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Suggestions / New Use for Officers: Colonial Military Advisor
« on: April 30, 2021, 08:38:54 AM »
Been wondering about this idea for a while. Not sure it's worth it, or how it'd balance, but figure it's worth getting out of my head.
So, one issue with getting on in the game is that once you have the Officers you want you run into the wall of maximum controllable officers, and so once you shuffle around to get the ones you want trait wise, you end up dismissing a lot, and don't generally have much use for lower max level officers or ones with certain skills. You have much less incentive to go Officer shopping
So, one though I had was, we can have these colonies, which we often have to spend babysitting; why do we have Officers if we can't get them to do this sort of thing for us, allowing us to carry on with other things?
Now having them have their own fleets flying round is beyond the scope of the game, I think. However, attaching them to a Colony, sort of like an Administrator, but with a different focus, sounds viable (I think; I have only a little idea of how the game is coded)
So, what would this achieve?
Well, just for a start it gives you a place to put Officers over your control limit for the time being, so there's that without anything else (with apologies to SirHartley for taking work away from his academies). So if you have found an Officer you don't have a use for right now, but want to keep in case you later get just the right ship for their personality/skill, you could do that whilst still getting some benefit from them.
What sort of benefits?
Presumably, some sort of small but significant enough bonus to either stability, colony defences or to colony fleet size/strength/officer quality.
This might be variable dependent on Officer personality - an aggressive Officer might have a larger Fleet bonus, balanced against a lower Defences boost.
A cautious Officer might have a lower Fleet sizes buff in favour of larger Defences boost as a 'just in case mentality' and possibly a resist buff against Pather sleepers and such due to paranoia.
This would do a couple of other things; it would allow you to develop colonies with a bit more peace of mind regarding minor attacks, while not being totally beholden to Item drops for fleet size or Defence boosting Domain Items, or story point expenditures, which rack up fast when used on the same colony. Instead, you have to find and employ, and possibly spend time leveling up Officers, giving you a different route, with it's own pitfalls and costs, but with a similar outcome, so you can instead use your found items where you need them more (or sell them/ use them to prop up allies, if you choose), or save story points for other purposes. It also promotes Officer shopping even if you can't immediatly use them due to the fleet officer limit.
One potential downside is that pulling the officer might lead to stability loss or unrest, as the colony loses some confidence without it's defensive advisor.
Of course, all the same effects could be the case for the other Factions too; Certain Factions may even preferentially have certain officer personality types favoured for their colonies, making actions against their colonies a bit more variable; For example, Church/Path of Ludd bases may heavily Favour Reckless and Aggressive types, giving them large hostile fleets, but their ground defences are not as boosted, making them more vulnerable to Raids and eventually Ground invasion, whereas the Sindrian Diktat might favour Cautious and Steady individual balanced towards ground defences, making their colonies harder to raid, and more resistant to Pather sleepers and so on.
This might also match up with the Comms situation we see on many established colonies, with various people besides the 'main' boss; the Advisor might be another person on the comm menu, and might offer different options, so for eample, the 'relieve unrest' options might be different between the Administrator, who may request food, supplies, domestic and luxury goods and suchlike, whereas the Military advisor Officer might request crew, marines, weapons, offering a 'carrot vs stick' choice of pacification methods, and so two options for Players to offload their various cargo.
Obviously, this would be a fairly big change, since it would require adding another slot to the Colony menu to add another person, and a rebalance to various bonus items and structures to account for the extra Factor, but it might be something worth considering as a means to offer extra options, both regarding Officers and regarding Colonies, and an extra means to add varierty into how the various factions interact if their colonies also have different military priorities that can change according to them assigning Officers
So, one issue with getting on in the game is that once you have the Officers you want you run into the wall of maximum controllable officers, and so once you shuffle around to get the ones you want trait wise, you end up dismissing a lot, and don't generally have much use for lower max level officers or ones with certain skills. You have much less incentive to go Officer shopping
So, one though I had was, we can have these colonies, which we often have to spend babysitting; why do we have Officers if we can't get them to do this sort of thing for us, allowing us to carry on with other things?
Now having them have their own fleets flying round is beyond the scope of the game, I think. However, attaching them to a Colony, sort of like an Administrator, but with a different focus, sounds viable (I think; I have only a little idea of how the game is coded)
So, what would this achieve?
Well, just for a start it gives you a place to put Officers over your control limit for the time being, so there's that without anything else (with apologies to SirHartley for taking work away from his academies). So if you have found an Officer you don't have a use for right now, but want to keep in case you later get just the right ship for their personality/skill, you could do that whilst still getting some benefit from them.
What sort of benefits?
Presumably, some sort of small but significant enough bonus to either stability, colony defences or to colony fleet size/strength/officer quality.
This might be variable dependent on Officer personality - an aggressive Officer might have a larger Fleet bonus, balanced against a lower Defences boost.
A cautious Officer might have a lower Fleet sizes buff in favour of larger Defences boost as a 'just in case mentality' and possibly a resist buff against Pather sleepers and such due to paranoia.
This would do a couple of other things; it would allow you to develop colonies with a bit more peace of mind regarding minor attacks, while not being totally beholden to Item drops for fleet size or Defence boosting Domain Items, or story point expenditures, which rack up fast when used on the same colony. Instead, you have to find and employ, and possibly spend time leveling up Officers, giving you a different route, with it's own pitfalls and costs, but with a similar outcome, so you can instead use your found items where you need them more (or sell them/ use them to prop up allies, if you choose), or save story points for other purposes. It also promotes Officer shopping even if you can't immediatly use them due to the fleet officer limit.
One potential downside is that pulling the officer might lead to stability loss or unrest, as the colony loses some confidence without it's defensive advisor.
Of course, all the same effects could be the case for the other Factions too; Certain Factions may even preferentially have certain officer personality types favoured for their colonies, making actions against their colonies a bit more variable; For example, Church/Path of Ludd bases may heavily Favour Reckless and Aggressive types, giving them large hostile fleets, but their ground defences are not as boosted, making them more vulnerable to Raids and eventually Ground invasion, whereas the Sindrian Diktat might favour Cautious and Steady individual balanced towards ground defences, making their colonies harder to raid, and more resistant to Pather sleepers and so on.
This might also match up with the Comms situation we see on many established colonies, with various people besides the 'main' boss; the Advisor might be another person on the comm menu, and might offer different options, so for eample, the 'relieve unrest' options might be different between the Administrator, who may request food, supplies, domestic and luxury goods and suchlike, whereas the Military advisor Officer might request crew, marines, weapons, offering a 'carrot vs stick' choice of pacification methods, and so two options for Players to offload their various cargo.
Obviously, this would be a fairly big change, since it would require adding another slot to the Colony menu to add another person, and a rebalance to various bonus items and structures to account for the extra Factor, but it might be something worth considering as a means to offer extra options, both regarding Officers and regarding Colonies, and an extra means to add varierty into how the various factions interact if their colonies also have different military priorities that can change according to them assigning Officers