I'll address these points from a dev standpoint. Wether or not this whole thing is a good idea or not is another matter alltogether.
First and foremost. Give the official faction their own ID. Use the Guard ID to save the trouble. This would allow these factions to build their own diplomatic ties, while not harming the original ones of the NPC faction they are a part of and would prevent them from forcing their views on their indies. This would also have a benefit of quick changes to technerfs. The Bretonian Armed Forces could, for example, ask the admin team via RP to remove the nerf for the LN official faction's official ID. This would make things easier, not to mention reward the factions in a different manner, which has no negative impact on their indies. Can be done.
Give the Guard Rep to the official factions. This way they can, again, modify their diplomacy, or have their rights added or removed. This would make the interaction between factions much more intimate without screwing over the reputation of non-faction members. Not sure what you're asking here. Rep/IFF is something that is handled by the players themselves. The guard reps are still accessible, you just need to do a lot of missions for the parent faction's rep. Except BHG/Core, which have been pulled apart since they're no longer the same faction really.
Each faction gets one personal base in addition to their Guard bases. For the Rogues it can be Buffalo or Alcatraz. For the Outcasts and Corsairs it can be Malta and Crete respectively and so on. This would allow them to FR5 people from their bases without interfearing with other peoples RP. Mind, this does not mean that people docking on hostile bases cannot be FR5ed to the whole faction. Not feasable. It would mean tying an IFF one-on-one on each player faction. IFFs can't be set on the fly. It would require a mod update for every new playerfaction. That, and new IFFs are a LOT of work to set up - I'm simply not prepared to put in hours of work just to give 5 people the ability to boot someone from an NPC base. We've got playerbases for that.
Move the faction's "elite" gear (EDIT: And ships) to normal systems and give them normal rep. There is NO reason why you should fly 90k for a ship, nor there is a reason to grind 35 missions for guard rep. Setting up a character is an OORP process, this sort of things do not apply to it. Even more so, we already have Omi Kappa, where, I kid you not, I see BD IDed players, LNSs and even RMs flying to get their capital ship turrets. Let the Guard system thing fall as a Official Faction property. Define elite gear. Up to gunboat gear will be reasonably available come 4.87. Cruiser and battleship gear will still be a bit harder to get - for sale on the bases that also sell the cruisers and battleships.
Last but not least, allow official faction IDs more rights in terms of ZOI, cargo, ship types or mining/trading bonuses. Because people doing things right need to be rewarded. Not to mention it would cause some healthy competition for the official faction seat. Player faction IDs generally have a more relaxed allowance for ZoI and shipclasses. I'm not in favor of setting a higher mining bonus for 2 reasons: It can't be done for the trader factions, and it would make the mining config file a convoluted mess that is a pain in the rear to update, even more so then it is now.
Some questions to Spazz:
- Who determines FR5's for the NPC faction in this case? For instance, if the Junker Congress moved on their own ID and an annoying Ranseur kept undocking from Rochester, and the LN demand something to be done about it... who would do that? The player faction? The admins?
- How are multiple playerfactions on the same NPC faction handled in your proposal?
Wide awake in a world that sleeps, enduring thoughts, enduring scenes. The knowledge of what is yet to come.
From a time when all seems lost, from a dead man to a world, without restraint, unafraid and free.
Mostly retired Discovery member. May still visit from time to time.
