I feel that faction conflicts deserve better exposition. As of now, you only get a notification at the start of hostilities, an ongoing log entry and a notification as they end.
Now, I'm not sure what is the purpose of these conflicts by game design, but besides obvious implications for commisions I see the following to be relevant for the player:
1) Supply shortages for trade
2) Might be easier to use black market (patrols destroyed or busy)
3) Debris floating around
4) Some stability and accesibility stuff that I don't really understand
5) Maybe long-term effects on defensibility of colonies, I don't understand it either
Anyway, an opportunistic player may feel inclined to somehow exploit it, but I guess in order to do so he's supposed to just roam around the core worlds or press F1 on goods to see the surplus/shortages. Also if one was to partake in fighting like a good faction auxillary he is, how would he know where to go right now?
Then there's RP/immersion angle. In real-life, at least since newspapers were a thing, the course of ongoing conflicts have been thoroughly reported to the public in univolved countries. I don't see why it shouldn't be the case for the Persean sector.
What I suggest is a news feed in "Hostilities" tab in Intel screen:Now, what is relevant enough to be reported is ofc arbitrary. Concerning fleet dipatches and attack plans: this can be done in a more elaborated way. Suppose there are three stages 1) A fleet is preparing to leave base 2) A fleet has entered the hypespace 3) A fleet has reached the destination system. Obviously info on stage 1 is more valuable than that on stage 3. What does player receive (if anything) is random, with stakes weighted in favor of stage 3. But being commisioned by friendly side, by hostile side, by neutral side, or paying a sum of money to the boss at pirate base etc. will change the odds to the earlier warning.
Another thing I suggest is a recap as hostilities end. First, it should somehow inform on how did it go, at least in terms of who lost what. Also, it's just appropriate from immersion standpoint. Second, it should list the long-term impact on the economy. Again, I don't quite understand this stuff, so I'm at loss here. Well, maybe such recap could be a way for the game to explain itself better.
