I would say it would make sense for bottom tier weapons to come at some discount, sliding to a hefty markup for top tier.
I'd imagine getting (irl) some surplus issue rifles/pistols would probably be pretty cheap, while getting hold of, say, an aa missile battery of the latest design would come at considerable cost. After all, the final cost in the black market had to include the risks nefarious individuals took to get them to the market.
It also keeps buying basic weapons there attractive gameplay wise, because "we can get you boxes of ak's, cheap"
As far as money loopholes - well, illegal weapons trading is a profitable business, and the player oughto be able to get in that - so long add the appropriate risks are present
Buying good weapons to sell to the black market at profit sounds cool if I risk massive reputation loss etc.
Right, "as long as the appropriate risks are present" etc - therein lies (at least some of) the rub. The other part is that, thinking about it today, this would very much be creating an alternate "economy" to make black market weapon sales workable, instead of eventually incorporating weapons into the existing economy and gonig from there.
Nice post, Alex. Your blog is always a good read these days.
Thank you, glad you got something out of it
A quick questions - I suppose that all stances can be easily modded and their effects adjusted? And I have no doubt that these stances can be either 'called' by the exact number or it`s ID should I need them anywhere in the scripts?
The rep levels and their names are not moddable. Implementation-wise, they're an enum - like weapon size/type are. Everything else about it is moddable - the actions, the reputation changes, etc.
Another question - you said that trading with someone will have a negative impact on relations with their enemies. Is it automated or do we (modders) need to specifically adjust it somewhere?
It depends. If you use the default submarket implementation, it "just works". If you have a custom one, you have to do a tiny bit of tracking so that it feeds the right data into the the external part that makes it happen. I might actually change how it's implemented, though, so that's not entirely set in stone. Changes would likely make it "just work" in more scenarios, not less, though. And the part that actually applies the rep changes is moddable - it's a hidden "event" that gets kicked off in SectorGen.
And how these enemies will actually understand that you are doing that?
I'm not sure what you're asking. You "why does that make sense"? If so: word just gets around, if whatever is going on is significant enough; it doesn't strike me as a stretch at all.
Smuggling... How about unauthorized, but also undetected docking? I mean, when there are a lot of ships around station it gets tricky to track them all, so one or two ships can get past. Something like... 1/number of ships orbiting or near station * number of player's ships = chance of getting caught on radar (though the number of player's ships compared to others' should also count). That would force player to wait until there is a lot of ships (in worst cause, hostile) and to try then to smuggle goods. Unsuccesfull try would worsen relationship with station's owner.
Thinking about it in similar terms, though the details are pretty different. Want to actually get it working before talking about it much, though
Man, this is gonna be a grand update.
I sure hope so
The relation system seems pretty straightforward, but I really like the twist with the limits, should make for a more authentic behavior. Just don't forget do communicate clearly when and why an action has no or reduced influence on standing.
Right now, there's a "your relationship with $theFaction is well-established and isn't affected" type message.
Are faction relations interconnected? E.G. does improving your standing with one faction beyond a certain threshold automatically impact your relation with enemies or friends of that faction?
Not right now, no. I'm not sure whether automating that completely is a good idea, or to what extent to automate it. It makes sense for overtly hostile actions, but not necessarily for something like trade - or maybe it does, but to a lesser extent. Basically, still thinking that through. I don't think it needs to be fully in place by the next release.
It might be worth a thought to display these early bonuses as such, i.e. make it 5+3 in the beginning, dropping to 5, instead of 8 and dropping to 5. Otherwise players might feel as if you are taking something away from them later (instead of feeling like getting a bonus early on).
Hmm. With the way it's set up, you'd just be getting a point or so and it wouldn't be immediately after a trade. I'm not sure the diminishing returns are obvious enough to require an explanation - from the player's point of view, it's just going to be a trickle of points until it stops (due to the relationship going over "favorable"). There, it's a question - to keep sending "you relationship didn't change" messages every month or so (spammy), or send nothing? Might be a good idea to send one last "didn't change" message and then stop, perhaps. Let me write that down.
But I have to raise the question of whether you'll implement in-campaign missions, longer 'crusades' of fighting or even the possibility to come to someone's aid
Thinking about those, though I'm not going to say one way or the other until trying it
I wll say that the events system is set up in a way that should make it a natural fit for missions, though.
(for instance a three-way battle with options attack A, B or both, or even wait it out and attack the winner)?
Definitely no on 3-way battles. Too much of a mess in many different ways. Battles involving multiple fleets, though (but with only 2 sides), I do want to look at eventually.
On the other hand, I'm also curious as to if better standings will give you markdowns on equipment/ships or if you can, say, trade some influence, as it were, for a selection of ships/crew, later down the line. Those kinda things.
Maybe? I mean, with these types of ideas, it's just a question of picking a set of them that works well together and does the job it needs to go, design-wise. More isn't better, especially when you consider that everything needs to be explained to the player somehow, so it can't just be "oh hey, the price is less here and nobody knows why".
For example, with faction standing already giving you access to better weapons, does it add much if those weapons are also cheaper? It might or it might not, depending on how other mechanics interact (e.g., if these same weapons are available elsewhere, with different requirements etc). It'd have to pull its weight to be added.