player playing and interested in the world. I'm currently in a game beyond year 235 where I basically have a very strong economy, nearly every blueprint and my fleet set up. What's there left to do? I don't want the game to keep throwing threats at me to try and match my strength (raids, pathers, pirates etc) because that ends up being a bit ridiculous.

As some avenues of progress dry up and conclusions are naturally reached approaching endgame, SS unfortunately becomes more and more two-dimensional. Not that anything changes, the mechanisms just become more in plain view and less arcane to the player as he gains a higher vantage point. The factions send angry fleets in intervals and randomly change allegiances. They don't really "do" anything. More interesting systems to interact with would help. Like mods. They add a ton of stuff, some of which provides gameplay cues. Templar threat, Nexerelin, the old SS+ kill fleets.

[xenoargh]

I'd settle for, "the Pirates are largely gone and no longer can Raid" and "the Path's ideas are still around, but the large-scale terrorism is a thing of the past".  It's like the real world, where the Somalis haven't attacked anybody since 2017 and the IRA is largely interested in local Irish politics, not trying to kill people in Northern Ireland.  Stuff changes. 

I agree with everything you've said there; the problem with not having some sort of big windup, or a series of major events that alter the player's perception of the game-world, is one of the big issues. 

For a lot of the early game, money's all that matters.  Then it's access to good gear and Officers, which has a luck-based component.  Then it's about money again, as you build Colonies.  Then... well, there's nothing. 

There's no way to fix the Sector's problems and get a pat on the back.  There's no way to conquer them all without committing huge atrocities that make it feel somewhat pointless. 

There's no threat that's so vast that, despite building up your fleet, your Colonies and your allies, you may all get wiped out... or achieve the incredible.  There's no sunset to walk into. 

Even Mount and Blade had victory conditions, even if about the only way to reach them was through doing silly things.  Even Minecraft has The End.  I think most people want that catharsis.

[Megas]

There's no way to fix the Sector's problems and get a pat on the back.  There's no way to conquer them all without committing huge atrocities that make it feel somewhat pointless. 

I would call that a victory condition except the pirates keep coming and never die.  There is no way to get rid of them.  I have no problem wiping out everyone in the core worlds if that meant winning the game.  It is fun playing the kaiju who wants to eat or destroy everything.

[xenoargh]

Right, but like you say; you can all you want, but there's no resolution. 

That's part of why I wrote this; the Pirates, as a Faction, would be:

Sociopathic || Anarchic || Warlike / Tolerant / Relaxed, / Lax / Violent / Exploring (note that last is treated as a bit-mask here).

So, instead of having hard-coded immortality as a Faction, perhaps they just keep popping up because they're going to found new Outposts pretty constantly, even in bad places (Anarchic || Lax / Exploring), whenever it suits their selfish (Sociopathic) goals; Pirate leaders aren't concerned with the-Pirates-as-a-whole much (Anarchic) and live on warfare and violence as a way of life.  I.E., sprinkle some Pirate bases around the Sector at the start of play, and they'll keep popping up like weeds until the player finds their bases or the other Factions get serious about wiping them out.

Honestly, the Pathers are more of a real problem, in terms of the proposed mechanics.  They're barely a "real" Faction at all; sure, they have Colonies, technically, but that's window-dressing.  There probably needs to be a way to commit terrorist acts, either attributed or not, and the Path probably is the faction that uses that option constantly to further their goals.

In short... I know I'm guilty reversing course here, but when I've previously said that the "Pirates shouldn't be a Faction", what we've got isn't exactly what I'd anticipated.  It may be better to have all Factions behave using the same framework, but have the Pirates set up for Pirate-y behaviors and the Path for Path-y behaviors.  Or, IDK, keep them special, but have a way that they get resolved before the third act?

[Megas]

BOC's Godzilla.  I remember that one (and others like Veteran of the Psychic Wars).  One of their better tracks.  Live version has sound effects from Asteroids mixed in.

Or, IDK, keep them special, but have a way that they get resolved before the third act?

That makes sense if player does not uplift them by selling blueprints to Black Market.

[xenoargh]

Yeah, giving Pirates Paragons is... amusing, though

I think that they should be largely done by the third act, if the player gets serious about eliminating them.  If the player's complacent, sure, let them become a monster that wrecks the Sector; I'm totally cool with that. 

Same with the Path; I can see having... delicate diplomatic conversations with the Knights about the Path's future in the Sector, where they express their concerns about chastising the over-zealous, and I overcome said objections by handing them enough Credits that they make AM-barons look like paupers (and then use said funds to launch a Crusade against the sinful Sindrians... but that's another day's problem).

[TrashMan]

On the Pirates and Pathers; I don't think either should be immortal, frankly; I think that we should be able to invade their home bases, take over their population centers, and wipe them out, however gradually.  At the very least, I think that if we've wiped them out in the Core (i.e., all their bases have had their infrastructure wrecked) that ought to translate into a long period where they cannot build new bases in the middle of nowhere, supported by no resources.

I disagree.
You cannot kill ideas and pathers are essentially religious terrorists. You cannot defeat them by military might, because they aren't organized like a military.

While I do think you can neuter them or hit them so hard they don't bother you for a while, completely destroying them seem implausible.

On the whole Pollution thing... yeah, it's there.  Maybe it should scale up with population size, or something; if you nuke a Size 3, fine, it's not a bid deal, if you nuke a Size 5, it's Polluted... if you nuke a Size 7, it's Irradiated, and basically worthless.

Anti-matter does not cause radiation.

[Aedarin]

Anti-matter does not cause radiation.

I hope you are not serious, lol.

On topic: I really like these ideas. I really only play with Nexerelin and a few others to get the sense of a truly dynamic universe. And because SWP and Luddic Enchancement really make the game more fun. Especially if you play as the Luddic Path.

That being said, I think a player ought to have a choice to join the Path and help eradicate the threat of A.I. if that's their thing. Remember, they aren't mad at people for believing different, they're mad at governments who continue to ignore a threat that almost wiped humanity out of existence for the sake of their own profit. And also antimatter probably wont ever be stored safely, and even if it was, there is no way to ensure it won't be used to horrible effect in a dispute. Remember all those irradiated worlds? They used to be full of life. 1000kg of antimatter is roughly equal to 43 billion tons of TNT. Hard to call them terrorists in anything other than an ironic way to be honest lol.

Whatever is done with SS I hope it becomes like Nerexelin but with the diplomacy features you mentioned. Almost like a Last Federation where big empires move around you as you try not to get crushed, until you hold some cards and can push back. You should be able to join any faction including a pirate faction. Not 'the pirates' but more like Starlight Cabal where they have secret bases and you can work with them to pillage and plunder, while still keeping the general riff-raff down.

As for a final chapter, why not look to Space Pirates And Zombies which this game is somewhat similar to. What if something the player does, no matter which side they choose to help - including only themselves - causes the return of the [REDACTED]? Or a plot to bring them back by some, ahem, 'rogue' Try-Tach exec? They return and begin expanding and the only way to stop them is to unite with as many remaining factions as possible. Once defeated, the player gains access to some kind of Space Magic that lets them conquer the rest of the sector at will, if they so choose, as like an ending+ which unlocks a start with said Space Magic available from the beginning. And/Or to play as a [REDACTED] themselves... That would be so life-fantasy fulfilling.