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[Kakroom]

Right now all Synchotrons, Cores and Nanoforges do before you have your own colony is stink up a storage facility somewhere, line your pockets, or the latter while also giving space pirates WMDs. Well, better ones, anyway.

I feel like this, among other aspects of the game could be improved if the player were capable of purchasing share in or constructing industries on worlds where you're friendly with the government. Right now, the line of ascendancy is

1)Fleet-based agent

2)Planetary government

3, 4, 5...?) God-emperor of the Domain?

While it is neato to get enough capital to found your own state just by running around the universe dispensing justice and bombing regressed civilizations, the Interstellar Puppetmaster/spice baron in me who likes worming my way into an oppressive dictatorship's good graces before mothballing all their shipyards out from under them feels like there's a link in the chain missing. If you're unprepared or you chose a bad world Colonies can quickly become credit sinks that necessitate you commit your time to them while you get infrastructure up and running. Obtaining purchase in a mining or refining operation or something is simultaneously more noncommital while also still investing you in planetary affairs, given your holdings will be affected by pirate raids, shortages, local unrest, etc..

It's also a good way of getting the player politicking a little prior to just flatout declaring Independence, given how pretty much everyone in Starsector is a crazy oppressive authority you'll need to maneuver around in order to get and keep access to ur-choice farmland or ore deposits.

[Lorant]

Can't endorse enough the idea that there should be an intermediate step between starship captain to parvenu fleet commander backed by the industry of an entire planet. It's not a huge deal, but the jump in ambition is a bit jarring. Maybe you could be awarded a temporary custodianship of an erstwhile core-pather world as a politically acceptable compromise candidate as a resolution of a midgame storyline. (in a way that demonstrates the sector powers learned their lessons after the Askonian Crisis!)
Investing in faction industries is a really interesting angle that I think could be really cool if fleshed out in a way that was a bit different from personal colony build-up. Like in addition to credits, you're establishing yourself in the higher echelons of the faction government and getting more specialized quests? hmm

[Kakroom]

Can't endorse enough the idea that there should be an intermediate step between starship captain to parvenu fleet commander backed by the industry of an entire planet. It's not a huge deal, but the jump in ambition is a bit jarring. Maybe you could be awarded a temporary custodianship of an erstwhile core-pather world as a politically acceptable compromise candidate as a resolution of a midgame storyline. (in a way that demonstrates the sector powers learned their lessons after the Askonian Crisis!)

I'd really prefer the game focus on stated narrative as little as possible. Not because I doubt the devs' ability to write or levy talent for it but because I think the more reliant you make the stories on player input the more you're stepping away from what makes the world so compelling it to play in. For me, it's at its best when its systems and the governing principles behind them are in play with each other and the PC's own actions and motivations.

There's just not a lot of games out there like this. Which stinks because they're really great. Comparisons are made to Mount and Blade so often because it's the thing most people know to compare it to. There's more out there if you know how to look, but really not all that much.  But that's a /rant for another time.

Speaking of commissions though, that I started thinking about after I wrote this. It'd be neat if you could take on the role of like a planetary garrison commander, or even go out and start new colonies for your guys and run them with their backing. Then once you've safely consolidated your position you turn around and hamstring them! Or not, depending on your ambitions and how you perceive their ideas and behavior.

[FooF]

Next patch you will be able to build ships without the need for planetary industries (via Contacts and limited-use of existing faction shipyards). That's a bit of a stopgap between the "plucky fleet captain" to "interplanetary warlord."

To the OP's suggestion:

Bleeding the insidious beast from within, while cool, doesn't seem (to me) to be the route the game is headed. Espionage and full-fledged faction development looks like it is being delayed for more end-game content. Alex can correct me, of course, but the general sentiment I've ascertained over the years is that 4x-type faction interaction was never the intent.

It is my hope that our dealing with factions is just the backdrop for further endgame development. Even though we've come to know the Hegemony, Tri-Tach, etc. as the "big fish" of the Sector, they're may be relatively minor powers compared to the real threats. Or to put it another way, if they're not the real antagonists or drivers of the "meat" of the campaign, developing them further takes away from development of the true trajectory of gameplay. That's not to say faction development is being abandoned, it's just not prioritized compared to creating more content for the future.

[Kakroom]

Next patch you will be able to build ships without the need for planetary industries (via Contacts and limited-use of existing faction shipyards). That's a bit of a stopgap between the "plucky fleet captain" to "interplanetary warlord."

To the OP's suggestion:

Bleeding the insidious beast from within, while cool, doesn't seem (to me) to be the route the game is headed. Espionage and full-fledged faction development looks like it is being delayed for more end-game content. Alex can correct me, of course, but the general sentiment I've ascertained over the years is that 4x-type faction interaction was never the intent.

It is my hope that our dealing with factions is just the backdrop for further endgame development. Even though we've come to know the Hegemony, Tri-Tach, etc. as the "big fish" of the Sector, they're may be relatively minor powers compared to the real threats. Or to put it another way, if they're not the real antagonists or drivers of the "meat" of the campaign, developing them further takes away from development of the true trajectory of gameplay. That's not to say faction development is being abandoned, it's just not prioritized compared to creating more content for the future.

To be clear the whole thing about subverting factions from within was intended as more of an ancillary way you could approach this system. Really what got me thinking about this was all the Industrial equipment I've been collecting in a random station somewhere I can't/won't use yet because I'm really liking the Wagon Train in Space stage of the game, just wandering around the sector with my Ventures driving its expansion with surveys, and I'm reluctant to become bogged down defending it from pathers and pirate raids.

Which is part of how it should be. Building and maintaining a community, not to mention a state is arduous work. It's a commitment; if a colony is a Colony and not just a combination money/ship printer, founding one and the way you found it is going to have some comment on your ambitions and imply some kind of vision for ruling, even if it's restricted to letting all your subjects slave away Dilithium mines while you kick around the Hegemony. Which is why it'd be nice to play into the reason most people don't just fly out to the frontier and plonk down hydroponics to escape from all the warlords, barons, and fanatics; for one, it's incredibly dangerous and expensive, and more importantly, there's already other places to go.

[FooF]

Right. Thanks for the clarification.

To the degree that the game was only a Wagon Train in Space prior to 0.9, there are many of us that couldn't wait for some permanency. Colonies created not only a lasting footprint but also removed the "My fleet composition is an end unto itself" phenomenon that existed. (I'm just pointing out the psychology of players going into 0.9)

But, you're right: there isn't an alternative to not having Colonies. Or to put it another way, the majority of the mid-game content revolves around utilizing/upgrading at least one and, if you don't, Nanoforges, Cores, Blueprints, etc. are just rarer commodities rather than anything meaningful. You don't really interact with the new economy system and many of the late mid-game threats (expeditions, pirate/pather bases) never come into play.

So if I'm hearing this right, the suggestion is to have the option to eschew colonies and align yourself with the powers-that-be (whether temporarily or permanently) and therefore have access to the same mid-game content, though at the cost of being at the beck-and-call of one of the factions. With the new Contact system, I think this could work quite well. You would have some superior within the faction that gives you missions, sends you on expeditions (or defends against them), and it would allow you to further the aims of the given faction via dropping loot off with them. Of course, this necessarily puts you at odds with rival factions. Perhaps you stay with that faction forever, "buy" your contract out or, with enough honorable service, you're given a sizable blessing to go off and do your own thing (with a non-compete clause, of course!)

Something like this idea was brought up quite a bit when colonies were first announced, i.e., can you set up an outpost for other factions that you have a commission with (along with the question as to whether or not the factions would expand). At the time, Alex said this was not the case (and still isn't, AFAIK). But back to what I said previously, my hunch is that fleshing out faction warfare is at least another patch away at the earliest because the priority is end-game content. However, I do want to see a more robust faction dynamic, much along the lines you suggested.

[Kakroom]

So if I'm hearing this right, the suggestion is to have the option to eschew colonies and align yourself with the powers-that-be (whether temporarily or permanently) and therefore have access to the same mid-game content, though at the cost of being at the beck-and-call of one of the factions.

It's more at the cost of your enterprises being subject to the same shifts of fortune that accost parts of the sector now and again, and without necessarily having the perks and means that come with being able to develop, demolish and govern the world at will. The basic thing that I'm after is being able to

a) construct your own privately operated enterprise on a world- say fuel production, or heavy industry on a remote planet without it,

and, if we're pushing it, b) buy out or simply invest in certain industries that have already been built.

Kowtowing to local authorities was only relevant to that idea in the sense that you'd, naturally, need their permission to do what you're doing and to keep doing these things.

What this implies you could do, in the vein of eschewing colonies, is build a piecemeal network of industries and interests across the sector that steadily evolves into a complex web of supply and demand and management of competing polities. There's finally a bonus to participating in the Open Market because that's where you'll have moved to operating; shortages need to be resolved if your industries want to be profitable, and keep operating (in the sense war can decivilize and merk everybody.) You can reverse that logic and attack trade convoys to worlds with competing industries or raid them, to the point where they devalue and you Rockefeller them.

Alternatively, and/or concurrently you could indeed favor one or two factions you like with your business and bolster them with all the nanoforges and cores you've collected, or hoist one up only to bring them crashing down by removing all the infrastructure you've built for them. But again, that's just kind of a sidebar.

Incidentally, there is a potentially problematic implication in all this, and it's that, given your relative unremarkability aside from you and your staff being immortal, certain factions' production bases work hand-in-hand with civilian enterprise in the Sector. I have no problem with this, given Independents, Tri-Tachyon investors and Pirate worlds exist, but aside from trade convoys it is an aspect of the world that it would not be simulating even in the abstract. Of course, Procurement and Exploration contracts are withdrawn by shadowy figures all the time and they're not simulated at all (I think,) so there's that.

[FooF]

Good stuff.

Got it.

The only concern I have is that all these disparate industries would ostensibly be under the umbrella of X/Y/Z faction. That means that you don't have to "officially" defend them because they'd be defended by faction patrols. Only Pirates and Pathers attack the main factions and Faction vs. Faction hostilities are practically non-existent at present. Since the central conceit of the game is to drive you toward combat, what mechanisms would be in place to force you to defend/fight for said industries?

What you're describing sounds like going for Economic Victory from the Civ games.

[Bob69Joe]

the Interstellar Puppetmaster/spice baron in me who likes worming my way into an oppressive dictatorship's good graces before mothballing all their shipyards out from under them

I'm interested in what you mean by this. New thread please?

I totally agree that items solely for colony improvement should have other avenues to dispense phat creds and rep with than to only sell them. Luddites would appreciate the player handing over that solipsistic trash, and Tachyon would probably give some fixed rates for that stuff.

The biggest change would be to be able to give the pirates the technology guaranteeing some cooperation with them and making you a pretty important villain to the rest of the Domain.

[Kakroom]

The only concern I have is that all these disparate industries would ostensibly be under the umbrella of X/Y/Z faction. That means that you don't have to "officially" defend them because they'd be defended by faction patrols.

That's, in theory, part of the attraction. The government can handle security - generally - while you can, if you so choose, go off to make your name in more ways while still making a steady income and having something to keep an eye on back in civilization.

These

mechanisms would to force you to defend/fight for said industries

would, at least when you're a small enough fry, specifically not be in place because part of the idea is that you're setting up shop in relatively stable space.

I do think I vaguely understand that Alex's stance is that ultimately every action on the campaign map should be towards moving you to the tactical screen, and if that's a dealbreaker here - I mean, one of several dealbreakers, that's completely valid. I generally find tactical and hull design to be more of a very visually glorious, weighty illustration of Campaign Stuff more than anything, but I get that that's kind of like, from the standpoint of how the game is built, taking the giant steak on your plate as a side to the potatoes.

What can I say? I like seeking out New Lifeforms and New Civilizations
and watching various permutations of the Dominion war happen.

the Interstellar Puppetmaster/spice baron in me who likes worming my way into an oppressive dictatorship's good graces before mothballing all their shipyards out from under them

I'm interested in what you mean by this. New thread please?

Well, the implication is that this would technically allow you to engage in a form of economic warfare where you give a faction Heavy Industrial capacities to wreck their enemies with and then dispose of their assets when you're ready to assert yourself as a political entity in the Sector. Or if you're just feeling mean.

[Gthane]

I would love to see an option for Private Industry to develop in the game at some point. Certain worlds with a high enough development could offer faction-less build slots that aren't as profitable as player-owned worlds may be. The build slots could be limited in number and restricted to only specific industries, variants of the colony versions or even new consumer based industries (Think Space Bars, Rogue Dens, Luxury Spas etc). This would allow for a nomadic Trader/Industry magnate playstyles where you have to manage your relations with many Factions to ensure you can still rent the space for your investments through official, or maybe more illicit, means.

Something like this, a colony management lite, could smooth the transition to full blown Planetary Governorship.